Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom

by David Neilsen

  Unfortunately, Mrs. Worth was just as nosey as everyone else.

  “Bloom! Pinkblossom! Don’t the two of you live on Hardscrabble Street?” asked their teacher in the middle of a lecture on multiplying fractions.

  “Um…yes. Yes, we do,” answered Gail.

  “So did you see Dr. Fell this weekend? What’s he like? Is he really seven feet tall?”

  Gail glanced at Nancy for help.

  “We didn’t really get a good look at him,” said Nancy, lying with ease.

  “Right—we spent most of the weekend playing by the river,” agreed Gail, hoping the small fib wouldn’t cause her cheeks to become overly red. Gail was not as good at lying as Nancy.

  “Oh. That’s a pity,” said Mrs. Worth, who obviously felt it was much more than a pity. “I have an idea. When the two of you go home tonight, you should spend some time staring down the street at Dr. Fell’s house.”

  Mrs. Worth’s face lit up as she said this. “In fact, let’s make that your homework. Don’t worry about math or ELA or anything else. Just sit by your windows and watch Dr. Fell’s house all night. In the morning, you can present your report to the class and tell us what you saw.” She beamed, pleased with herself. “Yes, I think that’s an excellent idea.”

  Everyone agreed that it was an excellent idea.

  Everyone except Gail and Nancy.

  Meanwhile, in Mrs. Wealthini’s third-grade class, Jerry was having an equally difficult time avoiding talk of Dr. Fell. Mrs. Wealthini continually found ways to slip the subject into whatever she happened to be teaching at any particular moment.

  “The water-holding frog of Australia’s deserts burrows into the ground during the hot days of summer, much like this new Dr. Fell seems to be burrowing into his new home on Hardscrabble Street,” said Mrs. Wealthini. “Meanwhile, the red-eyed tree frog has bulging eyes, much like the people who live on Hardscrabble Street must have had this weekend when they saw Dr. Fell move into that empty house.”

  So far, Jerry had managed to avoid telling anyone about his encounter with Dr. Fell, though that was mainly because very few people in the third grade were aware that he lived on Hardscrabble Street. To be honest, very few people in the third grade were aware of Jerry Bloom, period. This occasionally bothered Jerry, but today he was thankful. The last thing he wanted to do was admit to anyone that talking to Dr. Fell had made him feel so…so…

  So uncomfortable.

  So he kept his head down and waited for the day to end.

  THERE WAS A SURPRISE waiting for the children of Hardscrabble Street when they returned home from school.

  “Whoa,” said Christian Gloomfellow.

  “Check it out,” said Johnny Doomburg.

  “Dude!” said Zachary Fallowmold.

  In front of Dr. Fell’s house stood an enormous wooden structure. It had stairs and slides and poles and ladders and ropes and handholds and trapdoors and secret panels on multiple levels, with dozens of entrances and exits. From one angle, it resembled the most awesome pirate ship ever imagined, while from another, it was obviously a totally cool spaceship. From a third angle, it stood tall as a perfect medieval castle, while from a fourth, it beckoned to one and all as a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested wasteland.

  It was, in short, the greatest playhouse any girl or boy had ever seen in the entire history of girls and boys.

  The children were drawn to it like flies to flypaper.

  “This is awesome!” shouted a gleeful Albert Rottingsly, swinging from a rope.

  “Best! Playground! Ever!” shouted a jubilant Gabby Plaugestein, scrambling up a climbing wall.

  “I never want to leave!” shouted an enraptured Gore Oozewuld, leaping from platform to platform.

  As the children played, frolicked, cavorted, and romped over every square inch of the wooden structure, Dr. Fell stood to one side in his near-horizontal position, smiling pleasantly from beneath his purple top hat and watching the children lose themselves in boundless joy on the magical construction that had sprung to life while they had toiled away at school.

  “Where did that come from?” asked Gail as she, Nancy, and Jerry stepped off the school bus and caught sight of the playground.

  “Who cares? It rocks!” shouted Josh Gallowsbee, brushing past the three of them and racing down the street to join in the revelry.

