Fart Squad

by Seamus Pilger

  Plus, he couldn’t exactly unleash a fart in front of Miss Priscilly. . . .

  He had to find another way to stop anybody else from eating those burritos!

  “I just remembered there’s something I have to do,” Darren told Andy. He dashed toward the cafeteria. “Gotta run!”

  Darren hated ditching Andy again, but there was no time to lose. He raced into the cafeteria at top speed.

  Sure enough, there were already plenty of students lined up for today’s lunch: “Magic Monday Burritos.” Darren shuddered at the thought of all those kids consuming the radioactive beans. The four members of the Fart Squad were one thing, but hundreds of kids farting with complete abandon would be a catastrophe. The entire school would be one big gassy chain reaction. They would have to clear out the building—and give Harry a straight shot at the Golden Scratcher.

  Unless Darren did something right away.

  “Excuse me!” he shouted, cutting to the head of the line. “Comin’ through!”

  Angry voices protested his lack of proper lunch line etiquette, but Darren ignored them. Instead he grabbed the burritos off every kid’s tray, before anyone else could eat one, and started wolfing them down with his bare hands. A familiar rumble ignited in his stomach.

  Time to fight fire with fire, he thought. Just one decent fart might be enough to empty the cafeteria—and kill everybody’s appetite.

  “Whoa,” he warned, clutching his stomach. “Better stay away from those burritos. I feel something nasty coming on!”

  The fart erupted like a volcano, charring his pants. The line behind him broke apart as gagging students scrambled to get away from the sickening odor. For a moment, Darren thought he had saved the day. Nobody else was going to be eating those burritos now!

  But then a second fart erupted from him. This one was even bigger and hotter than the first. It set off the fire alarm.

  And the sprinkler system.

  Cold water sprayed down from the ceiling. Shrieking kids ran from the cafeteria and out of the building. A blaring siren drove everybody toward the exits. Soaked, Darren spotted Janitor Stan assisting in the evacuation, along with all the other teachers and staff.

  “Oh no!” Darren realized. His plan had backfired . . . in more ways than one.

  This was exactly the kind of distraction Harry had been trying to arrange!

  Darren looked around, but didn’t see Harry or the B.O. twins anywhere. Buttzville was in danger, Darren realized, and it was all his fault because he hadn’t been able to control the superheated gasses surging inside him. He knew he had to make things right, even if it meant gobbling more radioactive burritos. He took out his phone and texted the rest of the Fart Squad:

  BASEMENT—ASAP!

  Ignoring the fire alarm, he filled a tray with burritos and sprinted to the basement entrance, his sneakers sloshing noisily. Walter, Juan-Carlos, and Tina came running to join him.

  “What’s up?” Juan-Carlos asked. “Where’s the fire?” He waited for a laugh. “Fire, get it? ’Cause, you know, the alarm?”

  Darren ignored him. “It’s Harry Buttz!” he said. “He’s after the Golden Scratcher!”

  “The golden what?” Tina asked.

  Darren remembered that the other Squad members hadn’t heard that part of the legend yet. He quickly filled them in even as he worried about Harry getting to the Scratcher at last. Scabious Buttz’s unnatural invention had been buried for a reason. . . .

  “We need to keep that Scratcher away from Harry and his goons—before they accidentally unleash an avalanche of itchiness on the whole town!”

  “Hold on there!” Walter said. “An enchanted butt scratcher? Really?”

  “Says the guy who can float like a balloon,” Juan-Carlos pointed out.

  “Touché.” Walter put on his crash helmet. “So what do we do now?”

  “Just what Stan trained us to do,” Darren said firmly, his mind made up. “The Fart Squad needs to go into action!” He realized now that the canny janitor had been right all along. “From great farts come mighty winds!”

  He held out the tray of greasy burritos.

  “Eat up!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Fart Squad refueled in a hurry. Tina and Juan-Carlos scarfed down a burrito each, while Walter somehow managed to polish off two in the same amount of time. “I must say,” he said with his mouth full, “I’m developing a real taste for these succulent morsels.”

