Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder Read online

  WHEN THEY GOT back to Doctor Proctor’s yard, the professor was sitting on the bench, reviewing everything as he jotted some things down and did some calculations on a piece of paper. Nilly looked at all the numbers and squiggles. This math wasn’t quite so simple.

  “With the new formula the effect of the powder is seven times stronger,” Proctor said in his heavy accent. “That’s why I said you should use the teaspoon, not the tablespoon.”

  Nilly shrugged. “It worked out fine. The fart ended when I was on my way down, just as I reached the roof of your house.”

  “Hmm,” the professor said, looking at the numbers. “But I’m puzzled about why you took off like a rocket.”

  “It was a looong fart,” Nilly said. “It was like sitting on a column of air that was pushing me up. And it was the same column that slowed me down on the way back down, too.”

  “Hmm,” the doctor said, scratching his chin. “Because of the new formula, the powder seems to have a much longer reaction time. Interesting.”

  “Maybe we should go back to the original formula,” Lisa suggested hesitantly.

  “I suppose you’re right, Lisa,” the doctor said. “It would be dangerous to sell this powder mixture to children. Or adults, for that matter.”

  “I’ve got it,” Nilly said. “We make two kinds of powder. A Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder that we sell to all the kids for Independence Day. And a Doctor Proctor’s Rather Special Rocket Mixture that we don’t sell to anyone. That we just do some tiny little tests with here in the yard.”

  Doctor Proctor didn’t look like he liked the last part of the idea that much.

  “Just every once in a while, I mean,” Nilly said. “When we’re really super bored.”

  Doctor Proctor still looked like he didn’t like the idea.

  “Or,” Lisa said, “we could sell it to NASA.”

  “NASA?” Nilly and Doctor Proctor asked in unison.

  “The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration,” Lisa said without tripping over a single syllable. “They’re the ones who send astronauts into space. My dad said it costs more to build one small spaceship than all of Akershus Fortress put together. Just think how happy they’ll be when they find out you can send astronauts up without a spaceship.”

  “Hmm,” Doctor Proctor said. “Interesting.”

  “And maybe we could do something about the name of the rocket powder too,” Lisa said. “What about Doctor Proctor’s Fartonaut Powder?”

  “That’s it, Lisa!” Nilly yelled. “You’re a genius!”

  “Excellent,” Doctor Proctor said. “This calls for a celebration ….”

  And while Doctor Proctor shuffled into the house to get the other two-foot-long portion of the Jell-O he’d made, Lisa beamed. Because it’s always nice to be praised when you’ve been extra clever.

  Nilly Gets Tricked, and Juliette Margarine

  THE NEXT DAY, rumors started flying on the playground. About a powder that makes you fart louder than you ever have before. And you didn’t even have to try hard. And best of all: There was absolutely no smell. Supposedly the bang was louder than thirteen firecrackers, three cherry bombs, and a half stick of dynamite put together, and cost less than a bottle of soda pop. Plus it was totally harmless and was totally legal. In short, the kids at school thought it was too good to be true.

  But none of them knew where they could get ahold of this powder. They only knew that Lisa and Nilly, that new little fourth grader with the red hair, knew everything they didn’t know.

  And Lisa and Nilly wouldn’t say anything.

  The other kids nagged them between each class, but Lisa just smiled slyly while Nilly said things like “I wonder what the weather’s going to be like tomorrow.” Or, “I hear it’s going to be spaghetti and meatballs for lunch in the cafeteria today.”

  During recess Truls and Trym came over to Nilly and Lisa, who were standing by the drinking fountain.

  “Well, pip-squeaks,” Truls said, towering over them. “What’s all this we’re hearing about some new powder? Spit it out.”

  Nilly raised his head and peered up at them, shielding his eyes: “I do believe I can just make out two specimens of Idiotus Colossus. Interesting.”

  “What did you call us?” Truls asked, moving a step closer. Lisa automatically stepped back, but Nilly didn’t budge.

  “Idiotus Colossus,” he said, smiling. “A dinosaur that lived in the seventeenth century. Very strong and very big. I wouldn’t be insulted if I were you.”

