by Gary Urey
Everyone hooted their approval as I set my course for the Big Apple.
The rolling fields and thick woods of the countryside soon gave way to civilization. In the distance, the massive skyline of New York City came into view. The sight was both awe inspiring and intimidating. Questions tumbled in my mind. Where will we land? How will I hide the gondola? Will New Yorkers make fun of my nose? Before I could think of any more questions, a huge jet airliner whizzed overhead. The massive draft of wind made the gondola wobble in midair like a crazy spinning top.
“I’m going to be sick,” I heard Mumps whimper.
I quickly plugged my nostrils, began our descent, and stabilized the gondola. Iconic sights came into view—the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and a swath of green among the buildings that had to be Central Park.
“Land in the park,” TJ said.
As I circled around the park searching for a landing place, a crowd of people standing next to a lake looked up at me.
“Check that thing out.” I heard a man say.
“It’s some kind of hot-air balloon,” said another.
“And the balloon is shaped like a kid with a huge nose!” someone else commented.
Dr. Wackjöb hollered up to me. “Gríöarstór Nef, do not land in the park!”
“Why?” I asked.
“There are eight million people in New York City. We can’t risk someone damaging the gondola. You’ll have to find another place to set this thing down.”
Frustrated, I inflated my nostrils again and floated above the skyline.
“Drop the gondola on top of a skyscraper!” Vivian shouted to me.
“But which one?” I wondered aloud. “There are hundreds of them poking into the clouds.”
“Select one with a flat roof,” Dr. Wackjöb suggested.
I circled the city like a vulture searching for a dead animal carcass. Twenty blocks south of Central Park, I spied two buildings that looked promising. They were side by side, had flat roofs, and were of medium height. I didn’t want the structures to be a zillion stories when we had to walk down a back stairwell to ground level. Finally, I picked one using the trusted eeney, meeny, miney, moe method and landed perfectly on the black-tar roof.
“It feels great to be on solid ground again,” Jimmy said.
“We’re not on solid ground yet,” TJ said. “Technically, we are standing on top of hundreds of tons of steel beams and reinforced concrete.”
“What’s that big round tower?” Mumps asked, pointing to a rusty-looking structure in the far corner of the roof.
“It holds water,” Dr. Wackjöb answered. “The city can’t supply enough water pressure because the buildings are so tall. They must have their own pumps and water towers.”
Vivian yanked open a heavy door. “This is the way to the street,” she said. “Let’s check into our hotel and see the sights!”
I changed out of my Super Schnoz costume and joined the gang in the stairwell. The building had twenty stories, so it took us a good fifteen minutes to hike all the way to street level. As soon as my nose hit the sidewalk, dozens of tantalizing smells bombarded my olfactory senses: rotting garbage, onion bagels, stale pee, burning meat from food vendors, hot steam drifting from street grates, taxi-cab exhaust, pepperoni pizza, soft pretzels, coffee, and …
Strange!
Hundreds of people clogged the busy sidewalks, and most of them were wearing my favorite perfume. The sweet scent wafted off napes of necks, crooks of elbows, and pulsing wrists. I sniffed harder, hoping the barrage of Strange would help me uncover the elusive vanilla-like mystery ingredient. There was nothing. Just a big question mark among the gentle mixes of lavender, jasmine, sandalwood, and bergamot.
“Here’s the hotel,” Dr. Wackjöb announced.
I looked up and saw a big sign welcoming us to the Lexington Avenue Hotel. The doorwoman loaded our luggage onto a cart, and we stepped inside. The hotel’s lobby was small with black marble floors, lots of fake plants, and a massive oak check-in desk. Dr. Wackjöb had reserved four rooms: one for him, one for Vivian, and two others for the Not-Right Brothers and me to share.
“I refuse to sleep in the same room as Mumps,” Jimmy said. “He farts in his sleep.”
“Then you and TJ share, and I’ll bunk with Mumps,” I said. “I find his middle-of-the-night explosions oddly endearing.”
We rode the elevator to our rooms, unpacked our suitcases, and then all met back down at the lobby. As we were deciding what attraction to see first, the hotel door opened and in walked a scrawny young man wearing a red beret and carrying a white sign that read: Dr. Wackjöb and Friends.
