Sweet Farts #2: Rippin' It Old School (Sweet Farts Series) Read online

  Other books by Raymond Bean

  Sweet Farts #1

  Sweet Farts #3: Blown Away

  Sweet Farts #2

  Rippin’ It Old School

  Sweet Farts #2

  Rippin’ It Old School

  RAYMOND BEAN

  Visit www.raymondbean.com

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2010, Raymond Bean

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 978-1-935597-08-7

  Interior illustrations by Ben Gibson

  Author photo by D. Weaver

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. They Call Me Farts

  2. Seven Weeks

  3. I Didn’t Mean to FAWT!

  4. Fart Boy

  5. That Was AWESOME!

  6. Company Meeting

  7. I Have No Idea

  8. We ♥ Farts

  9. No Pressure

  10. Show and Smell

  11. Anthony Goes Rogue

  12. The Family Business

  13. What Happens When You Don’t Eat?

  14. Welcome to the Fart Palace

  15. Grandma’s Room

  16. The Meeting

  17. Whatevoh

  18. Go Gooz

  19. The Talk

  20. Corn

  21. The Deal

  22. Nothing Good Ever Is…

  23. The Helen Winifred Show Pre-Interview

  24. Mr. Gonzalez Returns

  25. A Classic

  26. Do You Love It?

  27. The Helen Winifred Show

  28. The Thank-You

  29. In the End

  About the Author

  Sneak Peek

  Prologue

  I don’t care who you are, you’ve farted today. I know it, and you know it. Farts are the great equalizer. Kings, queens, presidents, and dictators fart. There are very few things in this life that we all have in common. We breathe, we drink, we eat, we poop, we pee, and yes…we fart. Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth. The sun rises every morning, the earth spins on its axis, and people fart!

  In fact, most people do it twelve to eighteen times a day. That means that every day on planet Earth humans lay somewhere between 84 billion and 120 billion farts! In number form that’s 84,000,000,000 to 120,000,000,000 farts per day. Good luck doing the math for a week, a month, or a year.

  What makes farting so unique is that it comes with a lot of rules. And depending on who you are and where you live in the world, farting can be a very complicated experience.

  There are times in life when farting is absolutely inappropriate and unacceptable in any form; just imagine if a person released a beast in the middle of a wedding ceremony! This would certainly not be taken well by the other guests. They would gasp in absolute shock, and the guilty party would be viewed as a monster, unfit for proper society.

  For the most part, people spend their lives trying to hold in their farts. They hold them in when they are in line at the bank, sitting in class, and riding in the car with friends. But when they are alone or with their inner circle, the rules change. For example, you would most likely not rip one off while standing in line at the public library. If one slipped out, however, and everyone heard, you would probably feel embarrassed, and people would give you The Look. You know The Look. You have probably gotten and given The Look. It is the how-dare-you-do-that, shame-filled glare that people direct toward someone they feel has farted at an inappropriate time.

  If, however, after checking out your books and getting into the car, you find yourself sitting next to your sister or brother, the rules change again. You might pull the cord and laugh yourself silly as your sibling suffers at the losing end of your stench.

  Farts have rules, lots of rules. I have worked hard and spent many an hour attempting to compile a thorough list of the complex laws that govern the world of farting:

  List 1: When It Is Socially Acceptable to Fart

  1. When you are alone.

  That’s it! You may only fart when you are alone. The world does not bend on this rule.

  List 2: When It Is Not Socially Acceptable to Fart

  1. Any time another human is with or near you.

  It turns out, the laws of farting, although seemingly complex and hard to understand, come down to these two simple rules: fart when you are alone, and don’t fart when you are around others. It seems so easy. The problem is that many people do not respect these laws. They spend their lives farting whenever, and wherever, they please. They drop the bomb in the classroom, they pop the bubble in the restaurant, they snap one off the bus seat on the way to school in the morning. They are the problem, and the question I must ask of you is this: are you one of them?

  CHAPTER 1

  They Call Me Farts

  “You guys seriously need to stop calling me S.B.D.,” I told Scott and Anthony. We were waiting in the lobby of the WRSEC radio station and I was pacing back and forth, biting my knuckle.

  “Keith, don’t be ridiculous,” Anthony replied sarcastically. He had been blaming me for his farts since fourth grade. “Your name is S.B.D. because you’ve earned it. You rip farts that are both silent and deadly. You didn’t drop all those horrific farts in class last year for nothing, did you?” Anthony was laughing as he spoke because he loved the fact that I had taken the blame for his school farting all this time.

  “Okay, you seriously have to not call me S.B.D. anymore,” I demanded. “I’m about to do a bunch of interviews with reporters from all over the world in a few minutes.” I spoke to him in a low voice since Anne, the woman from the radio station, was standing only a few feet away.

