by Isla Fisher
Dedication
For my grandmother Anna,
who taught me to love books,
and for Olive, Elula,
Monty, and Sacha
—I.F.
The Button Family
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
The Button Family
Marge and the Missing Tooth
Marge and the Great Train Rescue
Marge and the Zany Zoo Day
About the Author
Books by Isla Fisher
Back Ad
Copyright
About the Publisher
Marge and the Missing Tooth
“COME OUT!” I say.
My four-year-old brother is hiding under his bed.
“Marge is here!” I am so happy.
Marge, the best babysitter in the whole universe, is at our house, and my little brother doesn’t care. I don’t know what is wrong with him. Marge is not like a normal, boring babysitter. Marge is just the opposite: she is a member of the royal family, and she once helped us build a dinosaur out of pancakes.
Mommy and Dad appear in the doorway looking sharp. Dad is in a suit and Mommy is wearing a fancy black shirt.
“We have to leave for the party now. Please come out,” Dad begs.
“NO!” Jakey sounds mad. This is not like him at all. Usually when he hears that Marge is coming, he pulls his shorts over his head like a wrestling mask and races to the door to greet her.
I walk with our parents to the hallway where Marge is waiting. I always forget how small she is. Even though I am only seven years old, I am nearly as tall as our grown-up babysitter. She can even fit inside our play tent without bending over.
Today she is wearing a shiny silver shirt and a strange silver hat.
“Greetings, earthling,” Marge jokes, giving me a robotic wave. She does look a little like she has come from outer space, and I giggle.
“We won’t be back until late.” Dad gives me a hug. “And remember, Marge is in charge!”
“See if you can cheer Jakey up,” Mommy says as she grabs her car keys. “He’s been under that bed since he got home from school.” Then, as she is half out the door, she remembers. “I left the rules on the fridge.”
Usually Marge adds things to Mommy’s rules to make them more fun, like the time when she took us to Theo’s birthday party. Marge changed Mommy’s rule about only eating one slice of cake at the party to nine slices!!
The minute we have waved off our old blue car, Marge does my favorite thing. She takes off her hat and shakes out her long rainbow hair. It is so crazy—red, green, yellow, orange, and blue.
“Let’s go cheer up your brother!” Marge dances down the corridor and into our bedroom. I am getting very mad at Jakey; it’s so exciting to have Marge here, and all he is doing is hiding and ruining the fun. I want Marge to tell us wild stories about when she lived in the palace or traveled the world with her fourteen pets.
“Jakey?” Marge pretends she can’t see his legs poking out from underneath the bed.
“Yoo-hoo,” she calls, checking behind the curtains and inside my closet.
“Where are youuuuuu?” she sings.
“I’m under here,” a little voice replies.
Marge hoists up her skirt and crawls under his bed. I wriggle in after her until we are both facing Jakey.
My brother’s face is blotchy and red.
“Whatever is the matter?” Marge asks. “I haven’t seen such a sad face since the marquis of Humperdink played tennis in the ballroom and smashed his favorite Ming vase.”
“My tooth won’t come out.” Jakey’s bottom lip is quivering. “I’ve had this stupid wobbly tooth for so long and it won’t budge!”
“That is terrible news.” Marge looks grave.
“Theo lost a tooth and the tooth fairy gave him a whole quarter!” Theo has one long eyebrow and is Jakey’s best friend from school.
“The tooth fairy is never going to visit me,” Jakey whimpers.
“Never say never, Jakeypants,” Marge tells him. “I remember when I thought I was never going to see my hairy-nosed wombat, George, again after he buried himself underneath the castle moat, but then, one day, there he was! Sunning himself on the queen’s lounge chair, drinking tea and wearing her missing tiara.”
Marge shuffles closer to Jakey. “Can I see?” She gently wobbles his tooth with her finger.
“I’ve tried pulling it out,” Jakey says, sniffling. “I’ve wiggled and pushed, but it’s stuck.”