“I am Dr. Wackjöb,” said Dr. Wackjöb.
“And we’re his friends,” Vivian added.
“Who are you?” Mumps asked.
“My name is Arnaud,” the man said with a thick French accent. “I am Pierre du Voleur’s personal assistant and chauffeur. He wants you to meet him at the Museum of Olfactory Art.” Arnaud turned his attention to me. “From the looks of your nose, you must be the infamous Andy Whiffler. Monsieur du Voleur is very excited to meet you.”
“Call me Schnoz,” I said, and then we all hopped into a Hummer stretch limousine and sped up the avenue.
CHAPTER 8
THE ART OF ODOR
Arnaud steered the Hummer through the busy New York streets. The inside of the vehicle was awesome—cushy leather seats, tinted windows, a mini refrigerator stocked with soda, and two flat-panel TV screens with DVD players.
“The last person to use this limousine was dousing themselves with lots of Strange,” I said. “The smell is really strong.”
“Do you like Strange, Schnoz?” Arnaud asked, smiling at me through the rearview mirror.
“I love it! Strange smells great, plus Jean Paul Puanteur was the creator. He’s the greatest perfumer on the planet.”
“Some think Puanteur is the best. Others think Monsieur du Voleur is better.”
“I’ve never smelled any of Pierre du Voleur’s perfumes.”
“You must be joking,” Arnaud said. “Monsieur du Voleur created such classic scents as Snakebite, Love Kills, Secretions, and his most popular, Bête Blanc—White Beast.”
I shook my nose. “Sorry, I’ve never heard of them or smelled them.”
Arnaud’s smile turned into a frown. “Don’t worry. The fragrances of Pierre du Voleur will soon rise to the top, and Jean Paul Puanteur will kneel before his greatness.”
He then raised the partition window that separated the driver from the passengers. The Hummer raced angrily through a yellow light, barely missing a group of pedestrians. We all stared out the windows in awe as the Empire State Building came into view.
“Sounds like Arnaud doesn’t like Jean Paul Puanteur very much,” Vivian whispered.
“From what I understand,” Dr. Wackjöb said, “there are a lot of cutthroats and much back-stabbing in the perfuming world. The scent artists must closely guard their creations from rival companies who want to steal their ingredients and make knockoffs.”
“Kind of like the glue and snore cure business,” TJ offered.
Dr. Wackjöb nodded. “You are correct. If the secret of synthetic gecko feet ever got out, I’d be out of business within a year.”
The Hummer suddenly screeched to a stop in front of a white building that looked like a giant tower of Jenga blocks. Outside, women wearing fancy evening gowns and men in black tuxedoes hovered around the entrance.
“Why are all those people dressed up?” Mumps asked.
The partition window slowly rolled opened. “Because the opening of a new art exhibit is a chic affair,” Arnaud said.
“What’s ‘sheek’ mean?” Mumps asked.
“It means ‘classy’ in French,” Dr. Wackjöb said.
“Give them your name at the doors,” Arnaud instructed. “Monsieur du Voleur is expecting you.”
The moment I stepped out of the Hummer, all of the elegantly dressed couples stopp
ed what they were doing and stared at my nose. My stomach tangled up like a set of earbud cables. Their reactions to my sniffinator brought back unhappy memories of my first few weeks at James F. Durante Elementary School.
“Ignore them, Schnoz,” Vivian said. “Your nose is a gift from the gods, and don’t you ever forget it.”
Her words made me feel a lot better. These people knew nothing about me or the power of my honker. They had no idea that I had saved the world from snotty aliens and evil polluters. I flung my muzzle in the air, took a confident whiff, and walked into the Museum of Olfactory Art with the rest of the gang.
We gave the ticket person our names and strolled into the exhibit. I had been to the Classic Arcade Museum in Laconia and the Salem Witch Museum in Massachusetts, but the Art of Odor exhibit was something completely different. The smell of perfume was everywhere, floating like invisible scent pods on the still air. We were standing in a large white room with twelve curvy indentations in the walls. I watched people step up to an indentation, take a whiff, and then move on to the next one.
