In the luxurious home theater of his smelly fartcano headquarters the Fartmeister suddenly looked up and smiled in a quite sinister manner.

  "Next!" he said cheerfully.

  Nate Goiterhead, Gashmouth the Chainsaw Raccoon, the Ratsack Golem, B.M. Foulfinger, Bruce the Retiring Ocelot, Jo the Prolific Rhinoceros, Agent Orange, Cockadoody the Cocky Cockfightin’ Cockadoodoo, and Cydroidobot and his son had been sitting in anxious silence on the couches and bean bag chairs in the screening room. Each gave a start of dismay and stared into one another’s eyes.

  "Has Titi failed?" asked Nate.

  "Quite completely and thoroughly," answered the King of the Fart Ghouls, snidely. All of Titiana’s friends moaned in anguish. "But that is no reason one of you should not succeed. The next contestant may have twelve guesses, instead of eleven, for there are now twelve persons transformed into farts in jars. Well, well, well! Which of you wacky band of misfits goes next?"

  "I'll go," said the Ratsack Golem bravely. He then paused as if someone was going to argue with him but no one said anything. The Fartmeister led the sack of live rats to the entrance to the rumpus room and farted three long low farts. The orifice unpuckered, the duo passed through it, and in a moment the king returned and it puckered shut behind him. The Fartmeister went to his recliner and relighted his blackstone pipe, and the rest of the band of adventurers settled themselves for another long wait. They were greatly disheartened by the failure of Titiana, and the knowledge that she was now a fart in a jar in the Fartmeister's rumpus room.

  Suddenly the Fartmeister began laughing sinisterly.

  "Mwa ha ha ha ha ha! Next!"

  The crestfallen Sifillis Celebrities gazed at each other with dread. Then Cydroidobot- the Robotic Emperor of Mukus Quadrant- stepped forward to take his turn. The Fartmeister escorted the robot into the rumpus room, and again returned to await the result. What Cy did, no one can tell; but it was not long before the flatulent king called for the next hapless victim, and B.M. Foulfinger went to try his fortune, and failed. After writing out the instructions and the magic word and showing it to Gashmouth, the chainsaw sculpture raccoon took their turn, followed by Cydroidobot’s son. Both living dead fleshwood golem and Mukusian plastic robotic boy were turned into farts in jars with black plastic lids.

  Meantime the Fartmeister ordered refreshments to be served, and at his command a raptor wearing thick spectacles entered, bearing a tray full of cheese. This was Kankersaur, the Fartmeister’s trusted flackfizer, who nervously told his majesty not to eat too much cheese late at night, or he would be ill. The Fartmeister shushed the dinosaur-class yokai and cut the cheese.

  Of all the party which had taken up this quest, now only Nate Goiterhead, Agent Orange, Jo the Prolific Rhino, and Cockadoody were left. Cocka had quietly walked around and picked up the crumbs of cheese which the Fartmeister scattered, and now, as it was long after bed-time, she tried to find some dark place in which to go to sleep.

  Presently the brown cockadoodoo espied a hollow underneath the control panel on the south-eastern wall, and crept into it unnoticed. She could still hear the chattering of those around her, but it was almost dark underneath the humming bank of instruments, so that she soon fell fast asleep.

  "Next!" called the Fartmeister, and Agent Orange, whose turn it was to enter the fatal rumpus room, shook hands with Nate and bade Jo a sorrowful good-bye, and passed through the unpuckering portal.

  They waited a long time, for the orange agent was in no hurry to become a fart in a jar and made his guesses very slowly. The Fartmeister, who seemed to know, by some thaumaturgic power, all that took place in his rumpus room, grew impatient finally and declared he would sit up no longer.

  "I can wait until tomorrow to get more of farts in jars; so, as soon as that stupid ugly orange guy is transformed, we will all go to bed and leave the job to be finished in the morning."

  "Is it so very late?" asked Nate Goiterhead.

  "Why, it is after three in the morning," said Kankersaur, "and that strikes me as being late enough."

