Pin and the Broken
Tooth Transporter
Pin has never missed a tooth collection.
Very early this morning, her perfect record is in danger.
A Very Serious Tooth Fairy
Pin was a tooth fairy.
Her mother named her Pin because it sounded like ngipin, the Filipino word for tooth.
Her mother still thought this was very funny. Pin had stopped laughing several years ago.
Pin took tooth collecting very seriously. She had never lost a tooth, arrived after sunrise, or left the wrong coin beneath a pillow. Once, she had alphabetized an entire box of incisors during her lunch break.
She wore her silver fairy badge everywhere. She kept her collection pouch polished. She even carried a tiny toothbrush for emergencies—although nobody had ever explained what counted as a toothbrush emergency.
The Golden Assignment
Tooth fairies did not wait for a tooth to fall before making plans. As soon as a tooth became loose, the Tooth Collection Office prepared a card with the date it was expected to come out.
Tala’s card had been waiting quietly in the Friday Assignments tray.
Then, at exactly 4:15 one rainy morning, the card shot out of the tray, circled Pin’s head twice, and slapped itself onto her desk.
A bright red message blinked across the top: EARLY TOOTH ALERT!
Pin read the card once. Then twice. Professionals checked details. Amateurs delivered coins to the wrong pillows and spent the next week writing apology letters.
“Scheduled for Friday. Came out on Thursday,” Pin said. “Early—but not a problem.”
Pin opened a drawer labeled TOOTH EMERGENCIES. Inside were early-loss forms, spare labels, three emergency biscuits, and a tiny roll of official red tape.
“Pin is ready for this.”
The card gave a small, unconvincing sparkle.
TOOTH COLLECTION ASSIGNMENT
TOOTH OWNER: Tala Reyes
TOOTH: One loose lower front tooth
ADDRESS: 24 Sampaguita Street
EXPECTED LOSS DATE: Friday, July 31
ACTUAL LOSS DATE: Thursday, July 30 at 8:31 p.m.
STATUS: EARLY TOOTH — PRIORITY COLLECTION
COLLECTION DEADLINE: Before sunrise, Friday
Pack the Collection Kit
Pin emptied her collection pouch onto the desk. Out rolled three coins, two maps, a toothbrush, a mint, a button, and something furry that she decided not to identify before sunrise.
“A professional fairy packs only what she needs.”
Choose six useful nouns
Tala’s Bedtime Record
At the far end of the Tooth Collection Office stood a tall, sparkling booth: the Tooth Transporter.
Tooth fairies had wings, of course. But their little wings were made for short, careful flights—from a windowsill to a pillow, or from one side of a bedroom to the other. They could not carry a fairy across kilometres of streets, houses, and rainy rooftops. At least, not without a great deal of flapping, several snack breaks, and a very late tooth collection.
That was why every fairy used the Tooth Transporter. A fairy inserted an assignment card, the machine checked the child’s address and bedtime record, and then—poof!—it carried the fairy straight to the correct bedroom.
Before stepping inside, Pin checked the magical bedtime record attached to Tala’s assignment. Professionals never skipped the pre-transport check.
A tiny moving picture showed Tala brushing before bed. Her lower front tooth wobbled every time she smiled. It was loose, but it was not supposed to come out until Friday.
Pin watched the record like a detective reviewing important evidence.
“Slowly,” Lola reminded her. “Brush the front, the back, and the chewing parts.”
For a few seconds, Tala brushed carefully. Then she began brushing faster and faster.
“Hey, it’s not a race,” Pin told the picture, as if Tala could hear her.
Of course, Tala could not.
Her toothbrush bumped the loose tooth.
TIK!
The tooth popped out one day early and landed in the clean sink.
Tala stared at it. Lola stared at it. Pin leaned closer to the picture.
“Well,” Pin said. “That explains the red alert.”
Tala rinsed the tooth, placed it inside a clean folded paper packet, and tucked the packet beneath her pillow. The little gap in her smile was new; the tooth under the pillow was safe and ready for Pin.
“An early tooth, properly packed,” Pin said approvingly. “Excellent.”
KRRRK! PFFT! KLANG!
