by Jeff Kinney
he said he wanted to be like a real reporter and
go out looking for stories. So I told him he should
go around the neighborhood and see if he could
dig up any dirt. But what Rowley came back with
wasn’t exactly hard-hitting news.
Kitten has a fun day
By ROWLEY JEFFERSON
Yesterday Mrs. Salter’s kitten
Mittens was seen frolicking in
her front yard. Mittens spent an
hour and a half chasing after a
butterfly that was flying around
Mrs. Salter’s azaleas, and when
the butterfly flew off, Mittens
got very interested in something
that was jumping near the front
porch. But by the time I got
close enough to see what
Mittens was chasing, the thing
had hopped away.
Mittens enjoys the nice weather yesterday.
131
I decided to make myself editor in chief so I
could control the kinds of things we had in our
newspaper. Because if Rowley had his way, our
paper would be like a little girl’s coloring book.
Mom told us we should go to some businesses
downtown and see if anyone was willing to pay
for ads to cover the cost of our first printing.
The only person who was willing to buy an ad in
our paper was Tony from Papa Tony’s Pizza, and
I’m pretty sure the reason he agreed to help is
because we’re in there at least twice a week and
he didn’t want to lose our business.
Tony gave us just enough money to buy some color
ink cartridges, so we printed a hundred copies.
132
Monday
Yesterday we went around town trying to sell our
papers, but nobody wanted to pay and we had to
start giving them out for free. When we handed a
paper to Tony, he didn’t seem too happy that his
ad was running next to a negative review of his
restaurant.
Papa Tony’s pizza stinks!
By Food Critic
GREG HEFFLEY
Have you noticed that Papa
Tony’s has started to really go
downhill lately?
It all started when they
took the barbecue chicken
pizza off of their menu and
replaced it with a spinach
pizza.
Then they stopped selling
grape soda. Papa Tony’s was
the only place in town you
could get grape soda, so now
I have to drink root beer, but
it’s really not the same.
And half the time the soda
water doesn’t mix right with
the syrup, so you either get
corn syrup sludge or soda
water. I think they’re just
trying to give you a bad
fountain soda experience so
you’ll pay for the canned
soda, which costs twice as
much.
My last complaint is about
the napkins. You used to be
able to use as many as you
wanted, but now Tony only
lets you have two, and if you
take more he gives you a
dirty look.
Papa Tony’s
Two-for-One Deal
Order any one-topping pizza
and get a second one FREE!
OFFER EXPIRES ON
DECEMBER 31
Mention this ad and you’ll get an
additional dollar off your order.
I told him if he bought a BIGGER ad for the
NEXT edition of the paper, we could arrange for
a more positive write-up.
We still had a few dozen papers left, and since
we were handing them out for free, I figured I
could unload them at school.
133
But when I started giving them to kids as they
walked in the door, Vice Principal Roy asked me
what I was doing.
He said I couldn’t hand out an “unauthorized
publication” on school grounds and that he was
going to have to confiscate my papers. But I
knew what this was REALLY all about. Vice
Principal Roy was just spooked that we were
gonna give the school a run for its money with our
Holiday Bazaar.
I was still pretty mad about the whole thing
when I got home this afternoon, and I decided
I wasn’t gonna just roll over and let Vice Principal
Roy shut us down.
134
Even though Vice Principal Roy took our papers,
I figured I could make some signs and hang them
up around town to advertise.
I knew Mom kept poster board and markers in
the laundry room for school projects, so I got
to work. I used the neon green poster board,
because I wanted to make sure you could see our
signs from a mile away.
I finished making the posters after dinner and
called Rowley to ask for help putting them up. We
started with the school because I figured a lot of
parents would see them when they dropped their
kids off in the morning.
Holiday
Bazaar
12 surrey
street
Fun!
Games
Cheap
drummies
135
But right when we were done hanging them up, it
started to rain, and the marker on our signs ran.
And soon they were pretty much worthless.
Fun!
Games!
