Dear Dumb Diary #11: Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers

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Dear Dumb Diary #11: Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers Page 6

by Jim Benton


  poking the lump that was choking him to death

  down his throat.

  I started clapping, since lifesaving is a

  pretty magnificent thing to do. But Jake wasn’t

  thanking her, and Emmily looked pretty upset.

  “You didn’t tell me he was going to blow food

  all over me!” she said to Isabella, and she looked as

  though she might cry. “Did he even bite

  you?” she added.

  This is the point where Isabella clapped her

  hand over Emmily’s mouth and led her out of the

  cafeteria, with me following close behind.

  “Bite you?” I said. And I was going to ask why

  she would want him to bite her, and then it all

  became clear.

  The bite.

  “You thought if he bit you that you would get

  boypowers, didn’t you?” I peered at Isabella.

  “And you just wanted Emmily and Jake to spend

  time together so you could get close enough to

  make your move.”

  Isabella always tells the truth. Every time.

  Every time you catch her in a lie, she tells the

  truth. If she can’t get away with lying more, she

  tells the truth.

  “He was really jumpy after the bubble-gum

  thing,” she said. “What else could I do?”

  Isabella said it was my fault because I

  cheated by practicing the bottle toss. She

  figured that if Jake bit her, she might get powers the

  way I got them from Fat Ricky, and then it would be

  a fair bet again. The basketball game and the arm

  wrestling were to help her determine who was the

  most powerful boy, and whose bite would do her

  the most good.

  Then she whispered, “I was afraid I was

  turning into a girly girl, because we hang around

  with Angeline more now. I was afraid that whatever

  she has is contagious, and maybe that was how

  you kicked me in the face.”

  I was flattered that Isabella respects me

  enough to cheat so badly, and with such little

  regard for others.

  Only a true friend could resent me

  that much.

  Friday 27

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Today we handed in our ant reports. Emmily

  ran in late with the finished report cover (she forgot

  where the classroom was again), stapled it to the

  report, and put it on Mrs. Maple’s desk. I think we

  did a good job. I hope so anyway.

  I didn’t see the ant jar, and I asked Emmily

  where the dead ants were.

  “They’re in a better place,” she said.

  Such a sweet sentiment. I smiled. She

  probably gave them an adorable, stupid little

  funeral.

  They use some of the classrooms for the Fun

  Fair. This year, they’re using Mrs. Maple’s class for

  the bottle toss, where I’m afraid things are going to

  go badly for me and my lips, Pinsetti-wise.

  When class was almost over, Mrs. Maple

  asked some of the boys to help move her desk to

  get ready for the fair. Emmily stood up and

  said girls are strong, too, and in the ant colonies

  the girls do all of the hard work, so why can’t girls

  help her move it?

  Teachers are always shocked when they

  discover that you’ve learned something, and are

  even more shocked when you actually apply it

  somehow to the real world. Plus, this was Emmily

  who said it, and realizing that Emmily had learned

  something could make a teacher’s entire career.

  Mrs. Maple had to say okay.

  Isabella and I stood up to help. I guess we

  were obligated to, since we were Emmily’s report

  partners. Plus, I think Isabella might have been

  trying to make up for the events of the last

  couple weeks.

  Mrs. Maple got on one side of the desk, and

  we got on the other three sides and lifted it.

  As we were huffing and puffing, I said it

  would be easier to just slide it, and Isabella agreed,

  and we all dropped the desk before Mrs. Maple had

  a chance to share her opinion. Now that I think

  about it, her opinion might have been something

  like, “Okay, just let me get my mutant toes out

  of the way before you do.”

  But she didn’t, and we didn’t, and the next

  thing you know, she was screaming and we were

  lifting the desk off her finger toes and she was

  flopping down in her chair.

  Mrs. Maple was angry and in pain and making

  those grunting sounds that adults make when there

  are kids around and they can’t shout the swear

  words they crave.

  I knelt down and examined her toes to see if

  they looked broken.

  Then she suddenly stopped grunting, and I

  figured she had died from toe pain. But she was

  staring at the cover of our report that was sitting on

  her desk. She was squinting and turning her head

  back and forth the way beagles and dads do when

  they’re trying to understand something.

  And then I realized why.

  It was Emmily’s glitter job.

  When she got home with our report, Emmily

  discovered that she didn’t have any glitter to

  complete the cover. She had glue, but no glitter.

  But she did have a bottle of dead ants.

  That’s right. Emmily had used the ants

  for glitter.

  Mrs. Maple’s recovery was nothing short of a

  miracle. She started laughing, and then getting

  creeped out, and then laughing again. She limped

  out of the room and we heard her walk down to the

  next teacher’s room.

