"It just came off!" he sobbed, his hand cradling a tiny tooth.
I tried to comfort him as best as I could. I cracked jokes about pirates. I hugged him, and for a moment could remember all the teeth I had lost, before dentists could get their pointed instruments on their eventual replacements.
Then I remembered the tooth fairy.
We didn't get as far as a tooth under a pillow this evening. Instead, it nestles on a saucer, on his bookcase, waiting to be whisked to a place where everthing is available for barter. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
And by tomorrow morning, there will be three euros, in place of Jacob's tooth, to buy another Roald Dahl book, and another story to spin.