  “Oh?” Truls said, squeezing one eye shut so that he looked like a one-eyed troll. “How strong, huh?”

  “Unbelievably strong,” Nilly said. “Idiotus Colossus had so many tons of muscles that it was known to have the smallest brain in history in proportion to its body weight.”

  “Hey!” Trym yelled at Truls. “That dwarf just said ‘small brain’!”

  “Hey!” Truls yelled at Nilly, grabbing hold of his shirt collar. “You said ‘small brain.’”

  Nilly sighed. “You guys need to listen more carefully. Idiotus Colossus actually had a brain that’s three times the size of your two brains combined. But that’s still a small brain in proportion to eighty tons of muscles. Get it? It’s simple math.”

  Truls and Trym looked at each other uncertainly.

  “Enough brain talk,” Truls said, letting go of Nilly’s collar. “Where’s the powder, Mr. Tinypants.”

  Nilly looked around cautiously. “Okay,” he whispered. “Since we’re practically neighbors, you guys can find out what no one else knows.”

  Truls and Trym moved in closer to hear what Nilly said.

  “Tomorrow, here by the drinking fountain,” Nilly whispered. “Lisa and I are going to tell all the kids at school everything you guys need to know. But only you guys know this. Okay? Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Cross my heart,” Trym said.

  Truls looked at Nilly as if there was something he didn’t really like, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. And luckily, before he managed to, the bell rang.

  That afternoon, Lisa, Nilly, and Doctor Proctor planned and prepared until sundown. They made a sign to put on the gate so that everyone could find the sale, set up the table with a cash box and change, and got the fart powder ready. They filled little plastic bags with one tablespoon of powder from the mason jar of Doctor Proctor’s Totally Normal Fart Powder and decided to sell them for fifty cents apiece. Although Lisa and Nilly had said that Doctor Proctor should keep the money, the doctor had insisted that they should split what they earned three ways.

  “Make sure you don’t take it from the wrong mason jar and put fartonaut powder into the bags instead,” Doctor Proctor chuckled.

  “No way,” said Nilly, who was responsible for putting one teaspoon of the special-formula fartonaut powder into three different envelopes that just needed stamps, since Lisa had already written on them: To NASA. United States of America. Keep out of reach of children. Above the big pear tree they could see the swallows doing acrobatic dives and swoops to pick up insects for their supper before it got dark.

  “What are you guys going to do with your share of the money?” Lisa asked.

  “I’m going to buy myself a uniform so I can play in the school band,” Nilly said.

  “I’m going to drive my motorcycle to Paris with the sidecar,” Doctor Proctor said. “What about you, Lisa?”

  “I’m going to buy an airplane ticket to Sarpsborg and visit Anna,” she said. “If we get that much, I mean.”

  Doctor Proctor laughed. “If not, you can have my third. There’s no hurry for my trip to Paris.”

  “My third too,” Nilly said. “I’m sure my mom can sew a band uniform for me.”

  “Thanks,” Lisa said, feeling so happy that her cheeks turned red. Not just because she realized that now she was sure to get enough money to visit Anna, but because she realized that Doctor Proctor and Nilly were so nice to her because they liked her. Lisa liked being liked. Most people
do. But she noticed that she especially liked being liked by Nilly and Doctor Proctor.

  “What are you going to do in Paris, Doctor?” Nilly asked as he carefully poured powder into one of the bags and then taped it shut.

  “Oh, it’s a long story,” the doctor said, a distant look coming over his eyes. “A long, long story.”

  “Does it have anything to do with that picture that’s hanging in the cellar?” Lisa asked. “The one with you and the girl on the motorcycle in front of the Eiffel Tower?”

  “That’s right, Lisa,” Proctor said.

  “Well, let’s hear it,” Lisa encouraged him.

  “Oh, there’s not that much to tell,” Proctor said. “I had a girlfriend there. Her name was Juliette. We were going to get married.”

  “Tell us,” Lisa whispered eagerly. “Tell us, Doctor Proctor.”

  “It’s just a boring old story, I’m afraid,” Doctor Proctor said.

