Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #3: Nobody's Perfect. I'm As Close As It Gets.

Home > Other > Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #3: Nobody's Perfect. I'm As Close As It Gets. > Page 5
Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #3: Nobody's Perfect. I'm As Close As It Gets. Page 5

by Jim Benton


  Mrs. Avon, but she read them over my shoulder.

  STUDENT WRITES HEADLINE.

  ALSO THAT LITTLE SENTENCE UNDER THE HEADLINE.

  NOTHING HAPPENS ANYWHERE.

  JOURNALISTS TAKE THE DAY OFF.

  MEAT LOAF. NOBODY LIKES IT.

  WHY IS IT SERVED?

  BLONDS EVOLVED FROM SPIDERS.

  “NOT SURPRISED,” SAY ALL SCIENTISTS EVERY WHERE.

  She said she really liked it, and I told her that

  I had made it up. Science isn’t certain that blonds

  evolved from spiders. It could have been scorpions

  or ticks.

  Turns out that it was the meat loaf story

  that she liked.

  “It asks a very simple but interesting

  question, Jamie. I think I would read that article. Go

  with it,” she said with a big grin, and I leaned back a

  bit to avoid being overexposed to gums.

  84

  After school, Isabella met me at my locker

  and we went to sign up for the Camera Club.

  When we got there, everybody was showing

  each other their pictures on their computers, but

  since it’s the Camera Club, you can guess what

  happens when new people walk in.

  You would think that they would have torn up

  our applications right then and there, but they said

  Isabella will give them awesome practice if they

  decide to become paparazzi and they have to deal

  with mentally disturbed celebrities.

  Isabella offered to hang around and punch a

  few more of them, but we had to make our next

  stop, the Cuisine Club.

  85

  The Cuisine Club was just the Cooking Club

  last year, but they changed the name to sound

  better. Sort of like how the Student Fitness

  Club used to be called Gosh We’re Fat.

  The Cuisine Club gets to use the cafeteria

  kitchen and, to tell you the truth, I think I might

  have actually liked being in this club except for

  how we’re not actually being in any of the clubs

  we join.

  My very beautiful art teacher, Miss Anderson,

  is the supervisor for this one. That makes a lot of

  sense, because a big part of food is the presentation,

  and that’s why the most delicious foods in the world

  are so nice to look at.

  Except maybe pizza, which looks like a

  manhole cover with a massive, unhealing wound.

  Or spaghetti, which looks like a plateful of

  worms that were thrown through a fan.

  Or chocolate —

  You know, let’s just change the subject.

  When we got there, Miss Anderson was telling

  the group about how you have to budget a menu

  carefully. You need to think about what things cost.

  If you spend all your money on one thing, you won’t

  have enough money for anything else.

  I felt bad signing up and then leaving. We told

  Miss Anderson, like we tell all the rest of the club

  supervisors, that we’d be back next week, but we

  won’t. We’re just doing this to make our

  Permanent Records look better.

  It’s probably just like when a momma sea

  turtle buries her eggs in the sand. “I’ll be right

  back,” she says. “What? No, I wouldn’t leave my

  babies all alone to crawl out into the ocean and try

  to learn to swim. That would be so super- lame.”

  I really wanted to confess to Miss Anderson. I

  wanted to admit what we were doing, but Isabella

  has us in too deep now.

  Too deep.

  I can honestly say that I’ve never felt turtlier.

  Thursday 19

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Hudson looked at me hesitantly at lunch.

  “I didn’t have any coffee. I don’t smell,” I

  reassured him.

  He sat down across from me.

  “I didn’t know it bothered you so much,” I

  said. “I thought everybody liked the smell of

  coffee.”

  He shrugged. “Not everybody. I know the

  teachers are all crazy about it. But I can’t stand it.”

  Isabella and Angeline carried their trays

  over and sat down with us. Hudson pointed at their

  meat loaf.

  “Got any more science to share with us on

  this stuff?” he asked me.

  They all laughed.

  88

  Great. I’d become the Meat Loaf Master.

  “Mrs. Avon wants me to write a story about it now. I

  never should have mentioned it.”

  “Let me help you out with that, Jamie,”

  Isabella volunteered, waving Bruntford over to our

  table before I knew what was happening.

  “Hey, why do they serve this when they know

  we don’t like it?” she asked Bruntford bluntly.

  “What kind of question is that?” Bruntford

  asked.

  “The kind people answer,” Isabella said.

  “It’s, um, it’s good for you,” Bruntford

  said. She started sweating a little. I could tell,

  because it smelled like a lot of people sweating.

