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The floorboards creaked in a clichéd winter-horror fashion, accompanied by the scatter of Crispin's scratchy paws. Mr. Boil hobbled across the hard wood floor to refill the glass jars in the window display. The jars stood in colour order ' from red strawberry laces to violety-black liquorice wheels.
Mr. Boil was far too old and crooked to maintain cleanliness in the shop, and far too unsociable to allow anyone else aid him in keeping the place. He was a solitary man living in his own lonely ambiance, like a single rat in a dark cellar.
The bottom of the confectionary containers lay embedded in curdling sherbet lemons and lumping liquorice, decaying sugar rot crawling up and down the sides of the jars. It was an infamous trait of Mr. Boil to be tidy but not clean, and so this was perfectly reflected by the condition of Boil Brothers' Sweet shop.
Bert Boil was the last remaining Boil brother. He was by far the most malicious and bitter of all his family. The rest of his kin ' Bobbie Boil, Benjamin Boil, Bill Boil and Mr. and Mrs. Melvin and Glenda Boil were jolly folk, the kind whose bubbling personalities provided the ever so-necessary sweetness to such a confectionary shop, keeping it in easy business.
The residents of Sunnyside would often wonder how such a desolate place stayed in such successful business. The shop was clearly not the brightest of businesses and Mr. Boil's vicious terrier, Crispin, would yap ferociously at any innocent passer-by.
Only the schoolchildren of Sunnyside Primary understood the mouth-watering, sugary pleasures of a bag of Boil brothers' finest selection sweets. Once a pupil had overcome his/her fear of the bewildering building, the sweet shop would soon become a favoured territory for after school treats. Boys and girls came scurrying down from the hill of Sunnyside primary, pockets rattling with parents' change, like an army of ants towards a discarded sweet wrapper. They'd venture carefully through the humbugs, spearmints, apple laces and aniseed balls, picking and choosing under the constant preying eyes of Mr. Boil and Crispin.
Some would go as far to claim that the success of Boil Brothers' had even exceeded that of when it was owned by all four brothers. If such a claim were true, there would have to be one sole reason for Mr. Boil's business success and that would be the Big Boil Tooth Cracker. It was Mr. Boil's most delicious, most tantalizing, most desirable piece of confectionary and they stood in the tallest jar on the top shelf behind the counter at all times. The sweet itself looked vile, its colour a disgusting combination of dull grey and blood-red with an almost slimy surface. Mr. Boil was particularly selective with whom he'd sell a Tooth Cracker. He'd usually sell to only the best customers, the greediest children, the children who always got to the shop first and always had the most pennies.
This time that Child was Henry Plodd. Henry had made a big, fat investment in Mr. Boil's confectionary over the past few months and was always first to come galloping in through the doors, often pushing other youngsters away in the desperate process. Henry had made it clear that he had been yearning for a Tooth Cracker as soon as he caught rumours of the desired sweet. He nagged and begged Mr. Boil ever since he first laid eyes on the carefully guarded jar. 'I need a Tooth Cracker this instant! I beg of you Mr. Boil, I have as much coins as you should need, and look, the jar's running low!' Henry's observations were accurate. The tall jar was running out of Tooth Crackers and Mr. Boil needed to make a sale. 'Alright rapscallion, follow me, I'll fetch you a fresh one.' It was within the dreary haze of a Friday afternoon and the majority of schoolchildren had scurried off home, satisfied mouths bulging with sugar and drool.
Mr. Boil and his entourage of greedy little Henry Plodd and Crispin followed down the wet, winding stairs into what seemed to Henry like a storage space for ingredients and such. Henry wasn't incorrect. Although what he obviously didn't realise was that he was to be the ingredient. Before he could wave his chubby, desperate limbs in an attempt to escape, Mr. Boil's seemingly weak, skeletor hands forcefully crammed a chokingly large tooth cracker down Henry's tear ' drenched neck, slowly disabling his oesophagus. Henry stomped and squealed, but every life-wrenching attempt was in pitiful vain as Crispin snatched at the sweating flesh on his inexorably weakening ankles. Mr. Boil's weakness was substituted by his cunningness as Henry was carefully cornered into his inevitable doom of the musky, soundproof cellar below a hellish ride of spiking stairs.
Whilst Henry lay struggling in a suffocating, kicking heap, Mr. Boil reached over to reveal a kit of striking tools. He selected a blood-speckled ice cream scoop and forcefully dug into the raw flesh of what once was Henry's gut. 'Perfect. A delightfully sugar-ridden fat for the vital ingredient.' Henry could only reply in a final muffled scream before the rest of his guts splurged steaming onto the chilled stone floor, ready to feed Crispin for his evening meal.
Mr. Boil spent the rest of his evening alone with Crispin and his pliers, plucking out every sugar rotten tooth and fat-laden organ on Henry's corpse, ready to mix in for the next jar of tooth crackers. 'There.' He spoke to Crispin. 'Another full jar of delightfully desirable Boil Brothers' famous Tooth Crackers. That should keep the youngsters interested.' He spoke whilst slowly progressing up the echoing staircase to replace the empty jar of Tooth Crackers for the Monday after-school rush.
'What a perfect ingredient.' 'After all,' he sneered to Crispin, 'you are what you eat!'