by Raymond Bean
“Why did you schedule that? I can’t go on national TV. I’ll make a fool of myself. I’ll be a laughingstock. I can’t do this!” I said, feeling the panic rise inside me.
“Well, you had better get busy and figure it out then, because the science fair is in exactly two months. I’m leaving tonight for a seven-week dig in Africa, and will be unreachable, but you have the full support of the lab and the scientists. You just have to explain to them what your idea is, and they will help. You also have the support of these two.” He pointed to Scott and Anthony, rolling his eyes. I turned to my left and saw that Scott had his earphones on, since he was playing Jezula’s Last Stand on his mobile game system. When I turned to my right, I saw that Anthony was completely asleep. His head was tilted all the way back, and there was a little bit of drool running down his lower lip toward his chin. I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands.
“Well, you’re home,” Mr. Gonzalez informed me. “I suggest you get that scientific mind of yours in motion. The clock is ticking. See you in seven weeks. I’ll drop Video Boy and Sleeping Beauty off at their houses on my way to the airport. Good luck, and tell your parents I said hi.”
The driver got out and opened the door for me. It was raining really hard.
Scott stopped playing for a minute and looked up at me. “What did I miss? Where are we? When did it start raining so hard?”
“You seriously didn’t hear any of that conversation the entire way home?” I asked.
“No, I was running from Jezula. Why? Was it important?”
I looked at Mr. Gonzalez in disbelief.
“You wanted to hire these guys,” he reminded me. “I’ll see you in seven weeks.”
CHAPTER 3
I Didn’t Mean to FAWT!
I walked slowly up the front path. It was cold and wet out, but I was in no hurry to get inside. My family would probably be all excited to hear how the interviews had gone. As I slowly put the key in the lock, I could hear my sister Emma throwing a wild fit inside. She was really emotional lately, and this kind of thing was becoming a routine. I could hear my mother not exactly yelling, but not exactly not yelling. She was clearly angry. There was no doubt about that.
“Emma, you cannot throw your food on the floor,” I heard her say as I opened the door and walked in.
“I didn’t throw it on the flow,” Emma began. Even though she could pronounce her r’s, Emma had developed a habit of not saying the r sound correctly. So she said “flow” instead of floor and “stow” instead of store, and it made my mom nuts. Emma didn’t do it all the time, either, only when she was trying to frustrate my mom.
“Emma, it is ‘floor,’ not ‘flow.’ I know you can say it because I have heard you say it before,” Mom said sternly.
“No, I caaaan’t,” Emma whined. She was also super whiney lately.
My dad came upstairs from the basement, waved, and smiled at me, as if nothing were going on, and then made his way calmly through the living room. My mother hadn’t even looked at me yet, even though I was standing in the same room with her and Emma.
“Hi, everyone,” I announced. “The interviews went really crummy, thanks for asking. I feel like I might lose my mind if anyone cares.”
“Emma. You pick that hotdog up off the floor or you are not having dessert,” my mom threatened. I couldn’t believe that no one had even realized I was there.
“I don’t want to pick it uuup! And I want dessut,” she whimpered. Then she ripped the loudest fart you have ever heard exit the body of a four-year-old. As soon as she did it she started giggling like crazy. My mom’s face went from an annoyed light red to an angry deep red instantly. She turned immediately to me.
“Are you happy, Keith? Thanks to your little invention your sister has no control over her flatulence,” Mom half yelled.
“That one is gonna smell like cookie dough, everybody. Enjoy!” Emma announced through her laughter.
“Thanks to me?” I began. “How can you blame me for the fact that Emma can’t control her farts?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that I do not like that word?” Mom shouted. She was so mad now that I’m not sure even how to describe it.
“Yeah, Keith,” Emma began in a singsong voice. “Mommy doesn’t like the word faaawwwwt.” She dragged the ending of the word out to really make it clear that she was not using her r sound. Then she crossed her arms dramatically.
