Martin, the boy who couldn't stop farting

Most children would look at a plate of Brussels and burst into tears, but not Martin. He would eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner if he could, he might also have them as a snack if he was hungry enough.

His mum thought this was wonderful, none of her friends had children who ate so many vegetables, not even the goodie-two-shoes ones.

Not everyone was so pleased about Martin's love of sprouts, in fact, most people positively hated it, the side effects were horrid. Everybody Martin knew carried an emergency gas mask because he did the loudest, longest, smelliest most disgusting trumps in the world... ever! They were so bad that he even had his own world record, the certificate to prove it was in a posh frame on his bedroom wall, it even had its own spotlight to make sure nobody could miss it.

Martin's trumps had become a national treasure, eating that many Brussels sprouts produced quite a lot of wind. A fast, powerful, useful sort of wind. He loved to amuse his friends by sitting on the ground, cross legged and blasting off like a rocket before drifting gracefully back down to Earth. His wind was not just useful for entertaining his friends, his dad realised that Martin could help him around the house and gave him chores to do like leaf blowing, path sweeping and removing cobwebs from high ceilings. His mum asked him to dry the washing once on a non-blowy day but that just made everything smelly so she just uses the dryer now.

His trumps had become famous in his neighbourhood and people stopped him in the street for selfies and demonstrations. This caught the attention of the local newspaper who ran a few stories about the windy young boy who helped his elderly neighbours with their garden clearance jobs. After this, the regional news interviewed him because local farmers claimed he was the best crow-scarer they had ever had. The interview was in the open air of course, just in case.

When the story was picked up by the national news, Martin's life really began to change. He started to get free supplies of brussel sprouts for a start which his mum was very pleased about, but he also started to get requests from big companies to carry out jobs for them. One time he went to a power station to supply them with the extra gas needed to make electricity, there was expected to be a surge of people switching their kettles on at half-time of the World Cup final and they needed all the help they could get (he had eaten a lot of sprouts that day). Another time he was asked to hide on a sailing boat and provide gusts of wind to help the crew win a race, he was sure this was cheating but Martin was only too happy to help.

These things had made Martin's life interesting and also paid quite well but the really life changing event came when the Prime Minister himself had called to ask for Martin's help. There had been lots of worried faces when news came in of a volcano erupting and sending a massive cloud of ash and debris into the sky. Martin thought the pictures were spectacular and had been watching the TV to see the bubbling and boiling cloud react angrily to being outside of the volcano. Apparently, the Prime Minister did not share his enthusiasm for the beauty of the ash cloud, he just wanted it gone. The air traffic of the world was grounded and nobody could get to or from their holidays. Angry businessmen were pacing the airports in their stripy suits, looking at their watches and blaming the Prime Minister for not sorting the cloud out quickly enough. Martin didn't see why they should blame the Prime Minister for the volcanic activity, it seemed a bit absurd since he didn't control nature, so he agreed to help. It was his biggest job ever, he ate brussel sprouts for every meal and snack and even blended them into drinks to get an extra boost. For three whole days, Martin acted like a giant fan to blow away the ash cloud and he did an amazing job. The prime minister was especially pleased with the result, the businessmen of the world had stopped complaining, all of the holidaymakers could now get to where they were going and more importantly, his mother-in-law could go home.

The world was astonished by Martin, the boy who couldn't stop farting (as the papers had dubbed him). The biologists were working frantically to try and understand how a young boy could produce such powerful and abundant wind, the environmentalists were tutting about the huge amount of methane he produced and the effect this must be having on the ozone layer and the army were rubbing their hands together at the thought of this possible new weapon. Martin just wanted to get back to his normal life, he loved to help out if he could but he really preferred to play rockets in the garden with his mates so he thought he would do that for a while until the next national emergency came about.

The end.