Fart Squad Page 3

  “Already on it!” Juan-Carlos said. “Time for a water landing!”

  A sign above the controls read DO NOT TOUCH! Juan-Carlos ignored it.

  He flicked the switch. Hidden motors hummed as the gym floor split down the middle, revealing the bright blue waters of the pool.

  “C’mon, Walter!” Darren shouted. “You can do it! Just point your butt in the right direction!”

  Walter rolled in the air, high above them. He tried to orient himself.

  “Very well,” he said nervously. “Wish me luck!”

  Then a supersonic fart sent him rocketing down toward the pool.

  Splashdown!

  A huge wave soaked Darren, Juan-Carlos, and Tina, but they hurried to fish Walter from the pool regardless. Dripping wet, he was even heavier than he looked.

  “Wow!” Juan-Carlos said. “That was a real power dive! You practically emptied the pool!”

  Walter looked like he was just glad to be on solid ground again.

  Darren’s sneakers sloshed. The gym was flooded. They were so going to be busted.

  “I’ll handle this mess,” Stan the janitor said. He appeared as if from nowhere, mop in hand. He winked at the kids. “You better make tracks before you end up having to answer some very awkward questions.”

  “Thanks, Stan,” Darren said. “But—”

  “Meet me by the janitor’s closet,” Stan said. “All of you.”

  Darren hesitated, wanting answers, but Tina tugged on his arm. “You heard the man. Let’s go—unless you want everybody to know your butt is a biohazard!”

  “Good point,” Darren said, heading for the nearest exit as he wondered what in the world Stan could possibly want to talk about.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I thought I smelled you coming!” Stan said.

  Darren and his new friends crowded into the janitor’s closet, which was stuffed with mops, brooms, and buckets.

  “Sorry about the smell . . . ,” Darren said. “It’s like these farts are supercharged or something!”

  “Is that so?” Stan seemed very interested in what Darren had to say. “Tell me more.”

  Darren explained how each kid’s farts worked. It was such a relief to be able to talk about the farts to someone outside the foursome. Walter could blast off into the air. Juan-Carlos’s farts were time bombs, going off minutes after he’d planted them. Tina’s were stealth bombs that made no noise but stank worse than a sewer explosion. And Darren’s burned like fire.

  “There’s nothing natural about these farts,” Darren insisted.

  “It’s the burritos,” Stan explained. “The lunch lady doesn’t like to waste any food. So ever since the burritos got their bad rap and kids stopped eating them, she’s taken to throwing the leftovers in the microwave every day. At this point, they’ve been heated and reheated so many times they’re undoubtedly radioactive. I wouldn’t be surprised if they glowed in the dark!”

  “So mutated beans turned us into mutant beings?” Juan-Carlos joked.

  “Something like that,” Stan said.

  “And you know this how?” Tina asked.

  “Just by keeping my eyes open,” the janitor said. “Trust me, I take out the trash every day, and the lunchroom has never tossed out any uneaten burritos.”

  “But nobody ever eats them,” Juan-Carlos said. “Unless they have to.”

  “We did,” Tina said. “Because the B.O. twins swiped our lunches.”

  “Wait a second,” Darren said. “What if the B.O. twins swiped our lunches because they wanted us to eat those toxic burritos?”

  “Actually, they weren’t all that unappetizing,” Walter said. His bulging stomach grumbled. “Is it lunchtime yet?”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Tina said. “We’re not peeling you off the ceiling again.”

  Juan-Carlos was still confused. “But what was the point? Why would they want to force people to eat bad burritos?”

  “I’m not sure,” Darren admitted. He felt like a puzzle was coming together, but he didn’t have all the pieces yet. “But I’m pretty sure it was Harry Buttz’s idea . . . and that he’s not done yet.”

  Tina raised her hand. “If we don’t eat the burritos again, will our farts go back to normal?”

  “Possibly,” Stan said, “but do you really want them to? Seems to me you’ve all been given some very special gifts. Smelly, but special.” His voice grew more serious. “You know what they say:

  “Er, I don’t think anybody actually says that,” Juan-Carlos said.