  “Not if we don’t eat it,” Isabella said.

  “It’s delicious,” Bruntford said. “Kids like it.

  Like cake.”

  Isabella looked around, and Bruntford’s eyes

  scanned the cafeteria with her. It was a scene of

  total disgust.

  “Do they?” Isabella asked.

  “It’s, um . . .” Bruntford began.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t be so selfish,” Bruntford oinked at us,

  and stormed off.

  “There’s the answer,” I said.

  “What? What’s the answer?” Hudson said.

  I put on my smartest face. “If somebody

  won’t tell you the reason, the reason is even worse

  than refusing to give you the reason.”

  Angeline smiled and nodded. She would never

  admit it in a million years, but I know that she knew

  that was kind of smart.

  “That’s kind of smart,” she said, ahead of

  schedule by about a million years.

  90

  Friday 20

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Today in science, we talked about something

  called commensalism. It’s when one species

  benefits from a relationship that doesn’t harm the

  other. Like, when cows graze, they stir up bugs that

  birds eat. It helps the birds, and the cows are

  unaffected.

  Then there’s mutualism, where both

  species benefit, like how clown fish eat little

  critters that hurt sea anemones, and the sea

  anemone’s stingers protect the clown fish from

  predators.

  And there’s parasitism, where only one

  species benefits and the other is harmed, like a flea

  living on a dog. (Stinker has had some fleas, but out

  of embarrassment, they always lie to the other

  fleas about where they live.)

  91

  Mrs. Curie decided to ask me to see if I could

  summarize the lesson, because she thought I wasn’t

  paying attention.

  For the record, making a jillion of those little

  transparent cube things on your notebook doesn’t

  necessarily mean that you aren’t paying attention.

&n
bsp; 92

  I said that, evidently, nature is always

  coming up with a new way for somebody to get

  messed with, and that’s the main thing I think

  we need to understand about these relationships.

  She said that nobody gets messed with in

  commensalism or mutualism, and I said that I

  thought the bugs that the birds eat might

  disagree with her. And the sea anemones are

  keeping some other animal from enjoying a nice

  clown fish dinner. And the clown fish is keeping

  other critters from helping themselves to some

  delicious anemone. (I just assume they’re delicious

  because they look so much like gummy worms.)

  93

  “Nope,” I said. “All of nature is designed so

  that we’re all messing with each other. All the time.

  And no matter how perfectly an animal adapts,

  something is right there to mess with them.”

  Nobody said anything, so I went on. “You

  might think, when you look out there at all the trees

  and flowers and squirrels, that they’re in perfect

  harmony, but they’re not. They’re locked in a battle

  that none of them seems to be able to win. They all

  want what they want, and they don’t much care

  what they have to do to get it.” I was on a roll now.

  Take that, smartness. “Those beautiful

  flowers get water and nutrients from the soil,

  and they use the sun to create energy, but if they

  had little mouths and claws, those flowers would

  eat us.”

  I had been pointing and looking out the

  window as I spoke, and I suddenly realized that the

  room had become silent.

  94

  Mrs. Curie was just staring at me. She seemed

  to really be processing what I had said.

  In fact, everybody was just staring at me.

  Yolanda looked like she might cry. (Nature is no

  place for the dainty.)

  Finally, Isabella broke the silence.

  “YOU GOT THAT RIGHT, GIRLFREN,”

  she said loudly, dropping the D on girlfriend because

  it sounds cooler that way.

  “Class dismissed,” said Mrs. Curie quietly.

  95

  Saturday 21

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  I worked on my news story for Mrs. Avon

  today, and even asked Dad for help.

  I don’t really like asking for help, because it’s

  sort of like admitting I can’t do something, but

  lately I’ve been thinking that if I have to pound a

  nail, I don’t use my fist, I call upon Mr. Hammer for

  help. It’s easier for me to ask for help when I think

  of my dad as a giant tool.

  I told him about the meat loaf questions and

  how now I had to write about meat loaf for

  Language Arts.

  96

  “Hmmm, I don’t know, Jamie. Ask your mom.

  As you know, she occasionally commits a meat

  loaf. Maybe she’ll tell you exactly what’s going on

  there,” Dad said, effectively reminding me that

  sometimes Mr. Hammer bends the nail you’ve asked

  him to help you with, and you have to call on Mrs.

  Pliers to help you pull it out.

  Mom was in the kitchen, trying to get Stinker

  and Stinkette to eat leftovers from last night. (Not

  a chance.)

  I told her all about my story, and she picked

  up her purse.

  “Get in the car.”

  97

  The next thing I knew, we were in the

  supermarket.

