Alfie was surprised that the little girl’s imagination had run away with her like this. “Hansel and Gretel? Yes, of course, everyone has, but that’s just a stupid fairy story.”
Gabz turned her head and fixed him with a stare.
“It’s not stupid. And just because it’s a fairy story doesn’t mean it never happened…” she said, before turning her gaze back to the dentist who was smiling broadly with those impossibly white teeth of hers, as the kids filled all their pockets with sweets. Strangely, however many the children took, there were more and more and more filling the tray.
Along the rows, just one boy stayed glued to his chair. It was Texting Boy. He was still texting.
*
On his way home from school that afternoon, Alfie wanted to dispose of the presents Miss Root had given him as quickly as possible. He didn’t trust that lady one bit. There was something deeply disturbing about her. That splash of red on her shoe, the creep around the hall in the minute’s silence for the dead dentist, and those sugar-free sweets that never ran out were just too good to be true. So when Alfie crossed the bridge over the canal as he always did on his way to and from school, he stopped. He pulled the toothbrush and toothpaste out of his blazer pocket. He examined the label, ‘MUMMY’S’. It was such a comforting brand name. How could you not trust anything called ‘MUMMY’S’?
The boy unscrewed the lid of the tube. Immediately some sticky yellow gunk, the colour of pus, snaked out of the end. It smelt rank, like warm sick. A small glob of it fell to the ground. It hissed and fizzed as it bore its way through the stone bridge like acid. What is in that toothpaste? thought Alfie. Just then he noticed the paste was still oozing out of the tube. It was moving dangerously close to his fingers. A smidgen of it landed on his skin, and instantly he could feel it burning.
“Ow!” screamed the boy. He quickly threw the tube into the canal below. It plopped into the water, and he watched as the tube sank to the bottom, the paste still snaking out. Then Alfie noticed he still had the hard wire toothbrush Miss Root had given him in his other hand. The bristles looked like they would scratch your teeth away, rather than clean them. So he threw the brush in the canal too.
As Alfie took a couple of paces to continue on his journey home, a strange sound stopped him in his tracks. Looking back he saw that beneath the bridge, the water in the canal was boiling and bubbling. It was like a mini volcano erupting. The boy watched in horror as a school of dead fish plopped to the surface and floated there. As he peered down at the water, a gaggle of kids from his school passed him, laughing and joking, their mouths full of ‘MUMMY’S’ chocolates and toffees and fruit chews. Every single child looked like they couldn’t be happier, greedily munching and crunching and scrunching them.
If that’s what her toothpaste does, thought Alfie, what on earth is in those special sweets of hers…?
“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