by Raymond Bean
Other books by Raymond Bean
Sweet Farts #2: Rippin’ It Old-School
Sweet Farts #3: Blown Away
Sweet Farts #1
Sweet Farts #1
RAYMOND BEAN
Visit www.raymondbean.com
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2010, Raymond Bean
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by AmazonEncore
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN: 978-1-61218-250-6
Interior illustrations by Ben Gibson
Author photo by D. Weaver
For Stacy, Ethan, and Chloe.
Also, for Baba, who would do anything for us.
Contents
Prologue
1. The Cruelest of Fates
2. I Heard He Threw Up
3. Why Do I Pay Attention?
4. Living with the Machine
5. Grandma
6. What to Do? What to Do?
7. That Night
8. Eureka!
9. Am I Really Doing This?
10. The Principal’s Office
11. The Green Light
12. Thank You, Benjamin Franklin
13. Now What?
14. Trial Number One
15. What Did You Tell Her?
16. Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
17. Fame and Shame
18. What Were You Thinking?
19. Uncle
20. Not So Easy
21. Defeat
22. The Science Fair
23. Unfair Fair
24. Mr. Gonzalez
25. Thank You, Everyone
26. The Very Next Morning
27. That Was Me, Everybody
28. The End
About the Author
Sneak Peek
Prologue
You know how it is at school…kids sneak “them” out in perfect silence so no one can tell who did it, or dealt it, or done it. It is a mystery, unsolvable, untraceable, sourceless. Then, as the awful stench begins to reach each nostril, kids begin to eye each other. Kids begin to take notice. Kids begin to wonder…
Who did it? they ask themselves silently. Of course, you can never be sure who did it, not in public. In public, everyone is a suspect. Everyone is potentially guilty.
When this most delicate of situations presents itself, the trick is not to look too surprised, even when you are not the one who laid it down. Overdoing your reaction can lead to unwanted suspicion. Your look has to be just right. It must show others that you are amused and offended at the same time. Shaking your head from side to side a little and closing your eyes in disbelief is a safe way to go. You cannot, however, under any circumstances, lose your cool. You must look confident. Remaining calm is essential.
I always try to smile, like I think it’s funny, or make a face like I’m disgusted. These strategies come with some dangers though, because if you start to smile too much, you look guilty. And if you look too disgusted, guilty again.
We all know that the last thing you want to appear is guilty when there is a horrible, smelly fart loose in the room. In those first few moments after everyone gets a whiff, it’s pure survival mode. Someone in the area is responsible, and everyone knows it. So, of course, it could be blamed on anyone. The person who did it isn’t going to raise his or her hand and say, “It was me, everyone. I’m the one who just stunk up the place.”
We all know that many innocent bystanders have been blamed for someone else’s fart. And let’s be honest: the kid who lets out a real stinker is usually the type of kid who is prepared to blame it on someone else. This is type of kid looks for that one person who gets embarrassed easily and then tries to cast suspicion his way. Once the “farter” casts suspicion on the embarrassed kid, no one stops to think it could be someone else. It happens every day, and it’s tragic.
CHAPTER 1
The Cruelest of Fates
There is not much worse in this life than taking the blame for someone else’s fart. It is an injustice as old as farts themselves, which must, I guess, be as old as human history. I’m sure people have been bouncing farts off the walls of dimly lit caves since the days of the caveman. Today, someone silently slipped one off a blue plastic chair in my fourth grade class, and I’m afraid it was my turn to take the blame. But it wasn’t me…I swear.
I was at my desk for our morning class meeting. My teacher, Mr. Cherub, insists on meeting every morning to talk about our feelings and what is going on in our lives. He was just getting started when I realized something was wrong. I got a whiff of it before anyone else, but I couldn’t be sure where it had come from. Panic immediately grabbed hold of me. My heart began to race. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.
I took another sniff and my worst fears were confirmed. Someone dropped a stank bomb. And that somebody was the person right in front of me: Anthony Papas.
How could I possibly be expected to think or share my feelings with the stench of Anthony clobbering my nostrils? He turned around to check the clock on the wall behind us, and I gave him a look that conveyed, “You’re killing me! Please don’t do that ever again.”
Anthony looked right at me and in front of everyone said, “You’re gross!”
I couldn’t believe it. People were actually staring at me with disgusted looks on their faces. Austin, who sits at the desk next to me, opened his eyes really, really wide and pointed at me. Tiffany, who sits in front of Austin, held her nose and put her face down on her desk. As I looked around the room, every kid in my class was gawking at me like I was responsible. Some smiled, some looked shocked, and some just shook their heads.
