The next day, we were allowed to inspect the

appendix itself in a glass bottle. It was a longish black

wormy-looking thing, and I said, 'Do I have one of
those inside me, Nanny?'
'Everyone has one,' Nanny answered.
'What's it for?' I asked her.
'God works in mysterious ways,' she said, which was
her stock reply whenever she didn't know the answer.
'What makes it go bad?' I asked her.
'Toothbrush bristles,' she answered, this time with no
hesitation at all.
'Toothbrush bristles?' I cried. 'How can toothbrush
bristles
make your appendix go bad?'
Nanny, who in my eyes was filled with more wisdom
than Solomon, replied, 'Whenever a bristle comes out
of your toothbrush and you swallow it, it sticks in your
appendix and turns rotton. In the war,' she went on,
'the
German spies used to sneak boxloads of loose-bristled
toothbrushes into our shops and millions of our
soldiers got appendicitis.'
'Honestly, Nanny?' I cried. 'Is that honestly true?'
'I never lie to you, child,' she answered. 'So let that be
a lesson to you never to use an old toothbrush.'
For years after that, I used to get nervous whenever I
found a toothbrush bristle on my tongue.