The Sweet Tooth

Before we embark on chasing down a Sweet Tooth to pure Pumble, it's time to announce the winner from my Wonderful Life post on Sunday!

And the winner is.......Marjie!

Call me a hopeless romantic, but hearing that she and her husband got married after five weeks and have been married for more than 30 years with 9 children just makes you go gooey inside. That's true love people. True love. That's what fairy tales are made of.

Now, Marjie, you have three wonderful choices to choose your wonderful award from.

Choice 1: You can guest post or request the post of your choice.

Choice 2: You can get a wonderful sussy in the mail.

Choice 3: You can force me to play truth or dare in a post--three truths and three secrets no one knows.

So, as that fellow in Indiana Jones said, choose wisely! And congratulations! It's a wonderful life for knowing people as wonderful as you!

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"This is stupid," Cookies griped as they crept into the play kitchen. The empty cabinets looked ominous and the stove seemed to loom over them. Without Pumble and dozens of cookies cooling on racks, the kitchen looked clinical and...plastic. The normally charming refrigerator looked cheap, the dining room table forlorn.

"It's not stupid," Miss Moose McKinley corrected. "He would do it for you." The seals nodded, narrowing their eyes at Cookies as they hopped in the kitchen.

"No he wouldn't," Cookies scoffed. Hairy would never tell him he agreed.

"Where should we look first?" Hairy asked brightly.

"I'll check the freezer," Miss Moose McKinley said.

"I'll check the oven," Cookies said.

The seals squeaked they would check the cabinets and pantry. Hairy cracked open the the fridge, sighing at the sparse contents. He jiggled the racks and checked the pockets on the door.

"Nothing," he said.

"Nothing," Miss Moose McKinley agreed.

"Nothing," Cookies shouted, crawling out from the oven. He blew soot off his glasses.

The seals squeaked and crawled out from the pantry. They hadn't found anything either.

The animals stared at the empty kitchen.

"Let's see," Hairy thought aloud. "He's not in the sink or on the counters. He's not on the table. He's not in the fridge, the oven, the pantry or the freezer. And we don't have a dishwasher."

"Pumble always complained about that," Miss Moose McKinley said with a nod.

Tapping his head, Hairy tried to think as hard as he could. "Where could a sweet tooth be?"

"Did you check the sugar jar?" Miss Moose McKinley asked the seals. "And the bags of chocolate chips and butterscotch? What about the pudding and cookie boxes?"

The seals nodded and shrugged. They hadn't found a thing.

"I know!" Cookies shouted. "The cookie jar!"

"In the pantry?" Hairy said. "The seals said it was empty."

"Not that jar," Hairy said impatiently. "The secret cookie jar!"

"What are you talking about?" Hairy asked. Cookies flew to the top of the fridge and scuttled to the back by the wall.

"Pull the fridge out a bit!" he shouted. "Just a bit, don't unplug it!"

Shrugging, Hairy and Miss Moose McKinley tugged on the fridge. With a groan, it slid forward a few feet. Hairy dove behind the fridge so only his yellow feet stuck out. The animals heard shuffling and cracking and clanging. When Cookies emerged, he had a glass jar clamped in his beak. The animals gasped.

Inside was a Sweet Tooth, looking incredibly perturbed.

"Hooray!" Hairy cried. "How did you know where to find it?"

Cookies floated down to the ground and bent over. Hairy grabbed the jar from his beak. "I saw him up there hiding cookies once," Cookies said. "The little weirdo dug a hole out of the wall to hide his cookies in. Isn't that mad?"

The seals looked at each other and shrugged. It made good sense to them. They hid their salmon.

Clutching the jar to his chest, Hairy dashed to Pumble's room as the animals trailed after him. "Doctor!" he cried. "Cookies found the Sweet Tooth! Now we can save Pumble!"

The doctor jumped up and took the jar. Unscrewing the lid, he raised the Sweet Tooth from the jar. The Sweet Tooth snarled and growled, struggling in his grasp.

"They certainly don't live up to their name," Miss Moose McKinley muttered. The doctor held the Sweet Tooth up to his eight eyes and blinked.

"Did you ask him for a tear?" he asked Hairy.

"No," Hairy replied, confused. "I don't understand."

"Sweet Tooths are very conniving creatures," the doctor said, holding the fussing Sweet Tooth with two of his legs. "They will only cry tears, which contain the magic elixir, if they are incredibly happy. Normally, there's only one way to do that."

"What's that?" Cookies asked.

"Promise him more sweets than he can eat," the doctor said. "It's a big job. They eat 10 lbs. of sweets a day."

Cookies chortled. "That's more than Pumble eats! We've finally found something that eats more than him."

"But you can't just buy cookies for him," the doctor warned. "He has to have fresh sweets. And he eats every thirty minutes."

"That's impossible!" Hairy cried. "We can't do that. We can barely keep Pumble fed." He hung his head.

Tossing her antlers, Miss Moose McKinley sauntered up to the Sweet Tooth. "Listen here," she said sternly. "I don't know if we can promise you 10 lbs. of sweets a day. But we can offer you a loving home if you stay here." The Sweet Tooth glared at her and snorted.

"Look around," she said, jabbing her hoof in his chest. "We have creatures great and small. We have a bee that does nothing but bake. We have flowers that drip honey and trees that rain down gumdrops like acorns. And we have love, which is a lot better than candy. So please, won't you help our friend? Just once?"

The Sweet Tooth sniffed and nodded. One great tear fell from his eye and landed on Pumble. Everyone held their breath and tears continued to fall from the Sweet Tooth's eyes onto Pumble's chest.

Pumble's eyes fluttered, and he stretched his long black arms. Yawning, he opened his eyes and patted his belly.

"So guys," he said. "What's for lunch? Got any pie?"