Super Schnoz and the Booger Blaster Breakdown (12 page)

“Bayarma Juliette,” she answered. “My mother wanted me to have a Mongolian first name and a French second name in honor of my father.”

“Where is Sarantstral now? I must know.”

Before Bayarma answered, the sounds of gunfire blasted in the distance.

“Sorry to interrupt the father and daughter reunion,” I said. “But we came here on a mission. We need to think of a way to save those camels!”

Bayarma composed herself and then clustered with her crew. The horsewomen debated loudly back and forth with each other.

“What are they shouting about?” Jimmy wondered.

“Something about how they are
considérablement
outnumbered,” Jean Paul said. “It's been a long time since I've heard anyone speak the Mongolian language, but I can make out a few words here and there.”

Bayarma turned to us. “I am sorry to say that our cause is lost. The Frenchman …”

“The rat's name is Pierre,” TJ interjected.

“The Frenchman, Pierre, has at least one hundred heavily armed men. They are not Mongolians, but from different European countries.”

“He employs
criminels
from Germany, Spain, France, Austria, and even the United States,” Jean Paul said. “I saw their destruction firsthand in Venezuela when they hunted the bloated toad to extinction.”

A rush of wind whipped through the dry desert valley. I braced myself for another dust storm, but the breeze was clear of any dirt and debris. I inhaled a big gust, and my nostrils inflated to the size of a camping tent. My toes dangled above the ground. I let out a big snort and rose about twenty feet in the air.

The horsewomen took one look at me hovering in midair and ran to their horses like a herd of frightened sheep.

“Luu khamar nisdeg … luu khamar nisdeg!”
they shouted in Mongolian.

“What are they saying?” Vivian asked.

“Flying dragon nose,” Bayarma answered. “They think he has the powerful nose of a flying dragon.”

Mumps lifted his head and snickered through the ankle pain. “Give him some cayenne pepper, and Schnoz will be a flying dragon nose who breathes fire.”

“Schnoz, come back down!” Vivian shouted to me. “You're freaking these ladies out.”

I closed one nostril and drifted to the ground. “It feels so good to fly,” I said. “The wind is pretty strong right now. I can do a reconnaissance flight and see if I can locate Pierre and his men.”

“That won't do any good,” Jimmy said.

“Sure it will,” Dr. Wackjöb countered.

“No it won't. You heard what Bayarma said. Pierre has over a hundred men experienced in killing! They're probably carrying M4 carbines, MK13 grenade launchers, AR15 assault rifles, and a bunch of other military-style guns. We have six unarmed people, one of who is injured, and twelve tough women armed with swords, knives, and bows. I'd say the odds are pretty much against us.”

“But they don't have a flying dragon nose!” Mumps shouted.

Everyone looked at me. For the first time since becoming Super Schnoz, I didn't feel like a superhero. My dirty, shredded Super Schnoz costume hung off me in threads. The Mardi Gras mask disguising my nose was long gone.

“Jimmy's right,” I said, hanging my nose in shame. “I can still fly, but without any pepper to fuel my cayenne canyon, we'll never defeat Pierre and save the camels.”

“What do you need pepper for?” Bayarma asked. “And what is this ‘cayenne cannon' you are talking about?”

Vivian, the Not-Right Brothers, and Dr. Wackjöb spent the next five minutes explaining how I had crushed ECU and the Apneans just by using the power of my nose and a snuffler full of spicy pepper.

Bayarma's eyes grew wide with excitement. “You are coming with us,” she said, jumping on her horse. “If his big
khamar
just needs hot pepper to blow up army tanks and defeat aliens, then I may have exactly what you're looking for.”

CHAPTER 24

DANCE OF THE BUDDHA

The women helped us onto their horses, and we galloped across the desert. Thankfully, they had lots of water for us to drink. I wanted to inflate my nostrils and fly, but Bayarma asked me to share her horse, a fleet Mongolian stallion she called Od, which she told me meant Star in her native language.

“How do you speak English so well?” I asked as we scurried up a rocky embankment.

