Demon Dentist Page 6

  “Plank to base. I require urgent backup. Repeat. Urgent backup. Am knackered. Repeat. Knackered. And can you pick me up a bag of ready salted crisps on the way? Repeat. Ready salted crisps. Urgent. Over.”

  Alfie carried on running. He didn’t know where to. He just had to run. Racing around the corner, Alfie saw a street with a rather sad- looking parade of shops ahead of him. Most of the shops had long since closed and been boarded up.

  Sirens squealed.

  Plank’s backup from the police station had arrived. In an instant two police cars swerved into the middle of the road and screeched to a halt, blocking his way. The officers leaped out of their cars and took cover behind the bonnets. One of them spoke through a loud-hailer.

  “Give yourself up, boy! You have nowhere to run to…”

  “Did you pick me up some ready salted crisps?!” Plank radioed through to them.

  “Negative!” came the crackled reply on Plank’s radio. “No more ready salted left. We got you cheese and onion! Over.”

  “I don’t like cheese and onion,” replied Plank. “Repeat. Negative on the cheese and onion crisps. Over.”

  Alfie looked behind him. He couldn’t go backwards. He couldn’t go forwards. There was nowhere left to run to. Winnie smiled and smacked her lips. A smug grin surfaced on her face.

  “You, boy, is going to the dentist!”

  She had won. Or had she…?

  Suddenly Alfie heard a creak. His eyes darted towards the parade of shops. A door was slowly opening, and a long thin hand emerged and beckoned him inside. It was his only chance of escape. Without hesitating he scurried towards it, crept through, and then slammed the door behind him. Outside he could hear the commotion of people rushing towards the door, before Winnie’s voice announced, “No! It’s OK! Leave him now!”

  There was something deeply unnerving about all this. Why did they not follow him inside? It was all too easy.

  As quickly as the hand had appeared, it had disappeared. Its owner was now nowhere to be seen. Directly ahead of Alfie was a narrow flight of steps. Tentatively he approached them. At the top of the stairs another door opened. Again the hand appeared, slowly beckoning him to follow.

  Now he could see the long thin fingers more closely, they seemed almost too long to be human. A terrible fear descended upon Alfie, but try as he might to stop himself his body kept climbing the steps. One by one, until he reached the door at the top. Alfie’s heart was beating faster now than when he was running. His mouth was as dry as a desert. Slowly he entered the room.

  A circle of blazing white light shone towards him. Brighter and hotter than the sun. Blinking, Alfie could just about make out a figure. It was a woman. With hair the shape of a Mr Whippy ice cream. The light behind her was so dazzling that he couldn’t see any more than her outline.

  “Hello, Alfie,” came that familiar voice in its singsong tone. “I’ve been expecting you…”

  17

  Come to Mummy

  Without Alfie even touching the handle, the door shut slowly and firmly behind him. There was the sound of a key being turned. Somehow he was locked in.

  “How splendid! Two pm precisely! You are right on time for your appointment. Come on in…”

  Miss Root’s voice had a hypnotic quality to it. As much as Alfie knew in his mind he should run away, his legs propelled him forward. He was moving slowly and surely towards her.

  “Come to Mummy…” she whispered.

  As he drew closer, he could see the source of bright light was a vast Anglepoise lamp. Now Alfie was standing in her shadow he could make out Miss Root more clearly. Looking up at her, the first thing he noticed were her huge gleaming white teeth. As big as the ivory keys on a grand piano. Next he noticed her eyes. Those eyes. Those black eyes. Those eyes so black that it seemed if you gazed into them too deeply, you would see your own death.

  Then Alfie could feel his body gliding over to the dentist’s chair.

  It looked ancient, like an antique.

  “Don’t worry, young Alfie, Mummy promises to be gentle with you…”

  As Alfie found himself sitting on the chair, it tilted back into position. He glanced down to one side. There was her trolley again, this time crowded with a staggering array of dental tools. Many were rusted, with old blackened wooden handles. Some had flecks of blood encrusted on them. They looked more like things you would find in a museum of medieval torture than a modern dental surgery.