“Go on, Schnoz,” Jimmy said. “You have the honor of taking the first sniff.”
I took a deep breath and stepped up to the wall. There were two holes at the base of the indentation. As soon as my snuffler got close, a puff of perfume shot from the holes. It was kind of like taking a slurp from a water fountain. A brief description of the perfume flashed on the wall, but I already recognized the fragrance before reading a single sentence.
“Mammal No. 5 by Eugene Mammifère!” I gushed and then quickly moved on to the next smell.
After an exhilarating half hour with my nose pressed against the wall breathing such classics as Sticky by Jacques Gluant, Dracula Noir by Otto Sang, and the incomparable Strange by Jean Paul Puanteur, I was ready for something new.
“Do you know what I find extremely interesting from reading the history of these perfumes?” Vivian asked.
“What?” I mumbled, still intoxicated by all the beautiful smells.
“Perfumers used only natural scents until the early twentieth century. After that, nearly all of them switched over to synthetic materials.”
“But not Jean Paul Puanteur,” I said. “He uses only natural ingredients. That’s why Strange is so excellent.”
We moved from the main gallery to a smaller room with a bunch of different exhibitions. One of them was about how perfumers layered their scents to make one unified smell. TJ and Mumps spent the bulk of their time here, trying to learn how coffee, spearmint Life Savers, garlic bagel with cream cheese, bad breath, and body odor all mixed to give Principal Cyrano such an awful stench.
Vivian, Jimmy, Dr. Wackjöb, and I sat at a long glass table in the middle of the room. Twelve bowls were on the table, each filled with a scent represented in the main gallery. A museum guide encouraged us to dab a wooden stick into one of the bowls, take a sniff, and then go to a computer terminal and log how the scent made us feel.
Only one sentence came to my mind—I think I died and woke up in aroma heaven!
As I was about to join TJ and Mumps, Arnaud and another man walked into the room. The man accompanying Arnaud was tall with slicked-back hair and wearing a black tuxedo. A licorice-thin mustache outlined his upper lip.
“Pierre!” Dr. Wackjöb said enthusiastically, shaking the man’s hand. “You haven’t changed a bit in thirty years!”
The man patted Dr. Wackjöb’s balding head. “I wish I could say the same about you, Aðalbjörn.”
Both men laughed.
Dr. Wackjöb turned his attention to me. “This is the young man I have told you about. Pierre du Voleur, meet Andy Whiffler, the boy with the most powerful sense of smell on the planet.”
I stuck out my hand, but Pierre du Voleur did not offer to shake. He just stared intently at my nose, his gaze like a hungry tiger ready to pounce on an unsuspecting goat.
CHAPTER 9
STRANGE IS AS STRANDE DOES
“Excusez moi while I indulge,” Pierre du Voleur said with a thick French accent. He then proceeded to invade my personal space by gently spreading open my nostrils with his fingertips, flicking on a penlight, and peering deep inside my sniffer like a doctor examining a patient.
“You have the most fantastique olfactory bulbs I have ever seen!” Pierre proclaimed. “Not to mention an exceptionnel epithelium, merveilleux mitral cells, and a grande glomerulus!”
“What’s he talking about?” Mumps asked.
“He’s admiring the different components of Schnoz’s world-class olfactory system,” Vivian answered.
“The man sure is an expert on noses,” Jimmy said. “He and Schnoz should get along great.”
While Pierre gazed lovingly at my nasal anatomy, my thoughts drifted toward Jean Paul Puanteur. He was my all-time favorite perfumer and the reason I was here. His picture was on the cover of the exhibition’s program, and he was to be the closing night keynote speaker at PerfumeCon. My snot bubbled with excitement at the thought of finally meeting him.
“Le Nez, you are just what I am looking for,” Pierre announced, flicking off the penlight.
“What’s ‘le Nez’ mean?” TJ asked.
“Nose,” Arnaud chimed in.
“I don’t understand,” I said, a bit confused. “Why are you looking for my nose?”
“To assist me, jeune homme,” Pierre said.
“What did he say?” TJ asked again.
“Jeune homme means ‘young man’ in French,” Dr. Wackjöb clarified.
“Assist you in doing what?” I questioned.