  Indeed, it was not long after this that Orange made his last guess. Of course he guessed incorrectly, and of course he at once became a fart- to be specific, an orange fart in a jar with a black plastic lid. So the Fartmeister was greatly pleased. He turned to his raptor flackfizer and said:

  "Show these guests to a sleeping chamber, and be quick about it, too, for I'm dreadfully sleepy myself."

  "You've no business to sit up so late," replied Kankersaur. "You'll be as cross as a rabid meatidong tomorrow morning."

  His majesty made no answer to this remark, and Kankersaur led Nate and Jo through another doorway into a long hall, from which several plain but comfortable chambers opened. The garbage golem and prolific rhino were given the last room on the left.

  When the flackfizer had left them alone Jo remarked, sadly:

  "I am in great sorrow over the loss of Bruce. He was my super best friend to the end. We had many dangerous adventures together, and escaped them all, and now it grieves me to know he has become a fart in a jar, and is lost to me forever."

  "Well," said Nate, "maybe tomorrow you will find Bruce and un-farten him. Try not to think about it for now. Get all the sleep you can. It has been a long and weary day, and you need rest."

  "I'll probably get lots of rest tomorrow, when I become a fart in a jar," said Jo, sleepily. But the steed-class yokai climbed into a bed, nevertheless, turned around three times, and plopped down on the comforter.In spite of all their worries the rhinoceros pony was soon in the land of Nod. Nate stood and looked at the wall. Each night was rather a bore to untiring golems like Nate; but on trips he had learned from experience to pass the time patiently and quietly thinking about feature film motion pictures, since all his humanoid and yokai friends had to sleep and shouldn’t be disturbed.

  Nate and Jo were so preoccupied with the fart jar situation that they had completely forgotten about their new brown feathered friend Cockadoody. She was still asleep under the control panel in the Fartmeister’s home theater.

  Flackfizer Kankersaur entered said theater and said to the Fartmeister:

  "You are dorkish to waste so much time upon these cretins."

  "What!" cried the Fartmeister, in so enraged a voice that it awoke Cocka.

  "How dare you call me a dork?" snarled the meister of farts.

  "I didn’t call you a dork, I said you were being dorkish," said the dinosaur. "Why didn't you transmogrify them all at once, instead of allowing them to go one by one into the Hall of Rumpus and guess which fart jars are the Farshtunkeners?"

  "Why, you dum-dum, it is a larger amount of fun this way,” returned the king, "Dragging it out makes the fun time last longer, see?"

  "But suppose some of them happen to guess correctly," persisted the bespectacled flackfizer; "then you would lose a lot of farts in a lot of jars."

  "There is no chance of their guessing right," replied the King of the Fart Ghouls, with a laugh. "How could they know that the Farshtunkeners are the royal purple farts?"

  "But there are no other royal purple farts in jars in the hall," said Kankersaur.

  "But there are many, many, many, many other colors, and the purple ones are scattered throughout the hall, and the jars are of many different shapes and sizes. Take my word for it, Kanker, they will never think of choosing the royal purple farts in jars."

  "Still, you, although not a dork yourself, are acting like a dork by taking such unnecessary risks," continued Kankersaur, roughly.

  "Oh," said the Fartmeister, condescendingly, "And I suppose it’s dork-like to transmogrify all the people from Bonertania into jars with the same black plastic lids."

  Kankersaur sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose while closing his eyes tight.

  "See, I figured since our guests were from Videotape Palace I’d make their lids videotape material. I didn’t have any jar lids made of Mukusian videotape plastic. Until now. I think they will look quite pretty, mixed with the others. Don't you?"

  Kankersaur gave a sorrowful moan.

  "Have your own way, since you are the boss," he said, putting his glasses back on. "If I wore the thaumaturgic jock-strap which enables you to work all your transformations and open and close the wall orifices, and gives you so many other powers, I am sure I would make a much wiser and better king than you are."

  "Oh, will you just shut up!" commanded the Fartmeister, getting angry again. "Follow me to my chamber, for I want you to nibble down my callouses before I go to bed. And see that I am wakened early tomorrow morning. I want to enjoy the fun of transforming those other Bonertanian finks into farts." Then the Fartmeister farted, which Kankersaur inhaled deeply, and then the duo departed.

