by Raymond Bean
“Thanks, Scott. I wasn’t exactly going to broadcast it to everyone.”
“He’s trying to discover a way to make farts, I mean bubs, smell good,” Scott replied.
“Hmmmm,” Grandma said with a smile.
“I want mine to smell like pickles,” Emma said.
“I would want mine to smell like pizza. I love the smell of pizza,” Scott said.
“I’d like mine to smell like orchids,” Grandma said.
“I’m not taking requests, you know. I’m just trying to make them not smell bad, which is ridiculous. I’m pretty sure Mr. C. is hoping to make a fool of me with this.”
“I’m not so sure. He seems pretty excited based on that interview he did with the paper,” Scott said.
“What paper? What are you talking about?” I exclaimed.
“The Daily. It was in this morning’s edition. It was like a half a page long. There was a picture of you and a picture of Benjamin Franklin right next to each other. They used your second-grade picture, I think. Remember the one where you’re half smiling, half grimacing, like you stubbed your toe?”
“What are you talking about? They were talking about my project in the Daily? Why didn’t they interview me?”
“I don’t know. Mr. C. and Mr. Michaels were both interviewed. Mr. Michaels was going on and on, saying it could be the greatest discovery in science if you can pull it off. He’s a really big Benjamin Franklin fan, you know.”
“I’m aware. I’m aware,” I said, staring out the window again.
CHAPTER 17
Fame and Shame
Walking up to the field, I noticed something unusual. It felt like everyone was staring at me. I put my bat behind the dugout and sat on the bench next to Scott. Grandma gave me a kiss on the top of the head and told me she’d be at the swings with Emma. Coach Willie walked up to me and slapped me on the back really hard.
“Looks like you’re famous, gas man. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were a science brain?”
“I’m not. I’m…” I began.
“I think it’s great. Just try not to let it go to your head. All this attention could get to a guy.”
“Okay, Coach,” I said.
I looked across the field, and there was Anthony. This was just what I needed. I felt like crawling under the bench and just lying there until everyone had left. But I was our leadoff batter so I put on my batting helmet and walked up to the plate. The first pitch sailed by me for strike one. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but I thought I could hear the other team making noises. The second pitch sailed by for strike two. Yes, they were definitely making a noise. I couldn’t make out what it was though. Strike three. As I was walking back to the dugout, it became clear. They were all making low farting noises. Anthony was laughing so hard, I could hear him all the way from left field.
The game went on pretty much like that until the bottom of the seventh. I was pitching now because Harry G. walked three batters in a row. The coach almost never let me pitch unless the other pitchers were doing terrible. Usually, I loved the opportunity to pitch, but today I didn’t want to get any more attention than I already had.
That didn’t matter much to Coach, though, and he stuck me on the mound. I threw a few warm-up pitches and signaled to the ump that I was ready. The other team was all seated. I should have known that Anthony would be the next guy up. He already had his helmet on. He walked up to the plate, making a farting noise every time he took a step. His teammates all made the same noise. Even one of their coaches got in on the action. Anthony had a huge smile on his face, and then he started laughing so hard he couldn’t even swing at the first pitch. The second pitch went right on by, too, and then he stepped out of the batter’s box, waving his hands to encourage his teammates to make the noise louder. Then he held his nose and pointed at me.
It was mortifying. I felt myself filling up with anger again, just like the night with Emma. I noticed Grandma was standing behind the dugout, watching all of this. I couldn’t even lift my head. I was so embarrassed. For a minute, I thought I was going to cry.
Finally, a mother on the other team stood up and shouted, “That’s enough! Everyone stop it and finish this game.”
The other team stopped. They were still smiling, but at least they had stopped. It was dead quiet; you could have heard a pin drop. Even the wind had stopped. I just stood there, frozen, in some kind of shock or something. I didn’t step to the pitcher’s mound. I didn’t look up. I just stood there looking at the ground. I was definitely going to cry. I could feel the tears starting to build up. I swallowed hard, trying to hold it back.
Then it happened. A loud fart cracked the silence like a whip. It seemed to echo across the field, the sound hanging in the air for what seemed like forever. I looked up, and all the eyes that had been locked on me all game long had shifted. Now they were all locked squarely on Grandma.
CHAPTER 18
What Were You Thinking?
On the ride home, no one said anything for a long time. Grandma, Scott, Emma, and I just sat silently as Grandma drove. Finally, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“What were you thinking?” I groaned.
“I was trying to take all that terrible attention off of you, sweetie,” she said with a smile.
“You couldn’t think of any better way? I’m already known at school as S.B.D., and now my grandma drops a grandbomb at the game. This is going to ruin me.”
“I think you’re overreacting. This is a good thing for you. Now they will talk about me and not you. I’ll be S.B.D. from now on. What do you say?”
“That’s awesome,” Scott said.
“No, it is not awesome,” I shot back.
“Sure it is. She just saved you, Keith.”
