The Teeth

“The Teeth” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Shree Rama. P, Leaders Private School, Sharjah, UAE.

The Teeth

One day I was coming back from my school and I was having my evening snacks as usual. Suddenly my tooth started shaking. I was shocked. I told this to my parents. My dad replied to me that he would remove the tooth. When I heard this I was so scared, and I thought it would hurt me a lot. So I was not allowing him to touch the tooth. So he advised me to shake the tooth daily so that it would come out by itself. I followed his advice for nearly a week, but this didn't help. However I got pain whenever I ate food. I told this to my dad. But again he told me to remove the tooth with the help of a dentist. This sounded scarier to me. So I again refused.

Some days went off...

One day I asked my father to get a new bigger aquarium. But he refused me. I asked why. He told me "while changing the aquarium it would hurt the fish for a while". I told to him "Even though it gets hurt for a while, it would get a new, bigger aquarium". At that time he told "Same way if I remove this tooth, it would be painful for a while, but later you would get nice, strong tooth”. Then I realised that it was true. But then the question was how to remove it. At that time my grandmother gave an idea which she was using to remove tooth in her old days. According to this idea a thread was tied to the tooth and pulled out in one go so that there was no pain and tooth came out along with the thread. But I was still worried about this idea and did not agree. So my dad tied the thread when I was sleeping. Next day morning, when I woke up, I saw the thread tied to my tooth. I started crying and stopped after sometime. Then I gained courage and brushed my teeth and had my breakfast without removing the thread. Then my dad suddenly pulled the thread. Magically the tooth came out with the thread and I did not feel the pain at all. I was relaxed.

After some weeks I got my new, strong, white tooth.

Moral: Listen to experience of our elders and use them wisely in our life.