Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #6: Live Each Day to the Dumbest Read online

  THINK YOU CAN HANDLE

  JAMIE KELLY’S FIRST YEAR OF DIARIES?

  #1 Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

  #2 My Pants Are Haunted!

  #3 Am I The Princess Or The Frog?

  #4 Never Do Anything, Ever

  #5 Can Adults Become Human?

  #6 The Problem With Here Is That It’s Where I’m From

  #7 Never Underestimate Your Dumbness

  #8 It’s Not My Fault I Know Everything

  #9 That’s What Friends Aren't For

  #10 The Worst Things in Life Are Also Free

  #11 Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers

  #12 Me! (Just Like You, Only Better)

  AND DON’T MISS . . .

  Year Two #1: School. Hasn’t This Gone On Long Enough?

  Year Two #2: The Super-Nice Are Super-Annoying

  Year Two #3: Nobody’s Perfect. I’m As Close As It Gets.

  Year Two #4: What I Don’t Know Might Hurt Me

  Year Two #5: You Can Bet on That

  Year Two #6: Live Each Day To The Dumbest

  Copyright © 2015 by Jim Benton

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. Publishers

  since 1920.

  scholastic and associated logos are trademarks

  and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  dear dumb diary is a registered trademark of Jim Benton.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any

  responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

  Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted,

  downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into

  any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

  whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without

  the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding

  permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557

  Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are

  either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and

  any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,

  events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-64352-8

  First printing 2015

  For the Grandmas and Grandpas.

  Special thanks to Kristen LeClerc and the

  dumbest team at Scholastic: Shannon

  Penney, Yaffa Jaskoll, Emily Cullings, Sarah

  Evans, and Abby McAden.

  Dear Whoever Is Reading My Dumb Diary,

  Seriously, how dumb are you? Wasting your

  time while you read somebody else’s diary?

  Maybe the only thing dumber than

  writing

  a diary is

  reading somebody else’s.

  Think of all the important things you

  could be doing instead — you could be doing

  homework, or washing the dog, or washing

  your homework.

  That last one might not actually be a thing.

  You think I don’t know that? I know you don’t

  wash homework. I’m not

  dumb, you know.

  Anyway, if you really want to waste your time

  on something as dumb as reading my diary, be

  my guest.

  Go right ahead. I do hereby

  swear that everything in it is true, at least as

  true as it needs to be.

  Signed,

  P.S. Okay, just kidding. Don’t read it.

  P.P.S. No, really. I didn’t mean it before.

  Don’t read it.

  P.P.P.S. Is there a limit to how many of these

  P.S. things you can do? I hope it isn’t three.

  P.P.P.P.S. DON’T READ IT.

  SUNDAY 01

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Mom told me to clean the shower today, and

  I calmly explained that cleaning is what showers

  already do, so it’s ridiculous to clean them.

  “Just go take a shower in it, Mom,” I said, adding

  “DUH” because at that moment, it seemed like a

  good idea.

  That moment has since passed, and now she’s

  also making me clean my room.

  You know how when you clean your room you

  just shove everything into a drawer and push it

  closed and the room is magically clean?

  Why don’t we design houses so that our entire

  bedrooms are just huge drawers that we can push

  closed?

  Honestly, when I think of something obvious

  like this, I wonder if architects are even really

  trying that hard.

  It’s like my idea for when you’re looking in

  the refrigerator for something to eat and your dad

  starts yelling for you to not stand there with the

  door open. If architects were really thinking it

  through, they’d design refrigerators with a back

  door that dads didn’t know about.

  And what about glitter? Since we all love

  glitter so much, why don’t we make more glittery

  food? Who wouldn’t like a fantastically glittery

  sandwich with sparkly ingredients in all sorts of

  twinkly colors?

  Or fluffy? Why don’t we have more fluffy

  foods? Fluffy like a kitten. Wouldn’t it be great to

  eat a kitten?

  Not like a real kitten but, like, some kind of

  cake that you could pet and snuggle and kiss and

  then eat. And it would look like a kitten and maybe

  meow and chase a laser-pointer dot.

  And it would purr.

