Demon Dentist

Something unspeakable was happening in a small town. Children who lost a tooth would place it under their pillow at night, expecting a small coin from the tooth fairy in return. Instead, they woke to find horrors. Live insects. Dead slugs. A wasp nest. A used verruca sock, still warm. A pus-filled bandage. No one knew who was responsible or how they got in. The children stopped sleeping. The parents stopped believing them. And the terror grew worse each night.

This is where David Walliams's *Demon Dentist* begins—not with a monster under the bed, but with a monster who comes *for* the bed, for the most innocent moment of childhood trust.

At the center of this nightmare stands twelve-and-a-half-year-old Alfie Griffith. Alfie lives with his father in a dilapidated house that barely keeps out the cold. Dad used to work in the coal mine, but years of breathing coal dust have destroyed his lungs. He now uses a wheelchair and relies on Alfie for everything—cooking, cleaning, shopping, bathing. There is no money. There is barely food. Alfie does not complain. He loves his father fiercely.

But Alfie has a secret. He has not been to the dentist since he was six years old, when a traumatic extraction left him terrified. The tooth had been stubborn. The elderly dentist, Mr. Erstwhile, pulled and pulled, enlisting the nurse, the receptionist, even other patients to help. When the tooth finally gave way, it exploded in Alfie's mouth. The dentist held up his prize with pride. Then Alfie realized: it was the wrong tooth. The rotten one remained.

Since then, Alfie has hidden every dental appointment notice from his father. The pile of unopened envelopes sits on top of the refrigerator, where Dad cannot see them. Alfie knows his teeth are in terrible shape—several are rotten, others have fallen out—but the fear of returning to that chair is stronger than any pain.

Then a new dentist arrives in town. Her name is Miss Root.

She appears at a school assembly, dressed head to toe in blinding white. Her teeth are perfect. Impossibly perfect. She is impossibly tall too, her legs so long and thin she looks like she is walking on stilts. She demands the children call her "Mummy." She offers them sugar-free sweets from a cart that never seems to empty. Everyone takes one except Alfie and a quiet girl named Gabz.

Alfie notices something disturbing: a large red stain on Miss Root's white shoe. It looks like blood. Later, he discovers that her toothpaste burns through the road surface. When he throws the tube in the canal, the water churns and boils. Dead fish float to the surface.

The mystery deepens when Gabz reveals what she has discovered. All over town, children are finding horrific replacements under their pillows instead of money. Not just insects—a bat wing, still moving. A hacked-off puppy tail. Hundreds of centipedes. The discoveries are getting worse. Gabz has mapped every affected house. The pattern is spreading.

Alfie and Gabz try to report this to the police. Police Constable Plank dismisses them entirely. He has more urgent business: an elderly woman stole a scotch egg.

So the children are on their own. Miss Root has told Alfie she will see him again soon. He thinks to himself that they certainly will not. She whispers back: "Oh yes, we will."

What is the connection between the terrifying new dentist and the tooth snatcher who leaves horrors under children's pillows? Why does Miss Root's toothpaste eat through solid ground? Why does her candy never run out? And what happened to the tooth fairies who should have been visiting those pillows?

One thing is certain: something dark has settled in this town. And Alfie, who has spent years running from his fears, is about to find himself running straight into them.