Mrs. Ivy shrieked a surprised little thin-lipped shriek.

The crossword-puzzle lady stood up out of her chair. She said, “Heavens!” The crossword-puzzle book fell from her hands and landed on the floor.

“Help me,” said Granny to Mrs. Ivy.

“We are all booked today,” said Mrs. Ivy, but she didn’t sound very certain when she said it.

Clearly, the time for certainty had passed.

Granny shouted, “Argggggghhhh! Help me!” She had on her fur coat. Her hair was standing up straight on her head. Suddenly, I saw her like other people might see her, and I will not lie to you: it scared me.

How can I say this?

She did not look trustworthy.

She looked like somebody with a curse upon her head.

Which, of course, was exactly the case.

“Granny,” I said.

And then a little man in a white coat came out from behind a closed door. He said, “Is there a problem here, Mrs. Ivy?”

Mrs. Ivy said, “There is a small scheduling inconsistency, Dr. Fox. No need to concern yourself.”

Granny put out her arms.

Mrs. Ivy said, “Stand back!”

But it was too late. Granny went running toward Dr. Fox, and when she got to him, she fell down and clutched his feet.

Well, what could Dr. Fox do?

He took her into his office.

Mrs. Ivy was not pleased.

She had been outwitted in the battle of the wills.

She sat down at her desk.

Her lips got so thin that they disappeared entirely.

It turned out that Granny did not have one bad tooth.

They were all bad.

That is what Dr. Fox came out and told me. He stood in front of me in his white coat, adjusted his tiny glasses, and said, “I’m afraid that the infection was profound and systemic.”

I looked at him and thought that he did not resemble a fox at all. He looked more like a mouse. His nose, in particular, was very tiny and mouselike. It twitched in a nervous way when he spoke.

“Profound,” said Dr. Fox again. “Systemic.”

“Oh, my goodness,” I said. I bent over. It was suddenly hard for me to breathe. I have very swampy lungs, and in times of distress, they often fail me.

Carol Anne took hold of my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed back. Carol Anne was the medium-difficulty-crossword-puzzle lady, and we had become good friends while Dr. Fox was busy pulling out each and every one of Granny’s teeth.

Carol Anne was a retired librarian, and we had talked for some time about our favorite books. She was very familiar with the story of Pinocchio and even knew that the cricket was killed with a mallet in the beginning of the book.

Carol Anne was going to visit her grandchildren after her husband’s teeth got cleaned. She was taking her grandchildren some chocolate-chip cookies, which, when she found out how very hungry I was, she was happy to go out to her car and retrieve and share with me.

The cookies were in a red Christmas tin with a green wreath on it. There were little spots of raised-up white on the tin that were supposed to represent a joyous snowfall.

In addition to the chocolate chips, there were walnuts in the cookies, and that was a surprise. Walnuts are not my favorite nut, but they are a good nut, nevertheless.

I had eaten five walnut-and-chocolate-chip cookies. The Christmas tin was still in my lap.

I looked down at it after Dr. Fox delivered his dental news to me. I ran my fingers over the raised spots of snow. I stared at the wreath. It was a very cheery-looking tin, but to tell the truth, it did not cheer me up very much to consider it. My situation was growing ever more dire.

“She will, of course, need to recuperate,” said Dr. Fox. “Antibiotics, painkillers, and bed rest. It is quite a shock when all the teeth are removed at once.”

I took a deep breath. I looked up at Dr. Fox. “All of them?” I said. “There is truly not a tooth left in her head?”

Who would Granny be without her teeth? You could say what you wanted about Granny (she lied; she stole; she had a curse on her head — true, true, true), but she was, at the very least, the kind of person who smiled a lot. She used her teeth a great deal.

“Yes,” said Dr. Fox. “I thought it best to prepare you.”

“It will be all right,” said Carol Anne. She squeezed my hand again.

I wanted to believe her.

I stared at Dr. Fox, the dental mouse. I looked him in the eye. I said, “Thank you very much for attending to my granny.”

I noticed that there was a spot of blood on Dr. Fox’s white coat. It was just one little drop, and it looked like something out of a fairy tale — like a pinprick on Sleeping Beauty’s finger. It made me want to cry. But then I saw Mrs. Ivy sitting at her desk, looking disapproving, and I thought, Well, I will not give her the satisfaction.

And I did not.

And then there was the matter of the bill.

That was what Mrs. Ivy said.

“There is the matter of the bill. Dr. Fox’s services are not free.”

I said, “I did not expect them to be. You may mail the bill to us.”

And on the spot, I made up a person and an address.

I said, “You may send the bill to my grandfather. He pays all our bills. His name is William Sunder. He is at 1221 Blue Fairy Lane, Lister, Florida. My granny and I are just passing through. We are on vacation.”

It was deeply satisfying to lie to Mrs. Ivy.

However, the satisfaction did not last long, because Granny emerged from the back room. In addition to being toothless, she looked stunned, as if somebody had hit her over the head with something very heavy.

I followed behind Granny as she staggered out the door and to the parking lot. I said, “Granny, Dr. Fox says that you need to recuperate. I am perfectly capable of driving, as I demonstrated earlier today. You can recuperate in the back seat, and I will drive.”

Granny turned and faced me and held out her hand. She said, “Give me the keys, Louisiana.”

Her voice was strange — muffled and uncertain and toothless. She didn’t sound like herself at all. It was alarming.

What could I do?

I handed her the keys.

We got in the car, and Granny got behind the wheel. We left Dr. Fox’s parking lot and went down the road. Granny’s face was very white. She was driving slowly, staring at the road in a grim and determined fashion.

I said, “Where are we going?”

“Do not bother me with small questions, Louisiana,” she said in her new disturbing voice.

Well, to me, “Where are we going?” did not seem like a small question.

It seemed like the biggest question of all.

But then I remembered that I was angry with Granny. I remembered that I was not speaking to her. And I decided that in addition to not speaking to her, I would never ask Granny a question again.

We drove until we got to a motel called the Good Night, Sleep Tight.

It was a small motel with a big sign that featured a giant neon candle and neon letters spelling out GOOD NIGHT SLEEP TIGHT. There was a painted sign in the window of the motel office that said A good night’s sleep is a good thing, indeed.

This was a sentiment that I agreed with, particularly since I had not had a good night’s sleep the previous night — having been awoken at three a.m. and told that the day of reckoning had arrived.

“Are we staying here?” I said to Granny.

And then I remembered that I was not talking to her or asking her any more questions ever again.

Granny turned to me. She said, “Go inside. Use your charm and secure a room for us, Louisiana.”

I stared at her. She stared at me. We stared death rays at each other. We were engaged in a vicious battle of the wills!

But after a very long time, I looked away.

Granny had won. Even without her teeth, she had won. She was still a force to be reckoned with.

I got out of the car. I slammed the door as hard as I could.