“No.”
         Jon’l stood near the pillows. “I thought I smelled something kind of rank.”
         Now Brad perked up and watched.
         “Do you smell anything?” Jon’l asked him.
         “No,” Brad said.
         As Brad watched Jon’l sniff the air, he reflected how amused he was by Jon’l’s remarkably good sense of smell and curious habit of sniffing everything he handled. When he picked up a magazine, he’d smell it. When he picked up a piece of silverware, he’d sniff it. When he walked into a room for the first time, he’d sniff the air.
         This proclivity was seared into Brad’s memory by an earlier even eight or nine years before when the two, then in their early teens, had a gardening business in their Van Nuys neighborhood. They had put fliers in mailboxes of the nearby streets and got several lawn mowing jobs. One day at the Borschardt house when Jon’l retrieved some tools from the garage, he saw a plastic container in a corner and wondered if it was gasoline. Removing the top, he sniffed very tentatively. When he didn’t smell anything, he brought it closer and sniffed again. Still nothing. Finally, he pressed his nose inside the top and inhaled mightily.
         Without warning, he felt hot burning fumes shoot up his nose. He flung his head back and snorted, trying to expel the fire, then let out a high-pitched howl, dropping to his knees and waving a hand before his face.
         Brad entered the garage just then. “What was it?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
         Jon’l jumped up and ran out of the garage, flailing his arms, trying to outrun the noxious odors, his face and eyes bright red.
         “What was it?” Brad asked again, becoming concerned. “What was in that bottle?” He couldn’t imagine what could have provoked such a reaction.
         Finally Jon’l composed himself. “Whew! I don’t know what it was but it wasn’t gasoline.”
         They went back into the garage and inspected the bottle. On its side, written in pen on a piece of white tape were the letters NH3.
         “That’s ammonia,” Brad stated confidently. “I know that from science class.”
         After Jon’l collected himself, Brad imitated his reactions, making Jon’l laugh. Jon’l said it felt like hot molten lava rushing up his nose. They relived the event a hundred times that afternoon, laughing harder each