Stink and the World's Worst Super-Stinky Sneakers

by Megan McDonald

  “A person could wear stinky perfume to scare off vampires,” said Stink. “Or better yet, big sisters. Judy cooties!”

  “Hardee-har-har,” said Judy.

  “All I need now are a few dead elephants,” said Stink.

  On Saturday morning, Stink could not wait to start his new career. He set up his lab in the kitchen sink. He laid out tweezers and eyedroppers on a towel. He lined up ten empty little spice jars on the counter. He collected a whole jar of real toilet water — from the toilet!

  Perfect!

  The doorbell rang. “Hi, Eliz — I mean, Sophie of the Elves,” Judy said. “C’mon in. Dr. Franken-stink is in his lab. Stink! Your friend with the funny name is here!”

  Stink came out of the kitchen wearing Mom’s apron and green rubber scrub gloves. “Hi, Sophie,” said Stink.

  “Stink’s making stinky perfume,” Judy explained, drawing circles in the air for the cuckoo sign.

  “Want to help?” Stink asked.

  “Sure,” said Sophie. “I like making magic potions and stuff.”

  “Magic potions!” said Judy. “You mean love potions?”

  “Let’s go,” said Stink. “Maybe we can make some potions that turn big sisters into warthogs.”

  Back in the Franken-stink lab, Stink got out Mom’s measuring cups and spoons. Sophie stirred together spices and food coloring. “Are you entering the smelly sneaker contest next Saturday?” she asked Stink.

  “Definitely,” said Stink.

  “Me too,” Sophie said.

  Stink looked down at Sophie’s sneakers. They were bad, all right. Her toe poked out of one, the laces were almost black, and the tongues hung sideways, worse than a slobbery dog.

  “They smell like a swamp!” said Stink, even though he knew his stinkers could beat hers any day.

  “And these aren’t even my worst pair!” Sophie grinned.

  Uh-oh, thought Stink.

  “Well, I sure hope one of us wins,” Sophie said.

  “Yeah, and I hope the one of us is me!” Stink joked.

  “Here, add some toilet water,” Stink said, pouring the water from the toilet into the blender. They added green pickle juice. They added P.U. garlic. They added slimy dead-flower water.

  “Disgusting,” said Sophie, staring at the oogey green murk in the blender.

  “What else stinks around here?” asked Stink.

  “Besides you?” said Judy, walking past the kitchen.

  “Hardee-har-har,” said Stink.

  “This potion smells bad, but it’s not even close to corpse flower,” said Stink.

  He ran upstairs and came back in a flash, holding up a small, amber glass vial. “Toad food!”

  “Tofu?” asked Sophie. “Tofu doesn’t smell.”

  “No, toad food. Actually, it’s dead shrimp eggs from my science kit. Even Toady won’t eat it.”

  Stink shook the bottle till it was empty, then pushed the buttons on the blender. Mix. Whip. Puree. LIQUEFY! Stink and Sophie watched the twisting tornado of green gunk whip itself into a frothy frenzy.

  OFF! “Perfect!” said Stink, peering into the foaming blender.

  In no time, they had ten whole bottles of putrid perfumes lined up and down the counter.

  “Let’s label them and give them names,” said Stink. “How about Eau de Corpse Flower? It’s French.”

  “Essence of Toad,” said Sophie.

  “Venus de Stinko,” said Stink.

  Just then, Mouse crept into the kitchen. She took one whiff, let out a yowl, and bolted outside through the cat door.

  Stink handed Sophie an eyedropper. “Help me fill this little vial,” said Stink. Sophie squeezed the last drops from the blender into the teeny tiny bottle, then screwed the cap back on. She helped Stink tie a piece of string around it, looping it over his neck.

  “What are you going to do with this stinky perfume?” asked Sophie of the Elves. “Keep away vampires?”

  “Keep away sisters!” said Stink.

  “P.U.!” said Judy, coming into Stink’s room. “Did you take a bath in that stinky perfume or something?”

  “Or something,” said Stink.

  “Then I hate to tell you, but you have a UFO in your room.”

  “Do not,” said Stink.

  “Not the alien kind of UFO,” said Judy. “An Unidentified Flying Odor. I can smell it from my room.”

  Stink kicked his sneakers under the bed.

