by Jim Benton
new pajamas, which I am currently too mature
to call pj’s. Mom wanted to buy me a purse, too,
because I always forget a bunch of things when I
leave the house, like sunglasses and cash and lip
balm and stuff.
The purse is supposed to be an improvement
in organization. This way, if I put all of my stuff in
it, instead of forgetting a bunch of assorted things
when I leave the house, I’ll only forget ONE thing:
my purse.
Or maybe Mom’s trying to emphasize the
fact that I’m becoming more mature, and as
a young lady matures, her purse increases in size.
The same thing happens to men’s wallets. It’s just
simple biology.
Monday 09
Dear Dumb Diary,
Mrs. Avon read some of our life poems in
class today. She read mine, as you would expect,
and she even read part of Isabella’s. (Actually, just
a couple of words. Probably right up until she saw
the “greedy piggy slob” part.)
Then she read Angeline’s:
We write it wrong, so we erase.
And pencil something in its place.
But the words we speak don’t work that way,
We write in ink, the words we say.
Okay, Dumb Diary, school has taught me a
few things over the years. Once, it taught me the
difference between alligators and crocodiles. (Even
alligators and crocodiles don’t really care. Just
avoid both.) Another time, it taught me that
there are custodians in the world who are too dumb
to get out of the way of a golf ball. But today it
taught me something new:
The sound my mouth would make if it dropped
open to its widest, and remained that way for a
full thirty seconds.
It sounds like this:
I mean, imagine the planning it took
for Angeline’s parents to tell her, the day she
was born, to get started on a four-line poem for
middle school.
They had to tell her that it should be clever
and say something about herself. They had to tell
her that she would need to use an entire lifetime’s
worth of ability in this single poem.
Because based on Angeline’s abilities, it
HAD to have taken that kind of planning for her
to write a poem this excellent
adequate.
Angeline looked over at me with her giant
grin — really too broad and glistening white for
most people’s tastes — and raised her eyebrows
hopefully. Before I could restrain my disobedient
and impulsive thumb, it thumbs-upped her. What
can I say? My thumb knows an adequate poem
when it hears one.
Note to self: Design gloves to prevent this.
After class, I asked Isabella what she thought
of Angeline’s poem. She said she thought it sounded
like it had been written by a fanciful fairy queen
riding on a silver unicorn writing with a peacock
quill dipped in raspberry-flavored ink on a piece of
golden paper being held for her by twin baby koalas
wearing matching pink sailor suits.
Isabella has said some ugly, horrible things in
her time, but even I wasn’t ready for that.
Seriously, Isabella. Nice mouth.
Tuesday 10
Dear Dumb Diary,
I got an email from Emmily today. You
remember Emmily — she was very sweet and we all
loved her, but she was not the sharpest knife in the
drawer.
Emmily wasn’t even the sharpest spoon in
the drawer.
Most of the time, Emmily wasn’t even in the
drawer at all. She was lost somewhere in the bottom
of the dishwasher.
And, technically, I didn’t get the email. She
sent it to Isabella, and Isabella printed it out and
shared it with me:
Dear Isabella, and Jamie, and Angeline,
I love my new school. Except the first day I got my
jacket sleeve caught in my locker door and had to
stand there until this really smart kid suggested that
I take my jacket off. I wish she had suggested
that earlier so I didn’t stand there all day.
I am in an advanced math class and am getting
straight A’s in it.
Love, Emmily
Emmily is doing better than I am
in math?? How is this possible??? Last time I saw
her, Emmily couldn’t do division because she was
concerned that dividing a number was painful to it.
Isabella patted me gently on the head as she
folded the letter and stuck it in my purse.
“Don’t feel bad,” she said. “I’ll bet the
only reason that Emmily is so much better than you
at math is because she has eleven toes, so she
began counting higher than you at a younger age.”
That made perfect sense to me, but it also
made me wonder how many toes Albert Einstein had
been born with. He must have had them all the way
up his legs. You would think they would mention
something like that in school.
Wednesday 11
Dear Dumb Diary,
Teachers have the very difficult job of
teaching dumb things to even dumber people.
This does horrible things to their minds and
bodies and wardrobes, as anyone can plainly see.