“I am fluent in Mongolian, English, French, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, and the slang of American hip-hop,” she answered. “I was raised herding cattle in the Gobi, but I graduated from Inner Mongolia University with a degree in foreign languages.”

“What about the other women? Do they speak English as well?”

Bayarma shook her head. “No. They have lived their entire lives as nomadic Gobi herders.”

We rode in silence for a long time. The only sounds were pounding horse hooves and blowing gusts of wind. A plume of black smoke rose from a camp in the distance. Bayarma let out a cry of despair, slapped her horse, and raced toward the camp like she was in the home stretch of the Kentucky Derby.

When we got there, the scene was one of utter destruction. Several yurts were ablaze, all of the animals were gone. Bayarma hopped off Od, clutched her sword, and examined the carnage.

“Mother, Grandmother!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Eej ni, Emee,
where are you?”

The other horsewomen frantically joined in the search for friends and loved ones, but there was no one. The place was completely empty of people.

“The Frenchman and his brutes have raided the camp and taken more of our mothers, grandmothers, and sisters to help find the camels!” Bayarma said, her face flaming with fury. “If we don't find them quickly, who knows what will happen!”

Vivian slid off her horse and ran up to me. “Schnoz, you're the only person who can help. We need to come up with a plan and fast.”

She was right. I didn't fly us across the world just to watch yurts burn. I walked up to Bayarma, grabbed her shoulders, and shouted, “Keep calm and smell on! We all need to have clear heads. You said something about pepper. Tell me more.”

Vivian, the Not-Right Brothers, Dr. Wackjöb, Jean Paul, Bayarma, and I powwowed around an overturned cooking pot. The tension and desperation in the air was so thick I could sniff it with a spoon.

Bayarma grabbed a cloth sack full of dried peppers about the size of a finger. “The pepper is called bird's eye chili,” she explained. “We use it in many Mongolian dishes.”

Vivian, Jimmy, and Bayarma each grabbed a handful of the peppers and then pulverized them to dust with a stone pestle and mortar. I quickly snorted up a wad, aimed my nose at a rocky mound, and let out a sneeze. The peppery blast that followed made my nose hairs dangle in defeat. Instead of blasting the rock to smithereens, the sneeze merely made two watermelon-sized indentions in its side.

“The pepper's not powerful enough,” I whined.

While I lamented about my weak, wimpy sneeze, Dr. Wackjöb grabbed a handful of the crushed peppers and examined them closely.

“We just need to enhance the capsaicin,” Dr. Wackjöb muttered.

TJ scratched his head. “What's capsaicin?”

“Capsaicin is the main chemical compound that makes peppers hot,” Dr. Wackjöb explained. “If only I had some
allyl isothiocyanate
to increase the naturally occurring capsaicin production.”

“Where do you get ‘all … ill … iso … thio … whatever'?” I asked.

“Allyl isothiocyanate is the oil responsible for the hot taste of horseradish and wasabi.”

Bayarma produced another sack and handed it to Dr. Wackjöb. “Do you mean this?”

Dr. Wackjöb opened the bag and took a whiff. His cheeks turned red and his eyes started watering. “This is the most powerful horseradish root I have ever seen,” he said, fanning his face from the heat. “Where do you get it?”

“It grows wild in certain areas of the Gobi,” Bayarma said.

“TJ, grab the pestle and mortar,” Dr. Wackjöb ordered. “You and I are going to try to make the most powerful pepper mutation known to man.”

Three of Bayarma's horsewomen approached me. They bowed politely and then tossed a bundle of colorful fabric at my feet.

“What's this stuff?” I asked.

“It's a costume from one of our
Tsam
dances,” Bayarma said.
“Tsam
means ‘dance of the Buddha.'” She rummaged through the fabric and yanked out the most awesome, freaky, scary mask I had ever seen.

“It's a dragon mask!” Jimmy exclaimed. “Try everything on.”

