King Kevin Goes to the Dentist

Leo knelt on his bedroom rug with a pair of round scissors, cutting the last zigzag into a crown made from a cereal box. The crown was for King Kevin, who was about as tall as a teapot and had lived on Leo's bookshelf for as long as anyone could remember. His old crown had been flattened under a pillow, and he had not smiled properly since.

"It needs one more gold star in the very front," said Leo, holding the crown up to the window. "Then it will be finished."

King Kevin stood on the bookshelf with his hands behind his back, studying the crown the way a captain studies a ship. He wore a velvet cloak that had once been a sock, and he took everything very seriously, including breakfast, puddles and the weather.

"A crown without a front star is merely a hat," he declared. "And I am not a hat sort of king."

Leo searched every drawer in the bedroom, but the star stickers had vanished. He found a rubber duck, three marbles and a sock with no partner, which King Kevin inspected closely in case it was a spare cloak.

"Leo, teeth!" called Mum from the hallway.

Leo scampered to the bathroom and brushed his teeth while King Kevin watched from the edge of the sink. Mum leaned in the doorway, already holding Leo's green backpack with the dinosaur zip, and smiled at both of them.

"We need to leave soon," said Mum. "Your dental check-up is at ten, and the clinic is just past the bakery."

King Kevin's eyebrows shot up so high that his old squashed crown nearly slid off. He looked from Mum to Leo and back again with enormous dignity.

"A check-up," he repeated slowly. "Am I to be checked up on? Has someone complained about my ruling?"

"Not you," said Leo, spitting neatly into the sink. "Me. The dentist looks at my teeth to see how they are doing."

King Kevin considered this for a long moment, stroking his tiny beard. Then he asked whether the dentist was a famous person, and Mum, who was busy finding her keys, said that dentists sometimes put crowns on teeth. She meant something quite ordinary, but King Kevin heard only one word.

"Crowns!" he gasped. "They hand out crowns there? Leo, this is the answer to everything!"

Before Leo could explain, King Kevin had climbed into the side pocket of the backpack and wedged himself in tightly. Only his head and his sock cloak poked out. He announced that he was ready to be crowned, and that he hoped the dentist had a trumpet.

They set off along the pavement, past the bakery where the warm smell of bread drifted out through the door. Leo carried the unfinished crown in both hands, because it was too precious for the backpack and too floppy for his pocket. King Kevin waved at a pigeon as though it were a loyal subject.

"I shall need a speech," said King Kevin. "Something short but memorable. Perhaps I shall thank the pigeon."

Leo explained that the crowns at the clinic were not that kind of crown at all, but King Kevin only nodded wisely. He said that every kingdom had its own customs, and that he would bow at the right moment. Then he practised bowing so deeply that he almost tipped out of the pocket.

At the corner, Leo's steps slowed until he was barely moving. The clinic had a blue door and a window full of cheerful paper teeth, and Leo stood looking at it while a bus rumbled by.

"Mum," said Leo quietly, "what will they do first?"

Mum crouched beside him so that their eyes were level and the backpack swung gently against his shoulder. She said that first they would sit in the waiting room, and that she would be right next to him the whole time. Leo looked at the blue door again and squeezed the cardboard crown until one zigzag bent.

Inside, the waiting room was calm and bright, with small chairs, a fish tank and a basket of picture books by the window. A man was reading a magazine about boats, and a girl was swinging her legs in time with a ticking clock. Behind the desk sat a dental nurse called Rosa, who had a pencil tucked behind her ear.

Leo sat down beside Mum and smoothed the bent zigzag on his knee. When he was ready, he breathed out slowly, as slowly as the fish drifting past the glass, and his shoulders settled a little lower.

Then he noticed a bowl on Rosa's desk. It was full of shiny gold star stickers, exactly the right size for the front of a crown.

"Look," whispered Leo. "That's the missing star."

King Kevin had seen it too, but he had drawn an entirely different conclusion. He wriggled free of the backpack pocket and stood up straight on the arm of the chair with his sock cloak swirling.

"Gold stars," he breathed. "The royal treasury. Leo, the ceremony is about to begin."

At that moment, a cheerful woman in a mint green coat opened the inner door. She looked at her clipboard, smiled around the room and called out a name.

"Leo?" she said. "Would you like to come through?"

King Kevin did not wait for Leo at all. He hopped down from the chair, lifted his chin, and marched straight towards the open door as if a trumpet had sounded.

Leo hurried after him, holding the crown in one hand and Mum's fingers in the other. The treatment room had a big chair the colour of peppermint, a lamp shaped like a flower and a window that looked out over the bakery roof.

The woman in the mint green coat was the dentist, and her name was Nadia. She found King Kevin standing at the foot of the chair with his arms spread wide, waiting for applause.

"Good morning," said Nadia politely. "And who might you be?"

"I am King Kevin," he announced, "and I have come to collect my crown, please, with the trumpet if possible."

Nadia did not laugh, because she could see he was entirely serious. She simply nodded, as if kings arrived every Tuesday, and said that the patient always went first in her kingdom. King Kevin accepted this with a gracious bow and climbed onto the shelf beside the toothbrushes to watch.

Leo looked at the big chair for a moment and held the crown against his chest. Then he climbed up and settled back slowly, while Mum pulled a stool right beside him and took his hand.

"What happens now?" asked Leo.

"I'll have a quick look at your teeth with my little mirror," said Nadia. "If you want me to stop, just raise your hand, and I'll stop straight away."

Leo nodded and opened his mouth wide, the way a hippo yawns on a sunny afternoon. The lamp glowed above him, and Nadia hummed a tune that sounded a lot like a song about ducks. Halfway through, Leo lifted his free hand into the air, and Nadia stopped at once.

"I want my crown on my tummy," said Leo, "so I can hold it."

Mum laid the cardboard crown gently on his tummy, and Leo rested his hand on the zigzags. When he was ready, he opened wide again, and Nadia carried on humming until she had finished.

"All done," said Nadia, rolling her stool back. "Thank you, Leo."

King Kevin cleared his throat loudly from the shelf. He had been waiting with great patience, he said, and he would now like his crown, his trumpet and possibly a small speech in his honour.

Nadia glanced at Rosa, who had appeared in the doorway carrying the bowl of gold stars. Rosa held the bowl out to Leo with a serious face, as though it really were the royal treasury.

"One star for every patient," said Rosa. "Choose carefully."

Leo picked the biggest, shiniest star and pressed it firmly onto the very front of the cardboard crown. It fitted perfectly, right in the middle where the gap had been. He turned around and held the finished crown out towards the shelf.

King Kevin's mouth fell open. He looked at the crown, then at Leo, then at Nadia, and finally at the bowl of stars with enormous respect.

"So it is true," he whispered. "They really do hand out crowns here."

Leo placed the crown carefully on King Kevin's head, and it sat there straight and proud. Rosa hummed a few notes that were almost like a trumpet, and the man with the boat magazine clapped from the waiting room.

King Kevin gave his speech on the walk home, thanking Nadia, Rosa, the fish, the bakery and the pigeon, who had not moved from the corner. Mum laughed so hard that she had to stop beside the lamppost.

"Leo, I liked holding your hand in there," said Mum, squeezing it once more.

Leo squeezed back and grinned, and the gold star caught the sunshine on King Kevin's head.

"Have a lovely day, Leo," said King Kevin grandly, "and next week we shall visit the bakery, because I hear they make crowns there too."

Mum explained that those were croissants, but King Kevin was already practising his bow.