My mom hit her boiling point. “Emma, go to your room! No dessert tonight. You are going to bed. Keith, while we’re at it, go to your room, too. You are going to bed as well. I’m done.” Emma immediately fell to the floor and started crying and rolling around.
“How exactly did I get in trouble again?” I asked. “I just walked in the door! It’s not even time for bed.”
“Go to your room, Keith,” my mom said firmly.
I stormed out of the kitchen and up the stairs, slamming my door behind me before jumping into bed. I wasn’t crying, but I was close. I could still hear Emma from the kitchen. She was going completely ballistic, shouting, “I DIDN’T MEAN TO FAWT! I DIDN’T MEAN TO FAWT!” over and over again. I knew there was a reason I was in no hurry to get into the house.
CHAPTER 4
Fart Boy
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, it was morning. I looked at the clock: it was eight thirty. I was still in my clothes as I sat up and stretched. I could hear Emma’s favorite TV show and the sounds of her talking dollies all the way from downstairs. I stretched again from my head to my toes. I felt a little better after a good night’s sleep.
Then my mind started going back to all the things that were going on. I had seven weeks to come up with a science-fair project on a change-the-world level. After all, I couldn’t follow up my Sweet Farts invention with just anything. It had to be amazing and at least as good as Sweet Farts. The stress started to kick back in as I sat down at my computer and saw that I had loads of new e-mails and text messages.
I opened the first e-mail, which was a link to a newspaper article with the title “They Call Him Farts.” I read it and checked the other e-mails. Each one I opened had a link to another paper with a similar headline. The headline from the Japanese paper read, “Can Farts Emerson Change the World Again?” And it had a picture of me underneath. I sat back in my chair. How in the world did this happen? I thought. How did I go from being just a regular kid to Fart Boy in less than a year?
I heard a car pull into our driveway. I knew it was Grandma, and she was right on time, as always. I jumped up, brushed my teeth super quick, changed into my clothes, and ran downstairs. Mom was at the kitchen table on the phone, but she hung up when she saw me coming.
“I’m sorry about last night,” she began. “I’m just at my wits’ end with your sister. She hasn’t eaten a good meal in as long as I can remember, and her new hobby is passing gas as often as possible. I don’t know what to do with her. I never even asked you how the interviews went last night.”
“It’s all right, Mom. I have to get to the lab,” I told her. “Just go online and you can read the interviews from yesterday. Most of them are posted already. Let’s just say you aren’t going to like my new nickname! I’ll see you later.” I gave her a kiss and walked out the door.
When I opened the door to Grandma’s car, I immediately heard my favorite band, Turpentine Fire Line. “Good morning, Rock Star,” Grandma exclaimed.
I slid into the back seat of her car. Grandma still makes me sit in the back even though most of my friends ride in the front.
“What’s the dilly?” she inquired, looking at me in the rearview mirror.
“What’s the dilly?” I started. “Oh, the usual. My friends are completely useless, my mom blames me for the fact that my four-year-old sister farts like a ninety-five-year-old man at a bean buffet, and I have to come up with an amazing science-fair project in the next seven weeks. Aside from that, everything is just awesome.”
“Don’t forget your new n
ickname, Farts!” she said, still smiling.
“Why would you say that to me? It’s bad enough that I have Scott and Anthony giving me grief about it, and it seems to be all over today’s newspapers, but my own grandmother!”
“I think it’s a fun name,” Grandma continued.
“A fun name? You think it’s fun to have the nickname Farts?”
“I do. I think it’s fun.” My grandma had a habit of always trying to find the positive side of things, even when there was no positive side to be found. I love that about her, but in situations like this, it’s just silly. There was no fun in having the nickname Farts. She knew it, and so did I.
CHAPTER 5
That Was AWESOME!
The single greatest thing that has happened to me since inventing Sweet Farts has to be the lab. My lab is more than just a regular old science lab. It is the ultimate hangout spot. The space is awesome.
