by Jim Benton
We made vegetable appetizers, but it was five
people to a carrot and we had to split the toothpicks.
Miss Anderson told us that we were fine as a
tiny club, but with all these new kids, we have to
win this membership drive to get the extra funds.
There’s no in-between size for us. Without the win,
she’s going to have to cancel the club due to
overcrowding.
And then she brought out the dessert, like a
big hunk of bait. She said she HOPED we would get
to make it IF we get enough people to join the club.
You could actually hear some of the
stomachs knot up at the prospect of eating her
cake, mine included. Dad’s meals just aren’t
keeping me going.
For example, Dad made dinner tonight. It was
hotdogs, but they were not in buns and not on
plates and not cooked and did not have
condiments.
He calls them notdogs.
After dinner, I called Isabella to tell her this,
and when she got on the phone she was already
laughing.
LAUGHING.
“Isabella,” I said, thinking quickly, “if you’re
being held hostage right now and are just laughing
to confuse whoever it is that’s got you, say our code
word, which I suddenly realize we never agreed to,
but let’s say now that the code word is
‘hostage.’”
Isabella said everything was fine. Her mom
had just said something funny and she and her dad
were laughing about it.
“What’s up?” she asked, and for just a moment
she sounded all bright and cheery, like Angeline. I
felt like my notdog was notsittingwell.
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“Nobody can know that Dicky is the one
remaining student that can win it for our clubs. He
can’t take the attention. He already bought one
new shirt this year and —”
“Okay,” Isabella said.
“What? No argument? No pushback?”
“Sounds good, Jamie. See you tomorrow.”
Thursday 19
Dear Dumb Diary,
We have to be very careful about giving Dicky
the rush. If anybody notices what we’re doing, it
could be trouble.
Somehow, the news had already spread that
there was just one kid left to recruit. Fortunately,
nobody really knows Dicky or what he does or
doesn’t do.
Even so, Isabella, Angeline, and I were really
casual today when we went over to his table. We
were all like, “Oh, we hardly noticed you sitting over
in this dank, abandoned part of the cafeteria on
the terrible chairs. Maybe we’ll just sit down here
casually and casually talk casually, you know, not
about anything in particular.”
“Join my club,” Isabella said.
“Club?” Dicky said.
I jumped in.
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“Look, Dicky, what Isabella is trying to say
here is that you should join the Cuisine Club. We can
teach you how to make better lunches than
whatever that is you’re eating.”
I pointed at a little container that appeared
to have a lab specimen in it.
“It’s a beet pudding,” he said.
Angeline was getting ready to make her pitch
when Butch and his friends showed up.
“Is this guy bothering you, ladies?” he said,
trying to be charming by jiggling his big fat hairy
eyebrows up and down. You know, the way that
charming guys do.
“No,” Angeline said. “Thanks, anyway.”
Butch wasn’t giving up. “Because sometimes
his lunches make people sick just to look at. That’s
why he knows he has to eat them back here where
nobody has to see their nastiness.”
Dicky smiled. “I guess that’s reasonable,”
he said.
“Hey, guys, why don’t you just leave us alone,”
I said, which turned out to be fairly unwise.
“Why don’t you make us?” Butch asked.
Isabella turned around in her chair and looked up
at him. His smirk changed quickly when he realized
that it was Isabella he had been standing behind.
“It’s kind of a private conversation we’re
having,” she said, smiling. It was the smile of a girl
no longer pestered every day by her brothers. It was
the smile of a girl at peace. It was the smile of a girl
who wanted to communicate like a human being.
Later, when I was helping Angeline get the
beet pudding out of her hair in the girls’ bathroom, I
asked Isabella why she didn’t just push Butch’s face
down his throat.
“I don’t know,” she said, pulling the
piece of kale out of her ear that Butch had stuffed
inside it. “Does that really solve anything?”
After we cleaned up, we headed down to the
office. Assistant Principal Devon was expecting us.
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When we got there, Assistant Principal Devon
was talking to Dicky. The school nurse had put a
Band-Aid on his cheek and offered to call his parents.
Butch and his friends slumped in chairs nearby.
“I’m fine,” Dicky said. “I slipped on some
organic cabbage juice. Butch caught me. Angeline,
Isabella, and Jamie saw it all.”
