Janine Amos
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An extract from The Toothgrinder
Chapter One
Daniel ran. Up the alley alongside the park he went, puffing hard in the cold air. Dad ran next to him. Their trainers smacked the pavement and splashed in puddles left by yesterday’s rain. It was getting dark. In the yellow glow from the street lamp, bushes crouched like monsters in the shadows. Bare branches poked through the park railings: witches’ fingers, thin and bony. The wind blew and the branch-fingers tapped crazily against the bars. Night time was coming.
When they reached Daniel’s house, they stopped.
“See you soon, Danny,” said Dad.
Daniel turned and hammered on the front door with his fist.
His sister Chloe opened it. “You’re late,” she said. “It’s nearly your bedtime.” She leaned out to wave to Dad.
Daniel elbowed his way in next to her.
“’Night!” they shouted from the doorstep.
“’Night, you two!” Dad called, walking off down the street.
Daniel stood waving goodnight, until Dad was a grey shape in the distance.
That night, in his dream, Daniel ran.
A bright, round moon lit his way. Branches hit his face and clawed his jeans. The ground was wet and his trainers skidded in the mud. Faster and faster he went, deeper and deeper into the wood.
The air smelled bad; mouldy leaves mixed with a sharper stink, like a dead animal rotting. On and on he ran, crashing through the trees. He was panting, his chest hurt, but he knew he couldn’t stop.
There was a high, whining sound and a flash of metal. The trees thinned out and Daniel slowed. In front of him, in a clearing, was a small, wizened creature: a goblin. Some kind of machine was spinning, whirling round and round, flicking darts of light into the trees.
Daniel shrank back in the bushes. The creature looked right at him with slit eyes. It came towards him. It stretched out its arms to him. It grinned.
Daniel’s tooth sat, large and smooth, in the goblin’s cupped hands.
Daniel jerked awake, staring into the blackness. His heart was thumping. Slowly he got used to the dim light of his bedside lamp; there were his shelves stacked high with computer games and Lego. His football kit lay in a pile on the floor.
He heaved himself out of bed and dashed into the cold bathroom to do a wee. Afterwards he tiptoed into Mum’s room and slipped into the big bed.
Eyes wide open in the dark, Daniel listened to the steady tick of the wall clock. He knew he should be asleep; school in the morning. But the tick reminded him of something, something in the dream. He shuddered again and shrank further under the duvet. He tried to think about Mum’s breathing. In, out, in, out - think harder - drown out the click, drown out the tick. Sleep came.
“What are you doing in here again?” she asked the next morning.
Daniel listened for a crossness in her voice - but it wasn’t there. She just sounded a bit stuffed up and muffly like she always did first thing.
“Bad dream, that’s all,” he mumbled, keeping it low so that Chloe wouldn’t hear. He began to slink out of the warm space and back into his own room, but he was too late. Chloe leaned against Mum’s bedroom door.