When Mr. Gonzalez gave me the space, he told me I could plan it however I wanted. It was a separate building from his lab, but right next door.
Sweet Farts was making a ton of money, and the lab was the only place where I was allowed to spend any of it. The rest went into a trust fund for when I’m older. Planning and setting up the lab was pretty much where most of my time and energy went all summer.
The first thing we did was build a full basketball court. Because the ceilings were so high, it worked out perfect. We have a real hardwood-floor court with glass backboards, just like the pros, and a refrigerator full of all my favorite drinks. We also put in a Ping-Pong table, a pool table, and a whole bunch of video games hooked up to a huge TV. But the crowning jewel of the lab is not what is in it but what is behind it. Out the back door of the basketball court is a full baseball field complete with two dugouts, a pitching machine, and a home-run fence. I could spend all day back there, hitting off the pitching machine or playing with my dad and my friends.
My company consists of me, my dad, Scott, Anthony, and Grandma. Each of us has our own space to try and come up with ideas. We decided that one room would be for me, one for my dad, another for Scott and Anthony, and the last room for Grandma. Each of us is free to research and think about ideas that might help change the world for the better. Anthony and Scott call it the Fart Factory. I call it heaven. It’s my favorite place to be.
Grandma and I arrived at the lab at about nine twenty. The front door was already open, and I figured Scott and Anthony were there because Dad’s car was nowhere in sight. When I walked in, I expected to see them playing video games or shooting baskets, but the place was dead quiet. I was amazed: did this mean they were actually working?
“What’s this all about?” Grandma asked; she must have thought the silence was strange, too.
“I’m not sure,” I said. We walked down the hall to Anthony and Scott’s lab room. As we walked up to the door, I heard Anthony say, “Come on, throw up already!”
I opened the door, and the two of them were hunched over a bucket trying to puke.
“What in the world are you two doing?” Grandma blurted out.
Scott took a deep breath and looked up. His face was all red from trying to throw up. “We’re trying to invent something that will make people’s vomit smell good. We both ate a secret blend of some of the same ingredients as Sweet Farts about an hour ago. The problem is we can’t get ourselves to throw up to see if it works. We’ve been trying all morning.”
Around the room sat small glasses filled with disgusting mixtures. They must have been drinking them in hopes of getting sick.
Anthony stood up, looked right at us, and cracked a raw egg into a huge glass. Then he filled it halfway with cooking oil and topped it off with what looked like maple syrup. He picked up the glass and started chugging, making all kinds of horrific gulping and gagging sounds as he tried to force it down.
“Anthony, stop that this instant,” Grandma ordered. “You’re going to faint.” As she spoke she gagged a little and looked like she might throw up, too.
Anthony ignored her. Egg was running down his chin and neck. That kid doesn’t listen to anyone. He just does what he wants, when and where he pleases.
“Yeah! Go! Go!” Scott cheered, pumping his fist in the air.
The more Anthony chugged, the more Grandma gagged. She rushed up to him, holding her hand in front of her mouth as if she might burst.
“Anth—” she began but was interrupted by a gag. “You can’t…” another gag.
Scott and I looked at each other and started to laugh. Just then the door opened, and in walked my father.
Now, my father is a notorious “easy puker,” as he puts it. If he gets the slightest scent of barf, it’s all over. He will throw up. As soon as he saw what Anthony was chugging and heard Grandma heaving and making all those gross sounds, he pulled the trigger. He exploded all over Scott’s shirt and face. Scott immediately blasted back onto Dad’s chest and hands as he put them up in a failed effort to block the steady stream of mess coming out of Scott. Almost simultaneously, Grandma burst all over the side of Anthony’s face and neck. Anthony in turn stopped drinking. Everyone just stood there staring at each other for what seemed like minutes. It was a scene right out of a horror movie. Anthony spoke first.