Prizes!
But when we pulled them down, we got a huge
shock. The rain had made the green dye from the
poster board bleed, too, and now there were huge
green splotches all over the brick wall.
136
We tried to get the green dye off the wall, but
that stuff was like permanent ink.
I knew we couldn’t leave giant green stains all
over the school, so I tried to figure out what
to do next. But right at that moment, someone
yelled at us from the street.
Rub
rub
Scrub
scrub
hey! what’re
you kids
doing?
137
Me and Rowley panicked and took off. We ran
across the parking lot and through the shortcut
in the woods, then kept running until we were
sure we’d lost whoever was back there.
I wish we didn’t run, because if we had just
stayed and explained ourselves it probably would’ve
been fine. I don’t know if the person who called
out was a parent or a police officer or WHAT, but
I just hope they didn’t recognize us. Because if
they did we could be in some SERIOUS trouble.
Tuesday
When I woke up this morning, I thought maybe
everything that happened last night was just a
bad dream. But then I saw the newspaper on the
kitchen table.
138
The Daily Herald
Vandals deface middle school
Top: Juveniles left these green splotches on the school last night.
Left: Police
sketches of the
vandals based on
> an eyewitness
account.
The suspects fled
the scene when
confronted by the
passerby.
Vandals struck
last night under
cover of darkness
and rain, leaving
large bright green
stains on the front
wall of the town
middle school.
The meaning of
the green blobs is
still unknown, but
police suspect it
could be gang-
related.
“Graffiti artists
have caused a lot
of property damage
in the past six
months,” said Sgt.
Peters of the town
police force.
SEE VANDALS, A2
So now I’m basically a criminal. Believe it or not,
this isn’t the FIRST time I’ve been falsely
accused of a crime.
When I was in the Boy Scouts, I was trying to
earn my Service Project merit badge, and I had to
do some kind of good deed. Mom said I should go
over to Leisure Towers and see if there were any
elderly people who needed help carrying groceries or
something like that, and she told Rodrick he had to
give me a ride.
139
When we got to the parking lot of Leisure
Towers, there was a lady walking around who
looked like she was lost.
lÖded
diper
We asked the lady if she needed any help, and
she said she was just walking to the supermarket
on the other side of the apartment building. But
I knew the nearest supermarket was almost five
miles away in the opposite direction, so we said
we’d give her a ride.
lÖded
diper
140
The only condition was that she had to ride in
the back because I had already called shotgun.
We dropped the woman off at the supermarket,
and then we went home. When we walked in the
door, I was pretty excited to tell Mom about my
good deed. I told her about the lady and how
we gave her a ride to the supermarket a few miles
from Leisure Towers and saved her a lot of walking.
141
But Mom said there was a brand-new supermarket
a block away from Leisure Towers and the woman
had probably been heading THERE. So that
meant we dropped her off five miles from where
she was trying to go, and now she didn’t have a
way to get home.
Mom said we had to get back in the van and
see if we could find the lady, so we went to the
supermarket where we dropped her off. But a
cashier told us she’d already finished her shopping
and left.
We eventually found the lady walking along the
highway with her groceries.
142
We tried to offer her a ride back to Leisure
Towers, but this time she wouldn’t get in the van.
lÖded
diper
I guess she must’ve called the local TV station to
report us once she got home, because that night
we were on the news.
teens are kidnapping
residents of leisure
towers. could your
grandmother be next?
143
This school vandalism thing seems a LOT more
serious, though. Luckily the eyewitness sketches in
the paper didn’t really look like me and Rowley,
so I thought maybe we’d be OK. But when I
got to school, all anyone wanted to talk about
was who was behind the green blobs.
The school had a general assembly in third period,
and the topic was the so-called graffiti on the
front of the school. Vice Principal Roy said someone
had spray-painted the front wall and he was sure
the perpetrators were students at our school.
