by Jeff Kinney
it when I come up to his house. That is, until
Rowley’s dad finds out how violent it is.
And boy, you have never seen someone as happy as
Rowley with his “L’il Cutie” book. His mom said it
was the only thing on his list that he didn’t get.
Well, I’m glad someone got what they
wanted today.
it’s a
christmas
miracle!
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New Year’s Eve
In case you’re wondering what I’m doing in my room
at 9:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, let me fill you in.
Earlier today, me and Manny were horsing around in
the basement. I found a tiny black ball of thread
on the carpet, and I told Manny it was a spider.
Then I held it over him pretending like I was
going to make him eat it.
yaaaah!
scream!!
squeal!!
Right when I was about to let Manny go, he
slapped my hand and made me drop the thread.
And guess what? That fool swallowed it.
gulp
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Well, Manny completely lost his mind. He ran
upstairs to where Mom was, and I knew I was
in big trouble.
Manny told Mom I made him eat a spider. I
told her there was no spider, and that it was
just a tiny ball of thread.
sniff
Mom brought Manny over to the kitchen table.
Then she put a seed, a raisin, and a grape on a
plate and told Manny to point to the thing
that was the closest in size to the piece of
thread he swallowed.
134
Manny took a while to look over the things on
the plate.
Then he walked over to the refrigerator and
pulled out an orange.
So that’s why I got sent to bed at 7:00 and
I’m not downstairs watching the New Year’s
Eve special on tV.
And that’s also why my only New Year’s
resolution is to never play with Manny again.
135
January
Wednesday
I found a way to have some fun with the Big Wheel
Rowley got me for Christmas. I came up with this
game where one guy rides down the hill and the
other guy tries to knock him off with a football.
shrieeeek!
rumble
rumble
rumble
Rowley was the first one down the hill, and I
was the thrower.
It’s a lot harder to hit a moving target than I
thought. Plus, I didn’t get a lot of practice. It
took Rowley like ten minutes to walk the Big Wheel
back up the hill after every trip down.
136
Rowley kept asking to switch places and have me
be the one who rides the Big Wheel, but I’m no
fool. That thing was hitting thirty-five miles an
hour, and it didn’t have any brakes.
do you want
to have a
turn now?
(pant, pant)
no thanks...
i’m not as
good as you!
Anyway, I never did knock Rowley off the Big
Wheel today. But I guess I have something to
work at over the rest of Christmas vacation.
Thursday
I was heading up to Rowley’s today to play our
Big Wheel game again, but Mom said I had to
finish my Christmas thank-yous before I went
out anywhere.
137
I thought I could just crank out my thank-you
cards in a half hour, but when it came to actually
writing them, my mind went blank.
Let me tell you, it’s not easy writing thank-you
notes for stuff you didn’t want in the first place.
I started with the nonclothes items, because I
thought they’d be easiest. But after two or
three cards, I realized I was practically writing
the same thing every time.
So I wrote up a general form on the computer
with blanks for the things that needed to change.
Writing the cards from there was a breeze.
type
type
138
Dear Aunt Lydia,
Thank you so much for the awesome encyclopedia !
How did you know I wanted that for Christmas?
I love the way the encyclopedia looks on my shelf !
All my friends will be so jealous that I have my very own
encyclopedia.
Thank you for making this the best Christmas ever!
Sincerely, Greg
My system worked out pretty well for the first
couple of gifts, but after that, not so much.
Dear Aunt Loretta,
Thank you so much for the awesome pants !
How did you know I wanted that for Christmas?
I love the way the pants looks on my legs !
All my friends will be so jealous that I have my very own
pants.
Thank you for making this the best Christmas ever!
Sincerely, Greg
139
Friday
I finally knocked Rowley off the Big Wheel today,
but it didn’t happen the way I expected. I was
trying to hit him in the shoulder, but I missed,
and the football went under the front tire.