He looked at us with the Universal Eyes
of Lying, which all kids recognize.
“That how it happened?” Assistant Principal
Devon asked us, asking Angeline a little bit more
than me and Isabella.
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Butch and his friends looked over at us. I
could see some real concern in their eyes, especially
Butch’s. He was nervously picking kale from
underneath his fingernails.
“Do you think Dicky’s a liar?” Angeline asked
Assistant Principal Uncle Dan, now putting him in
the position of having to say something terrible
about Dicky, who already had things pretty rough,
and who could have been telling the truth.
PLUS, you clever blond devil, you didn’t
actually lie, yourself, did you?
Assistant Principal Devon smiled at us, but it
wasn’t a real smile.
“No. Of course not,” he said. “We just don’t
want to see accidents like this happen. Back to
class, everyone.”
Friday 20
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today, Angeline and some of the recent
additions to the Student Awareness Committee had
set up a table in the school lobby and were asking
people to sign a pledge not to bully.
I signed it, of course, because it’s the right
thing to do. Plus I have a lovely signature,
which I’m always prepared to share with people.
Isabella is also prepared to share her
signature, but in the past it’s always been with
spray paint, at night, not her real signature, and
there’s typically a pretty gross drawing
accompanying it.
Of course, Butch had to wander in because,
well, it looks like now he’s par
t of our lives.
“What’s this?” he asked, fumbling at the
clipboard with his big fat hairy fingers and staring
at it with his big fat hairy eyes.
“It’s a pledge not to bully,”Angeline said.
“Sign it.”
He read down the list of names.
“Isabella? Isabella signed this?” He laughed.
“Oh, man. She really is going soft.”
He flipped the clipboard back to Angeline.
“YOU sign it,” he said, and laughed again,
mistaking what he had just said as a clever
comeback.
Isabella going soft? Yeah, right.
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We all had another go at Dicky today.
Isabella had a new game — a racing game — and
Dicky was concerned that they might be exceeding
the speed limit. Angeline’s pitch was about more
of the things we should be aware of, like recycling
and conservation and stuff, but Dicky said he
thought that everybody was already aware of those
things but just chose to ignore them.
I had a carefully prepared appetizer of
organic gluten-free soy something on top of a low-
sodium peanut-free something else — I don’t know,
Stinker wouldn’t even eat it — and Dicky enjoyed it,
but said it seemed like an awful lot of work to make
something so beautiful that you’re just going to
chew up and swallow.
He wasn’t wrong.
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Just as lunch was ending, we got up to leave
and passed Butch, who angled his shoulder in such a
way as to bump Isabella’s shoulder.
She just rolled with it and kept walking. I
looked back and saw Butch smile.
I’m afraid that he was conducting a test, and
Isabella had failed.
“You’re supposed to say ‘sorry’ when you run
into somebody, Isabella. You’re not trying to bully
me or something, are you?” Butch yelled after her.
Isabella turned, and Dicky stepped in
between them, effectively distracting them both
from their bubbling conflict.
“Isabella, how about if you and Angeline and
Jamie come over to my house tomorrow, and we can
talk about which club I should join.”
I’m going, but I know I’m going to hate this.
Saturday 21
Dear Dumb Diary,
Dicky only lives a couple streets away from
me, so after a hearty breakfast of Bunny Bananas,
which is the “fun name” Dad came up with for
carrots wrapped in paper towels, I swung by
Isabella’s house and we walked over. Angeline’s
mom was dropping her off as we arrived.
Dicky’s house had flamingos and garden
gnomes out front. It had a silly welcome mat and
a sign on the door that said, The Flartsnutts
Welcome You. Next to the door was a pot with a
plant that had died so long ago it may have
technically qualified as a fossil.
We rang the bell, and Dicky came to the door.
“Your plant’s dead,” Isabella said in greeting.
“Mom’s hoping it will come back,” Dicky
explained cheerfully. “It’s been like that for six
years, but Mom is really optimistic. Sometimes she
talks to it.”
“Does that help?” I asked.
“It doesn’t seem to hurt it,” Dicky replied.
A friendly little dog came up wagging his tail,
and with him, a friendly little cat.
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A friendly little dad came to the door next,
with a friendly little mom and a friendly little sister.
