"The Dentist" | Middle Grade Fiction

This is a story from a project in one of my college courses about Children's Literacy and entertainment where we had to adapt a fairy tale, fable, myth, etc., into a story for a specific demographic of readers. This is my Middle Grade adaptation of one of Aesop's fables called "The Seaside Travelers."

"The Dentist"

I freakin’ hate the dentist. Few things in life feel nearly as invasive as some wrinkly old guy who smells like generic brand soap poking around in my wide-open mouth with tools that may or may not include sharp or pointy ends. The best part for most kids my age is that this is only the warm-up. After that, it’s orthodontists and braces. Yeesh.

            As I stared at the big white board calendar on the dining room wall, I just couldn’t rip my eyes away from that dreaded circled number towards the end of the month. I had a dentist appointment that day. Big deal that it would get me out of school; I’d rather stay in class. That is just how much I absolutely loathe the dentist! And my inevitable fate approached, less than a week from today.

            It’s not just the practice of dentistry that gives me the creeps. It’s the dentist himself. Every kid has heard horror stories about the dentist in town, as well as the other two who work in his office. One was another old fellow with an ugly face and a huge, scraggly beard, who really needed to embrace his balding, and the third guy had the creepiest tone in his voice. And it wasn’t like he did it for effect, either. That was just how he normally talked. Like a whimpering, deep whisper that made it impossible to know what was going on with the guy. One kid said he likes to tell jokes to make kids more relaxed, but they’re the lamest jokes ever, on top of the fact that the way he spoke made him impossible to be funny. It’s like dentists are produced in some kind of lab and they pretend to be regular people.

            I had stared at my impending doom long enough; it was time to get to school. So, I hopped into Mom’s van, and she dropped me off. Before class began, kids would hang out in the cafeteria. There was a section for the fifth graders, the sixth, seventh, and eighth. I went to the table in the sixth-grade section my friends and I always sat at every morning to meet up with Benny and Tommy, a couple of the best friends a twelve-year-old can ask for.

            “Hey, Will!”

            “Jeez, man, you don’t look too good. What’s up?”

            I plopped into the seat next to Benny, who’d asked. “I have a dentist appointment coming up.”

            My friends made a hissing sound inhaling through their teeth in stereo.

            “Dude, last time I went in there, I had to get two cavities filled. Longest hour of my life,” Tommy said.

            “That’s nothing. Imagine laying there with half your mouth numb while Dr. Thimble rambles about recent studies of daily hygiene practices as he’s drilling in your mouth,” said Benny.

            “Is he the one who looks like one of those old lighthouse keepers?” Tommy asked.

            “No, he’s the one who can’t stand up straight with the weird voice,” Benny said. “I sure hope you don’t get that guy, Will.”

            Like I said, best friends a twelve-year-old can ask for.

            “Gee, thanks, guys,” I said with a gloomy monotone. “I feel so much better knowing my choices are creepy Doctor Thimble, a dirty lighthouse keeper, and the most sinister man in town.”

            All three of us shivered at the mention of him. “Dr. Crumb,” we all whispered.

            “I heard he pulled a kid’s entire tooth out without even numbing ‘em just to see if they could take it,” Benny said.

            “I heard he strapped a kid down to the table before working on them, even their head. That way they couldn’t squirm as he worked on them,” Tommy said.

            “That can’t be true,” I told them. “He’d get in trouble for something like that, right?”

            “Oh, no, Will. The evil-er the better,” Benny said. “That’s how parents like dentists! Dentists are for enacting whatever cruelty onto us that parents can’t commit themselves. Like a hitman, or a loan shark!”[MT1] 

            Tommy scoffed. “Don’t listen to him, Will. He’s an idiot.”

            Benny lightly punched Tommy’s arm, who ignored him entirely.

            “Although, Dr. Crumb’s office is the only one in town. So even if he was unpleasant, it’s not like we can go anywhere else.”

            I put my hands over my face, groaning. “Great. Thanks for pointing that out, Tommy.”

            The bell rang, and we went to class.

            The weekend came and went. My nights were restless, and I didn’t sleep well. I kept having dreams of being strapped to the dentist chair, facing an entire wall of torture devices that would be shoved into my mouth. Each night it was someone else. Either the lighthouse keeper, who always smelled like rotting fish, Dr. Thimble, who was part snake, or Dr. Crumb. Crumb’s wicked smile was burned into my brain. It was crooked and sinister, and his demented laugh echoed in my mind whenever he approached me with one of his various instruments of pain and suffering.

            “It can’t really be that bad, can it?” I asked the fellas. “I mean, the dentist is supposed to be good for you.” My voice was as feeble as Benny during gym class.

            “Will, broccoli is good for you,” Benny said. “Brussel sprouts are good for you. Spinach, Asparagus, cabbage is good for you –”

            “I like broccoli,” Tommy said.

