The Investigative Child Discovers Incendiary Malodorants

Growing up in a small town means that everybody knows everybody else. By sight, by reputation, by first, last, and middle name. And if you messed around at school, the principal phoned your home, and your parents knew all the details before you even finished your school day. When you walked in the house, mom and dad were prepared for you.

Not that my dad, innocent angel that he is, ever messed around at school. Or got in trouble, ever. His dad was on the school board, so he couldn’t possibly go astray. Right? Well, it kept the school’s punishments from getting too severe, at any rate.

After the one-room schoolhouse closed, Dad and his siblings moved to the two-story, red brick Lake Zurich Grade School. There were maybe 100 kids there, in four classrooms: two on the bottom floor, two on the top, with two grades per room. The younger students were on the bottom floor, the older and supposedly more responsible up top. The top floor was, of course, required to have an emergency exit, and this one was a covered slide.

Only once, in a fire drill, was that slide ever used. A squad of the biggest kids had to be down at the bottom, to catch the other children as they emerged. It was such a steep slide that the wind of their passage blew the girls’ skirts up over their heads. They never got to use the slide again.  

Did you know that celluloid makes one heckuva stink bomb if you set it on fire? The Investigative Child did. “Scientific curiosity” strikes again—how hot does it get? How long will it burn? How would one describe that odor?

Celluloid, in case you didn’t know, was highly flammable. Old film negatives, laid on a piece of notebook paper, and rolled up like a jelly roll, then tied at the ends, would catch easily, and burn steadily. Once a nice little fire was going, you stepped on your jelly roll, to tamp things down. The celluloid in the negatives would keep smoldering, pouring out smoke by the gallons. And putrid! You never smelled such a rotten reek. The stench would carve its way into your nasal cavities and make itself at home, so that you thought it was still following you days later.

One fine day, when Sonny had experienced enough learning for an afternoon, he and a wingman snuck off to the upstairs bathroom just before the end of the lunch period, celluloid jelly roll in hand.  One person to light the fire, one person to keep a lookout. Once he had things going, he put the smoldering mess in a stall, shut the bathroom door, and trusted in his handiwork to fumigate his classroom, bringing an early end to the day’s education. He trotted into class, halo firmly in position.

Unfortunately, it didn’t just stink, it smoked. Like crazy.  Unbeknownst to our resident prankster, there was a return air duct in the bathroom; it sucked in the bombs’ effects, and sent it throughout the school. The odor seeped through your consciousness first, and then the grimy smoke. There was so much smoke that all four of the classrooms cleared out. Ah, if only the slide was available to them to use! This being more virulently stinky than dangerously smoky, however, down the inside staircase the older scholars went, trying not to breathe in that life-altering pong.

Don’t try this at home (or school), kiddies. Seriously.

A quick inspection of the school grounds followed, revealing the bomb still pouring out smudgy stench in the boys’ bathroom. As the kids were all outside by then in neat rows by class, the adults might never have known who had perpetrated the crime, except that his partner in crime was weak-willed, and broke immediately upon seeing the proof in a teacher’s hand. “Tony did it!” was his cry.

You will be surprised, I’m sure, to discover that this was hardly Sonny’s first schoolroom misdeed. As a matter of fact, he had declared open war on this particular teacher. He delighted in showing Mr. H up, and proving him wrong. That stink-smoke bomb was only the latest method of lighting his teacher on fire.

Had Sonny gone to school when I did, he would’ve had permanent after-school detention. But in a small farming town, with only one bus to take the kids to and fro, there was no being kept after class. Still, this particular escapade, on top of everything else, should have resulted in suspension, if not expulsion. Would have, if not for his dad having a seat on the School Board.

Anton Jr. laughed at the idea of expulsion, and managed to get suspension off the table as well. But don’t you worry, Sonny did not escape all punishment. There were lines to write, and heavier homework assignments than usual; at home there was an upset mother, and a disappointed father to deal with, one with recourse to punishments this modern age would choke on—choose-your-own switch, anyone? Not that it held Sonny down for long. He was back to his Investigative ways in no time at all. To this day, he regrets never taking a Chemistry class—just think of the stink bombs he could have made!