Sparks Read Online Free PDF Page A

nervous, and beginning to wonder why he had come here on the basis of some stupid crap on his computer which was beginning to look more like a stupid student joke or some stupid thing like that and why didn’t he go back to his stupid office and maybe learn some other words apart from ‘stupid’ and stuff this for a game of soldiers and he should just tell this giant dentist sorry I interrupted your lunch even though I don’t see you with any actual food or anything.
    Sparks didn’t say any of this. Instead he said, perhaps tactlessly:
    “You’re very tall for a dentist.”
    T Singh looked confused for a moment. Then he said, “Yes, it can make life difficult sometimes. Being so far away from the mouth. Fortunately I have long arms.”
    There was a pause in the so-far not-gripping conversation. Sparks remembered his piece of paper.
    “Redolent,” he said, confidently.
    There was another pause, this one quiet enough to hear the gurgle of the fountain where the pink stuff goes.
    “Pardon?” said the dentist.
    “Redolent,” said Sparks, a little less confidently now.
    “Ahhhh,” said T Singh. “I thought that’s what you said. Only you don’t seem the type.”
    Sparks thought quickly, about as quickly as he had ever thought about anything.
    “I am the type,” he said, trying to sound as though he was, whatever it might be. “The type to say redolent.”
    T Singh nodded and pulled back a plastic curtain by the sink. Sparks walked over.
    “Excellent. Stand here,” said T Singh, giant dentist, and pushed Sparks through the curtain.
    IT REALLY HURTS!
    OW!
    BOLLOCKS OW!
    OW OW OW OW!
    IT REALLY HURTS SOME MORE!
    These were most of Sparks’ thoughts for the next ten minutes or so. In fact, they were Sparks’ life for those ten minutes, too, as he could neither see nor hear anything. It was all sensation, and that sensation was pretty much OW! When Sparks stopped being in exciting pain, he found he could hear again, and what he could hear was a low rumbling noise like traffic. Then his sight returned and Sparks discovered that the low rumbling noise like traffic actually was traffic. He was standing next to a tube station. Sparks had been in a dentist’s surgery belonging to the tallest dentist in the world. Now he was on the Edgware Road. This was not right, no matter how tall the dentist. He ran through some options in his head:
    I have been drugged.
    This would explain the recent pain and the memory lapse. The dentist must have drugged me and taken me to the Edgware Road, thought Sparks. I must have made a rude remark about his height. Or maybe he mugged me and had accomplices. Sparks had never met anybody who had accomplices and was quite taken with this theory, until he realised that no dentist, no matter how fake or tall, would be likely to kidnap someone and release them slightly over two miles down the road. He patted his pockets. His wallet felt empty, but then it always did. No-one would drug me, Sparks decided, a little bit sadly.
    I have gone mad.
    This was more like it. According to my memory, I went to see a dentist for no other reason than I saw his address on a website and wanted to say “redolent” to him and see what would happen. I’d say that’s the sort of thing a mad person does. But then again, isn’t it only sane people who think they’re mad, whereas all the properly mad ones think they’re sane? Sparks didn’t know, so dropped the theory. He had never been mad before, anyway.
    It was all a dream.
    This was nonsense. No one ever went to the Edgware Road in a dream, unless they had a very restricted imagination or were Dick Whittington or something. Also Sparks could remember the entire day’s events in a non-dream way, which wasn’t very dream-like. And he hadn’t turned into a woman, or started his first day at school, or seen Alison in her underwear saying, “I’m sorry, Sparks,” all of which were the general hallmarks of his dreams.
    Sparks gave up. Nothing was clear