  “Just hurry up and swallow,” Darren said. “Harry and B.O. could be digging up the Scratcher at this very moment!”

  Tina emitted an oddly delicate burp. “I’m ready if you are.”

  “Me, too,” Juan-Carlos said, patting his stomach. “Let’s kick some Buttz!”

  They raced down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Darren heard banging noises and cussing down below. They rushed into the basement in time to see Harry Buttz lifting a package from a freshly dug hole in the basement floor. The B.O. twins stood nearby, sweating heavily, which made them smell even worse. Bertha gripped a shovel with both hands. Oscar held a sledgehammer. And was that a jackhammer in the corner?

  “Finally!” Harry exclaimed. “I found it!” He held up a battered wooden chest about a foot long. He fumbled with a rusty latch, trying to pry it open.

  “Put that back where it belongs, Harry!” Darren shouted. “It’s too dangerous to mess with!”

  Harry was startled by the interruption. “You again, Stonkadopolis?” He spotted the rest of the Fart Squad as well. “And you brought friends?”

  “We can’t let you use the Scratcher,” Darren said. “It’s too dangerous!”

  “Try and stop me,” Harry said, sneering. He nodded at B.O. “Keep them away from me, and I’ll buy you all the computer games you want!”

  “No problem, Number Two,” Bertha said.

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “Sorry!”

  She swung the shovel at Walter, who farted in alarm. A burst of hot air shot him up to the ceiling so that the shovel passed harmlessly beneath him. Bertha’s eyes bugged out in surprise. “Huh?”

  Clutching his precious package, Harry darted toward a fire exit at the rear of the basement. Darren hesitated, torn between chasing after him and staying behind to help the Squad deal with B.O.

  Could the rest of the Fart Squad take care of themselves?

  Tina and Juan-Carlos faced off against Bertha and Oscar, who snickered at their seemingly unimpressive opponents.

  “Seriously? A little girl and a clown?” Bertha jeered. “Is this a joke?”

  Tina smiled slyly. “That depends,” she said politely.

  “On what?” Berta said, scowling.

  “On who gets the last laugh.”

  Tina didn’t seem to do anything but just stand there primly, but a powerful odor hit Bertha without warning. The looming bully toppled backward into the hole in the floor.

  “One down,” Tina said.

  “Sis!” Oscar cried out, suddenly finding himself outnumbered. He raised his sledgehammer nervously. “What did you do to her?”

  Tina shrugged. “Who said I did anything?”

  Oscar chickened out. He bolted for the stairs. “Get out of my way, you freaks!”

  Juan-Carlos darted aside to let him pass, but, just as Oscar thought the way was clear, a stink bomb went off on the stairs, knocking him backward down the steps. He moaned at the foot of the stairs, all the fight banged out of him.

  Darren grinned at Juan-Carlos. “Nice timing.”

  “I’m working on it,” he said. “Now let’s go get that Scratcher.”

  A voice from the ceiling called down to them.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Walter said. “I wouldn’t mind a little help getting down from here!”

  Darren hesitated again. Harry was getting away. . . .

  “Don’t worry about Walter,” Tina called out to Darren. “We’ll help him out. You go after Harry.”

  “Yeah,” Juan-Carlos c
himed in. “Get that magic butt thingy back before we’re all scratching ourselves like crazy!”

  Darren trusted his squad to get Walter down from the ceiling.

  Then he took off after Harry . . . and the Golden Scratcher!

  CHAPTER TEN

  Darren chased Harry out of the basement and up three flights of stairs. Huffing and puffing, Harry ran out onto the rooftop playground and slammed the door shut behind him. Darren grabbed the doorknob, but it refused to budge. A harsh odor seeped from the other side of the door. Darren recognized it right away.

  Superglue! Couldn’t Harry at least have come up with something new this time?

  Harry had glued the lock shut, but that wasn’t going to stop Darren. He turned around and let loose with a volcanic blatt that melted the lock and blew down the door. Steam rose from the back of his trousers.

  “Okay, that’s more like it,” he said, his butt still smarting from the eruption. “I had that one under control. Almost.”

