by Raymond Bean
I realized something about Emma’s class, as soon as I started talking to them, that I wasn’t quite prepared for. As I walked around the court trying to keep their attention, I smelled just about every Sweet Farts scent there was. These kids weren’t holding back one bit. As I talked, several kids just let them go as loud as they pleased. It was nothing to them. I looked at Emma’s teacher, and she just shrugged. “Thanks to Sweet Farts, these kids don’t have any problem passing gas whenever they want. We try to stop them, but it just doesn’t work,” she told me over the noise.
As I thought about what Emma’s teacher had said, something hit me: Benjamin Franklin had said in 1781 that if someone could make the smell of human gas pleasant, passing gas would be no worse than sneezing. Looking out at this gassy bunch of kids, I realized that he was right. Already these kids didn’t know any better. They thought farts were fun and nothing to be embarrassed about. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but they sure seemed happy.
“Keith!” Mr. Gonzalez pointed to the clock. “Let’s get this going. These kids need to be home in about an hour.”
Mr. Carson looked at me and shrugged. Well, here goes nothing, I thought.
“Hi, everyone.”
“Hi, Farts,” they all said back at once.
“My name is Keith. I’m Emma’s big brother. We have asked you here today because we are working on an invention that will turn the taste of any food you don’t like into the taste of a food you do like.” They all cheered.
A little boy at the back of the court raised his hand.
“Yes?”
“I hate peas,” he announced.
“Okay,” I replied. “And what else did you want to say?”
“That’s it, I just hate peas.”
“Oh, thanks for sharing that. Now…”
Every hand went up instantly. I picked a little girl in the front sitting next to my sister.
“I don’t like steak,” she announced.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “I’m sure you all have foods you don’t like to eat, and that’s why I’m working on this invention. Today we’re going to eat some liver.”
The entire room let out a loud “Eeewwwww!”
“Most kids really dislike liver, so I thought it was the perfect food to test. My friend Mr. Carson and I are going to give you something that looks like liver, but if everything went well, it should taste like candy canes.”
I really wanted to change the appearance of the food as well, so it looked like a candy cane, but we hadn’t made it that far yet. For now, the food looked the way it always looked, so the liver looked like liver. Mr. Carson and I walked around, giving each kid a plate with a piece of the altered liver on it. They all made faces and said it looked yucky.
Then I held up the rubric and told them that after tasting the food, they would give it a score from 1 to 4. I wasn’t completely sure they understood me, even though they all nodded as if they did. “I will count to three and then everyone will taste it. Here we go: one, two, three, TASTE!” I shouted. No one picked up a fork. They all just looked at me.
Emma broke the silence. “It looks really gross.”
“I know it looks gross, but it should taste great. Come on, trust us. Give it a try.”
A really small kid in the middle of the group announced, “I’ll do it.”
“That’s Ronnie,” my sister interrupted. “He picks his nose and eats it.”
“I do not!” Ronnie shouted back.
“You eat boogers!” Emma insisted.
“Wow!” I said. “Emma, that isn’t very nice. You shouldn’t say things like that about other people. I’m sorry, Ronnie. Will you go ahead and try it?”
Ronnie slowly picked up his fork. He pushed down on his piece of liver and slowly lifted it to his nose. He took a sniff, and then a good long pause. You could have heard a pin drop. All eyes were on Ronnie. He finally took a bite. The instant the liver hit his lips he spit it out. It flew across the table and landed in a little girl’s hair. She immediately stood up and started running across the basketball court, trying to get the liver out of her hair. The room exploded with sound as the rest of the class jumped out of their chairs and started running around the gym pretending to get food out of their hair.
I caught Mr. Gonzalez’s eye from across the madness. He just mouthed, “You have one week.” I exhaled a deep, long breath. This wasn’t going to be easy.
CHAPTER 26
Do You Love It?