  After a minute, we heard them both

  explode with laughter. Mrs. Maple came back

  with tears in her eyes.

  “Grossest — and most amazing — visual aid

  I’ve ever seen,” she said, and started laughing

  some more.

  I apologized for dropping the desk on her, and

  she said, “Oh, I’m okay. With these weird toes of

  mine it happens all the time. I’m surprised you

  haven’t noticed them before.”

  We all said no, no, we hadn’t noticed them,

  and they look perfectly normal to us, and they’re

  just regular toes, and all that stuff.

  Except Emmily, who said she noticed them all

  the time and wasn’t surprised that we dropped the

  desk on them.

  And Mrs. Maple laughed even harder.

  Saturday 28

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  TODAY WAS THE FUN FAIR.

  And I was terrified.

  Aunt Carol drove me and Angeline over to the

  school this morning. They could probably detect

  that I was slightly nervous by the way I was

  trembling violently.

  I didn’t want to tell them, but I had to get it

  off my chest. Even though they were an adult and a

  gorgeous person, Aunt Carol is okay for a grown-up,

  and Angeline is less detestable to me now than she

  used to be.

  As we pulled into the parking lot, I couldn’t

  wait any longer. “I’m going to have to kiss Pinsetti,

  and eve
n my superpowers can’t save me.”

  They looked at each other and Aunt Carol

  silently parked the car. Then they turned around and

  asked in one voice, “WHAT superpowers?”

  I explained everything. How I acquired my

  powers through a boy bite, how I kicked Isabella

  with them and used them to sense boyfeelings. They

  listened quietly and sympathetically about each

  and every stage of my transformation and nodded

  thoughtfully.

  And then Aunt Carol lost it. I mean, she

  laughed so hard she choked on her gum. At the

  time, I thought I might have caused the chokage

  with other superpowers of mine, because I was

  really happy about how well it shut her up.

  After Aunt Carol managed to swallow the gum

  (remaining in her stomach now for seven years,

  which serves her right), she and Angeline gave

  me their opinions.

  First, Aunt Carol said, you don’t get

  superpowers from being bitten by a boy, or a spider,

  or anything else. And if those kinds of superpowers

  really existed, we wouldn’t have oil leaks or

  earthquakes or anything like that. Our superheroes

  would save the day all the time, and clearly there

  are days that just don’t get saved.

  And Angeline said that she understands how

  boys think. Not all boys, and not all the time, but

  sometimes. Even though she doesn’t have

  superpowers at all.

  And then I said that if they were right,

  how was it that I understood all boys all the time,

  and how could I flawlessly answer questions

  about them?

  Angeline said it was because I’m just

  good at observations. I watch people carefully.

  I listen to them.

  “Besides,” Angeline said finally, “you don’t

  understand all boys.”

  I nodded. “If you mean understanding why

  all guys like to watch sports and no girls do, I’m

  working on that one.”

  Aunt Carol started laughing again, so hard

  that I offered her another piece of gum to choke on.

  “What are you talking about?” she howled. “I love

  watching basketball. And I kind of like baseball

  sometimes, too. Dan likes football, but he would

  rather watch a movie than baseball or basketball.”

  “I like watching football,” Angeline said.

  “Although my dad doesn’t. He does like hockey, but

  only when his team is winning.”

  This, frankly, was a lot to absorb. These were

  two of the girliest girls I knew, but they liked

  some of the boyiest things there are. Evidently,

  sports aren’t just a boy thing. Some girls like

  watching some sports. Some boys don’t.

  Is it possible that human beings aren’t just

  like ants?

  But they had forgotten something. I’d

  kicked Isabella. In the face. I asked them to explain

  how I managed that.

  “You’re fast, Jamie,” Aunt Carol said, waving

  her arms around. “Plus, Isabella probably didn’t

  expect it. Maybe it was dumb luck. Maybe Isabella

  just isn’t that tough.”

  Angeline put her hand on Aunt Carol’s

  shoulder. “No. Not that last one. You’re wrong

  about that last one,” she said quietly. “Isabella is

  that tough. It was more likely dumb luck. Really

  dumb. The dumbest.”

  I spent a long time saying good-bye to Aunt

  Carol, since I was in no mood to go to the bottle

  toss without my superpowers. Finally, she pried my

  hands apart and wriggled free from my farewell hug

  and Angeline and I went in to the Fun Fair together.

  Isabella found us right away, of course,

  because more than anything on earth, she was

  really looking forward to making me look like

  a dope at the bottle toss.

