by Jim Benton
came charging out of my room, I saw that she had
fallen down the stairs.
26
Everybody was gathered around her at the
bottom of the stairs, and she was moaning and
sobbing so hard that she couldn’t answer when they
asked her what happened. Finally, Angeline asked,
“Was it the clogs? Did the clogs make you fall?”
Isabella just buried her face in her hands and
cried harder.
“It was the clogs,” Angeline said softly, like a
professional doctor. “She just doesn’t want to say
it. She doesn’t want to hurt Aunt Carol’s feelings.
But it was the clogs.”
27
Two minutes later, Aunt Carol was telling
us that we could wear different shoes, and not to
worry about it, everything would be fine. The adults
were all taking turns feeding Isabella spoonfuls of
ice cream and gently smoothing her hair to calm her
down because for some reason when we’re upset
everybody assumes we want flatter hair.
28
Ten minutes and two bowls of ice cream later,
Isabella and I were back up in my room. She was still
sobbing a little when Angeline came in to hand us
the dresses.
“Very clever, Isabella,” Angeline said, and
Isabella’s sobs turned into a laugh, which was
alarming. When Isabella laughs like that, often
something very bad is about to happen to you. I
always immediately look behind me to make sure
I’m not about to back into an airplane propeller or
something like that.
29
But she was laughing about her little trick.
Isabella threw herself down the stairs on
purpose. Turns out that a fake tumble down the
stairs is just another thing Isabella has mastered in
order to get her mean older brothers in trouble.
30
“I almost pretended to choke to death on
the ice cream so that they’d go get me something
better,” she said. “But the Choking to Death
Routine takes a lot of work to do correctly, and I
just want to get this bridesmaid fashion show over
with.”
31
Once Isabella had spent a few minutes faking
a recovery, we tried on the DRESSES. The dresses
are too ugly to be described by the human mouth or
drawn by the human pen. They’re POOFY, big, and
the exact same color of brown that delicious things
never are.
Aunt Carol also brought over a bunch of big
sparkly earrings, glittery necklaces, and other
jewelry like that for us to try on, but none of it
helped much — which tells you how awful these
dresses are. A big pair of sparkly earrings and a
necklace can save just about any outfit.
32
More than anything, I looked like a spat-out
lump of gristle wadded up in a napkin. And just
when I thought it could get no more awful, it got
awfuller.
Isabella didn’t look half bad.
The poofs actually seemed to be working
for her. They puffed where they should puff. They
fluffed where they should fluff. If I hadn’t looked
like a jellyfish that had swallowed a full diaper, I
might have even been happy for her.
33
But my mom was calling us to come downstairs
and model them. All I could do was beg Isabella to
fall again but she wouldn’t. “Forget it,” she said, “I
like this dress.”
So I pushed my best friend down the stairs.
34
Actually, it turns out that Isabella’s mean
older brothers have made her pretty instinctive
about when somebody is about to push her down
the stairs. She stepped out of the way as nimbly as
a bullfighter, sending me bouncing down the stairs
face -first.
Normally, this would have made me cry and
Isabella laugh, but Angeline was already downstairs
modeling her dress and none of us could do
anything but stare at Angeline.
35
I might have even been knocked out for a
minute, because I kind of remember a dream or a
vision or something. It was long ago. All these cave
people gathered together because some caveman
invented a solid-gold violin or something. They
just stood there, listening to the music, trying to
understand how beautiful the pure beauty of this
violin could be. And they oinked and scratched
their butts and grunted about how great solid-gold
violins are and said things like, “Don’t we all wish
we had invented them?” and other cave people
stuff like that.
So do you understand the dream, Dumb
Diary? Angeline was the solid-gold violin. Everybody
else was a cave person. I was something smeared on
the bottom of a caveman’s foot.
36
All of this would have been bad enough, but
as the cave people discussed the little alterations
they needed to make here and there, I saw the
disappointment in the eyes of Uncle Assistant
Principal Devon when he looked at me, his future
niece, standing there looking utterly craptastic.
The torture just seemed to go on and on
forever. I was so glad when they gathered up all the
bridesmaids’ stuff, including Stickybuns, and left.