Pin attached the official EARLY TOOTH strip to Tala’s card. The assignment was ready. Pin was ready.
The Tooth Transporter, unfortunately, was not.
Pin inserted the card, stepped into the booth, and pressed the green button. Usually, the machine read one collection date, checked one address, and delivered a fairy beside the correct bed.
This time, its screen flashed between two dates.
ACTUAL: THURSDAY, JULY 30
DATE MISMATCH — EARLY TOOTH OVERRIDE
The machine tried to follow Friday. Then Thursday. Then Friday again.
This time, it coughed. KRRRK! It shook. PFFT! Purple smoke swallowed Pin’s shoes. The floor tilted left, right, and somehow upside down.
“Wait! This is not the usual—”
POOF!
The doors opened beneath a waiting shed beside a busy road. Pin landed bottom-first on the wet pavement.
Behind her, the transporter gave one tiny, guilty cough and disappeared.
Pin stood, straightened her badge, and pretended the landing had been planned.
DATE MATCH FAILED
DESTINATION: 2.8 KILOMETRES AWAY
REPAIR TIME: UNKNOWN
Stranded in the Rain
Rain hammered the metal roof. Motorcycles buzzed past. Cars honked. Water hurried along the gutter as if it had an assignment.
Pin looked at the dark sky, then at her small wings. They were excellent for flying from a windowsill to a pillow. They were not made for flying nearly three kilometres through heavy rain.
She checked Tala’s card again: 24 Sampaguita Street.
“Fine,” she told the vanished machine. “I did not need you anyway.”
A purple bubble appeared where the machine had been and popped.
Choose the Correct Jeepney
A brightly painted jeepney rumbled toward the waiting shed. Pin studied its route cards as though they were magical spells.
“Sam-pa-gui-ta,” she whispered. “That looks promising.”
She waved her wand. The jeepney drove straight past.
An older woman beside her stretched one arm toward the road. “Like this.”
Pin quietly put away her wand.
Everything Is Enormous
Pin copied the woman’s signal. The next jeepney stopped.
Pin flew up, grabbed the metal rail, and pulled herself inside. A student’s enormous lunch bag was the size of a sofa. A basket overflowed with leafy vegetables. Across from Pin, a sleepy child rested against her father’s arm.
Pin climbed beside the lunch bag and tried to look like a passenger who did this every day. She lifted her sparkling coin and looked toward the distant driver.
“Bayad po!”
Pin took out a sparkling coin. It was nearly as large as her head.
A passenger handed money to the person beside him. The money moved from hand to hand until it reached the driver.
Pin blinked. No spell. No wand. Everyone simply helped.
She lifted her coin with both hands. “Bayad po!”
The student looked down. “Did my lunch bag just speak?”
The Jeepney Moves One Metre
The jeepney moved one metre. Then it stopped. It rolled forward half a metre. Then it stopped again.
“Is this jeepney broken too?” Pin asked.
“Traffic,” said an ate nearby.
A flooded part of the road had squeezed cars, tricycles, motorcycles, and jeepneys into one narrow lane. The darkness was already turning deep blue.
Pin opened her fairy manual and searched the index. Runaway molars. Snoring giants. Pillow emergencies. No traffic.
A Beautifully Useless Spell
“I will handle this with magic,” Pin announced.
She pointed her wand. Golden sparks raced over the jeepney until it glittered from bumper to bumper. Every passenger stared.
The jeepney did not move one centimetre faster.
“Maganda,” said the ate. “But still traffic.”
Pin closed the manual. “I noticed.”
Pin Nearly Misses Her Stop
The ate pointed outside. “Sampaguita Street is next.”
The corner approached.
“Para po,” Pin whispered.
The jeepney kept moving.
“Para po,” she said a little louder.
The corner began to slip behind them.
Pin climbed onto the student’s lunch bag, lifted both arms, and used the same voice she reserved for runaway wisdom teeth.
“PARA POOOO!”
The entire jeepney went quiet. The driver stopped. Pin’s face turned pink.
“Salamat po,” she squeaked.
THE VOICE
Now arrange what happened.
