The Tooth Curse #1

by Lily

"Not again!" 

   I couldn't believe that I had lost my tooth again. No, not lost it, but lost lost it, like in lost lost my... never mind, forget it. For understanding purposes, I'm not going to use the word lost in this story again. 

   So, I couldn't find my tooth again. There we go.

   Anyway, this has happened at least 6 times out of 9 lost teeth. It would fall out, then I'd place it somewhere, and it'd be gone when I look for it. It's really frustrating.

   The first time, I had lost my 2nd tooth in first grade and my teacher gave me a cute tooth-shaped case that she hung around my neck as a necklace to put my tooth in. I opened it, looked at it, closed it, went down the hall, opened it again, and poof, it was gone. I had thought that it was just purely bad luck and that I hadn't closed the case properly, but I'm not so sure it's just coincidences after 6 times.

   This time, I had woken up in the middle of the night, wiggled it, and it fell out. So I put it on my desk. And a few hours later, when morning came and I went to get it, it disappeared again.

   I mean SERIOUSLY. Either I'm just extremely careless or I'm cursed.

~~~~

It's nighttime again now. My tongue is still circling around the area where my baby tooth used to be. I lay down, close my eyes, and drift off.

~~~~

And I wake up in a world that's completely not my world.

   So I question the first person I saw, of course. What do you expect me to do? And that was a mistake.

   That "person" had one eye, two mouths, three horns, four ears, and five arms. Did I mention neon pink skin? So yeah. Totally a normal person. 

   Which is why I run as fast as I could away from her...him...it.

   So, heart beating, I stop when I crash into another person... who seems somewhat normal, except he has three eyes. He's at least 5 years older than me as well. But he speaks to me like a normal person. 

   "Hey, you must not be around here to ask something to Jumbodis over there and then run around on ground covered in melted chocolate," he says casually.

   And I look at the ground, of course. He's right. It's covered in warm, melted chocolate. I want to lick it, but I think twice when that Jumbodis thing pops up in my head again. He could have trampled over it, and I do not want to lick anything he's touched.

   The three-eyed guy laughs. "Wow. So you're not an agent here, obviously. Which means you're in a curse-dream."

   "A what?" The words fly out of my mouth before I can think.

   "Curse-dream. You're dreaming, and don't smack yourself 'cause it won't do you any good. The dream brings you into our world, where you have the chance to remove the curse on you." Three-Eye runs his hand through his brown hair.

   "I don't have a curse on me," I say in confusion. 

   "Sure you do. We'll find out what it is when I take you to Curse University, where all our agents are. It's like a college that you never graduate, and you have to go to if you live here. So everyone that's here is an agent or cursed."

   I nod. I have no idea where this is going or if it's real or not, so I just nod. I guess I might as well introduce myself. "I'm Dandelion."

   Three-Eye smiles. "Great. I'm TEAF, or Three-Eyed-Agent-Felix, but just call me Felix. I'll take you to Curse U, come on." He puts an arm around me, and I squirm unconfortably. This is not the treatment I expect from a stranger.

   We reach Curse U in just a few minutes. It's huge, like absolutely humongous. 

   "Curse U is the center of our city. It's where everyone lives and does just about everything else. Everywhere here that isn't woodland is part of our campus," Felix explains. "And I'm no expert, but I've many people and the two with 'Dan' in their names both had tooth-related curses. What do you think?"

   I remember my tooth-finding problem and shrug.

   Felix chatters on. "Well, I'll bet that it's related to teeth somehow. Anyway, you'll have to see a super-agent next. The one open right now is SSAA, or Sweet-Super-Agent-Allie. She'll expect you to address her Agent Allie, and she's known to be not so sweet at times. So good luck."