Chapter 72: Tooth or Consequences

Running around this slimy mouth fighting off Snack Attackers has got you exhausted. At least you saved some of the teeth? You hear Melvin and the Doctor return into the room. The Doctor peers into the patient’s mouth. “Aha! Nice job, Player! You chased away all the Snack Attackers! My patient is cured! Even better, I have the enlarging ray working – I think it will turn you back to normal!”

You’re glad to hear that – being a tiny weird lizard thing is something you are ready to give up.

“Patient, stick out your tongue!” commands the Doctor. He does, and as you rise out of the patient’s mouth, you get a view of the huge ray gun machine the doctor has wheeled into the room, which is pointed right at you. He pulls a lever and turns some knobs, and it starts to hum and energize.

Melvin floats nervously nearby. “Uhh… should you be pointing that at the patient?”

“Don’t worry,” says the Doctor. “I have it in perfect focus! It will affect the player, and not the patient.” The patient gives a thumbs up at this.

Melvin peers down at you. “What… is the Player, anyway?” As the machine’s hum gets louder, the Doctor stares down at you. “What is that called? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Or actually, on the tip of the patient’s tongue!” He laughs, then sighs. “Anyway, the ray should grow the player, and bring them back to normal. Nurse, my goggles!” As the nurse hands the Doctor a pair of dark goggles, you wonder how safe this can be… but anything has to be better than being a tiny lizard… right?

The Doctor licks his lips excitedly. “Ready… set… ENLARGE!” he shouts as he stabs a button with a fat red finger. You suddenly realize that if this works, you are going to be standing on the patient’s face. You call “Wait!” but it is too late. Purple energy shoots out of the ray and engulfs you… but… you don’t seem to be growing… instead you seem to have shrunken further! Before, you were about the size of a tooth, but now you are so tiny, the taste buds on the patient’s tongue are bigger than you!

The Doctor turns off the ray, and Melvin gasps. “The Player is gone!”

The Doctor is perplexed. “What? How is that possible?” He peers down at you. “Nurse! My magnifiers!” He dons a pair of weird magnifying eyeglasses, making his creepy eyes terrifyingly large. “Ah!” he shouts. “The player is still here, just much smaller! Don’t be sad, Player,” calls the Doctor. “Just because you’re small, that’s no reason to be down in the mouth!” He elbows Melvin. “Pretty good, huh?”

The patient tries to say something, and pulls their tongue back into their mouth.

“Open wide again, patient!” demands the Doctor, cutting him off. Peering in, his eyes grow wider. “Fascinating…” he says, lost in thought. You look to see what he could be looking at, and find that the patient’s mouth is swarming with hot dogs, hamburgers, cherries, strawberries, and even ice cream cones… and they are all attacking the patient’s teeth, which are beginning to yellow.

“What the heck is going on in there?” asks Melvin, peering in next to the Doctor.

The Doctor’s huge red brow furrows. “I… think the focus was off… the ray shrunk the Player… but seems to have enlarged the microscopic food particles that were in the patient’s mouth, and they have taken the form they would have if they were full sized… but… they are still quite tiny… and I think they have genetically merged with the bacteria in the patient’s mouth, because they are attacking his teeth!”

You feel the patient cringe in alarm. You look around at the swarming food, which isn’t tiny to you at all! The foods are only about centimeter across, but you are less than a millimeter!

“Doctor, what should we do?” asks a panicked Melvin. “What if the patient chews the food and swallows the player?”

“Keep your mouth open wide, patient!” Calls the Doctor, then looks at Melvin. “There’s only one thing to do! Has the Player ever flown a spaceship?”

“Yes!” says Melvin excitedly. “Why?”

“Nurse!” calls the Doctor. “Bring my electric toothpaste!”

“Don’t you mean electric toothbrush?” asks Melvin.

“No… electric toothpaste is one of my greatest inventions! It destroys food before you eat it! That way, you can’t get tooth decay!”

“That’s… a terrible invention,” says Melvin.

The nurse brings a large purple tube of toothpaste, and sets it on the tray. “Perfect!” says the Doctor, and flips a switch on it, and it begins to hover.

“Wow…” says Melvin. “But how will that help?”

The Doctor is repositioning the enlarging ray. “I’m going to use the same focus, and shrink the electric toothpaste. If we get it the right size, the patient can fly it around the patient’s mouth, and destroy all the mutant food. “Ready… set… ENLARGE, err… I mean SHRINK!” calls the doctor, stabbing the button again. At that moment, Melvin calls “Shrink me too!” and zips in front of the ray. Both Melvin and the toothpaste tube become quite tiny. Melvin now looks like a little tiny glowing dot, no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence. The Doctor peers down at them through his magnifiers. “Perfect!” he cries. He uses his tweezers again to pick up the tiny toothpaste tube, and drops it into the player’s mouth. You see it plunk down onto the tongue, right next to some flying hamburgers and you run over to it, which takes several seconds, because you are so small. By the time you reach it, Melvin has flown from the tray and into the patient’s mouth. He zips all around you. “Player! I’m so happy to see you!”

“I’m happy to see you, too!” you say.

Melvin looks at your weird grinning lizard face. “You seem happy to see everything,” he quips.

You take a swat at him. “Don’t laugh at me… this lizard stuff is no joke.” But you can’t help laughing a little. It’s nice to be back with Melvin. Melvin looks around at the hamburgers and other foods attacking the teeth. “These mutant foods are no joke either. Come on, let’s do this!”

The toothpaste tube really does look like a spaceship. It has a little ladder on the side, and little sign that says “S.S. Toothpaste.” You climb up the ladder, and find a domed area on top, with seats inside. You lift the dome, and climb in. There is just enough room for the two of you to sit comfortably, not that Melvin needs to sit. The flight controls look pretty standard, and after the dome closes, you grab the joystick and start zipping the tube around the mouth. Melvin is flipping through a colorful booklet entitled “Dental Defense Manual.”

“Cool!” He says. “I think I see how to be the toothpaste!” He climbs into a little loading chamber. “Fire!” he says. You press the fire button, and he launches out and blasts some hamburgers, then rematerializes in the loading chamber.

“Not bad…” he says, “but the autofire is kind of slow.” He flips through the manual. “Flip that switch from a to b, would you?” You flip it. “Great… let’s try this again.” You press the fire button, and Melvin fires across the mouth with a rapid pew pew pew, taking out a squadron of rowdy hot dogs.

“Yippee!” he shouts. “Just like old times! How’s the ship handle?”

“It’s a little stiff,” you reply, “But it sure can turn around fast.”

“That’s a good thing,” says Melvin, “Because when those foods attack a tooth, they seem to change direction.”

“Strategy later!” you shout. “Let’s do this! It’s good to have you back, Melvin!”

“It’s great to be back, Player! Let’s clean up this mouth!”

Place the Plaque Attack cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set the difficulty switches to b. Use game select 1 or 3. Play until you score 35,000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.