  Okay, so purring would make it harder for me

  to want to eat this cake.

  Not impossible, but harder.

  And what about clothes? Everybody knows

  that there are four main things that are done with

  clothes:

  1. They are loved deeply.

  2. They are totally hated right after that.

  3. They are thrown on the floor.

  4. They are yelled about and washed by Mom.

  But what if we took everything that was

  so great about my edible kitten technology (and

  there’s a lot) and applied it to socks? What if,

  after you realized that you hated your clothes, you

  could just eat them? Then Mom wouldn’t have to

  yell and you could —I don’t know — eat clothes,

  I guess.

  That’s not as good as I thought it was now

  that I see it written out like that.

  More genius tomorrow, Dumb

  Diary!!!!!!!!! Good night.

  P.S. How about an exclamation point that

  means NINE exclamation points for those

  situations where you want to exclaim something at

  nine times the normal volume but don’t have the

  time to write that many punctuation marks? It looks

  like this:

  Smart, right?

  MONDAY 02

  TUESDAY 03

  WEDNESDAY 04

  THURSDAY 05

  FR
IDAY 06

  SATURDAY 07

  SUNDAY 08

  MONDAY 09

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Grandma died.

  That’s why I haven’t been writing.

  It was a week ago. I didn’t really know what

  to write. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever left diary

  pages blank.

  When Dad first told me about Grandma, I

  didn’t believe it was true. But then, of course,

  I realized it’s not the sort of thing people joke

  about:

  “Hey, sweetheart, Grandma died. Just

  kidding. Should have seen the look on

  your face.”

  Dad was the one to give me the bad news,

  because Grandma was my mom’s mom and she was

  too broken up to talk about it for a while.

  I really didn’t know what to tell my mom,

  which is weird because I’ve always known what to

  tell people, even when I didn’t know and I just made

  something up. I couldn’t even think of a fake

  thing to tell her.

  You should have heard me go on and on when

  my goldfish died. I wonder if people knew I was

  faking the things I said when my goldfish died.

  I tried praying to God about my grandma.

  It went something like this: “So, God, I

  was just wondering if maybe you could bring

  Grandma back and take somebody else in her

  place, because I’m guessing that you have a certain

  number of people you need to kill every week or

  something. I’ve even made a helpful list here of

  people that I think might really enjoy dying. I can

  just put it up on the roof, if that would make it easier

  for you to read from up there. Also, there’s a dog on

  the list, if you would be willing to consider that a

  fair trade since my grandma was pretty old.”

  Then I suddenly realized how dumb the whole

  thing was. C’mon, Jamie — the list could get rained

  on up there.

  It also occurred to me that maybe it was

  wrong to ask God to do exchanges. Even the mall

  won’t do them without a receipt.

  “You know what, God?” I prayed. “Forget

  it. I’m sure you probably know what you’re doing,

  so I’m just going to, uh, oh hey, I have another call

  coming in, so I’ll have to call you back.”

  Now, I realize that he might have guessed

  that I didn’t really have another call coming in,

  but I figured he would probably give me a break. I

  know that I’d give me a break, and God has to be

  way nicer than I am.

  Also, if he granted my wish, and Grandma did

  suddenly walk in the door, it would be hard to not be

  at least a little alarmed.

  It could make the funeral super awkward:

  “Grandma, it’s so nice to have you back, but

  all of us have to scream in terror for, like, an

  hour now.”

  Speaking of which, her funeral was last

  Thursday. There were a lot of people and a lot of

  flowers.

  It kind of made me wonder about the flowers.

  It’s like, “Your loved one died, so we killed these, too.”

  People told stories about her, and shared

  memories, and it was kind of like she was still

  alive, but not really. It made me think we should

  share memories of people before they become

  just memories. My grandma would have liked

  hearing them.

  I also realized that I wasn’t really very close

  to Grandma.

  But she was my last one. I’m fresh out of

  grandmas now. No more birthday cards with five-

  dollar bills in them. No more clothes that don’t fit

  for Christmas. No more conversations about what

  somebody used to be able to get for a quarter.

  At the funeral, Dad said that, as time goes

  on, Mom will be able to pull herself together better,

  but way deep down inside, a part of her will probably

  always feel like a little girl that lost her mom

  forever.

