Читать книгу Demon Dentist - David Walliams - Страница 15

“You must be Alfred,” boomed a voice when he walked in the front door of his little bungalow, which squatted in an estate on the edge of town.

“Who are you?” demanded the boy. Alfie was very protective of his dad and didn’t like seeing strangers in the bungalow.

A flamboyantly dressed lady had plonked herself down in the living room with Dad. Her ample frame was taking up more than one place on the worn and torn sofa.

The riot of colour in her mismatched outfit (yellow scarf, pink stripy leggings, green top and electric-blue shiny plastic coat) looked decidedly out of place in the small, grey room. In fact, it would have looked out of place anywhere.

Dad was sitting in his wheelchair in the corner of the room where he always was, a frayed tartan blanket covering his knees. It was cold in the bungalow. The central heating had been cut off a few winters ago. In truth, their little home was falling to pieces. Since Dad had been confined to a wheelchair, the bungalow had fallen into a state of disrepair. Despite Alfie’s best efforts, water poured in through the roof when it rained. Cracks had appeared in most of the windows, and mould was creeping up the walls all the way to the ceiling.

“Oh, son, this is…” Dad took a loud shallow breath, “…Winnie. She’s a social worker.”

“A what?” asked Alfie, still staring rather rudely at the intruder.

“No need to be worried about me, young man, ha ha!” proclaimed the big jolly lady, as she plumped up a cushion and placed it behind Dad’s back. “I’m here from the council. Social workers like me just want to help…”

“We don’t need any help, thank you,” said Alfie. “I look after my father better than anyone else could, don’t I, Dad?”

Dad smiled at his son, but didn’t say anything.

“I am sure you do!” replied Winnie with a smile. “By the way, it’s very nice to meet you, young man,” she said, reaching out one of her podgy hands with fingers like bejewelled sausages. Alfie just stared at it.

“Shake her hand, son. Be a good boy…” implored Dad.

Alfie reluctantly let his little hand meet hers. The social worker gripped it tight and shook it so vigorously, the boy thought his poor arm would be yanked out of its socket. The multicoloured plastic bracelets that adorned her wrists rattled loudly as she did so.

“Now, young Alfred, could I trouble you for a cup of tea?” bellowed Winnie.

“Yes, a pot of tea would be lovely, thanks, son,” prompted Dad. “Then we can all sit down together and have a good talk.”

“I can’t have coffee, it goes right through me! Ha ha!” added the social worker.

Alfie stared at this intruder as he backed out of the living room to make the tea. Father and son always shared a pot of tea when Alfie returned home from school. He would lay out a tray with two cups. It had been just two cups for as long as he could remember.

One thing the boy had learned from his father was that however poor they were, they should still take great pride in life’s simple pleasures. So when Alfie made the tea he would try his hardest to make everything just so. As the kettle was boiling, he fetched a little chipped teapot with the lid missing and placed it on a tray he had liberated from the school cafeteria. Then he took two cups out of the cupboard. There were only two cups in the house, so Alfie had to think on his feet. Eventually he found an eggcup, and put it on the tray. That would do for his mouthful of tea. The milk jug was really a moonlighting gravy boat Alfie had bought in a charity-shop sale. Last but not least, the boy took out a cracked plate, and arranged three crumbling out-of-date chocolate biscuits on it. The local newsagent had given Alfie a free packet one day when the boy looked particularly hungry.

With a proud smile on his face Alfie entered the living room carrying the tray. Carefully he placed it down on the coffee table (well, it was really just an upturned cardboard box, but he and Dad called it the coffee table).

“I have heard so much about you from your father, young Alfred,” said Winnie, spraying biscuit crumbs all over the boy and the carpet and even as far away as the curtains as she spoke. She took a large and noisy slurp of her tea from her cup, and washed the remainder of the biscuit down her throat.

“Aah!” she sighed, smacking her bright-pink painted lips together. “That’s better. I am soooo looking forward to getting to know…”

As she spoke Alfie tried to smile, and sipped some tea from his eggcup, feeling somehow like a tiny giant. Winnie peered at the boy. She slid along the sofa, and her big fat face came close to his, like a hippopotamus inspecting a little bird that has landed on its nose. “Oh, my word! Look at the boy’s teet!”

“My what?” said Alfie.

“Teet!”

“My teet?” replied Alfie, confused.

“Yes, boy…” said the social worker in a frustrated tone. “YOUR TEET!”

“I think Winnie means your teeth…” ventured Dad.

“Yes, that’s what I said!” implored the lady. “TEET! T, E, E, T, H, TEET!”

“All right, all right. What about my teet, I mean teeth?” asked Alfie, before quickly closing his mouth to hide them. He knew he wasn’t going to be asked to star in a toothpaste advert anytime soon, but they hadn’t all fallen out. Yet.

“No no no, that won’t do. Oh, my word! That won’t do at all. As your social worker, the first thing I am going to do for you…”

“Yes…?” gulped the boy, guessing what might be coming.

“…is make you an appointment with the dentist!”