Fartasaurus Rex Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Back Ads

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  Out of nowhere, the tar pit bubbled and belched. It filled the air with a sour, stomach-turning smell that stank worse than a porta-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 huge 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 disgusting burst of stink polluted the air, causing people to gag, plug their noses, and run for their lives.

  FARTASAURUS 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 museum, 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 them 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 scary-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 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 shirt to save him from falling in. “I’ll have your job!” he yelled as he tugged at his collar.

  “Children, children!” Miss Priscilly called out. “Gather round and pay attention while our host, Professor Paleo, kindly explains the educational value of this site.”

  The museum curator had been conducting the Tar Pit tour ever since Darren was a little kid. He was a good friend of Darren’s. Frizzy white hair escaped from under the pith helmet he wore. Professor Paleo winked at Darren before launching into his lecture, which Darren practically knew by heart:

  “Millions of years ago, a prehistoric swamp existed where Buttzville now is. Liquid tar seeped up from the earth and created a deceptively deep pool. Dinosaurs and other primitive animals would wander over and some were unlucky enough to fall in it. Unlucky for them, but lucky for us. Their fossils were preserved in the pit when the tar hardened into thick, solid sludge. We’ve extracted many fossils from this site, such as that Buttosaurus skeleton on display over there. It is one of an entire genus of large-butted, vicious flesh-eating dinosaurs. Nobody knows how deep the pit goes, or what else might be trapped down there, preserved forever by the tar. . . .”

  Darren’s mind wandered, imagining the ancient swamp and its spectacular wildlife. All the excitement and activity had given him an appetite. Throughout the tour, Darren had been munching on nuts and pretzels that he’d bought from a vending machine. But the salty snacks had made him super thirsty. When he tried to slip off to the water fountain, Ms. Priscilly stopped him in his tracks. “No leaving the class!” Darren tried to explain, but Ms. Priscilly was clearly down to her last nerve.

  “Pssst,” he whispered to Andy. “I’m dying here. You got anything to drink?”

  “What happened to your water bottle?” Andy whispered back.

  “I drank it all already.” Darren licked his lips, but his mouth felt as dry as the fossilized bones. “Guess I should’ve saved some for later.”

  “I’ve got half a root beer left.” Andy fished a plastic soda bottle out of his backpack. “It’s mostly backwash, but help yourself.”

  Root beer?

  Darren eyed the bottle nervously. Ever since he’d eaten those radioactive burritos a few weeks ago, his digestive system had been touchy—to say the least. The burritos had given him and his friends Tina, Walter, and Juan-Carlos super fart powers that they were only just learning to control. His gassy insides hadn’t acted up in a while, but he’d been especially careful to steer clear of sodas just to be safe. Maybe a root beer wasn’t such a good idea, especially after the bumpy bus ride.

  But then again, he was really thirsty.

  How much harm could one sip of root beer really do?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Well, one little sip turned into a big, long gulp. Before Darren knew he’d done it, the entire bottle was empty. Almost immediately, Darren could feel the soda churning. His stomach rumbled like a dormant volcano on the verge of waking up. Gas expanded inside him. His butt had to clench tight to hold it in.

  Just keep calm, he told himself. He knew from experience that spazzing out only ended up in explosive results. Maybe if he just kept cool the brewing eruption would subside. He grimaced and clutched his stomach. I can do this. I can control it.

  “You okay?” Andy asked.

  “I’m fine,” Darren fibbed. “Just a little carsick from the ride here.”

  Andy had no idea just how powerful Darren’s gas had become. Darren hated hiding his secret from his friend, but it wasn’t just his secret to share. There was the rest of the Fart Squad to consider, too. None of them wanted to be famous for being able to make superpowered stinks.

  “And that’s the story of the Buttzville Tar Pit,” Professor Paleo said, concluding his lecture. “Any questions?”

  Harry Buttz raised his hand. His designer clothes and haircut advertised how rich and important his family was. “Yeah. When is this dump shutting down again?”

  “Shutting down?” Darren asked.

  “That’s right,” Harry said with a smirk. “My dad is already planning to buy the property and turn it into a hangar for his private jet.”

  Darren figured Harry had to be making a bad joke. The museum was priceless.

  “Is it true?” Darren was the first to ask.

  “I’m afraid so, Darren,” the old curator said sadly. “Attendance isn’t what it used to be. I’m not sure how much longer we can stay in business.”

  D
arren glanced around. He hadn’t noticed before, but now he saw that the museum looked a little shabby and run-down. Peeling paint and rusty signs needed touching up. Weeds sprouted in the grass and between the paving stones.

