So Festy! Read online

  We sneak into the school office. You get a good view of the playground from there. We head for the PA system. As we turn it on, the familiar crackle makes the kids look up. I laugh when I see Bonnie jiggling up and down, then fanning her bottom.

  I hold the microphone to my lips. ‘Grotty Chops!’ I yell as loud as I can before checking out the playground. Good, they’re starting to look up.

  ‘And Melon Butt!’ cries Mitch, just as loud. Now, we have everyone’s attention.

  ‘Have a life!’

  The Fantastic Fart Factory: A Fabulous Tale

  Chapter One

  BOOM!

  The toilet bowl flew into the air…

  KABAMM!

  …somersaulted a few times…

  BANG!

  …and landed.

  Confetti rained onto the bathroom floor.

  ‘Fogbottom!’ yelled Flutterbum, eyeing the new position of The Throne and wondering how it didn’t explode into eleventy trillion pieces. ‘I’m gonna get you!’

  But Fogbottom was not there. He was dashing along a corridor, down the stairs and was out of FairyLand before you could say Fizzling Firecracker.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Fluff, zooming into the bathroom and pulling up at the door. ‘Oh, my,’ she said, smoothing her tiny hands down her gown as she looked around. ‘My, my, my, my, my.’

  Flutterbum hung suspended from the wall. From one foot dangled the toilet lid. From the other, stalactites of soggy paper drip-drip-dripped into the space where the toilet bowl used to sit. Fluff scanned the room and was greatly relieved to find the toilet bowl still intact, although there was the small problem of how to remove it from the open window.

  ‘I’m going to get Fogbottom if it’s the last thing I do,’ shrieked Flutterbum, flinging the toilet lid off his foot and sending a ball of boggy loo paper into the air.

  Fluff ducked, then started to giggle. The loo paper had done a loop-the-loop and landed on Flutterbum’s head! Fluff nudged closer. Something about the sodden squares of paper looked odd…Ah, yes, the smiling frogs design. While Fluff was trying not to laugh, she noticed something else. Flying upwards, she carefully removed a piece of silver foil from behind Flutterbum’s ear. ‘Foreman Phat has been trying to trick me again, I see. I’ve told him once, I’ve told him twice, don’t put your toffee wrappers down the lavatory.’

  ‘Forget Foreman Phat!’ yelled Flutterbum. ‘Get me down!’

  Despite her small stature it did not take long for Fluff to peel Flutterbum from the wall and settle him on the floor.

  ‘It could’ve been much worse,’ said Fluff, plucking bits of soggy paper from Flutterbum’s head and flicking them into the hand-basin.

  ‘How?’ asked Flutterbum, squirming from her touch.

  Straining to keep her face straight Fluff answered, ‘You could have been doing a Number Two.’

  ‘Hmph!’ snorted Flutterbum, sending two little clods of toilet paper flying through the air and shaking his fist at them. ‘I’m going to get that Fogbottom if it’s the last thing I do.’

  ‘How can you be sure it was Fogbottom?’ asked Fluff. ‘It may have been someone else. Fafnir perhaps?’ (Fafnir was a dragon who lived in FairyLand.)

  ‘It wasn’t Fafnir.’

  ‘What about FlatuLance? Isn’t he angry with you for refusing to name an invention after him?’

  Flutterbum snorted again saying, ‘This isn’t FlatuLance’s style. Too dirty for him. He’s more likely to get his Fairy Godmother to beat me up. No, this is Fogbottom’s doing and I’m going to get him back.’

  ‘You two!’ exclaimed Fluff. ‘Always playing jokes on each other. It’s going to backfire on you one day. You mark my words.’

  Just then the hooter rang that summonsed the fairies to work.

  ‘Get along with you,’ said Fluff, removing the last piece of papier-mâché from Flutterbum’s ear. ‘I’ll help you clean up this mess later.’

  In FairyLand Flutterbum and Fogbottom both worked at the Triple F, otherwise known as The Fantastic Fart Factory. The Triple F was the hub of FairyLand. In fact, it was more than the hub, it was its sole reason for being.

  Fogbottom worked in Delivery. It was his job to deliver the farts. Every night he’d go from house to house, making sure that each human had an F-start to their day. For everybody knew that with an F-start, the humans would be happy. Without an F-start they would turn nasty, blaming the fairies for their woes, or worse, not blaming them. This would be a death-knell for the fairies, for without human belief they would no longer exist and FairyLand would be no more. Yes, it paid to keep the humans happy.