  “Stink, it’s those sneakers. You’re stinking up the whole house with those yucks. You have to get them out of here.”

  Stink tossed his sneakers into the hallway.

  “That’s even closer,” said Judy. “I can already smell them up on my top bunk! Even Mouse is about to pass out from the fumes.”

  Stink went back to his desk and scribbled on a piece of paper. He came out into the hallway and tacked up a sign over his sneakers:

  “Ha, ha, very funny. Like that really helped,” said Judy, pinching her nose closed and talking in a funny voice.

  “Then just shut your door,” said Stink. “Like this!” He slammed the door on purpose.

  Stink heard Judy stomp into the bathroom. Stink heard Judy slam the medicine cabinet door. Stink heard Judy rattle around in the hall.

  Stink could not concentrate on drawing comics. He could not read the T-for-Toads encyclopedia. He could not hear himself think with all that stomping and slamming and rattling.

  Stink opened his door.

  A cloud of white dust attacked him. He coughed and waved his hand in front of his face. Stink could hardly see his sister. Judy had powder in her hair and on her face and all the way down to her shoes. She looked like a human marshmallow. She looked like the Abominable Snow Girl. She looked like a cumulonimbus cloud.

  “What’s with all the powder?” Stink asked, still coughing. Then the cloud cleared. The dust settled. And Stink saw it.

  “OH, NO!” screamed Stink. “My sneakers! My beautiful super-smelly sneakers!”

  “It’s okay,” said Judy. “The powder will help. It’ll soak up the smell and they won’t stink so bad.”

  “NO! You don’t get it!” said Stink. “I was stinking them up on purpose, so I could enter them in the All-Time, World’s Worst, Super-Stinky Sneaker Contest. How could you not know that? How could you forget?”

  “Oops!” said Judy.

  Stink did not know what to do. Now his perfectly smelly sneakers were not perfect at all. They were perfect for winning an air-freshener contest. They were perfect for winning a not-stinky perfume contest. No way were they going to beat Sophie now.

  “Go get Mom,” said Stink. “It’s an emergency. A super-stinky sneaker emergency.”

  “Trust me, Stink. All the powder in the world could not make those puppies smell good again. They smell even worse now, if you ask me. Kind of sweet, but kind of sour. Sweet and Sour Sneakers! I mean, they still make me gag and almost want to barf.”

  “Almost is not good enough to win,” said Stink. “They have to have at least a double-gag factor. A triple-quadruple barf factor.”

  “Why don’t we just smell them up more?” asked Judy. “Operation Smelly Sneakers. We could pour vinegar on them. Or pickle juice! We could throw them in the garbage for a while. Wait. I know. I got it!” Judy snapped her fingers. “We could use a bottle of your stinky perfume!”

  “That would be cheating,” said Stink. “The rules say you have to stink them up by wearing them. Pickle juice is illegal. Garbage doesn’t count. And stinky perfume is definitely against the rules.”

  “Do the rules say what to do if your big sister goofs up?”

  “The rules say you better run!” said Stink. He chased his sister down the hall and into the bathroom and out of the bathroom and down the stairs and into the kitchen and around the table, holding out his vial of anti-sister stinky perfume all the while.

  Next Saturday morning, Stink woke up to the most wonderful smell. Not pancakes cooking. Not bacon frying. The yucky, blucky putrid stench
of smelly sneakers. Sweet! His sneakers were wonderfully smelly again. Back to where they were before his sister-the-human-marshmallow went powder crazy and made them smell sweet as roses.

  Stink was going to win the All-Time, World’s Worst, Super-Stinky Sneaker Contest for sure. And today was the big day. His moment to shine. His moment to stink!

  “What’s that smell?” Dad asked at breakfast. “Don’t tell me Mouse dragged another dead critter in here.”

  “It’s him,” said Judy, pointing to her brother. “Stink, you reek.”

  “YOU-reek-a!” said Stink. “Get it? Eureka!”

  “I get it that you smell,” said Judy.

  “Stink’s entering a rotten sneaker contest today,” Mom explained to Dad.

  “Interesting,” said Dad.

  “My teacher’s going to be there,” Stink told them. “She said if I come early, I’ll be able to meet somebody interesting.”