“Dicky’s told us all about you,” his mom said.
“Angeline, I know that you’re quite sweet and smart
and a very good friend to Jamie, although Jamie
doesn’t always know it. Isabella, I know that you’re
tough and very clever, and not afraid of anything.
Jamie, I know that you’re very creative and artistic
and that you feel things deeply. Did I get that right?”
“What are you?” Isabella said. “Some kind of
fortune-teller?”
At lunch, we learned that the Flartsnutts
laughed at everything. Not idiotic laughter, just
free, easy, happy laughter.
Eventually we started laughing, too, and
soon we were all laughing so hard that the horrible
food that Dicky eats actually started to seem kind
of good, as if eating something through a smile
makes it taste better somehow.
His mom and dad and little sister knew
everything about his teachers, the school, his
hobbies — everything.
And when these people spoke to each other,
the love was deafening. It was enormous. I never
knew a family could be like this. I mean, my parents
love me and everything, but c’mon, there’s a limit,
right? I ached for a sister, and a cat, and a dog.
Okay, I have dogs, but I ached for nicer ones.
100
Isabella was quiet most of the time, until we
started to talk to Dicky’s family about our clubs.
Isabella told them about video games, and Dicky’s
dad said he had heard that they improved reflexes
in doctors and pilots who played them regularly,
but he didn’t think they needed to be as violent as
they were.
Then Angeline talked about the Student
Awareness Committee, and Dicky’s mom told us
about the huge amount of volunteer work they
do as a family, and how everything begins with
awareness.
I told them about the Cuisine Club, too, and
everyone agreed that it was fun to make beautiful
things to eat. Dicky’s mom even said maybe I could
give her some tips sometime.
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After lunch, we played a board game and the
time flew by. When it was time to go, we thanked
them — and in a weird way, I think I saw Dicky
differently.
Dicky wears an armor made of pure love. The
reason why things don’t get to him is that he drinks
up so much love at home that he never runs out.
Dicky is a love camel.
When he said good-bye to us, he apologized
for having only one Wednesday to offer, because he
felt bad that he couldn’t join all three clubs.
I felt a little ashamed of myself walking home.
“I didn’t know a family could be like that,”
Isabella said quietly. “I didn’t know that they could
be that . . . nice to each other.”
Sunday 22
Dear Dumb Diary,
Angeline called this morning and begged for
help with more posters. I wasn’t really up for it, but
after seeing how nice Dicky and his family are, it
sort of made me feel nicer. Like, I really didn’t
have anything against Angeline, and she did offer
to bring some extra glitter.
I really can’t overemphasize the significance
of glitter in everything. While you’re young, you use
a lot of it because of its powerful natural beauty.
When you reach my age, glitter really sends a
message that you put in the e
xtra time. Glitter
becomes the code for commitment. I firmly believe
that when a law is really important, they should
write it in glitter.
Once Angeline showed up, we started right in.
I had a few ideas about healthy-eating awareness,
because Dicky’s awful food had made me aware
that horrible things are good.
Or something like that . . . I don’t know . . .
look, awareness doesn’t happen all at once. I need
some time to figure out how to spin this.
Angeline was still all about the bullying issue.
She got a little intense about it, and I finally asked
her why this was such a big deal for her, anyway.
Wasn’t it time to be aware of something else already?
“It’s not like you ever get bullied,” I said.
She looked at me sadly.
“No, but I am one,” she answered.
“I’m as bad as Isabella,” Angeline went on. “I
judge people without knowing them. I laugh when
I think somebody is funny looking or dumb. I may
even sometimes think less of people for things they
can’t help. Sometimes I even resent people who are
nicer than me, or more talented, or prettier. How
awful is that?”
“You should never resent somebody for being
prettier,” I said sternly. “I can’t help it, Angeline.”
Angeline sighed. “If I feel this way about
people, Jamie, I’m almost a bully.”
I wanted to console her.
“You are a bad person,” I said.
I wasn’t done. “But you’re not a bully. You’re
allowed to think anything you want, and I don’t
believe we can keep ourselves from laughing at
certain things. I mean, I really like Dicky, but I am
never going to be okay with those shoes of his.”
Angeline tried not to laugh.
“I think it’s about keeping your big fat hairy