Zack couldn’t believe it either.
It seemed too good to be true.
It was.
Zack began to realise they were heading too high. Too fast. He had no idea how powerful needleweeds and stinkants really were. And he’d eaten everyone’s share as well as his own.
They arced over the tops of the trees and started their descent.
Fortunately it was into an area where there weren’t so many trees.
Unfortunately, there was a reason for that. They were heading straight for the lair of Stenchgantor.
There was no mistaking him.
Below them was the ugliest, dirtiest, wartiest, pimpliest, grossest, greasiest, hairiest, stinkiest, most unwiped bum Zack had ever seen.
But as ugly as Stenchgantor was, the worst thing about him was definitely his stench: a foul nauseating stink that made Zack not only want to rip his nose off but also plug up his ears, eyes, mouth and every single pore of his skin as protection against its corrosive blast. It was definitely not a smell that crept up on you—it was a smell that walked right up and punched you in the face—and then kept on punching, each punch harder than the last.
‘Help!’ screamed Eleanor, letting go of Zack’s hand.
Zack knew he had really done it this time.
His only consolation was that he figured the situation couldn’t get any worse.
And then it did.
Stenchgantor turned around and looked up at them.
Zack stared back.
As long as he lived he would never forget the horror—the horror of that enormous single unwiped eye staring up at him.
Not that he had very long to look at it.
Zack and Eleanor whooshed past the enormous brown vortex and bounced hard against the chunky outgrowths of Stenchgantor’s rubbery bottom. Eleanor hit one cheek and Zack hit the other. But although the cheek broke Zack’s fall, it had a trampoline effect and sent him flying back in the direction he’d come. Unfortunately the same thing had happened to Eleanor, and she was flying straight back, too, on a collision course with Zack.
They clonked heads midair and plummeted to the ground—Zack landing on top of Eleanor, right in between Stenchgantor’s legs.
‘Sorry,’ he said to Eleanor as he rolled off her. She didn’t respond. With a sinking feeling he realised he’d knocked her unconscious again.
But that was the least of his problems.
Zack looked up.
Stenchgantor was even more terrifying from this angle.
Twenty metres of the sheerest, ugliest bum imaginable.
Well, unimaginable really.
And unwatchable.
Zack’s eyes were watering and burning from the stench.
Zack wiped them, but they immediately filled up with tears again. It was like peeling onions. But worse.
Stenchgantor stamped his feet and seemed to laugh. The ground shook and clouds of choking gas billowed out and enveloped Zack and Eleanor.
Zack looked down and noticed the muddy floor of the forest was littered with bones.
Human bones.
They obviously weren’t the first visitors to Stenchgantor’s lair. Zack realised this must be where everyone lost in the Brown Forest eventually ended up.
Zack shook Eleanor’s shoulder.
‘Wake up!’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to make a run for it!’
Eleanor didn’t move.
Zack was searching his belt for something to revive her when Stenchgantor spoke in a deep booming voice: ‘Fee Fi Fo Fum—I smell the smell of two false bums!’
Stenchgantor bent down towards Zack and Eleanor and stared at them with his terrifying brown eye.
Or was it an eye? wondered Zack. Stenchgantor had just said that he could smell their false bums. Perhaps the eye was a nostril, he thought. But that was impossible. Bums didn’t have nostrils. That was the source of their power. Unlike humans, they were completely unaffected and unhampered by a sense of smell.
Unless Stenchgantor was somehow different . . .
Zack waved his arms.
Stenchgantor didn’t react.
He’s blind! thought Zack.
Perhaps that was the clue to defeating him.
Stenchgantor had to be powerful enough to withstand his own stench—that was obvious—but could his sense of smell make him vulnerable to a stench greater than his own?
No, of course not, Zack told himself. That was ridiculous.
Zack wondered if his brain was being affected by methane madness again.
Even if Stenchgantor could be defeated by a stench greater than his own, what could possibly have a greater stench than Stenchgantor?
And then the bumcatcher’s voice came into Zack’s head. Loud and clear: ‘The socks, Zack, remember the socks . . .’
