Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder (12 page)

As Nilly read, Doctor Proctor scribbled and sketched something on a scrap of paper he had had in his pocket, scratched his head with the pencil stub, mumbled a few passages in Greek, and then scribbled some more. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn't notice Nilly sighing loudly several times,
trying to draw his attention to how boring it was for a boy like Nilly to be locked up in a place like the Dungeon of the Dead for as long as it had been. Then all of a sudden Nilly stuck his nose up in the air and sniffed. “Do you smell that, Professor?”

The professor stopped and sniffed. “Nonsense. There's nothing to smell.”

“For those of us with sensitive noses, there is,” Nilly said, concentrating. “Hmm. Could it be French bread? No, farther east. Goulash? Farther south. Wiener schnitzel? Yes, I really think it must be. Fried in margarine.”

Right when Nilly said “margarine,” he noticed the professor's shoulders sink and a sad look come over his face. Nilly hopped up onto the professor's cot and peeked over his shoulder at what he'd been sketching.

“Nice drawing, boring colors,” Nilly said. “What is it?”

“An invention,” Doctor Proctor said. “A break-out-of-northern-Europe's-most-escape-proof-jail machine. With probability calculations for its chances of working.”

“And what do your calculations tell you?”

“Do you see that number?” the professor asked, pointing to a number that was underlined twice.

“Yes,” Nilly said. “That's a zero.”

“That means the probability of escape is zero. We're doomed.”

“Don't worry,” Nilly said. “They'll come let us out soon. Once they've done a little more investigating and found out that the fart powder is basically harmless.”

“I don't think so,” the professor said gloomily, rolling up his scrap paper.

“You don't?” Nilly responded. “Sure they will!”

“I wish they would,” the professor said, tossing his papers at the toilet but missing. “I didn't want to mention this before, but when they were questioning
me, the police made it pretty clear just what a pickle we're in.”

“Why? What did they say, exactly?”

“They said, ‘We can't send that little guy named Nilly to jail because he's a kid, but he's looking at at least a year in juvie.'”

“Well, jeez, that wouldn't be so bad,” Nilly said. “Maybe that would at least be a place with a band where I could finally do a little trumpet playing. What else did they say?”

Doctor Proctor thought about it, cleared his throat, and continued: “‘And you, Professor, since you're an adult, will be sentenced to up to twelve years behind these walls—or some other walls—and never be allowed to invent anything ever again. Got it?'”

“Yikes,” Nilly said. “That's worse.”

“A lot worse,” Doctor Proctor said. “I can't even bear to think about any part of it—not the twelve years, not the walls, and definitely not not being
allowed to invent anything. I have to escape.”

“Hmm,” Nilly said. “Where to?”

“To France. I have to find Juliette Margarine. She'll help me, hide me from the police, give me shelter. And Brie. And red wine.”

“But how?”

“On my motorcycle, of course. It just needs a little lubrication, and then it'll run like, uh, well, like it's been lubricated.”

“But how do we get you out of here?”

“I have no clue … or, wait a minute!” Doctor Proctor looked like he was lost in thought. “Maybe I made a slight mathematical error… .” He leaped up and snatched the crumpled papers off the floor, opened them up, smoothed them out with his hand, let his eyes run up and down the pages, mumbled something, and started immediately scribbling and calculating things again. Nilly watched anxiously. Right up until the professor crumpled the pages up again,
threw them over his shoulder, and started banging his forehead against the top of the little table.

“It's no use!” he sobbed, covering his head with his arms. “I never make mathematical errors!”

“Hmm,” Nilly said, placing his index finger thoughtfully on his chin. “This doesn't look good.”

“It looks terrible!” Doctor Proctor yelled. “What are we going to do now?”

“Now?” asked Nilly, who heard the sound of keys rattling, and sniffed. “It smells like we're going to eat fish cakes.”

AFTER DINNER, LISA went out into the yard. She needed to think. So she sat down in the grass under the apple tree that had no apples and rested her head in her hands. But the only thoughts that came to her were that the Dungeon of the Dead was completely escape-proof, and that Nilly and Doctor Proctor were goners. She burped a Wiener schnitzel burp and mostly felt
like crying. So she cried a little and as usual, crying made her very sleepy, so she yawned a little. And the afternoon sun shone on Lisa, and a bird sat on an apple tree branch and sang. But Lisa didn't notice any of it, because she'd fallen asleep. And when something woke her up, it wasn't the birdsong, but voices. The voices were coming from the other side of the fence. There were some people standing in the street talking.

“See that rickety old cellar door there,” whispered an adult voice she recognized. “I'm sure it's locked, but you boys won't have any trouble dealing with that.”

“Yeah, no problem,” said a voice that was even more familiar. “We'll just use a crowbar and pry it open.”

“A break-in!” said a third voice, and Lisa knew exactly whose it was. “How fun!”

