by Raymond Bean
I was in shock, Scott was in shock, and Anthony was definitely in shock.
Helen looked a little confused. “Okay, this is going in a direction I hadn’t expected. Is this true, Keith?” she asked.
Anthony suddenly looked really embarrassed. I sort of felt bad for him, in fact. I don’t like seeing anyone feel bad. But he did have this coming.
“All I can say, Helen, is what I’ve been saying for years. Anthony was the one farting at school. No one ever believed me. I’m glad Emma does.”
“Well, Anthony?” Helen asked. “Is there anything you want to say to us?”
Anthony sat quietly for a few seconds as we all waited for his answer. Then he just stood up and ran into the dugout and down the clubhouse steps.
Helen looked even more confused. “Well, I can honestly say that it is never boring when I have you kids on the show.”
“You should hang around the lab. That’s nothing,” Emma added. Helen continued with her interview, asking Emma more about her experiment. They talked about all the work Emma had done and how she found that animals help cheer people up, and when people are happy, they tend to be healthier. Helen loved Emma’s project. She even talked about her own animals. The two of them were really hitting it off.
Scott nudged me in the side. I ignored him, keeping my attention on Emma and Helen. He nudged me again and whispered, “When am I going to get to talk?” He must have been going crazy. He was so worried that Mr. Gonzalez was unhappy with his work, and here was his chance to show off his new experiment. I shrugged. It seemed like Emma and Helen might talk forever. It was fun to see Emma in the spotlight and having such a good time with it, though.
Then I heard a sound that my ears couldn’t quite grasp. It was the loudest and strangest farting noise I’d ever heard, and it was coming out of the speakers all around the stadium. It wasn’t just a fart. It was a song. It was a song being farted!
I looked up at the huge TV screens and there was Anthony. He was farting “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Everyone in the stadium stopped what they were doing and looked up at the screens. The players, the hotdog guys, the ushers, the fans, EVERYBODY!
Helen spoke first. “I’m not exactly sure what I’m seeing.”
“I told you,” Emma said giggling. “He’s a flatulist.”
“That is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed!” Helen concluded. “I think we better go to commercial.” But the cameraman kept filming, giving her a thumbs-up as he continued to record Anthony’s baseball tribute.
When the whole thing was over, Anthony shouted, “I’m Anthony Papas! Otherwise known as Sir Anthony the Farter, and I’m a flatulist. I’m sorry I tortured you all these years, Keith. Now PLAY BALL!” The crowd went crazy cheering for Anthony. It was just like him. I had been embarrassed about farts all these years, and here he was farting on the big screen at Yankee Stadium and getting a standing ovation to boot.
CHAPTER 32
All Hail the Queen
After we finished up with Helen, we got to stay for the game. It was amazing. We had awesome seats, and the Yankees won in the ninth with a walk-off homerun.
In the limousine on the way home, I was feeling pretty good. “Anthony, I can’t believe that you finally admitted to the world that you are a farter.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve said that to me about ten times already. I still can’t believe Emma did that to me on TV. I’m sorry I did all those crazy things to you.”
Anthony had a way of surprising me sometimes. As cruel and strange as he was most of the time, there were times when he was just a regular kid. “It’s okay. I’m just happy I won’t be S.B.D. or Farts Emerson or Goozer anymore at school.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure those nicknames are going to stick to you like glue. Besides, I don’t plan to stop calling you those names anytime soon.”
“Thanks, but I think that once people know it was you all along, you may get a few nicknames yourself.”
“I know. That’s why I gave myself the nickname Sir Anthony the Farter before other kids could think of a name for me.”
“When are you going to learn to get along already?” Emma interrupted.
“We are kind of getting along right now, Emma,” I said.
“I agree, Emma,” Mr. Gonzalez added. “You two must learn to treat each other better. Learn to work together, not against one another. In case you haven’t noticed, while you two were busy arguing and trying to get all the power these past few weeks, you were outsmarted by a five-year-old.”
“I still can’t believe that Emma was working on science when we thought she was just playing with animals,” Scott said.
“You guys thought she was just playing because none of you took the time to ask her what she was doing,” Mr. Gonzalez said.
“It looked like she was playing because she seemed to be having so much fun,” Anthony said.
“That’s the part of this that you guys need to learn. The reason Emma made it look so easy is because she was having fun. She thought of something she already enjoyed, and she experimented around that.”
“Maybe you guys can do an experiment on arguing,” Emma suggested with a laugh. “And since none of you came up with the new scents for Sweet Farts that Mr. Stuart wanted, I have decided. The four new scents for Sweet Farts this summer will be Salami, Pastrami, Pickle Deluxe, and Blue Octopus,” she announced.
“Emma, those scents don’t even make sense. And Blue Octopus isn’t even a smell,” I said.
“I like those scents. I think they’re funny and people like funny things.”
“The first three scents are okay, Emma, but I don’t understand Blue Octopus,” Mr. Gonzalez replied.
“Blue Octopus is my favorite,” she said. “I think it will be your favorite, too, Anthony.”
“Why is that?” Anthony asked.
“Because Blue Octopus won’t change the scent of gas at all, so it will be DEADLY!”
Mr. Gonzalez smiled. “Clever, Emm, very clever. Blue Octopus it is.”
I had to hand it to her, it was pretty good.
“So whoever has the best idea for the next fair will be in charge, right?” Anthony asked.
Mr. Gonzalez laughed. “No, Anthony, Emma is in charge of Sweet Farts and will continue to be as long as she shows she can handle it. We said the winner of the challenge would run the company. Remember when I warned you about being careful what you wish for, you just might get it? In this case, you boys got exactly what you wished for.”
“Welcome to the Emmpire. I am your queen,” Emma said, raising her hands in the air in a victory salute.
Mr. Gonzalez was right. We had wished for the smartest person to lead the company going forward, and we had gotten exactly what we wished for. I just never dreamed that the smartest person in the company would be my little sister. She was the queen of the Emmpire. I was blown away.
About the Author
Raymond Bean is the Amazon best-selling author of the Sweet Farts series. Writing for kids who claim they don’t like reading, his books have ranked #1 in children’s humor, humorous series, and fantasy and adventure genres, and the Sweet Farts series is consistently in Amazon’s top 100 books for children. His second book, Sweet Farts #2: Rippin’ It Old School, was Amazon Publishing’s very first children’s release. Foreign editions of his books have been released in Germany and Korea, and editions for Italy, Brazil, and Turkey are forthcoming.