Zack remembered putting on the socks the bumcatcher had given him and how he had worried they would make his foot odour worse. But perhaps that was the point!
Stenchgantor bent down over Zack and Eleanor and sniffed with his huge brown nostril.
It was now or never.
Zack reached down, pulled off his shoes and peeled one of his socks off.
‘Pwoarrr!’ said Eleanor, coughing and choking herself back to consciousness. ‘What’s happening? Where are we? And what’s that awful stink?’
‘It’s Stenchgantor!’ yelled Zack.
‘No I mean that really awful stink,’ said Eleanor.
‘That would be my socks,’ said Zack.
‘Boy, you’ve got a problem,’ said Eleanor.
‘Let’s hope Stenchgantor agrees with you,’ said Zack, waving the sock in front of the Great Unwiped Bum.
But Stenchgantor continued to draw ever closer to them. From this close up his warts and pimples looked like enormous mountains. One pimple, a huge swollen red volcano, with what looked like at least three tonnes of custard in the top, looked ready to erupt as it came closer and closer to them.
‘It’s not working,’ said Zack. ‘Run for it!’
His socks were bad, but not bad enough.
Zack and Eleanor got to their feet and started to run but then Stenchgantor’s voice boomed once again.
‘FEE, FI, FO, FUM.
You cannot hide.
You cannot run.’
Once more the noxious stench enveloped Zack and his eyes began to water so much that he couldn’t see where he was going.
He tripped and fell.
He wiped his eyes. A whole human skeleton lay on the ground in front of him, its hands around its throat as if it had died choking. Zack knew exactly how it felt. But he wasn’t ready to join it. Not yet.
He took off his other sock.
A new wave of moist pungent putridity assailed Zack’s nostrils.
His socks weren’t helping. He’d only made things worse. As usual. Eleanor was going to kill him. If the smell didn’t kill both of them first.
But then a strange thing happened.
As the fog slowly cleared Zack saw Stenchgantor coming towards them, but he wasn’t running. He was staggering.
He seemed dazed and confused.
Then Stenchgantor’s knees folded underneath him and he crashed to the ground, falling forward. Zack got up.
‘Watch out!’ he said to Eleanor, who was on her hands and knees a little way ahead of him, coughing and gagging.
‘What?’ she said.
Zack rushed forward, grabbed her hair and pulled her as hard as he could.
Luckily the ground was soft and slippery and it was easy to drag her.
‘Ouch!’ she yelled.
KERTHUMP!
Stenchgantor’s body came to rest in the mud, right where Eleanor’s body had been moments before.
Eleanor and Zack looked at Stenchgantor in awe. Zack had never seen a bum like him.
‘Not bad,’ said Eleanor, rubbing her head and nodding her approval of Zack’s quick thinking.
‘Reckon he’s dead or just knocked out?’ said Zack, still too shaken to realise t
hat Eleanor had given him the closest thing yet to a compliment.
‘Who cares?’ said Eleanor. ‘Let’s just get out of here. We’ve got to try and catch up with the others before they reach the coast.’
‘How?’
‘Have you still got your fluffy pink toilet seat cover?’ she said.
‘Nah,’ said Zack. ‘The Kisser kept it.’
‘Damn,’ said Eleanor.
Overhead there was a droning sound. They looked up. A large squadron of bums was flying north. Zack and Eleanor watched them until they were obscured by the enormous pimple on Stenchgantor’s hide.
Suddenly Eleanor punched Zack’s arm.
‘I’ve got it!’ said Eleanor. ‘I know how we can do it!’
‘How?’ said Zack slipping his socks back on.
‘See that pimple up there?’ she said. ‘The one that looks like a mountain?’
‘Yes,’ said Zack. ‘It’s horrible. What about it?’
‘Well, firstly,’ said Eleanor, ‘it’s pointing in the same direction as the bums just flew in isn’t it? Chances are they’re heading for the bumcano. The coast must be in that direction.’
‘Yes,’ said Zack slowly, starting to see what she was getting at but, at the same time, not wanting to see.
