Stink and the World's Worst Super-Stinky Sneakers (5 page)

“What’s with all the powder?” Stink asked, still coughing. Then the cloud cleared. The dust settled. And Stink saw it.

“OH, NO!” screamed Stink. “My sneakers! My beautiful super-smelly sneakers!”

“It’s okay,” said Judy. “The powder will help. It’ll soak up the smell and they won’t stink so bad.”

“NO! You don’t get it!” said Stink. “I was stinking them up on purpose, so I could enter them in the All-Time, World’s Worst, Super-Stinky Sneaker Contest. How could you not know that? How could you forget?”

“Oops!” said Judy.

Stink did not know what to do. Now his perfectly smelly sneakers were not perfect at all. They were perfect for winning an air-freshener contest. They were perfect for winning a not-stinky perfume contest. No way were they going to beat Sophie
now.

“Go get Mom,” said Stink. “It’s an emergency. A super-stinky sneaker emergency.”

“Trust me, Stink. All the powder in the world could not make those puppies smell good again. They smell even worse now, if you ask me. Kind of sweet, but kind of sour. Sweet and Sour Sneakers! I mean, they still make me gag and almost want to barf.”

“
Almost
is not good enough to win,” said Stink. “They have to have at least a double-gag factor. A triple-quadruple barf factor.”

“Why don’t we just smell them up more?” asked Judy. “Operation Smelly Sneakers. We could pour vinegar on them. Or pickle juice! We could throw them in the garbage for a while. Wait. I know. I got it!” Judy snapped her fingers. “We could use a bottle of your stinky perfume!”

“That would be cheating,” said Stink. “The rules say you have to stink them up by wearing them. Pickle juice is illegal. Garbage doesn’t count. And stinky perfume is definitely against the rules.”

“Do the rules say what to do if your big sister goofs up?”

“The rules say you better run!” said Stink. He chased his sister down the hall and into the bathroom and out of the bathroom and down the stairs and into the kitchen and around the table, holding out his vial of anti-sister stinky perfume all the while.

Next Saturday morning, Stink woke up to the most wonderful smell. Not pancakes cooking. Not bacon frying. The yucky, blucky putrid stench of smelly sneakers. Sweet! His sneakers were wonderfully smelly again. Back to where they were before his sister-the-human-marshmallow went powder crazy and made them smell sweet as roses.

Stink was going to win the All-Time, World’s Worst, Super-Stinky Sneaker Contest for sure. And today was the big day. His moment to shine. His moment to
stink
!

“What’s that smell?” Dad asked at breakfast. “Don’t tell me Mouse dragged another dead critter in here.”

“It’s him,” said Judy, pointing to her brother. “Stink, you reek.”

“YOU-reek-a!” said Stink. “Get it? Eureka!”

“I get it that you smell,” said Judy.

“Stink’s entering a rotten sneaker contest today,” Mom explained to Dad.

“Interesting,” said Dad.

“My teacher’s going to be there,” Stink told them. “She said if I come early, I’ll be able to meet somebody interesting.”

   “It’s probably just a guy dressed up like a giant sneaker or something,” said Judy.

“Or something,” said Stink.

“Mom, Dad? Can I go, too?” Judy asked. “Just to watch, I mean.”

“Let’s all go,” said Dad.

“But only if we put the smelly sneakers in the trunk, right, Dad?” said Judy.

When Stink got to the contest, Webster and Sophie of the Elves came running up to him. “There’s no contest!” said Webster.

“What?” asked Stink. “What do you mean? I know it’s today.”

“One of the judges caught a cold and he can’t smell right,” said Sophie. “So they had to cancel the contest.”

“No way.”

“Yah-huh. Mrs. D. said! I’m not even in the contest, but I feel bad for you and Sophie,” Webster told his friend.

Stink could not believe his stinky, awful, no-good, very bad luck. “You mean I wore the same socks for six days and slept in my sneakers and tromped through mud puddles and swamp water for nothing?”

Just then, Stink saw his teacher. “Mrs. D.!” called Stink. “Is it true? There’s really not going to be a stinky sneaker contest?”

“Well,” said Mrs. D., “we might have a way to save the day.”

“Really?” everybody asked.

“Stink, when we heard one of the judges was sick, I thought, who else do we know who just might have an amazing, incredible sense of smell? And right away I thought of you, Stink Moody, The Nose.”

   “Stink could be a judge!” said Webster.

“What do you say, Stink?” asked Mrs. D.

“Me? A judge? For real? You mean I, Stink Moody, get to be a real-and-true professional smeller?”

“Just call him Professor Smells-a-Lot,” said Judy.

In the middle of the park stood a big red-and-white-striped circus tent with a banner that said:

   “Dad and I will wander around and meet you kids back here later,” said Mom.

Stink opened the flaps and stepped through the tent door.
Phew!
A great wall of smell almost knocked him over. It was like standing smack-dab in the middle of a cloud — a giant, invisible, cumulonimbus stink cloud. Worse than thirty dead elephants. Worse than sixty corpse flowers. Worse than ninety-nine bottles of toilet water.

Lined up on tables all around the tent were dozens of putrid sneakers. Each pair had a number, so nobody would know who owned which sneakers. Stink took his smelly shoes out of the bag and set them on the table.