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Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #4: What I Don't Know Won't Might Me

Page 4

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.

 

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