The Legend of the Tooth Mouse:
A Family Tradition Imported to Ohio
The tooth fairy is a celebrated legend in much of the world. So, too, is the tooth mouse.
My dad was born to a Sicilian immigrant. Growing up, they were told of “the little white tooth mouse.” Much like the tooth fairy, when a child lost a baby tooth and placed it under a pillow at night, he’d wake up to find that the tooth mouse had replaced it with a coin.
Although Dad shared his childhood tale of the tooth mouse with my sister and me, our household went with the American standard – the tooth fairy.
When I had kids of my own, I decided to reintroduce the tooth mouse tradition of my Dad’s childhood, but with a twist. First, I discovered the tooth mouse went by different names throughout the world. In Italian, the name was Topino.
When my kids began losing their baby teeth, they learned a hybrid story I came up with to make the tooth fairy and tooth mouse coexist. I told the kids that their grandpa had a mouse named Topino in his house when they were growing up. He came over on a boat from Sicily with my grandpa through Ellis Island en route to Cleveland, Ohio, along with the Satullo family. Topino’s job was to check the children’s teeth every night, and when he found a wiggler, he’d put the tooth fairy on high alert. She’s very busy, so it is helpful to have a tooth mouse in the house to give her a heads-up so she could better plan her route each night. A tooth would be exchanged with a coin by the tooth mouse and a dollar bill by the tooth fairy. When the child grew up, so did his tooth mouse. The tooth mouse would have baby mice, all named Topino. When the kids started their own families, a Topino would move in with each of them.
My son, Dominic, not only believed in Topino; he was so intrigued that he took things to a new level.
One night, my wife came into our room after replacing the tooth with a coin and a bill and handed me a note. Our son was asking the tooth mouse questions like, “What does he look like?” Where does he live? What else does he like to do? And can he read this?
So began a strange pen pal relationship between me and my son.
Our minds worked together to open a whole new world. It didn’t matter whether a tooth was loose or not; I had to check his desk to see if a letter had been left for Topino in the usual place. The fun wrapped around this communication between father and son was something for the ages. There were great adventures, head-scratching questions, revelations and more.
One of Dominic’s favorite storylines was the mischief Topino would get into when he’d play with my son’s toys at night. One time we awoke to a toy car stuck in the chandelier (hee-hee). Topino also seemed to be in the same life situations as my son, so they’d talk about them back and forth.
Until one day it stopped.
We had carried on writing letters for over a year. Sure, there were some pauses at times between letters, so when they stopped altogether, I was slow to notice. Finally, I asked if my son still sent Topino letters. My son showed me the last letter he wrote that went unanswered.
“Why did you put it here?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
It was not where I assumed we had mutually agreed on as the designated spot. So, I explained why Topino may have missed the note. Dominic moved the note to the old spot, and when Topino answered, there was more to his not finding the letter than it just being in the wrong spot for Topino; too, it was in the wrong spot!
My boy came bursting downstairs the next morning with a wad of papers in hand.
“Look – look, Topino, he’s back!”
“Whattaya mean, back?” I asked coyly.
“He hid in my bag the last time we went to Avon Lake to visit Grandma and Grandpa. It took him forever to get back, and he waited a long time after that for me to write him. He didn’t know I did because I used a different spot for the letter, so you were right about that, Dad. I can’t wait to hear about his adventure!”
So there were stories that lasted nearly another year. One day, Dominic was horrified when I pointed out the mouse poison in the garage and cautioned him to stay clear of it. I had to convince him that I bought a special blend that targets unwanted mice versus a beloved tooth mouse like Topino. He preferred all mice live. I had other ideas, considering the bag of seed they feasted on all winter.
Eventually, it ended as most childhood fairytales end: by just growing too old to believe anymore. But the twist on Topino was that both of our kids assumed this legend was as common as the Easter Bunny in their friends’ households. So as older kids, they were taken aback when friends would give them a blank stare when asked about their tooth mouse growing up.
Who knows, maybe it’ll grow into an Ohio legend. 😉
By Frank Rocco Satullo, The OhioTraveler, Your Tour Guide to Fun
