Chapter 1<br >Jack Rankin had a particularly sensitive nose. As he<br >walked into school in the morning， sometimes he<br >would pause in the entryway and pull in a snoot-<br >load of air from the flow rushing out the door.<br >Instantly he could tell what the cafeteria lunch<br >would be， right down to whether the Jell-O was<br >strawberry or orange. He could tell if the school<br >secretary was wearing perfume， and whether there<br >was an open box of doughnuts on the table in the<br >teachers room on the second floor.<br > On this particular Monday morning Jack s nose<br >was on high alert. He was working on a special<br >project--a bubble gum project. Today s activity<br >was the result of about a week s worth of research<br >and planning.<br > Days ago， Jack had begun the project by<br >secretly examining the bottoms of desks and tables<br >all over the school， trying to decide exactly which<br >kind of discarded gum was the most unpleasant.<br >"