“Why doesn’t jelly set if you put kiwi in it?”

IT IS Monday morning, and I wake up, heart hammering, in bed.

I probe my gums with a panicked tongue, chased by a dream in which I’m singing ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ from The Wizard of Oz, while my teeth dissolve like Alka-Seltzer in water.

One by one, they fizz and dissolve in my mouth, so that by the time I reach the line, “the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true”, all my teeth have gone and I am quite distraught.