  “See?” Harry said. “Told you!”

  Darren was crushed. What would happen to all the cool old fossils, not to mention Professor Paleo? And what about all the dinosaur bones that might still be hidden at the bottom of the tar pit? Now they would never be discovered!

  “That’s enough, Harry,” Miss Priscilly said. “Let’s just enjoy our trip. Everyone follow me. It’s time to go see what Buttzville was like more than a hundred million years ago.”

  The museum had a large domed auditorium where they showed 3D movies about the age of dinosaurs. Darren and the other kids filed into the theater and took their seats. They oohed and aahed as the movie started and the sights and sounds of a prehistoric swamp sprang to life all around them. Insects chittered and buzzed in the background as plant-eating dinosaurs fed on palm trees, ferns, and mosses. Winged pterosaurs circled in the sky. Sea serpents splashed in a lagoon.

  Ordinarily, Darren would be all eyes and ears, but the half-digested pretzels and root beer churned in his gut, filling his stomach with hot gas. He felt a volcanic blatt building inside him, just like he felt right after he’d first eaten those radioactive burritos. This wasn’t going to be just some silly little toot. This was going to be a monster fart.

  And there was no way he could hold it in much longer.

  “Excuse me!” Darren jumped to his feet and rushed out of the auditorium. “I need to get some air!”

  “Darren . . . ,” Ms. Priscilly yelled, but this time there was no stopping him. He rushed outside, careful not to run too hard and loosen the fart prematurely. The pressure was getting more uncomfortable by the moment. It felt like it was going to be a butt-blazer. He ducked in the decorative ferns around the tar pit, turned his backside toward Buttosaurus, and let ’er rip.

  A blaaatt louder than a foghorn sounded as a blast of stinky, super-heated gas erupted from Darren’s butt. The ferns around him crumbled instantly into ash. The fart was stronger and hotter than any Darren had ever loosed before. His butt burned like he had just pooped hot coals. Gulping, he spun around to inspect the damage, but what he saw was way worse than he’d expected.

  The heat of his fart had actually melted the tar pit, turning the thick sludge into a percolating pool of gooey black liquid. Bubbles rose from deep within the pit, and when the bubbles popped they let loose a rancid smell that made Darren’s eruption smell like roses by comparison.

  Uh-oh, Darren thought. What have I done?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Everybody came rushing out of the museum.

  “What was that?” Miss Priscilly said in alarm. “Did I hear an explosion?”

  “What happened?” Professor Paleo asked. “What’s that smell?”

  Darren wasn’t going to admit to farting, let alone to melting the tar pit with his fart.

  “I’m not sure,” he fudged. “I was just standing here, minding my own business, when the tar pit started bubbling.”

  “It could be a freak geothermal reaction,” Professor Paleo said.

  “Sounds right,” Stan said. He was the only adult who knew about the Fart Squad, and he knew how important it was to protect the kids’ identities. “That must be it.”

  The Professor peered at the melted tar. “But . . . for it to heat this quickly and to this temperature . . . It’s scientifically impossible.”

  “I don’t see another explanation,” Stan said.

  “That may be, but . . .”

  And before Professor Paleo could finish his thought, the tar pit bubbled and belched. The sickening smell increased. Miss Priscilly turned green. She tottered unsteadily on her feet. “Oh my,” she moaned right before she fainted.

  But the smell wasn’t the only thing rising from the pool of melted tar.

  “Look out!” Andy pointed at the pit. “There’s something stirring in there!”

  Everyone gasped and stared in shock as an actual, living dinosaur began to climb out of the pit. An enormous head rose from the tar with a roar. This wasn’t just a lifeless collection of bones. It was flesh and blood and huge teeth dripping with hot tar and saliva. A giant stepped out of the pit and shook its head and shoulders like a wet dog. Scalding-hot tar splattered everywhere. And then it raised its tail—and Darren was sure he could see it smile just a moment before it let loose with a fart 150 million years in the making.

  “Oh no,” Darren muttered. “The Buttosaurus, it’s come back to life.”

  “That’s no Buttosaurus,” Professor Paleo cried. “Its hindquarters are too muscular. No, I’m afraid this is a Fartasaurus. It’s a relative of the Buttosaurus and the most dangerous gas-passing animal that’s ever lived!”

  Panic broke out as the Fartasaurus used its upper forelimbs to clean itself off. Big yellow eyes looked around curiously.