  “It’s probably just a guy dressed up like a giant sneaker or something,” said Judy.

  “Or something,” said Stink.

  “Mom, Dad? Can I go, too?” Judy asked. “Just to watch, I mean.”

  “Let’s all go,” said Dad.

  “But only if we put the smelly sneakers in the trunk, right, Dad?” said Judy.

  When Stink got to the contest, Webster and Sophie of the Elves came running up to him. “There’s no contest!” said Webster.

  “What?” asked Stink. “What do you mean? I know it’s today.”

  “One of the judges caught a cold and he can’t smell right,” said Sophie. “So they had to cancel the contest.”

  “No way.”

  “Yah-huh. Mrs. D. said! I’m not even in the contest, but I feel bad for you and Sophie,” Webster told his friend.

  Stink could not believe his stinky, awful, no-good, very bad luck. “You mean I wore the same socks for six days and slept in my sneakers and tromped through mud puddles and swamp water for nothing?”

  Just then, Stink saw his teacher. “Mrs. D.!” called Stink. “Is it true? There’s really not going to be a stinky sneaker contest?”

  “Well,” said Mrs. D., “we might have a way to save the day.”

  “Really?” everybody asked.

  “Stink, when we heard one of the judges was sick, I thought, who else do we know who just might have an amazing, incredible sense of smell? And right away I thought of you, Stink Moody, The Nose.”

  “Stink could be a judge!” said Webster.

  “What do you say, Stink?” asked Mrs. D.

  “Me? A judge? For real? You mean I, Stink Moody, get to be a real-and-true professional smeller?”

  “Just call him Professor Smells-a-Lot,” said Judy.

  In the middle of the park stood a big red-and-white-striped circus tent with a banner that said:

  “Dad and I will wander around and meet you kids back here later,” said Mom.

  Stink opened the flaps and stepped through the tent door. Phew! A great wall of smell almost knocked him over. It was like standing smack-dab in the middle of a cloud — a giant, invisible, cumulonimbus stink cloud. Worse than thirty dead elephants. Worse than sixty corpse flowers. Worse than ninety-nine bottles of toilet water.

  Lined up on tables all around the tent were dozens of putrid sneakers. Each pair had a number, so nobody would know who owned which sneakers. Stink took his smelly shoes out of the bag and set them on the table.

  “You’ll be number twenty-seven,” said a lady behind the table.

  “Stink!” said Judy. “You can’t enter your own shoes in the contest.”

  “Why not?” Stink asked.

  “Don’t you get it? You’re a judge now. Judges can’t win the contest. That’s like voting for yourself for president.”

  “So?”

  “Stink, would you think it was fair if I were a judge, and I picked my own sneakers to win?”

  “Not really,” said Stink.

  “See? Picking your own sneakers makes you a cheater head.”

  “A cheese head?” asked Stink.

  “No, a big fat Cheater Head,” Judy said.

  Just then, Mrs. D. motioned for Stink to come over to the important table up front, where the judges sat. Red and blue ribbons were set out on a fancy tablecloth, alongside the shiny Golden Clothespin trophy.

  “What’s with the fancy clothespin?” whispered Judy.

  “That’s the award,” said Stink, pinching his nose shut, like with a clothespin, and making a P.U. face.

  “Here’s your new judge,” Mrs. D. told the other two judges. “Meet James Moody. Believe it or not, he goes by the name Stink.”

  The other two judges laughed. “Well, your name alone qualifies you to be a judge,” said the woman from Odor-Munchers. “Thanks, Stink. You really saved the day.”

  “Glad to meet you. I’m Mr. Moore. Call me Steve,” said the other judge.

  “You sure are tall,” said Stink, shaking his hand.

  “Stink,” said Mrs. D., “this is the man I wanted you to meet. Mr. Moore — I mean, Steve — is a professional smeller.”

  “That’s me,” said Steve.

  “You mean that’s your job — you smell stuff?” asked Stink.

  “That’s my job. I work for NASA, and they call me the Master Sniffer.”

  “They call me The Nose!” said Stink excitedly. “I want to be a professional smeller when I grow up. But my sister said —”

  “What kind of stuff do you smell?” Judy asked Steve.

