A world-renowned physicist who claims to have captured the tooth fairy is keeping the glittering, glowing, blue-tinged and apparently very wealthy creature locked in a cage.
And if Dr. Rupert Marel gets his way, the beloved pixie “will spill the beans about her origins, tells us why she collects teeth, where she gets the money to buy those teeth, and if there are other creatures like her living in a world about which humans are unaware.”
“I want information,” says the physicist whose books on parallel universes and alternate realities are considered standards in the field.
“Far from being a quaint myth, the tooth fairy – as I have proved – is real. The challenge before us now is to find out everything we can about her origins and her intent.
The tooth fairy might look as innocent as Tinkerbell in a Disney cartoon, but she in no way benign. We really have no idea what her purpose is other than to illegally enter the rooms of children.
“Just because the tooth fairy has never laid a finger on a child doesn’t mean she wasn’t getting ready to start.”
News of the tooth fairy’s capture swept through academic circles, and not everybody is happy about the catch.
As one esteemed U.S. oral surgeon puts it, “The tooth fairy performs a vital service by disposing of dead, broken and worthless teeth. You can’t just throw these things out with the trash, you know.” You need to dispose of human body parts properly.
Parents aren’t too keen on the idea of keeping the tooth fairy in a cage, particularly with what is going on at the southern border of the United States.
“He has not right to lock up the tooth fairy like a common criminal or immigrant,” fumes one young mother. She says she was counting on the tooth fairy giving her 7-year-old son spending money for several months, or at least until he loses another tooth.
“I just hope he lets the tooth fairy go before my son loses another tooth,” she continues.
“I mean, what am I supposed to do? Dig in my purse and pay for those teeth myself?”
“The tooth fairy’s been paying $20 a tooth. But I’m a single mother. I can’t throw around money like that. Bobby will be lucky to get a buck out of me unless I can find his dad and collect some child support.”
Marel published the circumstances of the tooth fairy’s capture in a scholarly journal complete with a series of stunning black-and-white photographs that show the frustrated imp fluttering around haplessly in its cage.
The physicist says he “got intrigued” with the idea of capturing the finger-size creature “about 15 years ago after my dentist pulled an aching tooth and I put it under my pillow on a lark.”
The crisp new $10 he found the next morning “set a course of the investigation that continues to this day.”
Marel used a mousetrap to catch the tooth fairy. The trap was baited with two teeth and could have killed the tooth fairy if its stiff metal bar had snapped shut on the creature’s pipe cleaner-thin neck.
“But I got lucky,” says the expert. “I snagged her by a wing.”
To date, the tooth fairy “hasn’t been especially talkative, but I’m sure she will see the wisdom of cooperating sooner rather than later,” says Marel. “If necessary, there are numerous humane ways to apply pressure.
When and if the tooth fairy gives Marel the information is unclear. Nobody knows what will happen next. And what will happen to all those teeth under pillows?
“I might let her go. I might keep her around,” says Marel. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
