THE CAVITY

     ”Ouch!” yelled Maggie, before she could take another sip of her rootbeer float.

    ”What’s wrong?” Mother asked.

    ”My tooth hurts,” replied Maggie.

     ”Oh dear!” Mother said.  “Looks like you might have your first cavity.  I better call the dentist and make an appointmentto get it fixed.”

     After brushing her teeth that evening, Maggie went to her room and got ready for bed.  Her mother joined her a few minutes later to tuck her in.

 ”The dentist said he will see you first thing tomorrow morning,” Mother told Maggie before kissing her cheek.

     ”Okay, Mom,” said Maggie without enthusiasm.

    Maggie couldn’t fall asleep.  Being only five, she had never been to the dentist and didn’t know what would happen. Was it a scary place to go to?  Would the dentist hurt her? Would her teeth fall out?  She had lots of questions running through her mind.  

    She tossed and turned in bed for an hour before she finally fell asleep. She had a nightmare that the dental office was cold and dark and the dentist made her lay down on a hard steel table. As the dentist walked towards her with a pair of pliers and a sinister smile, filled with missing teeth, Maggie could tell he had in mind to collect all her teeth by pulling them out, one by one.  She screamed in terror, jumped off the table and ran out of the dental office and onto the sidewalk.  She ran and ran all the way home, never looking back to see if the dentist was following her.

    Maggie’s mother woke her up the next morning and made her breakfast while she slowly got dressed and made her bed.  She decided to wear pants just in case she needed to run away from the dentist’s office like in her nightmare.

    They drove to the dental office six blocks down from their house.  Once there, Maggie sat in the waiting room fidgeting with nervousness, and Mother talked to the secretary.  Maggie tried not to think about what would happen to her but couldn’t. She was scared.

     It was soon her turn and she started to cry.

    ”No, Mom!” she yelled out.  “He’ll pull out all my teeth with a pair of pliers.”

    ”Honey, the dentist is a friend of mine and he would never do that.  If you’re so worried about it, I’ll go in with you,” Mother said.

    As they both walked in, Maggie could see that the room was not cold and dark after all but quite bright and sunny, thanks to a big window.  She also noticed that there was no hard steel table but a long stuffed chair to sit on.  The dentist showed her how to make it go up and down.

    When the dentist was ready to start working on her tooth, he did not approach her with pliers and a sinister smile but with a small scraper and a warm and kind smile.

    Maggie felt herself relax and gave Mother a thumb’s up.

    When the dentist was finished fixing her tooth, he gave her a brand new toothbrush, a small tube of toothpaste, and told her to brush twice a day.  He gave Maggie a wink and told her to visit again next year.

    Maggie gave a big shiny smile and said, “I’d love to!”