Dear Dumb Diary #10: The Worst Things in Life Are Also Free
Page 4
cents qualifies as love, but whatever. We’ll take it.
63
We waited until after lunch to get started,
because we wanted it to be nice and warm out.
Angeline and Isabella both brought sponges and
rags over and we had a couple buckets of soapy
water. I made a sign by cutting big numbers out of
red construction paper and gluing them to a poster
board. I wanted to put the name of our car wash on
it, but Isabella said it was dumb so I don’t even
want to tell you what it was. (But I’ll give you a hint:
It was a fantastical-abulous and
vegetarian name.)
Our plan was that Isabella would hold up the
sign, Angeline would direct cars up the driveway,
and then the three of us would wash each car. I
would collect the money while Angeline and Isabella
went back and got into position for the next car.
All those cars. All that money, right?
64
Wrong. Not only is my neighborhood not
into lemonade, they really aren’t into automotive
hygiene, either.
Every time a car would go by, Isabella would
shake the sign like crazy, and we’d all yell and
they’d pretend not to see us, and Cigarette Lady
would come out and ask us what all the yelling was
about.
We’d tell her we were having a car wash and
she’d yell back, “A GAH BAH? WHAT’S A GAH
BAH?” Then we’d yell back, “A CAR WASH!”
And then she’d yell, “OKAY, THEN I’LL
FNURGHLMKMGH.” That
Fnurghlmkmgh
sound
at the end is the nasty coughing noise she makes
because when heavy smokers shout, sometimes
their lungs try to climb out of their throats.
Then she would go back inside until the next
car drove by, and we’d start all over again.
65
It had been a long day. We were all in a pretty
lousy mood and were just getting ready to quit when
we saw Cigarette Lady walk Cigarette Grandson out
to her giant car. She slowly and carefully backed it
out of her garage, and slowly and carefully rolled
down her driveway, and slowly and carefully took
out one of her own bushes.
Then she slowly and carefully drove over to
my driveway, where she slowly and carefully almost
ran over Isabella as she pulled in.
For some reason, the older people get, the
bigger the cars they drive. This is totally backward,
because the older they get, the worse they drive,
and so they are getting more and more dangerous
to the rest of us as their cars get bigger and bigger.
As you get older, you should have to drive smaller
and smaller cars. By the time you’re as old as
Cigarette Lady, you should be on a unicycle.
66
Cigarette Lady said she wanted a car wash.
Like I mentioned, she has a giant car, so it took a
lot longer to wash than I thought it would. It wasn’t
very dirty, because she only uses it to drive to the
store to buy cigarettes and to run over her bushes.
She probably buys medicine, too, because old
people are really fond of medicine, and maybe like
one bag of groceries a year, because old ladies
hardly eat anything. I’m not kidding: I remember
one time when my grandma saved the other half of
a peanut for later.
When we were all done, she pulled out her giant
purse and started digging around in it. After pulling
out a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a pack of gum, a
rain bonnet, a handkerchief, a pack of cigarettes,
some matches, nasal spray, and a pack of cigarettes,
she finally found her little-old-lady wallet.
She unsnapped the pocket, smiled, and
handed me one dollar.
One dollar.
I stood there with my hand out, waiting for
the rest of the money, and she stood there, smiling
back at me. I raised my eyebrows a little, to
indicate that I was expecting something, and she
raised hers back at me.
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I raised mine higher and she raised hers as
well. I raised mine again, and so did she. I kept
raising them until I finally ran out of forehead.
(Turns out Cigarette Lady has a pretty plentiful
forehead area.) I didn’t want to be pushy, but I
couldn’t hold back any longer.
“It’s not a dollar,” I said cheerfully. “The car
wash. We’re not charging a dollar.”
“I know, sweetie.” She coughed, and as she
did, I noticed the Ryan triplets looking out their
front window, screaming and pointing at something
on their lawn. It was red. It was paper. It was the
number “4.”
“Urp,” I said, nicely summing up exactly what
I was feeling.
Cigarette Lady was waiting for her change.
She put out her hand and I gave her fifty
cents. What else could I do? Then she slowly and
carefully backed out of my driveway, drove slowly
and carefully over to her house, and slowly and
carefully took out one of her bushes again.