“That was awesome!” he shouted.
Without warning, Grandma hurled on him one last time. After a second or two, Anthony farted, laughed to himself, and then finally puked all over Grandma’s shoes.
It was indeed awesome!
CHAPTER 6
Company Meeting
After several hours of cleaning, scrubbing, and complaining, Scott and Anthony’s room was finally clean and so were they. We were all sitting around the table next to the basketball court—Dad, Grandma, Scott, Anthony, and me. It was lunchtime, but no one even mentioned food. I spoke first.
“Okay,” I said, “so everyone agrees that we are not going to try and fix the smell of vomit? I think I have seen about enough of that for one lifetime.” The others nodded in agreement. “Okay then, we know we will not be experimenting with barf. Other than that, do we have anything that we are working on that might actually be a good idea, because I am starting to freak out.” I waited.
There was silence.
“I really have no ideas, you guys,” I tried again.
Anthony and Scott looked at each other.
Scott spoke up first. “Anthony and I are working on a little something called the Silencer.”
“What is the Silencer?” I asked.
“Well, you know how some farts are really loud,” Scott said.
I looked at my dad. “Yeah, I have some experience with that.”
My dad made a face and said, “I can’t control what your mom does, son, you know that.”
“Big help, Dad. Way to contribute. Go on, Scott.” I shot Dad a give-me-a-break face and shook my head a little.
“Well, what if we invented something that eliminated the sound of farts? Sweet Farts makes farts smell good, but the Silencer finishes the job by getting rid of the sound completely. What do you think?” Scott looked around for approval.
“I don’t know,” said Dad. “I think I would be more interested in an amplifier of some sort. You know, something that would make the sound actually louder. I know as a consumer I’d be interested in something like that.”
“Do we have any ideas that don’t involve farts?” I asked. “We are able to work outside the science of farts, you know.”
Grandma raised her hand.
“Grandma,” I said, “you don’t have to raise your hand. You can simply speak.”
“First of all,” she began, “I just want to say you are so cute I can hardly take it right now. You are so in charge and running the meeting. I think it’s just a hoot.”
“I’m very happy for you, Grandma. I assure you, though, it won’t be cute in seven weeks when everyone realizes I have no new ideas. So please tell me you have something that does not involve farts.”
“Okay,” she said as
she stood up and walked toward me. “I have an idea that I am really psyched up about! Picture this, fellas: you go to the supermarket, and you are shopping for fruit. You’ve probably done this a million times in your life. It’s all the same old stuff—apples, oranges, grapes—and then you see something you’ve never seen before. You see a stack, one on top of the other, of hundreds upon hundreds of square pears!”
No one said a word. I tried to think of a way to respond but couldn’t really come up with anything. My head tilted to the side a bit, and I almost said something but decided that certain things are best left unsaid. “Ummm…okay, Grandma,” I replied, finally breaking the silence. “May I ask why someone would like to buy a square pear?”
She smiled. “Because it won’t roll off the table. And I’m not just talking pears, dear, I am talking about square apples, oranges, the works. I’m talking about fruit that is normally round or roundish being square. Imagine it, no more fruit bowls to hold all that pesky round fruit. You could simply stack your fruit like blocks!” Grandma exclaimed, giving us a visual model by pretending to stack blocks.
“That’s definitely interesting, Grandma, but how does it change the world for the better? That’s what we should be focusing on here. We need an experiment that makes the world better. An invention that takes something that bothers us and makes it better.”
“Round fruit bothers me,” she said in a very serious tone. “Just imagine it, Keith.”
“I am imagining it, and I just don’t know what to think. I don’t really mind my fruit round. But if you really are interested in it, e-mail the scientists at Mr. Gonzalez’s lab and they can talk more about it with you.”
“Thanks, boss!” Grandma said, taking her seat again.
“I’m not the boss,” I said. “I’m just, well…I don’t know what I am exactly.”