The First Time I Went To The Dentist

• Seamus Shepherd, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2019

“Seamus Shepherd”

I snapped out of my painful daydream. Dentist, dentist drill, no teeth left. This had been happening all week. I stand up, and slowly walk toward the dentist. Fingers trembling, hands trembling, arms trembling, whole body trembling. The fear becoming more alive with each step.


I peek inside the operating room to see a variety of drills, picks and other apparently ‘safe’ tools. “Sit down” says the dentist kindly. In fact, it was almost too kind. “This won’t hurt much” she announced. Then, suddenly, I felt an agonising pain in my gum. It was horrible, impossibly close to unbearable. Looking back on it, I’m really not sure what kept me from yelling out in pain.Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The pain was still there but compared to the last twenty seconds, it felt like nothing. The amount of perspiration dripping from me would surely be as much rain as they get back in Tamworth in one year. The next words were spoken in a bare whisper. “This one won’t hurt a bit”. That was the last straw for me and I got up and ran straight out the open door and onto the street.


It had only been fifty metres before I was absolutely exhausted. Why am I so terribly unfit? This is not what I need right now. What I need is to get as far away from the pursuing dentist as possible. I checked over my shoulder and failed to notice the rock sticking out in front of me. I only saw it as I turned back but it was right at my feet.I tried to jump over it but it just caught the tip of my shoe…


Lying before me were two things. A lot of blood and half of one of my front teeth.The seething dentist arrived about half a minute after the fall followed closely by my two worried but furious parents who had been waiting in the foyer. “You stupid boy, you stupid stupid boy” they kept saying over and over again. If only they had felt my pain. “This will take a long time to operate on” the dentist sighed.


Once I was back in the operating room, I didn’t dare to move a muscle. But I also realised it wasn’t that bad. Maybe I had been over exaggerating just a little bit. After another three hours the dentist told me that I was finished. “ Just one thing” She spoke with a grin “With half a tooth, you will have to see me once every two weeks to check for infections and decay”.