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I picked up the poster board Isabella had
been waving so furiously.
“You shook the sign too hard. You shook the
four right off it. It doesn’t say $4.50 anymore. It
says fifty cents,” I said. “Cigarette Lady only paid
us fifty cents because that’s what our sign says now.”
“You didn’t use enough glue,” Isabella said.
“So you owe Angeline and me $4.00, plus a tip,”
she said.
“Let’s try again tomorrow,” Angeline said,
and she was using that calm, optimistic voice
people use just before you tell them to shut up.
“Shut up, Angeline,” Isabella and I said in
perfect unison as if we had practiced it a million
times, when in reality we only practiced it, like, a
dozen times.
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“You should have noticed that the number
blew off,” Isabella said to her.
“Isabella’s right,” I added, knowing that
Isabella wasn’t right. It’s funny how much easier it
is to tell that something isn’t right when it comes
out of somebody else’s mouth.
We cleaned up the stuff silently and grunted
our good-byes at one another.
When you calculate what we spent for the
soap, and add the microscopic payment we got
from Cigarette Lady, our AMUSEMENT PARK
FUND is now worth exactly $5.50.
I’m going to bed.
70
FRIDAY 13
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella is really into this moneymaking thing
now. The failed car wash really got her going. This
morning, she came over first thing and took my
picture, because she says we need to make flyers to
advertise our different ser vices. She mussed up my
hair a little, because that will let people know that
we work hard. I asked her why I had to wear a black
me look like a ninja or a seal, which both also
work hard.
I never had the impression that seals work
hard, and I questioned that but Isabella said maybe
seals wouldn’t, but Ninja Seals would. And she
said it with this slow, smiling nod that made me
think that she must be right. Isabella is pretty good
at convincing people of things.
71
I offered to help with the flyers, being great
at that sort of thing with all of my Art Skills, but
Isabella said she wanted to do this one by herself.
It’s nice to give people space when they want to try
new things, especially when they say so with a
threatening undertone.
72
Isabella wanted to use our computer while
she was over, but her mom called my mom months
ago and told her NOT to let Isabella use our
computer. Ever.
Mom just added that to a long list of
instructions that Isabella’s mom has given her
regarding Isabella.
73
Since Isabella couldn’t use the computer, we
went over to Angeline’s to take her picture. When
we got there, Emmily was there. This surprised me
because I suddenly remembered that we had decided
she was our friend, but in the two weeks that we’d
been out of school, I had forgotten that she existed.
Emmily is very nice, but not exactly bright.
Let’s just say her koala can’t quite make it to the
top of the eucalyptus tree. One time she was
supposed to bring ice to the end-of-year party at
school, and she actually asked us if we could write
down the recipe.
Angeline didn’t want Isabella to take the
picture today, because she was afraid that Emmily
would think that she had been left out. Isabella said
that Emmily wouldn’t think she was left out because
Emmily doesn’t do a lot of thinking. To prove it, she
asked her a question.
“Emmily, can you think of a good way for us
to make money?” Isabella asked her.
“Yes,” Emmily said.
She stood there, looking at us.
“Okay. What would it be?” Isabella
asked her very slowly.
“Oh,” she said as if somebody had just
jabbed her in the ribs. “You could earn it somehow.”
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Just as Isabella was about to explode, Emmily
added, “And I could help you.”
Oh. My. Gosh. Our exciting new
vegetarian company was getting its first employee!
For a moment, I wished I liked coffee so I could ask
Emmily to go make me some.
Angeline put her hand on Emmily’s shoulder.
“We’re saving up to go to Screamotopia. And you
won’t be able to go with us. You would be helping us
raise money for something you won’t get to do,”
Angeline said, doing her best to gently blow the deal.
“That’s okay,” Emmily said, and she meant it,
too. Emmily is that special sort of generous person
that people are before they know any better.
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“Mostly, you’ll be helping me,” Isabella said,
and Emmily grinned. “You’ll be, like, my secretary or
my assistant. I’ll have you working on very special
projects — ones I couldn’t trust to the other
employees.”
I felt a chill go down my back. Emmily was
smiling and nodding. Isabella could have thrown a
saddle on Emmily and ridden her around if she
wanted to. I’ll bet that if Isabella was a bad person,
she could really take advantage of her friends.
