by Raymond Bean
Emma was in love with hiding. It was one of her favorite things to do. The problem was she didn’t realize that people could hear her when she was hiding. And every time she hid, she began to giggle. That, and she usually had a foot or hand or half of her body hanging out from her hiding place, and that gave her away, too.
This time, it was half of her head. I could see her blond hair against my dark green sheets.
“Hmmm…I wonder where Emma is?” I said.
Giggles.
“Maybe she’s under my bed.”
“Noooo, I’m nawt!” she shouted.
“Maybe she’s in my closet,” I said.
“Nooo, I’m nawt!”
“Maybe she’s…”
“Here I am!” she announced.
She popped out from under the blankets and looked about as a happy as a person can.
“I didn’t know you were under there,” I said.
“I’m pretty tricky, huh?” she asked seriously.
“You sure are. And you know what?”
“What?”
“You gave me an idea for my science experiment.”
“Are you going to hide?”
“No.”
“Are you going to stretch me out?”
“No.”
She pulled the covers over her head again.
“You can’t find me.”
She also didn’t realize that when she hid and I was right in front of her, I still knew where she was hiding.
“Keith! What are you doing?” my mom shouted.
“I’m coming, Mom,” I shouted back.
“Hmmm, where could Emma be?” I said, pretending to be confused.
“You’ll never find me.”
I pulled the covers off her really fast. “Gotcha!” I said. She was laughing like crazy.
As she laughed, I noticed the bump on her forehead from when I dropped her. I sat down on the bed next to her. “Emma,” I started, “I’m really sorry I dropped you last night. I was just really mad that you dusted me.”
“I know,” she said. “I made a bad choice.”
“I shouldn’t have done that, though. It isn’t nice to hurt other people. I could have really hurt you. Do you forgive me?”
“Yeeeaaahhh,” she said. “Can you do it again?”
“Why would I do it again?”
“I liked it. Pleeeaaase.”
“Keith, the bus is pulling up,” my mom shouted.
“Sorry, sweets, I have to go. How about later I hang you by your ankles again, but this time I won’t let go?”
“Okay, and I won’t make a bubble.”
“That sounds great.”
My mom insists that my sister call farts “bubbles.” She thinks the word fart is offensive. I don’t know why. Everyone at school uses it. For some reason she gets really upset, so when I talk to my sister or my mom, they are bubbles, or bubs for short. To everyone else in the world, they are just farts.
CHAPTER 9
Am I Really Doing This?
When I sat down in my seat on the bus, it hit me. It was one thing to come up with this science-fair idea; it was another to actually share it with Mr. C. and the class. What if they laughed at me? What was I thinking? Of course, they would laugh at me. They all thought I was the fart king of New York. All you had to do is mention the word fart and half the kids in my class would start to giggle.
As the bus made the slow, wide turn into the school entrance, I felt my adrenaline kick in. All of a sudden my heart began to race faster and faster. I could feel my face getting red and hot. The noises on the bus grew louder. I noticed I was chewing my fingernails, tapping my feet, and humming all at once. I was freaking out!
I don’t remember getting off the bus. I don’t remember walking into school or taking off my coat. Before I knew it, I was sitting on the cold, dusty floor with the rest of the kids when I heard Mr. C. say, “Okay, Keith, it’s your turn. Have you decided on a project that will change the world for the better?”
A lump formed in my throat the size of the lump on Emma’s forehead. My stomach was doing the twist. I felt like I might faint.
“I think I have, Mr. Cherub,” I said.
“Well, come on up and tell us all about it,” he said.
I took a deep breath and walked to the front of the room. A few kids whispered, “S.B.D.,” under their breath but loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Come on, guys,” Mr. C. said.
Some other kids held their noses when I walked by, but most of the class didn’t even bother to look up. Many of them were still half asleep.
I cleared my throat and in a low voice said, “My project is about gasses.”
“Can you be more specific?” Mr. C. replied.
“I want to experiment with different foods to see if I can make gasses smell better.”
No one seemed to be onto me. This was good. The more they didn’t follow what I was really saying, the better chance I had of Mr. C. taking my idea seriously.
“What sort of gasses?” he asked.
“Well, gas that…well, has an unpleasant odor,” I whispered.
“Do you mean pollution?” Mr. C. blurted out.
“You could say that.”
“Well what sort of gas pollution are you talking about? Is it exhaust?”
“You could say that, too.”
“Do you mean the gas coming from the rear of a car?”
When Mr. C. said “REAR,” I almost lost it.
“Yes, it comes out of the rear,” I said, a smile beginning to creep across my face.
“Of a car?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“Keith, if you’re not talking about gas that comes out of the rear of a car, then what are you talking about?”
At this point kids were beginning to pay attention. By the looks on their faces, they weren’t onto me yet. They just thought I had no idea what I was talking about, and there’s nothing more interesting in school than watching another kid fall apart in front of the class.
“Well then, what sort of pollution are you experimenting with?” Mr. C. asked, signs of frustration beginning to show on his face. He shook his head and widened his eyes. It was clear he thought I was clueless.
