by Jim Benton
of running away from home but only manages to get
about a foot a week. He’s been running away for as
long as I can remember. This is giving Isabella lots
of time to try to talk him out of it, but he hasn’t
slowed down a bit. (At least we don’t think he has.)
I explained that it takes six or seven weeks
before the puppies are ready to stop nursing and
leave their mom, so her puppy can’t go anywhere
until sometime around the end of the month.
Isabella said that you could milk a dog like
a cow and put that milk in little bottles so that
the puppy could leave the mom early, and
that she knew this one girl who did it to a cat
and even tasted it.
19
When Isabella tells you something like this,
you have two choices. You can tell her that she’s
wrong and accept the consequences, like getting
yelled at, or waking up in the hospital, or having
her blurt out some stupid secret thing you did once.
(In my defense, I bet a lot of people have made
snowmen of their secret crushes and then kissed
them and had to go to the emergency room because
they poked themselves in the eye with a frozen
carrot.)
Or you can just nod and move on.
20
Friday 06
My Dearest Diary:
My dear friend, who I really admire for her lovely
mop of blond hair and gracefully lashed eyeballs, asked me
to name puppies with her after school today. I accepted, and
had a gracefully lovely time.
Signed,
Anonymous and good at making odors sound feminine
21
Dear Dumb Diary,
What really happened: Angeline asked me to
come over to her house. Since her dog, Stickybuns,
and my doglike pet, Stinker, are the parents, she
thought that we should get to name the puppies.
She explained that she’s no good at coming up with
names, so she needed my help.
Normally, I would never consider accepting
an invitation to Angeline’s house out of concern
that she could be there, but puppies can make
people do crazy things, so I went.
22
Angeline’s family room looks a little like
mine, which is pretty good evidence that she copied
it off me. Her artificially cute dog, Stickybuns, was
curled up in a little basket bed with the puppies
that are old enough now to wriggle in and out of the
basket and sniff around a little. They are still kind
of wobbly and clumsy and reminded me of tiny
fat naked grandpas that had taken too much of
their medicine.
But I had to admit, it was all very beautiful
and peaceful and kind of a miracle. It made me
want one more than ever, but my mom totally went
berserk last time I asked.
And then I stepped on a puppy’s head.
23
Actually, I just thought that I had. There
was a little stuffed chew toy on the floor and when
I stepped on it, my foot thought it felt exactly like
I was smushing a puppyhead. I screamed real loud,
which freaked out Angeline’s dog a little and sent
a few puppies tumbling out of the basket, where I
almost really stepped on one because I was sort of
hopping around trying not to.
24
This made Stickybuns get all nervous and it
made Angeline laugh harder than I had ever heard
her laugh. For just a second, it sounded almost
human, and I actually started laughing myself.
I believe that this is purely the result of
inhaling concentrated puppy fumes, which can
make people laugh and create “awwww” sounds
against their will. It’s not like Angeline and I have
anything in common now.
25
And Angeline was right about her naming
ability. She kept coming up with boring names like
Sue and Joe. I came up with excellent names, so I
wound up naming all four puppies.
Considering what a grossface their dad is,
three of them are pretty adorable. I named them
Prince Fuzzybutt, Dingledongle, and
The Bubblegum Duchess. Tragically, one
of the puppies looks just like Stinker, so I named
her Stinkette. Although this name is based on an
odor, I made it pretty-sounding because, after all,
she is a woman dog and if you are an ugly woman,
hopefully you can at least have a name that is kind
of pretty.
26
And then, Dumb Diary, IT HAPPENED. We
were just sitting there smiling at the puppies, and
Angeline touched my hair.
I’m used to Isabella touching my hair. When
we were younger, she touched it because you have
to touch it in order to pull it. These days, Isabella
touches it and says encouraging BFF things like, “Is
this really hair? At some point isn’t this called fur,
or something? Maybe a pelt?”
27
But Angeline was still full of puppy fumes and
laughter and she said, “I can fix this, you know. You
should let me fix your hair sometime.”
This is like Albert Einstein offering to help you
cheat on your science test. Or like Angeline offering
to help Albert Einstein with his hair.