  Cocka chuckled softly to herself and smoothed down some of her tail feathers, then tucked her head under her wing again and went back to sleep.

  In the morning Kankersaur led the steed-class rhinoceros-pony-shaped yokai named Jo and the garbage golem named Nate Goiterhead into the fartcano headquarters’ home theater where the King of the Fart Ghouls awaited them. Jo complained bitterly that he was half starved, and begged to go into the headquarters and become a fart in a jar, so that he would no longer suffer the pangs of hunger.

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  "Haven't you had your breakfast?" asked the Fartmeister.

  "Oh, I had just a bite," replied the prolific rhino. "But what good is a bite, to a voracious rhinoceros?"

  "He ate seventeen bowls of iguana porridge, a platter full of fried zebrahog sausages, eleven loaves of breaded alien feces and twenty-one goiter mince pielettes!" ejaculated Kankersaur.

  "What more do you want?" demanded the Fartmeister.

  "A fat baby. I want a fat baby," sighed Jo the Prolific Rhino. "A nice, plump, juicy, tender, fat, fart ghoul baby. But, of course, I suppose if I did have one here in front of me, my conscience would not allow me to eat it. So, anyway, I'll just have to be a fart in a jar and forget my hunger."

  The Fartmeister unpuckered the door for the rhino, but before the steed-class yokai could clip-clop through there was a loud screeching that made them both spin around and look at the bank of instruments along the south wall.

  "BAWK-BAWK-BAWK-KA-BAAAAWK!”

  "Yumpin’ yiminy! What's that?" the Fartmeister yelled.

  "Why, it's Cockadoody," said Nate.

  "What is Cockadoody?" the Fartmeister asked. He had not noticed the avian-class yokai when the group of rescuers arrived.

  "Cockadoody is a cockadoodoo."

  "What it you mean by making a noise like that?" shouted the Fartmeister, angrily, as the bird came from under the control panel and strutted proudly about the room.

  "I've got a right to cackle," replied Cockadoody. "I've just spurted my morning terd." "Terds" were what they called eggs on Sifillis Planet.

  "What! Cockadoodoos lay terds!? How dare you do such a thing!" yelled the king, in a voice of fury. He lept up from his recliner and moved quickly away from Cocka.

  "I spurt terds wherever I happen to be," said the cockadoodoo, ruffling her brown feathers and then shaking them into place. Dandruff flakes drifted to the theater floor.

  "You jerkface! Don't you know that terds are deadly poison to fart ghouls?" roared the Fartmeister, while his black eyes bulged out in great terror. "We fart ghouls can't bear them around." The king was only half fart ghoul. His other half was flatulenz fairy but he was ashamed of his fairy half.

  "Well, you'll have to bear this one around," declared Cockadoody; "for I've laid it. Poison! Huh! I'll have you know all my terds are guaranteed strictly sterile. Poison, indeed!"

  "Take it away! Take it away at once!" the Fartmeister shouted.

  "I'll get the terd!" said Flackfizer Kankersaur, rushing to the control panel. The raptor was a dinosaur-class yokai, not a fart ghoul, so the terd did not harm him. Kankersaur reached into the hollow space under the instrument table and found the terd. The King of the Fart Ghouls hastened to put a good distance between himself and his flackfizer as Kanker rushed out of the screening room to go throw the terd in the furnace.

  "It is my turn in the rumpus room now," said Cockadoody, briskly. Jo didn’t object.

  "Go ahead, you foul feathered fool!" grumbled the Fartmeister, and he farted the three long low farts which caused the orifice that led to the hall of Rumpus to unpucker once more. Then Cockadoody gave several loud "bawk-bawks" and marched through the orifice into the great hall. The opening puckered shut behind her.

  "I hope I've seen the last of that bird," declared the King of the Fart Ghouls, seating himself again in his recliner and mopping the perspiration from his forehead with a light blue handkerchief.

  An anxious Nate Goiterhead sat down on a couch to await the success or failure of Cocka’s mission. Jo glumly plopped down on a big bean bag chair to the garbage golem’s left, and the Fartmeister occupied his recliner and smoked his long stone pipe for a while in a cheerful and contented mood. Kankersaur returned from disposing of the terd and sat next to Nate on the couch.