            Benny glared at him. “Look, Will. Parents tell us things are good for us, but that’s just their attempt at maintaining control. I mean, if something is so good for us, how come it makes us miserable?”

            Tommy and I shared an unconvinced expression.

            “Think about that when your heads hit the pillows tonight, gentlemen.”

Benny was always a goof, but I think maybe he’s evolved to full-blown nut. Still, the amount of conviction he had with his theories did sometimes make me wonder. The bell rang, and we went to class.

            After school, Benny, Tommy, and I would walk home since we each lived a couple blocks apart. As we were walking, Benny shared some Earth-shattering news with us.

            “A new dentist?!”

            “Yeah! Stu said something about it,” Benny said.

            “Did Stu see them himself?” Tommy asked.

            “No, he said he overheard some seventh graders mention it in the hallway.”

            “Well, did they say anything else?” I asked. “Who is he? What is he like?”

“Sorry, Will. That’s all I know,” Benny said.

It was all too much to bear. “Aw, man, you’ve got to be kidding me! First, I have to come to grips with my imminent doom, and now there’s this new element of the unknown to worry about!” I was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk as the after-school traffic began to die down. “I mean, who knows what kind of monstrous, inhumane methods this new dentist will be bringing with him to steal the souls and teeth of children?”

“Nothing to get too worked up about just yet, Will,” Tommy said. “After all, maybe you won’t even see this new guy.”

“Yeah, maybe they’ll finish sucking your soul out without his help,” Benny snickered.

Tommy punched his arm, again. My anxiety rattled my body the rest of the walk home.

That night at dinner, I built up the nerve to ask my mom who my appointment was with.

“Actually, Doctor Jacobson is retiring soon,” she said. “So, the office just hired his replacement. I believe that’s who you’ll be seeing tomorrow morning, dear.”

My fork clattered on my plate, and my heart leaped into my throat. “TOMORROW MORNING?” My anxiety was now a full-blown panic.

“Oh, come now, William. You’ve known about this appointment for a month,” my mother said. She rarely got worked up by anything. One time I needed stitches after falling from a tree, and she never so much as raised her voice from the moment I fell to when we left the hospital. I wish I could have picked up that level-headedness.

I barely slept a wink that night. The lingering taste of mouth wash held a tight grip on my focus, refusing to let me think of anything other than the prison cell that awaited me tomorrow. If I ever did start to drift asleep, I would dream of having all my teeth rotting and falling out of my mouth, or evil Dr. Crumb poking and drilling and yanking. While the other two, Thimble and this new guy, apparently his name was Johnson, holding me down as Crumb gleefully sawed away inside my mouth.

I skipped breakfast, dressed myself, and was practically dragged into the car by my mom. The air conditioning wasn’t on, but I was shivering anyway. Walking up to the office doors through the parking lot, I noticed how sunny it was today. I’d always imagined it storming above the dentist office. Rolling black clouds, crashing lightning, rumbling thunder. Lucky start, I guess. Once we went inside, I went to sit in the waiting room while my mom walked up to the sign-in window.

“William Puttz to see Dr. Johnson.” The lady at the counter clacked on her keyboard for a moment before nodding to my mom. Then, Mom came and sat next to me.

            I was sitting on my hands, jaw clinched, my shoulders shrugged so tightly they were almost touching my ears. My mother patted my leg and told me to relax. I unlocked my jaw and dropped my shoulders, but my eyes began darting around, looking for some kind of distraction, where none was to be found. Those minutes in the waiting room feel agonizingly long, but also never long enough.

            Finally, someone opened the door into the back. “William?”

            It was a woman. Not some old crone or a grandma, cat-lady-type, but a young woman. Younger than my mom, at least. She had yellow hair that was pulled back, soft, angelic features, and I swear to you, her smile might have actually – literally – glowed. My mom had to nudge me before I realized she said my name. I got up, and drifted toward the young woman, following her back, into the office.

            It was then that I saw my chair. It looked nothing like a torture rack, there were no straps or cuffs or chains. Just a cushioned seat with a light hanging over it. When I sat down, I sunk a bit into the leathery chair, and found it quite comfortable.

            “Hey there, William! My name is Amy, and I’ll be checking out your teeth today.” She carried on saying something, but instead of paying attention, I was just looking at her. Then my eyes caught a framed certificate on the wall.

            It read: “Amy Johnson – Certification of Dentistry”

            I blinked twice. She was the new dentist!

            “Okay! So, you ready to get started?”

            I snapped back into reality as she asked me the question. I nodded and leaned back.

She adjusted the light above me. “Let me know if this is shining in your eyes, okay?” She turned it on and slid it down a bit closer to me. It wasn’t searing my vision away like I anticipated. She then reached over to the little table with tools, and I clamped my eyes shut.

