Demon Dentist Page 4

  “Kind of a sick joke, don’t you think?” asked Alfie forcefully.

  “Well, I er… I suppose it is, er, a little strong…” spluttered the policeman.

  The boy was sure he had PC Plank on the ropes. Now all he had to do was deliver the knockout punch. “And we both think it might be something to do with the new dentist, Miss Root. She came to our school yesterday and gave me a free tube of her special toothpaste…”

  “What of it?” replied PC Plank.

  “It burned through stone.”

  The policeman narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow. This detail of their story definitely interested him. “Did you bring this toothpaste with you today, lad?”

  Sheepishly, Alfie shook his head. “No, I er… I threw it in the canal.”

  Plank looked decidedly unimpressed. “Littering. That’s a criminal offence. Could do you for that!”

  “But…” protested Alfie.

  “Well, lad, if you and your girlfriend don’t mind…”

  Girlfriend?! Alfie was horrified at the thought. He’d never had a girlfriend, and was still at the age where he thought girls were yucky. Completely and utterly yuckety*.

  * * *

  *Made-up word ALERT

  * * *

  “She’s not my girlfriend!” he protested.

  “As if I would go out with him!” chimed in Gabz.

  “All right, all right, if you and your ‘friend’ don’t mind, I have some urgent police business to attend to.”

  “What’s more urgent than this?!” demanded Gabz.

  The policeman looked aggrieved. He wasn’t used to being spoken to like that.

  “If you must know, I have an eighty-year-old woman waiting in the cell. She was apprehended in the supermarket with a Scotch egg stuffed down her tights.”

  “Oh, excuse me!” said Gabz mockingly. “I had no idea a master criminal was in our midst.”

  Alfie smirked. He loved how cheeky his new friend could be. Predictably, PC Plank didn’t see the funny side. In fact he was infuriated. So infuriated that he stood up sharply and shouted…

  The pair stood outside the police station in the freezing cold. Alfie tried to console Gabz, who looked utterly dejected.

  “Come on, Gabz, you can’t blame him,” said Alfie. “I mean, it does all sound really hard to believe…”

  It was only the late afternoon, but it was already becoming dark. A wicked winter wind whipped through the air as the little girl looked up to the sky.

  “They’ll strike tonight,” said Gabz. She gazed at the black clouds rolling overhead. “I just know it. Somewhere in this town a child will wake up screaming…”

  11

  The Plan

  “You’re late, son…” called Dad from the living room, as Alfie walked in the front door of the bungalow.

  “Oh, I was, er, just at chess club…” replied Alfie. It wasn’t the smartest lie, as he barely knew how to play draughts, let alone chess, but he didn’t want his father to worry. Then, entering the living room, Alfie saw that SHE was back.

  Winnie.

  Fussing over Dad’s blanket.

  “Good news, young Alfred!” she announced.

  “What’s that?” said the boy. He was hoping Winnie was going to say she was moving abroad.

  “I’ve got you an appointment with the dentist!” she said proudly.

  Alfie shuddered.

  “Good news, isn’t it, son?” said Dad.

  “I spoke to Miss Root on the phone this morning,” said Winnie. “She told me she remembered meeting you at your school yesterday. Anyways, she said she was all booked up with patients, but as your teet are so bad she could squeeze you in tomorrow at two!”

  Tomorrow was a Wednesday and Alfie was of course meant to be at school, in a Double Maths lesson, to be precise. The boy hated Maths, but Double Maths, even Triple Maths, QUADRUPLE Maths or INFiNiTY Maths would be preferable to going to have his teeth poked, prodded or even pulled out. Especially by that woman. Alfie loathed everything about Maths, every single little bit of it – the times tables, equations, algebra – but those instruments of torture were far less painful than any dentist’s.

  “Thanks so much, Winnie,” lied Alfie.

  “How will you get there?” asked Dad.

