There is a massive potential profit to be made in the east second-floor hallway. Forget cookies from Heifer Club; we’re talking about a profit in the minimalization of nasal inhalation (MONI) department: nose plugs, gas masks, clothes pins, roller skate rentals to cut down on hallway time. MONI equals money.

In short, dat hallway stinks. It takes superior mental concentration to ponder matters other than sulfur and massive diarrhea explosions while walking through it.

If you have never noticed this putrid odor, well, to put this gently, your personal hygiene needs serious work. A Garfield custodian was unable to comment on this new mystery, and after receiving an ominous page (“There’s blood…on the wall…above the trash can…in the boys bathroom”), he had some other potty business to attend to.

Luckily, Emmett, a plumber working with the school’s contracting company, has an explanation.

“Have you noticed that an area of the second floor smells like, uh, poop?” I offer.

“Sewer gas,” he corrects me, and no, he hasn’t noticed the stench (“I’ve never walked that way!” he says). However, Emmett is aware that a trap primer in the general vicinity of the hallway I described has yet to be wired. When the trap primer is wired, it will fill with water and block the flow of sewer gas from escaping.

Dwight Hansch, head contractor, disagrees. Though Emmett’s suggestion is a possibility, he says, a more probable origin of the aroma is Garfield’s kitchen. Hansch thinks that fumes released from the kitchen to the outside are pulled back inside by the school’s ventilation system, filling the infamous corridor with a delightful fragrance.

(To this hypothesis a lunch lady says, “NO! Uh, no! If anything, this kitchen smells like chocolate brownies!”)

“It’s quite a mystery,” says Hansch. “It even disappeared for about a month.” One thing that is definite is the odor’s potency early in the day, which fizzles as the periods go by. This probably occurs because the sewer/kitchen gas (take your pick) has been ruminating all night, settling on lockers and walls and waiting for an escape through open doors.

Teachers whose rooms are in the hallway definitely notice the pungent smell as they arrive at school in the morning. Ms. Gomez-Gumbs demands a refund for all the air freshener she’s used, and “[the odor] dries my skin out!” she says.

An electrician will wire the trap primer in the coming days, but the lunch ladies will keep on cooking. I pray with all my heart that the stink does not come from the kitchen.