by Annie Tipton
“Here we are—dessert forks!” EJ panicked at Cady’s sudden appearance and she tossed the flower in her mouth to get rid of the evidence. “Enjoy!”
Mom and Mrs. Winkle dug into their cake samples and immediately began raving about the dessert’s “perfect texture” and “just right amount of sweetness” and “divine flavor.”
“Aren’t you going to try it, sweetie?” Mom peered at EJ. “I thought you were looking forward to the cake testing.”
“Imnohungee.” EJ’s attempt to talk around the sugar flower was a failure.
“Are you okay, EJ?” Mrs. Winkle looked concerned. “Your speech is garbled.”
EJ had a choice to make: spit out the flower and deal with the consequences of taking it without asking or….
Crunch, crunch. The sugar flower was so rock-hard that EJ thought that must be what it would be like to chew on gravel. Just chew a few more times and you’ll be able to swallow it, EJ coached herself.
Crunch, crunch, CRACK! The sound vibrated in EJ’s head. But what caused it? Finally, mercifully, she was able to swallow the flower.
Cady’s eyes grew as she pointed to the spot where the rose was missing. “EJ, did you eat one of the flowers?”
EJ couldn’t think of a way out of this one, so she nodded. “Yesh.” Yesh? What was that? “I’m shorry, it jusht looked sho nishe.” Why was she talking like a weirdo?
“Emma Jean Payne!” Mom meant business, but her eyes had a mix of surprise, horror, and … amusement? “You chipped a tooth on a stolen sugar flower!”
A chipped tooth! Immediately her tongue found the problem—part of her front tooth was gone! Her hand flew to cover her mouth. Why hadn’t she just admitted she took it?
“EJ, those flowers are made of sugar, but you’re not really supposed to eat them!” Cady looked horrified. “This is my fault. I should’ve warned you.”
“Oh, EJ, only you.” Mom smiled weakly. “Guess it’s time to call the dentist.”
Chapter 9
WHISTLER’S BROTHER
March 30
Dear Diary,
This chipped tooth is pretty much the most embarrassing thing ever. Not only do I look completely silly, but every s out of my mouth comes with a high-pitched whistle. I’ve tried whispering. I’ve tried talking with my lips curled around my teeth (making me look like a toothless old lady). I’ve even tried speaking out of the side of my mouth, but the only remedy for keeping my chipped-tooth whistle silent is not to talk.
Not talking is nearly impossible for me, Diary. So when Mom called our dentist, Dr. Molnar, to make an appointment to get my tooth fixed, I was relieved to hear they had an opening first thing Monday morning. In fact, I was so happy I didn’t have to whistle my way through school that I didn’t mind (much) that Isaac is going along for a teeth cleaning, too.
I loved going to the dentist when I was little, Diary. They give you bubblegum-flavored fluoride, your very own pack of sugar-fee gum, a brand-new toothbrush and floss, and a sticker with a smiling cartoon tooth. But then you turn seven, develop a love for gummy bears, and forget to brush your teeth once too often, get your first cavity, and WHAMMO! The medieval torture tools come out! After experiencing the drill, I can’t even imagine what kinds of crazy tools Dr. Molnar will use to fix a busted tooth like mine.
Last night I had a dream that I went to the dentist and Dr. Molnar pulled out all my teeth and gave me a set of dentures to wear! When I woke up, all my teeth felt loose until I wiggled each one and confirmed they were all still solidly attached to my gums. Dad assures me that the dentist will fix my tooth and not just pull it out and make me wear a fake one. I hope he’s right, Diary. Mr. Johnson wears dentures, and I love the guy, but his teeth sometimes look like Chiclets—you know, those square pieces of white gum that you can buy at the grocery store checkout?
EJ
“Hey, EJ.” Isaac twisted in his car seat toward his sister. “Guess what.”
EJ lifted her hands palms up and shrugged her shoulders in a wordless, “What?”
“No, you have to guess!” EJ knew Isaac just wanted her to talk so he could hear her tooth whistle, but she wasn’t planning to make another peep until her tooth was fixed, if she could help it. EJ made the zipped-lip motion across her mouth, locked it with an imaginary key, and pretended to throw it out of the minivan window.
“Oh, you’re no fun.” Isaac crossed his arms and faced the front of the minivan as Dad drove them through Spooner to the dentist office on the other side of town. “If I had a sweet whistle like yours, I’d learn how to whistle a tune with it. And I’d say as many s words as I could. I would read the s section from the dictionary! From the encyclopedia! From Wikipedia!”