‘And, secondly,’ she continued, ‘the pimple is ripe for popping. All we have to do is to be on top of it when it blows and we’ll hitch a ride to the coast. What do you think?’
‘It’s a terrible idea!’ said Zack. ‘I don’t want to be covered in pimple pus. Especially not Stenchgantor’s pimple pus!’
‘You’d rather be rearranged by your bum?’ said Eleanor.
‘No,’ said Zack, ‘but . . .’
‘But nothing,’ said Eleanor. ‘That’s your choice. What’s it going to be, Zack? Would you rather get a little pus on your pants or have a bum for a brain?’
Zack bit his lip and thought about it. As far as he was concerned it wasn’t much of a choice.
‘Zack!’ said Eleanor impatiently.
‘Okay,’ said Zack. ‘Pus it is.’
‘Spoken like a true bum-fighter,’ she said. ‘Give me a boost up.’
Zack’s head was swimming. But not because of the thought that he might soon be hurtling though the air covered in Stenchgantor’s pimple pus. It was because Eleanor had said he had spoken like a ‘true bum-fighter’.
He was no bum-fighter. He knew that. Sure, he’d wiped out Stenchgantor, but it was just a fluke. A lucky break. And the socks were the bumcatcher’s idea in the first place.
Eleanor was wrong.
He wasn’t a bum-fighter. And yet Eleanor’s words filled Zack with a feeling of excitement like he’d never felt before.
Zack bent his knees, cupped his hands and pushed Eleanor up to a ledge created by a large cavernous dimple.
‘Okay,’ said Eleanor, offering Zack her hand. ‘Your turn.’
He grabbed hold of her hand and she pulled him up. The ledge, like the rest of Stenchgantor, was soft and spongy.
Zack followed Eleanor’s lead in using one of the hairs protruding from a wart to swing himself up to the base of the pimple.
The pimple rose smooth and tall into the air like a giant red lava lamp. Zack could see the blood and juices and big round globules of pus that had broken away from the motherlode at the pimple’s summit—all percolating inside the jelly-like exterior that bore a spooky resemblance to a giant cow’s teat.
‘Okay,’ said Eleanor. ‘Now be very careful. We don’t want to puncture it before we get to the top, otherwise it won’t propel us anywhere.’
‘But how can we possibly make it to the top?’ said Zack. ‘There are no footholds or handholds at all.’
‘No problem,’ said Eleanor, opening her arms wide and pressing herself into the pimple. ‘Pimple-climbing is a cinch.’
The pimple gave way to her body like it was made of plasticine. Using just the flat of her palms and her knees to create small indentations she was able to move surprisingly quickly up the pimple.
Zack hesitated.
‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ she called.
‘I don’t know,’ said Zack. ‘I guess I’ve just never hugged a pimple before.’
‘Hurry up,’ said Eleanor. ‘This thing is so ripe it could blow at any moment.’
Zack opened his arms wide and jumped on.
It was surprisingly warm, and easy to climb. As he climbed he could feel the pimple juices squelching and shifting underneath him.
As they got towards the top, the pimple rounded out and sooner than expected, Zack found himself sitting on top of the pus-packed summit with Eleanor.
‘Are you ready?’ said Eleanor.
‘I guess so,’ said Zack.
‘Hold my legs,’ said Eleanor.
She leaned down and wrapped her arms around the pimple, right under where Zack was sitting. She squeezed as hard as she could.
Zack felt the pus underneath him rise up like a big bubble, but it remained trapped in the thin but rubbery pimple skin.
‘It’s not working,’ he said.
Eleanor tried again, grunting with the strain, but the pressure was still not enough.
Zack searched his belt and found the set of sewing needles.
He took the largest and sharpest looking one out.
‘This might help,’ he said, and jabbed the needle into the top of the pimple.
It did help.
SHPLURRRT!
The pimple burst like a geyser of hot molten cheese and Eleanor and Zack went shooting through the air towards the Sea of Bums.
Zack was surprised. Being covered in pus was not pleasant, but it was not nearly as bad as he’d imagined. They flew through the air in a graceful arc. It didn’t take long to reach the coast.