“Keith, I always told you I’d do anything for you. If that means publicly making a bub in order to save you from those mean boys, then bubs away, my boy.”
“That’s so awesome,” Scott said, laughing.
I just looked out the window.
CHAPTER 19
Uncle
By the time we got home from the game, it was already twelve thirty. Mom and Dad were both back from the store. They were standing in front of the house, looking at the flowers. Dad had the lawnmower out for the first time this year.
“How was the game, bud?” he asked as I walked toward the front door.
I ignored him and ran up to my room. I threw myself onto the bed and started crying. This science fair was ruining my life. In the past week, I had been nicknamed S.B.D., sent to the principal’s office, dropped my sister on her head, and been embarrassed in front of my whole baseball team. Now my own grandmother had joined me in the S.B.D. club.
My dad slowly opened the door. “Hey, what is going on with you? Grandma said you had an interesting game today.” He walked over and sat on my bed, and then after a moment added, “Your grandma was just trying to help in her own bizarre way, you know? I didn’t realize you were having so much trouble with the other kids. I wish you would have told us so we could have tried to help you deal with it.”
“I know, Dad. I’m sorry. I’ve just had a bad week. At school, everyone thought I farted in class, and now they call me S.B.D. I’m the laughingstock of the fourth grade.
“And then I came up with this crazy idea to fix farts, and now my principal is making me do it and telling the whole town about it.”
“I know how you feel, pal,” Dad said. “Sometimes things don’t go our way. We just have to keep on going. Before you know it, you will have survived it, and life will get better.”
“Thanks, Dad. I know things will get better. I just can’t take this project, and I can’t handle Anthony Papas.”
“Son.”
“Yes, Dad?”
“Since we’re talking about things you are not enjoying, I think you might want to take out your clipboard.”
I just buried my head in my pillow. “Give me a second,” I said.
“I think we’re lookin
g at a one on that rubric of yours, pal,” he said.
“That sounds about right the way my day’s been going.”
CHAPTER 20
Not So Easy
By the end of the third week of my experiment, and the science fair less than two weeks away, I realized I was in trouble. I had tried my two best hypotheses on my sister and my dad. I sprinkled rose petals on their food for the entire second week. It did nothing. The third week, I gave them each a spoonful of baking soda because people say baking soda absorbs smells. I can tell you, it did not absorb the smell of my dad one bit. I sat at my desk, reviewing my data from the last three weeks. I had page after page of ones and twos on my rubrics. Neither of them ever came close to a three or a four.
My sister walked into my room and announced, “I’m ready to bub for you now.”
“Great,” I said sarcastically.
“Maybe this one will smell good, Keith,” she said, looking at me with the most hopeful eyes.
“I doubt it,” I said.
“I think it will smell like pickles,” she whispered, as if it were a secret.
“You didn’t even eat pickles today,” I reminded her, smiling. As frustrated as I was feeling, I couldn’t help but feel happy around her. My sister is about as cute as a person can be.
“I know, but I have been thinking about pickles all day,” she said. Then she rubbed her chin very slowly with her right hand as if she were a detective. The cartoon cat in her favorite show does the same thing when he is trying to solve a mystery.
“Do you really think a pickle-smelling fart is any better than a regular old fart?” I asked.
“I like pickles. And Mom says not to say fawt.”
“Well, if I ever figure out how to fix bubs, I’ll make a pickle one for you.”
“Here it comes,” she said. I waited a minute. Her face became as red as an apple as she tried to force one out. Then a tiny squeak disrupted the silence.
“That definitely does not smell like pickles,” I said.
After Emma left my room and went to bed, I began to look more closely at my dad’s data. His seemed to be getting worse. Or maybe it was just that I had smelled so many of them in the last couple of weeks. My dad was enjoying this way too much. He had always been a farter, but now he acted like I was so fortunate he farted a lot.
A few minutes later I heard his footsteps on the stairs.
“I’m ready and willing to help in the name of science,” he announced, standing in my doorway.
“Great,” I said, without looking up.
“I’m afraid this one is not going to be what you’re hoping for, pal.”
“Well, let’s just get it over with,” I groaned.
“I tried to warn you. I think we’re looking at another uno on that fart chart of yours.”
CHAPTER 21
Defeat
The next week was pretty much the same. I added a mixture of lemon, lime, and orange juice to my family’s food at every meal. My sister and my father came by my room a few times a day and stunk it up pretty good. I never once put a three or a four on the chart. Their farts kept on smelling like farts no matter what I did to improve them. Farts are farts, I finally decided. You can’t fix them. It’s just the way it is.
As I sat at my desk writing up my conclusion, I felt humiliated and embarrassed. What was I thinking? The kids at school would never stop giving me a hard time about this. Scott was right; I’d be S.B.D. for life.
The science fair was going to be a huge disappointment. Next year, I was definitely going to do a tornado in a bottle.