  Flutterbum worked in Research, spending his days in a laboratory concocting recipes. He had already invented an impressive collection of farts. He particularly liked the noisy ones. As an inventor, he was held in the highest regard for his Double-Trouble Bum Bender and had been awarded for his Shooter Blooper. Now, he was searching for something new.

  Flutterbum sat over his bumsen burner and frowned. He had already worked out how to make an F-start that packed an almighty punch. What he couldn’t figure out was how to add the twist of lemon. Carefully, Flutterbum added drops of lemon juice from his pipette when…Festering fairies! The ‘punch’ fizzled to a ‘pun’, to a ‘p’, then died out altogether. There wasn’t even an echo.

  I must have my proportions all wrong, thought Flutterbum. Tipping the test-tube residue into the sink he proceeded to start again. From behind a row of shelves in the laboratory, Fogbottom stifled a giggle.

  Meanwhile, Flutterbum started again. Over another bumsen burner he plop, plop, plopped the lemon into a new concoction of Punch thinking, ‘Here’s to my Punch with a Lemon Twist.’ He waited for the bang.

  Phht!

  ‘Bother and damnation!’ screeched Flutterbum, lurching to his feet and swiping at the mixture. ‘There must be something wrong with this lemon juice.’

  Putting his hand in his pocket Fogbottom patted the bottle of lemon juice, at the same time eyeing off the bottle of yellow food colouring on the bench. He was enjoying his morning’s ‘work’ so much that a giggle erupted.

  Flutterbum looked around, his eyes narrowing to slits when he saw the shelves rocking. Glass shattered as he threw a test tube at the shelves. ‘Oooohhh,’ said Flutterbum doing a standing-start acceleration with a gravity-defying forward propulsion and landing on Fogbottom’s ear. ‘Take that!’

  Flutterbum beat at Fogbottom with hummingbird wings, causing the much bigger fairy to raise his hands and beg for mercy.

  Just then, Foreman Phat rollicked into the room. He pulled up quickly when he saw the two fairies fighting. ‘Break it up!’ he yelled. Pulling Flutterbum away and holding him at arm’s length he said, ‘You should be working.’ Flutterbum tried to squirm out of his grasp but Foreman Phat held firm. ‘And you, Fogbottom! Hadn’t you better get some sleep?’

  Fogbottom bared his large ugly teeth. ‘Don’t need much sleep. Me F-starts always get delivered, even in Movie Marathon Month.’

  Foreman Phat clapped his hands saying, ‘Stop it! We’ve got enough troubles without you two adding to them.’

  ‘What troubles?’ asked Flutterbum.

  ‘Yeah, what?’ asked Fogbottom.

  Foreman Phat frowned, looking from one to the other. ‘Haven’t you two heard?’

  Flutterbum and Fogbottom shook their heads.

  Foreman Phat leaned closer. ‘Someone’s been tampering with the F-start Combustion Machine.’ He turned to see if anyone else was about. Dropping his voice to a whisper he added, ‘With the insertion device.’

  Flutterbum looked shocked—it was he who had invented the F-start Combustion Machine—then he looked cross. ‘Fogbottom?!’ he roared, whirling to face his foe.

  ‘Wasn’t me,’ said Fogbottom, holding up his palms to show he was innocent. ‘Would I try to do meself out of a job?’

  ‘What’s wrong with the insertion?’ Flutterbum asked Foreman Phat, but continuing to glare at Fogbottom.
/>   Reaching into his pocket Foreman Phat pulled out a sweet. Taking his time to unwrap it, he finally popped it into his mouth and said in a very important voice, ‘Someone has put the wrong fart in the wrong bottom!’

  Chapter Two

  ‘Never before in the history of the Triple F has anyone put the wrong fart in the wrong bottom,’ announced Foreman Phat.

  ‘What’ll the humans think?’ asked Fogbottom, who hated even the most minor disturbance to his routine, let alone having his life put at risk. ‘What fart is missin’? And who has it?’

  ‘I hope it’s not Mr Blizzard’s F-start,’ said Flutterbum, getting down to practicalities. ‘He always starts his day with a good old Bang Bang Bluster.’

  ‘Or Miss Fogarty’s,’ added Fogbottom. ‘She wouldn’t be able to get outta bed without her Cherry Whizzer.’

  ‘It’s not those two,’ interrupted Foreman Phat. ‘It’s Mrs Bottomlee who’s got the problem.’

