by Jim Benton
From New York Times bestselling author Jim Benton
DEAR
DUMB
DIARY,
What I Don’t Know
might Hurt Me
YEAR
TWO
WHAT I DON’T KNOW
MIGHT HURT ME
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 #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.
Jim Benton’s Tales from Mackerel Middle School
YEAR
TWO
DEAR
DUMB
DIARY,
What I Don’t Know
Might Hurt Me
BY JAMIE KELLY
SCHOLASTIC INC.
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eISBN 978-0-545-60694-3
Copyright © 2013 by Jim Benton
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DEAR DUMB DIARY is a registered trademark of Jim Benton.
First printing, July 2013
For the Dicky Flartsnutt in all of us.
Bully for you, Kristen LeClerc, Shannon
Penney, Abby McAden, Anna Bloom, Jackie
Hornberger, and Yaffa Jaskoll.
Dear Whoever Is Reading My Dumb Diary,
I know you think it’s okay to read my diary,
and I know that you think that there is
know
way I’ll never find out.
But I know I will find out, and when I do, I
know you’re going to regret it, because I know
things like that. You know?
You never know when I’ll find out, or where
you’ll be when I do, but there is
know escaping
it — and you know it.
Knowingly,
Sunday 01
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today was the best day ever.
Said nobody.
My mom dropped me off at Isabella’s house,
because it’s Sunday and that’s our main day to do
the homework that was due on Thursday, except
that we got an extra day to turn it in and then
another extra day after that because Isabella told
our teacher that her house had been robbed and the
burglars had stolen our homework. Again.
I think the teacher bought it because Isabella
had a sketch of the burglar, which looked really
official because she had me do a drawing of
Abraham Lincoln with long hair. Isabella thinks he
may have been a burglar before he went into
presidenting. (She thinks a full beard without
an accompanying mustache is suspicious.)
We often do our Thursday/Sunday homework
at my house, but since my mom was working on
getting dinner ready, I was concerned that there
was a chance she might try to make us eat it, so I
did what I could to avoid being there. Isabella’s
1
mom, on the other hand, is such a good cook that
she could even work at a Burger King or someplace
awesome like that.
Unfortunately, Isabella’s mean older brothers
exist and were home, which meant that everybody
was on Extreme Red Alert. Isabella and her
brothers were listening carefully for anything that
anybody said to be either:
1) Insulting.
2) Very Insulting.
And, if one of them did say something
insulting, the other would say something back that
was either:
1) Very Insulting.
2) Astonishingly Insulting.
3) Insulting enough that it could get repeated to
a psychologist twenty years from now.
Then it was the first person’s turn again. It
was a lot like people playing tennis, but instead of a
tennis ball, they used a dirty diaper full of wasps
and grenades.
One of these fights broke out (because one
always does), and it became so intense that at one
point they were exchanging insults about each
other’s mothers.
“Your mother is so ugly that the mirrors charge
extra to reflect her,” Isabella spat.
“Oh, yeah, well, your mother is so fat, she has
different weather on her front than she does on her
back,” one of her brothers said.
Here’s the thing: Isabella and her brothers
have the same mother, and she walked in just as
they were exchanging these insults.
3
“So this is what my kids think of me?” she
asked angrily.
“No, Mom,” Isabella said, and ran up to her
and gave her a big hug.
“So you think I’m fat?” her mom said quietly,
the way the hissing fuse on a stick of dynamite is
pretty quiet.
“No, no. Don’t you remember? I was the one
that said you were ugly.”
By the time my mom got there, Isabella’s
mom had screamed until her voice was hoarse, and
I had to go home early and eat the dinner my mom
had made (a big salad, which she had somehow
badly burned). Plus, I had to finish my
homework by myself, which is one of the nine worst
ways to do homework.
Monday 02
Dear Dumb Diary,
You might recall, Dumb Diary, that Isabella
and I joined some clubs last month, since my Uncle
Dan (who is also the assistant principal at my
school) kind of demanded it.
It’s hard to know what to call your uncle when
he is also the assistant principal. Away from school,
I go with Uncle Dan. At school, I go with Mr. Devon or
Assistant Principal Devon. In o
uter space, I go with
Devon the OverSeer.*
He didn’t actually demand that I join
clubs. He did that thing where an adult says that
they think something would be a good idea,
but deep down you know that’s kind of like when a
pirate tells you that they think swimming would be
a good idea after they make you walk the plank.
Nobody is really demanding that you swim. You
make up your own mind. “Swim,” they say, “if
you think that’s what’s best.”
*Haven’t actually had the chance to use this one yet.
5
But the problem with clubs is that they
expect you to participate. Isabella also thinks it’s
deceptive that they don’t give us actual clubs,
but that’s another story.
I joined the Cuisine Club, which is taught by
my gorgeous art teacher, Miss Anderson. We learn
how to prepare wonderfully delicious dishes that
are so beautiful to behold that it seems wrong to
eat them, in the same way that people don’t feel
they should eat beautiful paintings.
Isabella joined the Videogamer Club, not really
because she’s that into video games, but because
she knows how much it will irritate her mean older
brothers when she gets good enough to beat them,
and she likes being the most beautiful girl in
the entire club.
Okay, the only beautiful girl.
Okay, the only girl.
Okay, a girlish person in the club.
Isabella and I are also co-presidents of the
Student Awareness Committee, which is a club we
invented in order to get credit for joining a club.
Originally, just I was the president, but Isabella and
I felt that both of us should be president, and I
wanted her to get up off my stomach.