  There were ones with short spikes and ones with long spikes. There were chisels. Hammers. Pliers. One that looked like a giant corkscrew. Even a baby hacksaw. Stretched out at the end of the line, taking pride of place, was a huge and malevolent drill.

  Not one of these tools looked designed to relieve pain. They all looked like they would cause it. In heart-stoppingly* eye-wateringly* bum-clenchingly* measure.

  * * *

  *Made-up word ALERT

  *Made-up word ALERT

  *Made-up word ALERT

  * * *

  Alfie’s eyes darted around the room. The surgery was quite bare. A dental certificate took pride of place on the wall, but the paper and the writing looked like they could be hundreds of years old.

  Pristine medicine cabinets lined the surgery, most holding tubes of Miss Root’s highly toxic toothpaste.

  In the corner of the room was a long shiny grey metal cylinder, no doubt containing nitrous oxide or ‘laughing gas’, often used by dentists on their patients to take away the pain. Curiously, on the dial was what looked like a speedometer. It read:

  The surgery windows were all painted black, so no one could see in or out.

  Alfie was startled, then looked down to see that a silky white cat had snaked into the surgery. It hissed in the boy’s direction, its back arched and tail up, pink padded feet pitter-patting into the room.

  “Oh, don’t mind Fang… She’s just being friendly. Now relax, child. Let Mummy take good care of you…” incanted the dentist. Miss Root pulled a lever somewhere behind the headrest of the reclining chair. In an instant, metal cuffs emerged, holding Alfie’s hands and feet in place.

  “Don’t you worry, child. These are just for your own safety. So you don’t lash out…!”

  Smiling, Miss Root dressed her hands in latex gloves. She took her time, enjoying the ritual of smoothing the glove over each long thin finger. Next, she picked up some notes from a bloodstained cardboard folder.

  “Now, Alfie, I see your last visit to the dentist was six long years ago… Tut tut tut…”

  Miss Root put the folder back down and pulled the lamp close to the boy’s face. It was so hot it felt like fire.

  “Open wide, there’s a good boy…”

  The dentist’s eyes were now staring deep into Alfie’s. As much as he wanted to cry out, he couldn’t. Resistance was futile. Those black eyes of hers were spellbinding. It was as if they had him in a trance.

  With his mouth dry with fear, the dentist’s latex gloves squeaked as she traced her index fingers over the tops of his teeth. Now Alfie could feel Miss Root’s cold breath on his face, as she leaned closer to peer into his mouth. “Tartar, decay, plaque, gum disease. Heavenly. Absolutely heavenly…!”

  Alfie heard the ancient instruments clink clank together as one was selected.

  “Now Mummy’s just going to check for any cavities,” she continued.

  Miss Root picked out a particularly evil-looking instrument. It was more like a spear than a dentist’s implement, with a series of sharp prongs, each one wider than the next. It looked like it was designed to create intense pain as it entered the tooth, and even more coming out.

  “Don’t worry, Alfie, you won’t feel a thing…” singsonged Miss Root.

  She guided the tool inside his trembling mouth, before plunging it into a tooth.

  “Mmm… Lots of lovely decay in this tooth… What a find you are!”

  Slowly the dentist pulled the instrument out of the boy’s tooth, twisting it sharply as she did so. Inside hi
s head he screamed with pain, but no sound came out of his mouth.

  Clink clank. The tool was put back on the trolley.

  Clink clank. A new one was selected.

  Now it was the turn of the pliers to assist in the torture, their metal jaws impossibly sharp and jagged.

  “Now hold still, Alfie…” whispered Miss Root, as she steered the pliers slowly into his mouth. The jaws locked on to his tooth. “Mummy won’t hurt you…”

  She tugged the instrument sharply. Alfie could feel something coming away inside his mouth. Then through a thick film of tears, he saw the dentist brandish a bloody tooth in front of his eyes…

  “Look at it!” she urged. “To you, it’s just a tooth. To me, it’s like a diamond. Its very imperfections make it perfect. It’s beautiful.”