The week leading up to the fair was not a pretty one. My sister decided about halfway through that she was not going to taste any more of my science-fair food. She said it was so bad she would rather eat regular food, which she did. Mr. Carson and I worked late into the night, every night that week. At school, I was so tired I felt like I wasn’t even there.
We spent our time researching the many ways in which fancy chefs create amazing new flavors. We used equipment that measured the molecular structure of liver and candy canes. Mr. Carson had a whole bunch of strange cooking tools delivered, and we experimented with them hour after hour. I was sure we were close to perfecting Candy Cane Liver a few times, but we just couldn’t seem to get it right. No matter what we did, I could still taste liver.
The hardest part was the actual science; it was so challenging for me. I realized I didn’t have enough education to really take on such a complicated experiment, but it was what my sister wanted, so I tried.
The day of the fair was pretty bad. I was completely exhausted. I had worked all through the night. I think I fell asleep in a chair at one point, but I couldn’t remember clearly. I had eaten a whole lot of liver, I knew that.
Mr. Michaels had designated a special spot for me to display my project, right at the entrance to the school. A banner behind me that featured a huge picture of me holding a pack of Sweet Farts read, “Harborside’s Own Keith Emerson, Inventor of the Internationally Best-selling Sweet Farts!” Then it described the whole story behind the invention of Sweet Farts.
My booth was completely packed at the beginning of the fair, but it got quiet really fast as people realized all I had was an idea and no actual invention to show them. I displayed a few different versions of Candy Cane Liver we had prepared. One kid tried it and spit it out. “Your project is gross,” he assured me.
Anthony’s project was a few booths down. He seemed to be packed all day long. I was amazed at how much work he had done. He had graphs, charts, and a huge computer screen with pictures of him at work in the lab. He was going on and on about his theories and the patterns he claimed to have discovered in the lottery numbers and how he was pretty sure he would win the lottery soon. That kid sure can talk!
All of a sudden, I realized that I hadn’t seen Scott all day. I decided to try to find him. He had been really secretive about his experiment ever since he and Anthony had split up. I walked all around the school and finally found his setup in our classroom. He was nowhere to be found, but on his desk was his experiment. It was a couple of two-liter soda bottles, one on top of the other. They were attached at the openings with tape, and one was half-filled with colored water. I couldn’t believe it. He had done the classic lazy man’s science experiment: the tornado in a bottle!
“Do you love it?” he asked from behind me.
“You can’t be serious. I’m going absolutely nuts for the past two months, and you do a tornado in a bottle? How long did this take you?”
“Cranked it out this morning,” he said proudly. “I had to have my mom help hold it while I taped it together.”
“What have you been doing for the past couple of weeks?”
“I hired a batting coach. He’s been working on my swing with me, on the pitching machine at the lab. I am going to crush the ball this spring.”
CHAPTER 27
The Helen Winifred Show
After the fair, the kids all piled into a big car that Mr. Gonzalez had sent. “Well, how did it go?” he asked, once I’d taken my seat.
&
nbsp; “You know how it went. I had all these people counting on me, and I let them down. It was a total embarrassment.”
“Oh, that’s nothing, Keith. You had amazing success with Sweet Farts. You’re a scientist now. You need to realize that failure is part of being a scientist. Do you know that I have failed far more times than I have succeeded? You will fail, but you cannot quit. At least you know now what not to do as you move forward with your research.”
“What do you mean move forward? The science fair is over.”
“The science fair may be over, but the science is not. You have great ideas, and you owe it to yourself, to your family, to me, and to Benjamin Franklin to keep working on them.”
I took a deep breath. “I thought for sure you were going to kick me out of the lab.”
“No, Keith, the lab is yours. You and your friends are free to use that space as you see fit. In a way, you are an experiment of mine. I see something in you. I have to believe in that and see where it takes you.” Then he turned and looked at Scott. “If, however, you pull a stunt like that next year, you will be out. Do you understand, Scott?”
“Yes, Mr. Gonzalez,” Scott said, nodding.