  “Watch out, everyone!” Professor Paleo shouted. He backed away from the pit, only to slip on a puddle of greasy tar. His feet slid out from under him, his head thumped against the pavement, and he knocked himself out cold.

  “Professor!” Darren exclaimed, but his cry was drowned out by all the shrieking around him. Pretty much the entire fourth grade ran from the pit, with Harry Buttz shoving past everybody else to lead the retreat.

  But not everybody ran. Juan-Carlos, Tina, and Walter hurried over to join Darren. The Fart Squad was together again.

  “Whoa, dude!” Juan-Carlos Finkelstein was too stunned to crack one of his usual bad jokes. “That doesn’t look like a fossil to me!”

  “Evidently this particular saurian was preserved in a state of suspended animation until the congealed asphalt liquefied,” said Walter Turnip, whose vocabulary was as big as his bulging midsection. “Or so I am inclined to speculate.”

  Tina Heiney got straight to the point. She looked like a petite little princess, but in this case, looks were deceiving. “So what are we going to do about this?”

  “I don’t know,” Darren admitted, but he knew he couldn’t just run away like the others. This was his fault. He’d never be able to live with himself if a rampaging dinosaur destroyed Buttzville. “We need to fix this. . . .”

  “You bet,” Juan-Carlos said. “What’s the point of having superpowers if you don’t get to save your town from giant monsters once in a while?”

  “Indubitably,” Walter agreed.

  “I suppose,” Tina sighed, snapping a picture with her phone.

  The Fartasaurus rose up on its powerful hind legs and sniffed the air. It was the size of a two-story building and had to weigh two tons at least. Jagged spines ran down its back and onto its tail. Its stomach grumbled and it licked its lips.

  And then without warning, it turned and smashed through the safety rail around the pit. The Fart Squad stared in horror as it stomped across the grounds of the exhibit, crushing benches and educational signs. Its tail swung into a dinosaur skeleton, smashing it to pieces. Fossilized bones clattered onto the pavement. An immense skull rolled past Darren. He had to leap out of the way to avoid being crushed. This dino is dangerous, Darren thought just as he heard Andy scream, “Darren, man, come on! We have to get out of here!”

  But Darren hesitated. He couldn’t run away. He was Fart Squad and Fart Squad never ran from a fight. But how was he going to explain this to Andy?

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to. “Andy,” Stan yelled. “Help me over here. We need to get Miss Priscilly and the professor to safety.”

  Andy ran to assist the janitor, who slid his lunch pail over to Darren and the others as Andy struggled to lift his teacher to safety. Stan nodded to Darren, before helping Andy carrying the unconscious grown-ups away from the rampaging Fartasaurus. It was up to the Fart Squad alone to deal with the ferocious F. Rex.

  Darren scrambled over to the lunch pail. He cracked it open, knowing already what was inside: four cold, radioactiv
e burritos.

  They were the product of the Buttzville Elementary School cafeteria. In Buttzville nobody ever dared eat the school’s bean-and-meat burrito special. Rather than throw them out, however, the frugal lunch ladies just reheated the burritos in the microwave again and again and again, week after week, year after year, for decades. Eventually, the beans and meat turned radioactive. So when Darren, Tina, Walter, and Juan-Carlos ate them, they soon discovered that the disgusting leftovers had given them amazing fart-abilities.

  And soon after, the Fart Squad was born.

  “From great farts come mighty winds,” Stan liked to say. He had been the one to teach them to use their new flatu-powers, and he’d been holding on to a stash of “special” burritos ever since, just in case the Fart Squad’s talents ever needed to be recharged again. And a rampaging fart monster seemed like just their kind of emergency.

  “All right, everybody,” Darren said, clapping his hands together. “Time to fuel up!”

  But before they could even unwrap the first one, Juan-Carlos screamed, “Watch out!” The four kids barely got out of the way as the lumbering Fartasaurus smashed through the museum fence and headed for downtown Buttzville. Cars and motorcycles crunched beneath its paws. A billboard advertising a new science-fiction movie smashed, splintered, and fell over. Men, women, and children ran from the berserk monster, which lifted a smelly Dumpster with its powerful jaw before spitting it out in disgust.

  “Somebody call Animal Control!” Juan-Carlos said. “That lizard is off the leash!”

  Walter watched in awe for a moment before gobbling down his burrito in two swift bites. Tina took a cloth napkin and silverware out of her backpack. She ate hers like she was having high tea with the queen, fingers out and perfect manners. When she was done, she burped. “Okay, that was kinda gross.”