“You know, gas.”
“There are many types of gas, Keith. There is methane, hydrogen, carbon dioxide. Even oxygen is a gas.” He was almost yelling at this point.
I noticed a few faces light up. Were they onto me? A few giggles broke out. Mr. C. tried to hold them back by demanding, “Stop laughing!”
It didn’t work. The giggles had now become contagious. I felt adrenaline rushing back through my veins. My heart raced like I was falling out of an airplane. I took a deep breath to try to calm down. The class was clearly onto me. The excitement in the room was poised to break loose.
“How is this gas released into the atmosphere?” Mr. C. asked.
The class exploded with laughter.
“Class, please, Keith is trying to explain his project.” Everyone was now wide-awake. There wasn’t a sleepy eye in the room.
“How is it released into the atmosphere?” he repeated over the laughter.
“From the rear,” I explained. Sarah Stanton was taking a sip from her water bottle and sprayed it onto the back of Jason Calino’s neck. He didn’t seem to care.
“Please, class, calm down! It is not polite to laugh while your peer tries to share his ideas. Keith, please be more specific. The rear of what?” He had to shout this because the class was now officially out of control.
“Well…people!” I shouted back.
Mr. C. didn’t say anything. He just looked at me. Looked at me doesn’t quite describe it well enough. He looked through me. Mr. C. stood up and marched over to the phone on the far wall. I knew he was calling the principal. I had never been to the principal’s office in my life. I guess that was about to change.
CHAPTER 10
The Principal’s Office
I had never been to the
principal’s office before. Part of me felt tough and the other felt like crying because I knew my mom would kill me when she found out. I also felt plain embarrassed. I should have known better than to present such a crazy idea to my teacher. I’d never seen him look so angry. He thought I was playing a joke. The class was absolutely out of control; they were laughing so hard there was no bringing them back. I only wish I could have been on the laughing side of things. I sure wasn’t laughing now.
Mrs. Barcelona, the office secretary, said the principal, Mr. Michaels, was at a meeting and should be back any minute. I realized as I sat there in the office that I had never actually spoken with Mr. M. before. I didn’t really know him. The only thing I knew was that he could destroy me.
I could see him coming up the front walk. He was wearing the kind of sunglasses that detectives wore in the old detective shows. He took them off as he opened the front door and entered the school, and I could see him squinting to see who was in the chair next to Mrs. Barcelona. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat.
He gave me a death stare as he entered the office, then walked right past me and began whispering to Mrs. Barcelona. She looked like she was laughing or at least grinning, and for a second, I think he might have smiled, too. Then he made a serious face.
He waved his hand for me to follow him into the office. His office was full of wooden furniture. He collected antiques and kept many of them in his office. That’s about the only thing I knew about him. I sat down in a really old-looking chair and took a deep breath.
“So, Keith Emerson, would you like to tell me a little about this prank you decided to pull in Mr. Cherub’s class this morning?”
“It wasn’t a prank, sir. I was being serious.” I couldn’t believe he knew my name.
“You weren’t trying to embarrass your teacher or be a wise guy?”
“No, sir. Mr. Cherub told us to focus on something that we knew and to try to change the world for the better.”
“And you decided to do a project on flatulence?”
“No, sir, it was going to be on S.B.D.s.” I couldn’t believe I had just said “S.B.D.” to the principal.
“I’m sorry?”
“No, sir. I’m sorry.”
He smiled.
“No, Keith, flatulence and S.B.D. are the same thing, assuming that we are talking about the same thing.”
More amazing than the fact that I had just said S.B.D. to my principal was that my principal had just said S.B.D. to me! I was definitely going to faint.
“I’m not sure what we’re talking about anymore,” I said.
“Do you mean silent but deadly?” he asked.
It was just too much. I looked around to make sure I wasn’t on one of those hidden-camera shows. I felt like a cheesy TV host was going to walk in and tell me this was all a practical joke. This could not be happening. Maybe I was still in bed and dreaming. I shook my head back and forth. No, I was awake.
“I guess…well…yes.”
“Okay, at least we are talking about the same thing. What exactly do you want to try in your experiment?”
I spent the next ten minutes explaining to Mr. Michaels about Anthony, the kids in the class, and how I had been labeled S.B.D. Not only did he look like he was really listening, but he was even taking notes on a yellow sticky pad.
“Okay, I’m going to give this some thought, and I will get back to you later today or tomorrow,” he said when I finished my story.
“You mean you might actually let me do it?”
“Might being the key word here. I think it’s a strange idea, but it does seem to fit Mr. Cherub’s criteria, and it seems like you really are interested in the, umm…subject.”
“Thanks, sir,” I said, a little amazed.
I stood up and walked out of the office. Scott was coming down the hall with his class. They all looked at me with that you’re-in-so-much-trouble look that everyone gets when they go to the principal’s office. Scott’s eyes seemed like they might burst out of his head.
“What happened?” he mouthed.
“I’ll tell you at lunch,” I mouthed back.
