Forget fainting Mrs Bennet gets knocked out instead

Thursday, May 21 ‘09

Mrs Bennet did not faint again in the dentist’s chair as she feared she might. Instead she faced her fear and went anyway, after eating a good breakfast and stuffing a banana in her mouth 15 minutes before her appointment. Having consulted a laughter book she had by her bed, she had found a quote from the Bible which said “you will run and not faint.” Well that morning she ran four miles, and she didn’t faint whilst having a tooth out either – despite the fact she had it removed, while serenaded to Abba’s “SOS!” The tooth’s life had ended, but so too had the abscess. With all the pressure off the nerve ending, the dentist informed her she should start feeling better as her body wouldn’t have to fight off any more poison. That was reassuring anyway.
But this morning she was annoyed. The tooth fairy, obviously not very impressed with Mrs Bennet, who had left a note for her instead of the tooth in question, didn’t leave her anything. Not wishing to look at her poorly tooth, Mrs Bennet had left it with the dentist. Therefore there hadn't been a proper offering to give the fairy. So she didn't leave a proper offering for Mrs Bennet. It meant Mrs Bennet couldn’t buy the stool she needed for the kitchen, so instead she took the children’s plastic step, once part of a potty in a previous life, from the bathroom.
Twenty-four hours after the extraction event, Mrs Bennet still couldn’t feel her tongue and her right cheek was starting to throb. She didn’t feel the best, but mothers always soldier on, don’t they?
And so she arrived at school later that day to pick up the older three Bennets who had stayed late for various cooking and library clubs. As usual the three of them walked up to the school gate, with a member of staff to where Mrs Bennet was waiting on non-yellow lines to greet them. As the Scooby Doo van only had one door, which needed a certain strength to slide open, Mrs Bennet got out to walk round and let them in. Two of them climbed in. But then hearing a gasp of horror from one of them, Mrs Bennet turned and realised the car was moving forward. Being an automatic car, instead of being in park mode, Mrs Bennet had left it in drive mode, and it obeyed. It was going very slowly forward so Mrs Bennet ran round to see if she could get to the handbrake in time. Unfortunately in trying to open the door, she somehow managed to hit her head on the door and fell backwards into the road, while the car crashed into a Cotswold stone wall and came to a halt. Two of the children inside were upset, the poor child outside watching was upset, while the twins were chatting away, oblivious to what was going on. Mrs Bennet went white as a mum and teacher ran to her aid. Her head hurt and all she could think about was the children. She was just so thankful the car had been on a flat road and not on a hill. It could have been a lot lot worse.
Half an hour later she went into shock, shook for quite a while and ran Mr Bennet and told him to keep talking to her until she felt better. With five children on board, she was not going to put them at risk and drive until she was ready. Thankfully she had been wise enough to call a close friend for help, who came and kept her company. Relieved their mum was going to be OK, the Miss Bennets forgave her for not driving them to their friends’ house, where they were due to go for tea. Amazingly there were no paddies or displays of disappointment. Instead shocked by the runaway car and their mum’s attempt at head butting the door, they, like Mrs Bennet were just glad to get home. Mrs Bennet wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. She took a dose of pain killers and went to bed, hoping tomorrow would be better. Perhaps the tooth fairy might think again and make a return visit to her pillow.