Walter the Walrus Brushes His Tusks

Walter the walrus had two tusks, and they were magnificent. They were long and white and curved, and when the sun went down over the ice they turned the colour of a peach.

They were also, every single evening, covered in fish.

"Teeth, Walter," said his mother, as the sky went dark.

"Tusks," said Walter. "I have tusks."

"Then tusks, Walter. Brush."

Walter's toothbrush was very small. It had been a present from a seagull who had found it on the beach and had no use for it, having no teeth. It had a yellow handle and about nine bristles. Walter looked at it. He looked at his tusks, which were each as long as his mother's flipper.

"This is going to take all night," said Walter.

"Then you had better start," said his mother.

Walter started. He put a dab of toothpaste on the nine bristles, opened his mouth as wide as a bucket, and began at the top of the left tusk.

Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.

A bit of fish came off. Walter looked at it proudly. Then he looked at the rest of the tusk, which was still the length of a flipper, and sighed, and the sigh blew the dab of toothpaste off the brush and onto his mother's nose.

"Sorry," said Walter.

He tried again. He scrubbed faster. The toothpaste frothed up into a white moustache that grew and grew until Walter looked like a very old, very surprised gentleman. He scrubbed the left tusk from top to bottom and the right tusk from bottom to top, and he scrubbed the place in the middle where his whiskers were, and some of his whiskers came out foamy and stood up in points.

"Nearly done?" asked his mother.

"Mrfff," said Walter, which is what anyone says with that much foam.

His little cousin Wilma waddled over to watch. Wilma had no tusks yet, only two small bumps, and she brushed them every night in about four seconds and thought herself extremely grown up.

"You've missed a bit," said Wilma.

"Where?"

"There. And there. And there, and that whole side, actually."

Walter would have said something rude, but his mouth was full of toothpaste, which is probably why toothpaste was invented.

He scrubbed on. The moon came up. The stars came out, one by one, and each one, Walter was certain, was looking at his tusks and judging them. He scrubbed the tips. He scrubbed the curvy bit. He got the brush stuck in a little groove near the top and had to ask Wilma to pull it out, which she did, and then made him say thank you, with foam.

And then, at last, he rinsed. He dipped his whole enormous face in the sea, and swished, and blew, and came up dripping. The foam moustache floated away towards the horizon like a small cloud that had somewhere to be.

Walter turned to his mother and smiled his widest smile.

His tusks shone. They were so white that they lit up the ice around him. A passing seal squinted. A star, Walter was sure, went "ooh".

"Beautiful," said his mother. "Now bed."

Walter lay down on the ice, between his mother's warm side and Wilma's small one, with his magnificent tusks resting on a pillow of snow, and he was asleep before the foam cloud had reached the horizon.

In the morning, of course, there was breakfast. And breakfast, as always, was fish.