Dad flipped the turn signal and turned right at a stop sign. “Isaac, did you brush your teeth before we left the house?”
“Why would I brush my teeth?” Isaac looked at Dad like he was crazy. “That’s what I’m going to the dentist for, right? He’s going to clean my teeth.”
“Ishaac!” EJ couldn’t stay silent, whistling tooth or not. “You can’t go to the dentisht with dirty teeth and dishgushting bad breath! What will Dr. Molnar think?”
“Dr. Molnar will be laughing so hard at my dentist joke that he won’t even notice my dirty teeth,” Isaac said. “Dad, I’ve got a joke for you. What time is a dentist’s favorite time?”
Another new joke? Isaac was really branching out in his comedy.
“I give up,” Dad said, glancing in the rearview mirror at his son.
“Tooth hurty.” Isaac laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his life. Dad chuckled and shook his head. EJ just rolled her eyes. “Get it, EJ? Two thirty—tooth hurty?”
Back to the not-talking thing, EJ gave Isaac a thumbs-up and a sarcastic smile. She couldn’t wait to get this dentist appointment over with so she could go to school and have a few hours away from the Space Invader.
EJ sat partially reclined in the dental chair. She felt her heart beating faster than normal and tried to calm her nerves by taking deep, even breaths. She closed her eyes and willed herself to start a daydream.
But all she saw was the back of her eyelids. Why was it that she could easily slip into her imagination when she wasn’t supposed to, but when she really could use a daydream, she couldn’t start one? She opened her eyes and looked around the exam area for some inspiration: a box of latex gloves, a glass jar of cotton squares, a tray laid with dental instruments. Nothing looked remotely interesting until an oil painting on the wall caught her attention—a beautiful landscape of a calm body of water that reminded her of the lake at Camp Christian….
The morning sun’s first rays spill over the horizon as EJ paddles her kayak to the middle of the peaceful lake. The blades of her oar make tiny circular ripples each time she dips an end into the water and pulls the water past her. Her sleek kayak moves easily through the still water. In the distance, a bird chirps a happy morning tune and water bugs flit across the glassy surface of the lake.
EJ leans back against the kayak’s seat and fills her lungs with the crisp morning air. Calm, serene … wet!
A spray of water hits EJ square in the face.
“Bulls-eye!”
Sputtering and wiping the water away with her T-shirt sleeve, EJ sat bolt upright in the chair, rudely yanked from her short daydream distraction.
“Ishaac!” EJ had almost forgotten about her broken-tooth whistle. “Get losht!”
Isaac gripped the dental water sprayer in his hand like a gun, aiming right at EJ. “Reach for the sky,” Isaac said, using his best cowboy drawl. “I’m the sheriff in these here parts, and we don’t take kindly to no daydreamin’.”
EJ lunged to grab the sprayer, but Isaac pulled it out of her reach and set it back in its holder, turning just in time to put on his very best innocent face as Dr. Molnar entered the exam room.
“Ah, I see my assistant is here already,” the short, bald, smiley dentist said. Isaac was the only other person in th
e room other than EJ. Surely Dr. Molnar didn’t mean…. “Ready to get started, Isaac?”
“I think you’re going to be extremely happy with the results of our work, Miss Payne.” Isaac, dressed in blue scrubs, glances up at EJ from the clipboard in his hand. “My assistance to Dr. Molnar was very helpful.”
EJ holds up a hand mirror and smiles widely to survey the results of the dental procedure. She gasps and immediately clamps her mouth shut at the sight of her teeth.
“I suggested that we could improve your teeth by sharpening each one to a razor-edged point, just like the teeth of a T-Rex,” Isaac says. “And Dr. Molnar said that was the very best idea he’d ever heard in his life.”
“But I don’t want T-Rex teeth!”
“Whoshe idea wash it to make Ishaac the dental asshishtant?” EJ demanded, glaring at Isaac. “Why aren’t you in the waiting room with Dad?”
“Don’t worry, EJ, I’m still in charge,” Dr. Molnar said, trying to hide a smile at EJ’s tooth whistle. “Your dad had a couple of errands to run, and Isaac has certain skills that I think will come in handy in the procedure today.” EJ found that very hard to believe. “Isaac, here’s the book you’ll need.” Isaac took the small paperback from Dr. Molnar and sat on the foot of EJ’s dental chair, grinning at her.