“Don’t worry. When I was your age, I wasn’t crazy about the dentist either,” Amy told me. “That’s part of why I decided to become one. I want to make sure you’re as comfortable as you can be, okay?”

Was she for real? My furrowed brow and suspicious glance must have betrayed my attempts to conceal my doubts.

She caught my eyes dart over to the silver tray beside me. With all her instruments of torture just beckoning to me, taunting me with their imminence. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about them,” she said. “We’re going to numb your gums a bit so that, hopefully, you won’t feel a thing.”

“While you’re doing what?” I dared to ask, immediately regretting it. Like I wanted to know!

“Well, first we’re going to take a peak inside,” she said. “After that, we’ll give you a routine cleaning, and see whatever else it is we need to do to take care of you and help you keep your teeth nice and healthy.” She then produced a little tool with a circular mirror and a nasty-looking hook tool with a sharp and pokey end on the opposite side.

I nearly recoiled like a cat, arching its back and hissing, flashing its teeth in a defensive, threatening display. But my mom had scolded me about behaving myself when we were in the car, so instead, I sort of squirmed sightly like a pathetic worm, trapped in the confines of this dentist chair.

“It’s okay, I’m just going to look around,” Amy claimed. “Just lean back and relax and open wide for me, okay?”

I debated with myself internally for what felt like forever about which path would result in a less painful demise: go down fighting, with dignity, or to meagerly submit to my fate. With my mother’s voice still freshly echoing in my head, I sort of shamefully complied.

I felt the little metal tools sort of prodding around in my mouth, occasionally poking at a tooth here and there. Each time, I had to tightly clench the arm rests of my chair so I didn’t move any muscles in or around my mouth. But I nearly melted into a puddle when she told me she found a cavity, and that she was going to give me a filling.

A filling of what? Was she going to forcibly yank my tooth out and replace it with a fake one, stabbing it into the space in my gums left behind? Was she going to take some kind of sealant and fill my mouth with it and suffocate me?

I barely had any time to ponder these nightmares before Amy turned around, then faced me again, this time armed with a syringe. “This is the part where we’re going to numb you up, okay?” she told me.

I clenched my eyes tightly shut, or else I wouldn’t have been able to take my eyes off that dreadful needle.

“Oh, I know,” Amy said, as if looking at a frightened little puppy, which almost brought a defiant anger out of me, but that reaction was nowhere near as strong as my realization that I was just as helpless. “Don’t worry, you’re only going to feel a bit of a pinch,” she said.

She was right about that part. It wasn’t great, but, honestly, it went away just as fast as it hit me. I kind of squinted one eye open, as if looking around and asking, “That’s it?”

“I’m going to give that about ten minutes to work it’s magic, and then we’ll get to work,” she said before leaving the room.

I sighed heavily, finally released all the air trapped in my chest. I hadn’t realized how little I’d allowed myself to breathe. So far so good, I guess.

I couldn’t really tell any difference by the time Amy came back. But when she did, she kind of poked at my lips and rubbed something on my teeth with a gloved fingertip, asking if I could feel any of it. I shook my head, forgetting that I probably shouldn’t do that while she’s literally in my mouth.

“Be careful not to do that once we get started,” Amy joked.

I almost laughed, if I weren’t still so nervous.

But finally, the prelims were over. It was the main event. In one corner, me. Numbed up and scared stiff. In the other, the eerily high-pitched whirring of that tiny, evil little drill.

“Don’t worry, it only sounds scary,” Amy said. “I promise you that I’m going to be extra careful, okay?”

I supposed she hasn’t given me reason not to trust her up to this point. As she leaned over me, the light shining in my eyes, I pinched them shut again before the drill made its way near my mouth. I tried my hardest to think happy thoughts. Heck, any thoughts besides the ones that had dominated my mind for the past several days. I didn’t dare replay any of the conversations I’d had with my incredibly helpful friends. Honestly? I don’t even remember what happened after that. I just remember when Amy finally said it was over.

I was so relieved. Even as she went through the whole process of filling the cavity, I realized that, other than the sensation that she was using the tools in my mouth, I didn’t really feel a thing.

As my mom and I walked out the door once I was done, and I waved goodbye to Amy, it finally dawned on me how much time I had spent worrying about something that ended up not being nearly as horrifying or painful as I had imagined it would be. I was so certain the experience would be a grueling and miserable one, it had never occurred to me to consider the possibility that it could be anything else.

“See? Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” My mom asked me as we got in the car.

I shook my head. “When’s the next time I’ve got to come in?”

“Typically, it’s every six months, dear.”

I looked at the office doors in the rear-view mirror, and I smiled as much as my slightly numbed lips could. “That’s not so bad.”