She stood up and peeked cautiously over the fence. And there she saw the backs of three people who were peering cautiously over the fence at Doctor Proctor's house.

“Good attitude, boys,” whispered Mr. Trane's voice. “And once you're in the professor's cellar, grab all the fart powder and fartonaut powder you find. Got it?”

“Yes, Dad,” Truls said.

“Yes, Dad,” Trym said.

“And then, boys, you can sell the fart powder to the kids at school.”

Suddenly they turned around, but Lisa was faster and ducked.

“What about the fartonaut powder, Dad?” Truls asked.

“Heh, heh,” Mr. Trane laughed. “I've already talked to someone in the U.S., in Houston, who's very interested in an invention that can send people right into space without having to build a rocket.”

“Who? Who did you talk to, Dad,” Trym asked.

“NASA, you idiot,” Mr. Trane said. “Once we get our hands on the powder, I'm going straight down to the patent office to patent the fartonaut powder.
And then, too bad, mister nitwit professor, I'll be the only one who can sell the powder. I'm going to be a millionaire, boys!”

“Aren't you already a millionaire, Dad?”

“Well, sure. But with a few more million, I can buy another Hummer. And an indoor swimming pool. What do you say to that?”

“Oh, yeah, Dad!” Truls and Trym shouted in unison.

“Okay,” their father said. “Now we know how it's going to go down. We'll get the crowbar and ski masks and then tomorrow night, we strike! Heh, heh, heh.”

Lisa sat motionless, listening as she heard Mr. Trane's laughter and all of their footsteps fade into the distance. Then she leaped up and ran inside.

“Dad, Dad!” she shouted.

“What is it, Lisa?” rumbled the Commandant, who was lying on the sofa reading the paper.

She hurriedly told her dad about how she'd been
woken up from her sleep and had overhead the Trane family's plans. But as she was talking, a smile spread across the Commandant's face.

“What is it?” she cried when she was done. “Don't you believe me?”

“You never lie, Lisa dear,” the Commandant said, chuckling. “But don't you see that you just dreamed it all while you were sleeping, that you weren't actually awake? Mr. Trane and his family, breaking into the professor's house and stealing his invention?” The Commandant laughed so hard he shook. “Can you imagine?”

Lisa slowly realized: If even her own father didn't believe her, who would? Who could help her? And the answer was just as clear: No one. No one except herself.

The sun had just set and tomorrow, Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder would be in the hands of those three fishy fellas. And Lisa was the only one who knew it.

The Dungeon of the Dead

THAT NIGHT, A sound woke Nilly up. He pushed himself up and leaned on his elbow. In the darkness he could hear Doctor Proctor snoring from the other cot. But Nilly knew that wasn't the sound that had woken him up. For a second he wondered if maybe it wasn't the rumbling from his own stomach, because
they hadn't had anything to eat since those measly fish balls. But he dismissed that thought. Because Nilly had the distinct sense that he and Doctor Proctor were no longer alone in the cell… .

He stared into the darkness.

And all he saw was darkness.

But in the sole strip of light that filtered in through the keyhole, he suddenly saw something. A glimpse of white and fairly sharp teeth. Then they were gone again.

“Hey there!” Nilly yelled, throwing off his wool blanket, jumping off the cot, and running over to the door, where he flipped on the light switch.

Doctor Proctor's snoring had stopped, and when Nilly turned around, he saw the professor standing on his cot in just his underwear, as white in the face as he was on the rest of his body, and pointing at the animal that was now visible.

“It's—it's—it's a … ,” the professor stammered.

“I see what it is,” Nilly said.

“I—I—I'm scared to death of—of—of … ,” said the professor.

“Of that animal there?” Nilly asked.

The professor nodded, pressing his quaking body against the wall. “Look at the tee-tee-teeth on that beast.”

“Beast?” Nilly said, squatting down in front of the animal. “This is a
Rattus norvegicus
, Professor. A friendly, little
Rattus norvegicus
who's
smiling
. Sure, it's mentioned in a footnote in
Animals You Wish Didn't Exist
by W. M. Poschi, but that's just because it spreads the Black Death and other harmless diseases.”

The rat blinked at Nilly with brown rat eyes.

“I can't help it,” Doctor Proctor said. “Rats give me the shi-shi-shivers. Where did it come from? How did it get in here?”

“Good question,” Nilly said, scratching his head and looking around. “Tell me, Professor, are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

Doctor Proctor stared at Nilly. “I—I—I think so.”

“And what are we thinking?”

“We're thinking,” said the professor, totally forgetting to be afraid, and hopping down onto the floor and pulling on his professor coat, “that if it's possible to get into a place, it must be possible to get back out of the same place.”

“Exactly,” Nilly said, holding out a finger that the little rat sniffed out of curiosity. “So I recommend that we pay close attention to our rat friend when he heads home.”

The Great Escape