“Dentist Marge to the rescue!” Marge exclaims, and at last Jakey smiles. “All we need is your dad’s toolbox.”
The smile runs away from my little brother’s face, and he looks a little frightened as we all crawl backward out from under the bed.
Then Marge tells me that I will be the dental assistant, which I am actually quite excited about.
“I once removed my Persian cat Amelia’s left fang, after she broke into the palace pantry and ate too many candies. It was rotten to the core!” Marge tells Jakey. “I also pulled a tooth that had been stuck in a suit of armor in the castle for a thousand years. The knight didn’t feel a thing!”
I run to the garage and come back with Dad’s toolbox and Marge whistles as she searches through it. I have the brilliant idea that we might need protective gear in case there is blood, so I grab an apron from the kitchen.
“Lie down,” I tell Jakey as Marge puts on a gigantic pair of goggles.
Marge and I peer at Jakey’s teeth. They are white and pearly, and even though Mommy always says that he doesn’t brush his teeth for long enough, they do look quite sparkly.
The toolbox is red and shiny, and it has lots of weird and wonderful things inside it.
“Voilà!” She grins, waving a pair of green pliers.
In case you don’t know, pliers are like metal claws used for gripping things.
I am not sure exactly what Marge is going to do with the pliers, as I have only seen Dad use them to pull nails out of the fence, but I am just the dental assistant, not the dentist. I’m also a little worried that our parents might not be very happy if they could see us now, but it was Mommy who told us to cheer up Jakey, and he is definitely being cheered up, because even though he is scared, Jakey loves having people fuss over him.
“Maybe you should close your eyes,” I suggest, and he shuts them tight.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,
This little tooth has got to go!”
Marge sings as she leans over Jakey. She grasps the loose tooth with the pliers and braces her leg against the side of the bed.
“ARGHHHHH!”
Marge has fallen backward and landed with her feet in the air, but the tooth is still inside Jakey’s mouth.
“The tooth is too wet for the pliers to grip,” I say, deciding that I am really good at being a dental assistant.
“No, it must be superglued in!” Jakey sits up.
Then I have the most obvious idea. I can’t believe that I haven’t thought of it before. Jakey just needs to eat an apple! That’s how I lost my tooth. But then I remember my little brother has two rules:
1. He will only eat his dinner if there is a pool of tomato ketchup in the center of his plate that his veggies can “swim” in.
2. He hates apples. He won’t eat an apple since the day he found out that worms can live in them.
“I know you hate them, but you have to eat an apple to make your tooth come out,” I tell Jakey, and to my surprise he bolts into the kitchen.
Marge and I share a look as Jakey holds out a big green apple and then takes an enormous bit
e.
CHOMP!
He chews a bit and swallows.
“It’s still the same amount of wobbly.” Jakey sighs. “And this apple definitely tastes like worm poop.”
After that we tie a piece of string around Jakey’s tooth and onto Archie’s collar (Archie is our pug-nosed puppy dog) and try to get him to go for a run, but he won’t and we are close to giving up when . . .
“I’ve got it!” I point to Jakey’s remote-controlled monster truck parked in the kitchen doorway.
Jakey and Marge look at it too. Silently we nod our heads in agreement.
I tie the string around Jakey’s tooth, and Marge fastens the other end to the back of the truck.
Jakey has the remote. He looks determined as he pushes the control to Forward.
The truck takes off, shooting across the floor and the string grows taut. . . .
Jakey’s tooth flies out of his mouth. It’s still attached to the string.
FINALLY!
Jakey grabs his tooth, and we all race to the hallway. In the mirror I can see that there is a big hole where Jakey’s wobbly tooth used to be! Jakey whoops with joy. I really am a great dental assistant.
“I remember when my long-toothed ferret Burt lost his first tooth,” Marge says proudly. “We put it at the end of his bed—it was too long to fit under his pillow—and the tooth fairy brought him five hundred dollars. Long-toothed ferrets’ teeth are extremely valuable.”
