To die will be an awfully big adventure. Back then, being a child meant having baby teeth. Peter Pan still had his, so white. Some of mine had fallen out of my mouth, but I hadn’t lost them—all of them hidden in a plastic bag in the junk drawer of my dresser. Every shooting star wish: to lose all four of my top front teeth at once, smile and only show red. I dared my best friend to punch me, throw a baseball, I would supply the pliers, but her wrinkled nose always said No.
 
I learned not to ask the gross questions. I pulled out the tooth with pinched fingers, closed my bedroom door so no one would see the blood. Holding it in my palm, sliding it in and out of the gap: now I see it, now I don’t.