  He rushed onto the roof just in time to see Harry pry open the lid of the wooden chest and reach inside for the Golden Scratcher. About a foot long, the gleaming instrument had curved metal claws at one end, all the better for scratching a persistent itch.

  “Yes!” Harry gloated. “I can finally cure my itch!”

  “Don’t do it, Harry,” Darren shouted. “I know about the curse, but it’s too risky. You read the book. The Scratcher can’t handle one more itch!”

  “I don’t care!” Harry snarled. “Stay out of this, Stonkadopolis. I told you before, this is none of your business. Get lost!”

  “Your buddies made it my business when they stole my lunch,” Darren said.

  “Those morons were supposed to take all the lunches, so that everyone would eat those disgusting burritos, but then you and your nerdy buddy had to interfere so that I only got four measly lunches. Everybody was supposed to be farting like crazy, not just you and a few other kids. I wanted the whole school shut down!”

  Darren stalled some more. “So then you tried again. . . .”

  “Yes! The next time the burritos were on the menu. And now the Scratcher belongs to me!”

  Darren tried to reason with Harry.

  “That was buried for a reason, remember? The Scratcher can’t take any more. If it blows, you could curse the whole town with itchy butts like yours!”

  “So what?” Harry said. “It would serve everybody right for laughing at me all these years.” He waved the Scratcher at Darren like a weapon. “Don’t even try to talk me out of this. I’ve been waiting for this moment for too long!”

  Before Darren could stop him, Harry reached around and put the Scratcher to use. A look of supreme relief came over his face.

  “Oh my goodness!” he exclaimed. “It’s working! It’s killing the itch!”

  Darren hoped that would be the end of it, but no such luck. After a few moments, an eerie glow lit up behind Harry, and the Scratcher started humming and throwing off sparks. Visibly frightened, Harry yanked the Scratcher away from his rear. More sparks flew.

  “Uh-oh,” he said sheepishly.

  Darren resisted the temptation to say “I told you so.”

  The Golden Scratcher was glowing brighter and brighter, like a nuclear power plant running out of control. Darren could tell it was too late to bury it again. The Scratcher had reached its limit and was about to burst. Generations of Buttz itches were going to spill over the entire town—unless Darren could use his farts for good!

  “Throw it away!” Darren shouted at Harry. “Hurry!”

  Panicked, Harry hurled the sparking Scratcher away from him. It arced through the air.

  “Watch out, Number Two!” Darren shouted.

  “Don’t call me that!”

  Using every bit of energy in his gut, Darren blasted the flying Scratcher with a fiery ball of gas that completely incinerated it. All that was left was ashes—and a charred hole at the back of Darren’s pants.

  “Yikes!” Harry backed away, trembling.

  The rest of the squad came rushing onto the roof. Darren half expected to see Bertha and Oscar chasing after them, but those two were nowhere in sight. “You take care of you-know-who?” he asked, pinching his nose to represent the smelly twins.

  “Naturally,” Juan-Carlos said. “Everyone knows that farts are stronger than B.O.”

  Tina looked around. “What happened to the Scratcher?”

  “It’s toast,” Darren said. “Mission accomplished.”

  “Way to go, dude.” Juan-Carlos high-fived him. “You’re on fire. Get it?”

  Tina groaned. “Yes, JC, we get it. We always get it.”

  Sirens blared below as police cars and fire engines converged on the school.

  “Time to retreat!” Darren decided. He looked Walter over. “You think you can airlift all of us?”

  “Absolutely.” Walter fished a cold burrito from his pocket and stuffed his face. He swelled up like a hot-air balloon and started to lift off from the ground. Darren and Juan-Carlos grabbed his legs just in time. Tina scrambled onto his back and wrapped her tiny arms around his neck. “Hold on tight!” Walter said. “Prepare for takeoff!”

  A tremendous fart blasted them all into the air. Walter zoomed off the roof, carrying the rest of the Squad with him. Within seconds, they were far away from Harry Buttz Elementary and the wailing fire engines. All of Buttzville stretched out below them.

