Super Schnoz and the Booger Blaster Breakdown (5 page)

“How will we all meet up for dinner?” Dr. Wackjöb wondered.

“Dinner is on me, Aðalbjörn,” Pierre offered. “I will send Arnaud to your hotel at seven o'clock. You will all join me for dinner at Nourriture, the finest French restaurant in New York.”

“Does that mean we'll be eating french fries?” Mumps asked.

“We will have a
délicieux
three-course meal, beginning with
salade verte
and
la soupe à l'oignon,”
Arnaud rattled off. “Next, you will have a choice between
les coquilles Saint-Jacques à la Provençal, le saumon d'ecosse,
or
les filets de bœuf.
Dessert will be
la tarte fine aux pommes
or
crème brulée à la vanille.
I have arranged everything.”

TJ leaned over and whispered in my ear. “What's he talking about? That sounds like the most disgusting food ever.”

“I hope those words mean hamburgers, hot dogs, and pepperoni pizza in French,” Mumps said.

“I doubt it,” Vivian said. “But I think
bœuf
means ‘beef.' Sorry, there's no way I'm eating a dead animal. I'm a strict vegetarian.”

Just then, a bunch of people carrying notebooks and iPads burst into the gallery. They were dressed in normal-looking street clothes, not fancy tuxedoes and evening gowns like those that everybody else was wearing.

“Who are they?” Vivian wondered.

“Journalistes,”
Pierre announced. “They have come to interview the great Pierre du Voleur!”

Arnaud straightened Pierre's bow tie and plucked lint from his tuxedo jacket. The
journalistes
hurried in our direction, pen and notebooks poised for writing, iPads charged and ready to go. Just as the first reporter was about to ask Pierre a question, a flurry of activity broke out behind us. I turned around and saw a short man with thick, curly gray hair step into the gallery. He also wore a black tuxedo, but instead of fancy black shoes, he had on a pair of bright red Converse sneakers.

Jean Paul Puanteur!

The man, the myth, the perfuming legend was standing less than ten feet from me! I instantly recognized his face from the picture of him in my room. When the
journalistes
saw Jean Paul, they completely ignored Pierre and flocked to the creator of Strange.

Voices rang out.

“Jean Paul, look this way for photo!”

“I love Strange!”

“Tell us your secret of Strange success!

“Mr. Puanteur, give us a quote!”

“I have only one thing to say before I let my fragrance do the talking,” Jean Paul said in a deep voice heavy with French inflection. “Strange is as Strange does.”

A series of astonished
oohs
and
ahhs
escaped from the
journalistes'
lips, like Jean Paul had just given them the secret of the universe or something. The ones holding pens quickly scribbled down the quote. Others checked their iPads, making double sure they had digitally captured his words.

I took three deep snorts, trying to work up the courage to introduce myself, when Pierre's normally pale complexion suddenly flamed fiery red. “Jean Paul Puanteur is a fake, a fraud, and an
escroc
of the highest order!” he screamed.

Jean Paul looked up from the reporters and glared at Pierre. “Pierre du Voleur! Get that
crasseux
rat out of my sight! He belongs in the gutter, not a museum!”

Pierre lunged at Jean Paul, his fists curled and ready to fight. But before he could throw a punch, a burly bodyguard wearing dark sunglasses pushed him aside and escorted Jean Paul out of the exhibition hall.

“What was that all about?” I cried.

“You will know soon enough,” Pierre huffed as he and Arnaud tugged me toward an awaiting car.

CHAPTER 10

THE FRANÇAIS SCENT COMPANY

Before I snapped on my seat belt, Arnaud shifted the car into drive and sped recklessly through the city streets. Pierre's reaction to Jean Paul inside the museum had taken me by surprise. I was curious to know why he wanted to fight my hero, but I dared not ask him. The man had yet to calm down. His face was still as red as a cherry popsicle, and I could see a vein on his temple throbbing a million miles an hour.

After a wild ten-minute ride and two near-collisions, Arnaud skidded to a stop in front of a dingy-looking brick building.

“We are here,” Pierre said. “Follow me.”

