by M. D. Whalen
Horns tooted wildly. Crashing cymbals ripped the air.
Booby quieted them with a stern look. “New rules are now in effect,” he said. “Only clowns can make the world laugh. And what is our number one enemy in the laugh-making department?”
Every voice shouted together: “Farts!!”
“Indeed,” Booby said. “As of this moment, farting is forbidden. And laughing at farts will never again be heard on the face of this earth.”
Booby waited for the cheers to finish.
“And on that happy note...” He raised a party whistle to his mouth and blew. “Let us eat cake!”
Willy and Peter handed out slices on little party plates decorated with clowns and balloons. There was plenty for all.
The biggest slice was set on a large golden tray, which the boys presented to Booby, the new President of Our Planet in Eternity.
“Hail POOPIE!” Willy and Peter said.
“Hail POOPIE!” the clowns roared.
“Delicious!” Booby declared, wolfing down his slice in four or five bites.
Then Booby blinked. His expression froze.
He sniffed.
“Do I smell something?”
The clowns looked at one another. Some shuffled back against the wall and held their butts. Others clamped their legs together and twisted in place.
In a far back corner, there was a little whistling hiss which ended in three bubbly pops.
Someone had farted.
A clown in the other corner turned red in the face. He covered his mouth. He tried to turn away. His knees trembled. His belly shook. But he couldn’t hold it any more.
No, not a fart.
Worse.
He giggled.
CHAPTER 15
POOPIE’s Last Stand
A clown near the door let out a squealie, like a balloon releasing air. The clown beside him chuckled, just once.
“No laughing!” Booby shrieked.
But somebody else cut a rump ripper. A gulped-laugh here. A snort there.
Booby’s face turned red as a fireball. “I said no giggling! No laughing! And definitely no farting!”
Two clowns farted at once. Even Willy joined in the laughter. But not the farts. He and Peter had eaten no camel food cake.
By now there was no stopping the farts. Hoots and honks and toots and tweezles, gassers and wheezers of all sizes, shapes, and stinks. Blasters and bombers and zippety-doo-dahs and tushie trombones. The air turned pond scum green.
“No farting! I said, NO FARTING!!”
Booby jumped up and down on the table. But he was barely heard over the growing fart symphony: this one like a tuba, that one like a drum roll. Each new power puff caused howls of hilariousness.
“STOP LAUGHING! STOP IT!!!”
Booby stomped so hard that the table cracked down the middle, spilling the President of Our Planet in Eternity onto the cold, hard floor. Two clowns rushed to his side, but stopped in their tracks.
Booby's eyes bulged like they might pop out of his head. His face turned fiery red. The clowns around him backed away.
The laughter stopped at once. So did the farting, sort of. A few little peeps and hissers here and there, but most held theirs back in pure terror.
Booby’s thighs clamped together. His face turned from red to yellow to green. Even the dragon tattoo on his forehead seemed to cross its knees.
“I will not fart,” he said. “You see? I’m holding it in. That’s right. I absolutely, positively will not pass gas. Oh!”
He twisted in place.
“Farting is forbidden. Ack! Farting isn’t funny. Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh! No, I will not!”
“Let’s get out of here,” Willy said.
“What about him?” Peter grabbed the pilot’s arm and dragged him out into the corridor. Then Peter and Willy dashed upstairs to the nearest lab.
They ran from cage to cage, yanking out bolts. “Everybody, get out of here. Run!”
Dozens of boys stampeded upstairs.
Peter and Willy ran up to the next lab, and the next, opening cages, hoping they’d all get out in time.
Luckily the entrance guards were at the party. But no one could figure out how to open the gate.
Peter pounded and kicked at the bolt. Boys battered it with their shoulders, but still it wouldn’t budge.
Willy stuck his fingers between his lips and whistled. “Everybody! Turn around and bend over! On the count of three...”
A hundred rocket-powered bowel blazers together melted the heavy iron bolt. The door flew open.
Willy and Peter stood by the entrance, making sure every boy ran outside.
They found the helicopter pilot leaning against a wall playing games on his phone.
Peter propelled him outside with an enormous kick in the behind.
“Come on!” Peter shouted to Willy.
But Willy lingered inside with a hand to his ear.
Way far down inside the mountain, a strained, desperate voice echoed through the hollow corridors:
“I will not fart, I told you! Hoo hee ha ha! See? I am successfully holding it in. Walla walla wing ding! I will...unnngh!...not ffff-fart. I-I-I-I-I...errrrrr...oooooh...will not—”
Uh oh, thought Willy.
“Uh oh,” squeaked Booby the Clown.
The explosion threw Willy off his feet.
The ground cracked. Huge clouds of gray-green dust clogged his lungs.
Willy ran through cascades of crashing, falling rocks and gravel, barely escaping being crushed by a boulder that slammed down from above.
With one big leap, he reached open ground just as the entrance caved in, blocking it forever behind tons and tons of rubble.