EJ gave Isaac a look that said, “You’d better not mess this up, kid” and nervously bit the corner of her mouth as Dr. Molnar snapped on a pair of gloves and a mask and readied the items on the tray.
“All right, EJ.” Even though EJ couldn’t see Dr. Molnar’s mouth behind the mask, she could tell by his eyes that he was still smiling. “Open wide.”
EJ opened her mouth and winced a bit as she heard the unmistakable zizzzz of a dental instrument. This one sounded different than the piercing sound of a high-speed cavity drill. No, it sounded lower—more like a grinder.
“It’s not going to hurt; it’ll just feel a little strange,” Dr. Molnar assured her, but she gripped the chair’s armrests all the same. EJ’s eyes went a little crossed as she watched the dentist bring the small, rotating disc toward her broken tooth.
Dear God, EJ fervently prayed, please let this not hurt. I’m sorry I took the sugar flower without asking, and I promise I’ll never take anything that isn’t mine again, and I’m definitely not putting anything in my mouth without finding out if it’s safe to eat first!
Zizzzzzzggggrrrrr. Dr. Molnar hummed a nameless song as the grinder made contact with EJ’s tooth. She dug her fingernails straight into the chair’s armrest, wondering if she was actually making holes in the plastic covering.
“Hey, EJ.” EJ’s eyes darted toward her feet, where she had almost forgotten Isaac sat. Up on his knees, he held open the book titled 101 Punny Jokes for Dentists. “What do you call a dentist who doesn’t like tea?”
EJ’s eyes shifted to Dr. Molnar, expecting him to tell Isaac to sit down and behave (or maybe even to go out into the waiting room), but instead the dentist kept intently working on EJ’s tooth and said simply, “Oh, that’s a good one. EJ, you’ll like this one.”
What kind of a weird upside-down world was this that Dr. Molnar’s “assistant” was a six-year-old spaz whose main purpose was to distract the dentist with corny jokes?
“EJ, do you know the answer?” Isaac sat up taller on his knees so he was sure EJ could see him. “What do you call a dentist who doesn’t like tea?”
“Ionknow.” EJ shrugged, giving up trying to figure out what was really going on.
“Denis!” Isaac laughed and rolled off the end of the chair and onto the floor, overcome by the hilarity of the joke. Dr. Molnar returned the grinder to its spot on the tray and sat back in his chair as he belly-laughed. After several seconds, Isaac caught his breath and said, “Do you get it, EJ? Denis is dentist without t!”
“Hilarioush.” EJ did enjoy a good spelling joke now and then, but she didn’t feel like laughing.
“There now, EJ, you’ve made it through the toughest part of the tooth restoration.” Dr. Molnar pulled the mask away from his mouth so he could talk easier. “Isaac, you did a fantastic job keeping your sister’s mind off of what was happening.”
So that’s what was going on. Even though EJ felt a little tricked, she had to admit that Isaac’s distraction had worked pretty well.
“Do I get a paycheck for my fantastic job as your assistant?” Isaac’s face was hopeful.
“How about I give you a checkup and a teeth cleaning?” Dr. Molnar counter-offered. “And then your dad can pay for it.”
“Will you throw in a big, round sticker with a cartoon tooth on it?” Isaac was playing hardball.
“Deal.” Dr. Molnar and Isaac shook on it.
A half hour later, EJ’s tooth was completely restored to its pre-chipped glory. (EJ even thought the new part of the tooth might be a little straighter than the old one.) She sat in a plastic chair in the corner of the room reading a book about dental history, and Isaac was in the reclining chair, Dr. Molnar giving him a checkup.
“Whoa, Dr. Molnar, it says here that in the 1800s, some barbers were the first dentists in the Old West.” EJ held up the book to show the illustration. “A customer would come in with tooth pain, and the barber would pull a tooth for a small fee.”
“And then talk him into getting a trim and a shave while he was already in the chair,” Dr. Molnar said. “Isaac, can I interest you in a haircut?”
“No thank you, but I think I’m due for a shave.” Isaac rubbed his chin the same way Dad did when he was whiskery.
EJ and Dr. Molnar laughed, and the dentist swiveled in his chair to review Isaac’s dental X-ray. EJ returned to her book.
