Dr Trickery

Once upon a time there was a boy called Johnny. He was a sweet boy who did everything he was told. He had nice friends that all went to his nice school. Today however, Johnny wasn't feeling too well when he woke up. The room was swirling around and he felt hot and cold at the same time. Mum came in to see why he hadn't come down to breakfast as he normally did.

As she opened the door to his bedroom he groaned.

"What's the matter darling?"

"I don't feel well mum" he answered. Mum bent down to take a look at him and she gasped. His eyes had turned green and red and were spinning around like bicycle wheels. She switched his bedside light on and found he had bright red spots all over his face.

"You stay right there, I'm calling the doctor" Mum said and rushed out of the room to the phone. "Doctor, hello doctor, I need an appointment for this morning, my son is looking extraordinarily unwell."

"I'm sorry" came the doctors voice down the phone line "But I am fully booked for the next two weeks, you'll have to try somewhere else."

Mum looked in the phone book and found another doctor. She called it and got the same response. She tried another, and another and finally one doctor said "Well, you could always try Dr Trickery, though he's a little strange."

By that point mum would try anything, poor little Johnny was looking very bad. She got the doctors number and called it. He picked up immediately. "Hello, Johnny is it? Please come to the end of your road and you'll see my surgery. Can't miss it."

How convenient thought mum, he's just down the end of the road. Why didn't I see him before? And how did he know Johnny's name?

Mum went back into Johnny's room. He'd got worse already. There were blue spots all over his tongue.

Mum wrapped him up in his bedsheet and took him down the road. At the bottom of their street was a very unusual car. It had big flashing letters on top saying "DOCTOR TRICKERY'S SURGERY" and not the usual number of doors a car has, but lots and lots of doors all over it. Mum didn't wait but knocked on the side of the car. A little door near the top of the car opened up and two beady eyes behind thick black rimmed spectacles peered out. "Johnny is it?" Said the man in the car.

"Yes" Said mum. The whole side of the car opened up like one big door. Inside was a huge white room with a sink and a table and a bed like they have in doctors surgeries. Come in, come in beckoned a strange little man to whom the eyes belonged. He had a huge handlebar moustache and a round pot belly sitting on top of two very short legs. A very unusual chap indeed.

"Let's have a look at you then" He swung a huge bright light around onto little Johnny and instantly diagnosed. "Ahh yes, it appears you have the symptoms of a bite from a bedbug."

"A bedbug?" Both Johnny and his mum repeated together.

"Yes, a bedbug. Now what you'll have to do is go back to your house and trap it and bring it back here so I can save your poor child. They're usually long green things like lizards, and they've got red eyes. With any luck it will still be in the boy's bed. Be careful you don't get bitten yourself". Mum was turning to go when the doctor said "Hold on, you'll need this - it's a special net for catching them." He handed her the net on the end of a long bamboo stick and they rushed back to the house.

Johnny was looking worse and worse. His ears had turned purple and swollen up to about twice their normal size and he had huge amounts of hair growing on his bottom. It looked like the hair of a girl at school called Sarah.

Mum crept quietly up the stairs making sure nothing slipped past her.

She opened the door to Johnny's bedroom as gently as she could and there on Johnny's pillow, just as the doctor described, a long green lizard-like creature, lying with it's hands behind it's head and looking wistfully out of the window.

Mum go the net ready and snuck up on it. She was almost within reach when she slipped on one of Johnny's toy cars. The bedbug jumped up and was about to scurry into hiding when mum whipped it up in the net in one deft move.

The strange creature wriggled and cried but it couldn't get free.

Grabbing poor, suffering Johnny by his arm they dashed out of the house and down the road to the doctor's strange car.

He was outside waiting for them and ushered them in as soon as they got close.

"Quick, pass me the net." Said Doctor Trickery. He slipped the slippery thing out of the net and into a jar and began talking to it. "I'll give you three chances to give me a true answer, and we can fix this boy."

"Were you in the boy's bed this morning?"

The animal shook his head and said in a quiet little voice "No."

"LIAR" The doctor screamed and put a fly in the jar with the bedbug. The bedbug hated the buzzing around of the fly and when the fly landed on the bedbug's nose the bedbug let out a little scream of desperation. The doctor took the fly out and asked a second question. "Did you bite poor little Johnny?"

"Oh, not me, no, no, wasn't me doctor." Said the bedbug.

"LIAR" the doctor shouted and he filled the jar half full with cold water. The bedbug was shivering and turned blue. "One more lie and I'll fill this jar to the top. Did you bite little Johnny on the bum?"

The bedbug gave up pretending. "Yes."

"Well, you had better kiss it better then." And he let the bedbug out of the jar. It scampered across the floor and straight up Johnny's pyjama leg. They all heard a big kiss and then the lizard plopped back on the floor and hid in the corner.

Immediately Johnny's ears shrank back down to size, his spots all cleared up and he could see normally again.

"WOW" said Johnny. "I'm OK again mum."

"Thank goodness said mum, unable to believe her eyes.

"There'll be a small matter of payment to discuss." Said Doctor Trickery. "I can't do this for free you must understand." And he whispered in mum's ear.

"How much?" Asked mum, her eyes bulging with shock. "Well, I suppose you did save my boy when no one else was around. I'll have to write you a cheque."

When mum and Johnny turned and went back to the house, Doctor Trickery turned and winked at the bedbug who was now sitting on his own pillow next to the driver's seat. The Doctor's phone rang, "Please, he's got spots all over his face and his eyes are looking most unusual." The car closed it's doors and the doctor sped away.