  We ran into Hudson inside and he asked me

  where Chip was, and I said I had no idea.

  “But you’re meeting up with him here,”

  he said.

  “No, I’m not. Angeline’s meeting up with him.”

  “No, she’s not. Angeline is hanging out with

  Mike Pinsetti today. Everybody heard about that.

  Besides, I saw Chip ask you at the mall.”

  “No, no,” I explained, “he was asking

  Angeline.”

  Then Angeline walked up behind me with

  Pinsetti. “Nope, I’m hanging around with Mike

  today,” she said, and she pointed down the hall.

  Before I could even process what I was

  seeing, Angeline leaned in and whispered, “I asked

  Chip to stick with her, and honestly, I’ve never seen

  him happier.”

  She was right. Emmily was walking

  along with Chip, cutest boy in our class, and

  she was making him grin and laugh the way she does

  it to us. He just couldn’t stay supercool around her.

  Emmily had Kryptonited his cool.

  Then I looked at Hudson, and he said

  something I’ll never forget until somebody

  says something better to me. “I was hoping you’d

  want to hang around at the fair, but then I thought

  you were hanging around with Chip, but I never

  see you guys talking, like ever, and I thought

  maybe something had changed, so I’ve been trying

  to say something about it for weeks.”

  What? HE. HAD. WANTED. TO.

  HANG. AROUND. WITH. ME. I hadn’t sensed

  it. Not at all. Not one bit.

  So I don’t have superpowers. Aunt Carol was

  right, and Angeline was right. HUDSON was the

  boy Angeline was talking about in the car. He was

  right up there in my face, liking me, and I hadn’t

  picked up a thing.

  Isabella was listening, and suddenly she also

  knew that I didn’t have superpowers.

  “Let’s go try out the ol’ bottle toss,” she

  said, yanking me along to my doom.

  “You coming?” I said to Hudson, and

  he smiled.

  I was really not looking forward to having

  Isabella make me look like an idiot, or make me pay

  up with Pinsetti, in front of everybody.

  I was sweating and my stomach hurt and I

  was a little wobbly.

  “You go first,” Angeline said, and she pushed

  me up to the front of the line where the guy handed

  me three balls and explained that I had three tosses

  to knock over all the bottles. Right. Like the

  explanation was going to help.

  Angeline said, “Wait.”

  But I threw the first ball, and it bounced off

  the chalkboard and landed in the back of the room.

  I picked up the second ball.

  Angeline said, “Wait.”

  I threw, and the ball bounced off the ceiling

  and into the wastebasket.

  Only one more ball before my fate would be

  sealed. I could hear my lips softly weeping.

  But Angeline said, “Wait,” and grabbed

  my arm.

  “Don’t throw it at the bottles. You’re not a

  thrower-atter. Think about how you throw the

  ball to Stinkette. You’re a thrower-toer. Do i
t

  your own way.”

  She was right.

  I threw the third ball to the bottles, and

  knocked two of the three of them over. Not enough

  for a prize, but nothing to be embarrassed about.

  Isabella was shocked.

  She was shocked, but not intimidated. She

  took her place as Angeline leaned in and said

  something to the man running the booth, just as he

  was preparing to hand Isabella the balls. He went

  pale in the face, grabbed a stuffed pink koala, and

  handed it to Isabella.

  “GAme's Over. You win a prize. Who’s next?”

  The kids in line behind us jostled Isabella out

  of line as she started to complain, “Wait a second! I

  didn’t get to throw.”

  The guy at the booth shook his head. “You

  already won a prize. The limit is one prize to a

  player. Those are the rules, Jamie.”

  “Jamie?” Isabella said.

  “Jamie?” I echoed.

  As we walked out of the room, Angeline

  grinned at Isabella in such a way that made it clear

  that it had been her who had foiled Isabella’s plan.

  “Why did that guy call her Jamie?” Hudson

  asked.

  Angeline smiled. “I told him that Isabella was

  Jamie Kelly.”

  “So?” I asked. “Why would that win her a

  prize?”

  Isabella answered for her. “Because all of the

  guys running the games know about you and Dart

  Number Three. They’re probably friends with

  that clown, Beepo — maybe they visited him the

  hospital, or drove him to his physical therapy.”

  Isabella scowled at Angeline, but I think I saw

  a faint, respectful smile wriggling around

  underneath it.

  Angeline was totally nice to Pinsetti for the

  rest of the day, and it never seemed weird or

  boyfriendy-girlfriendy. It was just normal,

  and Pinsetti wasn’t even all that gross.

  Chip and Emmily laughed and laughed so

  much that they had us all going.

  Later on, Jake joined our little group, and he

 

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