  But Lisa didn’t back down, and in the end Doctor Proctor gave in. And this is how he told it.

  “When I was studying chemistry in Paris many, many years ago, I met Juliette Margarine. She was studying chemistry too, and when we saw each other the first time, there was a … uh, ‘bang’! She was a brown-eyed beauty and I was … well, I was younger than I am now, anyway. And I must have had a certain charm, I guess, because Juliette and I started dating after just a short time. We were inseparable, like two oppositely charged particles in an atom.”

  “Huh?” Lisa asked.

  “Sorry. Like a magnet and a refrigerator door,” the professor explained.

  “Oh, right,” Lisa said.

  “Juliette and I were determined to get married when we finished school. But there was one problem. Juliette’s father, the Duke of Margarine, was a rich and powerful man who was on the board of regents for the university, and he had totally different plans for Juliette than her marrying a penniless Norwegian without a drop of blue blood in his veins. The day Juliette went to tell her dad that he couldn’t stop her from marrying me, she never came back. When I called, they told me that Juliette was sick and couldn’t talk to anyone. And especially not me. The next day, I got a letter from the board of the university saying that I’d been expelled from the university because of an experiment that went just a little bit wrong. Well, it’s not like it was any big deal or anything, just a nitroglycerine mixture that I happened to shake a little too hard, so it exploded and … well, caused a bit of damage. But that kind of thing happened all the time and it had been months since it happened, so I was very surprised. That night a phone call woke me up. It was Juliette. She whispered that she loved me and that she would wait for me. Then she hung up in a hurry. It wasn’t until a few days later when the police came to get me that I understood who was behind the whole thing. They gave me a letter that said that I couldn’t stay in France anymore, since I wasn’t going to school and didn’t have a job. Then they drove me to the airport, put me on the first flight back to Norway, and said I couldn’t come back until I was rich, noble, or famous. And since I’m not especially good with money and don’t have any aristocratic blood in my veins, I decided to become a famous inventor. Which isn’t that easy because so many things have been invented already, but I’ve been working day and night trying to invent something that is totally and completely new. So that I can go back and find my Juliette.”

  “Oh,” Lisa said when Doctor Proctor was done telling the story. “How romantic.”

  “You know what?” Nilly asked. “Doctor Proctor’s Fartonaut Powder will make you world famous. That’s for sure.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that,” the doctor said.

  They heard a grasshopper rubbing its legs together. It was the first one they’d heard that year, and it made them realize that summer wasn’t far off. Then they glanced up at the moon, which hung pale and almost transparent over the pear tree.

  The Big Fart Powder Sale

  NILLY STOOD UP on the drinking fountain so that all the kids could see and hear him.

  “Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder will be for sale up at the top of Cannon Avenue. There’ll be a sign on the gate!” Nilly yelled, even though it was so quiet that he could have spoken in a totally normal voice. “We’ll start at six and keep going until seven! No pushing, let the little kids go first, and no farting until you’ve left. Understood?”

  “Understood!” they all yelled.

  “Any questions?” Nilly asked. He glanced out over the crowd and saw a hand sticking up in the air way in the back. “Yes?”

  “Is it dangerous?” a small voice asked.

  “Yes,” Nilly said seriously. “Unfortunately, there is one thing that is dangerous about using this powder.”

  The faces before him got long, their mouths hanging open.

  “You might laugh yourself to death,” Nilly said.

  A sigh of relief ran through the crowd. The bell rang.

  “See you this evening!” Nilly yelled, hopping down from the water fountain. Several people clapped and shouted “Hurray,” and a murmur of anticipation rose from the crowd, which slowly dissipated, heading toward the different doors back into the school.

  “Do you think anyone’s going to come?” Lisa asked Nilly, who was whistling the national anthem to himself in satisfaction.

  “You should be asking if there’s anyone who won’t come,” Nilly said. “Didn’t you see the gleam in their eyes? You might as well go ahead and book that plane ticket to Sarpsborg, Lisa.”

  “Well, all right, then,” Lisa said, even though deep down she wasn’t so sure. But then Lisa was almost never totally sure about anything. That’s just the way she was.