  “That was not here this morning,” stated Jerry.

  “No, it wasn’t,” answered Nancy, before remembering to add, “Dorknose.”

  Curious, the three approached the massive structure, which now dominated the end of Hardscrabble Street. More and more children raced past them to climb all over the Taj Mahal of playhouses, and the air was soon filled with peals of laughter and screams of rapture such as you would normally expect to hear only from children on a major sugar buzz.

  There was some serious fun happening.

  Gail, Nancy, and Jerry, however, ambled more hesitantly forward, not overcome with the same sense of frenzied jubilation as their peers.

  “A supremely pleasant good afternoon to you, urchins,” wheezed Dr. Fell as the three children walked up the driveway, their eyes focused laser-like on the playhouse. “Though I can never undo the inadvertent damage my arrival has done to the children of this fine neighborhood, I hope my humble offering of goodwill may begin to place me in a better light.”

  Each of them involuntarily took a few steps toward the scene of gleeful chaos before standing their ground. “Wow,” said Jerry, unable to turn away.

  Dr. Fell glowed at the praise. “I must thank the three of you for informing me the other day as to the nature of my grave offense,” he said. “It allowed me to put my nose to the grindstone to work on a thorny issue I had not even known was facing me.” Dr. Fell spoke the last words with as grand a sweep of his ancient arms as his aged body allowed. It was as if he were performing for a crowd rather than chatting with three young children. The gesture proved quite difficult for the old man, and his bones groaned from the effort.

  “This was what was in those big crates?” asked Nancy.

  “Some of them, yes,” answered Dr. Fell. He reached up with a jerking motion and carefully adjusted his top hat, watching dozens of children play to their hearts’ content on his amazing gift. After a long sigh, he glanced down at Gail, Nancy, and Jerry as if startled to see them standing there.

  “Well now!” he exclaimed. “Shouldn’t you three be running amok within and throughout my magnanimous neighborhood donation?”

  They just looked at him. He cleared his throat.

  “What I mean to say is…don’t you want to go play?”

  They returned their attention to all the children scrambling wildly over the wooden structure. For some reason, whatever spell had been cast over the rest of the children hadn’t quite taken hold of them just yet.

  “I…I have homework,” said Gail, who did have homework and felt an obligation to do it.

  “Yeah. Me too,” said Nancy, who also had homework but felt no obligation to do it.

  “I don’t,” said Jerry, who always finished his homework on the bus ride home from school.

  “How fortuitous,” said Dr. Fell, smiling. “Revelry calls.”

  As Gail and Nancy watched, slightly concerned, Jerry took first one step toward the playground, then another. Then a third. Then he stopped.

  “It does look like fun,” he said.

  “Your fellow whippersnappers certainly find it so,” cooed Dr. Fell.

  Jerry took another step toward the playhouse, then turned to look at his sister. Gail gave him the slightest of head shakes, her eyes open and begging.

  It was enough to tip the scales.

  “I forgot,” said Jerry. “There’s a…a TV show…that I want to watch.”

  “A television program?” asked Dr. Fell through his smile. “On a beautiful spring afternoon such as this?”

  “Yeah. Our folks recorded it for me last night. It’s about nature. I’ve really been looking forward to seein
g it. All day.”

  The expression on Dr. Fell’s face did not change. Outwardly, he maintained an air of relaxed pleasantness. Nevertheless, the hairs on the arms of the three children stood on end under his welcoming, hyena-like smile.

  “Another day, perhaps,” said the very old man.

  “Definitely,” agreed Jerry, backing away. “Another day.”

  They turned and walked home as calmly as they could, well aware of Dr. Fell’s gaze drilling into their spines as they retreated from his yard.

  Left in their wake were countless neighborhood children screaming with delight as they took full advantage of the unexpected wonderland that had popped up in the blink of an eye.

  Their joyful cries echoed for miles in all directions.

  THE PLAYGROUND OF DR. FELL was covered with a thin layer of children at all times.

