Chapter 46

Bright and early Monday morning, Sean stepped out of the house holding his lunch bag as far from his body as possible. He hadn’t even taken three steps out the door when he was immediately surrounded by dwarves. Chom asked, “What is that heavenly smell?”

“What heavenly smell?” Sean asked looking around. All he could smell was the garlic in the meatloaf sandwiches his mother had made for his lunch.

“That perfume coming from the bag that you carry,” Clea said.

“This is my lunch,” Sean said wondering when the Dwarves had learned sarcasm. He waved the bag around. He stopped waving it when he noticed that the Gnome had fallen over on his side.

“We’ve smelled that for two days now,” Chom said unable to take his eyes off the bag.

“Torture is what it has been,” Pip said.

“A most cruel and unusual punishment,” Clea said nodding her head in agreement.

Sean said, “You can say that again.”

“Tantalizing us with such a heavenly aroma,” Chom said. He leaned forward and breathed deeply through his nose.

“I’ve got to have it,” Pip said. His whole attention was fixated on the lunch bag.

“It is mine,” Clea said licking her lips.

“I want it,” Chom said.

Pip stared at the bag wondering if he could grab it and run before the other dwarves knew what was happening. Deciding that he could, he reached for the bag. Clea slapped his hand away and shouted, “Don’t you dare.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything,” Pip said trying to look innocent. He rubbed his hand.

“Yes you were,” Clea said.

“What was he doing?” Chom asked unable to take his eyes off the lunch bag.

“He was going to grab it,” Clea said shaking a finger at Pip.

“No I wasn’t,” Pip said.

“What will you take for it?” Chom asked.

“I want my project back,” Sean said. A bird flying overhead at the time fell out of the sky stunned by the smell.

“You’ll have it this afternoon,” Clea said leaning forward to smell the bag.

“Take it,” Sean said handing the bag to Clea.

“Alright,” Clea shouted while dancing around the backyard.

Chom and Pip shouted, “Hey give us some of that.”

Sean watched the two male dwarves chase Clea around the backyard demanding to be given a share of the sandwich. Pip tripped over Chom and the two dwarves rolled around on the lawn wrestling. Watching the action, Sean shook his head and said, “Thank goodness I didn’t have to eat that.”

Sean drove over to Suzie’s house to give her a ride to school. She was outside waiting for him to arrive. Sean parked the car and got out to open the car door for her. Keeping her distance from him, she said, “I would kiss you, but you still smell like garlic.”

“I am still sweating out the toxins that were in the meatloaf that mom served the other night,” Sean said wiping the sweat from his brow. His hand came away smelling of garlic.

“How much did you eat?” Suzie asked.

Sean answered, “One bite.”

“That must have had a lot of garlic in it,” Suzie said waving a hand in front of her nose in an attempt to keep the odor away.

Sean said, “I’m sorry about Saturday night. I was feeling a little sick from dinner.”

“I could tell,” Suzie said. He had locked himself in the bathroom for the entire evening leaving her stuck with running the concession stand alone. When she had gone to check up on him, the noises that had penetrated through the door had an unnatural quality to them that had frightened her. She didn’t think it was possible to be that sick.

“I can’t believe that mom packed meatloaf sandwiches in my lunch bag,” Sean said shaking his head.

“You brought lunch today?” Suzie asked.

“Don’t worry. I gave it to the dwarves before I picked you up this morning,” Sean said.

“You didn’t?” Suzie asked horrified at the idea.

“They seemed to like it. They argued over it,” Sean said shrugging his shoulders.

“It won’t kill them, will it?” Suzie asked.

“I don’t think so. I am worried about the Gnome though,” Sean said with a concerned look on his face.

“Why?” Suzie asked.

“It fell over on its side the moment the smell reached it,” Sean answered.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Suzie said with a frown.

“I know,” Sean said.

Hoping that she wouldn’t hurt his feelings, Suzie asked, “I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to sit as far from you as possible in the truck?”

“I understand,” Sean said. This was not looking like it was going to be a good day.

Even by the class after lunch, the odor of garlic had not abated. Sean walked through the hallway of the school noticing that people were still avoiding him. It was as if there was a force field that extended five feet around him. Kids pressed against the wall in order to keep away from him. He looked over to Suzie and said, “I didn’t realize we went to school with a bunch of vampires.”

“Vampires?” Suzie asked.

“They seem to be afraid of garlic,” Sean said. He exhaled loudly in the direction of a freshman. The poor kid stumbled back as if slapped.

“Don’t pick on the freshman,” Suzie said. She would have slapped him on the arm, but she was staying outside the sphere of garlic and he was too far away.

“Okay,” Sean said. He noticed Tom approaching him. He asked, “How about I pick on Tom?”

“You’re not a bully,” Suzie said giving him one of those looks.

Sean was very familiar with that look. It was the look she gave him when he was going overboard and it was time for him to stop. He looked around and then said, “Okay.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” Suzie said when Tom went over to the wall to keep as much distance between him and Sean.

“I just wanted to be like my favorite Marble Comic superhero,” Sean said looking disappointed.

Puzzled, Suzie asked, “Which superhero is that?”

“Gingivitis Guy,” Sean answered.

Suzie laughed and asked, “I probably know the answer, but what is his super power?”

“He stops villains in their tracks using his overpowering bad breath,” Sean answered with a grin.

“I thought so,” Suzie said just as they reached her class. She stopped and faced Sean holding her books in front of her.

Sean said, “Well, we’re here.”

“I know,” Suzie said looking across the hallway at him. The poor guy looked positively miserable.

“I’d kiss you goodbye, but I’d probably be late to the library,” Sean said giving her an excuse not to get near him.

“Maybe tomorrow we can kiss,” Suzie said. She kissed her hand and then blew a kiss to him.

“Maybe,” Sean said.

He started to kiss his hand, but stopped when she said, “Don’t you dare!”

Sean walked away while mumbling, “Now I know why Gingivitis Guy is single. They don’t tell you that in the Marble Comic books.”

Sean made his way to the library where he spent the time when he normally would have been in gym. The librarian, Mr. Booker, noticed him arrive and said, “Hello, Sean. How’s my favorite student?”

“Hello, Mr. Booker. I’m more or less fine,” Sean said. He knew that he was Mr. Booker’s favorite student because he was the first student to step into the school library in two years.

Mr. Booker stepped back and said, “Whoa! Did you have Shrimp Scampi for lunch?”

“No. I had meatloaf Saturday night,” Sean answered.

Mr. Booker said, “That explains it. You’re sweating it out. You should have tried eating a bunch of parsley with it. That would have kept the garlic smell away.”

“Really?” Sean asked. He looked around and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have any parsley around here?”

“No,” Mr. Booker answered with a laugh. “All I have are books.”

“Would eating a book on parsley help?” Sean asked. He was rather desperate.

“No, Sean. You should probably take a good hot steam bath and just sweat it out at this point,” Mr. Booker said.