Dear Dumb Diary #4: Never Do Anything, Ever

by Jim Benton

should do their physical work for them, like farm

  animals, except even a little grosser in the case of

  Margaret, who did not miss the chance to sneak a

  couple of secret munches on one of the pencils from

  the judges’ table.

  I don’t want to say she’s still eating a lot of

  pencils, but when she farts, I swear you can almost

  see a little puff of sawdust.

  Wednesday 25

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Jump - rope - a - Thon day!!!!!!!!!!

  School was normal. That’s how it started,

  anyway. And then, like everything that starts

  normal, it became abnormal.

  Right after school, just before we went to the

  gym, Isabella came out of the bathroom and walked

  right into a wall. When she turned toward me, I saw

  that she was not wearing her glasses anymore. And

  when she got closer, I could see that her eyes had

  turned green. Green like a jelly bean.

  “Isabella! What happened to your eyes?”

  I said.

  “I got contacts,” she said. “Just put ’em in.

  Cool, huh?”

  “Where did you get the money for contacts?”

  I said, knowing that her parents would not have

  approved, and that Isabella has a very hard time

  saving money.

  “The Juvenile Optometry Federation,” she

  said. “Plus I had a few bucks saved up.” And she

  laughed that kind of laugh that psychopaths laugh

  when they have you cornered in the basement.

  I felt sick. Isabella had faked the charity.

  And I had helped her. “Isabella! Our inner beauty!

  What have you done?”

  “Look,” she said, “ they’re IN my eyes, right?

  And they’re beautiful. Bang:Inner Beauty. I

  didn’t have enough for the tinted ones, so I colored

  them myself. I think I may have used a little too

  much green marker on them, and I might have

  wrecked the left one. If you get some, you should

  take them out of your eyes before you color them.”

  They were practically stolen, kind of. But

  there was nothing I could do, and Isabella knew it.

  I had helped her, so if I ratted her out, I’d be in just

  as much trouble as she would be. We had faked out

  the principal, which is like faking out the president.

  All I could do was lead her to the gym. She was

  almost blind.

  Lots of kids showed up to participate in the

  Jump-Rope-A-Thon. I didn’t see Angeline right

  away, which is odd, because she is so into these

  things. Mr. Dover and a few other teachers were the

  judges, but a couple of them were late, so Mr. Dover

  asked if Isabella and I could help by counting other

  kids’ jumps first, and then do our jumping last.

  Since we’re totally jumping experts, we said okay.

  As the participants did their jumps, we’d

  record the number and drop the sheets off with the

  judges. Isabella had to count by the sound of the

  jumps, of course, because her vision was all blurry

  from her contacts.

  Margaret and TUkWNIF were really good

  jumpers: No doubt that Time - alone - To-

  Practice thing helped, and jump -rope handles

  are big, juicy, delicious knobs of wood, and we all

  know how that appeals to Margaret. (Never caught

  her but I’m sure she got in a little gnaw - time.)

  After a while, we got down to the last few

  jumpers, and Angeline slid into the gym. She had

  this look on her face I had never seen before.

  She called me over, and she was sort of

  panicked. I wished that Isabella could have seen it,

  but her eyes had started to roll independently like a

  chameleon’s. (Marker poisoning?)

  When Angeline had me alone, she—Are you

  ready for this? — CONFESSED. She was almost

  crying when she told me that she can’t jump rope

  by herself. Hardly at all. See, it’s like I said before.

  Jumping rope is a skill you practice when you spend

  lots of time alone. Angeline, being totally popular

  and always busy, has never had time to master it.

  Ha - ha! I just knew that if I lived long

  enough, I’d discover the BAD SIDE of intense

  popularity. You never get any “me time.” It’s always

  “we time.” You’re followed everywhere. Maybe even

  into the bathroom. Even your weetime is we time.

  Yup, it was a tragic moment for Angeline. A

  wonderfully tragic moment. It was so sad I almost

  burst out laughing.

  But the moment didn’t last. She showed

  me her pledge sheet. Angeline had more than a

  HUNDRED sponsors. She may be bad at jumping

  rope, but she is great at collecting for charities.

  Every time that rope went around, Angeline would

  make, like, 10 bucks or something for the school.

  It was so wonderful! All that money

  and she was going to blow it because she couldn’t

  work a stupid jump rope. So much for your inner

  beauty, Ang. Wait till everybody finds out how you

  let the whole school down!

  The school . . .

  NOOO! The School!!! Why did I

  even have to think about the school?!