Now, I happen to be the kind of kid who embarrasses easily. The more eyes I felt on me, the more anxious I became.
“It wasn’t…” I began.
Mr. Cherub interrupted me. “Is something wrong, Keith?” he asked.
Is something wrong? I thought. Are you kidding me? This place is bombed to bits and everyone thinks it was me!
Just then, Anthony raised his hand.
“Mr. C.”
“Yes, Anthony?”
“I think Keith might be a little sick…you know, in the belly?” he said, while rubbing his hand in a circle on his stomach and making a face like he had a bellyache.
I could tell by the way Mr. C. was scrunching up his face that the smell had just reached him.
“Keith, umm…do you need to excuse yourself?” he asked as he held his hand to his nose and fought back a gag.
I didn’t know what had happened! I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t think. I just sat there and shook my head back and forth. You could have heard a pin drop. It was so quiet I could actually hear the sound of the heater by the window. I heard the ticking of the clock.
“Okay. Next time, just head on down to the bathroom,” Mr. Cherub quickly added.
I don’t know what it feels like to have a heart attack, but I’m pretty sure I was having one. My eyes must have been three times their size. They felt as if they might fly out of my head. And then Anthony said, “It’s okay. It happens to the best of us, Keith.”
“But it wasn’t…” I began.
“That’s enough,” Mr. C. said. “Let’s get back to work. Next time, please use the bathroom, Mr. Emerson.”
I could have said something to Anthony, like, “I’m not the one who eats beef jerky for breakfast,” or “The only thing worse than that stench is your breath.”
But I didn’t say anything like that. All I did was sit there with my mouth hanging open. I felt just like a big-mouthed frog waiting for a fly to go zooming by so I could snatch him up with my frog tongue. I wished I was a big-mouthed frog sitting on a lily pad somewhere, waiting for a fly to go by. But I was not a big-mouthed frog. I was just, everyone else believed, the smelliest kid in fourth grade.
CHAPTER 2
I Heard He Threw Up
Lunch was, in a word, a nightmare. As I walked into the big, nasty cafeteria, I knew immediately that word had spread. You know how it is in the lunchroom. It’s not just your class anymore. It is all the classes. In my case, it was four other fourth-grade classes. We are talking about one hundred fourth graders. We are talking about two hundred eyes all on me. We are talking about one hundred fingers on one hundred noses, and all in honor of me.
Don’t ask me how word of the Anthony incident spread so fast. Things like this travel at the speed of light. They are whispered from kid to kid until they have been whispered in every ear. The story never stays the same, either. Kids always add in a little more detail just for excitement. I’m sure by now the story was that I smelled so bad that my desk caught fire. I bet by now the story probably was that the paint in my classroom actually melted off the walls. I bet…
Just as I was about to imagine another awful possibility, I felt a tug on my arm.
“It wasn’t me!” I blurted out.
“Well, you’re sure not acting like it, my friend,” a voice replied. The voice and the tug came from my best friend, Scott. “Come on, let’s get in line,” he said.
It was Friday, pizza day. At least there was one thing I could be happy about. I followed Scott toward the line. All the while, I was aware of the eyes on me, the whispering that was going on all around me. Then it happened. A boy, whose name I don’t even know from Mrs. Roth’s class, said, “Here comes S.B.D.,” as I walked by him and his friends at their lunch table. By the time I reached the line, which was long, kids started rushing back to their tables without any food. I heard it again, “Ew, it’s S.B.D.” I wasn’t sure who said it.
“This is awesome!” Scott said. “The line is gone.”
“This is not awesome,” I replied, walking up to get our food.
“No line on pizza day is pretty awesome to me. When does that ever happen?” he said.
“Do you know why there isn’t a line anymore on pizza day?” I asked in an annoyed voice.
“Yeah, you dropped a bomb at morning meeting in class today,” he said as he selected the perfect chocolate milk.
“I did not drop a bomb at morning meeting,” I said and picked out my own milk.
“That’s not what I heard. I heard you really messed things up in there. I heard Mr. C. threw up in a garbage pail!”
“Are you kidding me? You really believe that I would do that in class? You really think Mr. C. threw up in a garbage pail?” I asked.
Mrs. Lamery, the lunch lady, must have been listening to our conversation, because from behind the lunch counter, she said, “I heard Mr. C. threw up on your shoes.”
“No one threw up!” I shouted.
“Okay, take it easy. That’ll be $1.25 please,” she said with a smile.
“I heard he threw up,” Scott said again.
“Errrrrr,” I said.
CHAPTER 3
Why Do I Pay Attention?