Through the Barangay
The student lowered his bag so Pin could climb down.
“Good luck!” called the ate.
Pin straightened her badge. “A professional does not depend on luck.”
She stepped directly into a puddle.
SPLASH!
Pin looked at her dripping slipper. “Usually.”
The smell of warm pandesal drifted from a bakery. Pin’s stomach growled.
“You are not on the assignment,” she told it.
2. Turn right at the sari-sari store.
3. Cross the narrow street.
4. Look for the house beside the blue gate.
The Aspin Wakes Up
An aspin slept beside the blue gate. To Pin, it looked approximately the size of a carabao with fur.
She tried to tiptoe past. Her pouch caught on a loose wire. TING!
One brown eye opened. Then the other. The dog stood.
Pin reached for her wand—but paused. Its tail swayed gently. Its teeth were not showing. Its ears were relaxed.
“You are curious,” Pin whispered. “I am professionally calm.”
Her knees disagreed.
Which House Is Tala’s?
The aspin lowered its nose and sniffed. Fairy dust tickled it.
ACHOO!
For three seconds, its whiskers sparkled.
Pin covered a smile. “Very distinguished.”
The dog wagged its tail and lay down again. Beyond it, the houses looked almost identical in the dim light, so Pin checked the assignment instead of guessing.
The Stubborn Bintana
Through the window, Pin saw Tala asleep. A tiny white tooth waited beneath the pillow.
“At last! One window, one tooth, and my perfect record is safe.”
Pin flew toward the bintana.
BONK!
She bounced backward and landed in a flowerpot. The window was closed.
Pin tapped the glass. Tala snored.
She pulled at the frame. It did not move.
She climbed onto the sill and tried to squeeze through a jalousie gap. Her pouch got stuck.
A butiki watched from the wall.
“If you are going to stare, you could at least look concerned.”
The butiki blinked once. A mosquito offered a route Pin refused to follow.
Fit Through the Jalousie
One jalousie slat was slightly open. Pin’s body could fit through, but her full collection pouch could not.
A mosquito slipped through a tiny hole. Pin followed it, saw where it was going, and immediately flew back.
“Absolutely not.”
She studied the gap again. This problem needed order, not sparkle.
The Tooth Beneath the Pillow
Coin first. Card next. Pouch through. Turn sideways.
Pin squeezed between the slats. POP!
She tumbled into the bedroom and landed on her pouch. The mosquito buzzed past.
“I still do not trust you.”
Pin flew to Tala’s bed and checked the card again. Tala Reyes. Lower front tooth. House 24.
She reached beneath the pillow—but Tala rolled over and placed one arm directly across it.
Pin waited. Outside, a distant voice called, “Tahoooooo!”
She stared at the brightening window. Then at Tala’s arm.
“No pressure,” she whispered. “Except all of it.”
At last, Tala moved her arm. Pin hurried forward—but a professional tooth fairy never guessed.
Beat the Sunrise!
Pin opened the packet and inspected the little tooth.
“Clean surface. Nicely brushed. Excellent work, Tala.”
She labeled it, placed it in her pouch, left the coin, and added a note.
Thank you for taking good care of your tooth. Keep brushing every morning and every night for two minutes with fluoride toothpaste. Remember to clean every side and between your teeth too.
Your neighborhood helped me find my way.
—Pin
P.S. Please tell your lola that the Tooth Transporter is broken. This was not my usual travel arrangement.
The sky outside turned pale yellow. Tala stirred.
Pin rushed toward the bintana. Her pouch caught. Her wand slipped. One slipper dropped into the flowerpot.
The butiki continued its detailed study of not helping.
Her Perfect Record Is Safe
Tala reached beneath her pillow.
“She came!” she cried.
Outside the bintana, Pin hung by one hand. Her hair was untidy. Her wings were damp. Her tooth pouch was trapped between the jalousie slats, and one slipper was full of flowerpot soil.
Still, Pin smiled. Her perfect record was safe.
Tala touched one of her upper teeth. Something moved.
“Oh,” Tala said. “I have another loose tooth.”
Pin froze. Very slowly, she turned around.
“Whoops,” said Pin. “What did you say?”
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