The result is that they have to constantly
come up with ridiculous things that make the
material interesting enough so that everybody —
teachers and students both — doesn’t just stand
up and walk out of the school because they all
suddenly realize that this whole School Thing
has gone on long enough and, hey, why we don’t we
all go outside and play in the street and throw dirt
clods instead?
Because of all that, my language arts
teacher announced that we’re having a
Vocabulary Bee in class. This is like a Spelling
Bee, but instead of having to give correct spellings,
you have to give correct definitions of words.
And to make it extra fair, WE get to pick out
the words that will be included in the Vocabulary
Bee. Each of us has to turn in three words just
before the event, and then the teacher will use
those words, chosen at random. I guess that means
that even the dopiest kids still have a chance to
know at least a few of them.
No amount of erasing and rewriting will help
you with this, Angeline. You either know a plethora
of words, or you don’t.
That’s right. I know the word “plethora.”
It means “a large quantity,” and we Language Art
Geniuses use it instead of “buttload” because
“buttload” isn’t a very ladylike word to use in
your diary.
I told Isabella that I’d help her study for the
Vocabulary Bee, and teach her the words I’ll be
turning in. Since it isn’t for a few weeks, I figured
we could do a little at a time.
She said that was a great idea and we could
start right after we worked on our math homework,
which she told me that I’d agreed to do — more than
two years ago — with her at my house tonight. I
didn’t have any recollection of that, but like I said,
Isabella has a good memory for these things. I’ve
learned that you really just have to take her
word for it.
I’m not going to go over the math we worked
on, because talking about math you already
worked on is exactly like eating math and then
throwing it up.
Let’s just say that with Isabella’s help, I think
math may be getting a little easier. It makes me
think that if Isabella had been born Naturally
Boring, she could have grown up to be a math
teacher.
I guess if she’s ever out of a job, she could
pretend to be boring.
Next, we worked on our vocabulary stuff.
Like I said before, Isabella hates language arts,
so I have to choose words that will interest her. Her
word today was:
Mattoid: A person who is
only almost insane.
I don’t know where I picked this word up.
Words are like that. You read it somewhere, and
years later, you’re using it to describe your cousin
Felicia who one time, when she was in a hurry, tried
to dry her hair in a waffle iron.
She also tried to get her house fitted with
prescription windows, so she wouldn’t need glasses
when she looked outside.
See? It’s almost kind of a good idea, but
also nearly crazy. Just like the word says.
Anyway, Isabella loved the word.
Next, she taught me a word:
Marplot: A dull-witted, bad-tempered
rodent of Australia that hunts koalas.
I had never heard this word before, but this is
another one of the great things about words — you
get to learn new ones all the time.
It doesn’t happen that way with numbers.
Thursday 12
Dear Dumb Diary,
Thursday is Meat Loaf Day. On this day
every week, our cafeteria monitor, Miss Bruntford,
hovers around the cafeteria like a zeppelin, making
sure you finish your lunch. (Maybe I should use
“zeppelin” for one of my vocabulary words.
In case you’re wondering, Dumb Diary, it means
“huge fat gross blimp.” When used in this
manner, anyway.)
Back to the meat loaf.
We’re not here in the summer . . . but some
kids are. Some kids go to summer school. (Oooh,
imagine dramatic scary music, and thunder, and a
scream in the foggy distance.)
This strikes me as pretty tragic, not just
because these kids lose precious sleeping-in
mornings. Not even just because the teachers are
probably dressed real summery, and the display of
all that extra, aging flesh is surely a terrifying daily
reminder of what your future holds.
The real tragedy is that they have to eat
cafeteria meat loaf IN THE SUMMER.
We’ve learned to live with meat loaf. They
serve it every Thursday and always have, ever since
the school opened back in 1492 or whenever.
We eat it, get horribly ill, and recover just in
time to eat it again seven days later. We’re always
within three days of a horrible meat loaf experience.
(I can’t help but notice how math was unkindly
ready to point that out.)
But then summer comes and we escape it for
a few months, and we live luxuriously on hot dogs
and popsicles. Our digestive systems heal and our
taste buds cautiously begin to peek out from our
tongues again, confident they will not be assaulted
by meat loaf.
