Addison Addley and the Things That Aren't There Read Online Free PDF

charts and say, “We’ll have to take care of that.” That’s a nice way of saying, “We’ll have to stick a needle in your mouth and drill half your tooth away.”
    It’s not knowing if those stupid little cavities are there or not that bugs me. I wish I knew before I went into the office. I guess they’re sort of like the stuff on my speech list. Are they there or aren’t they? This time I was pretty sure they would come under the category “Things That Are There.”
    I don’t like the look of the dentist office. I don’t even like the way it smells—like cleaning fluid or vinegar. And I really don’t like the dentist’s hands. Why do dentists always seem to have fat fingers? I guess it’s so they can grab the giant needle and gigantic drill better.
    Dr. Plain—or Dr. Pain, as I call him—gave my teeth one final pick and took his big hand out of my mouth.
    There was silence. I listened to myself breathing.
    â€œTsk, tsk,” he said. “It’s just a small cavity, but we’ll have to take care of that.”
    How did I know he was going to say that?
    I must have looked at him like a caged animal because he patted me on the shoulder and said, “How about we do that right now?”
    Good old Dr. Pain. He knows I don’t like to think about coming to the dentist. He knows I’d rather just get it over with right then and there. Besides, like I said, it’s not the actual filling that I hate. It’s the checkups.
    â€œWe’ll just do a quick X-ray to make sure everything else is okay,” he said.
    I thought about an X-ray as he put some cardboard wedges in my mouth. I was pretty sure they might be things that weren’t there, so I asked Dr. Pain.
    â€œX-rays are a type of radiation, just like light,” he explained. “Our eyes can see normal light, but we can’t see the shorter wavelength of X-rays. We use X-rays to make these films, and then we can see if you have any more hidden cavities.”
    Great. Just what I needed. I didn’t really want to find out if I had any more cavities. Besides, I had kind of already guessed that I had one today. It must have been that ESP thing. ESP was another thing that either might or might not be there. I knew that ESP meant that you knew something was going to happen before it happened. I remembered once when I had knownwhat hockey card was on top of the pack before I even opened it. It might have been a good guess. Maybe not though. And today I had known that I was going to have a cavity before I even got to the office. I guess the way my tooth had been aching for a month might have given it away.
    I had way too many ideas swirling around my head. It was bad enough being upside down in that chair, let alone having to think about ideas for my speech. Two bad things in one day. The dentist and schoolwork. Two bad things too many. Do bad things come in threes?
    Dr. Pain came back into the room. I squinted my eyes to try and see his aura. Sam had said that blue was the color of peace and calm. I could have used some peace and calm right then. Maybe if I concentrated hard enough he’d be blue. I squinted harder. The only good thing about the squinting business was that it made it a lot harder to see the needle.

Chapter Ten
    My mouth was still numb when I got back to school after lunch. My mind pretty much went numb too when I started listening to Tiffany’s speech.
    â€œEtiquette describes the way we should interact with each other. It’s all about politeness,” Tiffany began. “Did you know that you should wait to start eating until your host unfolds her napkin and puts it on her lap? That you should only blot your mouth gently with your napkin and then put it back immediately? Nobody likes a messy eater,” she said, looking at me.
    Blah, blah, blah, I thought as I drew a fish on my hand. The Lamp was the last one to speak today, but