An attendant opened the doors, and we walked inside. I knew from reading magazine articles that the perfume business was all about style, fashion, and making a great first impression. So, I was expecting Pierre to overwhelm me with an opulent lobby—perhaps a white marble floor, slick modern furniture, and a bunch of young assistants answering phones. Instead, the first floor looked more like the waiting room of my ENT (ear, nose, and throat) doctor's office. The carpet was an ugly, algae-green color. Four mismatched folding chairs sat against the wood-panel wall. Hanging precariously above the lobby attendant's desk was a fading sign that read:
Français Scent Company
—
American Headquarters.

Pierre and Arnaud ushered me into a creaky elevator. When the doors opened to the third floor, an unpleasant blast of artificial, synthetic scents bombarded my olfactory bulbs. The smells were nothing like the organic, natural scents locked inside Strange.

“Arnaud, show le Nez around for a moment,” Pierre said. “I need to make a quick phone call.” He then disappeared into a small office, slamming the door behind him.

“Pierre doesn't seem too happy,” I remarked.

“Monsieur du Voleur has good reason not to be happy,” Arnaud said.

“Why?”

“All of his best work has been systematically stolen by one man.”

“Who?”

“Jean Paul Puanteur.”

I couldn't believe my ears. Jean Paul Puanteur, the world's greatest scent artist, a thief? “Why in the world would he steal perfume ideas from Pierre?” I wondered aloud.

“The so-called darling of the perfuming world is an untalented
escroc.
That is why.

“What's ‘ace … crock' mean? I've heard that word used to describe Jean Paul twice today.”

“Escroc
means ‘crook, thief, trickster' in English. Let's not talk about Puanteur anymore. Just the mention of his name sends Monsieur du Voleur's blood pressure to
dangereux
levels.”

I kept my mouth shut while Arnaud gave me a tour of the Français Scent Company's perfume laboratory. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep my nose shut, because the place stunk to high heaven with dozens of yucky synthetic aroma compounds. I had sniffed the nastiest odors in the world—the Gates of Smell, hákarl, roadkill skunk on the side of the road—but a whiff of any artificial scent made my nose hairs recoil.

Still, I collected the fake musk for inclusion in my mental scent dictionary. My nostrils scooped up semi-toxic substances like musk ketone, musk xylene, galaxolide, and tonalide. I knew from reading that those chemicals were potentially dangerous to humans, especially galaxolide and tonalide.

“This is where the magic of the Français Scent Company happens,” Arnaud said, leading me through a set of double doors and into a large room.

The room was white and sterile-looking, a complete contrast to the dreariness of the rest of the building. One side of the room had long tables piled with hundreds of small brown bottles. Two bored-looking men and one equally disinterested woman wearing lab coats sat on swivel stools, dipping little wooden sticks into the bottles and then smelling them.

A vast array of chemical-laced aromas wafted in the air. My sniffer picked up scents like baked pumpkin, pomegranate jam, ripe papaya, banana peel, apricot, campfire marshmallow, and dozens of other imitation aromas.

“Are those people perfumers?” I asked Arnaud.

“They are my fragrance technicians,” a voice bellowed from behind me. “But compared to you, le Nez, their noses are about as useless as a skunk without stink spray.”

I turned and saw Pierre. His face was no longer red, and the throbbing vein on his temple had calmed to a normal pulse. Oddly enough, he was clutching a fancy gift bag with Jean Paul Puanteur's Strange logo emblazoned in gilded script.

“I created
Bête Blanc
—White Beast, my most popular perfume, in this very room,” Pierre continued. “It was the second most preferred fragrance of incarcerated females in the United States prison system from 2001 to 2003.”

“The number one most popular prisoner perfume of the time was Évasion by You-know-who,” Arnaud said.

Pierre shot him a dirty look.

“What's that huge machine in the corner?” I asked.

“A robotic mixer,” Pierre explained. “We use it to blend ingredients to create
new parfums.
I want your exquisite
nez
to sniff several new lines we are currently working on.”

“How do you capture the smells of natural, living flowers to use in your perfumes?”

Pierre chuckled and then shot Arnaud a sly look. “Le Nez, this is the twenty-first century,” he said. “We buy our scents from Khasabu Fragrance and Flavor International in India. They are the world's largest—and cheapest—synthetic scent manufacturers in the world.”

