In the depths of a Madrid confectionery, hidden behind shelves of exotic spices, rested a golden tin biscuit box. But it was not home to sweets, but to sophistication: a cabinet of wonders with cedar walls and crimson velvet carpets. It was the home of Mr. Perez, a space where the scent of tea and ancient ink enveloped the plans for his future nocturnal expeditions.
In the Royal Palace, little King Bubi watched with wonder at his first tooth: a tiny ivory pearl that had left his mouth after a slight startle. Following the immemorial rite, he placed it under his blue silk pillow, feeling how the royal anxiety was replaced by a magical expectation. That night, the silence of the palace was not empty, but an invitation to mystery.
Inside the cookie box, Mr. Perez prepared himself with the precision of a watchmaker. He adjusted his short-brimmed straw hat, put on his gold spectacles and checked his cargo: a red leather bag full of shimmering gold coins. 'Each tooth is a treasure,' he whispered in a voice that mixed the firmness of the soldier and the sweetness of the grandfather, as he lost himself in the gloom of the baseboard.
Perez's journey through the palace walls was an odyssey of impossible scales. For him, the moldings were cornices over infinite abysses and the air currents were gales that threatened to ruffle his dignity. With the stealth of a shadow, he avoided the boots of the guards, whose steps thundered like earthquakes in his sensitive explorer's ears.
Under the King's pillow, Perez found two open eyes glowing like burning coals: Bubi was not sleeping. With an impeccable bow of courtesy, the mouse introduced himself, but he did not bring only a coin. 'Your Majesty,' he said in a sibilant whisper, 'tonight I seek not your tooth, but your company. There are truths that can only be seen from the ground up.'
Perez touched the King's forehead with his right paw, unleashing an effervescence of golden particles that flooded the room. The world began to expand dizzyingly: the bedposts became sequoia trunks and the carpet a jungle of thick wool. Bubi looked at his hands, now covered with fine, cinnamon fur; the monarch had become a subject of the night.
Guided by Perez, they entered the secret arteries of the court: tunnels of tiny brick and passages forgotten behind the wallpaper. Bubi discovered a subterranean metropolis where mice guarded the machinery of the royal clocks. The young king understood that beneath the opulence of the surface, there was an invisible motor of effort that maintained the order of the kingdom.
A guttural growl stopped their hearts: Don Gaiferos, the palace cat, was blocking the exit. His pupils were obsidian slits in a sea of yellow fire, and his claws scratched the marble with the sound of a thousand knives. 'Keep still, Bubi,' warned Perez, whose stoic gaze did not falter before the predator stalking them from the height of a punishing god.
After outwitting the feline through a drainpipe, they emerged onto the streets of Madrid. Bubi was struck dumb by the majesty of the urban night: the watchmen with their lanterns were giants of light and the cobblestones shone like wet gems under the drizzle. Perez walked with a firm step, reminding him that true adventure begins where comfort ends.
They walked until the luxury of the center transformed into the bareness of the humble neighborhoods. They climbed an endless staircase of worm-eaten wood to an attic where the wind whistled through broken tiles. There slept Gilico, a child on a straw mattress, whose only wealth was the purity of his dreams in a room where the cold was the only guest.
Gilico had also lost a tooth, but instead of silk, he had placed it in a cracked earthenware cup. Perez approached and, after examining the piece with his gold spectacles, pronounced solemnly: 'See, Bubi, before the night there are no kings or beggars. This tooth shines with the same purity as yours, because pain and hope know no lineage.'
Perez extracted the gold coin intended for the palace and placed it gently beside Gilico's cup. Bubi, instead of protesting, felt a warmth that no royal stove had ever provided. He understood that a king's true power lies not in accumulating treasures, but in being the channel through which fortune reaches the dispossessed.
The sky began to bleed shades of violet and pink, announcing the dawn. 'We must depart, Majesty, the light is the end of our chimera,' announced Perez. They returned in haste, crossing slate roofs and stone cornices, while the Madrid of men woke up without suspecting that two tiny heroes had just changed the destiny of a soul.
With a final flash of iridescence, Bubi felt his stature returning. He found himself in his bed, enveloped in the lavender scent of his sheets. He searched under his pillow and found no gold, but something more valuable: a small leather-bound book that told the chronicles of the humble. In the window sill, he thought he saw for a second the silhouette of a straw hat before the sun erased it.
King Bubi grew up to be a monarch legendary for his justice and his closeness to the people. He never forgot the night he was a mouse, nor the lesson of Mr. Perez. And they say that every time a child loses a tooth, Perez continues to travel the world, reminding us that the greatest magic is that which allows us to put ourselves in the place of another.
