by Jim Benton
Think you can handle
Jamie Kelly’s FIrst year of diaries?
#1 Let’s pretend this never happened
#2 My pants are haunted!
#3 Am I the Princess or the Frog?
#4 never do anything, ever
#5 can adults become human?
#6 the problem with here is that it's where i'm from
#7 Never Underestimate your dumbness
#8 It’s Not My Fault I Know Everything
#9 That’s What Friends Aren't For
#10 The worst things in life are also free
#11 Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers
#12 Me! (Just Like You, Only Better)
And don’t miss year two!
Year Two #1: School. Hasn’t This Gone On Long Enough?
Year Two #2: The Super-nice Are Super-annoying
Year Two #3: Nobody's Perfect. I'm as Close As It Gets.
Year Two #4: What I Don’t Know Might Hurt Me
Jim Benton’s Tales from Mackerel Middle School
De
a
r Dum
b
Diary,
let’s pretend
this never happened
SCHOLASTIC INC.
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e-ISBN 978-0-545-64942-1
Copyright © 2004 by Jim Benton
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
DEAR DUMB DIARY is a registered trademark of Jim Benton.
First printing, July 2004
Dear Whoever Is Reading My Dumb Diary,
Are you sure you’re supposed to be
reading somebody else’s diary? Maybe I told
you that you could, so that’s okay. But if
you are Angeline, I did NOT give you
permission, so stop it.
If you are my parents, then YES, I
know that I am not allowed to call people
idiots and fools and goons and halfwits and
pinheads and all that, but this is a diary,
and I didn’t actually “call” them anything. I
wrote it. And if y
ou punish me for it, then I
will know that you read my diary, which I am
not giving you permission to do.
Now, by the power vested in me, I do
promise that everything in this diary is true
or, at least, as true as I think it needs to be.
Signed,
PS: If this is you, Angeline, reading this, then HA-HA!
I got you! For I have written this in poison ink on
a special poison paper, and you had better run and
call 911 right now!
PSS: If this is you, Hudson, reading this, I have
an antidote to the poison and it is conveniently
available to you through a simple phone call to my
house. But don’t mention the poison thing to my
parents if they answer. I think they might be all
weird about me poisoning people.
Monday 02
Dear Dumb Diary,
I was out playing with my beagle, Stinker, this
afternoon and I was doing that thing where you
pretend to throw the ball and then don’t throw it
and Stinker starts running for it until he realizes you
didn’t really throw it at all. Usually I only do it two
or three times but today I guess I was thinking
about something else, because when I finally
realized that I hadn’t thrown the ball yet, I had
probably done it about a hundred and forty times.
Stinker was a little bit cross-eyed and foamy and
he wouldn’t come back in the house for a long time.
I wonder if dogs can hold a grudge.
2
Tuesday 03
Dear Dumb Diary,
I think I was very nearly nicknamed today,
which is almost the worst thing that can happen to
you in middle school. I was eating a peach at lunch
and another peach fell out of my bag onto the floor,
and Mike Pinsetti, who only breathes through his
mouth, was standing there and he said, “Hey, Peach
Girl.”
He’s pretty much the official nicknamer of
the school, and Pinsetti’s labels, although stupid,
often stick. (Don’t believe me, Diary? Just ask old
“Butt Buttlington,” who was one of Pinsetti’s very
first nicknames. I don’t even know his real name.
Nobody does. He’s been called Butt Buttlington for
so long that his mom actually called him Butt by
accident one time when she dropped him off at
school. “Bye, Butt Buttlington,”she said. Then when
she realized what she had done, she tried to make it
better by following up with: “We’re proud of you.”)
3
Back to my peach story. I picked the
backstabbing fruit up real quick. I thought nobody
had heard Pinsetti, which pretty much cancels out a
nickname. But then this adorable musical laughter
that sounds like somebody is tickling a baby by
rubbing its tummy with a puppy comes from behind
me. When I turn around, I see it’s none other than
Angeline, who was probably evilly committing this
nickname to memory.
It’s only a matter of time before I have to
start signing my homework as PEACH GIRL.