  “Okay,” Scott replied, still laughing, “we won’t call you S.B.D. anymore. Is that what you want to hear? How about we call you Sweet Farts?”

  “Awesome idea,” Anthony said, nodding.

  “Shhh!” I held my pointer finger to my mouth. “No, that is not an awesome idea.”

  Anthony and Scott were giggling as Anne approached. She had on a headset and held a clipboard in her right hand. “Are you ready to do this, S.B.D.—sorry, I mean, Keith?” She started walking down the hall and motioned for me to follow.

  “I think so,” I said, looking over my shoulder at Scott and Anthony, who were walking behind me, laughing their heads off. They were making ridiculous faces at me and trying to make me laugh, too. It must be nice to be so silly, I thought. These guys get to goof around all the time, while I have to be all serious and take care of business.

  When she reached the door at the end of the hallway, Anne stopped, her hand on the knob, and smiled a reassuring smile. “Okay, Keith, this will be just like we talked about on the phone. You will do about thirty interviews, one after the other. Once you get through the first interview you should be fine. The reporters will be asking you about your success after inventing Sweet Farts. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “I guess,” I replied weakly.

  “You guess? You had better do more than guess. These reporters are going to ask you a lot of questions, and you had better be ready. Just stay focused and think before you speak. We’re going to g
o in and sit at that desk.” She pointed through the window in the door. “I’ll be sitting right there next to you if you need me. Put on the headset on the desk after you sit down, and you will be connected to your first interview. You will be interviewed by one person after another. If you have trouble understanding any of the questions, I’ll be right there to help. Are you sure you’re ready?” she asked one last time.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  “You’re going to do great,” Scott blurted out as he slapped me on the back, then winked and smiled.

  “You’re probably going to mess the whole thing up, S.B.D,” Anthony said with a very serious face, looking me right in the eyes.

  “Why do you have to do that?” I asked. “I’m nice enough to bring you here, and this is the thanks I get?”

  “Sorry, Keith. Let me try again. You are going to completely…” he paused between each word to really make his point, “mess…this…thing…up! What I mean is you’re not going to do well.” His face broke out in a huge, sarcastic smile.

  “Don’t tell the guy that,” Scott said.

  I just shook my head in disbelief. Why had I brought Anthony here? I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

  “We need to go now,” Anne insisted.

  She opened the door, and I noticed that my palms were sweating like crazy. I rubbed them on my jeans as I followed her into the room. She sat down at the desk and motioned for me to sit next to her. The whole thing felt like it was happening in slow motion. Was I ready for this? Was I ready to interview with reporters from all around the world? I was about to find out.

  As I sat down, I put on the headset that Anne had handed me and immediately heard the voice of a woman. “Hello from Italy,” she said, with a faint Italian accent. “Before we start, I would like to personally thank you for inventing Sweet Farts. I must admit that I have a brother who farts so badly I sometimes want to cry. Thanks to your invention, when I see my brother, all I smell is bubble gum. I have a box of Sweet Farts shipped directly to his house once a month.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m glad you don’t have to smell your brother’s farts any longer. Bubble Gum is our newest scent. We have a few other scents that just came out recently, too. We now feature Tangerine, Cookie Dough, and Blueberry.”

  “I’ll have to go buy those and send them to my brother. Can you quickly explain how Sweet Farts works?”

  “Sure, without getting into the science behind it, you eat one or two scented Sweet Farts tablets and after about ten minutes you’re all set. If you have to pass gas, it will smell like the scent you ate.”

  “How has your life changed since you invented Sweet Farts last year?”

  “Actually, my life is pretty much the same. I play on my local baseball team. I spend a lot of time with my family and friends. You know, regular kid stuff.”

  “Be that as it may, I think you are the only ten-year-old who has created an invention that has changed the world like Sweet Farts has. Can you tell me what inspired you to try and cure the smell of human gas in the first place?”

  “Well, I had this problem at school. A kid named Anthony was farting every day in my fourth-grade class. He would do it really quietly and then blame it on me after everyone smelled it.”

  I could see Anthony through the window at that very moment. He was close enough to see me, but not close enough to hear what I was saying. He and Scott waved at me, and I waved back, flashing them a fake smile. Anthony held his nose and then pointed to me, laughing like crazy. I knew asking him to work with me would be a mistake. All he had done since I’d hired him was make my life more difficult.

  “I understand Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter about curing the smell of human gas back in 1781. How does it connect to your invention?” the woman asked.

  “Well, when I first came up with the idea to cure farts for my science-fair project, I was sent to the principal’s office. Then my principal told me about the letter Franklin had written. In it, he wrote that if someone could cure the smell of human gas, it would be the greatest scientific discovery of all time. So my principal made me do the experiment.”