  If I let Angeline fail, it would be a huge blow

  to her —her popularity, her inner beauty, her smug

  barrette skills, and her evil power over Hudson.

  But it would also be a huge blow to the

  school. Nobody else had anywhere near as many

  sponsors. I had seen the sheets.

  And as I looked into Angeline’s eyes, I saw

  that she was sad. Like real sad. Not sad like when a

  beagle can’t scratch the barrette off his ears, but

  sad like when you know you’re letting everybody

  down. And she made my inner beauty squirt out

  of me until I was standing in a puddle of my own

  loveliness. I had created a monster— a beast. And

  it was me. I was a real Beauty of a Beast and a

  Beast of a Beauty.

  I went over and asked Dover if the jumpers

  had to hold the jump rope themselves, or if they

  could just jump it. Because if they had to hold it,

  that wouldn’t be fair to people with no hands, like

  pirates. Dover looked in the rules and said that the

  person only had to jump— somebody else could

  twirl the rope.

  I told Isabella that I wanted her to help me

  twirl the rope for Angeline. Angeline had way more

  pledges than we had, and this was the only right

  thing to do for the sake of the charity.

  Isabella said, “Forget it,” and she wanted

  to storm off, but her vision being what it was, she

  could only wander off aimlessly.

  So I got up real close into her face, and I

  made my voice as low and as dangerous as hers,

  and I said to her, “Isabella, either you do this or

  I’ll tell your parents and everybody how you got the

  money for your contact lenses. You’ll be grounded

  until you graduate from college.”

  I could hardly believe I had said it. Isabella’s

  eyes started to tear up a little, but it wasn’t because
>
  I had hurt her feelings. And it wasn’t because her

  contacts were bugging her. It was because she was

  moved.

  See, Isabella is a master of blackmail. It’s

  one of the horrible abilities her brothers’ cruelty has

  forced her to develop. After all these years, Isabella

  could see that I had finally learned something

  wicked from her. She was touched by my Inner

  ugly, which to her is exactly like Inner

  Beauty— so much that it moved her to tears.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Angeline DOES know how to jump rope if

  somebody else twirls it. And actually, she can jump

  pretty well. Not like Isabella, and not at all like

  me, but she jumped for a long time, and we raised

  a bunch of money for the school. This was probably

  going to be her biggest jackpot yet, and her inner

  beauty and fame were going to skyrocket off the

  charts.

  I was furious and delighted at the same time.

  Thursday 26

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  My arms were killing me when I woke up this

  morning. You use different muscles when you twirl

  a rope for somebody else, and I felt like I had a

  huge charley horse in my shoulders. Can you get a

  charley horse in your shoulders?

  Anyway, this was worse. More like a

  charley moose

  Isabella wanted to do our solution for Dover

  in gym class today. I told her that my arms were

  killing me, and I tried to talk her out of it, but she

  was sure she wanted to go for it, and you know how

  she gets.

  We waited until toward the end of the class

  so we could review our solution and make sure

  it would go as planned. We could hear the buses

  starting to pull up, so we had to move quickly.

  Dover watched as we loaded the baby into

  the snake slingshot. Isabella started to pull it back,

  but her contact lenses were bugging her eyes and

  she was having a hard time aiming. I could tell she

  was off target, but my arms hurt so bad, I couldn’t

  compensate for it, and when she let the baby go, it

  wasn’t exactly heading in the right direction.

  Pinsetti probably could have caught it, but

  a month of head injuries had him spooked, and he

  ducked, so our baby, with the big metal pot on its

  head, smashed right through the window.

  Then it rolled down the little hill outside the

  gym and off the curb, and under the wheel of one

  of the buses as it was pulling up. We looked out just

  in time to see the bus roll over it and leave a big,

  dirty, baby pancake on the asphalt.

  I don’t think Dover even knew what to say.

  The baby would have had a better chance for

  survival with the crocodiles. All Dover did was shake

  his head slowly and walk away. I guess we were

  failing.

  I could hardly bear to look at Hudson. And

  I knew that Angeline was going to be laughing her

  head off. Not only had we not saved the baby,

  it looked as though maybe the baby had done

  something to make us really, really angry. But

  Angeline wasn’t laughing. She was motioning me

  over to her.

  She leaned in close and whispered to me:

  “Sacrifice.” I don’t think I would have known

  what she meant before. But now, since I have lots of

  inner beauty, I suddenly understood.

  “Mr. Dover?” I said. “There’s more.” I quickly

  gathered everybody’s dolls and handed them to

  Isabella, Pinsetti, and TUkWNIF. Then I walked into

  the center of the gym.

