Dear Dumb Diary #6: The Problem with Here Is That it's Where I'm From (Dear Dumb Diary Series)
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I guess I had never noticed this before, but
since Isabella comes from a big family, she was
born with a lot more people to be not nice to than
I was. That thought calmed me down a little. Plus, I
was giggling about the wadded panties.
Aunt Carol said that we wouldn’t find any
graffiti in the teachers’ bathroom anyway, since
teachers have better things to do than write on
walls all day —except I couldn’t help but think
that’s exactly what they do.
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The teachers’ bathroom was pretty much like
a regular person’s bathroom, except for the big can
of air freshener on the toilet tank, which means
that they have totally given up on trying to make
people think that they aren’t stinking it up in there.
As you get older, I think you give up on impressing
others a little every year.
Like my dad has given up enough to go
outside in his pajamas to get the newspaper, but
he’s not as old as my grandpa, who has given up
enough to mow the lawn butt-naked if Grandma
doesn’t stop him.
Anyway, we couldn’t find any real graffiti,
except that Isabella found a little tiny heart with
an arrow through it that said D. D.+V. A. This
didn’t really mean anything to me, but Isabella
says the D. D. is for sure Dan Devon (Assistant
Principal Devon), and the V. A. could be Valerie
Anderson, my art teacher who is pretty enough
to be a waitress. She’s the one who tried to steal
Assistant Principal Devon from my aunt Carol.
I figured it would be best to just wipe it off
and not even tell Aunt Carol about it, and Isabella
agreed. So she went out and asked Aunt Carol for
some cleaner and a rag and then told her exactly
what it was for, including the arrow through the
heart —which makes it a much bigger deal than if it
was just a heart alone.
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Later on, we saw Aunt Carol and Assistant
Principal Devon YELL-WHISPERING at each
other. You know that kind of whispering you do when
you want to yell but you also want to try to keep it
private? It sounds like little dogs with sore throats
fighting inside a bag.
As smart as Isabella is, I’m really surprised at
her sometimes. How could she have missed how this
would make Aunt Carol react?
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Tuesday 17
Dear Dumb Diary,
Boy, oh boy. More culture stuff today. Mr.
Evans talked about little phrases of wisdom
like, THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER ON
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE. He said
these can illustrate the values of a culture. He
asked what we thought the Grass-Is-Greener
one meant, and I said it means that your dad is
about as good at lawn care as mine.
This only got me one throb of the forehead-
vein. Maybe a throb and a half, so I was probably
pretty close to the right answer.
Just like he did with the haiku, Mr. evans asked
us to write down our favorite phrase in class. Also
like the haiku, he made us read them out loud.
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Here’s a sample of what we said:
Angeline: YOU CAN’T JUDGE A BOOK
BY ITS COVER.
Me: A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH
TWO IN THE BUSH.
Isabella: WHOEVER SMELT IT, DEALT IT.
But Mr. Evans said that really wasn’t a
phrase of wisdom exactly, so Isabella quickly
offered:
WHOEVER DENIED IT, SUPPLIED IT.
Evans said, “WRONG AGAIN,” and
Isabella tossed out:
WHOEVER LOOKS THE MOST AT
EASE IS THE ONE WHO CUT THE CHEESE.
And:
WHOEVER SMILES OR LAUGHS OUT
LOUD IS THE ONE THAT MADE THE
CLOUD.
I know for a fact that Isabella has a lot of
wisdom on this theme, but Mr. Evans didn’t give her
a chance to share it all. He just throbbed and asked
Colette for hers.
Colette stood up to read her phrase of
wisdom, swinging her hair around like some
glorious, inky-black vampire cape. “I don’t really
have one, Mr. Evans, but I wanted to say you’re
all really lucky to go to this school, and thanks
for helping us out while they fix our ventilation
system.” And she flashed this grin that made
Angeline’s famous smile look like a banana peel
hurriedly stuck on a dirty snowman for a mouth.
Mr. Evans didn’t know what to say. I think
he was temporarily charmed. I think the whole class
was. She was good. And it was during that pause
that Angeline did something REALLY weird.
