Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder (9 page)

“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 that'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.

“Then let's get to it!” she yelled so they heard her almost to the end of the line. “No pushing, let the little ones in first, and have your money ready!”

THERE WAS STILL a line out there at seven o'clock when Nilly shut the gate, but they were totally out of powder.

“Sold out!” Lisa shouted, and said that anyone
who hadn't gotten to buy fart powder could come back tomorrow, once Doctor Proctor had made some more. And even though naturally a few people were a little disappointed, they quickly started looking forward to the next day. Because all the way down Cannon Avenue, you could already hear the farts banging and the laughter from the kids who had gotten to buy the powder.

“Phew,” Lisa said, flopping down into a garden chair once everyone was gone.

“Phew,” Nilly said.

“You know what?” Doctor Proctor said. “We have to celebrate this. What would you guys say to a little …”

“Jell-O!” Lisa yelled in delight.

“A five-foot-long Jell-O!” Nilly yelled, jumping up and down in his chair.

The doctor disappeared, but returned quickly with the longest Jell-O Nilly and Lisa had ever seen.

“I made this just in case,” Proctor said, smiling slyly.

And as the swallows drew strange letters in the evening sky over the pear tree, silence settled over Doctor Proctor's yard. In the end all you could hear was the smacking noise of three mouths devouring a four-foot-eight-inch-long Jell-O.

Truls and Trym Blast Off

WHEN LISA WALKED out her front gate the next morning, Nilly was standing there with his backpack on.

“Waiting for someone who's going the same way?” Lisa asked.

“Yup,” Nilly said.

Then they started walking.

“My mom and dad asked me what was going on in Doctor Proctor's yard yesterday,” Lisa said.

“Did you tell them?” Nilly asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Lisa said. “I mean, it's not a secret, is it?”

“Nooooo,” Nilly said hesitantly. “I just don't usually risk telling my mom about things I think are really fun. Because she almost always decides they're dangerous or naughty or something.”

“She may almost always be right, you know,” Lisa said.

“Yeah, that's what's so irritating,” Nilly said, kicking a rock. “What did your parents say?”

“Dad said it was just fine if I earned some money of my own, then he wouldn't have to earn it for me.”

“Oh? So then he didn't think it was dangerous?” Nilly asked, a bit skeptical.

“A little farting? Not at all,” Lisa said. They walked for a ways before Lisa added, “Of course, I didn't tell him about the fartonaut powder.”

Nilly nodded. “Probably just as well.”

“Anyway, I have an idea,” Lisa said.

“Well, that's definitely good,” Nilly said.

“Why?”

“Because you pretty much only ever have good ideas,” Nilly said.

“I was thinking that the fart powder doesn't really taste like anything,” Lisa said.

“It has absolutely no taste,” Nilly said.

“That's what I'm saying.” I mean, the farting is fun,” Lisa said. “But what if we added a flavor to it, so it tastes good when you eat it, too?”

“Like I said,” Nilly replied. “Only good ideas. But what kind of flavor?”

“Simple,” Lisa said. “What's the best thing you've tasted recently?”

“Simple,” Nilly answered. “Doctor Proctor's Jell-O.”

“Exactly! So what we do is add five percent essence of Jell-O to the fart powder.”

“Brilliant!” Nilly exclaimed.

“Brillll-yant?” they heard a voice say from right behind them. “Don't you think that sounds brillll-yant, Trym?”

“It sounds like gobbledygook,” said another voice, which may possibly have been even closer.

Nilly and Lisa slowly turned around. They'd been so excited that they'd forgotten to stop and see if the coast was clear before they walked by the house where Trym and Truls lived. And now the two enormous boys were standing there. They were sporting big sneers, each of them chewing on a matchstick, their jaws moving up and down in their enormous, barrel-shaped heads.

“Good morning, boys,” Nilly said. “Sorry, but we
have to hurry. Mrs. Strobe doesn't like her geniuses to be late to class.”

He tried to say it offhandedly and casually, but Lisa could hear in his voice that Nilly wasn't all that confident. He grasped Lisa by the hand and was about to pull her along after him, but Trym was blocking their way.

Truls was leaning against the picket fence, rolling the matchstick from one corner of his mouth to the other. “We didn't get any powder yesterday,” he said menacingly.

“You guys must have gotten in line too late,” Nilly said, and gulped. “You can try again this afternoon.”

Truls laughed. “Did you hear that, Trym? Get in
line
?”