“Only fools like Jean Paul Puanteur use all-natural ingredients,” Arnaud added. “They cost a fortune and cut deeply into his profits.”

The word
escroc
flashed in my mind—crook, thief, trickster. I needed to know the truth about Jean Paul, but I could tell from the look on Pierre's face that this was not the time to bring up the subject.

“What do you want me to smell first?” I asked.

“I thought you'd never ask,” Pierre said. He then placed the gift bag he was holding on a table and pulled from it a very familiar-looking red bottle.

“Strange,” he said with a wicked smile. “I want you to smell Strange.”

CHAPTER 11

NEZ PROFESSIONNEL

“Why would you want me to smell Strange?” I asked, a bit confused by Pierre's request. “Don't you want me to sniff some of
your
perfumes?”

Pierre looked at his watch and then clapped his hands, getting the attention of the three fragrance technicians who were working at a back table.
“Madame et messieurs,
you can leave two hours early today. You will be compensated for a full day's work.”

“Thank you,
merci,”
the excited fragrance technicians echoed as they grabbed their jackets and hurried out of the lab.

“Arnaud, I need to speak with you in my office for a moment,” Pierre said. “Le Nez, we will be right back.”

A sudden quiet fell over the Français Scent Company. The events of the day replayed in my mind—the gondola trip from New Hampshire to New York City, landing on top of a skyscraper, the Art of Odor exhibit, and seeing Jean Paul Puanteur up close and personal. Now, less than eight hours after I had lifted off from Jimmy's backyard, I was alone inside a professional perfumer's laboratory. I still found the odor of synthetic fragrances a bit disgusting, but I was finally in a place where a kid with a big nose and a sense of smell like a dog was an honored guest instead of an object of ridicule.

The laboratory door swung open. Pierre strolled into the room followed by Arnaud, who was carrying a large sheet of paper in one hand and a fancy quill pen in the other.

“Le Nez,” Pierre announced. “I want to make you the richest nose in the world.”

“Huh?” I mumbled, flaring my nostrils.

“Show him, Arnaud.”

Arnaud placed an official-looking scroll of paper in front of me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“An employment contract,” Pierre answered. “I want you to work for me.”

“I already have a job. Every Sunday the Denmark Parks and Rec Department pays me a dollar for every pile of dog poop I sniff out that people have neglected to pick up. Dog waste left on the ground near the town's swimming pond causes pollution problems.”

Pierre laughed. “I am talking about a real job. In fact, one of the most important jobs in the whole perfume industry—a
nez professionnel!

I scratched my sniffer and thought for a second. Nez meant ‘nose.'
Professionnel
sounded a lot like ‘professional.' “Are you saying that you want to hire me as a professional nose?”

“Oui,”
Pierre said. “You will be a very highly compensated
nez professionnel.
Read the number at the bottom of the contract.”

I looked down at the paper, skimming through the boring parts until finally focusing on a number with a bunch of zeroes at the end.

“One million dollars!” I exclaimed. “Is this a typo or something?”

“It is no mistake,” Pierre said. “One million dollars will be yours.”

All the things I could buy with that kind of money tumbled around in my brain. Personal rock-climbing gym in my backyard. A brand-new, state-of-the-art underground hideout for Vivian, the Not-Right Brothers, and me. Custom-made Mardi Gras masks decorated with gold leaf. Pencil sharpeners shaped like big noses to hand out as gag gifts at school. Nuclear-powered nose hair clippers and an endless supply of high-grade cayenne pepper imported from Peru. The possibilities were endless!

But most of all, I could help my parents repair all of the damage to our house that my earthquake-like snoring had caused.

“Give me a pen!” I whooped. “I'll sign right here and now!”

“In due time,” Pierre said. “First, you will need to pass a smell test.”

“What kind of smell test?”

Arnaud placed a bunch of bottles of perfume on the table. I recognized most of them from the Art of Odor exhibit. Famous scents like Dracula Noir, Sticky, Appetite, Perhaps, and Mammal No. 5.

“I want you to sniff each perfume and then tell me the precise ingredients,” Pierre instructed. “A
nez professionnel
knows every smell in the world and is prized for his or her skilled and intelligent assessment of fragrances.”