by Jim Benton
“When?” I said, sitting up. “When is Mom
coming home?”
“Eventually!” he said, and I heard him
run all the way down to the basement with the
laundry basket.
60
I showed Dad how to separate the items by
color, how to put in the detergent, and how to
choose the settings on the washing machine.
He studied the jug of detergent.
“Huh. They make a special soap just for
cloth. Did you know that, Jamie?” he said. “They
should do that for the dishes, too.”
He was genuinely impressed at how much I
knew, and I was genuinely surprised at how much he
didn’t.
“Dad, what if you had never met Mom? How
would you take care of yourself?” I asked.
“I’d live in a box,” he said sadly, looking off
into the distance. “A dirty, dirty box. With my
daughter and her two beagles. Except we might
have to eat the beagles.”
I laughed.
61
After I finished with Dad, I could resume
Operation Flartsnutt, which is now in full
effect. It shouldn’t be hard to get him to join the
Cuisine Club — everybody likes food, but not
everybody likes video games or awareness.
I figured that my dad is probably a former
wad, because he still retains many wadlike traits,
and therefore he might be able to provide some
insight as to what a wad like Dicky might like.
“Dad. You were a wad, right?” I asked sweetly.
He raised an eyebrow. “No. Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking of trying out a few menu
items on you to see if they’re the sorts of things
that wads like. I’ll clean up any mess I make, and all
you have to do is eat.”
“You’ll clean up EVERYTHING?” he asked
nervously.
“Yes.”
“Will these food objects contain some sort of
dead animal?”
“Meat? Yes, Dad. There will be meat.”
He smiled. “You may proceed to feed the wad.”
I prepared the following items and got Dad’s
reaction. I had to work quickly, because I figured
that Isabella might start pounding on the door any
minute and begin eating everything I made, but she
never did.
She must be enjoying some brotherless time
at home.
As you can see, the salami-and-cheese
crackers with a dab of mustard and sliver of tomato
got very high marks from Dad. These will be easy to
make and transport to school on Monday.
And when Dicky wraps his plump, chapped
lips around one of these babies, the contest will be
in the bag.
Sunday 15
Dear Dumb Diary,
Angeline and Aunt Carol showed up at my
house this morning and offered to take me to
the mall.
When they showed up, Dad was trying to get
me to eat a raw egg for breakfast so we wouldn’t
get a pan dirty. His idea was to poke a hole in it with
a pen, and drink the contents with a straw. That
way, we could throw away the straw and wipe the
pen clean on the grass.
So I had to decide between Angeline and
food poisoning. I know what you’re thinking,
Dumb Diary, it really shouldn’t have been a difficult
choice. You’re right, but I chose Angeline anyway.
65
We walked around the mall for a bit, asking
each other which things were cute and which
things were not cute.Mom and I can never take
Dad shopping, because he can’t understand why we
need to discuss these things and usually don’t even
buy anything. Dad wrongly believes that shopping
always involves actual shopping.
At one point, Angeline and Aunt Carol wanted
to go look at sandals and I wasn’t feeling it, so I
just sat on a bench and judged the people that
walked by.
I know that people don’t deserve to be judged
just for walking through a mall, but I offer the
service to them free of charge anyway.
I had just finished determining that one
person’s ensemble would be perfect for butchering
chickens and then hurling into a volcano, when I
noticed an exchange taking place over at another
bench.
It was Dicky Flartsnutt. He was sitting
on the bench while Butch Dirggen and two of his
friends were standing there, talking to him.
Butch is the only kid in Mackerel Middle
School who can almost grow a mustache, unless you
count that kid who drinks chocolate milk all the
time, and that just looks like one.
Butch is big, and mean, and always in
trouble. Most kids just stay out of his way.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go over and talk to
Dicky with Butch and his friends there, but
fortunately, one of them grabbed Dicky’s hat and
they all ran away with it. (I’ve noticed that bullies
have a far-above-average interest in hats.)
He watched them run away, and then sat
there with his head down. It was a perfect time to
begin my recruitment.
I walked over and sat down.
“It’s Dicky, right?” I said. “We go to the same
school.”
He looked up cautiously and when he saw me,
smiled slightly.
“Oh, hi,” he said. “Yeah. I know you. Of
course I know you.”