  Then a horn above the theater’s T.V. set sounded a loud fart. The king gave a start of annoyance and exclaimed, "Ugga-magguga!"

  When the horn farted a second time the Fartmeister shouted angrily, "Horse apples!" and at a third horn-fart he sputtered in a rage, "Hypocolonic!" which must be a really awful word because we don't know what it means.

  After that the horn went on farting time after time; but the king was now so violently enraged that he could not utter a word, but hopped out of his recliner and all around the screening room in such a mad frenzy that he reminded Nate Goiterhead of a queezimp on a waffle iron.

  Nate Goiterhead was, for his part, filled with joy at every fart of the horn. He was also amazed at Cockadoody's success, for he could not imagine how the cockfighter was able to guess correctly from all the jars in the rumpus room. But after he had counted ten, and the horn continued to fart, he knew that not only the royal family of Farshtunkener, but Titiana and the rest, also, were being restored to their natural forms, and he was so delighted that he laughed merrily.

  Perhaps the King of the Fart Ghouls could not be more furious than he was before, but the garbage golem’s laughter made him frantic, and he roared at him like a savage beast. He suddenly ran to the orifice that opened upon the balcony, farted darkly to open it, then and farted the five shrill fart that summoned his warriors.

  At once an army of fart ghoul ninjas piled out of the molybdenum doors in great numbers, and silently moved up the winding stairs and into the home theater, led by a stern featured fart ghoul who was their kommandant. The fart ghouls stood still until they were told what to do next.

  At that moment the orifice that led to the Hall of Rumpus unpuckered and disclosed to view Tremorroid Titiana and Kween Farrah Farshtunkener, followed by Cydroidobot’s son with Cocka perched on top of his head. Behind them came the ten Farshtunkener children (Farklempt Farshtunkener, Farkakte Farshtunkener, Farblondzhet Farshtunkener, Farbissener Farshtunkener, Farshlugginer Farshtunkener, Farlemter Farshtunkener, Farshlepteh Farshtunkener, Farshimmel Farshtunkener, Farblunget Farshtunkener, and Wee Little Farley Farshtunkener), and our friends Ratsack, Foulfinger, Cydroidobot, Orange, Gash, and Bruce. The party stopped abruptly and stared at the silent but deadly ninjas, rank after rank standing in orderly array. In the center of this terrible army stood the seething Fartmeister, his face distorted with rage and most dreadful to behold.

  "Surrender!" cried the Fartmeister, in a loud voice. "You are my prisoners!" He farted loudly for emphasis.

  "You promised me that if we guessed correctly my friends and I might depart in safety," said Tremorroid Titiana.

  "And you always keep your promises," added Flackfizer Kankersaur.

  "Shut up. I said you might leave my headquarters in safety," retorted the king; "and so you may, but you cannot leave my dominion. You are my prisoners, and I will hurl you all into my prison, which is located downtown by the yogurt shop. Do you surrender?"

  Cockadoody leaned down and whispered something in Cydroidobot’s son’s nonvisible ear that made the android smile.

  "No!" returned Titiana. Bruce and Jo snarled and stamped their front hooves, kicking up detritus, then charged the army. Gashmouth stomped his dead-fleshwood legs and followed suit.

  Zant, the kommandant of the fart ghoul ninja army, was so surprised by this sudden onslaught that he forgot to command his warriors to fight, so that the ten men in the first row fell over like so many dominoes. Agent Orange and Cydroidobot followed the beasts and knocked over another row of ninjas.

  Then Kommandant Zant came back to his senses and brought down his battle-axe with such a strong blow that Cydroidobot was split into two halves. The halves kept fighting, each hopping around on one molybdenum foot. Agent Orange had pulled an aerosol can of acidic scroatgoat gland sweatings out of his puffy vest and was spraying it in as many fart ghoul ninja eyes as he could.

  The Fartmeister pressed through his warriors to the front ranks, so he could see what was going on; but as he faced Cockadoody- still perched on Cydroidobot’s son’s head- the avian-class yokai turned around and shot a terd out of one of her bottom holes, like a missile. The terd narrowly missed the king’s head by inches, splattering onto an anonymous ninja who exploded into a cloud of gore instantly. Cocka flew up from the robotic prince’s head to the top of Gashmouth’s tall vertical tail and fired more terds, and more ninjas exploded.