  “Here,” Mom said, handing me some cash.

  “Pick out what we’re having for dinner.”

  I haven’t been given this opportunity since

  The Great Chocolate - Chip Soup scandal of three

  years ago.

  After looking around a little, I came back to

  the cart.

  “This isn’t enough money,” I said. “I can’t get

  what I want with this.”

  Mom laughed.

  “Welcome to the world,” she said.

  I knew that I was supposed to learn

  something, so I popped my eyes open wide and

  nodded as I pointed at Mom and laughed a little.

  I have no idea how the grocery -store trip was

  supposed to help me with Language Arts, but I knew

  how to make it come to an end.

  98

  Sunday 22

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Isabella and I got calls from both the Camera

  Club and the Running Club to bring in something for

  the fund-raising bake sales they’re doing tomorrow.

  I told her that I’m afraid if we don’t

  participate, they’ll start asking questions about our

  commitment and this will lead to us being kicked

  out of the clubs. Pretty soon, questions will be

  asked about all of these clubs we joined and the

  next thing you know, my future will be destroyed

  and Isabella will be still living with her mean older

  brothers when she’s 75.

  It was that last part that got through to

  Isabella.

  “Just bring some money and a paper plate,”

  she said.

  Monday 23

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Today, I gave Isabella my money and she

  bought a whole plate of brownies from the Camera

  Club bake sale. She put half of them on the paper

  plate, and we walked down the hall to where they

  were having the Running Club bake sale.

  “Here’s our contribution,” she said with a

  big lying smile.

  Then we went around the corner, where she

  took out the bag of coffee and sprinkled some on

  the brownies we had kept.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and I tagged along

  cluelessly as she started knocking on classroom

  doors.

  “Anybody interested in some coffee- flavored

  brownies?” she asked. “Mocha -java brownies!

  Fund-raiser for the Camera Club!” she crowed.

  That was all the teachers had to hear in order

  to pull out their wallets and happily give us four

  times what we’d paid for the brownies in the first

  place.

  Then we walked back to the Running Club

  bake sale with the money and bought a plate of

  cookies. We took those back to the Camera Club

  bake sale.

  “Here’s our contribution,” Isabella said with

  another big lying smile, and we walked away.

  Isabella turned to me. “That’s how we do it.”

  “Great,” I said. “But it still cost me money.”

  “No, it didn’t,” she said. “We have some cash

  left over.” She handed me what we had left. I

  actually made a dollar on the deal.

  I think it’s now pretty clear what Isabella

  is going to be when she grows up.

  I used to think she was going to be the Devil.

  Now I think she’s going to be the Devil’s mean boss

  who he complains about to Mrs. Devil every evening

  after work.

  101

  On the way out of school, we signed up for the

  Dance Club, and watched them dance for a few

  minutes.

  I think we were considering actually attending

  this one, but the way that they
dance really isn’t

  compatible with the way Isabella dances, what with

  them all dancing to the beat and being good at

  dancing.

  We signed up anyway, and now with eight

  extracurricular clubs, plus the one we created, plus

  soccer, I can feel the colleges just begging me to

  attend them now.

  102

  Tuesday 24

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Mrs. Curie seemed rattled in class today. She

  almost fell asleep at her desk.

  On the way out, I asked her if every thing was

  okay, and she said she had been thinking about

  what I said about nature messing with people.

  She said that those animals didn’t think

  about the results of their actions.

  “Maybe the clown fish never thought about

  the little critters she was eating,” she whispered.

  “Maybe the clown fish didn’t think that her actions

  might result in them eating meat loaf.”

  103

  “Oh my gosh,” I said. Mrs. Curie looked more

  upset than she should be by clown fish.

  I tried my best to make her feel better.

  “There’s a pretty good chance that you are

  insane,” I said sweetly. “Let’s go down to the

  office and see if they have one of those cold things

  to put on your head.”

  We walked down to the office together. You

  remember, Dumb Diary, that my Aunt Carol works

  there, which is good because she’s super- nice and I

  suspect that the insane find that comforting.

  “Aunt Carol,” I said in a very nurse-like way,

  “ could you please talk to Mrs. Curie here? She’s not

  feeling well. She may have lost her mind, but I

  don’t feel that I’m fully qualified to diagnose that.”

  I left the office feeling pretty good, and I’m

  confident that if I wanted to, I could be a doctor

  when I grow up, or a person that handles sweet old

  donkeys that have gone bonkers.

  I have to go now, DD, and finish my Language

  Arts homework.

  104

  Wednesday 25

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  I stopped by the office today to ask Aunt

 

‹ Prev