Pierre let out a loud belly laugh. “Smelling, odeur!”
From the sound of it, odeur sounded a lot like ‘odor’ in English. That meant he wanted me to use my nose, or nez, to smell something. I was beginning to pick up on a few words in the French language.
“I would like you to come to my perfume laboratory on West Thirtieth Street so I can witness your phénoménal nose in action,” Pierre continued. “I have several new lines of perfumes, and I would love to get your opinion on which ones smell the best.”
My heart skipped a beat, and my nose hairs pricked with anticipation. A professional perfumer actually wanted me to smell his new line of perfumes!
“Vivian!” I gushed. “Quickly, tweak my nostrils to see if I’m dreaming!”
“You’re wide awake,” Vivian said. “The man really wants you to smell some of his creations.”
I looked to Dr. Wackjöb for permission. He was, after all, our adult chaperone for the trip.
“It is fine by me,” he said. “Shall we all go?”
“No way,” Jimmy protested. “I don’t want to go to some perfume laboratory and watch Schnoz smell stuff.”
“Me either,” Mumps chimed in.
“We see Schnoz sniff things all time,” TJ added.
“This is an invitation for le Nez only,” Pierre said. “I mean, you are in New York, the most exciting city in the world—after Paris. Enjoy the sights. Besides, I wouldn’t want to bore you with lines of perfume still in their enfance stage.”
“How will we all meet up for dinner?” Dr. Wackjöb wondered.
“Dinner is on me, Aðalbjörn,” Pierre offered. “I will send Arnaud to your hotel at seven o’clock. You will all join me for dinner at Nourriture, the finest French restaurant in New York.”
“Does that mean we’ll be eating french fries?” Mumps asked.
“We will have a délicieux three-course meal, beginning with salade verte and la soupe à l’oignon,” Arnaud rattled off. “Next, you will have a choice between les coquilles Saint-Jacques à la Provençal, le saumon d’ecosse, or les filets de bœuf. Dessert will be la tarte fine aux pommes or crème brulée à la vanille. I have arranged everything.”
TJ leaned over and whispered in my ear. “What’s he talking about? That sounds like the most disgusting food ever.”
“I hope those words mean hamburgers, hot dogs, and pepperoni pizza in French,” Mumps said.
“I dou
bt it,” Vivian said. “But I think bœuf means ‘beef.’ Sorry, there’s no way I’m eating a dead animal. I’m a strict vegetarian.”
Just then, a bunch of people carrying notebooks and iPads burst into the gallery. They were dressed in normal-looking street clothes, not fancy tuxedoes and evening gowns like those that everybody else was wearing.
“Who are they?” Vivian wondered.
“Journalistes,” Pierre announced. “They have come to interview the great Pierre du Voleur!”
Arnaud straightened Pierre’s bow tie and plucked lint from his tuxedo jacket. The journalistes hurried in our direction, pen and notebooks poised for writing, iPads charged and ready to go. Just as the first reporter was about to ask Pierre a question, a flurry of activity broke out behind us. I turned around and saw a short man with thick, curly gray hair step into the gallery. He also wore a black tuxedo, but instead of fancy black shoes, he had on a pair of bright red Converse sneakers.
Jean Paul Puanteur!
The man, the myth, the perfuming legend was standing less than ten feet from me! I instantly recognized his face from the picture of him in my room. When the journalistes saw Jean Paul, they completely ignored Pierre and flocked to the creator of Strange.
Voices rang out.
“Jean Paul, look this way for photo!”
“I love Strange!”
“Tell us your secret of Strange success!
“Mr. Puanteur, give us a quote!”
“I have only one thing to say before I let my fragrance do the talking,” Jean Paul said in a deep voice heavy with French inflection. “Strange is as Strange does.”
A series of astonished oohs and ahhs escaped from the journalistes’ lips, like Jean Paul had just given them the secret of the universe or something. The ones holding pens quickly scribbled down the quote. Others checked their iPads, making double sure they had digitally captured his words.
I took three deep snorts, trying to work up the courage to introduce myself, when Pierre’s normally pale complexion suddenly flamed fiery red. “Jean Paul Puanteur is a fake, a fraud, and an escroc of the highest order!” he screamed.