How could he NOT know me, right? I’m pretty
well-known for my posters and dancing and
prettiness. Many things, really. Too many to count.
A million, let’s say.
“You’re Angeline’s friend.”
68
I smiled and corrected him.
“Angeline is my friend,” I said, noting how
bad that sentence tasted in my mouth, like a pink
jelly bean that you might find in the bottom of a
discarded aquarium.
“Did Butch steal your hat?” I asked.
“Oh, no. He’s just borrowing it. He borrows it
sometimes, but he always returns it later.”
“He’s going to return it?”
Dicky nodded. “Yes. For sure. I just never
know where he’ll return it. Sometimes he returns
it on the roof of the school. One time, he returned it
to his dog.”
I nodded.
“It has my name in it. I’ll find it.”
I noticed that many of the things he was
wearing had his name on them.
69
“Listen, Dicky,” I said. “I’m making some
snack- type things for the Cuisine Club, and I’m
supposed to get some kids’ opinions on them. Would
it be okay if we had lunch together tomorrow and
you gave them a try?”
Dicky just sat and stared at me as if he
hadn’t heard me.
“Dicky?”
“This is just so amazing,” he said.
I laughed that off, but it was really kind of
tragic. I mean, of course he should have been
flattered I offered to join him and everyth
ing, but
c’mon, Dicky, it’s not like I’m the most beautiful girl
in the school
world.
I returned to my bench, and Dicky’s mom
came and picked him up. They were gone before
Angeline and Aunt Carol got back. It had worked out
perfectly.
“Did you see anything cute?” I asked.
Aunt Carol shook her head. “We saw two
things that were cute but also kind of bleh, and
one thing that was cuteish but also kind of I
don’t know.”
I had a perfect picture in my mind of what
they saw, and I suddenly felt a little sorry for Dad
that he would never understand what we were
talking about.
Oh, Dad. What you don’t know . . .
Monday 16
Dear Dumb Diary,
In most cafeterias, there are zones. There are
territories. There are little kingdoms of joy and
attractiveness, little villages of pleasantness, and
little quiet areas that seem a bit unpopulated and
underdeveloped .
Way, way past these areas, there are dark
corners. Bleak, lonely, isolated spots, where the
wobbliest chairs and tables eventually wind up.
Dicky’s words suddenly came back to me as I
walked through the cafeteria toward the farthest,
darkest, wobbliest area of them all.
72
I had my little Tupperware container of
fabulous snacks in my hand, and I heard his
scratchy voice in my head.
“This is just so amazing,” he had said.
And I saw why Dicky thought it was all so
amazing.
I wasn’t the only one who had made
arrangements to have lunch with Dicky today.
Angeline and Isabella were sitting next to him.
“Oh, hi,” Angeline said frigidly.
Isabella just nodded.
“Hi, Jamie,” Dicky said merrily. It looked like
he had tried combing his hair, and he was wearing a
new shirt. I can tell things like that.
“You left the price tag on your shirt, Dicky,”
I said, and he pulled it off with a snap.
“I got it at the mall yesterday,” he said.
“That’s why I was there. I wanted to dress up a
little, since Isabella and Angeline asked to have
lunch with me. I think this might be the first time
anybody ever has.”
“And then I asked you, too,” I said flatly.
“Right! So amazing !” he said with a grin. “So,
how do we do this? We just eat our lunches at the
same time and talk, or do we eat one at a time and
listen to each other? I’ve never done this.”
74
Isabella pulled out her phone and launched a
game. She wasn’t wasting any time.
“You like video games?” she asked Dicky.
“I don’t know,” he said, chewing on a
mouthful of what looked like a hay sandwich.
“Well, you’ve played them, right?” she said.
“No. Was I supposed to?”
Isabella scowled. I mean, how does a person
answer a question like that?
“Yes,” she answered. “You were supposed to.”
Dicky took a sip of a juice box that had a
picture of a cabbage on it.
“Okay. Show me,” he said.
75
“Look. This one is called Zombie
Spanker. You have to spank all the zombies that
are coming at you,” Isabella explained. “See, tap
here to spank them.”
“Oh, cool!” Dicky said. “Let’s run away
from them.”
“No. Dicky. Look. We spank the zombies.