Rowley tried to break his fall by sticking out his
arms, but he landed pretty hard on his left
hand. I figured he’d just shake it off and get
right back on the bike, but he didn’t.
I tried to cheer him up, but all the jokes that
usually crack him up weren’t working.
flip
140
So I knew he must be hurt pretty bad.
hey, look at me!
i’m your dad!
darr darr darr.
(sniff)
heh, heh.
Monday
Christmas vacation is over, and now we’re back
at school. And you remember Rowley’s Big Wheel
accident? Well, he broke his hand, and now he has
to wear a cast. And today, everyone was crowding
around him like he was a hero or something.
does it
still
hurt?
a little,
i guess.
you poor
thing!
141
I tried to cash in on some of Rowley’s new
popularity, but it totally backfired.
i’m the one
who broke
his hand!
you
meanie!
At lunch a bunch of girls invited Rowley over to
their table so they could feeD him.
What really ticks me off about that is that
Rowley is right-handed, and it’s his left hand
that’s broken. So he can feed himself just fine.
here
comes the
airplane!
yum,
yum!
142
Tuesday
I realized Rowley’s injury thing is a pretty
good racket, so I decided it was time for me to
have an injury of my own.
I took some gauze from home, and I wrapped
up my hand to make it look like it was hurt.
it’s a raging
infection caused by
a splinter that was
left untreated!
I couldn’t figure
out why the girls weren’t
swarming me like they swarmed Rowley, but then
I realized what the problem was.
See, the cast is a great gimmick because everyone
wants to sign their name on it. But it’s not exactly
easy to sign gauze with a pen.
143
So I came up with a solution that I thought
was just as good.
would you like to
be the first one
to sign my
sympathy sheet?
That idea was a total bust, too. My bandage did
end up attracting attention from a couple of
people, but believe me, they were not the type
of people I was going for.
can I peek
at your
infection?
go
away.
144
Monday
Last week we started the third quarter at
school, so now I have a whole bunch of new
classes. One of the classes I signed up for is
something called Independent Study.
I WAnteD to sign up for Home Economics 2,
because I was pretty good at Home Ec 1.
But being good at sewing does not exactly buy
you popularity points at school.
Anyway, this Independent Study thing is an
experiment they’re trying out at our school for
the first time.
hey, look,
greg has a
purse!
actually,
it’s an
embroidered
bookbag.
ok,
pursie.
145
The idea is that the class gets assigned a project,
and then you have to work on it together with no
teacher in the room for the whole quarter.
The catch is that when you’re done, everyone
in your group gets the same grade. I found out
that Ricky Fisher is in my class, which could be
a big problem.
Ricky’s big claim to fame is that he’ll pick the
gum off the bottom of a desk and chew it if you
pay him fifty cents. So I don’t really have high
hopes for our final grade.
Tuesday
Today we got our Independent Study assignment,
and guess what it is? We have to build a robot.
At first everybody kind of freaked out, because
we thought we were going to have to build the
robot from scratch.
146
But Mr. Darnell told us we don’t have to build
an actual robot. We just need to come up with
ideas for what our robot might look like and
what kinds of things it would be able to do.
Then he left the room, and we were on our own.
We started brainstorming right away. I wrote
down a bunch of ideas on the blackboard.
the robot would
do my homework
do the dishes
make my break-
fast
brush my teeth
Everybody was pretty impressed with my ideas,
but it was easy to come up with them. All I
did was write down all the things I hate
doing myself.
But a couple of the girls got up to the front of
the room, and they had some ideas of their own.
They erased my list and drew up their own plan.
147
They wanted to invent a robot that would give
you dating advice and have ten types of lip gloss
on its fingertips.
All us guys thought this was the stupidest idea
we ever heard. So we ended up splitting into two
groups, girls and boys. The boys went to the
other side of the room while the girls stood
around talking.
Now that we had all the serious workers in one
place, we got to work. Someone had the idea
that you can say your name to the robot and it
can say it back to you.
HI BOB IT IS
VERY NICE TO
MEET YOU BOB.