  “Anything that goes up into space, I’m your man. If it’s too smelly, we can’t have it aboard the space shuttle. Up there, you can’t just open a window. You’d be surprised at the number of things that don’t pass the smell test.”

  “Really? Like what?” asked Stink.

  “Like film for a camera, felt-tip markers, a stuffed teddy bear . . .”

  “Bad news, Stink!” said Judy. “You can’t go up into space now. They won’t let you take your teddy bear.”

  “Hardee-har-har,” said Stink. Steve the Smeller laughed a deep laugh.

  “What do you have to do to be a professional smeller?” Stink asked. “Do you have to be tall? Because I’m short.”

  “No, but you can’t have allergies,” said Steve. “You have to be good at detecting odors, like, say, new-car smell. And you have to be willing to sniff bad smells — even a dirty diaper.”

  Stink nodded like a bobble-head doll on a dashboard. “I sniffed a whole stinky museum,” Stink told him.

  “And of course you have to pass a test. Every few months, I have to take the ten-bottle test.”

  “I made ten bottles of my own stinky toilet water!” said Stink. “Just ask my sister.”

  “I sniff scents in a bottle and I have to guess if it’s popcorn or wet-paint smell,” said Steve. “Then I rate it on a Sniff Scale from zero to four. Anything over a 2.4 on the Sniff Scale fails the test. Kind of like what we’re going to do today.”

  “And I passed my sister’s Way-Official Moody Stink-a-Thon,” Stink told him.

  “Good for you,” said Steve. “Sounds like you’re already on your way to becoming a Master Sniffer.”

  “Someday I really want to smell a corpse flower.”

  “Oh, those corpse flowers sure are humdingers,” said Steve. “I flew all the way to England once, just to smell one at the Royal Botanic Gardens.”

  “Whoa. No way!” Stink wanted to hear more, but it was time for the contest to begin.

  Stink rushed over to smelly sneakers Number Twenty-seven. He hated to admit that Judy was right. But entering his own sneakers was no fair. He, Stink Moody, did not want to be the UN-proud winner of the All-Time, World’s Worst, Super-Stinky Cheater Contest.

  Stink gave the number back to the lady. “I’m not in the contest anymore,” he told her. “I’m a judge now!”

  No way did Stink want to cheat. He was an official Junior Sniffer now. A Junior Sniffer could not be a big fat cheesy, cheese-head, cheater head.

  “Let
the sniffing begin!” said the head judge lady. She handed Stink a clipboard. He took his sniffing very seriously. He walked up and down the rows and rows of torn sneakers, worn sneakers, yucky blucky sneakers. He walked in front of the sneakers and behind the sneakers. Here a sniff, there a sniff, everywhere a sniff, sniff.

  Stink rated each pair on a smelly scale of zero to four. He wrote down notes like “smells like a swamp” and “worse than a dead skunk” and “triple P.U.” All the while, he couldn’t help wondering which pair was Sophie’s.

  “Hey, I’ll give you a tip.” Steve the Smeller handed Stink a tissue. “Take a whiff of a pair of sneakers, then hold the tissue up to your nose in between sniffs. That way, your sense of smell won’t get so tired.”

  “Thanks!” said Stink. Wow-ee! A professional tip from Professor Smells-a-Lot himself. Stink puffed up with pride. He sniffed the next pair.

  “What do you smell?” Steve asked.

  “Feet,” said Stink. He did the tissue trick, then smelled the sneakers again.

  “What else?” asked Steve.

  “Dirt. Old carpet smell. Maybe even moldy cheese.”

  “Good for you,” said Steve. “Moldy cheese. That’s exactly what I thought.”

  Stink sniffed some more sneakers. He couldn’t help thinking that his were still the smelliest. He couldn’t help thinking that he could have won the Golden Clothespin Award. Until he came to Smelly Sneaker Pair Number Thirteen, that is.

  Stink leaned over and took another whiff. Phew! His eyes crossed; his nose wrinkled; his tongue curled.

  Number Thirteen smelled worse than a barn full of bats. Worse than a basement full of rats. Number Thirteen smelled stinkier than the litter boxes of ten hundred cats!

  He sniffed Number Thirteen. He sniffed the clean tissue from Steve the Smeller. Then he sniffed pair Number Thirteen again. All the toilet water in the world could not have made his shoes as smelly as these sneakers.