  Lost. Her. Mom. Forever.

  That’s when I lost it. I mean, REALLY lost

  it. You hear people use the phrase KOO -KOO-

  BANANAS all the time, but I was really crying like

  koo-koo- bananas.

  I don’t remember the last time I cried like

  that. I was crying for Mom the most, but also for

  myself. I cried for Mom’s sister, Aunt Carol, who had

  lost her mom, too.

  Then I cried for Dad, because I knew how

  bad he felt for my mom, and how bad he felt for

  me because I was crying. And I cried for Grandma,

  because if she knew she was making us all cry this

  way, she would have felt really, really terrible

  about it.

  I went to the ladies’ room and even cried a

  little for my reflection in the bathroom because I

  looked so sad, but I also couldn’t help noticing

  how adorable I looked when I cried. Then I cried

  for noticing my adorability when I was supposed to

  be funeral-crying.

  I cried a little for my beagles, Stinker and

  Stinkette, because I knew that if they did something

  like poop on the carpet while we were at the

  funeral, I would have to spank them until I needed

  to pack my hand in ice.

  Spoiler alert: They didn’t do it, but I still

  cried. I pre-cried.

  But here’s the weird thing about crying:

  Eventually, you just run out of tears.

  It’s like peeing.

  The next day, I guess it must have been

  Friday, I didn’t cry at all. And I didn’t see Mom cry,

  either.

  I think we all wanted a day when we didn’t

  talk about it. I thought about talking about it, but

  Mom was still not herself, so I thought it was better

  not to say anything to her about anything.

  So even though Mom is the one I’d normally

  go to with beauty questions, I asked Dad if I could

  get my lip and nose and eyebrow pierced. Then I got

  a solid ten- minute lecture about what should

  and should not be pierced.

  There’s a pretty long list of things Dad says I

  can’t get pierced, by the way, including a few that

  I wouldn’t have even thought of. His main point

  was that there’s a lot of beautiful jewelry you can

  wear that nobody has to stab you with.

  Glad I asked him before I got it done. Now I

  know not to ask Mom before I get it done.

  Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan took on the

  responsibility of going through my grandma’s old

  stuff and packing it up in boxes. Aunt Carol even

  brought over a box of Grandma’s things she thought

  I might like. I haven’t opened it yet, because it just

  feels weird to go through somebody’s belongings

  that way.

  I thought about how, one day, Angeline might

  go through my old stuff and try it on and probably

  even use my toothbrush and get her delicate

  cooties all over everything. I’m telling you right

  now, Angeline, if you’re reading this, I’m letting the

  dogs lick my toothbrush THIS VERY MINUTE.

  Don’t feel so sma
rt now, do you?

  P.S. I really and truly am doing that.

  TUESDAY 10

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Isabella was super gentle and kind to

  me today about my grandma dying.

  (After I convinced her that there was nothing

  contagious to worry about.)

  She also said I could probably get out of

  some homework, since the teachers always go easy

  on kids for a while if they know that something like

  this is going on in their lives.

  Isabella once used a stubbed toe to delay

  a book report for two weeks, until she could no longer

  convince the teacher that she needed a healthy toe

  to read.

  Isabella also thought that if Grandma hadn’t

  shared a last wish, maybe we could just assume

  it had something to do with Isabella not having to

  do homework, either. She thought I might like to tell

  the teachers that.

  I told her that there was no way the

  teachers would even know about my grandma. She

  was sure they would because sometimes parents

  call and let the school know about things like this,

  and also, since my aunt works at the school and is

  married to the assistant principal, the word was

  probably out.

  My social studies teacher, Mr. Smith — you

  remember, Dumb Diary, he’s the one who wears

  fake hair in order to look like a younger man with

  a full head of fake hair — actually gave me a sad

  little greeting card in class today.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Jamie,” he said, and

  he seemed genuinely sad.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Your grandma. I’m sorry you lost her.”

  A few other people have said the exact same

  thing to me, but it makes no sense when you think

  about it. When somebody dies, you don’t lose

  them. You know right where you put them, and you