  I announced, “While the crocodiles are busy

  eating me, the rest of my team will quickly sneak

  everybody’s babies safely across the gym floor.”

  Mr. Dover looked astonished. “Jamie, you’re

  going to let the crocodiles eat you? Doesn’t that

  mean you fail?” he asked.

  “I already failed,” I said. “But now everybody

  else passes. And ahead of schedule. So they get

  next week off, right?”

  Dover smiled. He even clapped a couple of

  times. He said to the whole class, “She’s right. The

  only solution to this problem was for one member to

  give up everything for the rest of the team. During

  Trust Falls and Sled Dogs, one person counted on

  the group. In this exercise, the group counts on one

  person. You got it, Jamie! A- plus.”

  After class, Hudson and I talked and

  laughed on our way to the lockers. Angeline passed

  us and said hello. I said hi back, but Hudson never

  even saw her. I guess her inner beauty is no match

  for mine.

  I really don’t know why I didn’t start having

  any inner beauty before this. It’s really way easier

  than monkeying around with a barrette.

  Friday 27

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Never do anything, ever. That’s my

  new motto.

  This morning I was feeling pretty good about

  my new inner beauty. And Isabella was feeling

  pretty good about her new contacts. She was telling

  Margaret all about them, but I could tell that she

  thought she was talking to me. I think I’d better

  take Isabella back to the eye doctor and get those

  contacts fixed.

  Angeline was at her locker today, and right

  above it was a sign the school had put up that said,

  CONGRATULATIONS, ANGELINE! YOU

  RAISED 600 DOLLARS FOR THE JUMP -

  ROPE - A - THON. A NEW STATE RECORD!

  But Angeline wasn’t all glowing like she usually is

  when she accomplishes more fame for herself. In

  fact, she seemed a little sad.

  What is this? Why do I have to feel this way??

  Is this the ugly Side - effect of Beauty?

  Having to think about how other people feel?

  Anyway, Hudson came up to me and started talking,

  and I could see Angeline’s huge, horrible, beautiful,

  bright Windex-blue eyes glimmering like a blue-eyed

  blond puppy whose head is clamped in a tightening

  vise. (Why do I think of these things?)

  Hudson was there, practically wading up to

  his waist in my gushing inner beauty.

  But then something beautiful inside crawled

  up my throat and out my mouth and said this:

  “You know, Hudson, it was Angeline who

  helped me solve that baby- and- the- crocodile

  puzzle yesterday. I would never have thought of

  making that sacrifice without her.”

  And then Hudson smiled at Angeline. Who

  could blame him? The ol’ inner beauty plus outer

  beauty was a pretty delicious parfait.

  I looked up at Angeline’s Jump-Rope-A- Thon

  sign and then locked eyes with Angeline. I tried to

  broadcast “Fair is fair” with my eyes, and I guess

  she got the message, because she said to Hudson:

  “Well, as long as we’re being totally honest,

  Jamie here helped me with the Jump-Rope-A-Thon.

  Without her, I probably could never have raised a

  single dollar.”

  Then Hudson t
urned to me again. I should

  be required to have a lifeguard posted on my

  head, because now he was drowning in my inner

  beauty. I mean, seriously, I was looking pretty

  incredible. C’mon, even Angeline knew she was

  no match for me now. And I didn’t even have the

  barrette in.

  Do you want to know how I KNOW she knew

  it? Because the next thing she did was pull out a

  copy of today’s paper.

  “Jamie’s picture is in the paper,” she told

  Hudson. And she was right. The picture was from

  the Walk-A-Thon. Not the first one, when Angeline

  walked past our garage sale. But the second

  one, when she saw me and Mrs. Clawson’s old-

  lady underpants. Remember how I told you that

  Angeline’s charity junk always winds up in the

  papers?

  Here’s how the picture looked, with

  Angeline’s jillion-dollar smile and me with a tongful

  of hag panties:

  The caption was something like: “Well-known

  charity participant pauses during Walk-A-Thon to

  watch girl play with elder’s underpants.”

  Hudson read it and then looked at me as

  though I had been eating the underpants. I

  tried to say something. But words kind of fail you

  at a moment like that. I mean, it was me in the

  picture, and even though I wasn’t playing, what I

  was doing wasn’t much better. My inner beauty

  was rapidly being replaced with inner

  weirdness.

  Angeline and Hudson walked away laughing

  and talking. Angeline looked back over her

  shoulder, and it seemed as if she was sending me