  Then she called out to her white cat. “Fang…?”

  The animal leaped up from the floor and landed on Alfie’s stomach, her sharp claws digging into him. The cat began to lick the tooth clean of the blood that was now dripping down her mistress’s wrist.

  “Now relax, Alfie,” said Miss Root in her jolly tone. “Mummy’s only just begun…!”

  18

  Gurning Champion

  Alfie must have passed out.

  His eyes were closed.

  Perhaps this was a dream.

  He opened his eyes.

  At first all he could see were patterns. Colours and shapes. After a few moments, Alfie realised he was staring at the ceiling. These colours and shapes were in fact sprays of blood. Some looked very fresh, still wet and glistening. Some looked brown and flaky, like they had dried there years before.

  This was no dream.

  Alfie realised he was still lying on the dentist’s antique chair. He must have been lying there quite a while, and his back was hot and clammy with sweat. Behind him, somewhere out of view, he could hear that singsong voice again. This time it was counting…

  “…eighteen, nineteen, twenty…”

  What was she counting? With each number he heard something small and solid like a stone being dropped into a metal dish.

  “Twenty-one!”

  The final number was spoken with a particular flourish. Again there was a chinking sound of something hitting metal.

  Twenty-one what? thought Alfie.

  He could feel that there was something different about himself, but he couldn’t quite work out what. He started with his toes. He wiggled them. From there he moved up his body.

  Then he moved his tongue around his mouth. Somehow it felt much larger now. Smooth too. Alfie traced his tongue into the furthest corners of his mouth. He could swear he could feel holes. Great big holes that seemed the size of caves.

  It was then that Alfie realised.

  He had no teeth.

  The metal cuffs that had been holding his ankles and wrists had retracted back into the seat. The boy leaped up, and banged his head on the huge hot lamp that had been hovering over his mouth earlier. Swinging his legs round he jumped to the floor.

  On the trolley sat a dirty old cracked mirror. He grabbed it and held it up to his face. Alfie was sure the dentist was behind him, but she was nowhere to be seen in the mirror’s reflection. Opening his mouth slowly, he could see only darkness inside. His gums were bare, and swollen. The only future for him now, he found himself thinking, was that of a gurning champion. (Gurning is the ancient art of pulling stupid faces. Champion gurners often have no teeth, even have them removed, to make their features easier to manoeuvre.)

  Alfie moved his face in front of the mirror. In horror, he discovered he could now easily look like…

  A fish.

  An old lady who has swallowed a fly.

  A man who is sucking his own nose.

  A walnut.

  A puppet.

  A frog puckering up for a snog.

  “Woken up now, have we…?” said Miss Root brightly. From a corner of the room, she turned to face him, her huge teeth glinting.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY TEETH?” shouted Alfie. Well, that’s what he tried to say. It actually came out as:

  “WHA HA OOH DO IV MMM TE?”

  “I’m sorry…?”

  Alfie tried again.

  “WHA A OOOOOH DOOO IVA MA TEE!”

  “I’m terribly sorry, child, I didn’t understand a word of that. Is something the matter…?”

  “OV CAU SOMMON I VE MAA-AAA!” yelled the boy. “OOV TADEN OU AH OV MA TEE!”

  “I still can’t understand a single word you are saying! Would you mind writing it down here for Mummy…?”

  The dentist passed him a pile of appointment cards and a pen. He wrote furiously on one.

  WHAT YOU DONE WITH MY TEETH

  it read. The letters were large and pointed and angry.

  Miss Root studied it for a while.

  “Mmm, I think what you are trying to ask Mummy is, ‘What HAVE you done with my teeth?’”

  Alfie was fuming now. He was sure Miss Root knew full well what he meant. This was just another of her ways to slowly torture him.

  “WHA HHAA OOH DOOOO IV MA TEEEE EEEEEEEEE!!!!!”