Willy lay on the dirt, catching his breath. He thought he heard, echoing deep from the bowels of the earth, the buzzing and tooting of passing gas, and rowdy, hysterical laughter.
He stood up and wiped the dust from his face. Peter ran over and placed his hands on Willy’s shoulders.
For the first time in his life Willy saw his brother gaze down at him from a face beaming with pride.
“Dude, that camel food truly rocks,” Willy said.
Peter raised his hand to trade high fives.
“So do you, brother. So do you.”
CHAPTER 16
Farts in High Places
The President of the United States looked up from the papers on his desk and leaned back in his chair.
“There they are. It’s a yuge honor, I’m telling you gentlemen! It’s the biggest, best, most beautiful honor to welcome you. Believe me, it’s tremendous! Wait, who are these kids?”
While the President’s advisers explained, Willy and Peter looked at each other in disbelief.
They were actually in the White House!
What’s more, they were going to be on nationwide television to receive an award from the President himself!
It was the craziest thing to happen during the craziest day in their lives.
After being flown to Washington they’d gone straight to the Pentagon, into the secretest of top secret rooms. There they told a gathering of Generals and Admirals all the details about Booby the Clown’s nuclear fart bomb.
Peter drew pictures of the whole operation. Meanwhile, Willy told them the recipe for atomic snot balls, but explained that camel food was stronger.
For their services in breaking wind for their country and the world, Peter and Willy were both made Honorary Generals in the Air Force.
Camel food was delivered from the Washington Zoo, then a general ordered a whole platoon of soldiers to test it. Luckily, Willy and Peter got out of there before the experiment began.
Even more exciting was meeting the Chairman of Roadapple Corporation. When he’d heard their story on the news, he’d hopped the next flight from Beantown, and presented Willy and Peter with the Special Gold-Plated Limited Edition Executive Pro Model Death Breeze 3000+ whoopee cushion.
Then he’d taken them to lunch in the fanciest, snooties
t restaurant in the whole city, where the three of them feasted on beans and cabbage and onions. They sat there competing over who could cut the grimiest, grossest, butt-splitting howler.
The Chairman cut one so long and blubbery-sounding that half the other diners ran out screaming. Then he’d laughed and laughed. The Chairman of Roadapple Corporation was just a big kid at heart. He was cool!
And now here they were, inside the Oval Office shaking the hand of the President, while cameras flashed and reporters shouted questions.
“You boys need a drink?” the President said. Both shook their heads. The President took a sip of water—at least it was clear like water, though it smelled like something different—then covered his mouth and burped.
Whoa, Willy thought. Wish I’d recorded that: the President of the USA’s belch.
A woman came over and fixed the President’s hair, then ran a comb through Willy’s and Peter’s.
The President asked, “So, what’d you guys say you did?”
“We overthrew the POOPIE,” Peter replied.
“Right. Where’d this happen again?”
“In a deep cavern,” Peter said.
“And how’d you accomplish this deed?”
“With, um, intestinal gas, sir.”
The President scratched his chin. “Okay. So, you farted and dumped a big POOPIE down the hole.”
The director interrupted: “I think we’re ready, Mister President.”
Willy had never been so nervous in his life. The whole country—the whole world—was about to see him on television. His stomach gurgled. Deep down inside was an oh-so-familiar gaseous feeling. That lunch with the Roadapple chairman was still at work.
He squatted down low, hoping to discreetly let it out, when something caught his eye beneath the President’s desk. Somebody was under there—a girl! She must be the President’s granddaughter.
She was combing the bright yellow hair of an orange My Cutie Horsie. It had a gold saddle with a name, probably hers, engraved on it.
She peeked at Willy. “I heard it’s your sister’s birthday today.”
Willy’s jaw dropped when she reached over and offered him the horsie.
The director counted out loud: “Three...two...”
Willy slipped the pony in his pocket and stood up. He’d forgotten to thank the girl. Or let out his fart.
The President sniffed, and spoke to the camera:
“My fellow Americans, these brave young men served their country and the world with true distinction—and I do mean dis-stink-tion. I’m funny, right? Ha ha. Thanks to their courage and sharp thinking, they flushed out the POOPIE and saved us all from a smelly end. I mean, these guys are smart, which rhymes with...raspberry tart. Ha ha. I’m funny, right?”
Willy found it hard to smile for the camera. His butt was ready to burst.
The President picked up a gold medal on a colorful ribbon. “It is therefore with huge pleasure that I award to—”
PFFLO-O-O-ORRRRKK~PT~PT~PT~!
Willy held his hand over his mouth. That was Peter, not him.
People clamped their mouths shut. Except the Vice-President, who dropped against the wall laughing like a mule.
The President tried picking up where he left off.
“It is with enormous pleasure that I award to these young men—”
fffFFFF-PA-THORRRRT!
Okay, this time it was Willy. And this time no one held back. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court spun in circles laughing, his black robe rising until you could see his undies. The First Lady dropped to the floor, laughing so hard she rolled herself into a carpet.
