laugh every morning in unison, because it’s, like, good for your blood pressure or arteries or whatever.)
“You’re really good at that armpit song!” the dentist giggled, snorting and rolling around a bit. “Do it again! Again! For even more long!”
The other problem was, whatever pipes my friends had connected, they’d obviously shut off the actual sleeping gas to Sesha’s mask. Because in less than a minute, the Serpent King’s eyes popped open.
He was confused, both because he had just been knocked out, and by my costume. “They must not be paying dentists enough,” he lisped through his missing front fang. “If you have to moonlight as pirates?” And then he too began to hoot and laugh. Clearly, no one had the policeman’s anti-laughing sickness.
The dentist was now rolling around on the ground, clutching at his stomach. “Yo ho hoo! A pirate’s life for you!”
“Ai-Ma!” I yelled even as I whipped off my hygienist’s robe. I carefully dropped the bloody fang from the pliers into my backpack. The wig and patch I also threw off, but I was careful to leave the bird mask on, to protect myself from the effects of the laughing gas now heavy in the air.
“Wait a minute, who are you? What are you doing with my tooth?” Sesha was still laughing, but he was growing less confused by the second. “I know you! You’re that daughter of mine! Give that back! Give it here! How much sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thieving child!”
He reached for me, a bit unsteady on his feet, just as Ai-Ma came whipping through the door. “Come on, my adopted sweet grand-boo-boo!” she yelled, throwing me over her shoulder and leaping out of the window with one long-legged stride.
“Miss Mooneypenny, my hairy dumpling dear!” the dentist half chuckled, half wailed. “What will I do without your ugly face and figure here?”
“You can shove this terrible job in your dung-beetle wing nut!” yelled Ai-Ma, yanking off her cardigan, glasses, and wig with one swift gesture. “I quit!”
“Wait! Wait!” Sesha giggled and snorted, but he was sounding more like himself with every second. “Henchmen! Get them! They have my tooth! Don’t let them get away! Bring my daughter to me!”
And just like that, Sesha was flinging uneven green bolts of energy at us in between giggles. Poor Ai-Ma cried out when they caught and singed her skin. Over Ai-Ma’s shoulder, I nocked arrow after arrow in my bow, but they didn’t seem to bother Sesha. And as if the flying bolts of pain weren’t bad enough, at the Serpent King’s cry, the scraggly lawn outside the dentist’s office was filled with snakes of all kinds: boas, rattlers, pythons, and mambas. They slithered viciously in our direction, surrounding Ai-Ma in a trice. They hissed and snapped at us.
“Oh, dear, my licorice-toad dung drop!” Poor Ai-Ma exclaimed as another of Sesha’s bolts singed her skin. “I’m afraid this getaway isn’t going according to plan!”
Ai-Ma was right. With the green bolts of pain whirling all around us now, and the deadly snakes writhing at our feet, there was no way we were going to get away. And with one arm occupied with holding me up, Ai-Ma couldn’t even fight off our attackers.
“Put me down, Ai-Ma. Let me help you fight!”
“No way, my sweet dumpling pants, what we need is a set of wings!” Ai-Ma pointed at the sky, but at what, I wasn’t sure.
“I’ve got you, Grandma!” said a familiar voice. I couldn’t see who it was but breathed a sigh of relief as Ai-Ma and I were both swept up into the sky. The snakes hissed and writhed in anger at our escape.
“Get back here, you piratical daughter!” lisped a one-toothed Sesha from the dentist’s office window. The dental bib was still hanging crookedly around his neck from a chain. “I’ll get you for thisss!”
I was so relieved to have been plucked out of danger that I didn’t even register who had saved us for a few minutes. It was only when I finally looked up that I saw who was flying above us. As soon as I saw who it was, my relief turned to horror, and I screamed.
At first, I tried to tell myself I was asleep. This had to be a nightmare, like the Rakkhoshi Rani visiting my room. Only, that hadn’t been a nightmare at all, had it? And neither was this. But I couldn’t believe my eyes, even as my brain slowly processed the information it was receiving.
Our flying