I learned long ago that Angeline’s hair looks
the way it does because she MAKES it look that
way. She wasn’t born with it. I’ve seen pictures —
her hair used to be worse than mine. For real.
28
“Yeah, okay,” I lied, since this is way more
than JUST OKAY. But I can’t let Angeline know
how important it is. She came very close to sharing
some hair secrets with me once before, and it fell
through. I’m positive that Angeline doesn’t like me
very much, so I have to be careful, like when you
want to ask your parents to do something that you
know they hate. Fortunately, my parents hate many
things, so I have quite a bit of experience in this
area.
29
Saturday 07
My Dearest Diary:
My best friend (who does not wear glasses or have
a round head)called today and did an impression for me on
the phone. Also I did a lot of really kind things for charities
and was very nice to a baby.
Signed,
Anonymous and truthful
30
Dear Dumb Diary,
The REAL entry: This morning Isabella
called, and I knew I shouldn’t tell her that I went
over and named the puppies yesterday.
“I went over and named the puppies
yesterday,” I accidentally bragged.
Isabella got really quiet. It’s hard to explain
why, but quietness is actually the scariest sound
Isabella makes.
31
Isabella asked what I named them, so I
told her in this really cute voice that was so cute
it made Stinker pee a little. And in spite of this
strong endorsement by their father, Isabella said
she didn’t like any of those names and that she’ll
be renaming her puppy once it comes home with
her. She’s planning on calling it either Sugarberry
or Deathbite. I told her that you can’t rename a
puppy. Once it has been given a name, that’s what
you have to call it from that moment on. This is
Puppylaw, and everyone knows it.
Isabella said that you can rename anything,
and that her dad got a new assistant at work and
renamed him Matt because he just liked it better
than saying, “Oh, Melvin, could you come in here
for a moment and bring the important papers,
Melvin?”
Then to prove it, she went and got her
dad and put him on the phone. He said the same
thing, but I’m almost positive that it was Isabella
pretending to be her dad.
32
I was going to tell Isabella about Angeline
and my hair, but it wasn’t the right time. She
wouldn’t stop pretending that she was her dad and
was threatening to ground me because, according
to her/him, the law states that a dad can legally
ground his child’s best friend. She wouldn’t stop
pretending and I really didn’t want to share the
news with Isabella-pretending-to-be-her-dad.
And about the truthfulness of today’s fake
diary entry: Maybe it wasn’t exactly a baby that I
was nice to, maybe it was a beagle. And maybe
I wasn’t nice exactly. Maybe I was just not that
mean. Anyway, I meant that I sat cowboy- style
on Stinker but got up pretty quick. (Much of this is
Stinker’s fault. Things like this wouldn’t happen if
he had the decency to be cuter.)
And I didn’t do anything against charities
today. So that’s a lot like doing something for
them, right? Ask any charity — they’ll tell you that
they appreciate it when people don’t do things
against them.
33
Sunday 08
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella came over today (homework day)
and brought a few more magazines so she and I
could do more of their brilliant quizzes. Here’s a
sample question from a quiz called: ARE YOU
POLITE?
34
If a friend bought you a really ugly shirt,
would you:
A. choke her with it.
B. pretend to like it, then sell it on eBay.
C. tell her you really appreciate the
gesture, but think the two of you could
exchange it for one you’d wear more
often.
D. get teased every time you wear it,
and one day tell a psychologist that
your friend is to blame for all your
problems.
Isabella was just amazed to learn that the
answer was “C.” She wouldn’t tell me what she
thought the answer was, although she did say it
wasn’t choking because that would only make sense
if it had been an ugly belt.
35
I did a couple more quizzes and even if I
don’t get every single question right, I always score
in the highest bracket. It’s nothing for Isabella to
get all frustrated about. I’m a Magazine Quiz
Genius, so it just naturally follows that I am a
genius at everything. I mean, we have to admit: The
people who write these quizzes are the brightest
people in the nation. I’m sure many of them are
busy saving the world with quizzes on critically
important things like diseases and ecology. It’s
impossible to not respect findings that are so
clearly correct about me.