It sounds pretty official, and you would
assume that any club we started would be a
Bustin’-Out-the-Drawers-Party-
Spaceship-O-Fun, but frankly, we’re already
kind of bored with it. We just sit there and discuss
what we’re aware of, and as it turns out, we’re just
not aware of many things.
As the presidents, Isabella and I decided the
club should meet on Wednesdays, which is when
she and I attend other clubs so that we can never
attend the Student Awareness Committee meetings.
This makes Angeline, the secretary, angry, but we
told her that if she’s ever aware of something she
can email us and we’ll consider becoming aware of
it, too. Problem solved.
7
We’ve discovered that this is the time of year
when all of the clubs have their “membership
drives,” where they try to recruit more members.
The school actually gives a prize to the club that
increases their numbers by the highest percentage.
They do this because:
1) The school just does things like this.
2) There is no other reason.
3) Why are you still reading the list? I told you
back at number 2 that there were no other
reasons.
I can’t imagine this being a very big deal,
anyway.
Tuesday 03
Dear Dumb Diary,
So now Angeline has to go and be aware of
something. Just when I was pretty sure we could
let the Student Awareness Committee quietly die
a dignified death, like some majestic old
elephant or the Square Dancing Club, Angeline has
to be aware of something. Great.
And, of course, it couldn’t be something
interesting like nail polish or why maybe there
should be a special class in nail polish and how to
get it out of your beagle’s ear. (Mom, if you’re
reading this, I’m not admitting anything. Somebody
else could have painted a heart in his ear.)
Angeline just had to be aware of one of those
THINGS THAT ADULTS LIKE.
She stopped us right in front of the office
where Assistant Principal Devon happened to be
standing. Oh, yeah, right. Like that wasn’t totally
planned. She probably laid out some sort of bait
that attracts assistant principals, like neckties
dipped in coffee.
“Mr. Devon,” Angeline squeaked, “I was
wondering if the Student Awareness Committee
could count on you for your support for some work
we want to do regarding bullying.”
Isabella stepped forward.
“Who do you need bullied, Angeline? I
got this.”
10
Uncle Dan looked at Isabella as if she had
just volunteered to burp on his breakfast.
Then he said we could count on his full
support, since the school faculty is always looking
for ways to reduce bullying.
Angeline nodded at me with this big smile,
like I was going to nod and smile back the way that
dorks do in dorky TV shows about dorks doing dorky
stuff at school.
Sorry, Blondie, I don’t do dork. The best I
could do was hiss a weak sound of false approval
through the thin sliver of a fake smile.
I didn’t want to be all negative or anything.
11
Wednesday 04
Dear Dumb Diary,
So today after school, I went to the Cuisine
Club, which, I may have mentioned, is taught by
Miss Anderson, who is extraordinarily lovely and
therefore shares with me that special bond that
truly beautiful people have.
You know how it is, Dumb Diary. You’ll see
a couple of us standing around looking amazing,
laughing attractively about something pretty, and
you’ll think, “Gosh. Why can’t the whole world be
that glamorous?” But you would never say it out
loud, because if you did, we’d just look at you from
behind our three-inch-long eyelashes and smirk
glamorously, and you would wither and crumble
right there on the spot and we’d giggle prettily at
your steaming remains.
In your case, Dumb Diary, we’d also probably
discuss how weird it was that a diary talked.
Miss Anderson was focusing on salads today,
because with all the colors and textures, they’re
sort of like bouquets you can eat. You know, if you
poured dressing all over your bouquets.
Isabella doesn’t really like vegetables. She
says that vegetables aren’t food — vegetables are
what food eats. It’s probably best that she didn’t
join this club.
At the end of the class, Miss Anderson told us
that we have to try to get more people to sign up
for our club, because she really wants to win this
membership competition. There are nine kids in the
Cuisine Club right now, and only so many kids left in
the school with their Wednesday afternoons free.
She gave us a goal: By next week, we’re all
supposed to have signed up three other kids.
Should be a breeze.
You never want to admit bad things about the
people you love, like your grandma, or
your dad, or
yourself. I can imagine Dracula’s granddaughter
at his trial, being all like, “Yeah, well, lots of people
probably have blood that is way too delicious and
it’s their own fault.”
So I hate to admit that my grandma is not a
Dracula, but she is a Gitoffma. That’s one of
those old people who shouts at kids who walk or ride
bikes across their lawns.
“Gitoffmalawn!” they yell, and then
stab their canes in the air threateningly as if they
are trying to shish kebab any invisible children that
have wandered too close.
Gitoffmas are under the impression that,
while grass can endure mountains of snow, blistering
sun, thunderstorms, and driving winds, if a forty-
five-pound child steps on it, it will instantly die. It
is as if nature has struck this delicate balance so
that old people freak out about their lawns, and
in turn, the lawns give them something to freak
out about.
I found out today that my grandma, in her
haste to give a child nightmares, rushed out onto
her porch to yell at one, took a few hilarious steps
into the sky, fell back to Earth, and broke her hip,
which is what old people break most (after wind).
Dad said that this means that Mom has to go
stay with Grandma for a while to help her get around,
and maybe yell at kids if the pain medications
Grandma is on keep her from swearing well.
I asked why Aunt Carol couldn’t go, and it’s
because Aunt Carol went and stayed with Grandma
a couple years ago when she broke her other hip
when she ran off the porch to yell at a moth that
appeared to be preparing to land on her lawn.
So it’s going to just be me and Dad at home
for a while. I’m sure it won’t be a big deal.