  “I read that you had some help inventing Sweet Farts. Can you tell me a little about that?”

  “Sure. I was approached by a scientist named Mr. Gonzalez. He has a laboratory here in New York. He and his scientists helped me experiment and find the cure for bad fart smell.”

  “Do you still talk with Mr. Gonzalez?”

  “Sure, he even helped me set up my own company. My friends and I have a space in his laboratory complex for our experiments. As a matter of fact, I am meeting with him today after the interviews.”

  Scott and Anthony had tilted their heads to the side and closed their eyes, pretending to be asleep. Thanks, I thought. I’m working hard doing these interviews and all they do is make fun of me. The woman on the other end of the line asked me a few more questions before saying goodbye. That wasn’t so bad, I thought, taking the headset off.

  “That was great, Keith,” Anne said. “You seemed really comfortable. Only, try not to pay attention to your friends. They appear to be a distraction for you.”

  “That’s nothing new. They are always a distraction for me. It’s what they do,” I replied.

  Anne connected the next call. From there on it was a blur—one interview after another. All the reporters asked pretty much the same questions—“Why did you invent Sweet Farts? How did you do it?”—and they all thanked me for fixing the smell of farts. I guess farts are a problem wherever.

  I was feeling pretty good about myself as I started the last interview. A man from Japan was on the line, and he asked the usual questions. Then he asked me a question that took me by surprise. “So, the BIG question now is, what will your next amazing invention be, Mr. Silent But Deadly?”

  “I…umm, well,” I started. The problem was that I had been thinking of about a million different ideas and really had no clear plan for my next experiment. I was kind of stumbling around for an answer, and then it happened.

  Anthony opened the door to the interview room and stuck his head in. “Keith, don’t worry. We’re not going to call you S.B.D. anymore,” he said through his laughter.

  “Close that door, please. We’re in an interview in here,” Anne scolded.

  “Sorry, I just wanted to tell Keith that we aren’t going to call him Sweet Farts either,” Anthony added.

  “Okay, thanks, but this isn’t really a good time, you know, Anthony!” I pointed to my headphones.

  “Sorry—just wanted to let you know your new nickname from this day forth is officially Farts.” Then he whispered, “Good luck with the interview, Farts.”

  I thought I was going to fall out of my seat. “Did someone just say that your nickname is now Farts?” the man from Japan asked, obviously overhearing Anthony.

  “Yes,” I said, defeated. Through the glass I could see Anthony and Scott both holding up handwritten signs that read Hi, Farts. They were cracking up and pointing at me. “Yep,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief, “it looks like they call me Farts.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Seven Weeks

  As I walked out of the radio station I felt numb. Here I was more than a full year after inventing Sweet Farts, an invention I’d made so I didn’t have to deal with the nickname S.B.D. (Silent But Deadly) anymore, and I was in an even worse situation. I was suddenly Farts Emerson! To make matters worse, I had to come up with some kind of new amazing invention before the next science fair. My heart was racing and my palms were sweating all over again. I could see that Anthony and Scott were talking to me as we walked, but I couldn’t hear a word they said. I was officially freaking out!

  The limousine that had driven us to the radio station was outside, waiting. The driver jumped out to open the door when he saw us coming.

  “How did it go?” Mr. Gonzalez asked from inside the limo as he hung up his phone, tucking it into the inside pocket of his business suit. He was s
itting across from me, his back to the driver. Anthony and Scott jumped in and sat on either side of me.

  “Pretty bad,” Anthony blurted out. “Farts here kind of dropped the ball.”

  “First of all, don’t call me Farts,” I said. “Second of all, I was doing pretty good in there until you came bursting into the room and announced that you were going to call me Farts. The guy from Japan heard that, you know.”

  “Guys!” Mr. Gonzalez interrupted. “You really need to stop acting like goofballs and start taking this more seriously. You’ve had plenty of time to work on your next science-fair project, and I still haven’t heard what you guys are planning to do.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said. “I could really use a little help from you or one of your scientists, though. I am only ten years old, you know.”

  “Keith,” he began, “we went over this already. I gave you the space at my lab for you to continue your scientific experimentation on your own. You have the help of the scientists at the lab if you need it, but the idea must come from you.”

  “I’m not so sure I can come up with another amazing invention,” I admitted. There, I had said it. The cat was out of the bag. I was not cut out for this kind of pressure. There was no way I was going to be able to come up with something as amazing as Sweet Farts. So why even try?

  “Well, you are going to have to try, because you are scheduled to appear on The Helen Winifred Show the night of the science fair to talk about your next experiment.”