  Flutterbum looked distraught. ‘Don’t tell me it was her Pepper Pie Popper?’

  Foreman Phat nodded.

  Flutterbum put his head in his hands and moaned, saying, ‘That was one of my best!’ Suddenly, he twirled around, pointing a finger at Fogbottom. ‘It was you!’ he hissed. ‘One of your practical jokes, no doubt.’

  Fogbottom shot backwards. The air fried, then sizzled a bit. ‘No, it wasn’t!’

  Flutterbum glowered saying, ‘Insertion is your job!’

  Before the air got even nastier Foreman Phat butted in. ‘We know for a fact it wasn’t Fogbottom.’

  ‘How?’ asked Flutterbum and Fogbottom in unison.

  ‘Because,’ said Foreman Phat, ‘Fogbottom, you aren’t clever enough to dismantle the F-start Combustion Machine and tamper with the insertion device. It can’t be you.’

  Fogbottom stuck out his bottom lip saying, ‘Hmph!’ He was not sure if this was an insult or not.

  It was Flutterbum’s turn to butt in. ‘Um, er, excuse me, foreman Phat,’ he said. ‘Putting the wrong F-start into the wrong bottom is the least of our worries…’ He squirmed like a thief at confession.

  Foreman Phat thrust out his ample girth, stopped chewing his sweet and growled, ‘What d’ya mean?’

  Flutterbum’s wings were developing a bad case of Droop. ‘Because the F-start Combustion Machine has a self-combusting program built in, that’s why. One of my…er, more ingenious inventions.’

  ‘What?’ roared Foreman Phat, puffing up like an over-inflated balloon. ‘Why?’

  ‘To stop it from getting into enemy hands.’ Flutterbum smiled apologetically. ‘You see, if enemies got their hands on the F-start Combustion Machine it would put us all out of a job. They’d take over FairyLand. Our lives would be ruined! We could even be—dead.’

  Bang! Fogbottom hit the floor, causing it to resonate.

  Foreman Phat almost joined him. In a small voice he whispered, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t know!’

  Ignoring him, Flutterbum took up the tale. ‘When the F-start does not match with a client it means someone has been tampering with it and the timer is automatically triggered.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve only got seventy-two minutes to find the Pepper Pie Popper and return it to its rightful owner. Otherwise…’

  ‘Otherwise what?’ asked Foreman Phat, reeling on his feet.

  ‘Otherwise the entire Fantastic Fart Factory will deconstruct and FairyLand will be no more!’ finished Flutterbum.

  Foreman Phat wailed. The quivering of his tummy sent a seismic ripple through the air.

  ‘We’re all going to die!’ yelled Fogbottom, who had recovered enough to hear the last sentence and was up and running in ever-increasing circles. ‘We’re all going to die!’ The running only stopped when Fogbottom collided with someone who had been watching from the doorway.

  He wasn’t your typical fairy, this one. Smoke curled from his nostrils, his eyes were flaming beacons and if you looked closely, there was a tail under his wings.

  ‘Fafnir!’ hissed Flutterbum flinging himself to his knees.

  ‘Fafnir!’ echoed Foreman Phat, trying to follow suit. But Foreman Phat’s knees were missing under rolls and rolls of spare flesh so all he succeeded in doing was a slow motion forward roll. He ended up on his ample stomach doing an impersonation of a Christmas beetle stuck in honey.

  Fogbottom bowed hastily to Fafnir and ran to assist Foreman Phat.

  ‘Something rotten in the State of FairyLand?’ asked Fafnir. Smoke billowed from his nostrils, causing eyes to water.

  Foreman Phat started to cough but forced himself to recover as he attempted to bring Fafnir up to date. ‘And we’ve only got sixty-seven minutes to fix the combustion machine, find the F-start and return Mrs Bottomlee’s Pepper Pie Popper or the Triple F will blow up!’ he finished.

  Fafnir’s eyes narrowed. ‘You mean, no more FairyLand?’

  Flutterbum nodded miserably.

  ‘Leave it to me!’ said Fafnir, flying up to the ceiling. ‘I will not have my home destroyed. As I’m the only one who is not a fairy I’m the best one to fix this mess.’

  ‘Wait!’ said Flutterbum, trying to follow. ‘We can help!’

  ‘Yes!’ added Foreman Phat.

  But all Fafnir did was flick his tail in a two-pronged salute and sped off.

