My Life and Other Massive Mistakes (9 page)

I don't really notice it at first. It creeps up on me like graveyard fog. I can't see it, but I feel it. The thing tickles my nose and gives me goosebumps, then BAM! It's in my ears and eyes and lungs, and all I want to do is shower and scrub my skin till it's raw. It's the worst thing I have ever smelt in my life.

At least, since the last time Mr Schmittz had a bad day.

Mr Schmittz is our school's longest serving teacher. Before that he was a scientist. Everybody loves him. If you try to say a bad word about Mr Schmittz in the playground,
kids will actually make you take it back. He's 77 with a shiny, bald head, olive skin and a monocle – a single round eyepiece on a gold chain. His eyebrows are missing from a lab explosion back in 1967. Mr Schmittz is so excited about science that he kind of gets you excited, too. One time, he was so fired up that he stood up on his desk to sing us the periodic table song and got hit in the forehead by a ceiling fan, and kept right on teaching. That's how much he loves his job.

He's semiretired and only fills in for other teachers now. When you walk into the classroom and Mr Schmittz is there, you know it's going to be a fun day. Lately, though, we've kind of started to dread it. I don't know if he's changed his diet and started drinking prune and baked-bean smoothies
for breakfast. Or maybe old age is just not agreeing with his digestive system. But something has gone very wrong inside Mr Schmittz.

Kids are burying their noses in the necks of their jumpers and creating gasmasks with their cupped hands. They're trying to do it politely, you can tell. No one wants to offend Mr Schmittz. He is at his desk listening to Sasha present her science project. I feel sorry for Sasha, standing so close to the source of the stink. She uses a miniature plastic cow to illustrate the effect of methane on global warming, and she looks a little green and woozy. Every 30 seconds or so, she turns her head away from Mr Schmittz and takes a large gulp of air, like
a swimmer drawing breath.

She's trying not to make eye contact with anyone because if she does she will laugh, and everybody knows not to laugh when Mr Schmittz is having a bad day. The first time he ‘broke wind' (as my nan would say) in class was about four months ago. It was a long, tight, dry ripping noise and the class fell into hysterics. Mr Schmittz went mental. It's the only time I've ever heard him raise his voice, but he was so embarrassed and so angry that he gave us all recess detention. Since then we've tried to ignore the smell but it's getting difficult.

The main problem is that it's winter and Mr Schmittz likes the windows closed on account of the pneumonia that almost killed him three years ago.

Sasha tells us about the molecular structure of methane and how it can be used as rocket fuel. She launches a hand-painted rocket into the air, adding blast-off sound effects.

I'm trying not to look at Jack, who's sitting next to me, because if I look at Jack I will laugh and if I laugh Mr Schmittz will go wild, and I would rather smell 10,000 of his farts than have him yell at us again. Somehow it's worse when someone who doesn't usually yell starts yelling. My mum can yell all day, every day, and I hardly even notice. But that one word, ‘QUIET!', from Mr Schmittz has taken me months to get over.

But I have to get out of this room, or at least open a window. If I don't, I might need to have a nose transplant.

Sasha finishes her presentation and there are a few half-hearted claps. Only Mr Schmittz is enthusiastic. ‘Well done, Sally! Lovely work.'

Sasha doesn't even bother correcting him on her name. She just grabs her assignment and scurries back to her desk. The air wobbles in front of her. Waves of hot stink radiate out to the rest of the room. Kids are physically pushed back in their chairs.

I put up my hand. ‘Sir, can I please go to the bathroom?'

‘Sorry, Todd. Lunch is only 15 minutes away. We have a few more presentations to get through. I'm sure you can hold it in. Who would like to go next?'

No one offers.

I reach over and, ever so quietly, inch the window open. There's a loud wood-on-wood squeal.

‘Close the window, please, Todd,' says Mr Schmittz, squinting at me through his monocle.

‘It's Tom. And I –'

‘It's not summer.'

‘No, but –'

‘I'm sure you don't want to see me catch my death.'

‘No, Mr Schmittz.'

‘Then close the window.'

I squeeze my nose to the crack, suck in one almighty breath and shut the window.

Jack raises his hand. ‘Sir?'

Mr Schmittz's watery eyes take on a serious look. Jack is the one kid who really gets up his nose.

‘Yes, Jeremy,' says Mr Schmittz.

‘It's Jack,' he says. ‘Could I please go next?'

I know why Jack wants to go next. He loves the smell of farts. Not just his own. I mean, he
loves
the smell of his own. He thinks they smell like fresh, buttery popcorn with a hint of just-cut grass and chocolate frogs.
But he likes the smell of mine, too. He even likes his dad's. But how could Jack not be afraid of Mr Schmittz's rear-end toxic-waste facility? Greenpeace should campaign to have it corked.

‘Certainly, let's see what you've got,' says Mr Schmittz.

Jack gives me a crooked grin, picks up his papier-mache volcano from the floor and walks up to the front of the classroom. I know Jack is going to say something funny about the smell and then Mr Schmittz will yell at us again. I can't let this happen.

Jack stands facing the class. I give him a warning look and he gently waves his hand towards his face to waft extra stench into his nostrils. Jonah Flem and Luca Kingsley snicker to my left, but I keep a straight face. Stella Holling makes a retching noise behind me and everyone turns to look at her.