  "Terds! Terds! This creature can blast terds! Run for your lives!" shouted the Kommandant Zant in a voice of horror. Then a terd hit him and he exploded into a cloud of gore.

  The fart ghoul ninjas did run! The warriors fairly tumbled over one another in their efforts to escape the fatal poison of those awful terds shooting out of Cockadoody the Cocky Cockfightin’ Cockadoodoo’s brown feathered bottom hole. They piled through the orifices to the Hall of Rumpus and the fart sorting chamber.

  After Cockadoody had flown off their head, Cydroidobot’s son rushed forward and did a flying karate kick to the King of the Fart Ghouls’ face. The flatulent monarch screamed and fell over. When he hit the floor- with his legs in the air- Jo the Rhino ran up and plopped his bottom right on the Fartmeister’s face. As the King of the Fart Ghouls’ screams were muffled by the wrinkled, pimply buttcheeks of the steed-class yokai Cydroidobot’s son pulled off the Fartmeister’s pants, revealing dingy grey boxer shorts with hearts on them and a dingy grey jock strap worn over them. With a look of disgust the robot boy pulled off the thaumaturgic jock-strap and carried the enchanted athletic supporter to Titiana who, because she did not know what else to do with it, slipped it on over her blue jumpsuit. Jo stood up and the Fartmeister clambered to his feet.

  "I'll transform you all into jarred farts!" cried the Fartmeister as he began waving his arms and farting thaumaturgy codes.

  But none of the people became farts, in or out of jars, so the king stopped and looked at them in surprise.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  "Why, you are not wearing your enchanted jock-strap," replied Kankersaur, after looking the Fartmeister over carefully. The Fartmeister clapped his hand to his boxer shorts, and his erin green face turned white as chalk.

  "It's gone," he cried, helplessly. "It's gone, and I am ruined!" While the Fartmeister spoke the Bonertanians and Farshtunkeners could all see that Tremorroid Titiana now wore the thaumaturgic jock-strap, and a great cheer went up from all her friends.

  The Fartmeister crept back to his recliner and cowered behind it like a whipped weasel, bitterly bemoaning his defeat. If the jock strap made a half-flatulenz fairy powerful, a full-blooded flatulenz fairy like Titiana must now be twice as powerful as he had been. He farted slow and sadly, then said:

  "Listen, that jock strap is no good to you, you do not know how to use it. Give it back to me and I will let you go free."

  "I shall hang on to the enchanted jock-strap," said Titiana. "You are clearly not worthy of its awesome power."

  "But how can you escape, without my knowledge of how to operate it?" asked the king.

  While they talked a group of bold ninjas silently climbed down from the ceiling where they had been hiding and pounced upon our friends from behind. When Titiana saw the danger they were in she waved her hand and farted a command to the thaumaturgic jock-strap.

  Instantly the foremost warriors became terds, which rolled towards the Fartmeister. He yelped and jumped on his recliner to evade the poisonous ovum.

  "Easy enough," said Titiana. "This jock strap is quite intuitive." She turned and pointed her butt to the orifice leading to the lobby.

  "I command the passage to open!"

  She farted four spluttery farts, and instantly the order was obeyed; the hole unpuckered and the headquarters lobby lay plainly before them.

  The Fartmeister was devastated, and all the others overjoyed. Titiana gave the order to begin the march through the passage. The Flatulenz Fairy Princess Tremorroid led the way, followed by Cydriodobot’s son (rolling on his roller skate extensions with Cockadoody on his head), Kween Farshtunkener and her ten nondescript children. Then came happily reunited super best friends Bruce and Jo; Gashmouth with Nate, Ratsack, and B.M. Foulfinger on their back; and the two halves of Cydroidobot which hopped along on their respective feet. Agent Orange brought up the rear. Our friends left the pathetic, powerless, pantsless Fartmeister scowling at them from behind his recliner. He farted a fart that smelled like defeat.