During the drive to The Helen Winifred Show, I felt both worried and relieved. Worried because I was about to go on TV and explain how I had failed in my science experiment, and relieved that the fair was over. It had been a tough few weeks. I was happy to just sit and look out the window.
When we finally arrived in New York City, I was led backstage in the studio and told to wait for my turn to go on. I couldn’t help but think that it shouldn’t be me out there on the stage. I really had nothing to talk about. My experiment was a flop.
Just then, a woman wearing a headset and holding a clipboard walked into the room and signaled to me that it was time to go on. I felt my chest tighten. All of a sudden I was aware of my breathing. When I stood up, I felt a little dizzy and my stomach filled with butterflies.
I followed her down a long hallway lined with pictures of all the famous people Helen Winifred had interviewed. The hallway seemed to go on forever, and I half wished it would, so I would never make it to the stage. At the end of the hall, we reached a door. A blinking light at the top of the door read Live.
My mom had watched Helen Winifred practically every day of my entire life, and I never stopped to think about the fact that it was not taped, but live. That meant if I made a mistake or did something embarrassing, it was going out live to the whole world.
The lady with the headset opened the door and signaled for me to follow. The noise of the audience hit me at once. It was really loud. Then I heard Helen Winifred’s voice: “My next guest is a ten-year-old boy from Long Island, New York. Last school year he made an invention that changed the world.”
The woman with the headset held up her hand, signaling for me to wait. I could see Helen Winifred through a curtain in front of me. I could also see the audience of mostly moms hanging on her every word. “My grandmother used to say, ‘If you think something stinks in life, fix it!’” she continued. “Well, my grandmother would have been very proud of this young man because that is exactly what he did. Please welcome Keith Emerson, inventor of Sweet Farts!”
The crowd clapped and I could hear Anthony and Scott whistling and hooting as if they were at a football game. They were seated right in the front row, along with Mom and Dad, Emma, Grandma, and Mr. Gonzalez.
I shook Helen’s hand and sat down in the big comfy chair next to hers. “Hey, Keith,” Helen said.
“Hey to you,” I replied, nervously.
“I have heard of some pretty good nicknames in my day, but I heard you have a few that might just take the cake.”
I couldn’t believe this. Was she really going to talk about my nicknames on national TV?
“Now, I’m going to apologize in advance for what we are going to do. I hope you are a good sport. We asked your mom, and she said you would be okay.” I looked at my mom and she shot me a sinister smile. Oh, no, I thought. She’s about to get back at me for all the embarrassment I put her through when I invented Sweet Farts.
Just then the lights dimmed and game-show music came on. “We are going to play a little game with the audience,” Helen announced. “Each person has an electronic device that will allow them to answer a multiple-choice question. I will ask the question, they will select their answer, either A, B, C, or D, and the data will be immediately displayed on the screen behind us. Are you ready?”
I was in shock. Was this really happening? Had my life just become a complete joke to everyone? And why was Mom allowing this? “Let’s play!” Grandma shouted above the crowd.
Helen started laughing. “That’s your grandma, right?”
“Yep,” I admitted, defeated.
“Well, you heard the woman. Let’s play ‘What’s Keith’s Nickname’!” The music swelled, and then fell silent, as Helen read from the cards in her hands. “Was Keith’s nickname at school last year (a) Dust, (b) S.B.D., (c) The Punisher, or (d) Air Poo?”
The audience giggled like crazy and then looked down at their electronic devices. The data was immediately displayed on the screen behind us. Helen read the results. “Fifty-three percent picked Air Poo, thirty-seven percent picked S.B.D., eight percent picked The Punisher, and only two percent picked Dust.” The crowd cheered.
I must have looked really uncomfortable in my chair, because Helen asked, “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I can tell this is really bothering you. We were just trying to have a little fun. Your friends told us you would get a kick out of it.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m kind of used to it. My friends have a habit of putting me in embarrassing situations.”
“I’ve heard a lot about these nicknames. What’s the story behind them? Which one is the correct nickname?”