Then I noticed my class coming down the hall behind his. They were all giving me the same look.
“Please get in line with the class, Mr. Emerson. You and I will talk later,” Mr. Cherub said.
“Okay,” I replied, getting in line. I realized I had a smile on my face. I couldn’t remember the last time I was smiling like this in school. I had faced down the principal and lived to tell about it.
At lunch, I took a bite of the ham sandwich Mom packed me and immediately felt a tug on my shirt. It was Scott. “I can’t believe this,” he said.
“You can’t believe what?” I said.
“I can’t believe Mr. Cherub sent you to the office because you farted again in class.”
“I didn’t fart in class ever, and that isn’t why I went to the principal,” I said.
“Well then, why were you in the office?”
“I was in the office because of my science-fair project idea,” I said.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I want to fix farts once and for all. I want to figure out a way to make them smell better.”
“Are you crazy? Do you want to be known as S.B.D. for the rest of your life? Do you think someone is going to want to be Mrs. S.B.D. when you grow up?”
“I’m not going to be S.B.D. forever. Besides, if I can fix farts, there will be no such thing as an S.B.D.”
“You’re going to be S.B.D. for life for this.”
“Maybe,” I replied. “We’ll see.”
CHAPTER 11
The Green Light
When I came back from recess later the next day, I noticed a yellow note in my classroom mailbox.
You have the green light. I spoke with Mr. C., and your project is approved. Stop by my office.
Mr. Michaels.
Mr. C. noticed me reading the note and said, “Keith, head on down to the office. Mr. M. wants to see you.” The class went, “OOOOOhhhhh,” as if I was in trouble again. I just smiled and headed down to the office.
CHAPTER 12
Thank You, Benjamin Franklin
I sat in the large leather chair across from Mr. Michaels. He was finishing up his phone call, and held up a hand signaling me to hold on a minute. I didn’t want it to seem like I was staring at him, so I looked around the office.
My eyes were immediately drawn to his computer screen. He was on a search screen and there were two words in the search box. The first was Franklin, and the second was farts. I was convinced I had fallen asleep and would soon wake up to the smell of my little sister dusting me again.
Instead, Mr. Michaels hung up the phone and said, “So I see you got my note.”
I nodded.
He continued, “I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I happen to be a big fan of Benjamin Franklin.”
I’d never met anyone who just happened to be a big fan of Benjamin Franklin. I know people who are fans of the Yankees or the Mets, but not Benjamin Franklin. That’s like saying, “I’m a big fan of the guy on the news or the president of some faraway country.” It just doesn’t make sense.
“When you and I spoke yesterday, your idea seemed very familiar to me for some reason. I couldn’t figure out why…and then it hit me on the way home. I remembered reading something by Franklin called ‘A Letter to a Royal Academy.’”
I wasn’t sure why Mr. Michaels was telling me all this. All I knew was that by the excitement in his voice, I didn’t seem to be in any trouble. And somehow, it seemed I had Benjamin Franklin to thank for my good luck.
“Franklin wrote the letter in 1781 to the Royal Academy of Brussels,” Mr. Michaels said.
Oh no, I was getting bored already.
He leaned back in his chair and continued, “Back in the eighteenth century, there were many contests that were provided by academies or colleges. The academies would put a question or cha
llenge before the thinkers of the time. Franklin wrote this letter as a suggestion for a contest challenge. In the letter, Franklin writes…” He started reading from the computer screen:
“It is universally well known that in digesting our common food, there is created or produced in the bowels of human creatures a great quantity of wind.
“That permitting this air to escape and mix with the atmosphere, is usually offensive to the company, from the fetid smell that accompanies it.
“That all well-bred people therefore, to avoid giving such offence, forcibly restrain the efforts of nature to discharge that wind.”
Here he stopped.
“Do you follow so far?” he asked.
“Not even a little bit,” I said.
“Okay. What Franklin is saying in his letter is everyone has gas. Also, everyone knows that gas is smelly, and so they try very hard to hold it in so they do not offend other people.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“The letter goes on: Were it not for the odiously offensive smell accompanying such escapes, polite people would probably be under no more restraint in discharging such wind in company, than they are in spitting, or blowing their noses.”
He stopped again. “Did you follow that?” he asked
“Umm…no,” I said.
“He is saying that if gas did not smell bad, people would not be embarrassed to relieve themselves of it in public. It would be no worse than blowing your nose.”
“Okay, I’m with you,” I said.
He continued, “My prize question therefore should be, to discover some drug wholesome and not disagreeable, to be mixed with our common food, or sauces, that shall render the natural discharges of wind from our bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreeable as perfumes.”
“I understood perfume,” I said.
“He’s saying that his idea for the Royal Academy is to challenge someone to discover something that, when put in food, makes people’s gas smell good.”
“Hey, that’s my idea.”
“Exactly,” he said. “And that is exactly why your project has been approved. As it turns out, your crazy idea, as strange as it may be, is going to attempt to solve a challenge that Benjamin Franklin put before the scientific community more than two hundred years ago.”