“The tooth fairy will be in our room tonight.” I am jumping up and down. This is almost as exciting as the times she visited me. Jakey gives Marge a big hug. I told you Marge is the best babysitter in the whole world.
“All right, let’s read your mommy’s instructions.” Marge claps her hands. “Hop to it!”
So we all take a careful look at the list of rules Mommy has left for us:
1. Dinner at 6:30 p.m.
2. Bath time – no need to wash hair
3. Brush teeth before bed!
4. Lights out at 8 p.m.
Marge checks her watch. “It’s six p.m. now, so we have plenty of time before lights-out.”
I am so happy Marge is here and Jakeypants is no longer Grumpypants! My little brother names his tooth Tim, and Tim the Tooth takes part in all our games and even comes to dinner. It’s so much fun having a tooth to play with. Tim can ride in tiny cars, he can fly to the moon in our Lego rocket, he can sleep in a matchbox, and he can even be a pretend pearl in our underwater diving game. In between activities Marge reminds Jakey to wrap Tim the Tooth in a little bit of tissue and keep him safely inside his pocket, but after our bath Jakey feels in there for Tim and screams.
“ARGGHHHH!”
“Where is my tooth?” he cries.
Marge and I peer into the empty tissue.
Oh no! What a disaster. After all that, we have lost the tooth.
“Mommy always says that when you lose something, you need to think about where you had it last,” I say. Marge nods in approval and we both look at Jakey.
“When did you last play with Tim?” I ask.
“I can’t remember!” he groans.
“Did you bring Tim the Tooth into the bath?”
“I don’t know!” Jakey sighs, and I can’t remember either, so we check in the bathtub just in case, but NO TOOTH.
“Did you have Tim when we brushed our teeth?”
“I just can’t think!” he exclaims.
“Maybe you swallowed Tim!” I gulp, and Jakey begins to cry.
Marge puts her ear close to Jakey’s tummy.
“Interesting,” she says. “I hear some fish sticks swimming around in there, and some broccoli. . . .”
“That’s just what we had for dinner,” I say. Can Marge really hear Jakey’s food inside his tummy?
“And some apple juice,” she calls out. “BUT I DO NOT hear a tooth!”
“Phew,” says Jakey. But he is only relieved for a minute.
“Maybe Tim fell down the sink!” he gasps.
We all three peer into the drain. It is too dark to see anything. If Tim the Tooth is down there, he is lost forever.
“If we don’t find him, the tooth fairy won’t come!” wails Jakey. This is getting serious.
Marge runs downstairs and comes back with Dad’s toolbox. She digs around a bit and pulls the wrench out again. Then she crouches under the sink and puts the wrench around the pipe there and we all help her turn it round and round and round.
“Tim is probably in the first part of this piping here,” Marge says. “I’ve seen Petunia the palace plumber do this before. You just twist and twist . . .” She chatters away.
CLUNK!
A section of the pipe falls to the floor. Inside it we find a blue marble, a wand from a bottle of bubble mixture, and a disgusting clump of hair. NO TOOTH. And now I can look down the drain and see the floor. Mommy and Dad will not like this!
“Your tooth must be farther down!” calls Marge as she begins unscrewing more pipes.
“But, Marge,” I say, “isn’t that where the water comes from?”
Before Marge can answer, water starts squirting out of the pipe right into her face.
“WE’VE SPRUNG A LEAK!” she shrieks.
Water is spraying all over the bathroom.
“Can anyone see Tim the Tooth? I hope he can swim,” Marge calls.
“We can’t see anything,” Jakey and I say as water spurts everywhere. I have to think fast. I grab the tube of toothpaste and force it inside the end of the leaking pipe.
“That’ll hold,” says Marge in relief.
But I am not sure: the pipe is clanging and banging and quaking and shaking.
