When you hear the word tooth, you normally think of an ordinary tooth. As for me, I think of so much more.

It all started on a sunny, September school day. I was bored and anxious for lunch period, when I could eat and even head down to the gym with my friends. Of course, I wanted to play basketball. Not a second after the lunch bell rang, I rushed to the gym to play. There was a big group of us guys playing and all was well. That was until another kid and I collided heads and I went right to the ground and laid there in agony.

My head was pounding, but I just figured that it was just a normal collision and my head was supposed to hurt. However, I felt my head and where it hurt and felt something sharp sticking out of it. I immediately looked over to the kid to see what he was doing and I saw that he was holding his mouth. I put two and two together and started to think to myself that maybe his tooth had gotten stuck in my head. He said that his tooth was gone so everyone started to look for it. It was nowhere to be found. I started to yell out that his tooth was stuck in my head and everyone started to surround me. Mrs. Hernandez, the supervisor, and Officer Pinner came running over to inspect my head. With one look at their expressions, I knew it couldn't be good. I immediately burst into tears. Immediately, my Mom was informed of the accident. She couldn't believe the bizarre story.

She picked me up and we went straight to urgent care at the hospital. I thought I'd get treated immediately, but instead I had to wait two hours to be treated. Seconds felt like hours. I was becoming more and more anxious. The nurse said it was the most outrageous injury she'd ever seen. She proceeded to remove the tooth. My head was numbed so I wouldn't feel the pain. Luckily, I got to walk out of the hospital with only a few stitches. I felt fine until I woke up the next morning. My face was swollen and my head looked deformed. When I first looked in the mirror I was startled to see my face. My friends didn't recognize me as I went to greet them, and I was getting teased the entire day. I received a new nickname called "Tooth-fairy".

After school, I had to take homecoming court pictures during halftime of the varsity football game. I'd never been so embarrassed as I was that day. My day was made when my friend approached me and said, "Dante, you have a string on your head," and accidentally tried to pull the stitch out of my head. Some say tooth, I say Tooth-fairy.