The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn Page A

collected and held it up in the morning sunlight shining through her bedroom’s open window and looked at it, amazed at how big it was, at how much of it had been buried in her face. It was kind of gross and kind of neat at the same time. She tongued the gap between her teeth. There was a strange flap of skin there that she could flip back and forth. It felt weird. She ran to the mirror on her dresser and looked at herself and smiled. Then she ran into Mommy and Daddy’s room to show them.
    ‘Look it,’ she shouted as she shot into the room like a human bullet, door swinging open as she pushed it aside and banging against the wall. The curtains were drawn, daylight held temporarily and ineffectively at bay, and there was a strange grown-up smell in the room. It made the air feel heavy and close, like being in a zipped-up sleeping bag.
    Daddy groaned and sat up. He cleared his throat. It was a funny sound. Like a monster in a Saturday morning cartoon. He rubbed his red eyes and wiped his mouth and twisted his neck left and right, sending out little hollow-sounding pops, and looked in her direction. But for a moment his face was blank.
    ‘Look it,’ she said again and held up the tooth for him to examine.
    ‘Wow,’ Daddy said after a moment. He coughed into his hand and yawned. ‘Is that a grown-up tooth? It’s huge. Have you been out stealing teeth? You know the tooth fairy doesn’t buy stolen teeth, Mags. It’s a felony.’
    ‘It’s not stolen. Look.’ She gripped her tooth in her right palm, folding three fingers over the top of it, and with index fingers stretched her mouth open wide so Daddy could see where the tooth used to be.
    ‘My God,’ Daddy said, ‘you could park a car in there.’
    ‘Could you two chatterboxes take it to the living room?’ Barely a mumble. ‘Mommy needs her beauty sleep.’
    ‘Sounds like someone’s got a case of the crankies,’ Daddy said, then winked at Maggie and got to his feet. A pair of pants lay in a pile on the floor. He picked them up and slipped into them, hiding his red boxers.
    ‘Come on, Mags,’ Daddy said. ‘Let’s get some breakfast.’ He looked over his shoulder at Mommy with a smirk in the corner of his mouth and said, ‘Cereal. With lots of sugar.’
    They headed to the kitchen. Maggie climbed onto one of the barstools lined up before the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room. She spun around left, catching herself on the edge of the counter, and then spun herself around right, back and forth, back and forth. She liked to go round and round in one direction, she liked the dizziness it brought, it was fun, but once she accidentally unscrewed the stool all the way and the seat fell to the floor and she sprained her wrist catching herself, so she didn’t do that anymore. While she played on the stool Daddy went digging through the cupboards.
    Maggie caught herself on the counter one last time and said, ‘What does the tooth fairy need teeth for, anyway? It’s kind of a weird thing to collect.’
    ‘He turns them into stars.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Really?’
    Daddy nodded, then put two bowls on the counter and poured Froot Loops into them. He put away the box and got out a half gallon of milk and poured that over the cereal. He pushed a bowl across the counter to Maggie.
    ‘Eat up.’
    ‘What about a spoon, silly?’
    Daddy picked at his bellybutton and flicked a wad of gray at her.
    ‘What about some lint?’
    Maggie dodged it, dipping her head to the left.
    ‘ Gross . Don’t. I don’t want your smelly lint.’
    ‘It’s not smelly.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘You almost got it in my cereal.’
    ‘No, I didn’t.’
    ‘Get me a spoon before it gets soggy.’
    ‘Okay.’
    Daddy grabbed two spoons from the silverware drawer and handed her one. Then he dipped his into his bowl and shoveled a mouthful of pink and green and orange into his face. He scratched at his