by Jim Benton
I didn’t see Isabella for the rest of day, so I
had to wait to call her until after one of Mom’s
homemade dinners.
That might sound good, but just because
things are homemade, it doesn’t mean they’re good.
House fires, for example, are homemade.
Even Stinker wouldn’t take anything I slipped
him under the table, and I once saw Stinker eat two
square feet of tablecloth.
(He could have eaten more tablecloth,
but some of Mom’s casserole had spilled on it and
so he stopped.)
39
When we finally talked on the phone, Isabella
was surprised and pleased by my discovery.
“So the Permanent Record has a flaw, does
it?” she asked, with the same kind of joy that a troll
expresses when he asks if you meant it when you
said he could eat your kitten. “I always knew there
had to be something wrong with it, and you found
that something, Jamie.”
I imagined her finishing off the rest of the
kitten.
“Well, yes, I guess I did,” I said, blushing
modestly. “I’m blushing modestly,” I added,
because she couldn’t see me over the phone.
“This flaw, I don’t think it’s good for
anything, but I take back what I said before,”
Isabella said. “I take back what I said about you
being the dumbest person I know.”
“Thanks, Isab —”
40
“And lazy. And messy. And clumsy. All of it. I
take it all back,” she went on.
“Thanks, Isab —”
“You’re still dumb. Just not THE dumbest.”
Pretty cool, huh? NOT THE DUMBEST.
That’s going to look pretty good on my business
card one day.
41
Tuesday 10
Dear Dumb Diary,
Mrs. Curie stopped me today as I was walking
into science class.
“The meat loaf,” she said.
“The meat loaf,” I responded.
“What’s the deal with the meat loaf?” she
asked.
“That’s what I always say,” I said, because I
always say that.
She told me that she had been thinking more
about it. She thought that I had asked some pretty
good questions.
“And now that you have your answers, I guess
we can be done with it, hmmm?” she said,
nodding slightly.
I’ve known Isabella almost my whole life, and
Isabella has tried to convince me to do something I
shouldn’t do almost every single day of that life. If
there is ONE THING I know for sure, it’s when
somebody is trying to lead me to a conclusion.
All I could think was, Seriously, Mrs. Curie, I’ve
been manipulated by the best. Spare me.
“Yeah,” I said, knowing that it was what I was
supposed to say. I narrowed my eyes at her. She
narrowed hers back.
Not wanting to be outnarrowed, I narrowed
my eyes more, and she responded with even
narrower eyes. We continued narrowing until I
realized that my eyes were closed and I couldn’t
walk to my desk that way.
43
Isabella was waiting for me by my locker at
the end of the day, and said that we were joining an
after- school extracurricular. She quickly grabbed
Angeline’s backpack from the floor as we ran so
that Angeline would have to follow us.
When we got to where we were going, there
were about ten boys in the classroom. No girls.
They all stared blankly at us as we walked in.
“We’re joining this extracurricular,” Isabella
said to the teacher that was supervising. (He was
one of those teachers that you see all the time
but never know their name. He is kind of average-
looking and dresses pretty average. He has sort of
an average personality and is of an average height
and weight. I just call him Mr. Ugly.)
“Not so fast,” one of the boys objected. “You
have to really be a gamer to join this club. What
games do you ladies play?” There was something
very insulting and challenging about the way
he lisped the question at us. All of the other dorks
stared at us, waiting for an answer.
Then Angeline walked in, looking for her
backpack.
This caused all the gamers to sort of avert
their eyes from Angeline, as if they weren’t worthy
to gaze upon her.
They were right about that, of course —
they aren’t. But I think that they also should
not have been quite so comfortable gazing upon
me, either.
“Give me my backpack,” Angeline said,
pausing for a moment and then mumbling, “It
smells like pizza in here, and a little bit like
somebody is wearing . . .”
“Wearing what?” I asked.
She leaned in and whispered to me, “You’ve
heard of antiperspirants. Is there such a thing as a
pro - perspirant?”
“You’ll get your backpack after we join this
club,” Isabella interrupted. “Doofus McDerpydiaper
here won’t let us sign up.”
“Why don’t you ask him?” I suggested to
Angeline, and she smiled at the lisper.