  “Think about the possibilities. The question is do you want to lose your new fart abilities . . . or learn to control them?”

  Darren remembered how he had bowled over the B.O. twins with a well-timed fart, saving himself and Andy from the bullies. And how he and the others had used their powers to clear the auditorium and get Walter off the ceiling. Granted, without the new fart abilities Walter wouldn’t have been anywhere near the ceiling to begin with, but still, their new “gifts” had opened up a lot of possibilities for them.

  “Control them?” he asked. “How?”

  “I can teach you,” Stan volunteered, putting on a rising-sun headband. “I can be your ‘scent-sei.’”

  “Good one,” said Juan-Carlos. “I wish I had come up with that.”

  Tina raised her hand again. “Sir, why you? No offense.”

  “I’m the janitor,” he reminded her. “Smelly stuff is my specialty.”

  Juan-Carlos shrugged. “Makes sense to me.”

  “Listen,” Stan urged them, “you’ve already proven that you make a great team. With a little coaching, you can become . . . the Fart Squad!”

  “But we’re not heroes,” Darren said. “Why would we need superpowers? It’s not like there are any real bad guys around.”

  Stan shook his head in disbelief. “Are you sure about that?”

  Darren thought of Harry Buttz and B.O., who he was pretty sure were up to no good. There were the stolen lunches, after all, and the way Harry and the twins had tried to sneak into the school basement afterward. They were after something, but what? Did it have to do with the Buttz family curse—and the missing pages?

  “I overheard Harry say something to B.O. about ‘next time,’” he told the others. “I don’t know exactly what he meant, but I don’t think this is over yet . . . whatever it is.”

  “So maybe the Fart Squad needs to be ready,” Stan said.

  “For what?” Tina asked.

  Darren wished he knew.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Welcome to Fart Boot Camp!” Stan greeted them.

  The janitor used his keys to let them into the school. Darren usually hung out with Andy on Saturdays. He felt bad about ditching his friend on a weekend, especially after Andy had volunteered to help Darren with his report, but Stan had sworn the entire “Fart Squad” to secrecy. According to him, the fewer people who knew about them, the better.

  Stan had set up the gym to be a secret training center, with padded wrestling mats and even a trampoline in place. A tray of freshly microwaved burritos waited on top of a wheeled cart. Stan must have raided the lunchroom freezer. Darren tried not to think about how old the burritos might be.

  “Time to power up!” Stan said. “Dig in!”

  Walter, Juan-Carlos, and Tina helped themselves to the greasy “fuel,” but Darren held back. He was having second thoughts about this whole Fart Squad business. True, superfarts might come in handy from time to time. But now that his flaming farts were starting to cool off a little, he was reminded of how nice it feels to have a burn-free butt.

  “Who wants to go first?” Stan asked.

  Juan-Carlos volunteered. “Just watch me, boys and girl. I’m cookin’ with gas!”

  He paused, waiting for a laugh that failed to come.

  “Gas, get it?” he asked.

  “I’m sure they did, Juan-Carlos. You can work on your comedy later,” Stan said. “Or not,” he added under his breath. Stan marked an X o
n the floor with chalk. “Why don’t you plant a stink bomb here . . . and see if you can keep it from going off for a full ten seconds?”

  “You bet,” Juan-Carlos said, taking his place on the X. He concentrated hard, then hurried away before the stink bomb went off. Stan took out a stopwatch. He counted down the seconds.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one . . .”

  Nothing happened. Nobody heard or smelled anything nasty.

  “You laid a dud, dude,” Walter teased. “To use the vernacular.”

  “I farted, I swear,” Juan-Carlos insisted. “Cross my heart . . . and my butt!”

  Stan strolled over to the X to investigate—just as a stink bomb went off—five seconds late. He was knocked off his feet by force of the fart.

  “Whew!” he said. “That was a ripe one!”

  Darren and Walter helped Stan to his feet. He wiped the tears from his eyes.