  Flutterbum gritted his teeth and flew to the laboratory door saying, ‘Fafnir’s an arrogant fool!’

  Fogbottom nodded saying, ‘’E can’t solve this case on ’is own!’ He turned to Flutterbum adding, ‘’E needs us.’

  Flutterbum looked at his old foe and nodded. ‘We’re in this together.’ Flutterbum shook Fogbottom’s hand. ‘Come on,’ he said taking off. Fogbottom followed close behind.

  ‘Wait for me,’ cried Foreman Phat but with his huge gut he didn’t have the speed of the others and besides, wasn’t that a jar of unopened sweets he’d spied on the table?

  Chapter Three

  ‘Where are we going?’ Fogbottom asked Flutterbum as they whooshed down the hall.

  ‘To the scene of the crime, of course,’ said Flutterbum.

  They arrived in the generator room to a commotion. There were fairies flying here, fairies flying there—all worker fairies. Flutterbum drew himself to his full height, cleared his throat, then managed to yell, ‘Halt!’

  Fifty fairies did a radical de-acceleration, causing wind turbulence. This led to an almighty aerial traffic collision.

  ‘You’re ruining the evidence!’ shouted Flutterbum as fairy upon fairy fell to the floor. Some even landed on the F-start Combustion Machine. ‘Stand back. I need to see what’s been damaged. I need to fix the machine.’

  Fogbottom started pushing through the bodies, making a space for Flutterbum to follow and saying, ‘You take a look under the machine. I’ll hold back the crowd.’

  Flutterbum hesitated. Old habits die hard. ‘Not going to give me a wedgie while I’m looking underneath are you?’ he asked Fogbottom.

  Fogbottom shook his head.

  ‘Paint the soles of my feet fluoro pink?’

  Fogbottom had the grace to look sheepish.

  ‘Or, lemon yellow more like it!’

  Fogbottom blushed. ‘I confess!’ he said. ‘It were me in the lab. I swapped the yellow food colouring for the lemon juice.’ Here, he stood straighter and puffed up his wings. ‘But the exploding toilet was somebody else. Not me.’ Fogbottom backed this up by making the sign of a fairy ring over his heart. ‘Promise.’

  Flutterbum gave one last searching look. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘To work.’ As the inventor of the F-start Combustion Machine he knew exactly what had to be done with the insertion device. He only hoped that its memory had not been wiped. Whoever had accessed the machine in the first place would have had to use a password so he’d soon know who had stolen the Pepper Pie Popper!

  Flutterbum worked quietly and steadily while the other fairies watched. No one dared to even blink.

  Fogbottom broke the silence. ‘Fifty-three minutes,’ he said in
a hushed voice.

  Flutterbum fiddled, he faffed around. Fogbottom fidgeted.

  The fairy folk stood watching, barely breathing.

  Foreman Phat came pounding into the room, fanning himself with his wing tips and throwing out his chest with his own sense of importance. ‘The thief’s struck again. We’ve been robbed!’

  ‘What did they take this time?’ asked Flutterbum, scrabbling out from under the combustion machine and frowning as he imagined the worst. ‘Not the Fizz Bang Whopper?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Foreman Phat, shaking his head. ‘Worse than that. They got into our storeroom and…’ Foreman Phat started to sob. His cheeks and neck quivered. His tummy quaked. ‘It’s all too dreadful for words!’ And with that he sat on the floor and howled, so loudly that the floor rumbled in protest.

  Now, Flutterbum knew there was no point in trying to bring Foreman Phat to his senses while he was in such a state, so he decided to go and find out what had been stolen for himself. ‘Hold everyone here,’ he called to Fogbottom. ‘I’m the one who orders the ingredients for the F-starts, so I’ll check to see what’s missing.’

  Fogbottom nodded calling, ‘Don’t be long!’ He pointed to the huddled fairies, fizzing with frustration. ‘Can’t hold ’em back forever.’

  Flutterbum arrived at the storeroom in cosmic time. The huge room stood empty. The shelves and cupboards were completely bare, even the floor was bare.

  ‘Someone’s stolen the foods we use for the Triple F,’ he explained when he got back to the others. ‘There’s no onions, no bran, no cauliflower, not even a leaf of cabbage.’

  ‘What about the beans?’ asked Fogbottom, ‘Beans’re the most important.’

  ‘Gone!’ said Flutterbum with a flourish of his hand. ‘All gone.’