Open Wide - Couverture souple

Eerie, I. M.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1665980419 ISBN 13 : 9781665980418

Editeur : Aladdin, 2025

Synopsis

A boy’s worst fears about the dentist may prove true in this bone-chilling middle grade horror perfect for fans of Goosebumps and Christopher Pike.

Eddie has always been afraid of the dentist. He even bit the last one he went to (by accident). And Dr. Yankum, the eccentric new dentist in town, isn’t making matters any better. He pulled two of Eddie’s teeth—teeth Eddie swears were perfectly healthy. And he finds out he’s not the only kid in town who has had unnecessary extractions. Who or what is Dr. Yankum? And what does he want with their teeth?

When the doctor starts dating Eddie’s mom, Eddie knows it’s only a matter of time before her teeth go missing too! Eddie and his best friend, Darryl, band together and put their sleuthing skills to the test to uncover the truth about Dr. Yankum. But they’re not prepared for what they find…

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

I. M. Eerie lives alone in an old Victorian house on top of a hill. His hobbies include playing the organ, taxidermy, and scaring children through his writing. If you hear screams coming from inside his house, do not be alarmed—those are just the sounds of a scary movie.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
“OW!”

A sharp jolt of pain shot through one of my back molars.

I dropped my spoon into my cereal bowl and rubbed my jaw.

Mom’s eyes narrowed at me over the top of the newspaper.

“It’s that tooth again, isn’t it, Eddie?”

I shook my head and pretended to be interested in the word search on the back of the Cosmic Crunch box.

“No,” I lied. “I… I just bit my tongue. That’s all.”

I went for another spoonful and grimaced as the cold, mushy cereal washed over my bad tooth. It felt like a thousand icy needles were stabbing my gum.

The tooth had bothered me all last week, though the pain had gotten worse over the weekend. It kept me up all last night—I had barely slept a wink.

I felt Mom’s eyes still on me, so I gritted my teeth and swallowed. When I peeked again, she was back to reading.

Crisis averted… for now.

Grandma Alice cleared her throat. “It’s all that darn Halloween candy. You kids get too much of it these days. When I was your age, I was lucky if I got two handfuls.”

She put down her mug of coffee and cupped her hands together to show us.

“Oh, he’s got more than that,” Mary Kate exclaimed. “Halloween was two weeks ago, and he’s still got loads of it. He hides it under his bed in an old shoebox. I can hear him crinkling the wrappers in the middle of the night and—OW!”

I’d kicked Mary Kate’s shin under the table. Her face turned tomato red.

“Shut it,” I muttered.

Mary Kate was my little sister. She was tiny for her age—the shortest in her third-grade class—although she made up for it with her big mouth. We’d been sharing a bedroom since the three of us moved in with Grandma Alice after the divorce a few months ago.

Needless to say, it wasn’t going well.

Mary Kate had a long history of being a snoop, and sleeping three feet from her prying eyes wasn’t helping.

Mom lowered the newspaper again. She raised her eyebrows.

“Eddie, is that true?”

Mary Kate snickered.

Mom was a stickler about sweets. She’d always been the weird lady on the block who handed out apples instead of candy on Halloween. I’m surprised she even let us go trick-or-treating in the first place.

I threw up my hands.

“Fine. I may have some Halloween candy still left over. And occasionally, if I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m hungry, I’ll have a bite… or two.”

Mom’s mouth dropped open.

“Eddie! You know the rules—no candy in the bedroom. I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible….”

Across the table, Mary Kate mimicked Mom as she droned on and on about the dangers of consuming too much sugar. She even shook her shoulders and wagged her finger just like Mom.

“No wonder your tooth is hurting,” Mom continued. “You probably have a cavity—all that sugar will rot your teeth. You can’t put it off any longer. We’ve got to get you to the dentist.”

Mom loudly turned a page in the newspaper to finish her point.

The cereal burned in my stomach.

The dentist.

I’d always been afraid to go to the dentist. All the picking and scraping and feeling of someone digging around your mouth while you lay there helpless… it gave me the shivers just thinking about it.

“Mom—no,” I insisted. “It’s fine. Listen—”

Mom gasped and laid the newspaper flat on Grandma Alice’s kitchen table.

“Well, lookee here.”

It was a full-page ad for a new dentist in town.

JUST OPENED!

PEARLY WHITES FAMILY DENTISTRY

Milwaukee’s Award-Winning Dental Practice

Opens Office in Downtown Plainfield, NJ

Take Advantage of Our Grand Opening Special:

KIDS’ FIRST VISIT IS FREE!

Our customer service is out of this world!

“It looks like they opened in that vacant lot on Main Street across from the coffee shop,” Mom said, scanning the address.

Grandma Alice huffed.

“Oh, is that the silver monstrosity that popped up?” She scratched her mop of curly white hair. “It’s funny—I don’t even remember the construction.”

Mom shrugged. “Me either. They put up buildings so quickly these days….”

She typed the phone number for the practice into her cell phone.

“I’ll try to give them a call this morning. That deal is too good to pass up.”

Mom had been commenting more and more recently about how money was tight without Dad around.

I guess the crisis wasn’t averted after all….

Mary Kate’s mouth twisted into a devilish smile. “It’s probably best we switch dentists anyway. Especially after what Eddie did to Dr. Nicholas.”

That got her another kick under the table.

Except this time, I missed.

Mary Kate giggled gleefully and kept going. “Dr. Nicholas had to get three stitches. The whole office was calling you Tiger!”

I felt the rage bubble up inside me like a pot set to boil. I couldn’t contain it.

I chucked my spoon across the table. Mary Kate ducked just in time, and it hit the wall behind her. Milky bits of cereal dribbled down the floral wallpaper.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” I screamed. “It. Was. An. ACCIDENT!”

Last spring, during my routine dental checkup with our family dentist, Dr. Nicholas, I sort of… bit his finger.

I was so on edge about the appointment in the first place that when Dr. Nicholas’s little hook-shaped picking tool slipped and jabbed my gumline, my teeth clamped down around his finger before I could stop them. It was involuntary!

To my embarrassment, one of my canines pierced his glove. I can still remember the look on his face when he saw the blood and ran out of the room.

Grandma Alice slammed her fist on the table. “Eddie! Mary Kate! That’s enough.”

“She started it,” I complained.

Mary Kate stuck out her tongue. “What are you going to do? Bite me?”

I lunged for her across the table.

HONK! HONK!

“That’s the bus,” Mom said. She grabbed both our backpacks off the kitchen island and thrust them at us.

“But, Mom—” I started.

“But nothing.” She kissed both our foreheads. “Don’t miss the bus. And behave, please, both of you.”

She pushed us out the front door.

“But—”

The door slammed shut behind me.

I sighed.

I guess it was too late to tell her I forgot to brush my teeth that morning….

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Aladdin
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1665980419
• ISBN 13: 9781665980418
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 176
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Pays-Bas