Mr Farty Pants

by Nikolaj Vigrim

  Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaart

  Plu-u-uuuuuuuu-u-ut

  Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaart

  Pluuuut

  The two of then started up.

  At first nothing happened, then dem rats staggered across the hay, twisting and writhing, and curled up dead. The poor spiders in the rafters didn't stand a chance; they shrivelled up and with a putt were gone in a puff of smoke.

  Mr Farty Pants and Perry were in no rush, they liked to have a hundred percent kill. Farty fell asleep watching the late night tele, and after snoring through the night, was woken up by the farmer's wife, wearing a gas mask and carrying a huge plate of baked beans on toast. Farty hoovered up the beans while Perry lay at his feet crunching on rat.

  Next call was for cockroaches at the Dim Sing Chinese Restaurant.

  A sign, Closed for Fartification, was posted on the door, the tables were moved aside and after Farty's sofa was manoeuvred up the stairs and in through the door, the process of fartification kicked off.

  Farty's tummy rumbled, he hadn't eaten for days.

  A coffee table was set up in front of the sofa and the tele tuned in to the football. He picked up the serviette off the table. A cockroach scurried for cover under the condiments. Farty caught it deftly with the chopsticks and flicked it at Perry, who snatched it out mid-air and scrunched on it. Farty kicked off his dinner with dim sims and seaweed soup, followed by chicken chow-mien and chop suey. Course after course followed as Farty worked through the menu, occasionally flicking a tip-bit or a roach in Perry's direction.

  Finally fill and ready for action, Farty had a cup of green tea, washed down with lashings of lager. Farty cracked open a fortune cookie.

  The World will End

  Direct and to the point. A little ominous, maybe.

  'Your World will end,' said Farty, addressing the roaches. 'Let the show commence!' He let out a mighty fart, slowly rising up off the sofa until he was pinned against the ceiling, filling the room with toxic gas.

  'Opps!' he said as the plastic flowers wilted and the paint peeled off the walls.

  Suddenly the room was alive with movement as roaches scurried trying to escape. Then all was silent.

  Pluuuuu-uuu-u-ut

  Perry farted. He looked around accusingly at Farty then put his head down and was asleep.

  Chapter 16

  Next was The Ritz. The problem was that word that curls any hotel manager's toes. He couldn't even say it, he had to scrawl it on a piece of paper.

  Bedbugs

  Farty's sofa was carried up to the penthouse suite and his faithful tele set up on a mahogany and marble coffee table. Him and Perry watched the footy with 360 degree city views and penguins giving them room service. Plate after plate of boiled Brussels sprouts and roasted broccoli with garlic and chilies arrived. Greens for bedbugs, that's what Farty figured. The little critters were virtually indestructible so heavy gas was needed to permeate every little corner and zap them.

  Apart from penguins wearing gas masks guarding the main doors, the hotel was evacuated and all the inside doors left open.

  A sign on the door said Closed for Staff Training, not a mention of bitey bed bugs.

  Perry and Farty set to work. Heavy green gas flowed down the stairways and filled the building up from bottom to top.

  A hundred percent kill, the management was delighted, but they did receive complaints about an odd sort of pooey, composty smell that lingered in the rooms, that no amount of lemon bleach and fragrant candles could hide.

  Next call out was the vicarage in Piddle-on-Sea; bats in the belfry.

  'What's wrong with that?' demanded Farty, who had a soft spot for bats.

  'Bat poo,' replied the vicar.

  'Well, I'm not killing them,' said Farty.

  'We don't want you to,' said the vicar, 'We just need them evicting. We have built a new bat hotel for them in the graveyard but they won't leave the belfry.'

  Farty sat on his sofa with the vicar drinking thick black Guinness beer, watching the match of the day on the tele which was balanced precariously on a pew. The choir practiced behind them and and bats flitted overhead through the rafters, sending little bat poos raining down on then.

  Guinness was just the stuff. Soon soft pungent peaty farts filled the church, just enough to chase the bats out without tarnishing the silver or wilting the flowers.

