The Three Children Who Went on a Toothbrushing Strike
At the Smiths’ house, every evening was exactly the same.
Mom called out:
“Children! Bathroom! Teeth!”
And at that very moment, strange things began to happen.
Stevie, who a second earlier had been lying on the rug complaining that he was bored, suddenly discovered he had extremely important work to do.
“I can’t!” he called. “I have to guard this sock.”
“What sock?”
“This one.”
“Why?”
Stevie thought for a moment.
“So it doesn’t run away.”
His little sister Vicky was already in the bathroom, but she was keeping her mouth firmly shut.
“Vicky, open up.”
Vicky shook her head.
“I’ll just finish brushing your teeth.”
Vicky shook her head even harder.
“But the back ones need—”
“NO! MY TEETH ARE PRIVATE!”
And the youngest, Jonah, stood at the sink with a toothbrush in his hand, looking as if someone were offering him a blended slug.
“I don’t want toothpaste.”
“I’ll give you just a tiny bit.”
“No.”
“It’s strawberry.”
“That’s exactly why.”
“You liked it yesterday.”
“Yesterday I was a different person.”
Mom leaned against the door.
Every evening.
Every single.
Evening.
For Stevie, brushing “took too long.”
Vicky didn’t like Mom finishing off her teeth.
Jonah didn’t like the toothpaste.
And when Mom did manage to herd all three of them to the sink, Stevie would start:
“Ow!”
Mom paid attention.
“What hurts?”
“Brushing.”
“Where?”
Stevie pointed somewhere between his cheek, his chin and his ear.
“Here.”
Mom brushed more gently.
“Ow.”
Even more gently.
“Ow.”
The toothbrush was hardly touching his teeth at all.
“OW.”
Mom looked at him.
“Stevie…”
“I’m very sensitive… everywhere.”
And so one evening the children decided they had had enough.
“We’re not brushing our teeth today!” Stevie announced.
“Yeah!” said Vicky.
Jonah threw the toothpaste into the cup.
“FREEDOM!”
Mom opened her mouth to say something.
Then she closed it again.
“All right,” she said.
The children went quiet.
They hadn’t expected that.
“Like… really?” asked Stevie.
“Really.”
The children looked at each other.
“HOORAAAY!”
And off they ran to bed.
But the light in their room had barely gone out when something went:
“Psssst.”
Stevie opened his eyes.
“Did you hear that?”
“What?” whispered Vicky.
“Psssssst!”
Jonah sat up.
“It’s coming from the window.”
All three of them were silent for a moment.
Then a voice came from the windowsill:
“HELLOOOO!”
Stevie looked at the window and his eyes went wide.
“There’s something on the windowsill!”
And suddenly three tiny creatures came rolling along the windowsill.
The moon was shining on them.
They were about the size of a pea.
They had round tummies, messy hair and caps made of crumbs on their heads.
The first one bowed.
“Good evening. I’m Crumb.”
The second one waved.
“I’m Sticky.”
The third one licked its finger.
“And I’m Sugarlump.”
The children stared at them.
“What are you doing here?” asked Vicky.
Crumb looked surprised.
“What do you think? WE’RE MOVING IN WITH YOU!”
“Where?”
Sticky pointed into Vicky’s mouth.
“In there.”
“WHAT?!”
“Of course,” said Sugarlump. “When nobody brushes, it’s lovely in there.”
He pulled out a tiny lounge chair.
“It’s warm.”
Crumb brought a suitcase.
“There’s food.”
Sticky brought a pillow.
“And nobody chases us out.”
“You’re going to live in there?!” Stevie gasped in horror.
“Of course.”
Sugarlump unrolled a plan.
“Here between the back teeth we’ll put the kitchen.”
“NO!”
“Here’s the living room.”
“NO!”
“And here…”
Sugarlump pointed at one of Stevie’s teeth.
“…we’ll put a trampoline.”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT!”
Crumb shrugged.
“Well, you should have brushed.”
Stevie went red.
“But it hurts!”
The three little creatures went quiet.
They looked at each other.
And then they burst out laughing.
“What?” Stevie frowned.
“Nothing,” said Sticky. “We were just watching you today.”
“And?”
“You said OW before the toothbrush even touched you.”
“That was…”
Stevie thought.
“…pre-pain.”
“I see,” said Crumb seriously.
“A very dangerous illness.”
Then all three of them burst out laughing again.
Vicky clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Well, you can’t come to me!”
“Why not?” asked Sugarlump.
“I brush my teeth!”
Sticky nodded.
“The front ones, yes.”
“See!”
“But at the back…”
He pointed.
“…you’re throwing a feast.”
Vicky gasped.
“That’s why Mom finishes them off for you,” he added.
“I’ll finish them myself!”
“All of them?”
Vicky thought about it.
“Almost.”
“An almost tooth is our favorite tooth,” said Crumb.
Meanwhile Jonah was backing toward the door.
“You’re not coming to me.”
“Why not?”
“I would brush my teeth. But the toothpaste is yucky.”
Sugarlump blinked.
“Then why don’t you say you want a different one?”
Jonah stopped short.
“A different one?”
“Of course.”
“There are different ones?”
“Jonah,” said Stevie, “there are about a billion of them at the store.”
Jonah looked as if he had just discovered a new continent.
“And it doesn’t have to be strawberry?!”
“It doesn’t.”
Jonah leapt up.
“MOOOM!”
Stevie and Vicky looked at each other. Then they climbed out of bed and ran after him.
A moment later the bathroom light came on.
Mom stood in the doorway in her pajamas.
In front of her stood three children.
Stevie was holding a toothbrush.
Vicky was pointing to the back of her mouth.
Jonah was holding the toothpaste with two fingers, as if it were a dead frog.
“We need some changes,” said Stevie.
“All right,” said Mom.
“I want you to brush gently. Really gently. And if it really hurts, I’ll tell you where.”
“Deal.”
Vicky said:
“I’ll brush them myself. And then you just check the back ones.”
“Deal.”
Jonah put the toothpaste down on the sink.
“And never this one again.”
“Tomorrow we’ll choose a different one.”
“Deal.”
Then they all got down to brushing.
From the bathroom came the sound of:
SHHHK.
SHHK.
SHHHK.
Crumb, Sticky and Sugarlump stood on the edge of the sink.
They looked terrified.
“What’s going on?!” shouted Sugarlump.
“EVICTION!” roared Crumb.
“SAVE THE SOFA!”
Sticky was dragging a tiny pillow.
“LEAVE THE TRAMPOLINE ALONE!”
And then:
SHHHK!
WHOOOSH!
PTOO!
All three of them vanished down the drain.
For a little while you could still hear from the pipes:
“THIS IS OUTRAAAAAGEOUS!”
The children laughed so hard they could barely rinse their mouths.
From that day on, brushing teeth at the Smiths’ didn’t magically become everyone’s favorite thing.
Stevie still sometimes said:
“I don’t feel like it.”
Vicky now and then protested:
“I’m already done!”
And once Jonah chose a toothpaste that tasted so horrible that after the first brush he threw it away himself, of his own free will.
And when they really didn’t like brushing, they looked for a way that would suit them better.
Because Crumb, Sticky and Sugarlump?
They say they’re still looking for a mouth to live in.
And their very favorite children are the ones who call out in the evening:
“I’LL JUST SKIP IT TONIGHT!”
Because that’s the moment Crumb pulls out his suitcase.
Sticky packs his pillow.
And Sugarlump is already carrying his trampoline.
But at the Smiths’, he had nowhere left to put it.
The End.