“Well, they used to call me S.B.D.” The crowd went crazy.
“Everyone who guessed S.B.D. will be taking home a year’s supply of Sweet Farts,” Helen announced. The audience let out an ear-piercing shriek of approval.
I waited until they quieted down, and then continued. “They called me S.B.D., for Silent But Deadly, because everyone thought I was farting in class, even though it was never once me. From there, it grew into Sweet Farts after my invention, and then they started calling me just plain Farts. Most recently, Gooz is a new favorite, the Farsi word for ‘fart.’”
Helen was trying not to laugh, but she couldn’t hold it in. “That’s awful…for you…and really funny for us. Those are some tough nicknames to deal with. May I call you Gooz? Because I really like that name, but I understand if you don’t like it.”
“Go ahead, enjoy,” I said. The crowd cheered again, and for the first time in a long time I felt relaxed, of all places, on live television.
“So moving off the fart focus for a minute, what was your project this year? I know there were a lot of expectations and excitement about what you would invent next. Did you fix the smell of vomit, because a lot of people thought you might tackle that next.”
I looked at my family and smiled. “No, we thought about doing that but decided against it after an unfortunate event in the lab.” Dad was gagging a little and covering his mouth.
“Okay, so what did you do?”
“Well, Helen, I set out to find a cure for kids who hate to eat healthy food. My sister would barely eat anything, so I tried to invent a way to make yucky, healthy foods taste like something yummy. So, if a kid was eating liver, for example, she would taste another food, like candy canes, but still get all the nutrition of the liver.”
“Wow, that’s pretty cool. How did it turn out?”
“I couldn’t do it. I failed.” The crowd let out a long “Aaawwww.”
“Well, don’t say that,” Helen encouraged. “There aren’t too many ten-year-olds who can say they have an invention like Sweet Farts selling around the world, and their very own lab to work in.” The crowd cheered and clapped for me, which felt pretty good, but I s
till couldn’t help feeling that I had let everyone down.
“I hear you have your own company. What’s the name of it, and who are your employees?”
“Well, our name is…” I looked at my family and the name just came to me: “Sweet Farts, Inc., and the employees are me, my dad, my friends Scott and Anthony, and my Grandma.” Grandma let out a loud “Yeah!” for some reason. “And I am proud to announce our newest employee, my little sister, Emma. Without her, I would have had no idea for an experiment this year. Go ahead and stand up, Emma,” I called out.
Again the crowd went, “Aaawwww.”
Emma stood up. “Really?” she asked over the applause.
“Yes,” I said. “You’ve earned it, Emma. You are officially in the family business.” It was nice to see Emma so proud of herself.
Just then Anthony climbed up on his seat, held up his cell phone, and shouted, “I did it! I did it!”
“Anthony!” I burst out. “We’re on live TV here.”
“I know, but I just beat the lottery! I won 178 million dollars. I’m rich, man! Rich, I tell ya!” He hugged Scott, and they both jumped up and down on their chairs.
“Who is this person?” Helen interrupted.
“This is my friend Anthony. His experiment was to try and find patterns in the lottery.” I turned to Anthony. “Come on, Anthony. Stop fooling around.”
“I just got an e-mail with the winning numbers. I won, baby! You’re looking at a genius,” he shouted. The crowd went absolutely nuts.
“Well, Gooz,” Helen said over the cheers. “It looks like your company is doing something right.”
“I guess we are,” I said. “I guess we are.”
CHAPTER 28
The Thank-You
After the show we were all sitting backstage and Helen Winifred came into my room to say good-bye. “You were a good sport out there, Keith. I think what you guys are doing is pretty amazing. I wish Sweet Farts, Inc., all the luck in the future.” She turned to Anthony. “Congratulations on your lottery winning. I think that is amazing. Next year, we will have to invite you both back to discuss your science projects.” Then she turned to Mom. “I would like to thank you for putting up with your son while he invented Sweet Farts. I give them to my dog, and let’s just say, it’s necessary.”