Only the President was unamused. “Forget the dumb speech,” he said. “Guys, come get your Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
Peter stepped forward and let the President place the medal around his neck. Peter held it up to the camera and kissed it. People applauded.
While Willy was getting his medal, Peter snuck behind the President’s desk with that up-to-no-good look on his face.
Willy could see why. Peter had just placed the Special Gold-Plated Limited Edition Executive Pro Model Death Breeze 3000+ on the President’s chair.
Willy showed his medal to the cameras, while thinking, Please don’t sit down, Mister President.
The President sat down.
PFFFFFFLLLLLLTHWUPPPPPP!
BLOOOOORTT!
People froze. People gasped.
The President’s lips stuck out, his eyebrows squeezed together, his face turned the color of a barbecued hot dog. “Oh yeah? You think that’s so funny?”
Willy gulped. Peter gulped louder. In fact, half the people in the room were gulping. It sounded like a field of frogs.
“I’ll show you funny,” the President, waving the TV crew closer.
Then he bent over, aimed his butt straight at the camera, and let out the most monstrous, razzle-dazzle, rancid, raging honker ever to be seen, heard, or smelled in the history of the White House.
The entire country shook so hard with laughter that later, people reported cracks along the Canadian border.
CHAPTER 17
A Gross End
Willy and Peter arrived home just in time for birthday cake.
All of Skyler’s annoying little kindergarten friends were gathered around her in some girlie birthday party game.
“Ooh, there’s those farty boys,” said one of the friends.
“Where were you? You almost missed the party,” Skyler whined.
“Didn’t you see us on TV?” Peter said.
Skyler looked at her friends. They all shrugged. “I guess we were too busy playing pin the tail on the donkey.”
Peter told her all about their looking for a present for her, and being kicked off a plane and sailing to a desert island where they were held prisoner by evil clowns who forced them to eat snot and fart all day.
“Ew, that’s gross,” Skyler said. Willy wasn’t sure she believed them, but he finished the story:
“So we used camel food to escape, and we were made generals at the Pentagon and then the President gave us medals and let out a mega-supreme fart right on TV.”
“Ew, that’s really gross,” Skyler said.
“But here’s the best part,” Peter said. “We got you the most special birthday present in the world.”
He handed her a box wrapped in red, white, and blue paper that said “White House” all over it. Skyler licked frosting off her fingers and tore off the wrapping paper in big chunks.
She wrinkled her nose at the gold-plated Death Breeze 3000+. “What the—?”
“It’s not just any whoopee cushion,” Peter said. “See those dents? That’s the butt impression of the President of the United States. For real! How many of your friends can say they have an original copy of the President’s butt crack?”
Skyler’s lower lip stuck out so far a plane could have landed on it. Her eyes filled with tears. “Gross!! You’re the worst brothers in the whole wide world!”
Willy punched Peter in the ribs. “Told you, you stupid idiot! Should have just gotten her one of these in the first place!”
He pulled the My Cutie Horsie from his pocket “Here. The President’s granddaughter gave it to me to give you. That’s her name on the saddle.”
Skyler cradled the precious pony in her little hands, her mouth opened so wide a truck could have driven through it. She ran to her brothers and trapped them in a tight, squeezy, squirmy hug.
“You’re the best brothers in the whole wide world!”
Before they could escape, Skyler gave them each a big, wet, slurpy kiss.
“Ewwww!” Willy and Peter wiped their faces and said, “Now, that’s gross!”
Bonus Section
for curious minds
Fly the Farty Skies
People fart more while flying.
The reduced air pressure in airplane cabins makes gases expand. Which includes the gas in your intestines. Your farts can increase by thirty percent!
/> Farting is safest if you’re flying in economy class. The fabric seat covers absorb up to half of a fart’s smell. First class leather seats don’t offer this advantage.
Anyway, most people aboard aren’t holding it in. By the time you’ve crossed the country, you’ve breathed in the equivalent of about 200 farts.
In other words, that turbulence you feel might be coming from inside the plane!
Fartiest Animals
Which animal is the top farter on earth?
You might guess it’s your dog. Maybe you’ve heard that cow farts cause global warming. But by far the fartingest animal of them all is...
TERMITES
They may be tiny, but for their body size, they fart way more than us. And there are lots of them. All the termites in the world out-fart all the humans in the world by five-to-one!
The next most flatulent creatures are:
Camels
Zebras
Sheep
Cows
Elephants
Dogs (fartiest breeds: Labradors and Retrievers)
Humans rate somewhere below dogs.
Maybe we should be eating dog kibble!
Fartiest Foods
What are the gassiest foods besides beans? Here’s a musical menu:
METHANE-MAKING MEAT
beef, especially when cooked rare
VENTING VEGETABLES
asparagus
brussels sprouts
broccoli
cabbage
onions
artichokes
peas
celery
sweet potatoes
TOOTY FRUITS
watermelons