37
Saturday 07
Dear Dumb Diary,
This morning I found a big pair of sparkly
earrings in the yard, which must have dropped off
Angeline when she went out to get Stickybuns.
I guess her earlobes just aren’t well developed
enough to support jewelry.
I’ll give them back to Aunt Carol on Monday.
38
Margaret called this afternoon to bug me
about hurrying up and finishing my poster. Margaret
is a HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS WORRIER and she
managed to infect me over the phone.
I started worrying about the dance. It’s only,
like, three weeks away, and I really have to practice
standing.
I know, Dumb Diary, you might think that
since it’s a dance I need to practice dancing. But
dancing is easy. I know how to dance.
39
The problem is that there is A LOT of
standing around at a dance, and I need to make
sure I get my various standing moves perfect. I
called Isabella to come over and help me but she
got into some kind of trouble when she got home
from my house last night, and she’s waiting to find
out what her punishment is going to be.
40
I started worrying about how my disappointed
Uncle Assistant Principal Devon will behave at the
dance. (Chaperoning dances is one of his official
duties, along with telling us not to run in the halls
and seeing how many times in a year a man can
wear the same necktie.)
And that made me worry about how gross I’m
going to look at the wedding, and what if I stand
wrong at
the dance? As I began to work on my
poster, I felt the throb of a stress pimple suddenly
begin deep under the skin of my chin.
41
It doesn’t show yet, but now that I’m the
expectant mother of a new pimple, I have to deal
with all of the things a new pimple-parent has to
deal with.
My pimple, like any youngster, is going to
need a lot of attention. I have to spend the time
every day letting it know how much I resent it.
I think that’s really the most important part of
pimple-parenting: letting your pimple know how
much you hate it.
42
Even though it’s sore, it’s still super-tiny—
and thankfully nobody on Earth could ever detect
it yet.
43
Sunday 08
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella came over today and from about
eight houses away she detected the emerging
pimple.
“Pimple, huh? When do you think it’s due?”
she said.
44
I wanted to deny it, but Isabella is quite
skilled at identifying blemishes. Sadly, she can
never put this strong natural talent to use as
a dermatologist, since her urge to make fun of
blemishes is even stronger than her ability to spot
them. She says that her patients with acne would
probably be big babies about being called names
like “Pizza Face.”
There was no keeping the truth from Isabella.
She looked closely at my chin and said, “Hi, Fred.”
“Who are you talking to?” I said. “Who’s Fred?”
“I always name your pimples,” she said. “This
one looks like a Fred to me. Probably stress, huh?
Because you stand dumb and you look awful in the
bridesmaid’s dress?”
45
“YOU NAME MY PIMPLES?” I yelled.
And she said, like it was perfectly normal,
“Sure. They’re like my little pets. They show up, I
name them and watch them grow, and then they go
away. Just like a real pet.”
I hardly knew what to say. Isabella had been
using my face as a day care.
“Hey,” she said smiling, “remember the twins,
Bumpo and Lumpo? They grew up so fast.”
46
Then we got in a huge argument about
dresses and pimples and whose butt resembles
what when they dance and how some people should
maybe just shut up.
This led to more talk about shutting up:
specifically, who should do it and when. Then
Isabella remembered that she should get off my
property because I reminded her of it at the top of
my lungs.
47
I hate it when Isabella and I fight.
All I want to do is finish my poster, sing my
pimple a hateful little lullaby, and go to bed.
48
Monday 09
Dear Dumb Diary,
This morning I was hanging up my poster at
school, when Angeline arrogantly stopped to help
me. She probably thought she was going to get
credit for my glitter work.
Just as I finished getting it taped up, she
looked over my shoulder, whipped something out of
her purse, and smeared it across my chin.
49
I staggered back and flailed like a smeared
poisoned person because I naturally assumed that
it was some sort of poison she had smeared on me
(out of jealousy for my awesome poster). Then I
bumped directly into Hudson Rivers — eighth-cutest
guy in my grade — who was right behind me.
Now that I think about it, even though I did it
with my clumsy back, that totally counts as a hug.
