Special Delivery! by Sue Stauffacher

allowed in this house until they’vebeen decontaminated,” Grandma Alice said. “It will cover every surface. We’ll never get the smell out.”
    Aaliyah was pounding on the back door. “Yuck! Let us in.”
    “Stall her,” Grandma said. “I’ll get the rubber gloves and Grandma’s special patented skunk stink remover.” Grandma grabbed the pot off the stove and splashed some of the stink remover around the kitchen as she went to find a bucket.
    “Oh,” Mama said, rubbing her temples. “Sometimes the cure is worse than the illness.”
    “That stuff stinks, too.” Zeke joined Keisha by the door.
    “Let.”
Bang
. “Us.”
Bang
. “In.”
Bang!
Aaliyah pounded on the door.
    “I can’t,” Keisha said. “Not until you’ve been decontaminated.”
    “What are you talking about? He didn’t spray me! Don’t you think I’d know if I’d been sprayed by a skunk?”
    Keisha opened the door a crack and Zeke helped it along. “C’mon, Zack. Wanna smell some skunk stink?”
    “I can’t find my washing pail,” Grandma said. “I’ll just have to take it in the pot.” The soup pot was getting heavy for Grandma. She had her rubber apron and gloves on now and was struggling toward the door. Zekeheld it open for her and she came down the steps slowly, sloshing a bit of her cure on her apron with every step. Mama rushed by them to the skunk’s pen.
    “You can put your pot down, Alice. This isn’t skunk spray.” Mama sniffed the air. “But there is something. Razi Carter? Come to me, please.”
    “Yes, Mama.” Razi had his hands under his shirt, a sure sign he’d been doing something with them he wasn’t supposed to.
    Keisha looked for the skunk. It must have retreated back into the cloth-covered cage. That was probably the only place it felt safe.
    “Razi, what do I see sprinkled around this pen? Are these crumbs? Did you give something to this skunk?” Mama asked.
    “I gave him a traditional Razi greeting.”
    “And what is that?”
    “That’s not skunk spray I smell,” Grandma Alice announced as if she were the only one who could make the decision. “That’s the result of an intact
flatus apparatus.”
    Everyone looked at Grandma.
    “Huh?” Zeke, Zack and Aaliyah said at the same time.
    Grandma straightened and said in her Professor Alice voice: “An odor resulting from an intact
flatus
apparatus
and caused by an upset stomach or other digestive problem.”
    “Razi?” Mama was looking at Razi with her
tell-me-the-truth-no-ifs-ands-or-buts
look.
    “I didn’t give them to him … he took them!” Razi pulled his hands out from underneath his shirt and balled up his fists like he was ready for a fight.
    Mama tilted her head to the side. “Now, now, we are not blaming you. We just want to know—”
    “My Nilla wafers. The ones Grandma Alice gave me. I was going to break off a little piece, but I dropped one, and he reached through the bars and got it.”
    Razi puffed his cheeks and let out a big blow of air, relieved he didn’t have to keep that secret anymore. “Then I dropped the other ones in his cage and he ate those, too.”
    “Dropped them in by accident? Or on purpose?”
    “He likes Nilla wafers!”
    “Didn’t you say you lured him into the cage at the garden with grubs, Fayola?” Grandma asked.
    Mama nodded.
    “Aha … ohhh … ooooweee! That’s grub and Nilla wafer flatus. No wonder it smells so bad. But no permanent harm done. The fresh air will take care of it all and the Z-Team can help me bottle up Grandma’s special patented skunk stink remover for another day.”
    “Awww, do we have to?” Zack whined.
    “I want to fly Wen’s kite,” Zeke said.
    “Where is Wen?” Keisha wondered.
    “Up here!” Wen called. She had climbed halfway up the horse chestnut tree to free her beautiful kite.
    “I want to climb the tree with Wen!” Razi shouted.
    Mama was rubbing her temples again.
    “Boys,” Grandma Alice said, putting a hand on each of the twins’