He said someone in the auditorium knew who was
responsible and that it was terrible to live with a
“guilty conscience.” Then he said he was gonna put
a locked box in the cafeteria to make it easy for
someone to leave an anonymous tip.
144
At lunch I could tell Rowley was really freaking
out, so I reminded him that this “vandalism”
thing was a lot of baloney and we didn’t really
do anything wrong. But Rowley said if he got a
criminal record, he wouldn’t be able to get into
college or get a job and that his whole future
would be ruined. It took a while, but eventually
I convinced him to just stay cool and wait for
the whole thing to blow over.
After lunch the POLICE came to the school, and
Vice Principal Roy started calling kids down to the
front office one by one. At first I was worried
someone had identified us, but then I realized Vice
Principal Roy was only calling the names of the
worst troublemakers.
145
That’s when I knew they didn’t have any real
evidence, and I started to relax.
dennis root, please report
to the front office.
At recess a kid named Mark Ramon told us what
happened when he went in for questioning. The
police had a machine that they said was a lie
detector, and they claimed it was foolproof, so
there was no point in fibbing.
lie
detector
Mark said it was pretty obvious the “lie detector”
was really just a photocopier. But whenever Mark
said something the police didn’t like, Sergeant Peters
hit the “copy” button and out came a piece of paper.
146
He’s lying.
I guess the police eventually gave up, because
after lunch Vice Principal Roy stopped calling kids
down to the front office. So I finally feel like
we’re off the hook.
Wednesday
When I got to school today, I thought the
green dye incident was totally behind me. So I
was pretty surprised when I heard MY name on
the loudspeaker during morning announcements.
greg heffley, report
to vice principal roy’s
office immediately.
147
I walked into Vice Principal Roy’s office, and he told
me to take a seat. He said he knew I was one of
the “culprits” responsible for the green blobs and
asked me if I had anything to say for myself.
I looked around the room for the lie detector
machine, but I didn’t see it, and I decided my
best move was to just keep quiet or maybe ask
for a lawyer. Then Vice Principal Roy pulled a
piece of paper out of the anonymous-tip box and
showed it to me.
All of a sudden, everything made sense.
Me and Greg Heffley
vandalized the school.
Mr. Roy
148
Mr. Roy
Rowley confessed, but he kept himself anonymous.
I don’t know if Rowley did it that way on
purpose or if he’s just a total doofus, but I’m
guessing it�
��s door number two.
I didn’t see any reason to play dumb at that
point, so I told Vice Principal Roy the whole
story. I told him about the signs and how the
rain made the poster board bleed and how we
panicked and ran.
Vice Principal Roy thought about it for a while,
and then he told me I should’ve come clean
earlier. He said he was gonna have to give me a
punishment to make sure I learned my lesson and
said that after school I had to scrub the green
dye off the wall with bleach.
Then he gave me a choice.
149
scrub
scrub
He said I could name my “co-conspirator” or I
could just take the punishment myself.
Let me tell you, that was not an easy one. I
really wanted to stick it to Rowley for writing my
name on that piece of paper, but I also didn’t
see the point in both of us getting in trouble for
something that I basically dragged him into.
So I decided this time around I’d just take one
for the team.
And if Rowley gets into a good college or gets
some dream job later on, I hope he remembers to
thank me.
150
Town Police
Department
We came by, but
no one was home.
we will come
back later.
Sgt. Peters
Thursday
It took me two hours to scrub the green dye
off the wall yesterday, and it was hard work. I
tried to get Vice Principal Roy to get me a few
steel wool pads so we could speed things along,
but he told me I needed to stick with the bleach.
I finally got home around 5:00 p.m., and there
was a note on the front door. When I read it,
I almost passed out.
I couldn’t BELIEVE Vice Principal Roy gave
me up to the police. I thought we were gonna
keep this between us and that once I served my
punishment, it was over and done with.
151
don’t mess up, or
you’ll end up in
here like us!
All I know is, I can’t go to jail. This year they
took our class on a “Scared Straight” field trip to
the local prison. They had these prisoners talk to