After lunch, Mr. C. was going on and on about famous scientists and the importance of science. He said scientists cure diseases, discover new things and places, and try to make the world a better place. “Revolutionary thinkers” is what Mr. C. always calls them: people who think and discover things that no one before them ever did. He said we should try to think like great scientists when we plan for our science-fair projects. We had to come up with an idea for the science fair and submit it for approval by next week.
I was still pretty upset about taking the blame for Anthony. Lunch period had not been kind to me. Kids kept saying things like, “Maybe you should go see the nurse,” and “Next time just head on down to the bathroom.” And a few more times I was referred to as S.B.D. (which stands for silent but deadly).
Plus, Mr. C. is a little too into science if you ask me. He gets so into it sometimes that I don’t really know what he’s talking about. When he’s going on about science, I’m pretty sure he forgets that we’re only nine and ten years old. I think he looks out on our bored faces and sees interested scientists when most of us are just daydreaming about gym.
Some of the kids in my class can actually tune him out and think of other things. I can’t. I hear every painful word he says. Sometimes I try to imagine that I’m playing Tenlax: Return of the Mariner, my favorite video game. I try to actually feel the controller in my hand. I try to envision the images on the screen and hear the sounds, but I always end up just listening to Mr. C. Sometimes I think I’m the only one listening to him because no one ever asks any questions or even looks up.
I usually make the mistake of looking up. My dad always taught me from the time I was real little to look a man in the eye when he’s speaking to you. Now, I can’t help it, even if I don’t want to. It gets me in trouble because when Mr. C. takes a breath and looks around, I’m always the one looking back. He misinterprets this as me being interested and asks me questions.
Today, he asked me what I would change if I could change anything in the whole world. I didn’t hesitate: “My seat.”
Anthony turned around and stared right at me. I stared right back.
“S.B.D.,” he said, and the class began to giggle.
Again, I said nothing.
CHAPTER 4
Living with the Machine
My dad even calls them S.B.D.s. My dad seems to have an endless list of ridiculous names for them, but S.B.D. is his favorite. I know you’ve experienced an S.B.D. We all have. You may have, as my dad says, “walked into one” at the mall, the hallway at school, or the supermarket. You know? You’re walking along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden the air goes rancid and you want to just yak! You look around and try to figure out who did it. It’s impossible to tell.
I have met only one person in my short, nine-year-long life who openly admits to stinking up a room, a person who seems to enjoy the torture he puts the rest of us through when he does it. When it happens—and it always happens—he just gets this big smile on his face and says something like “Oops” or “That one slipped out.” The thing is, none of them ever “just slip out.” He does it on purpose. I’m sure of it. The look on his face says it all. He doesn’t look embarrassed; he looks proud.
And that person is none other than my dad! Some nights he drops one about every fifteen minutes, and they are something to behold. I call them D-bombs, and I’ve been on the receiving end of more than my share of D-bombs.
It happened like this. My family and I were watching TV, and at first I wasn’t sure. Like I said, you know one minute everything is fine, and then the next your nose is sending SOS signals to your brain. I noticed the faces around me having the same stunned reaction as the kids in my class had earlier that day. My sister, who is only three years old, simply ran out of the room holding her nose. She just got up and shot out of the room without saying a single word, leaving her princess toys on the floor. My mother, who was reading
a magazine, slowly set it down on her lap, tilted her head to one side, and looked in my direction.
“Keith? Was that you?” she asked. She always asks if it’s me first. I don’t know why because it’s always my dad. Maybe she can’t face the fact that she married a smelly monster of a man.
“No, it wasn’t me!” I exclaimed.
“Are you sure?” she asked again.
“Mom, I’m nine. I am not capable of such horrible things,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” my dad began. “It must have just slipped out.”
“Honey, that was really gross,” my mom said, holding the magazine over her face to hide the awful stench. On the cover was a woman smiling on a beach somewhere. Lady, if you could smell what I smell, you wouldn’t be smiling, I thought. If you could smell what I smell, you would run out of here like my kid sister just did.
“I know. It won’t happen again,” my dad promised.
I may only be nine, but I know enough not to believe that one. My dad always says it won’t happen again, and he always lets it happen again. I decided it was a good time to go to bed.
“Good night, everybody. I’m out,” I said abruptly.
“Give me a hug, pal,” my dad said with a smirk on his face.
“How about I owe you one, Dad,” I said.
“Suit yourself, sport. I’m just trying to show my son I love him,” he said as I kissed Mom good night. “Come on, buddy boy. Give your dear old dad a hugsy.”