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Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #1: School. Hasn't This Gone on Long Enough?

Page 3

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

 

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