See? Spank ’em.”
“But they’re people,” Dicky said.
“Yeah, once, but now they’re infected with
zombie virus. We have to spank ’em.”
“I’ll bet we can get them a doctor,” Dicky
said, examining the screen closely for a CALLA
DOCTOR button.
Isabella took the phone away from him. “Let
me find a different game.”
76
Angeline wedged herself in.
“Dicky, we’re in a club here called the Student
Awareness Committee, and right now we’re doing
something to increase awareness about bullying.”
Dicky opened a little sandwich bag of leaflike
things to snack on. They could have been kale. They
could have been triangles of green felt.
“Did you ever have any experience with
bullies?” Angeline went on, making her voice sound
all sincere and junk, because she was.
“I guess so,” Dicky said. “Like Butch and his
friends.”
“And don’t you think we should put an
end to it?”
“That depends,” Dicky lisped.
“On what?” Angeline said.
“Well, are you guys going to talk to me from
now on?” he asked.
Angeline looked surprised. “Why would that
matter?”
“Because Butch and his friends are the only
people that talk to me. I’m not sure I would want
that to stop completely.”
Not what Angeline was going for.
My turn.
“Dicky,” I said, “What Isabella and Angeline
were doing here to make you uncomfortable was
really great —wonderful stuff, ladies —but you’ll
remember that the reason that I suggested we dine
together was so that you could try these.”
I opened the Tupperware container, and
somehow the fragrance was even better than I
expected. It smelled like somebody had opened a
decanter of love, if love is made out of salami,
as I think most of us suspect that it is.
I took out a perfect little meaty, cheesy
appetizer, and held it up so that the small amount
of light that managed to make it into this region of
the lunchroom through the window danced on the
cracker’s salt crystals.
“I made this,” I whispered. “We can teach you
to make them, too.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “But I can tell just
from looking at it that I can’t eat at least three of
the things it’s made of.”
78
So Project Flartsnutt isn’t off to a great
start. It wasn’t a total loss. I gave Dad the rest of
the snacks that night, and he was really happy that
we could eat dinner directly out of a Tupperware
container that I told him I would clean.
“See, Jamie,” he said, “if you eat directly
over the dustpan, you don’t have to get a broom
dirty sweeping up.”
Tuesday 17
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today in science with Mrs. Curie, we had to
watch some gruesome real- life nature thing about
some hyenas playing a little too rough with their
friend, the wildebeest, by trying to eat it alive. It
made me wonder why people are always trying to
protect Nature, because very often Nature is a
huge jerk.
It honestly made me consider not recycling
anymore, just to get back at Nature.
Eventually, some other wildebee
sts came
charging in to the rescue and scared off the
hyenas, which was a relief, but I couldn’t help
thinking: Hey, wildebeests, what took you so long?
You have something else to do? Checking your email
or something?
PROTECTING YOUR SPECIES is, like,
one of the two jobs you have. It’s just that, and
eating those clumps of dry, nasty grass you seem
to enjoy.
And hey, antelopes, I’m looking at you, too.
We were almost all the way through lunch
today when I realized that I hadn’t even said hi to
Dicky. He was probably way back in the far corner of
the lunchroom, wondering why his two new pretty
friends and the blond hadn’t even said hello.
I started to suggest it to Isabella but when I
looked at her, she was reading a note that she’d
found in with her lunch, and smiling.
“What’s that ?” I asked her.
“A note from my dad. He packed my lunch
today and put a note in it. He’s never done that
before.”
Isabella got up and emptied her tray in the
trash. As she walked away, I saw her put the note in
her pocket.
Angeline leaned in and whispered, “It’s
because her brothers are gone, you know. She’s kind
of smoothing out.”
81
Wednesday 18
Dear Dumb Diary,
I haven’t really been writing much about my
classes lately, because I’ve been so focused on the
whole club situation. Quick update:
In English today, I told Mrs. Avon that it made
sense to me that the word NOUN was a noun, but
shouldn’t the word VERB be a verb?
Yeah, okay. Not that interesting. You see?
This is why I’ve been telling you about the clubs.
Miss Anderson was in a pretty bad mood during
the Cuisine Club today. We increased the number of
kids in the club, but now we have too many.