  “I think you need a little more practice,” the janitor said. “Timing is everything, especially where farts are concerned!”

  “Tell me about it,” Juan-Carlos said, blushing.

  Tina raised her hand. “Let me go next, please.”

  Juan-Carlos stepped aside. “Go for it, Tiny.”

  “Tina,” she corrected him. “Don’t call me Tiny.”

  “I don’t know,” Juan-Carlos joked. “You look pretty tiny to—”

  A silent fart knocked him out. He collapsed onto a mat.

  Darren stared at the petite little princess. “That was an accident, right?”

  “Totally,” she said sweetly. “Sorry.”

  They all backed away from her, just to be safe. Stan had to dump a bucket of water over Juan-Carlos’s head to wake him up.

  Stan eyed Tina warily. She seemed so harmless, and yet . . .

  “On second thought,” he said, “maybe we should give Walter some flight practice now.”

  Stan fitted Walter with a crash helmet and tied a safety rope around him so they could pull him back to earth if necessary. The rest of the squad helped push the trampoline to the center of the floor.

  “All right,” Stan declared. “You’re prepped for takeoff. Fart, fart, and away!”

  Walter polished off another burrito, then let loose with a jet of gas that lifted him off the floor. For a moment, it looked like he was going to slam headfirst into the ceiling, but he changed course at the last second. He zipped around overhead like a hot-air balloon gone berserk.

  “Try to control your flight,” Stan coached him. “Nice smooth circles!”

  But Walter was spinning and looping and zigzagging wildly above them. He grabbed frantically for a basketball hoop to anchor himself, but missed. Noisy farts propelled him every which way.

  “Oh dear!” he shrieked. “I suspect I should not have indulged in that second burrito!”

  Darren chased after the dangling safety rope. “Don’t worry! We’ll pull you down!”

  He grabbed the rope, hoping to reel the flying kid in, but Walter’s farts had more lift than he’d expected. Before he knew it, Darren took flight as well.

  “Hang on, Darren!” Tina yelled. “Don’t let go!”

  She, Juan-Carlos, and Stan pushed the trampoline back and forth across the floor, trying to keep it under their airborne friends. Darren gulped when he looked down and saw how far up he was.

  “Get us down!” he yelled at Walter. “This is crazy!”

  “I’m endeavoring to do just that!” Walter yelled.

  The extra weight began to drag Walter down. Darren pulled himself up the rope so that more of it dangled below him. Stan and the other kids grabbed the rope and pulled Darren and Walter toward the trampoline. Darren waited until it was directly beneath him, then let go of the line.

  “AAAAAAA!” he screamed as he fell.

  He hit the trampoline and bounced off it onto the floor. The mats cushioned his crash landing . . . a little. His poor butt was going to be black and blue, on top of being burnt.

  “Don’t just sit there!” Tina called. “Help us get Walter down!”

  Working together, Stan and the squad finally managed to tug Walter safely down. Juan-Carlos borrowed a barbell from the gym storeroom to weigh down Walter so that he wouldn’t take off again.

  “Don’t be discouraged,” Stan told Walter. “You just need more practice.”

  “Wonderful,” Walter said glumly. “I can scarcely wait.”

  Now it was Darren’s turn. Stan noticed that Darren hadn’t tried the burritos yet.

  “What’s the matter, Darren?” the janitor asked gently. “Is there a problem?”

  “I’m not sure about this,” Darren confessed. “You don’t realize how hot my farts get.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Stan said. “You’ve always had plenty of energy to burn. But the Fart Squad needs you, Darren. You’re a born leader. I can tell. Just look at how you rushed to help Walter earlier.”

  Darren appreciated the pep talk, but he was still uneasy. “But what if my farts are too hot to handle?”

  “All the more reason to find out just how scorching they can get,” Stan said. He wheeled the cart of burritos toward Darren. “These have gone cold. Let’s see if you can reheat them.”

  “Um, we’re not going to have to eat them afterward, are we?” Juan-Carlos asked. “’Cause I think I’m allergic to fart-cooked food.”