The mask was fiery red with huge golden eyes and pearly white fangs. Bright yellow feathers finished off the presentation. I carefully slipped finished off the presentation. I carefully slipped the mask over my head. The dragon's papiermâché snout fit perfectly over my massive beak. I then slipped into the rest of the costume.

Bayarma smiled. “Wonderful! You look like a Mongolian
Tsam
dancer.”

A hard squall blew through the camp. My nasal cavity inhaled the breeze, expanding my nostrils. I drifted steadily into the air. The dragon costume's red tail flapped in the wind.

“I'm off to scout for Pierre!” I yelled from up above. “When I find him, I'll be back, and we can start our assault. Hopefully, Dr. Wackjöb and TJ will have the pepper ready for me to blast them into the Stone Age.”

I sucked in a deep snoot full of air, pointed my honker toward the horizon, and flew off into the clouds.

CHAPTER 25

BATTLE OF THE BACTRIANS

After thirty minutes in the air, I finally sniffed out Pierre and his soldiers. They were in a dry desert valley, pursuing a panicked herd of wild Bactrian camels that were for the moment just out of firing range.

I sailed high above them, scoping out their operation. Jimmy's hunch had been correct; the militia carried powerful rifles and machine guns, and drove military-style jeeps and Hummers. Trudging behind the squadron were at least two dozen frightened Mongolian men, women, children. Thick ropes bound them together while four of Pierre's goons forced them to march.

“Bayarma's people,” I said aloud. “I bet her mother, Sarantstral, is one of them.”

As I banked left to turn my beak around and return to the gang, a round of gunfire blasted over my head, barely missing my nose. I looked down and saw a bunch of Pierre's men firing at me.

“What kind of ugly bird is that?” one of the men shouted.

“Looks like a big kite shaped like a dragon,” said another.

“Let's shoot that sucker out of the sky!” cried a third man.

A bullet clipped the end of my dragon's tail, sending a spray of yellow feathers and papier-mâché into the air. I sniffed harder, quickly flying out of firing range, and headed back to my friends.

Everyone was waiting for me when I finally landed. A million questions flew in my direction.

“Did you find them?”

“How many are there?”

“What about their guns and equipment?”

Bayarma rushed up to me. “Did you see my mother?”

“Maybe,” I answered. “They were forcing a couple dozen of your people to march with them. One of them was probably your mother.”

Dr. Wackjöb and TJ emerged from over the ravine carrying a large clay pot.

“Does the pepper work?” I asked.

“We don't know,” Dr. Wackjöb said. “You have to test it out first.”

I looked into the pot expecting to see a bunch of ground pepper. Instead, I saw a bunch of little brown balls the size of Milk Duds.

“What's this stuff?” I asked, scratching the end of my nose.

“Simply grinding both peppers and mixing them together did not change the levels of capsaicin,” Dr. Wackjöb explained. “TJ and I had to boil each of the ingredients down to this clay-like substance. We're hoping that heating the combined properties of the bird's eye chilis and the Mongolian horseradish root will greatly increase its heat.”

I grabbed two of the pepper balls and shoved one up each nostril. The sting was so intense I nearly passed out. My elephant trunk started tickling. I aimed my nose at a rocky mound and sneezed. The boogery blast that shot from my cayenne cannon sounded like a howitzer going off. My brain throbbed and my ears rang. The pepper balls, combined with my atomic snot, exploded the mound to pieces and left a crater the size of a Florida sinkhole.

“Success!” Dr. Wackjöb and TJ cheered, slapping each other a high five.

We finalized our battle plan. Vivian, Bayarma, and I would fly ahead to bombard Pierre and his men with pepper balls. The rest of the gang would ride on horseback with the women to guard my flank.

We all bent over until our noses were touching.

“On the count of three,” I said. “One, two, three …”

“SUPER SCHNOZ!” we all screamed.

Vivian and Bayarma strapped the clay pot filled with pepper balls on my back and climbed on board, and we soared into the clouds. As we approached Pierre's men, I saw my worst nightmare was coming true. They had found the herd of Bactrian camels and were now rounding them up.