The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies Read online

  “Don’t worry,” her mother said. “They’ll be off again before you know it.”

  Shelly nodded and sat on a couch that was wedged against one wall. A younger girl was slumped in a chair across the room. When she looked up, Shelly smiled.

  The girl’s head drooped back down.

  “He’s very reasonable,” Shelly’s mother said, whispering the last word. Shelly knew that reasonable was her mother’s way of saying cheap.

  That could definitely describe the waiting room. The place certainly didn’t resemble any other office she’d been in. It smelled more like an antique shop than a dentist’s office. The furniture was old and worn. There weren’t any magazines. There was no music or radio. There wasn’t even a receptionist.

  Dr. Kublanko popped into the waiting room and said, “Shelly?” He looked almost too young to be a dentist.

  “That’s me,” Shelly said. She followed him as he bounced down a short dark hall to a room with a dentist’s chair. When she looked at the chair, a pang rippled through her stomach. For an instant, she thought of turning and fleeing. What was so terrible about a few crooked teeth?

  “Hop right up,” Dr. Kublanko said.

  Shelly got in the chair.

  “Let’s have a look,” he said.

  Shelly opened her mouth. Dr. Kublanko examined her for a moment, then said, “Well, let’s get started.”

  “What?”

  “The braces,” Dr. Kublanko said.

  “But, don’t you have to do some X-rays? Isn’t this just an exam?”

  “Oh, you need braces. And there’s no point in waiting. So let’s get them on.”

  Dr. Kublanko went to work. It took a lot less time than Shelly expected. The doctor just slipped something over all her teeth. One minute, she was sitting there with her mouth open; a moment later, she was aware of this strange thing against her lips.

  “It feels funny,” Shelly tried to say. But it came out “Ih eel zunny.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Dr. Kublanko said. “I’ll see you again in exactly one week.”

  Shelly slid out of the chair. It was odd—she’d assumed the strange metal in her mouth would feel cold, but it was very warm.

  She probed the braces with her tongue. They felt weird.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” her mom asked when Shelly returned to the waiting room.

  “Gesh not,” Shelly said, which was as close to guess not as she could come at the moment. She wondered when it would start to hurt. Her friends told her that her teeth might ache for a day or two.

  That evening, she still felt fine. There was no ache, no discomfort at all other than the strangeness in her mouth. She was almost completely used to her braces by the time she went to sleep. She halfway woke up once in the middle of the night, and had the strangest feeling that she didn’t have her braces on. I must be getting used to them, she thought as she fell back to sleep.

  In the morning, her mouth felt fine. No pain, no discomfort. She wondered how the braces could work if she didn’t feel anything. At her next appointment, she asked Dr. Kublanko about that.

  “Oh, these are the latest design,” he said as he examined her. “Everything is going perfectly.” He took a thin hose with a nozzle at the end and put it inside her mouth.

  “What are you doing?” Shelly asked, speaking around the nozzle.

  “Oh, just cleaning things a bit. Hmmmm. From the way these look, I’m guessing you breathe through your nose. Try to breathe through your mouth. The braces work best when they get lots of air.”

  That didn’t make sense. Shelly was going to say something, but she suddenly felt very tired. She blinked. Had she dozed? She looked up at the doctor. “There,” he was saying. “All set until next week.”

  “Uh, okay.” Shelly still felt strange. Her eyes wandered round the small room, settling for a moment on a diploma hanging above the sink. Shelly looked at the date. Dr. Kublanko had gotten his degree more than forty years ago. That didn’t make sense. He couldn’t possibly be that old.

  “Relax,” the dentist told her. “Everything is progressing just the way it’s supposed to. Now get along home.”

  On the way out, Shelly saw a girl in the waiting room. The girl smiled at her and said, “I’m just here to see if I need braces.”

  Don’t go in there. Shelly almost spoke, but she was too tired to find the right words. It wasn’t worth the effort. She dropped her head and turned away.