“Hey, Isaac-man, I’ve got a joke for you,” Dr. Molnar said a minute later, jotting a note on Isaac’s patient file. “What did the dentist say to the golfer?”
“Oh! I remember that one from the book,” Isaac said. “He said, ‘You have a hole in one!’ ”
Isaac erupted in laughter, and EJ chuckled. Dr. Molnar smiled, but he looked a little sad at the same time.
“Isaac, you have a hole in one.” Isaac stopped laughing and looked at the dentist. “You have your first cavity.”
Isaac’s eyes got wide, and he took a deep breath. “So what you’re saying is that you’re going to have to pull all of my teeth, right?”
“No, Isaac, this isn’t 1832!” EJ was amazed at her brother’s ignorance. “Dr. Molnar will fix it with a filling!”
Isaac visibly relaxed with this news.
“Normally you’d need to come back again for another appointment, but I have an opening, so we can take care of this right now,” Dr. Molnar said. “Are you ready, Isaac?”
Isaac nodded, and the dentist pushed a pedal on the floor that made the chair recline all the way back.
Dr. Molnar placed a small rubber mask over Isaac’s nose, hooked it to a tube that led to a canister under the counter, and instructed Isaac to breathe through his nose.
“You’re breathing in nitrous oxide,” Dr. Molnar explained. “This stuff is better for kids’ cavities than Novocain shots. It takes a few minutes to start working, so I’ll be back in just a bit. Make sure he stays there, breathing the laughing gas, EJ.”
Dr. Molnar shut the door softly behind him.
“Did he say laughing gas?” The mask made Isaac sound a little like he was pinching his nose when he talked. “Is this going to be like Uncle Albert on Mary Poppins? This stuff makes me laugh and then I float up into the air?”
EJ secretly wished that were the case. “I don’t think so, Isaac.”
Isaac closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing through his nose. A minute later, his eyelids fluttered open slightly, and he looked sidelong at EJ through half-closed lids.
“Hey, EJ, remember at family camp when we pretended that I was a dolphin and you were a dolphin trainer?” Isaac didn’t stop to let EJ reply. “Or the time that you cut the bald spot on my head? Hey, remember when we shoveled snow off of Mr. Johnson’s driveway with Dad—wh
en we were still really afraid of him? Oh, and that time that you were the Christmas angel and got to be in the harness and fly in the pageant? Man, that was so cool.” Isaac slumped back in the chair, and EJ could tell that the nitrous oxide was starting to take effect.
“Yeah, those are pretty great memories, Isaac.” EJ set the book aside and scooted her chair closer to Isaac’s, wondering what he’d say next.
“Oh! EJ! Code Christmas, when we gave Christmas to the McCallisters in secret!” Isaac looked around the room to make sure nobody was listening, and continued, whispering, “That was the best night ever. You know what, EJ? You have the best ideas.”
“Thanks.” Isaac had never really said such nice things about EJ before. It must’ve been the laughing gas talking, right?
“And remember last summer during the swing set switcharoo, we built the tree house? And remember when we pretended to break out of jail? And then we went to camp together.” Isaac giggled. “And that was the best day ever—when I got to go to camp with you.”
EJ was going to correct Isaac that they didn’t technically go to camp together. She was there all week, and he came for day camp. But he seemed to be having such a great time walking down memory lane that she decided to let his laughing-gassed brain remember what it wanted to remember.
“You know how you’ve been giving me Oreos, EJ? I love Oreos.” Isaac smiled a loopy smile and mimed eating a pretend Oreo. “But those worms that we pretended you ate were almost as gross as the squash Mom tried to feed us. And—EW, GROSS!—Faith liked it!” Isaac was veering off the path of sanity and getting louder and sillier by the second. “Oohh, EJ—I feel like I’m floating! Awesomesauce!”
“It’s just the laughing gas working, Isaac,” EJ said. “I’m sure Dr. Molnar will be back any min—”
“Do you wanna hear a secret, EJ?” Isaac jutted a finger at her and his eyes crossed a tiny bit. “The secret is, I like to bug you, and I like being the Space Invader.”
Isaac’s eyes suddenly cleared, the loopiness gone for a moment. “But what I like the most is when we imagine adventures together, EJ.” A goofy grin spread across his face, and he snorted a little chuckle—the laughing gas had taken a firm hold of his brain. “And I think you’re way groovy to the max, dude.”
