PROLOGUE

“Punky, could anybody be ath lucky ath me?” The little girl clutched her dog’s leash in one hand and a crisp new dollar bill in the other, her tongue fumbling through the empty space where her lower front tooth had been just last night.
            “A whole dollar! And I get to go thpend it all by mythelf!”
            She kneeled at the reflecting pool across the circular drive from the big white house where she lived with her Mommy and her Daddy and pulled her lower lip down to look in the water’s reflection at the bright pink spot of gum.
            The water reflected the gap in her smile, as well as her blue jeans, her favorite top festooned with blue flowers, and her new white Winnie the Pooh tennis shoes. A breeze whipped her thin blonde hair into her face and the little girl shook her head to remove the wispy strands so she could continue to look at the hole where her tooth once was.
            Of course, Mommy hadn’t wanted her to walk across the campus all by herself, but Tina had said it was OK, that she was a big girl and, if she took her dog, she’d be just fine. Besides, this was the last tooth she’d ever lose—she was a big girl now.
            Mommy was having one of her headaches again. This morning, she’d rubbed her eyes and looked at Tina strangely, like it hurt to use her eyes or something. There’d been a lot of headaches this week.
            The little girl liked Tina. She worked at the house where the three of them lived. She knew that Daddy was president at the college, but Mommy said it wasn’t like President. Bush, whose picture hung beside the flag in her first grade classroom at the Greater Grace Christian School. Mr. Bush ran the country and lived in a big white house in Washington D.C. The little girl and her family got to live in a big white house, too, Mommy said, but it was here in Jubilant Falls. They had people like Tina working for them because Daddy’s job was so important, because God had told him to come work here, not because people voted for him.
            Tina was smart and pretty, but she didn’t tell a lot of jokes or giggle like Mommy when her head wasn’t hurting her. Tina was very serious and she knew a lot about Jesus, like Miss Norton, her first-grade teacher. Daddy and Mommy said that it was important to know a lot about Jesus, so that must be why Tina worked at their house.
            Mommy told her it was the tooth fairy that left the dollar bill under her pillow. Tina didn’t like that at all.
            “That goes against God,” she’d said. “That’s sorcery and Satanism and that’s against Jesus. I wouldn’t have told her that. I would have told her it was the tooth angel.”
            Mommy rolled her eyes and laughed. “Why, who ever heard of a tooth angel?”
            The little girl looked up from the reflecting pool toward a brick-edged road that wound past a pair of dormitories, toward two old cast iron gates that opened onto the main road and the edge of town. Nobody ever closed the gates, not any more Mommy said. So even if it was late at night, people could come to the college where Daddy worked.
            Out the gates and across the road was Pop’s Carryout, where the little girl would spend her dollar.
            The dog pulled on his leash as if to remind her of their adventure.
            “OK, OK!” The little girl let herself be pulled along down the road.
            When they got to the gates, the little girl stopped at the curb and picked up the dog. Like Mommy told her, she looked both ways before crossing the road.
            A few more steps and they were at the front door of the little carryout. She started to walk inside with her dog, but the clerk stopped her.
            “Hey, kid! You can’t bring any dogs in here! Get that mutt outa here!”
            She turned somberly to her pet. “You have to thtay out here, Punky. I’ll be right back.” She tied the Pomeranian’s leash around a bike rack.
            It didn’t take long to figure out what she wanted—a root beer and a Baby Ruth candy bar. She wanted to pay for her purchases and get home, but just as she got into line, The Crazy Man stepped in front of her. She’d seen him before at the college gates—Mommy said not to worry about him, but he was old and dirty and he smelled bad. He was shouting something and waving his arms.
            “Get outta here, you old drunk!” The cashier yelled back and pointed toward the door. The Crazy Man stopped yelling and slunk outside.
            She put her candy bar and her soda pop on the counter and laid the new dollar bill beside them.