Wally turned to me. "Did you hear something?"

Unh-oh. I moved the food around in my mouth, probing hesitantly with my tongue. Noodles. Unnamed veggies. A short metal object. Something that felt like a chunk of one of my back teeth. My tooth? I'd broken my tooth? I scraped my tongue on a jagged protrusion where a molar used to be attached. Great. This was just great. The first edible food I'd found in Switzerland and it was booby-trapped.

I spat what I'd been chewing into my napkin and plucked out a piece of one-inch metal that I brandished between my thumb and forefinger. "That was in your food?" exclaimed Wally. "God, what is it?"

"It lookths like the pwong of a meat fock," I slurred. I could understand why the Swiss had no lead in their water. They put it in their lasagna instead.

Sonya eyed the metal somewhat skeptically. "The kitchens in our restaurants are the cleanest in the world, but...sometimes things escape our notice." She shrugged. "What do you say in your country? Shit happens?"

Wally eyed what else was in my napkin. "Is that your tooth? You broke your tooth?" He waved his arm, calling for our waitress. "This young woman has broken her tooth on a piece of metal that was in her lasagna. What do you intend to do about it?"

Sonya explained the incident in a language the waitress could understand. For added effect, Wally lined up the metal prong and my tooth on the table and pointed maliciously to the lasagna as if to say, "Bad lasagna. Bad, bad lasagna." If he didn't make it as a tour guide, he had great potential as a mime.

The waitress nodded apologetically and cleared away the metal prong and my dish of lasagna. "More?" she said, indicating the lasagna.

Right. If I had more, maybe I could find the rest of the prong and nail the molar on the other side of my mouth. "I don't tink sho." I scraped my tongue on the remains of my tooth again and felt a throbbing pain swell in my jaw. I was just now realizing it hurt to talk, to swallow, to breathe.

"They'll compensate you," Wally assured me. "This is Switzerland. They have a strong sense of justice here, fueled by the fear of litigation."

"Eat your peechah," I slurred around the pain, nodding toward his untouched Hawaiian pizza. I didn't need to urge Sonya to eat her food. She'd already bolted down her noodles and slapped some money onto the table as she stood up.

"A pleasure dining with you. I'll see you back at the bus a little after two."

I cushioned my jaw in my hand, jealously watching Wally devour his pizza. The waitress appeared sometime later and placed a huge piece of chocolate cake in front of me. "Waths this?" I asked.

"To make up for your tooth," she said. "How do you say in your country? It's on the house."