45
I remember some goofy giggling, and faces
blushing so red you couldn’t even see the acne
anymore. The next thing you know, Angeline was
elected president of the Videogamer Club for life,
and Isabella and I became her vice presidents.
It turns out that we were the first three
girls to ever try to join, and the fact that we’re
never going to attend again probably won’t bother
them at all.
Gamers have a great sense of adventure and
a great love of legend, and I imagine The Tale of
the Three Gorgeous Gamers will be told and
retold in front of flickering screens over sloshing
glasses of Mountain Dew and snacks covered in that
bright orange cheese-flavored sand.
And now I have ANOTHER extracurricular
activity on my record.
46
After Angeline had twinkled away with her
backpack, I asked Isabella why she wanted to
participate in extracurriculars all of a sudden.
“Last night, my dad and my older brothers
got into this huge argument. He said they were lazy
good -for-nothings and would probably end up living
at home, lying around, doing nothing for the rest of
their lives,” Isabella said.
“That’s pretty upsetting,” I said.
“I’ll say,” Isabella agreed. “Lying around,
doing nothing for the rest of my life in my parents’
house was MY plan. But I don’t want to live there if
my brothers are going to be there, too. I guess now I
have to get into college, Jamie, and that means I
need my extracurriculars, too.”
47
Wednesday 11
Dear Dumb Diary,
In Language Arts today, Mrs. Avon (English
&nbs
p; teacher and possessor of gums big enough for
several much larger English teachers) is having us
write news articles about something happening at
school.
She wants us to be able to communicate big
ideas quickly in a way that will make people want to
read more.
Incredibly, Isabella finished the assignment
weeks early. Here it is:
FLIRTY ART TEACHER, MISS
ANDERSON, SHOWS UP AT SCHOOL
WEARING DEODORANT.
WE BELIEVE THAT, IN FACT,
SHE WEARS DEODORANT TO SCHOOL ALL OF THE TIME,
JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE TEACHERS.
48
Mrs. Avon and Isabella got into a little
discussion about the assignment, and Mrs. Avon
said Isabella’s headline was inappropriate. Isabella
asked her if she had any reason to believe that
anything in it was untrue.
“Some of the teachers NOT wearing
deodorant?” she asked Mrs. Avon. “Perhaps you
would like to make a statement on the record?”
I think it was because Isabella had her little
pen and paper poised to take notes on Mrs. Avon’s
response that the discussion came to an end.
“Fine. How does a B minus grab you?” Mrs.
Avon asked her.
“Make it a B, and we’re good,” Isabella said.
And with that, Isabella was done weeks ahead of
schedule.
She’s good.
Maybe Isabella is going to grow up to be
somebody that negotiates big deals, or a rhinoceros
trainer.
49
Because Isabella is already done with her
assignment and Mrs. Avon knows that this sort of
project is a breeze for me, she said okay when
Isabella asked if we could be excused from class to
work on a project for the Student Awareness
Committee, which, I was told in an aggressive
whisper moments before, was an extracurricular
club we had very recently joined.
50
Actually, we didn’t just join it.
Isabella informed me out in the hall that we
had just created it.
“It occurred to me, Jamie, why should we just
join clubs when we can invent as many as we want?
That’s got to look good on our Permanent
Records.”
It’s pretty hard to argue with Isabella’s
logic. Mostly because when you do, she’s pretty
hard on you.
And I think she’s right. I can already feel my
future becoming perfecter.
51
Thursday 12
Dear Dumb Diary,
You know, it wasn’t that long ago that I saw
Angeline as an enemy — the kind of enemy that
never really does anything bad or is mean or has
anything wrong with them in any way. You know the
kind of enemy I mean: The Worst Kind.
It used to bother me that the boys, and in
particular, Hudson Rivers (eighth - cutest boy in my
grade), were all infatuated with her beautiful looks
and wonderful personality and niceness and all of
that horrible, horrible, horrible garbage.
But I’m more mature now, and I’ve accepted
Angeline as a FRIEND UNTIL FURTHER
NOTICE. Plus, I am able to believe that the boys
are all infatuated with her because she’s friends
with me and I find that comforting.
Shut up, Diary. This works for me.
52
And since Angeline is a friend (until further
notice), she sits with us at lunch quite often.
“You want to sign up for the Student
Awareness Committee?” Isabella asked her.
“Never heard of it,” Angeline said, slowly
sawing at her meat loaf.
