A girl went out to defeat the monster which had been terrorising her town for many years. Enraged by her challenge it swallowed her whole, but she managed to escape by eating her way out from inside it, chewing doggedly away at skin and muscle and nerve. One tooth broke off and stuck in the monster’s skin. Sodden with viscera, she emerged into the dawnlight and saw the monster lying limply on the sand like a deflated bladder. She found her broken tooth, pulled it out, and slipped it into her shoe for safekeeping. When she told the mayor of the town what had happened, he took her tooth away and put it inside a glass case. It stayed there for many years, until the girl herself was gone and everyone in the town had forgotten her name. There are two morals to this story: firstly that heroism all too often eclipses the hero, and secondly that the teeth of young girls are uncommonly sharp. They’d eat up the whole world if we gave them the chance.