Good thing she’s so nice.
“Emmily, do you have a computer at home?
One where I could go online?” Isabella asked.
“Sure, and it has one of those —”
Isabella cut her off in mid-sentence and
began to run toward Emmily’s house, which was just
four houses away from Angeline’s. Emmily did her
best to keep up.
“Bye, guys! See you later,” Isabella yelled.
We didn’t see her later.
76
Once they left, Angeline started to brush her
hair. Did she have the brush in her pocket? In her
ear? From nowhere, a brush just appeared. How do
people with beautiful hair do that?
She started looking a little sad, which you
don’t normally see on Angeline, no matter how
much you hope for it.
“Do you think we’re going to make the
money?” she asked. I didn’t really have an answer.
By the time I got home, I didn’t have any
appetite at all, so I practiced some vegetarianism
against the dinner my mom made . . . including the
vegetables in it.
Right now all I can think about is the amazing
stuff they probably have at Screamotopia, and
how I hope hope hope we get to go.
77
78
Saturday 14
Dear Dumb Diary,
I had to do regular old nonpaying work today.
Mom wanted me to clean my room. Mom and I have
the exact same conversation every time she asks
me to clean my room, and it just does not seem to
sink in.
“Mom, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a
thousand times: Eeeeeyaaagh.”
Dumb Diary, I know you don’t have ears, but
this is a sort of combination grunt/groan sound I
make that increases in volume as I walk up the
stairs to my room. It conveys an entire spectrum
of feelings, as well as a detailed argument against
cleaning my room, but my mother never seems to
understand it. Usually, it just makes her angrier and
occasionally swearier, and I wind up having to clean
up my room anyway.
And, if you can believe it, I have to do it
for free.
79
I’m against cleaning my room, because I feel
it promotes housework in general, but today I think it
also promoted a type of archaeology — and
archaeology can lead to treasure.
I uncovered several very interesting artifacts
today. Here is the list of things I found that I
managed to rescue before Stinker and his
dogdaughter Stinkette could chew them to bits:
• Handful of old doll clothes
• Souvenir thing my grandma gave me from
someplace she went in China or Cleveland or
somewhere
• Old fairy-tale book purchased at garage
sale for fifty cents
• Half sandwich probably once owned by
caveman
• Evidence of an ancient carpet buried below
the deepest level, possibly put there by
dinosaurs
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I thought about having a garage sale where
we could sell our old stuff to make money, but I’ve
had bad experiences with garage sales. I don’t like
people exploring and judging my nasty old stuff
while I’m standing there.
It’s like “Yes, sir, I
>
know
that sale item is
super, super, super gross. That’s why it’s
for sale. I’m keeping all my good stuff, Einstein.”
81
That’s when it occurred to me. We could sell
our old nasty stuff online . . . on eBay. That way,
we wouldn’t have to look directly into the eyes of
the people we were offending with our rubbish. I was
so excited that I called Isabella. Tomorrow we’ll see
if we can get our moms together on this to let
us do it.
If this works, it will probably be the beginning
of our own personal auction website — do I really
have to tell you the name? It’s www.tastical..
auction.abulous.unicorn. It will probably be
revolutionary.
82
Sunday 15
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella was at my house before any of us
woke up this morning, and she totally scared my
dad when he opened the door to get the newspaper.
Isabella was just snoozing on our porch, but she
can’t help it if all of her sleeping positions look
like the positions that police find the victim in
when they arrive at a crime scene.
Dad let Isabella into my room to wake me up.
I have no idea how long she was there before I
opened my eyes, but when I did, I saw her quietly
going through my drawers, probably organizing my
socks and stuff. So helpful.
83
When Mom finally got up, she and Isabella’s
mom talked on the phone about setting up an
account on eBay so we could sell our junk.
Remember that Isabella’s mom had said that
Isabella should not be allowed on our computer, so
they had to talk for a long time, and Mom closed the
door so we couldn’t hear. Later on, I learned from
my mom that Isabella’s mom had a rather long list
of warnings to give her, and instructed her to be
very careful about how she selected the password
on the account because Isabella can be very
playful about trying to crack passwords.
“Playful” is the word my mom used. I’ve