  “Absolutely positive,” Nilly said, raising his hands as if he were playing the trumpet. That’s just the way he was.

  AFTER SCHOOL, LISA and Nilly ran home to complete the final preparations. After dinner they ran back to the doctor’s yard, where they found Proctor asleep on the bench. They let him sleep while they attached a sign to the gate. It said:

  They took the lids off the shoeboxes and cartons in which the bags of powder were neatly stacked and set them on the picnic table. Then they each sat down in a chair behind the table and started waiting.

  “It’s ten to six,” Lisa stated.

  “Excited?” Nilly asked, smiling.

  Lisa nodded.

  When it was five minutes before six, Lisa told Nilly that it was five minutes before six. The birds were singing in the pear tree. When it was six o’clock, Lisa told Nilly it was six o’clock. And when it was 6:02, Lisa looked at her watch for the ninth time since six o’clock.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked, worried.

  “Relax,” Nilly said. “We have to give them time to get here.” He’d crossed his arms and was dangling his legs contentedly.

  “It’s five after,” Lisa said.

  Nilly didn’t respond.

  At ten after, they heard Doctor Proctor grunt from the bench. And saw him blinking his eyes. And then suddenly he leaped up, exclaiming, “Good heavens! Did I oversleep?”

  “Actually, no,” Lisa said. “No one came.”

  “Yet,” Nilly said. “No one has come yet. Just wait.”

  At quarter past six, Doctor Proctor sighed almost inaudibly.

  At 6:20, Nilly scratched the back of his head and mumbled something about how kids these days weren’t very punctual.

  At 6:25, Lisa put her forehead down on the tabletop. “I knew it,” she whined.

  At six thirty, they agreed to pack up.

  “Well,” Doctor Proctor said, smiling sadly as they put the lid on the last box. “We’ll try again another day.”

  “They’re never going to come,” Lisa said, sounding choked up. She was on the verge of tears.

  “I don’t get it,” Nilly said, shaking his head.

  “Chin up,” Proctor said. “I’ve been inventing things no one wants for years. It’s not the end of the world. The main thing is not to give up. Tomorrow I’ll invent something th
at’s even more fantastic than Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder.”

  “But there can’t be anything more fantastic than Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder,” Nilly said.

  “I’m going to go home and go to bed,” Lisa whispered, and started walking toward the gate in the front yard with her head down and her arms hanging at her sides.

  “Good night,” Nilly and Doctor Proctor said.

  They sat down on the bench.

  “Well,” the doctor said.

  “Well,” Nilly said.

  “Maybe I should do a little more work on that time machine I started last year,” Proctor said, and looked up at the swallows.

  “How hard do you think it would be to invent a machine that makes Jell-O out of air?” Nilly asked, and looked up at the swallows.

  And that’s what they were doing when they heard Lisa’s voice from over by the gate.

  “You guys …,” she said.

  “Yeah?” the doctor and Nilly said in unison.

  “Someone did come,” Lisa said.

  “Who?”

  “You kind of have to come see for yourselves,” Lisa said.

  Nilly and the doctor got up and went over to the gate.

  “Good heavens,” Doctor Proctor said, dumbfounded. “What do you say, Nilly?”

  But Nilly didn’t say anything, because something extremely rare had happened to Nilly. He was speechless. He couldn’t utter a single word. Outside the gate there was a line of children that reached as far as the eye could see. At any rate, as far as you could see on Cannon Avenue.

  “Why are you guys so late?” asked the kid at the front of the line, a boy in a cap with the Tottenham soccer team’s logo. “We’ve been standing here for over half an hour.”

  Then Nilly finally found his voice again.

  “But … but why didn’t you guys come in?”

  “Because it says here on the sign, doesn’t it?” the boy in the Tottenham hat said. “It says that Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder is for sale here and nowhere else in the world.”

  “Yeah, so?” said Nilly, confused.

  “And here is here, right?” the boy said. “And not in there.” The other kids in line behind him nodded. Then Lisa pulled a marker out of her bag, went over to the sign, drew a line through HERE, and wrote THERE in capital letters.