50
And here’s what he said —I’ll remember it
forever.
He looked right into my beautiful eyes and
gently said, “Walk much?”
Okay, maybe that wasn’t very nice, but then
he got nicer right away.
“My mom is taking a few of us for tacos after
the dance, if you two would like to come. But not
Isabella. She can’t come.”
“We’d love it,” I said quickly, not giving
Angeline the opportunity to use the word LOVE
in a sentence to Hudson, whom I had recently
backhugged.
51
As Hudson walked away, I suddenly
remembered the poison that Angeline had used on
me. “What did you wipe on my chin?” I demanded.
“I saw Hudson coming. It was some makeup
to hide that bruise on your chin.”
“It’s a pimple,” I medically informed her. “I’m
going to give birth to a pimple.”
“It’s a bruise.” she said, and tossed me the
compact. “You probably got it when you slid down
the stairs. It’ll be gone in a couple days. You can
keep the makeup.”
This is the exact moment when Isabella walked
up. “Hey. How’s little Fred coming along?” she asked.
52
And our fight was on again. It wasn’t a full-
length fight; it was just a micro-fight (a micro-fight
lasts thirty seconds or less). Good friends know how
to fight in a hurry. There’s no telling how soon the
two of us will have to gang up on somebody else,
and let’s face it, we both know the fight won’t last
forever, so why drag it out?
We made up really fast, and since we really
hadn’t officially made up from our fight before, we
made up for that one, too.
So, as of RIGHT THAT MINUTE, Isabella
and I were BFFs again, but let the record show that
when I accepted Hudson’s TACOS OF DEVOTION
invitation, Isabella and I had not made up YET,
so at that moment we WEREN’T BFFs, so
technically speaking, I didn’t really violate any of
the BEST FRIEND rules.
53
54
And by the end of school, Isabella and I
were totally friends again as if nothing had ever
happened. We went by the school office to drop off
the earrings with Aunt Carol. She wasn’t there, so I
left them in a bag on her desk.
I don’t know why I always forgive Isabella,
but I always do and I think I always will.
55
Tuesday 10
Dear Dumb Diary,
Angeline was stupidly right. I wasn’t expecting
a pimple. I was bruised. The sensation faded and
it’s clear to me now that it was not one of those
underground volcano zits after all.
However, it can’t be stressed enough that
Rightness and Wrongness seem about the same
when performed by people you can’t stand. So all of
you people out there that we don’t like, take note
of this: Whether you’re Right or Wrong, we’re just
going to treat it like you’re Wrong. So don’t bother
working too hard to get it Right.
56
My science teacher, Mrs. Palmer, gave us an
assignment today to create a diorama of a great
moment in discovery, like when the minivan or
&
nbsp; gravity was invented.
A diorama, Dumb Diary, is basically a shoe
box in which you glue things and then you get a B.
There’s more to it than that, but don’t ask
Mike Pinsetti to explain. The last shoe box diorama
he did still had the shoes in it.
57
58
Isabella came over tonight after dinner to
“WORK ON OUR DISCOVERY DIORAMAS.”
I put those little quotation marks around that
phrase to indicate that we only said that’s what
we were going to do. What we really wanted to do
was practice standing for the dance.
I wonder why quotation marks mean that
you’re lying when you use them like that. Maybe it’s
because the lie is a huge load of stinking garbage,
and the quotation marks are supposed to look like
little flies buzzing around it.
59
Isabella worked really hard to help me figure
out some good ways to stand at the dance. I think
I’ve mastered three important stands:
1.
Standing here, but moving just enough
to prove that I’m into music.
2.
Bored, but oh my gosh, I’m so cutely
bored.
3.
Standing here, but anybody can tell
I’ve got cooler things to do. I mean,
come on.
60
Isabella has mastered a couple of stands
that very few people pull off. For instance:
1.
Why don’t you come over here and I’ll
make you eat one of your own shoes?
2.
I’m cute, but in the way a porcupine
holding a match and a stick of
dynamite is cute.
3.
I love this song, so unless you feel like
meeting a paramedic soon, I wouldn’t