  The bats weren't the only squatters, Farty got to evict.

  After reading about the bats at Piddle-on-Sea, Joseph Bland, a property developer from Percy's Passage saw that Mr Farty Pants was the answer to his prayers. He plonked Farty with his sofa and his tele down in the foyer of his run-down apartment block and fed him on steak and Guinness pies floating on a sea of baked beans.

  At half time Farty asked, 'What vermin are we after?'

  'Squatters, they're vermin to me,' said Mr Bland.

  'I'd better go easy on the beans then,' said Farty, cracking open a Guinness.

  Soon pandemonium erupted in the apartment block, the lucky ones got out the fire escape, some tied sheets together and climbed down, while others jumped out windows using makeshift parachutes or got picked off the roof by the rescue helicopter. Casualties got pulled out by the fire department rescue squad. Luckily all were clear before Farty lit up a cigarette.

  Mr Bland couldn't believe his luck, not only had a squatters been evicted, but the block had been reduced to rubble. His new shopping complex would be up and running and inviting its first customers in before Christmas. As a little sideline he financed Farty's venture Canned Farts, a fart for every occasion.

  Chapter 17

  Farty adapted his old farty pants to capture the gas which was then processed and canned using Mr Bland's processing plant. Farty would catch a fart, have a sniffty to see what it was like, then munch of raw garlic or artichokes to fine tune the mixture.

  He made a huge range of products: Fongoh for pest control around the house; Fuwee to scare off muggers or stop a hold up; Skunk for disbanding a riot; FS3 for the military, and Farty Pants Number 4 to stop an alien invasion or ward off black holes. He sold Skunk to the police as mega tear gas; the army bought FP3 for use in warfare but a new clause was written in the Geneva Convention to ban fart warfare. The Swiss decided it wasn't sporting, fair or humane, which made everyone want it. It sold like hot cakes on the black market.

  The cans were easy to use, just pull the tab at the top to open the seal, turn the yellow timer, and then when it started ticking, throw it, turn left and run away.

  The favoured weapon of rebel groups became the RPF, the rocket propelled fart.

  After some terrorist attacks on aircraft using FP3, Farty really hit the jackpot, selling FP5 The Antidote, required by law to be located in every bus, aircraft, train carriage and public building. It worked on the very simple principle of neutralisation. He had experimented with The Black Hole which was a cylinder with a total vacuum inside. When activated it sucked everything in. It you got your sums right it just sucked the air out of the cabin space, taking the offending fart gas with. If you got your sums wrong it sucked in everything around it, people and furniture included. Neutralisation is safer, it was all about antiodours; every smell has an opposite antiodour which renders it harmless, like an antidote for it.

  Carbon filters are pretty good too, not as effective as the first two, but good enough to save the day in case of a sneaky gas attack. They were sold to the general public for domestic use.

  Suddenly another market sprung up: Personal Odour Eaters. These were small carbon filters hung around the neck or on a key ring, to be used in case of a gas attack.

  A couple of his OE 4 earrings could neutralise BO but the downside was that they also sucked away all the nice smells of perfume, of summer rain and frying bacon. He also developed Farty Pants Odour Eating Insoles for trainers

  Farty became rich, very rich.

  He had his tatty sofa re-stuffed and recovered, bought a high definition 60 inch tele and started wearing outr
ageous designer clothes. He bought Perry a studded collar but it didn't suit him, not a bit; he was just a big, fat shag pile carpet. Apart from his evil farts there was nothing nasty about him.

  Slightly worrying was the way Farty took such glee in extermination and mass-destruction. A psychology student who made Mr Farty Pants the subject of his thesis on how to spot tyrants before they cause havoc was found dead from unknown causes. His family claimed it was from a sneaky well aimed fart in through his letter box, or through receiving a fart bomb in the post. The police investigation was inclusive because while fart gas is deadly, once the smell has cleared, it's untraceable. It makes the perfect murder weapon!