Wednesday 04
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today Hudson Rivers (eighth cutest guy in my
grade) talked to me in the hall. Normally, this
would have no effect on me at all, since there is still
a chance that Cute Guys One Through Seven might
actually talk to me one day. But when Hudson said,
“Hey,” today, I could tell that he was totally in love
with me, and I felt that I had an obligation to be
irresistible for his benefit.
So just as I’m about to say something cool
back to Hudson (Maybe even something REALLY
cool. We’ll never know for sure now.), Angeline
comes around the corner with her jillion cute things
dangling from her backpack, and intentionally
looks cute RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS EYES.
This scorpion -like behavior on her part made me
forget what I was going to say, so the only thing
that came out of my mouth was a gush of air
without any words in it. Not like this mattered,
because he was staring at Angeline the same way
Stinker was
staring at the ball a couple days ago.
It was pretty obvious that all of his love for
me was squirting out his ears all over the floor. Ask
Isabella if you don’t believe me. She was standing
right there.
As if that wasn’t vicious enough, get this:
He says to Angeline: “Wow, is that your Lip
Smacker I smell? ChocoMint? It’s great.”
5
Angeline stops for just a second and LOOKS
RIGHT AT ISABELLA AND ME. Then she says
to Hudson, “Yeah, it is.” And her radiant smile
freezes him in his tracks.
Frankly, I think that it is just rude and
obscene to have teeth white enough to hurt and
maybe PERMANENTLY DAMAGE the eyes of
onlookers.
(In case my children are reading this years
from now, this is the exact moment Angeline stole
your father, Hudson, from me, and it is her fault
that now your last name is Rumpelstiltskin or
Schwarzenegger or Buttlington.)
Here’s the thing: Isabella is the ONLY girl in
the entire school who uses ChocoMint Lip Smacker.
It’s the grossest flavor they ever made, but she
needed her very own unique Lip Smacker flavor,
and so she settled on the only one nobody else
likes. All the girls know it’s hers. Even Angeline
knows it.
7
So Dumb Diary, let’s see that scene again in
slow motion: Suddenly, in one swift move, Angeline
had stolen my future prom date/boyfriend/
husband, and Isabella had lost her signature Lip
Smacker scent. (Isabella would rather wear her
grandma’s giant -bottomed pants to school than let
anyone think she is copying Angeline.)
I suppose I could have said something,
but I knew that Angeline had the “Peach Girl”
nickname loaded in her Imaginary Slingshot of Pure
Wickedness and was ready to let me have it right in
front of Hudson.
I was powerless.
Of course, Dumb Diary, you understand that
I’m DESTROYED. What you may not fully
appreciate is the impact this scandalous event is
having on Isabella. She is EXTREMELY smell-
8
oriented, and not really well- equipped to change
her scented ointments. I foresee a long, painful
bout with chapped lips in her future.
It also occurs to me, Dumb Diary, that
Angeline is so perfect that the word “perfect” is
probably not perfect enough for her. One day they’ll
have to invent another word for her and when they
do I hope it rhymes with vomit or turd because I
think I have a good idea for a song if they do.
Wednesday, The Evening Edition
Dear Dumb Diary,
Tonight at dinner, Mom announced that we’re
going to be taking care of my little cousin in a few
weeks. He’s, like, my aunt’s daughter’s brother’s
nephew or something.
I know that your uncle’s kids are your
cousins, but then there are things like first cousins
and second cousins and cousins once-removed.
What does that mean? “Cousins once-removed.”
I had a wart once removed.
11
And, Dumb Diary, just to update you on
Mom’s Latest Food-Crime, last night she made a
casserole with 147 ingredients, and it still tasted
bad. It’s hard to believe that out of 147 ingredients,
not one of them tasted good.
Of course I ate it anyway. If you don’t eat it,
Mom gives you the speech on hard work and how the
hungry children in Wheretheheckistan would just
love her casserole.
It seems to me the kids in Wheretheheckistan
have enough problems without dumping Mom’s
casseroles on them, too.