“What about my TOOTH?” yells Jakey again. “If Tim didn’t go down the drain, then WHERE IS HE?”
I can tell he is about to cry when suddenly—
The sound is coming from Marge’s bag!
“My alarm clock! It’s eight o’clock!” Marge gulps. “We have to put the LIGHTS OUT. That’s what it says on your mommy’s list!” Marge leaves us in the bathroom and we can hear her turning off the lights all around the house, click, click, click. It is getting dark, but Jakey hardly notices.
“Eight p.m. and the lights are OUT!” Marge says, taking a flashlight from Dad’s toolbox. “We are following your mommy’s rules PERFECTLY!”
I am not sure how destroying our bathroom fits into following Mommy’s rules perfectly, but Marge is in charge.
“Now I miss my wobbly tooth.” Jakey sniffles. “It was better than having a lost-forever tooth.”
“Detective Marge to the rescue,” Marge says seriously, while making swooping patterns with the flashlight.
“So tonight at approximately seven-thirty p.m. was the last time we saw this missing tooth?” Marge asks Jakey, shining the flashlight on his face. He nods yes.
Marge still has Mommy’s list of rules. She turns it over, and together (like proper investigators) we figure out everything that we did until then. . . .
1. Made a traffic jam with toy cars
2. Ate dinner
3. Built a fort
4. Had a bath and brushed our teeth
5. DISCOVERED TIM THE TOOTH WAS MISSING!
“We have to do it all again, but backward!” declares Marge. “That’s the only way we’ll find Tim. Let’s start with the fort.”
I love building forts, and Marge is very good at it because of the time she helped the king build a new wing onto the palace to make room for the queen’s chocolate collection. Our rebuilt fort is even better than it was the first time around. Jakey makes wings for it out of cushions, and we fly over the kingdom in search of the missing tooth while Marge sings in her warbling voice.
“Toothy, middle bottom-left tooth,
You are in Jakey’s mouth no more.
It’s like you vanished with a poof.
Where you are we can’t be sure.”
But after all that there is still NO TOOTH.
“You played with Tim at dinner!” I remembe
r. “We popped him into the pea bowl so he could play hide-and-seek with some friends his own size.”
We race into the kitchen, and Marge swishes the apple-juice bottle (we had let Tim take a swim in there) and Jakey checks the floor (Tim the Tooth enjoyed some tobogganing on the back of an ice cube earlier), but still there is NO TOOTH.
Jakey’s shoulders are beginning to sag. I haven’t seen him this gloomy since he wasn’t allowed to watch The Lego Movie because Mommy thought he was too young.
“Don’t give up, Jakey. There’s still the traffic jam,” I say.
We arrange the cars in a long line, like we did earlier. We make the vehicles reach out of the playroom, down the stairs, and under the dining-room table. It’s so much fun because Marge doesn’t believe in speed limits or keeping to one lane, and so all the cars shoot and skittle across the floor.
The whole time we make the cars shout at each other: “Hey, Lady Chittleham, have you seen a tooth?! . . . Tell your driver to slow down!”
Jakey and I make our cars honk A LOT!
In between shouts and beeps we check each car and the floor very carefully. I look inside Jakey’s fast red car twice, because I remember Tim speeding over a baseball-bat bridge in it and crashing into the sofa.
But there is NO TOOTH.
By now it is getting dark, and I say a tiny prayer that if we can just find Jakey’s tooth, then I will never sneak Jakey’s candies from his secret box ever again.
“Right,” says Marge with a sigh, “there is only one thing left to do.” She reaches into Dad’s toolbox and pulls out the wrench. She opens her mouth wide and puts it around one of her front teeth.
“What are you doing, Marge?” I gasp. But it’s clear: she is going to pull out one of her own teeth!
“You need a tooth, Jakey,” says Marge, lowering the wrench. “The tooth fairy won’t care if it is yours or mine. She only pays attention to rare items like long-toothed ferrets’ teeth.”