POPPY DIDN'T know what to do with the pearly white tooth in her hand, other than admire her apparent tooth-brushing skills while she waited for Mrs. Banks to call on her.

The teacher did not stop her lesson, however, and Poppy's arm grew tired. She had never held her hand up for that long.

Finally, after Mrs. Banks told everyone to finish the independent practice, she walked up to Poppy's desk. 

"Poppy? What was so important that you held your hand up for almost the entire lesson?" Mrs. Banks wasn't being mean, per se, but she was certainly a little annoyed.

"I lost my tooth, Mrs. Banks," Poppy replied, showing Mrs. Banks the tooth that was cupped in her palm. The teacher viably recoiled and scrunched her nose.

"Well, I will get a plastic bag, and you may go to the water fountain outside to wash your mouth."

Poppy nodded, setting the tooth down gingerly on the desk before going to the water fountain.

Cold water sprayed her face as Poppy leaned down to take a drink, and she winced at the sudden chill of the water against her face. The water fountain in the fifth grade hallway was notorious for spraying everybody who tried to drink out of it, and Poppy regretted not walking down the hall a little further to the fourth grade fountain.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as Mom would say.

Poppy wiped the water off her face, and jumped from colored tile to colored tile all the way back to the classroom, as if the hallway was one big hopscotch drawing. It was one of the games that helped get rid of a little extra energy, and Poppy couldn't remember a time when she avoided the white tiles placed intermittently like the plague.

"Here's your baggie," Mrs. Banks said upon Poppy's arrival in the room. "You will need to catch up on the work you're now behind on, though."

Poppy sighed. She really couldn't get away with anything in Mrs. Banks's room.

After slipping the treasured tooth into the baggie, Poppy turned to her worksheet and began to puzzle out the math problems. Poppy had never understood why she had to figure out why Regan sold fifty watermelons, and had thirty left over, when no one in their right minds would ever have eighty watermelons to begin with! 

But fractions, fractions were the worst of all.

Poppy thought the process of finding the common denominator was positively wretched, and she wanted nothing to do with cross-multiplying. It was all too much.  

Thankfully, Mrs. Banks decided to go over the problems before Poppy had completed them, so she worked the last few problems out the correct way, and thought she possibly understood the lesson a little better.

Recess was no better than the day before.

Poppy sat on the top of the peeling yellow monkey bars, waiting for her best friend to come and talk to her about her day, and her night, because Charlie hadn't FaceTimed her last night, nor had she liked Poppy's post about the first day of school on Instagram.

Something was definitely up when Charlie didn't go straight to the monkey bars.

Instead, Poppy watched her BFF loiter by the doors leading outside, talking to Reece Montgomery. The most popular girl in fifth grade. 

Her mom let her wear crop tops that showed her belly button, so she was automatically cool starting yesterday.

Charlie laughed at something Reece said, and Poppy couldn't control the mounting jealousy threatening to choke her. Since when had Charlie been cool enough to ignore Poppy? And when did Charlie decide that she wouldn't go straight to the monkey bars, like usual?

What was even happening?

Finally, after ten minutes of watching her BFF betray her, Poppy hopped down from the monkey bars and went to the large play structure, hoping to join in on the game of tag that had been ongoing since last year.

"Can I play?" Poppy asked, walking up to a girl she was convinced was playing tag.

"Sure!" the girl giggled, before tagging Poppy and running away.

Poppy didn't think that was how you were supposed to tell people they could play, but she didn't really care. All that mattered was that her brand new sneakers were fast, and that Poppy had finally branched out.

But, even still, Poppy glanced over at Charlie and Reece every once in a while.

"MOM, I don't think me and Charlie are friends anymore," Poppy said, sitting at the breakfast bar while Mom made dinner. The rest of the school day had found Poppy sitting at her desk, doodling on whichever paper she was supposed to be doing, but just couldn't find the focus to do so.

Seeing Charlie hang out with Reece over her at recess was awful, and Poppy never wanted to go to school again.

Yes, tag was fun, and Poppy got to talk to people she hadn't seen in forever, but that was beside the point. The point- and the source of Poppy's misery- was Charlie.

"Are you sure, sweetie? Maybe Charlie wasn't having a good day," Mom said, obviously not knowing the context of Poppy's sudden statement.

"She just doesn't like me anymore. We always meet at the monkey bars for recess, but she talked to Reece the whole time we were outside. It was like she completely forgot about me. And she didn't FaceTime last night, either! Our friendship is over, and I never want to see her again," Poppy pouted, hiding her face in her hands. She knew she might be over-reacting a little bit, but Poppy couldn't help but admit that a little melodrama never hurt anyone.

That she knew of.

"It sounds like Charlie is trying to make some new friends. You know, it wouldn't hurt if you did the same. You and that girl have been running around for the past three years without needing anybody else. I know you don't like change, Poppy, but you're going to have to get used tot he idea of sharing Charlie with other people," Mom said, sounding so reasonable that Poppy wanted to cry.

Why did everything sound so simple coming from Mom's mouth.

"I have my tooth in a bag," Poppy said, after a moment of silence. "Mrs. Banks let me wash my mouth out, too, after I pulled it out."

"That's nice. Are you excited you get to have a visit from the tooth fairy tonight?" Mom was looking down at the frying pan, concentrating on adding the right amount of pre-made spaghetti sauce.

"Yeah," Poppy answered, a smile spreading across her face. "The coins she always gives me are so cool. And the lady at the bank said that they were real gold!"

Mom just laughed, continuing to stir the delicious concoction in the pan. "Well, enough about school. I feel like I only ever hear you complain, love. Could you set the table?"

"Okay," Poppy said, sliding off the bar stool and digging around he drawers for the dinner plates and utensils. After sneaking herself a grown-up fork, Poppy sat at the table, waiting for her food to be delivered to the table for her.

A couple minutes of agonizingly waiting for the scrumptious smelling food, Poppy dug into the steaming hot polenta. She didn't even care that her tongue felt like it would fall off, Poppy was just happy to finally be able to devour Mom's delicious cooking.

"Mom," Poppy said, after helping clean up dinner. "Can I stay up until eight-thirty tonight? I want to watch Spider-Man."

Mom laughed, shooing Poppy up the carpeted stairs with a smile. "Not tonight. We can watch an episode of Fuller House, though, if you hurry up." 

Poppy smiled, and ran up the stairs. She rushed through a steaming hot shower (she turned the knob all the way down) and quickly dried herself off (not very well), before running back downstairs.

Poppy quickly jumped on the worn red couch, and flipped on the TV with the remote Mom handed her. After logging on to Netflix, Poppy curled up to Mom. It had been a while since they had watched anything together, and Poppy was even more grateful that Mom was like her best friend.

After Kimmy caught Fernando cheating, Mom turned off the TV and carried Poppy up the stairs. Poppy smiled to herself, knowing Mom had fallen for her fake sleep trick yet again.

Mom made sure to place Poppy's tooth under her pillow before heading back downstairs.

But not without whispering a quick, "I love you, sweetie."

Word Count: 1408

Total Word Count: 5022

Autocorrect says Kimmy is incorrect...

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I don't know, it felt a little bit rushed, but I wanted to say thank you for reading, and if you have ANY suggestions, I'm willing to listen!

As always, be safe and have a good night!

CJ