148
But then someone else pointed out that you
shouldn’t be able to use bad words for your
name, because the robot shouldn’t be able to
curse. So we decided we should come up with a
list of all the bad words the robot shouldn’t be
able to say.
We came up with all the regular bad words, but
then Ricky Fisher came up with twenty more the
rest of us had never even heard before.
So Ricky ended up being one of the most valuable
contributors on this project.
Right before the bell rang, Mr. Darnell came
back in the room to check on our progress. He
picked up the piece of paper we were writing on
and read it over.
149
To make a long story short, Independent Study
is canceled for the rest of the year.
Well, at least it is for us boys. So if the robots
in the future are going around with cherry lip
gloss for fingers, at least now you know how it
all got started.
Thursday
In school today they had a general assembly and
showed the movie “It’s Great to Be Me,” which
they show us every year.
The movie is all about how you should be happy
with who you are and not change anything
about yourself.
150
To be honest with you, I think that’s a really
dumb message to be telling kids, especially the
ones at my school.
it’s great
to be me!
ha ha
ha!
shove
Later on, they made an announcement that
there are some openings on the Safety Patrols,
and that got me thinking.
If someone picks on a Safety Patrol, it can get
them suspended. The way I figure it, I can use
any extra protection I can get.
Plus, I realized that maybe being in a position
of authority could be good for me.
151
can we please
cross the
street now?
nope.
but we’ve
been standing
here for an
hour!
I went down to Mr. Winsky’s office and signed
myself up, and I got Rowley to sign up, too.
I thought Mr. Winsky would make us do a
bunch of chin-ups or jumping jacks or something
to prove we were up for the job, but he just
handed us our belts and badges on the spot.
152
Mr. Winsky said the openings were for a special
assignment. Our school is right next to the
elementary school, and they’ve got a half-day
kindergarten there.
He wants us to walk the morning session kids home
in the middle of the day. I realized that meant
we would miss twenty minutes of Pre-Algebra.
Rowley must have figured that out, too, because
he started to speak up. But I gave him a wicked
pinch underneath the desk before he could finish
his sentence.
but we
would miss
yahooey!
I couldn’t believe my luck. I was getting instant bully
protection and a free pass from half of Pre-Algebra,
and I didn’t even have to lift a
finger.
153
Tuesday
Today was our first day as Safety Patrols. Me and
Rowley don’t technically have stations like all the
other Patrols, so that means we don’t have to stand
out in the freezing cold for an hour before school.
But that didn’t stop us from coming to the
cafeteria for the free hot chocolate they hand
out to the other Patrols before homeroom.
clink
Another great perk is that you get to show up
ten minutes late for first period.
hel-lo!
154
I’m telling you, I’ve got it made with this
Safety Patrol thing.
At 12:15, me and Rowley left school and walked
the kindergartners home. The whole trip ate up
forty-five minutes, and there were only twenty
minutes of Pre-Algebra left when we got back.
Walking the kids home was no sweat. But one of
the kindergartners started to smell a little funny,
and I think maybe he had an accident in his pants.
He tried to let me know about it, but I just
stared straight ahead and kept walking. I’ll
take these kids home, but believe me, I didn’t
sign up for any diaper duty.
tug
tug
155
February
Wednesday
Today it snowed for the first time this winter,
and school was canceled. We were supposed to
have a test in Pre-Algebra, and I’ve kind of
slacked off ever since I became a Safety Patrol.
So I was psyched.
I called Rowley and told him to come over. Me and
him have been talking about building the world’s
biggest snowman for the past couple of years now.
And when I say the world’s biggest snowman,
I’m not kidding. Our goal is to get into the
“Guinness Book of World Records.”
156
flash
But every time we’ve gotten serious about going
for the record, all the snow has melted, and
we’ve missed our window of opportunity. So this
year, I wanted to get started right away.
When Rowley came over, we started rolling the
first snowball to make the base. I figured the
base was going to have to be at least eight feet