  Shelly woke again in the middle of the night. Something glinted on the windowsill, right up against the screen. Shelly started to get up, but the room danced in circles and slid from under her. As she fell back to sleep, she felt something slipping onto her teeth.

  “I want to get my braces off,” she told her mom the next morning.

  “But that’s ridiculous, dear,” her mom said. “You need to wear them for at least two years. Otherwise, they won’t do any good. What’s wrong? Are the other girls teasing you?”

  Shelly shook her head. She saw there was no use trying to explain it to her mom. But the dentist was another matter. She’d talk to him at her next appointment.

  “And how are you?” he asked Shelly as he tilted her chair.

  “There’s something wrong with my braces,” she said.

  “Oh, really? Well, it’s easy to adjust these things.” He reached onto his tray and took up a small pliers. “What exactly is the problem?”

  They leave my mouth and crawl around the room at night. That’s what Shelly wanted to say. But, suddenly, she was afraid to admit that she knew this. Shelly looked at his face—it was so young, except for his eyes. She turned away, scared to stare into those eyes. “Uh, they feel a bit loose,” she said.

  “Oh, dear. Here, see if this is better.” He did something inside her mouth.

  Shelly nodded. “Much better,” she said when the dentist had removed the tool.

  “Good. Now let me do just one more thing.” He placed another tool, the one connected to a hose, into her mouth. “Great,” he said a moment later. “All done.”

  Shelly realized she was nearly asleep. She dragged herself from the chair and staggered out of the office. When she got home, she fell right into bed and slept without waking during the night.

  The next morning, Shelly looked carefully at her teeth in the mirror. Nothing seemed to have changed. Then she looked at her face. She was tired. There were dark bags under her eyes. Her face seemed older; her hair seemed dry and brittle.

  I didn’t look like this before, she thought. It had all changed after her first visit with Dr. Kublanko. She touched her cheek. The skin felt more like wax than flesh. She was sure that her youth and energy were being stolen. It had to be the braces. That night, she set her alarm to ring at three thirty in the morning. It’s going to end, Shelly thought as she lay down in her bed.

  The alarm jolted her. She sat up and switched it off.

  Her tongue ran across bare teeth. She looked around the room. The braces, like a metal spider, were on the windowsill, sitting in the moonlight. As she caught sight of them, they rushed toward her.

  “No!” Shelly shouted.

  The braces scurried to the bed and sprang up onto the mattress.

  Shelly clamped her hand across her mouth.

  Sharp wires dug into her skin as the braces climbed her nightshirt. Wires stabbed at the hand she’d clamped across her mouth.

  Shelly grabbed the braces with her other hand and ripped them free. She flung them to the floor. They started to charge back toward her. Shelly rolled to the floor and slammed her fist down on the braces. They flattened, but sprang right back into shape. She kept hitting them. Over and over, she slammed the braces. It took every bit of strength she had. The world wavered. She felt more drained with each strike. Shelly wondered if she was going to pass out.

  “Shelly! What’s going on? Why are you on the floor?”

  Shelly opened her eyes, sat up slowly, and looked at her mother standing in the doorway. “My braces,”
she said.

  Her mother switched on the light and knelt next to Shelly. She put a hand under Shelly’s chin and looked at her mouth. “What about them? They seem just fine.”

  Shelly started to speak. The braces rubbed against her tongue. She looked at the spot on the floor. It was bare.

  “You’d better get some sleep, young lady,” her mother said. “You have school tomorrow. Oh, and I almost forgot. Dr. Kublanko called. He needs to make another adjustment to your braces. You have an appointment with him tomorrow, right after school.” She paused and shook her head. “I honestly don’t see how he can give so many appointments and charge so little. But I’m certainly not complaining.”

  Shelly nodded, unable to speak. Tired and drained of energy, she crawled back to bed. It must be my imagination, she thought. It was a dream or something.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Shelly whispered. She was too exhausted to care. She felt so tired, and so old. Nothing was important—not the braces on her teeth, not even the cuts and scratches on her hands. Shelly had no idea how those small injuries had gotten there, but they didn’t matter, either. The cuts would heal. And in just a few years, she’d have nice, straight teeth. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

  TURKEY CALLS

  Hey, look at this.” Chester handed a copy of his favorite magazine, Time Wasters, to his brother Wyatt. He pointed at the picture. “I’m going to make one of those.”