  “Please don’t use that tone with Mummy…”

  Alfie was staring the lady right in the eyes now. She held his gaze. And glared back. The pupils in her eyes shone black. On second look, they were blacker than coal. Blacker than oil. Blacker than night. Blacker than the blackest black.

  In short, they were black.

  “…so what have I done with your teeth…?”

  Alfie nodded his head up and down, each nod more enraged than the last. Fang was sat on top of Miss Root’s trolley, and now she started hissing in short sharp bursts as if she was laughing at him.

  “Hiss…hiss…hiss…”

  “Not to worry, child, Mummy’s kept them safe for you. All the little beauties are in here…”

  With that she carefully lifted a little metal dish up to Alfie’s ear and rattled it gently. The noise made her face light up with joy.

  Alfie peered inside. There were his teeth. Every last one. All sadly piled on top of each other. Admittedly, they didn’t look at all healthy. The years of missing dental appointments had taken their toll. They were all stained brown from too many sweets and fizzy drinks. However, did the dentist really need to remove every single one…?

  Alfie finally realised what she had been counting. His teeth.

  (A twelve-year-old boy is meant to have around twenty-four teeth, but Alfie had less than that. Mr Erstwhile, the old dentist who died mysteriously, took one out all those years ago. And after that one or two had fallen out.)

  “WHA YO GOOIN DO?”

  “Would you mind awfully writing it down again for Mummy…?”

  Miss Root gestured once again towards the pad of appointment slips.

  Once more Alfie scribbled furiously.

  WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

  he wrote. The dentist studied the piece of paper for a moment. “Is that a ‘G’ or a ‘Y’?”

  Alfie growled at her.

  Miss Root read the sentence out loud. “‘What are you going to do?’ Mummy’s got it right, hasn’t she…?”

  Alfie nodded, and Miss Root furrowed her brow in thought. “Well, normally at the end of any appointment I would come out with the normal dentist’s spiel… come and see me in another six months, don’t forget to floss, think about investing in an electric toothbrush, blah blah blah… But there’s no need for you to do any of that, Alfie. You see, you don’t have any teeth any more, and they are never ever growing back.” With that the dentist guided the poor toothless boy out of the room, before adding cheerily, “Good day!”

  19

  Frozen Paper

  Alfie was lost. He knew where he was, but he didn’t know where he should go.

  Home? He didn’t want Dad to see him like this. It would upset him too much.

  School? This could be a brutal enough place at the best of times. The boy with no teeth? That’s what he would become. Forever. Ha
ving a brace or big front teeth that made you look like a bunny rabbit was bad enough.

  Alfie realised there was only one place to go…

  DING!

  The bell at the top of the door of Raj’s newsagent’s rang as the boy entered the shop. It served to alert the shopkeeper that a customer was either coming or going. Also it woke Raj up. He was a big, soft, marshmallow of a man, and although he loved selling sweets, he loved eating them even more. After the rush of sugar following a mid-afternoon scoffing session, he would often fall asleep at his counter.

  Indeed, when Alfie entered this particular afternoon, Raj was snoring away with a gobstopper still in his mouth. A slick of the newsagent’s spit was spreading over the newspapers. Raj woke up with a start, spat out his sweet and exclaimed:

  “Ah, young Alfred! My favourite customer!”

  His voice was as bright and colourful as the confectionery he sold.

  Alfie always looked forward to seeing Raj. The newsagent knew how poor he and his dad were, and being a kind-hearted man he would often give Alfie a treat to take home. A melted ice lolly, a chocolate bar that had been slightly nibbled by a rodent, or a bag of jelly babies that Raj had accidentally sat on so all the tiny tots were now flattened. Raj wasn’t a wealthy man, and couldn’t afford to give anything more. But to Alfie and his father they were like gifts sent from heaven, and the difference between going to bed hungry or not.

  Entering Raj’s shop today, the boy couldn’t even force a smile.

  “You are very quiet this afternoon, young man,” mused the shopkeeper. Squinting his eyes, he took a better look at his favourite customer. In truth, Raj had a lot of ‘favourite’ customers, but calling them all that made them feel special. “There is something very different about you today…”