But not summer-school kids. Today at lunch,
Isabella said they have to eat it every day, all
summer long.
See, Isabella has mean older brothers, and
one of them had to go to summer school one time.
She says it’s always hot and extra stinky
because the teachers are all wearing coconut-
scented sun block with an SPF rating of like, 200,
which is basically a coat of coconut-scented white
paint. None of the nice teachers are here. Nope,
the classes are all taught by the substitute teachers
that are not otherwise detained in mental
facilities. Here are just a few subs that we know
all too well:
Angeline started arguing with Isabella, saying
that summer school was nothing like that, but when
Isabella asked her how she would know, she shut
right up.
Because summer school only lasts a few
months, Isabella said the homework load is three
times as hard. She said she used to hear her
brother cry in his room at night while he tried to
do all the homework, and he didn’t even cry that
much when they had his tail removed, which he still
has in a jar and will show you for a dollar.
I’m afraid if I draw the actual tail I might
owe him another dollar every time somebody looks
at the drawing.
Anyway, I was glad Mom made me carry my
purse today.
Friday 13
Dear Dumb Diary,
I really feel that my prison for beautiful
people idea is going to catch on — and when
Angeline is the first one we lock up, I don’t believe
anybody important is going to object.
See, beautiful people have it made.
Everybody loves them. They get everything they
want. Eighth-cutest boys in school even trip over
themselves when they walk past.
But there is ONE THING that beautiful
people don’t have, one rare elusive quality that
has escaped their manicured grasp.
They don’t have any dorkiness.
Dorkiness may not seem like anything we
should brag about, but it’s something, and it’s
ours, and it’s wrong for them to steal it.
Today, when Mrs. Avon asked Angeline to read
aloud from a book of poetry, Angeline looked back
at Isabella and me, reached into her purse, and
slowly pulled out a pair of big, dorky GLASSES.
She put them on and started to read, but
nobody could hear a word she said over the sound of
the boys’ hearts beating with pure, deafening love.
All of a sudden, Angeline needs glasses.
Isabella needs glasses, too, but in her case,
they just help her see things better, like opportunities,
and weakness in others.
Angeline, on the other hand, is somehow
making them look adorable. ADORABLE.
Can you hear me, Dumb Diary?
She took our dorkiness and made it
adorkable.
Don’t take MY word for it. Let’s go live to a
conversation I overheard between Hudson Rivers
and some of his moron friends right outside the
classroom, a conversation that he was not polite
enough to have in such a way that I didn’t
overhear it. . . .
SMART? Angeline is smart?? On top of
everything else, now they think she’s smart.
Hang
on one second, Dumb Diary.
Okay, I’m back. I had to go downstairs and
eat two bowls of ice cream.
Hang on one second.
Okay, I’m back. I had to lie down because of
an ice cream headache.
Hang on one second.
Okay, I’m back. I had to go call Isabella and
yell about Angeline looking so smart. Isabella told
me that Angeline actually is smart, and for some
mysterious reason, many people actually like
smart people.
You really have to wonder why.
Saturday 14
Dear Dumb Diary,
Another email from Emmily. Isabella called
and read it over the phone:
Dear Angeline, and Isabella, and Jamie,
Report cards come out in a few weeks but my
teachers tell me I can stop working because my grades
are so high that they can’t be brought down in that
period of time no matter what I do.
It turns out there is a secret grade that’s even higher
than an A, and that’s what I have in all my classes. I
have that secret-A thing.
I got a Gummy Bear stuck in my ear and had to go
to the hospital and now I’m fine but the Gummy Bear
could not be eaten afterward.
Love, Emmily
P.S. Just kidding, I ate it.
Is it possible that Emmily is smarter than I
am? Would that mean that maybe everybody is
smarter than I am?
I spent some time with my beagle, Stinker,
and his dogdaughter, Stinkette, today, so that I
could feel superior and build my confidence
back up.
I performed some math in front of them,
and some language arts, too. I have to assume
they were impressed because Stinkette paid close
attention, and Stinker wandered away, probably
humiliated that he can’t do math or language.
Also, he bit me a little before he left.
Later on, I went with my dad to the hardware
store because it is my dad’s favorite place to go to
look at bolts and nails and other things nobody