  “Yes!” Darren whooped. “We did it!”

  Maybe this Fart Squad thing was going to be a lot of fun after all.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Back at school, Stan took custody of the “special” burritos, saving them until the Fart Squad was needed again.

  “Because that’s the thing about farts,” the janitor explained. “Just when you think you’re all cleared out, an even bigger one comes along!”

  With his farts finally under control, Darren found it easier to sit still in class. He even got a B on his report, which left out the part about the Buttz Curse and the Golden Butt Scratcher. Darren figured nobody would believe that part . . . and it would just upset Miss Priscilly’s delicate sensibilities.

  “A ‘B’ isn’t bad,” Andy assured him. “And every little bit of extra credit helps. You just need to find some way to burn off all that crazy energy of yours that doesn’t involve getting into trouble.”

  “Actually,” Darren said, “I think I know how to do that now.”

  “From great farts come mighty winds,” Stan had said, and Darren believed him.

  No matter the danger, the Fart Squad was ready to put the stink on the bad guys!

  The End . . . for now.

  Excerpt from Fart Squad: Fartasaurus Rex

  Read a Sneak Peek of Book Two, Fart Squad: Fartasaurus Rex

  Out of nowhere, the tar pit bubbled and belched. It filled the air with a sour, stomach-turning smell that stank worse than a port-a-potty after a chili cook-off.

  But the disgusting smell wasn’t the worst thing rising from the pool of sticky black tar. Dozens of school kids on a field trip to the site stared wide-eyed at the pit. Their jaws dropped and their stomachs turned.

  A gargantuan scaly head poked up from the gaseous soup. Prehistoric yellow eyes looked around at the modern world. Slimy drool dripped from hungry jaws. The tip of an enormous tail shot up from beneath the gooey surface of the pit. Bubbles burst from the tar, as if someone had let a giant fart rip in the bath, and a moment later, another nauseating burst of stink polluted the air, causing people to gag, plug their noses, and run for their lives.

  FARTOSAURUS REX LIVED AGAIN!

  CHAPTER ONE

  EARLIER:

  Darren Stonkadopolis had been looking forward to this field trip for weeks. As a die-hard dinosaur lover, Darren’s favorite place to visit was the Buttzville Prehistoric Tar Pit & Museum. He never got tired of the local tourist attraction. Besides the pit itself, the museum contained fossils of ancient creatures trapped in the gooey tar millions of years ago, a muse
um, gift shop, and dinosaur-themed cafeteria. But the key piece of the museum’s collection was the rarest of all dinosaurs, the long-extinct “Buttosaurus.” It was the only one of its type and scientists believed it may have only ever existed in Buttzville.

  “Check out those razor-sharp teeth,” Darren said, pointing out to his best friend, Andy Blackman, as they admired the colossal skeleton, which towered above them on its hind legs outside the museum. Rows of sawlike fangs lined the dinosaur’s bony jaws. “That’s how you know it was a meat-eater. A predator!”

  Andy probably already knew that, Darren figured. His friend was one of the brainiest kids at Buttzville Elementary School after all. But Darren couldn’t resist raving about the skeleton and dinosaurs in general. They were just too cool to keep quiet about.

  “Boy, wouldn’t you like to see one of these in real life!”

  Andy peered at the ferocious-looking skull through a thick pair of glasses. The tar had stained the bones a dark brown color. “Actually, I think I like keeping one hundred fifty million years between us.”

  While the entire fourth grade explored the paved pathways around the tar pit, the teacher in charge, Miss Priscilly, tried to keep all the children under control. She only had Stan, the school janitor, to help. He had also come along as an extra chaperone. The hardest kid to mind was also the richest—Harry Buttz Jr. The school and the town were named after his father. They still owned half of Buttzville. That’s why Harry felt he could ignore the safety rail surrounding the pit and go in to get a closer look.

  “Unhand me!” Harry squealed, when Stan grabbed him by the collar to save him from falling in. “I’ll have your job!” he harrumphed as he tugged at his collar.