  “A turkey call?” Wyatt asked. “Why would you want to make something like that?”

  “Why not?” Chester said. “Come on, it looks easy. And it will be a great way to waste some time.” Chester ran around the house, gathering up the materials that were listed in the instructions.

  “Well,” he said a half hour later as he stood in front of an impressive pile of turkey call parts, “I guess that’s everything we need.”

  “Not really,” Wyatt said. “You got the stuff all wrong. The article said you needed a piece of iron. That’s aluminum.”

  “So? It’s still metal,” Chester said. “That’s close enough. It’s not like I’m building a helicopter.”

  “And the piece of wood is supposed to be six inches wide. That looks bigger. If you don’t follow the directions, it’s not going to work right.”

  “I’m not allowed to use the saw when Dad isn’t around,” Chester said. “Besides, it doesn’t really matter.”

  “But the article said—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Come on—let’s put it together.” Chester got to work. Wyatt helped. In another half hour, the turkey call was finished.

  Chester tried it out, scraping the metal bar against the piece of slate inside the small box. “Wow—it does sound like a turkey.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it sounds a little like a turkey. It also sort of sounds like a cat or a monkey, or maybe even some kind of giant rat. Who knows what it’ll attract?”

  Chester glared at his brother. “Look, if that’s what you think, I’ll go out and use it by myself.”

  “No, I want to come,” Wyatt said.

  “Then stop telling me I did it wrong. I think it sounds exactly like a turkey.”

  Chester went outside and headed down the street toward the woods at the edge of town. He heard Wyatt behind him. By the time they reached the woods, he wasn’t angry anymore. He was excited. Following one of the foot trails, he walked far into the woods.

  “This looks like a good spot,” Chester said. He held up the turkey call and scratched out some awesome sounds.

  Almost immediately, even before Wyatt could say anything else to make fun of Chester, there was a rustling in the bushes. There was a lot of rustling all around them.

  “It worked!” Chester used the call again, pressing harder so it was even louder. The more turkeys, the better. That would show Wyatt a thing or two. “It really, really worked.”

  “Almost,” Wyatt said.

  “I’m tired of your attitude,” Chester said. “Can’t you admit it worked just fine?” Then he saw what Wyatt had already noticed. Hundreds of animals burst through the bushes all around him, coming to his call. Animals. Not birds. Small black-and-white animals.

  “Skunks,” Wyatt said.

  “This call stinks,” Chester said, throwing it down.

  In a moment, the call wasn’t the only thing that stank.

  REEL

  There it is,” I said when we reached the old movie theater behind the bowling alley. I hadn’t been on this side of town in a long time.

  “Man, the place is falling down,” Noah said.

  “I don’t care. It’s the only theater showing Power Drill.” I’d been dying to see that movie ever since I read about it in Gore and Splatter magazine. They said it was the scariest, slashiest, wettest horror movie in years. And the bad guy, Fixxula, was unbelievably warped.

  “They won’t sell us tickets,” Noah said. “Let’s just go rent a video.”

  “You go, if you want,” I told him. “I’m seeing this movie.” I checked the sign again. The place had three movies playing. I’d been hoping at least one would be rated G so I could buy a ticket for it and then sneak into the screen that was showing Power Drill. But all three movies were at least PG-13. I was twelve. To make things even worse, I looked young for my age.

  “Forget it,” Noah said.

  “No. We’ll sneak in the exit.”

  “That does it. No way I’m getting in trouble for a stupid movie. I’m outta here.” Noah trotted off like he couldn’t wait to go rent some boring video.

  I didn’t care. It’s better with a friend—especially during the really messy scenes—but I could enjoy the movie all by myself. I went around to the back and checked out the exit door. It was old, the wood in the frame was rotten, and I could see the bolt didn’t close all the way. It hadn’t latched the last time someone went out. I tugged at it, and the door opened. Perfect. I slipped inside and looked around. I was in a hallway. That was good.

