CHAPTER 1

WEAKNESS

Every superhero has a weakness,” TJ blurted out one day while Vivian, Jimmy, Mumps, and I were sitting inside our secret hideout, the Nostril.

The morning sky was bright blue and the air was already hot and sticky. Summer vacation was almost over. My friends were back from their camps and my smell tour of the surrounding countryside was an amazing success. I had added sixty-four new odors to my scent dictionary and managed to go the whole summer without getting sunburn on my nose. (My mom had stocked up with several hundred gallons of SPF 500 sunscreen.)

“What weaknesses are you talking about?” I asked TJ.

“You know, like how Kryptonite makes Superman shrivel like a worm on sizzling asphalt.”

“And how Aquaman turns belly up if he’s out of water for more than sixty minutes,” Mumps added.

“Don’t forget Wolverine,” Jimmy said. “The Muramasa Blade completely destroys his self-healing powers.”

Vivian, who had been playing with her pet gecko, Mr. Sticky, looked up. “That’s nothing,” she said. “What about Janet van Dyne—aka the Wasp?”

“What about her?” Jimmy asked.

“Her weakness is the Blob, who ate her in Ultimatum, Issue Two, and then remarked she tasted like chicken!”

For the next ten minutes, Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers argued back and forth about which superhero had the weirdest weakness: Thor letting go of his hammer for more than one minute; Venom, Spider-man’s nemesis, and his vulnerability to extreme heat; Power Girl’s negative reaction to natural elements; and the Green Lantern’s strange aversion to the color yellow.

While my friends jabbered away, I reached up and grabbed my Super Schnoz costume off its hanger. I took a huge whiff of the fabric. The tantalizing odors of my last Super Schnoz adventure made the hairs inside my nose tingle. Even though it had been two months since our battle with ECU, I still smelled the rancid odor of burning Stryker combat vehicles, the pungent pastrami sandwich rotting away on Mr. Toby’s desk, and the disgusting fragrance of Muzzle’s aftershave lotion—an astringent mix of rubbing alcohol and menthol.

But most of all, my ultrasensitive, bloodhound-like scent membranes inhaled the nasty nasal sensations of the Gates of Smell.

“What’s your weakness, Schnoz?” TJ asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe it’s cayenne pepper. Snorting six bottles of the stuff nearly burned away my nasal lining.”

“Cayenne pepper isn’t your weakness,” Mumps joked. “It gives you power the way rays from the sun fuel Superman’s superhuman hearing, strength, and X-ray vision!”

Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers cracked up.

“Don’t worry,” Vivian reassured me. “I know that stuff wasn’t good for your nose. Hopefully, you’ll never have to arm yourself with cayenne pepper again. But if you do, you need to carry a spray bottle of saline solution to moisten the inside of your nasal passages after every blast.”

“Schnoz will need more than a spray bottle to moisten that huge honker!” TJ squealed. “He’ll need a whole tanker truck full of the stuff!”

“Very funny,” I said sarcastically. “If it wasn’t for my nose, you’d be floating downstream on a smelly river of SPOIL. ECU would have destroyed our school, town, and possibly the entire world.”

Vivian gently picked up Mr. Sticky, placed him back inside his plastic mini-rainforest habitat, and closed the lid. “I don’t know Schnoz’s weakness, but I know the town’s weakness. And it has nothing to do with sniffing pepper,” she said.

I shot Vivian a confused look. “What are you talking about?”

She wiggled her finger, indicating I should follow her. “Let’s go for a ride,” she said. “The evidence is right under your nose in downtown Denmark, and you’re not even aware of it.”