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She stood up and said that she wanted to
give Mr. Evans a status report on how our
graffiti project was going, and before Evans could
even say okay, she showed the whole class the
graffiti pictures including the ones that said VOTE
JAMIE KELLY FOR PRETTIEST.
I got some applause and an OH YEAH,
DAT’S RIGHT ! (thanks, Isabella) and I blushed.
Angeline just smiled and put the pictures back in
her folder.
See how confident she is that she can’t lose?
She’ll even tell people to vote for me, knowing full well
that they’ll vote for her. How mean can you get?
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Wednesday 18
Dear Dumb Diary,
Aunt Carol stopped by after school today and
FINALLY asked me to take care of the voting stuff.
She seemed a little twitchy, and later Mom
told me that planning a wedding is complicated,
and it’s making Aunt Carol a little flustered.
When Mom left the room, Dad summed it up
by saying that the wedding is driving Aunt Carol
insane and that soon Mom will be driven insane and
everyone on Earth will also be insane if they don’t
just hurry up and get this over with.
I doubt that Dad will be writing greeting
cards anytime soon.
Even though it was late, I called Isabella to
tell her that Aunt Carol had finally offered up the
voting and she went, “YES, ” the same way Dad
does when some guy on one of his sports shows
sinks a goal or pulls a groin or touches a down or
whatever.
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I used my accent a little at school today, and
I also tried it on Mom and Dad tonight. Mom just
said it wasn’t nice to talk like that. Dad laughed at
first, and then Mom shot him this dirty look and he
repeated what Mom said.
Mom’s wrong, but I think Dad has just
learned, like Stinker did, that sometimes it’s much
easier on your neck not to pull on the leash.
Oh, one more thing. I noticed Colette prettily
sharpening her pencil today. Actually, a few of us
noticed her doing it.
Do pretty girls take special classes where
they learn to do everything prettily? Or is Colette
just na
turally more appetizing because her name is
French?
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And speaking of Stinker, it seems like he is
beginning to understand my accent. This makes me
think that he is very, very smart, or, even likelier,
has a brain problem. I forget the formula for
determining how old a dog is exactly, but in dog
years, I’m pretty sure that Stinker is dead already.
Thursday 19
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella looked awful today. She was up most
of the night getting the voting categories together,
and she came in an hour and a half early to use
the copier in the office to make enough ballots for
everyone. I thought this was something we were
going to do together—but Isabella said she found
out that the Wodehouse kids are going back next
week and she wanted them to be included in the
voting. Isabella is so considerate.
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Here’s what the rules are:
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And here are the categories Isabella came
up with:
Most Artistic
Most Clever
Prettiest Girl
Cutest Boy
Funniest
Best Friends
She wanted to have DISGUSTINGEST,
STINKIEST, and DUMBEST, but she says she
knows that the school would never allow those
categories, and they would take the voting project
away from her. I can’t imagine how hard it was for
Isabella not to put those mean categories on there.
It shows how nice she really is.
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They announced the voting and where to get
the ballots, and that they had to be turned in to the
office by Friday afternoon. Isabella and I will count
them, put the results together, and announce the
winners next Friday.
Friday 20
Dear Dumb Diary,
All day, people asked us to call them early
and tell them what the results were before anybody
else found out. I had no idea there was so much
pressure on the government, which is kind of what
we are now that we are in charge of voting. I told
Isabella that stress like this is probably what turned
Washington’s hair white, but she said that was just
a wig he wore.
Can you believe that? Plus, of all the wig
colors he could have chosen, he went with the
platinum blond. For sure, now Lincoln— a
brunette and proud of it —is my favorite
president.
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Angeline stopped by my house this afternoon
and dropped off the boys’ bathroom pictures that
my mom had asked to see. She wasn’t even polite
enough to stick her nose into our business about the
voting. It’s because she’s so confident that she’s
going to win, which is a pretty rude thing to know.
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Isabella is sleeping over tonight, but she had
no interest in crank calls or accent practice. All she
wanted to do was count votes. She went over them
a few times and wouldn’t let me see. Then she said
she wanted to go over all of them again tomorrow
because there were a couple of things she didn’t
quite understand.