  On the fun side, Farty put out a line of novelty fart gas to full balloons. Fart gas being heavy the balloons didn't float around, but sunk to the floor. If you popped one and were lucky, you got a whiff of jelly beans or licorice allsorts. If you weren't so lucky you got one of Perry's evil farts!

  Chapter 18

  Mr Farty Pants had a mysterious meeting that appealed to his darker side. He was reading the newspaper in a sidewalk cafe when the waitress plonked a cube of raw sugar in his espresso and stirred it in.

  'There's a man who would like to meet you,' she said, from behind dark shades.

  'What about?' asked Farty.

  'He has a little job that might just tickle your fancy,' she said, teasingly.

  'Tickle my fancy?' grumbled Farty.

  'He'll meet you here at four this afternoon. When the man with four eyes says, 'Nice day to fly a kite,' you answer, 'It's a bit windy, more of a day for seagulls.''

  It all seemed very cloak and dagger.

  Mr Farty Pants and Perry were there well before four. Wearing a ten gallon hat and a tacky Hawaiian shirt Mr Farty Pants thought he was doing a pretty good job of being inconspicuous, of blending in, but they did kind of stand out and for some odd reason the tables surrounding them were all empty. Farty blamed Perry. Perry knew it wasn't him, even though he had let a little one slip out, it was just a little one.

  Farty thought no one was going to show.

  He swiveled his head back and forth looking for the mystery man. When he did turn up, he took Farty by surprise, 'Nice day to fly a kite,' he said.

  What was so surprising about him was how total normal he was. He had been sitting at the next table all along, one of the empty ones, but was so normal, so bland that he was totally inconspicuous; Farty hadn't even noticed he was there. Four eyes, yes he was he did wear glasses.

  Farty was so surprised that he forgot his lines. 'Um..er...er. Seagulls,' he said. 'Windy seagulls, that's it.'

  'Do you think you could kill?' asked the man, getting straight to the point.

  'Love it,' said Farty, wondering if was the right answer. It could be a set up. They might put him in a straight jacket and lock him away.

  'Excellent,' said the man, shaking Farty's hand briskly. 'You are just the man for us.'

  'Cool,' said Farty.

  'Good,' said the man. 'You'll be hearing from us.'

  And he was gone

  The man disappeared and slipped from Farty's memory, there was just nothing to remember about him.

  Now Farty was 007, licensed to kill. For whom he had no idea, probably Her Majesty's Government.

  If he was going to an assassin, he had better work on his weapon. Farty needed killer fart gas. He did a bit of research and came up with ullaro hijiki, Japanese seaweed, which was fabled to make the most evil smelling farts of them all. He managed to get hold of fresh supplies from a sushi stockist and experimented with it. Evil stuff, one little fart and Perry was in a coma for two weeks. This was not a seaweed to trifle with.

  When the job came there was no drama, no secret rendezvous, no clandestine meeting or secret password.

  Clunk!

  The morning post arrived through the slot in his front door. Inside was a room key for a suite in The Ritz.

  Curiosity had Farty and Perry up in their suite within the hour.

  There was a silver platter set up on the table with a bottle of champagne, some caviar and some sushi. Sushi wrapped in ullaro hijiki.

  'Yum yum,' said Farty, scoffing the caviar and sushi then washing it down with bubbly.

  Farty was wondering what he needed to do when Four Eyes appeared in the other chair. Maybe he had been there all along, Farty couldn't be sure.

  'Please don't fart in the room,' said Four Eyes, handing Farty a thick brown envelope. 'It might damage the furnishings.'

  'Wh...what do you want me to do then?' asked Farty, but the man was gone.

  He could feel a fart coming on, so sat on the toilet and opened the brown envelope. Money, lots of money. While he sat there counting, Farty farted, a long deadly, whistling fart.

  'President of Lithuania assassinated. Police suspect gas attack through drain pipes. Shouted the headlines the next morning.

  I don't like his haircut, he looks like a plonker, thought Farty looking at the picture in the paper.That'll teach him. With a haircut like that, he deserves to be dead.