‘Is everything all right back there?' Mr
Schmittz asks, his gold monocle slipping from his eye.

‘Yes, Mr Schmittz,' I say. ‘Everything's fine.'

Stella leans down beneath her desk with a bulging brown lunch bag to her lips. She wipes her mouth with her wrist.

‘What's going on?' Mr Schmittz asks.

‘Nothing, sir,' I say, desperate not to rattle him.

‘Mr Schmittz,' Jack says.

‘Yes?'

‘Do you … smell anything?'

Oh no. I hate Jack – I really do. How can he want to do this?

‘No,' Mr Schmittz says, turning to Jack. ‘Do you?'

We all watch Jack, who looks at me with a hint of a smile. ‘Yes. Yes, I do,' he says.

Right on cue, Mr Schmittz lets one rip. It makes a gooey, runny sound. Mr Schmittz
doesn't even seem to notice that he's the one who produced the noise. Jack breathes deep, as if he's on a meditation retreat, then launches into his presentation.

‘I
was
going to demonstrate a live volcanic eruption, but…'

‘Looks like you'll need a match to light that wick,' says Mr Schmittz.

‘No, it's okay,' Jack tells him. ‘I don't think we should light a match…'

‘Of course we should,' Mr Schmittz says, opening the desk drawer. ‘I'm looking forward to it.'

‘No!' I call out. A spark right now could kill us all.

‘I'm sorry? What was that?' Mr Schmittz asks, digging around in the drawer, searching for matches.

‘Me. Todd. I mean Tom,' I say, standing from my seat. ‘I agree with Jack. I don't think it's a good idea to light a match.'

‘Why ever not?' asks Mr Schmittz.

‘Well,' I say. ‘Matches are dangerous and we should never play with matches.'

‘But I'm an adult,' he says, taking a matchbox from the drawer.

‘And…' says Jack, getting worried, too. ‘There's a high fire danger today. It's a total fire ban. I saw it on the news.'

‘But it's the middle of winter,' Mr Schmittz says. ‘There's a frost out there.'

It does look kind of icy.

‘Listen, Jeremy, if you haven't done your assignment correctly, stalling isn't going to stop me marking it. Let's get on with your presentation,' he says to Jack.

‘But volcanoes are dangerous, Mr Schmittz!' I blurt. ‘Remember Pompeii? And … and Krakatoa?'

Mr Schmittz chuckles. ‘Jeremy's volcano does look impressive, but I hardly think it's going to burn the town down.'

‘It's Jack,' Jack says.

Mr Schmittz bends over to light the volcano and his bowels fail him again. It's a low, mournful groan this time, like a dinosaur dying. It goes on for about seven seconds.

That does it. Kids crack up. They can't hold it in anymore. There are chortles, snorts and even a few guffaws. Mr Schmittz stands, his olive skin turning crimson with embarrassment. We've humiliated a 77-year-old man, our favourite teacher … and it's all Jack's fault.

‘QUIET!' he screams.

‘He butt-burped,' Jonah Flem says, still laughing.

‘I did NOT!' Mr Schmittz shrieks and his monocle pops out of his eye again. ‘And, to prove it, I'll light this match. If there is methane present in this room, then –'

BOOOM!

In the split second before I close my eyes,
I see a fireball. I feel an enormous rush of hot air and then the spray of the sprinklers on my face.

I open my eyes and there is smoke, lots of it. Kids cough and panic. I head to the front of the classroom, searching for Mr Schmittz. Jack and a couple of other kids appear through the smoke. Jack's eyebrows are missing and Sasha is covered in ash. The sprinklers are soaking us. Our teacher is gone.

‘Mr Schmittz!'

The classroom door flings open. ‘Oh, my goodness. Everybody out!' Mrs Nicholl, one of the year four teachers, calls. ‘Everyone out! Are you all okay?'

‘Mr Schmittz!' I call.

The other kids rush for the door but I keep searching.

‘Let's go, go, go!' says Mrs Nicholl, her eyes wild. She grabs me by the arm and leads me from the room.

‘What about Mr Schmittz?'

‘We'll find him,' she says. ‘Are you okay? Are you injured?'

The other kids are led across the corridor and out into the playground, but I stop and look back into the classroom through the broken window. Chairs and tables are overturned and there is paper everywhere, some of it still burning. I scan the room but Mr Schmittz is nowhere to be seen. A mark on the floor up at the front of the room next to the teacher's desk catches my eye – a burnt, smoking patch on the lino, right where he had stood only moments ago.

I can see something shiny on the floor not far from the burnt patch. I sneak back into the room and pick my way through sprinkler spray and the twisted mess of furniture and books. I lean down and pick the thing up.

It's a monocle. The only thing that remains of my favourite teacher. The gold rim is hot
and burns my fingers, but I keep hold of it and I put it up to my eye. The glass has smashed but I can still see through it.

Mr Schmittz, who gave his life to science, vaporised in a school science experiment. He was wiped out by a volcano. And his own bottom. I peer around the room, seeing the world the way he would have seen it through
that monocle, and I know one thing for sure. It sounds terrible, but I think Mr Schmittz would have liked the way he went. I really do. He went out with a bang.