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Saturday 21
Dear Dumb Diary,
Angeline didn’t call this morning, which
would have been nice, except it was her that didn’t
do it. And I woke up early anyway. She got me all
used to her calls and then stopped calling. Leave it
to Angeline to wake you up without actually doing it.
Mom looked at the pictures we took and
didn’t have any complaints. I’ll give them back to
Angeline on Monday.
Isabella was making little diagrams and
puzzling over the ballots most of the day. She took
time out for only a couple of crank calls, but really I
don’t think her heart was in them.
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Isabella was still refusing to share the
voting results with me by the afternoon, and when
I pointed out that the project was supposed to go
to Aunt Carol who is MY AUNT, she said that we
never would have gotten our hands on them if it
hadn’t been for the things Isabella had done.
And then Isabella admitted what she had
done. I’m telling you, it seems like Isabella is
ALWAYS admitting something. Although it’s
beginning to sound more like bragging and less like
a confession every time.
Turns out that Isabella has been freaking out
Aunt Carol about the wedding since she found
out that she had been given the responsibility for
the voting. Isabella got her all frazzled about the
schedule for the wedding and her weight. She made
up the stuff about wedding pies and bridal clogs.
And she was the one that faked the little heart
graffiti in the teachers’ bathroom.
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Isabella says that it’s super easy to freak out
adults when they’re planning something as big as a
wedding. And she said she knew it would only take
a little bit of extra stress to make Aunt Carol turn
over the voting project to us.
“And you’ll notice that I was right, and that’s
why I always win Most Clever,” she said, and
then smiled that smile that always comes with a big
crack of thunder in movies.
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Still, it was kind of mean to manipulate Aunt
Carol that way. But I suppose no real harm was done.
Isabella helped me practice her grandma’s
exotic accent, probably because she felt guilty
about her little plan. Well, maybe not guilty. I’m
not sure Isabella ever feels guilty.
There should be a word for the kind of guilt
people like Isabella feel: It’s guilt, but nowhere
near as heavy. Maybe she gets Diet-Guilt.
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Sunday 22
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella slept over again last night. I didn’t
exactly invite her, but she really wanted to stay, so
we made a weekend out of it.
She was already up and staring out the
window when I woke up this morning. She was
holding one of the pictures we took in the boys’
bathroom.
“Notice anything?” she asked.
I noticed that it was a pretty good picture of
Isabella making a pretty dumb face.
“Anything else?” she asked.
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Nothing. In the background, you could see
Angeline, who had her back turned, which gave you
a good look at the back of her head and the back of
her butt.
Isabella put the picture away and showed me
the ballots.
Angeline got 100 votes for PRETTIEST.
Colette got 90. I got 15. MAN! Can you
believe that??
“If it hadn’t been for Angeline’s
campaigning . . . if it hadn’t been for the graffiti,”
Isabella said. “If it hadn’t been for Angeline
showing the pictures of the graffiti around, you
>
wouldn’t have picked up those fifteen votes, and
Colette would have won.”
Then, Isabella packed up her stuff, took the
ballots, and went home.
Monday 23
Dear Dumb Diary,
Aunt Carol drove me to school today and was
in a much better mood than she had been last week.
She said she had a Big Super-Fun Surprise,
but wasn’t ready to share it just yet.
You always have to be a little suspicious
of things adults say are fun. If they designed
amusement parks just for adults, they would look
like this:
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Angeline sat with us at lunch today, and
incredibly, so did Colette. This made some of the
other popular kids sit at our table, which Isabella
hardly even noticed, even though our regular table
had taken on a much snazzier look. You could
almost taste the cuteness in the air.
I used my new accent a little, and some of
the kids I don’t know very well tried to ignore it.
They thought it was totally for real! How
funny is that?
Isabella started talking about how much she
could use a little vacation, and how she wished
there was a way to close the school for a few weeks.
And Colette said, “That’s actually pretty easy
to do.”
Isabella looked Colette right in the eyes and
then just stood up and walked out of the lunchroom
and hardly talked the rest of the day.
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Tuesday 24
Dear Dumb Diary,
Colette wasn’t in English today. In fact, none
of the Wodehouse Middle-schoolers were in school
today. It turns out that they’re gone; all plucked
from our loving grasps like little flowers whose