  They swarmed over it in the morning before school. They answered its siren call in the afternoon when school was over. Some of the braver children raced back on their bikes during lunch to enjoy just five minutes on the wondrous structure before hurrying back to school in time for the end-of-lunch bell. On Wednesday, Zachary Fallowmold and Johnny Doomburg skipped school entirely to scramble through its fantastic passageways.

  They were caught by Johnny’s mother, PTA Co-President Martha Doomburg, and grounded for a week.

  But it was worth it.

  Nearly everyone living on Hardscrabble Street, Vexington Avenue, Von Burden Lane, and Turnabout Road (Old Lady Witherton could not be bothered) agreed that they had never seen the neighborhood’s children so enthralled and obsessed with the same thing at the same time. Certainly there had been the week when Hannah Festerworth had received a Puking Pony doll for her birthday and every girl in the area had wanted to play with it (forcing Janice Festerworth to replace her entire living room carpet), but none of the boys had cared. And of course there was the time Gore Oozewuld had been given a set of Flaming Nunchucks for Bleeding Martyr’s Day and every boy in the area had wanted to try them (forcing Olga Oozewuld to throw out her overly flammable dining room table), but none of the girls had cared.

  But boy and girl, toddler and teen, right-handed and left-handed, all craved the playground of Dr. Fell.

  Not a free moment went by that screams of glee did not sound from within its depths.

  So it was only a matter of time before they were replaced by screams of pain.

  It was little Ethel Pusster, younger sister of Ethan Pusster, who became the playground’s first victim. The spunky six-year-old was swinging from bar to bar, leaping from platform to platform, and shimmying from pole to pole when she tripped over a slightly warped plank none of the children had noticed. She fell to the ground, landing poorly on the seemingly soft grass, and let out a wail of pain.

  Instantly, the gnarled and bent form of Dr. Fell was at her side, appearing as if by magic.

  “There, there, my sweet groundling,” he cooed. “Tears need not fall from such a pretty face. Let us have a look at your reprehensible boo-boo, shall we?”

  Ethel blinked up into Dr. Fell’s wide, milky eyes and tried to hold back her tears of pain like a big girl. “I—I—hurt—my—kneeeeee—” she said in halting, choke-filled gasps.

  The other children gravitated toward Ethel and Dr. Fell, unable to resist the spectacle of an injured playmate.

  “So I see, little one. So I see,” said Dr. Fell, gently examining the body part in question. “Does it hurt when I do this?”

  He touched his thumb to the side of her knee. Ethel shook her head.

  “Does it hurt when I do this?”

  He touched his thumb to the inside of her knee. Ethel shook her head.

  “Does it hurt when I do this?”

  He slowly reached up and touched his thumb to his own nose. Ethel giggled.

  “That’s a very good sign. A very good sign indeed.”

  As the giggle lingered in the child’s smile, he leaned forward with an audible groan and inspected her knee. A small streak of blood trickled amid the pink flesh—pinker than normal, as a good layer had been scoured off when the child had fallen onto the grass. He hummed softly to himself as he examined the minor wound, then stood up, pausing momentarily as one or more of his elderly bones protested the movement with a creak.

  “Is it bad?” asked Ethel.

  The other children leaned in to hear his answer.

  “Well now,” he said, “I am of the learned opinion that you have suffered what we in the medical profession call a skinned knee. Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll fix you right as rain.”

  “Inside?” asked Ethel.

  No one had been inside the home of Dr. Fell since his unannounced arrival the week before.

  “I think maybe I should get my mom,” said Ethan Pusster with a nervous glance at his sister.

  “Indeed,” agreed Dr. Fell. “That is an excellent idea, young man. Why don’t you run home and fetch the fine Mrs. Pusster whilst I attend to your sister’s injury. Please come right on in when you return.”

  A hush fell over the children. Something seemed off, but nobody could quite put a finger on it. Some looked at Ethan. Some looked at Ethel. Some looked at Dr. Fell. Randy Macabrador looked longingly at the playhouse, eager to climb back up and continue playing.

  “Come, my sweet young urchin,” charmed Dr. Fell, extending a hand down to Ethel Pusster. “I have a bottle of antiseptic ointment and a bandage with your name on them.”