  “Don’t worry, I can easily get the bus there myself from school tomorrow afternoon.”

  The town’s bus service had a long-standing reputation for being unreliable. Of course, Alfie had no intention of going anywhere near the dentist, and with the bus service being what it was, he would have a long list of possible excuses as to why he didn’t make his appointment:

  • I waited and waited but the bus never turned up (an oldie but a goodie).

  • I got on the wrong bus, one which was actually being used by a motorcycle display team to jump over.

  • The fattest man in the world stepped on to the bus and it toppled over on to its side.

  • The bus was delayed for hours as it stopped at the zoo and a waddle of penguins tried to get on, but none of them had the right change and the driver became quite irate.

  • A gang of bank robbers hijacked the bus and diverted it to Mexico.

  • The driver went the wrong way and the bus got stuck under a low bridge. A group of scientists then had to miniaturise it so it could get on its way, and of course this took time, as they had to invent the miniaturisation machine first.

  • Next-door’s dog ate the bus (this works better for homework).

  • The bus was in fact a Transformer, a robot in disguise. So the journey to the dentist was delayed as it fought with other Transformers for control of the universe. Also there were some roadworks.

  • The bus got a flat tyre, so we needed the world’s strongest man to lift up the bus so the wheel could be changed. As none of the passengers knew who the world’s strongest man was, we had to organise our own ‘World’s Strongest Man’ competition at the side of the road, and the series of challenges to determine the winner took several days.

  • The bus was sucked into a space-time vortex and I was propelled billions of years into the future to when aliens rule the earth (this one only to be used as a very last resort).

  However, Winnie eyed the boy with suspicion. She had dealt with all sorts of difficult children in her many years as a social worker. The town was full of kids like Alfie, who would lie and cheat their way out of having their nits or their ear wax or their verrucas or their teeth seen to. Quick as a flash, she replied, “No no no, Alfred. You don’t get no bus…”

  “No…?” asked Alfie.

  “No. I will take you there myself on my moped.”

  “Thank you so much, Winnie,” said Dad.

  “All part of the service, Mr Griffit.”

  The social worker expounded on her plan:

  She would collect Alfie from school on her moped at 1:30pm. The journey was only fifteen minutes, so there should be absolutely no chance he would be late. In fact, most likely he would be early.

  When they arrived at the dentist’s, Winnie would take him upstairs herself. That way there would be no opportunity for the boy to take an unscheduled detour to the local sweet shop.

  Next, as Miss Root poked and prodded Alfie’s teeth, Winnie would wait, and book the boy a follow-up appointment.

  Finally, she would drop him off back at school. He wouldn’t even have to miss all of Double Maths!

  It was so well thought through. How could it fail?

  Alfie watched at the window as the social worker, looking like a giant tropical fish, chugged off down the road on her little red moped. The machine made a rather stuttering tut-tut-tut sound as she motored away. Winnie was quite a menace on the road. She swerved around parked cars and leaped over a speed bump before bringing the moped up into a wheelie as she disappeared out of view.

  Tropical fish

  Winnie

  *

  “So, my pup…” said Dad, as father and son sat in the living room by candlelight la
ter that night. The electricity company had cut them off years ago. “Are you ready for tonight’s adventure…?”

  “Yes, Dad,” he replied dutifully.

  In truth, the boy wasn’t. Alfie had bigger things on his mind than going on some imaginary voyage.

  “So close your eyes, and believe…” implored Dad. Alfie sighed, and reluctantly half-closed his eyes. While the other boys at school were watching movies in 3D or playing the latest computer games, he was forced to sit in the dark with his father.

  “Let’s believe we are in an old castle, sitting around a huge, round, wooden table. We are wearing heavy suits of armour. There are long swords by our sides. We are knights. And there are another ten knights seated around us. It is the time of King Arthur and we are two of the Knights of the Round Table. Now you take over, son…”

  Alfie’s mind had wandered. There was so much buzzing around his brain right now… the terrifying goings-on in the town that Gabz had uncovered… the arrival of the busy-body social worker… the dental appointment with the deeply creepy Miss Root. So although Alfie had heard what his father had said, he hadn’t listened.