Thursday 05
Dear Dumb Diary,
Because of Angeline, who thinks she is The
Prettiest Girl in the World but probably is not even in
the top five, I had to buy my lunch at school today.
I just could not take the chance that my mom would
pack a peach in my lunch again and then, while I
was secretly trying to throw it in the trash, Pinsetti
or Angeline would spot it and cause a big Nickname
Event. Then I’d have to run away from home.
And just to prove that the entire Universe is
on the side of evil, perfect Angeline, it was Meat
Loaf Day in the cafeteria. Thursday is always Meat
Loaf Day.The Cafeteria Monitor, Miss Bruntford,
takes it personally when you don’t eat something.
And she gives us all kinds of grief, in particular
when we don’t eat the greasy cafeteria meat loaf.
Miss Bruntford starts going, “What’s wrong
with the meat loaf?” and her giant slab of neck
flubber starts waggling all over the place. She has
one of those big, jiggly necks that looks like it
might be soft and fluffy like the meringue on top of
a lemon meringue pie.
So I had no choice but to eat some of the
meat loaf, which smells a little like a wet cat, and
that is Angeline’s fault, too, as is everything.
13
Friday 06
Dear Dumb Diary,
I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned Angeline
before, but she’s this girl at my school who is
beautiful and popular and has hair the color of
spun gold as if anybody likes that color.
Isabella and I were in the hallway today, and
Isabella insanely tried to engage Angeline in
conversation as she walked by, which was way out
of line for Isabella since Angeline is like a “9” in
popularity while Isabella is hovering around an
unsteady “5.”(And after Isabella’s lip balm-
dependent lips start decaying from Lip Smacker
withdrawal, who knows how low that number
could go?)
14
Anyway, Angeline just kind of looks at
Isabella as if she’s something peculiar and mildly
gross like an inside-out nostril, and without saying
a word, Angeline just keeps walking.
15
Have you EVER known somebody like
Angeline, Diary? Like maybe at the store where I
bought you, there was some other really expensive
diary that thought it was so cool that it walked
around the store looking like it had a pen stuck up its
binding?
Honestly, Dear Dumb Diary, if there WAS a
diary like Angeline at the store, and you told me
about it, I would go straight to the store and buy it
and use its pages to pick up Stinker’s you-know-
whats when I take him for a walk. But also I would
remind you to be happy with who you are, because
you are beautiful and especially to be happy with
your own hair, even though you don’t have hair. But,
you know, if you did and if it was real ugly.
16
Isabella later told me that she thought she
actually might be able to persuade Angeline to
abandon ChocoMint. Isabella is a nice girl and I
really like her, but if brains were bananas, let
’s just
say that there would be a lot of skinny monkeys
scraping around the inside of Isabella’s skull.
PS: Nickname Update: Nobody has called me
Peach Girl .. . YET. Angeline must be waiting for
just the right time to spring it on me. It is a
KNOWN SCIENTIFIC FACT that girls who are all
pretty and Pure Goodness on the outside are Pure
Evil inside.
Angeline is probably just waiting for the
exact most embarrassing moment to unveil the
Peach Girl nickname to the world.
18
Saturday 07
Dear Dumb Diary,
Okay, okay. I know what I wrote yesterday
about being happy with your own hair color. Maybe I
was trying to be open-minded about accepting
people with perfect blond hair, or maybe I was
trying to be a scientist or something, but today I
decided to buy one of those hair dye kits you can
use at home. (You probably have never noticed,
Dumb Diary, but the truth is: I have some hair
issues.)
I picked the one that looked like Angeline’s
hair color, which they call “Glorious Heavenly
Sunshine.” I was not trying to copy Angeline, it just
happened to be the first one I grabbed in the fourth
store I looked.
19
I probably should have asked Isabella to help
me with the hair dye but I didn’t really want to get a
lecture from her about self-acceptance while I
pretended not to notice she was afflicted with a
rapidly advancing case of what doctors call, “Lizard
Lips.”
I just locked myself in the bathroom and dyed
alone.
(Which reminds me: I know why they call it
“dye.” Because after you see what it does, that’s
what you’ll want to do.)
What was supposed to come out as “Glorious