Once upon a time, in a small, breezy town where flowers nodded politely in the wind and even the birds seemed to chirp in whispers, lived a girl named Ella. She was a very sweet girl: gentle, kind, and always yawning.
From the day she was born, Ella was unusually sleepy. As a baby, she snoozed right through her own birthday party. As a toddler, she napped during bath time, even while being soaped! And when she started school, her teachers had to gently wake her up during art class, maths time, and even recess.
No one could explain why Ella was always so sleepy. The doctors checked and said, “She’s healthy as can be!” Her parents gave her healthy food, made her do stretches and breathing exercises, and even gave her warm milk at night, just to be sure. Still, she needed more and more sleep as she grew older. While other kids played outside or danced around to music, Ella was curled up on the couch with a blanket, dreaming of clouds shaped like pancakes.
One day, when Ella was nine, something unexpected happened.
She had fallen asleep, as usual, on the school bus. Her head lolled to the side. Her mouth hung open slightly. Snore.
But suddenly, SCREEECH! The bus hit the brakes to avoid a crossing duck. WHUMP! Ella flew forward and bonked her mouth on the seat in front.
“OWWW!” she cried, sitting up in a daze. One of her teeth had been knocked loose. It wobbled when she touched it with her tongue. “Owww,” she moaned again.
That night, she told her parents. “Don’t worry,” said her mum gently. “It’s just a baby tooth. It’ll fall out soon.”
But it didn’t. It just wobbled. And hurt.
A few days later, while doing her maths homework, Ella yawned, stretched, and promptly fell asleep face-first into her workbook. Her snoring startled the family cat, Pickle. Pickle, being rather high-strung, leapt up in surprise and smacked Ella on the head with his paw as he scrambled away.
BONK!
“Owww!” Ella wailed. The tooth wobbled again, even looser now, and still painful.
Now she was truly frightened. “I don’t want to lose my tooth with more pain!” she told her stuffed bunny, Sir Wigglebottom. “What if next time I bump into a wall? Or a bird poops on my head and it somehow hurts my tooth?”
So Ella decided to stay awake. No naps outside bedtime. She pinched her cheeks during class, stood up while doing homework, and even stayed upright at the dinner table. She didn’t finish her broccoli. Or her rice. Or her soup. But when the dessert tray came out, gooey chocolate brownies, rainbow jelly, and crunchy sugar wafers, her eyes lit up.
With great excitement, she bit into a bar of chocolate.
POP!
The wobbly tooth dropped onto the plate. Just like that.
No pain. No bump. No bonk.
Just a soft, sweet plop.
Ella blinked. Then she smiled. “It’s gone!” she shouted. “And it didn’t even hurt!”
She danced around the table (well, sleepily swayed), then finished her dessert with delight. She even licked the chocolate off her fingers and offered Pickle a pat on the head in apology.
That night, with the tooth safely tucked under her pillow, Ella curled into bed, yawned the biggest yawn ever, and drifted off.
And for once, she dreamed of staying awake, just long enough to see what the Tooth Fairy might bring.
The End.