  “OK, erm, well, we’re knights right, so erm… I dunno…”

  Dad opened his eyes, and saw that Alfie’s were open too.

  “What’s the matter, son?”

  “Nothing, Dad. Sorry, I just have a lot of schoolwork on at the moment. Got some big tests next term…”

  The candlelight flickered in the dark, but there was enough light to see that Dad was upset. He reached out for his son’s hand.

  “Pup, you’d tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Alfie, as he pulled his hand away. His mind was racing. There was no way he was going to go anywhere near that dental surgery. Alfie needed a counterplan. And fast.

  12

  The Counterplan

  Every morning before school, Alfie had to get up super-early. This was because, besides getting himself ready for the day, he had to look after his father too. So after putting on his school uniform, he helped Dad get washed and dressed. Next he made them both some breakfast. This morning there was nothing left in the larder save for a solitary stale crust of bread. The boy gave his dad the bigger half, but Dad swapped the plates when Alfie had his back turned so his son could have it.

  Before Alfie knew it, he was running late.

  “Now remember, Winnie will pick you up from the school gates at one-thirty to take you to the dentist,” said Dad.

  “How could I forget…?” mooched the boy.

  “She’s a good woman. She’s even called the school for me so they know all about it.”

  “That’s kind of her,” replied Alfie, in a stilted tone.

  “Now don’t be late.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll be there,” lied the boy. Alfie kissed his dad on the forehead as he did every morning, and left for school.

  Unable to sleep last night, Alfie’s mind had whirred for hours formulating a counterplan. It was simple. Devilishly simple.

  He would hide.

  It was a three-point plan:

  1. At 1:29pm, Alfie would ask to be excused from Double Maths to go to the dentist.

  2. Then instead of walking to the school gates to meet Winnie, he would conceal himself somewhere. The school was vast and there had to be hundreds of great hiding places. The store cupboard, under a pile of lost property, even behind the atlases in the library. Anywhere where this meddling woman wouldn’t be able to find him.

  3. Finally, he would stay hidden until the bell signalling the end of school rang, then simply join the throng of pupils leaving for home.

  *

  “Psst, Alfie…”

  The boy looked around the school playground but he couldn’t see who was whispering to him.

  “Psst… Behind the bins…”

  It was first thing in the morning and the whole open space was bustling with children arriving at school. Hesitantly, Alfie circled the bins, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the voice belonged to his newest and littlest friend.

  “Oh, hi, Gabz,” said Alfie.

  “Last night. Another thirteen reported attacks!”

  “Wow!” Alfie was gobsmacked.

  “Kids found all sorts under their pillows…”

  “Like what?”

  “A puppy’s tail sliced clean off… a hairy wart… an electric eel still wriggling… And this morning, haven’t you noticed anything different?” said the little girl.

  “About what?”

  “The kids. Look at them…”

  Alfie peered out from behind the bins, observing his fellow pupils. At first glance he didn’t notice anything particularly different.

  “I don’t know…” said the boy.

  “I thought you weren’t like the others. I thought you were smart…”

  Alfie was determined to go back up in the girl’s estimation. Now he looked closer and noticed the kids were much quieter than usual, many of them holding their jaws in pain.

  “Toothache!” proclaimed the boy.

  “Bingo! We got there!” sighed Gabz.

  “It must have been all the sweets Root was giving out…”

  “You don’t say,” she retorted, in a sarcastic tone.

  Alfie was beginning to tire of being spoken to like he was a complete dummy. “Please just shut up for a moment. I am beginning to find you really annoying.”

  Alfie gathered his thoughts. “So obviously those sweets can’t be sugar-free. They must be absolutely packed with sugar. But why is Root doing this? Just to get new patients…?”