  Farty bought even more outrageous clothes, learned half a dozen words of French, took up tango dancing, and started to imagine himself as an invincible government agent,

  Occasionally something would clatter through his mailbox and he would be off on another mission, eliminating heads of minor states or extracting information from spies using techniques that reduced them to blubbing snitches, begging for mercy.

  Chapter 19

  The government had gone green. It was building windmills, sticking solar panels on houses and taxing farts. Cows and sheep were being taxed per head, per fart for their production of greenhouse gases.

  With a bit of creative accounting, everything balanced up and despite the zillions of cars belching out toxic fumes, the country was carbon neutral. Well almost, it was apart from on little thing, the spot-light shifted on to Mr Farty Pants.

  He was debated in Parliament. Was it right to tax a citizen for farting? Apparently yes, if they had made billions entirely from the production of fart gas. A fart tax was bought in; the taxman had found a way to get his hands on Farty's fortune.

  After some more creative accounting, Farty Pants was stripped of his wealth, and bringing Perry with his evil farts into the equation, he was bankrupted.

  Farty and Perry found themselves penniless and poor, living it rough on the side of the road, sleeping on cardboard boxes and rummaging in bins for something to eat.

  Then Farty had an idea. Gas and oil, that's where the big money is, in energy. He didn't have any oil but he had plenty of gas.

  Using his fumigation skills he evicted squatters from an old gasworks on the tatty grey outskirts of London and set up The Gas Works.

  Him and Perry feasted on roast pigeon then got to work making gas. Farty had never worked on this scale of production before but given a couple of weeks, his metabolism sped up and he farted like never before. A long continuous fart, flowing at 2 cubic meters per second, whistled out his tail end and the reservoir started to full, slowly at first then quicker and quicker, its rollers and bearings complaining as it rose upwards.

  He had no trouble selling his gas; it was the best, burning hotter and more cleanly than the gas piped in from the North Sea. At first he traded heating gas for clothing and furniture; cooking gas for spaghetti and pizzas, then he floated The Gas Works on the stock exchange and FP Energy Units became the hottest items on the commodity market. He made a side line is bottled heating gas, pure swede gas for the kitchens, baked bean gas for glass blowers' and potters' kilns and an evil blend of Brussels sprout and broccoli gas for smelting aluminium.

  Chapter 20

  Farty had a set routine. He woke up early and slurped down a cup of strong milky tea and thick brown toast with sliced avocado squished on it. If avos were out of season he'd settle for ripe squashed banana but somehow it just wasn't the same, he liked his avocados. Then he stood in the middle of the gas reservoir and did his exercises. Not push-ups, p
ull ups or star jumps, no nothing like that, he was way too fat for those, what Mr Farty Pants did was farting exercises. He started at a low rumble and gradually worked up through the scales to a high pitch squeak, and then still higher, hitting a note that was beyond human hearing that had Perry clamping his paws over his ears. Then he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and letting his fart slowly come back down through the musical scale until you felt it rather than heard it and the whole gas tank reverberated and shook.

  He took another deep breath, exhaled and stood dead still for a minute or two. A deep rumbling gurgle came from deep inside his bowls and he shot up into the air and circled around and round the perimeter of the tank going faster and faster as he got higher. Reaching the top he stopped right in the middle and, lying flat in the air, slowly descended until he was just above the ground, hovering there having his morning snooze.

  Clatter, clatter

  The newspaper was posted in through the mail slot. Perry picked it up, trotted over to Farty, dropped it on the ground and gave Farty a big gooey lick on the face.

  'Yuck, your 'orrible mangy mutt,' exclaimed Farty as he lost his concentration and plonked down onto the ground, just the same as he did every morning.

  He sat there on the ground and read the paper. There was a loud knock, the door in the side of the tank creaked open and a skinny lad wearing a gas mask delivered a tray full of kippers and bright green mushy peas on toast, with a couple of donuts and a double espresso on the side. Farty paid the lad then munched his way through breakfast without so much as taking his eyes off the paper.

  Having eaten his full, Farty got up. Taking his cue, Perry ambled in and scoffed down the remaining kippers and licked the tray clean.