The Snaggletooth

Yesterday, in the pool, Chris punched out Jacob's front tooth and for no reason whatsoever. And there was blood everywhere. And everyone saw it.

At least, that's how Jacob told the story of losing his upper front tooth. Chris's story is a little different.

The part that Jacob left out, and probably the most essential part of the story, is that his tooth was extremely loose, and we had been trying for days to get him to let us pull it out. It was obviously hanging crooked in his mouth, seemingly by only a lone root. He had hit his mouth on the playground over the weekend, and since then, had been gingerly eating all his food, careful not to knock the prized tooth out. He even swore off apples to avoid dislodging it.

The second detail that Jacob omitted is that he is learning to swim. Considering that he was still wearing a life jacket at the beginning of the summer, he's actually doing quite well, mostly because he is in the water every day since we have a pool so accessible this summer. He's swimming mostly under water, but he can now cross the pool on his own. However, he doesn't swim very deep yet and retrieving a quarter from the bottom of the pool at a three feet depth is extremely challenging.

So here's Chris's story. Notice that his version is considerably longer than Jacob's.

Jacob decided he wanted to swim between Chris's legs, so Chris moved into the 4 1/2 feet depth to accommodate this request. Jacob took a big breath and swam down as deep as he could towards the opening, but didn't quite make it before he started to panic. Running out of air, he struggled to resurface when Chris intervened, grabbing for him in the water. And that's when Chris's fist collided with Jacob's dangling tooth.

When Jacob reached the surface, he was mad and blood was dribbling from his mouth. Chris hauled him to the side of the pool, and Jacob spit out blood and tooth, like a rugby player reeling from a violent blow. He smiled, revealing a bloody hole in his mouth, suddenly excited by the prospective Tooth Fairy visit.

And that's when Jacob told me that Chris punched out his tooth. Whose story do you believe?