  I spotted the sign for the screen with Power Drill and ducked into the room. I didn’t want anyone to spot me, so I grabbed a seat in the back row.

  My timing was awesome. Just after I sat, the lights dimmed. They showed a couple previews, and then a sign flashed on the screen: THIS FILM IS IN PERCEPTIVISION.

  “Cool,” I whispered, though I had no idea what that meant.

  Another message appeared beneath it: SELECT YOUR AVATAR.

  The back of the seat in front of me lit up. I realized there was a small screen in it, like the kind they have on laptop computers. The screen showed a dozen different faces. I figured those were the actors from the movie. It was the usual sort of cast—a brave guy, a scared guy, a funny guy, a pretty girl, and so on. I picked the brave guy, since I figured that would be the most interesting.

  A final message came up: ADJUST THE COMFORT LEVEL OF YOUR HEADSET.

  Headset? I looked around. Everyone had some sort of red headband, with knobs on the side. I guess they’d been handed out by the ticket taker. There was no way I could get one. I didn’t care. The movie would be fine without any gimmicks.

  A moment after the movie started, I found out what Perceptivision was. When the brave guy—his name was Rocko—walked out into the rain, my face felt wet. I looked around, trying to figure out how they did that, but I didn’t see any hoses or anything.

  When the scared guy got his head cut off and Rocko was splashed with the blood, I felt something warm and wet splash my face. It was so realistic, I reached up and touched my cheek, but there was nothing there.

  Rocko and Fixxula were chasing each other all over this huge abandoned hardware store. When Rocko tried to punch Fixxula and hit the wall instead, my fist hurt. But not a lot. This was so cool. Noah had really missed out.

  Then Fixxula almost caught Rocko. He cut him in the shoulder with a hedge clippers.

  “Ow!” My shoulder stung. But it wasn’t all that bad.

  Besides—Rocko was obviously the hero. He might get hurt, but he’d survive. I
noticed that people were playing with the dials on their headsets. I guess they could control how much pain they felt. I glanced back toward the entrance, wondering whether it was too late to get myself a headset. But I knew they’d never give me one. It didn’t matter. I could handle this.

  The next time Rocko was surprised by Fixxula, he got stabbed in the leg with a screwdriver. That hurt a bit more. I started to think about leaving. But I really wanted to see the rest of the movie. I could always leave if it got too painful.

  Two more of Rocko’s friends got killed by Fixxula. Man—Noah was missing an awesome movie. I couldn’t wait to tell him what a loser he was. I checked my watch. The movie was about half over. The action should get even more extreme pretty soon. As I looked back up at the screen, Fixxula jumped Rocko from behind and hit him hard in the head with a toolbox.

  My own head jolted. I got dizzy for a second.

  “Okay—that’s enough.” I’d had it. I wasn’t going to sit there and let myself get hurt any more—especially not when the bad guy had a whole storeful of power tools, and I didn’t have a helmet with a control knob.

  I tried to stand. Something held me to my seat. I tried harder. No luck. I couldn’t even move my arms. I looked down, but didn’t see anything. I looked back up at the screen. Fixxula had tied Rocko to a chair. I could feel the pressure of ropes around my arms and chest.

  Fixxula grabbed a nail gun from his table. “This is going to hurt a lot,” he said.

  I screamed for help. Nobody in the theater turned toward me. They were all screaming, too. Though nowhere near as loudly.

  BAD LUCK

  I was hanging out in front of the corner store after school, drinking a Coke and killing a bag of garlic pretzels, when the kid came strutting down the street. He had that walk—you know, the walk that says, I’m cool. Don’t mess with me. When I see someone flashing that attitude, I can’t help thinking of ways to prove to him that he’s wrong.

  “Hey,” I said as he passed in front of me. “Who are you?” I didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t from Madison High, and I didn’t think he went to St. Pat’s or Winslow Academy, either. He probably came from over in Sunnington.