As they got close Zack could see the B-team on the beach below. They had rows of bums lined up on the sand in between long pieces of bumboo.
The Kisser and the Kicker were bent over lashing the bums together. The Smacker looked up and waved.
Eleanor and Zack zoomed over the top of the B-team and splashed down into the water about ten metres out from the sand.
As they surfaced, they noticed the Smacker was still waving to them from the shore—only this time she was using both of her arms, and was yelling and jumping up and down.
She must be really happy to see us, thought Zack. Then he realised she was trying to tell them something.
Eleanor swam up beside him.
‘What is she saying?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ said Zack.
He looked down into the water.
There were hundreds of tiny bums swimming around his legs. He had never seen bums swimming before.
Then the Smacker cupped her hands around her mouth, and Zack heard her loud and clear.
‘Get out of the water!’ she called. ‘It’s full of bum-piranhas!’
Zack stared dumbly at the bum-piranhas, too scared to move.
‘Swim, you idiot!’ yelled Eleanor.
Zack didn’t need any more encouragement. He started thrashing his way to shore.
Normally Zack was not the world’s fastest swimmer but he felt like he must have broken all known speed records getting out of that water. Not that he had time to celebrate the fact.
As soon as he hit the shore he jumped out and started hopping and kicking like a maniac, trying to get rid of a bum-piranha that had attached itself to his big toe.
The B-team came running down the sand towards him.
‘Hold still!’ yelled the Smacker. ‘I’ll smack it!’
‘I’ll kick its bum!’ said the Kicker.
‘No! Let me kiss it!’ said the Kisser.
But Zack ignored all of them. He gave an enormous kick. The piranha went flying off his toe and into Eleanor’s head as she emerged from the water.
‘Hey!’ she said, gasping. ‘Watch where you’re kicking those things!’
The bum-piranha flipped around on the sand, its tiny jaws c
lapping like a pair of maracas.
The Kisser walked over, expertly picked it up between his thumb and forefinger and held it up for everyone to see. Zack looked closely—it was just like a normal bum except instead of legs it had fins.
‘Fascinating little creatures, aren’t they?’ said the Kisser.
‘That’s one word for them,’ said Zack shuddering.
The Kisser smiled and threw the little bum back into the water. For a few moments it just floated on the surface, as if stunned, then it seemed to come to its senses and swam away.
Zack breathed a big sigh of relief.
He thought that if he never saw another bum-piranha in his life it wouldn’t be too soon.
‘We looked everywhere for you,’ said the Smacker. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Fighting Stenchgantor,’ said Eleanor.
The Kisser gasped.
‘Stenchgantor?’ said the Kicker, looking surprised. ‘But nobody’s ever fought Stenchgantor and survived!’
‘We did,’ said Eleanor, patting Zack on his shoulder. ‘Zack out-stenched him. He used his socks.’
The group all looked at Zack in amazement.
‘I have very smelly feet,’ explained Zack.
The group now all stared at Zack’s feet in amazement.
‘But you’re not wearing any socks,’ said the Smacker.
Now it was Zack’s turn to look down at his feet in amazement. She was right. His socks were missing!
‘Oh no!’ he said. ‘The bum-piranhas have eaten my socks! I’ve lost my most powerful weapon!’
The Smacker smiled. ‘No you haven’t,’ she said, tapping the side of her head. ‘A bum-fighter’s most powerful weapon is in here. Don’t underestimate yourself. You have talent.’
Zack’s head was spinning.
First Eleanor had told him he’d spoken like a bum-fighter. Now the Smacker was telling him he had talent. But they were wrong. They had to be. He didn’t have an ounce of bum-fighting talent in him. That’s what the instructor at the Junior Bum-fighters’ League had told him after he’d failed the entry exam for the third time. ‘Face it, son,’ the instructor had said, ‘when it comes to bum-fighting you’re a born spectator.’
Sure, Zack thought, he’d brought down Stenchgantor, but that was just luck. Beginner’s luck.
The Day My Butt Went Psycho Page 9