My conclusion was clear. I could not create a mixture that helped defeat the awful smell of farts even a little bit. The only good thing about the whole mess was that it didn’t take me long to type up all the information on the computer. Most of the work was already done. I spent the rest of the night gluing my charts and pictures to my science board.
My title was:
“Farts, New and Improved?”
I was embarrassed about that, too, but that was the title I had submitted to Mr. C. when my project was approved, and he was making me stick with it.
After I finished pasting everything on the board, I stepped back to take the whole thing in. It didn’t look very good. I wished I could carry it into the yard and throw it in the garbage. I am definitely going to be made fun of when I bring this to school tomorrow, I thought.
CHAPTER 22
The Science Fair
The science fair was that night, and I realized there was only one thing to do: fake being sick.
“Mom, I can’t go to the science fair. Maybe you could just go and pick up my project.”
“Don’t even try it. You are going to get dressed and go to that science fair. You can’t just hide because you didn’t get the results you wanted.”
“Mom, I don’t want to be laughed at.”
“Neither did I when you told me about this crazy idea, but I stuck with it anyway. You don’t think my friends find this whole thing funny? I think you need to decide if you are proud of what you tried to do. And I think you should be proud because you came up with the idea, a strange idea, but you came up with the idea nevertheless and you stuck with it. I think that’s pretty great.”
“Yeah, but the experiment proved nothing. I couldn’t do anything that I wanted to do.”
“Didn’t you tell me that even when scientists fail, they are contributing to science? Maybe you didn’t find the mixture you were looking for. Some scientists spend their entire lives trying to prove one hypothesis.”
“I am definitely not going to spend my life letting people fart on me so I can write a number one or two on a chart. No way. From now on, I will be running from farts like the rest of the world.”
“Well, I wish you would stop using that word, but I can’t say I blame you. Come on. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 23
Unfair Fair
I wanted to get to the fair early because a lot of kids can’t get there until after their parents get home from work. I was the first one in the door. I walked around the school building trying to take my mind off the fact that my project would be laughed at all night. I tried to prepare myself.
As I walked around, I saw lots of volcanoes and tornadoes in a bottle, and something happened. I realized no one else had done anything like my project. I mean, anybody can look up a project on the computer and copy the directions. I had come up with a unique idea and tried to discover something new. Who cared if people made fun of it!
Of all the projects I saw, my favorite was the kid in third grade who mummified a twenty-five-pound turkey. The turkey was wrapped like a mummy and was sitting there all wrapped up. It had been wrapped over four months ago, and it didn’t stink one bit. I couldn’t say the same for my project.
When I finally went into my classroom, I could hear the laughter from the hallway.
“This project really stinks,” Anthony cried. “The kid who did this project is really into farts. He farts all the time in class. I don’t get people who fart. It is the grossest thing in the world.” He was talking to a bunch of younger kids.
I couldn’t believe that he was doing this to me.
I walked up to defend myself.
“Anthony, stop saying that about me.”
As soon as I got close to him, I realized I was walking into a trap. Anthony had a great big smile on his face, and the other kids were holding their noses. He saw me coming and had dropped an A-bomb. I walked right into it.
“What did I tell you? The kid is a regular Pig-Pen.”
“You stink, kid,” one of the kids said.
“Whatever, your project was probably a tornado in a bottle,” I replied.
“Actually, I mummified a turkey, and it doesn’t stink!” he said. And they all walked away laughing. Again, I just stood there; I could not think of a thing to say.
CHAPTER 24
Mr. Gonzalez
After a while of feeling sorry for myself and listenin
g to people make rude comments about my project, I noticed that I was all alone at my table, finally. I guess everyone thought that it stunk to be near me. I had heard every insult in the book. I couldn’t wait for my mom to come back and pick me up.
I walked over to my desk and put my head down. It had been a long month. I had smelled about a thousand farts, been blamed for three S.B.D.s that were not mine, and was now the laughingstock of the lamest science fair ever. I must have closed my eyes for a few minutes, because when I opened them there was a man in a business suit standing in front of my presentation board. He wasn’t laughing, and he didn’t seem shocked like most of the people who stopped to read it. He looked genuinely interested.
Mr. C. walked over and began to talk with him. I figured the man must be important because Mr. C. was acting very excited.
Mr. Cherub looked over at me and pointed; his hands were moving all over the place as if he were telling this great big story. Finally he waved me over.
“Keith, this is Mr. Gonzalez. He is the head of the Brookings Regional Science Center.”
“Oh, hi. I’m Keith Emerson,” I mumbled.
“I know. I read the article about you in the Daily a few weeks back. Your principal told me all about you and your project, but I’d love to hear about it from you.”
Mr. C. excused himself and walked over to talk to a few parents who had wandered in.
“I came up with my idea because I seemed to be smelling other people’s gas everywhere we went. My sister, my father, and this kid in my class were passing gas all the time. I finally got sick of it and tried to fix the problem once and for all. You know, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
“I know,” Mr. Gonzalez said.