After that, the rest of our homework went
badly, and by that I mean we did our homework.
Stand by for fake entry.
36
My Dearest Diary:
My friend and I discussed the right thing to do
when receiving a gift that is not to your liking. Speaking
as a proven genius, my conclusion: Never give somebody
anything long enough to go around your neck.
Sincerely,
Anonymous and planning to keep breathing
37
Monday 09
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella whipped out a bunch of new
magazines at lunch today and wanted me to do the
quizzes. I was just preparing to astonish Isabella
with my geniusness when Angeline sat down next
to us.
Isabella explained to her that I’m a
Magazine Quiz Genius and Angeline smiled
and said, “Me, too.”
There was nothing that Isabella would have
rather heard, except maybe for the sound of her
mean older brothers not being able to find any of
their clothes on the first day of school. (It’s a long
story, but they had it coming to them, nobody could
ever prove it was Isabella, and they had to go to
school wearing their dad’s big fat guy clothes.)
38
Isabella was delighted to hear Angeline’s
cheery little “Me, too” because she is very
competitive. If you say you can run fast, Isabella
will take off running and challenge you to keep up.
If you say you have a gross toe, Isabella will take
off a shoe and try to deform one of her toes to be
grosser.
She’s so competitive that she even likes to
see competition between others — in this case,
Angeline and me.
39
Isabella flipped right to one quiz in
particular called SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW
EVERYTHING and began asking us the questions.
We wrote the answers down secretly, so Angeline
couldn’t copy off me.
The first few were multiple- choice questions,
and they were pretty easy to answer. Easy for me
because I knew the answers, and easy for Angeline
because she didn’t. (It’s a known Science Fact that
people are wrong as fast as they are right.)
We were both humming along until Isabella
came to the next question.
40
Isabella said, “What do people really think
about you?” and she leaned back in her chair a
little and smiled. There was something about how
she smiled that looked like she had just thrown
a stick of dynamite into a truck full of dynamite
that was in a warehouse that had been built out
of dynamite and the people who worked there had
eaten dynamite for breakfast. (I know how this
smile looks, because this is how Isabella looks
whenever she thinks about something explodey.)
41
I know exactly how people feel about me.
For starters, Angeline doesn’t like me, Isabella
does — in her own way — and Hudson has a little
crush on me, but also kind of on Angeline.
Angeline looked a little confused. Probably
because she’s so perfectly excellent and popular,
the question of how people feel about her just never
comes up in her perfectly excellent and popular
head. Of COURSE she knows how they feel: They
Worship Her. The mere existence of suc
h a
question probably confused her.
42
Even though I knew the answer (I know all
the answers, Dumb Diary), I didn’t want to say that
in front of Angeline or Isabella. So I did what all
famous intelligent people in history have done when
they didn’t want to answer a question.
I went to the bathroom. I didn’t even wait to
hear if there were multiple choice answers. I just
said CODE YELLOW and bolted.
43
Not like Isabella would hesitate to follow me.
One time when I had the flu, she came to my house
and hung out in the bathroom with me because I
had promised to paint her toenails. She said that
I might as well paint them because I was on the
floor anyway. You see, it’s because of her mean
older brothers that she is immune to all manners of
toilet nastiness. It’s really sort of a gift, like playing
the violin. Or dancing. Or playing the violin and
dancing while Isabella’s brothers fart at you.
The real reason my escape worked was
because I left my juice box on my tray, and you may
always count on Isabella to steal your juice box
when you go to the can. It’s kind of amazing to see
her victimize one. She holds that little straw in her
teeth, and in one plunge, she can pierce the box and
drain it like a mutant radioactive mosquitowoman.
I’ve even seen her yank the straw out, and then use
it to swiftly vampire the cream from the middle of
a Twinkie.
And now, stay tuned for today’s fake diary
entry:
44
My Dearest Diary:
Since I am a genius, I went to the bathroom. I
solved my problems with juice, and I no longer challenge
friends to gross toe contests.
Sincerely,
Anonymous and unable to dance while being farted upon
45
Tuesday 10
Dear Dumb Diary,