“It’s a new club here,” Isabella explained.
“Can’t be,” Angeline said. “I’d know about it.”
“It is,” Isabella said, somewhat angrily. “I
happen to know it is, Miss Stupidpants, because I
started it.”
“Stupidpants, huh?” Angeline said, after she
politely squeezed down a bite of meat loaf.
53
Isabella rubbed her chin as if she had a
beard. This was not hard to picture, as her grandma
really does have a little beard, and you can see the
family resemblance.
I’ve learned that Angeline, though beautiful,
knows a lot more than you’d sometimes think,
and “Miss Stupidpants” was probably over
the line.
“That’s right. Miss Stupidpants,”
Isabella repeated, choosing to stay on that side of
the line.
54
Just then, Bruntford, a storm cloud that can
often pass for a lunchroom monitor, shambled past,
eyeing our trays as she went.
Normally we avert our gaze, not wanting to be
turned to stone and all, but I suddenly
remembered my science and stopped her.
“Miss Bruntford, can I ask you a question
about the meat loaf for my science class? Nobody
likes it. Why does the cafeteria sell it?”
I once saw this documentary about some
wolves that had cornered a bison, and it had
exactly the same look on its face as Bruntford. You
know, if bison were uglier and smaller.
“Who is your science teacher again?” she
asked, trying to smile.
“Mrs. Curie,” I said. “But why does that
matter? Why does the cafeteria serve this?”
55
Bruntford walked away without answering.
“Why wouldn’t she answer?” Hudson asked
handsomely. “It’s a simple question.”
56
FRIDAY 13
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella and her mom picked me up early for
school today. As it turns out, there are two
extracurricular clubs that meet in the morning, and
this morning, Isabella made me join them both.
I am really beginning to wonder if including
Isabella on this whole thing was such a good idea.
It’s important for me to have a perfect future, of
course, but if Isabella’s is perfecter than mine, I’m
going to be spending some of my future trying to
sabotage hers. Look, I know that’s not a very
attractive thing to say, but Isabella and I are
very close friends and that’s just what very close
friends do.
Our first stop was the Agriculture Club, which
I suppose meets first thing in the morning because
farmers get up really early.
But why? Isn’t the farmer the BOSS of the
farm? What’s going to happen, are the cows going
to just spray their milk all over the floor and make
him mop it up if he’s not there on time?
Seriously, farmers, take control. And cows,
knock it off. I’ll send Isabella over there, and you
know how she feels about cows.
We were there just long enough to sign up and
then leave, but nobody noticed because they were
all too sleepy from being farmers.
58
The next stop was the Running Club.
Everybody that participates in Track Team at school
<
br /> is in this club. It also attracts kids that do other
sports, and people that enjoy waking up very early
and running for the fun of it.
The. Fun. Of. It.
You know, how like when you see reports on
TV of people running from volcanoes or escaped
bears or things like that and they’re all laughing
and giggling about how much fun they’re having and
how they hope they get to just keep running and
running and never stop.
59
We signed up and started walking away, since
this is how we do things, but Yolanda stopped us.
She had dragged over the teacher who supervises
the Running Club, Mr. Dover.
“Jamie and Isabella just signed up. Can they
run with us this morning?” she asked him daintily.
“Oh, no thanks,” I said, and then I said
“Errff” because that’s what you say when Isabella
punches you in the back.
“Yeah. We’d like that,” Isabella said.
Mr. Dover said it was okay, and Isabella and
I started running along, trying to keep up with the
big group of Early Morning Runners who are more
commonly known to normal people as lunatics.
“Why . . . did . . . you . . . say . . . we . . .
would . . . run?” I asked Isabella as I gulped for
oxygen.
“We don’t want anybody discovering what
we’re doing. Nobody can find out about this
flaw in the Permanent Record,” she said without
gasping. Isabella often has to wrestle both of her
mean older brothers at once, and this has given
her excellent breath control.
We watched as the more experienced runners
pulled away from us.
“One . . . more . . . thing,” I said, huffing.
“Did . . . you . . . bring . . . any . . . clothes . . .
to . . . change . . . into?”
61
She hadn’t. And we were trailing so far
beyond the other runners that we didn’t even have
time to duck into the locker room and shower when
we finally finished.
As we were hurrying to get to class on time,