  “Don’t worry,” Stan said. “There are plenty more where these came from.” He stuck a cooking thermometer into the cold burritos. “Go ahead, Darren. Bake those beans.”

  Darren didn’t want to let the others down. He forced down half a cold burrito and turned his backside toward the rest. His stomach started gurgling right away. He felt the hot gas building inside his gut.

  “Watch out!” he warned. “Fire in the hole!”

  A volcanic fart erupted through the seat of his jeans. He tried to control it, but it was like a blowtorch. The thermometer blew its top. Overheated burritos exploded, spraying beans everywhere. Goopy burrito guts were splattered over everyone’s hair and clothes. Even Tina was a mess.

  “Nooooooooooooooooo!” she exclaimed in horror. “I’ve been burrito’d!”

  “I’m sorry!” Darren shouted. “I told you I couldn’t control it!”

  Darren surveyed the damage. Thanks to him, his new friends looked like they had just gone swimming in vomit, there was a gaping hole in his pants, and he’d made a giant fool out of himself.

  Not exactly the picture of a future leader.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So where were you on Saturday?” Andy asked. “I thought I was going to help you with your report?”

  “Um, my folks grounded me,” Darren fibbed. It was recess, and they were catching up in the school yard. Darren felt bad about lying to his friend, but what else could he do? “Thanks for offering, though.”

  “Get ready to thank me some more,” Andy said, bubbling over with excitement. “Guess what? I found the missing pages from that old book on the Buttz family!”

  Darren couldn’t believe his ears. “Really?”

  “Yep!” Andy couldn’t wait to fill him in. “I searched around online and finally found some scans of another copy of the book.” He pulled the printouts from his backpack. “It’s all here—everything about the curse and the cure and what happened next.”

  Darren was too impatient to read through the pages. “Tell me!”

  “Okay,” Andy said. “As you know, legend has it that the Buttzes’ never-ending itch goes way, way back. But generations ago, Harry’s great-great-not-sure-how-many-greats grandfather, Scabious Buttz, forged the Golden Scratcher, a magical golden butt scratcher that brought them some relief. The catch? There’s only so much itchiness the Scratcher can handle before it gets overloaded, like a dam that’s holding back too much water. At a certain point, people got worried that the Scratcher was on the verge of spilling all that concentrated itchiness all over Buttzville, so concerned citizens stole the Scratcher and buried it in a
swamp where they were sure nobody would ever find it. But guess where the town eventually built the new elementary school?”

  “Right on top of the Scratcher,” Darren realized.

  “Bingo,” Andy said. “At least according to the legend, that is.”

  That’s what Harry is looking for in the basement, Darren realized, putting more of the pieces of the puzzle together. Harry was determined to cure his itchy behind, no matter the risk to the town. But where did the bad burritos and stolen lunches fit in? Darren felt like he was still missing something.

  The lunch bell rang and they headed inside, only to find a crowd of hungry kids tugging at the door to the coatroom. Miss Priscilly stood by helplessly, looking overwhelmed.

  “What is it?” Darren asked, his stomach grumbling. “What’s the matter?”

  “Somebody superglued the lock shut,” Bootsie said, eager to be the bearer of bad news. “Nobody can get to their lunch boxes!”

  “That sucks,” Andy said to Darren. “Looks like we’re all going to have to try the lunchroom special today.”

  Darren’s jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh,” he exclaimed.

  Suddenly, it all made sense, sorta. This was what Harry had wanted to do all along, to get the entire school so farty, they’d be forced to evacuate the building, so that he could get to the basement and dig up the Golden Scratcher.

  “Uh-oh,” Darren gasped. “This isn’t good.”

  The very idea of Harry getting his hands on the Scratcher made Darren’s stomach churn. Harry’s itchy butt might be enough to push the Scratcher over the edge and to flood the entire town with never-ending itches!

  Darren thought about melting the glue with a volcanic fart, but after what happened with the beans, that didn’t seem like a good idea. Even if he didn’t scorch all the lunches by accident, who would want to eat food that had been farted on?