Chapter 4 - Fart Stew
All the boys wanted to have a go at fart clouds after that. I told them it wasn’t going to work. Firstly, they’d all need to eat a horrible puffball fart-room. Then they’d have to wait hours before the fart cloud would work. By that time the’d all be at home. Tyler had a better idea though. “We need fart food” he said. Pani joined in “Yeah, fade may sum iggs and I’ll fort orl day”. Dordles joined in “Beans for me”.
We all ran into the kitchen. Mum and Dad had gone out so we could do whatever we want. I got a big pot out of the kitchen draw and put it on the stove. “Let’s make fart stew” I said “Dordles – grab the beans. Pani – get eggs. Tyler…..” I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Tyler finished it for me “Cabbage, soup mix and tofu” he said. He had the fridge open and was grabbing half a cabbage already.
They threw all the fart-foods into the pot and I stirred. “More beans” I said. Tyler and Dordles put more tin of baked beans in. “Here keep mixing” I said as I gave Pani the spoon. I ran out and picked two giant puffball puffball fartrooms from near the water tank. I washed the dirt off them under the tap and ran back into the kitchen. When I got back the mix was bubbling. I put the puffball fartrooms in while Pani stirred. Dordles had been writing down the recipe. This is what is said:
• 3 x eggs
• 1 x 3 x tins of baked beans
• ½ a cabbage
• 1 packed of soup mix
• 1 block of tofu
• 2 x puffball puffball fartrooms
• 5 tablespoons of TummyRight
After the mix had bubbled away for about 30 minutes we decided to give it a try. Pani scooped some out with the wooden spoon and tasted it. “OH, thus tastes bud as. Luts put sum sos on it ay”. I looked at him for a second while I worked out what he said. “Oh, SAUCE! – Yeah”. I grabbed the tomato sauce from the fridge and poured it in. It smelled awful.
We dished up the fart stew into 4 big bowls. Then we sat there eating it. It tasted bad. Really BAD. Really, really, really bad. If we didn’t all want to try out the fart clouds so much, none of us would have eaten it. But we all sat there with our faces screwed up shoveling it in.
As Pani shoved the last mouthful in his cheeks puffed up and he made a sick noise. Dordles was sitting next to him and dived under the table. Pani let out a big burp. BURRRRRP “No wirries Duddles. Jost a filse alarm.” We all laughed.
Mum surprised us when she walked back into the kitchen. She just got back from shopping. “I got you boys some yummy pies while I was out”. We all looked at each other. “Ah, no thanks Mum” I said. “We’ve all eaten.
We went to my room so Mum and Dad wouldn’t see our fart clouds. Dordles came out from under the table and came in last. He walked in playing his D.S and sat on the bed. Pani was spinning around in my chair. Tyler was climbing up the ladder on my bunk bed.
Tyler started to ask “How long do you think it’ll be before…” he didn’t get to finish. Pani let out a high pitched fart. It sounded like when you let air out of a balloon. “Ha, ha, har. That was a squeaker” Tyler yelled. A yellow colored fart cloud appeared from around my desk chair. “Hey. It’s yellow. It’s yellow.” He said all excited. He took a big sniff “Und, it doesn’t even stink” I started chuckling. As I laughed, I let out a heap of little farts its sort of went ‘HA -BRR. HA -BRR. HA - BRR. HA - BRR. BRR’. Light green clouds started appearing.
Tyler was next “BRRRRRRRRR”. His was a darker green. He laughed and waved his hand “PHEEWWWY”. Just then Pani smelled mine. “Hey, yours is bad”. I saw Tyler’s dark green fart cloud moving in Pani’s direction. Pani saw it too, but he didn’t move. He took a sniff. “Oh Tyler, yours are the worst.”
Dordles hadn’t said or done anything. He hadn’t moved. He just sat there playing the DS. While the rest of us farted and laughed he sat silent. Then I noticed something. My bedspread looked brown. It had a brown glow all over it. As I watched closer I saw a fart cloud lifting slowly from my doonah. I couldn’t believe it. Even Dordles farts were slow.
Dordles had done an SBD - a silent, but deadly. The thick, slow moving, brown, fart cloud lifted and filled the room. It was horrible. It ate the other fart clouds as it moved. Pani’s yellow one was the first to go. Then Tyler’s dark green ones, then my light green ones. It was amazing. My whole room had a brown cloud in it. Then I smelled it. It was horrible, gross and disgusting. It wasn’t as bad as the super-fart from the library, but it was still pretty bad. I stood there with my eyes bulging. The others looked just as surprised, but we must have all been thinking the same thing. “The worse the fart – the darker the color!” I said.
I knew right away what this meant. This was the answer I needed. A plan started to form in my head. I could feed everyone in the class the fart stew, lock them in a room together, and wait until they farted. The kid who had the darkest color fart would be the superfarter. Everyone would know I am not the super farter. I’d be the school hero. I stood there thinking about the kids at school picking me up on their shoulders. They’d be yelling “DANNY! DANNY! DANNY”. Mr. Close would shake my hand. The reporter from the newspaper would take a photo. The local firefighters, Mrs. Butcher and everyone would be clapping. Then I thought “PHEW! That stinks”. I opened the window and watched Dordles brown fart cloud fade and float away.
All day we kept talking about fart clouds. Then one of us would fart again. A fart cloud would pop out and we would all laugh again. I told them my plan to feed our class fart-stew, and that we could catch the super-farter. “Yeah” said Pani “I’d live to cutch hum.” We started to work the plan out. “We could do it at the half year school disco” Dordles said. I was amazed. Dordles had a good idea. No, not just a good idea, a great idea. It was perfect.
Ms White was planning our half year disco. Our grade was going to have dinner and a disco dance. It was going to be in the school gym. The whole class was helping with it. Katie Cook was cooking the food. Some kids were making decorations. Some kids were making posters. Pani, Tyler, Dordles and I were helping pick music for it.
The disco was the perfect place. But there was a problem. How could we feed everyone fart-stew? It was horrible. Nobody was going to eat food that tasted that bad. I need some way to make it taste good, but how? I needed help. I needed...Katie Cook.