  Ethan ran home to fetch his mother while the other kids slowly dispersed, though with many a curious glance over their shoulders. Dr. Fell gently brought Ethel Pusster to her feet, allowing her to lean on his frail and fragile body. Arm in arm, they limped (she due to her skinned knee and he due to his advanced age) across the porch to his front door. The aged healer turned the doorknob, opened his door, and gestured for the little girl to hobble inside.

  She was instantly swallowed up by the darkness within.

  Ethan Pusster returned to the home of Dr. Fell with a very flustered and worried mother. Edna Pusster had dropped everything and come at once—leaving an apple crisp to burn in the oven in the process. Though only four houses away, the journey had seemed eternal, and she had repeatedly berated her son for allowing his six-year-old sister to enter the strange man’s home all alone.

  “We simply don’t know what sort of man Dr. Fell is!” she huffed between strides. “He could be dangerous! He could be a maniac!”

  “Yes, Mom,” said Ethan, knowing better than to say anything else in response.

  They hurried up the driveway and Edna leaped up the front steps two at a time—her nimbleness a legacy from her days as a high school track star.

  “How dare the man abduct a small, helpless girl into his home like this!”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind, so help me God!”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  She raised her fist and pounded on the door.

  “He said to go right in, Mom,” said Ethan.

  She went right in.

  When she exited the home some time later with her children, Edna was all smiles.

  Little Ethel Pusster, fresh bandage on her knee, grinned up at her mother. “What a nice man is Dr. Fell,” she said, and then she scampered off to continue playing on the play structure. She was quickly followed by her big brother. A much-relieved Edna Pusster beamed as her children played.

  Last to step into the sunlight was a very satisfied-looking Dr. Fell, absently stroking the chain of his gold pocket watch.

  “I’m so sorry for my behavior a moment ago, Dr. Fell,” said Mrs. Pusster.

  “Not at all, my dear woman. Not at all,” said Dr. Fell with a wheeze. “Your baby was in harm’s way. It is perfectly natural for a mother to be emotional in such situations.”

  Edna Pusster blushed. “You may be right, Dr. Fell, but I had no right to call you a raving, deranged madman in your own home.”

  “Please, good Mrs. Pusster. Con
sider the matter forgotten.”

  “Thank you so much for taking care of my little Ethel. She can be a bit clumsy at times. Always bumping into things or tripping over her own feet.”

  “A child who makes it through childhood without skinning a few knees is a child who has not lived,” said Dr. Fell. “It was a minor matter, no more. She is already as good as new.”

  “I had no idea you were an actual doctor, Dr. Fell. It is such a boon to have you in our neighborhood.”

  “You are too kind, indeed, Mrs. Pusster. Too kind, indeed.”

  And with that, Edna Pusster went home and baked a new apple crisp from scratch.

  She had little Ethel deliver it to Dr. Fell personally.

  ALTHOUGH THE NUMBER OF people living on Hardscrabble Street, Vexington Avenue, Von Burden Lane, and Turnabout Road remained unchanged, the number of children playing on the playground of Dr. Fell continued to increase. Soon, children from the neighboring neighborhoods of Passable Road, Pleasant Lane, Mildwood Avenue, and Simple Street joined in the fun. They were soon followed by the younger residents of such locations as Warthog Hill, Wombat Wash, and Wildebeest Manor. Even the children from the far-off gated communities of Tinsel Terrace and Superior Acres found themselves drawn to this mecca of childhood play.

  It was as if a black hole had opened up at the end of Hardscrabble Street and every child attending McKinley Grant Fillmore Elementary School was slowly but surely being sucked in by its gravity.

  Naturally, with so many energetic children exploring the wonderland’s nooks and crannies, the number of minor injuries experienced rose exponentially. However, the good Dr. Fell was always on hand to lead the tearful patient inside his home and administer whatever medical remedy was required. Without fail, the child would emerge from the house none the worse for wear and eager to rejoin his or her fellow rapscallions on the playground, hesitating only long enough to mutter, “What a nice man is Dr. Fell.”

  Sometimes they muttered this to an empty porch.