  “Or some kind of sick and twisted joke?” mused Gabz.

  Alfie suddenly remembered. “You won’t believe this, but my social worker got me an appointment to see Root this afternoon…”

  A broad smile crossed the little girl’s face. “That’s brilliant!”

  “What?” said Alfie, incredulous.

  “You can have a look around her surgery for clues. See if there’s anything to connect her to all the tooth snatching that’s been going on.”

  Alfie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you crazy? That woman frightens me. I am not going anywhere near her surgery. Who knows what she might do…?”

  “Scaredy cat.”

  Alfie looked down at Gabz. He couldn’t believe he had been called a ‘scaredy cat’ by:

  A girl.

  Who was only eleven.

  And at least a foot shorter than him.

  “Say that again!” demanded Alfie.

  Gabz wasn’t easily intimidated. “Scaredy cat scaredy cat scaredy cat,” she taunted.

  “Hey, Miss Marple! You’re the one who’s desperate to find out all about her. Why don’t you go?!” sneered Alfie.

  Gabz fixed him with a stare. “Maybe I will…” she said. And with that the little girl turned, flicked her dreadlocks, and made her way into the main school building.

  The school day passed painfully slowly for Alfie. Lessons seemed to stretch on for hours. The boy was waiting and waiting for Double Maths, when he could put his three-point counterplan into action. There was no way he was going to Miss Root’s surgery and letting that woman loose on his teeth. Alfie didn’t care one bit if that made him a ‘scaredy cat’.

  Finally the clock clicked into position. It was 1:29pm.

  Right on cue, Alfie put up his hand in the middle of a particularly devilish piece of algebra, and asked to be excused from class.

  His Maths teacher, Mr Wu, had been informed of the dentist appointment by the school secretary, and let him go.

  “Jolly good. I do think it’s high time you had your teeth seen to, Griffith…” announced the teacher, to sniggers from the rest of the class.

  Alfie said nothing. He stood up, collected his books and left the classroom.

  Boom! The counterplan was running like clockwork.

  All he had to do now was find somewhere to hide. And fast.

  As
Alfie walked he surreptitiously checked the handles on the cleaning cupboard doors. Darn. Locked. As he passed classrooms, he ducked a little under the glass in the doors to avoid the darting eyes of suspicious teachers.

  Heading upwards, he passed a window on the central staircase and peered out. Through the grimy glass, Alfie looked past the empty playground to the huge school gates. The unmistakeable and unmissable figure of Winnie was standing out in the rain, her little red moped by her side. The woman had a big orange anorak on that was blustering in the winter wind. It gave her the appearance of a tent that was about to tear free of its pegs and flap off high into the sky. For a moment, Alfie felt a pang of guilt that the social worker was out there in the cold waiting for him. She is only trying to help, isn’t she? he thought, before another thought crossed his mind… No, she’s just an interfering old bag. Silently he watched as Winnie checked the time, then looked up at the school. Alfie ducked his head. Had she seen him? He couldn’t be sure.

  Running up the stairs, the boy continued his desperate search for somewhere to hide. The classrooms were all in use, the pottery room was locked, and going all the way down to the boiler room right now was far too risky. Then somewhere deep in the belly of the school he heard a sound. A sound that Alfie couldn’t possibly have planned, counterplanned or even countercounterplanned* for. The Tut-tut-tut of Winnie’s moped going along the corridor…

  * * *

  *Made-up word ALERT

  * * *

  13

  Impro!

  Alfie belted past a sign that read:

  He was becoming breathless now, and a sense of panic was descending on him. How could he outrun a moped? Even one with a very heavy load? The noise of the bike’s engine was becoming louder and louder. Winnie was getting closer and closer. Alfie tiptoed to the central staircase, and hid behind the balustrade. From high up on the third floor, he looked down to see where she was heading…