Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #5: You Can Bet on That Read online

  You Can Bet on That

  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

  Jim Benton’s Tales from Mackerel Middle School

  Y

  EAR

  TWO

  De

  a

  r Dum

  b

  Diary,

  You Can Bet on That

  BY JAMIE KELLY

  SCHOLASTIC INC.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

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  the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding

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

  557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  ISBN 978-0-545-64351-1

  Copyright © 2014 by Jim Benton

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.

  scholastic and associated logos are trademarks

  and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  dear dumb diary is a registered trademark of Jim Benton.

  First printing, June 2014

  Special thanks to Kristen LeClerc,

  Shannon Penney, Abby McAden,

  Jackie Hornberger, and Yaffa Jaskoll.

  Dear Whoever Is Reading My Dumb Diary,

  You’re really kind of gambling with your

  life here, you know, reading somebody else’s

  private — yet

  highly important — diary.

  I’ll bet you’re the type of person who would

  sell your mom for a donut, and you don’t even

  really like donuts much, which makes it way

  worse than if you were super into donuts. I

  mean, if you’re going to sell your mom, you

  should at least do it for something you

  like.

  So put the diary down, you rat, and back away

  from the table before you lose something more

  than just a bet. (I’m pulling my finger across my

  neck in a threatening way right now.)

  Signed,

  P.S. If you don’t like donuts, you might like

  muffins or cupcakes, which are just muffins in

  clown makeup.

  P.P.S. Wait. Why am I helping you sell your mom?

  Sunday 01

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  The Internet is one of the most sophisticated

  pieces of human engineering ever. It was designed

  to help people all over the world share pictures of

  cats and lie to each other.

  Here’s a handy checklist to help you tell if

  somebody on the Internet is lying to you:

  1.) They write you an email.

  2.) That’s it.

  They write you an email. That’s how you

  can tell.

  It will be an email from somebody you don’t

  know and will say you’ve won a prize or inherited

  money, or there’s something wrong with your

  computer/account/internal organs and they need

  all your private information to fix it. It makes me

  wonder what all the crooks were doing while they

  were waiting for the Internet to be invented.

  1

  We talk about Internet stuff like this often

  because everybody is using it more and more at

  my school. I think that’s a good thing, but I dimly

  remember that there used to be human beings that

  we called “librarians,” and I have this nagging

  feeling they did important stuff with things we

  called “boks” or “boacks” or something like

  that, before the Internet did everything for us.

  Maybe I’m just imagining them.

  Oh well.

  You might remember, DD, that Isabella

  and I and this one blond girl are now all founding

  members of the Student Awareness Committee. So

  we have a little blog on the Internet that we started

  to make other students aware of things, I guess. I

  don’t know. This was the blond’s idea.

  Personally, I don’t really like being aware

  of things. It makes it harder to ignore them.

  2

  Sunday used to be the day I reserved for doing

  the homework I should have done Friday night or

  Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon or Saturday

  night, but these days I spend a lot of Sunday hiding

  from my mom, who has decided that she wants to

  make me clothes.

  Let’s just pause and take a deep breath

  and contemplate the staggering impact of what I

  just said.

  Back when she was a little girl, making your

  own clothing was probably a great idea. Her mom

  and the lady who harvested coal or whatever would

  take a covered wagon over to where they were

  planning on signing the Declaration of Independence

  one day, and they would make their daughters

  clothes.

  But not anymore, Mom.Not anymore.

  3

  So far, Mom has only made a couple of

  things, but the day will come when she expects

  me to wear one of them outside the house. I am a

  very optimistic person, and I’m hoping that all of

  humanity will have been destroyed in a massive

  flaming meteor strike by then.

  4

  Monday 02

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Today, my social studies teacher, Mr. Smith

  (who wears a wig), announced that we’re going to

  be doing a section on debate. Debate is when you

  argue with somebody, but you aren’t allowed to call

  them ugly just because you’re losing, which is weird

  because that would be the perfect time.

  In the past, we’ve had debate sections in

  English, but since everybody argues about everything

  these days, debate is getting super-popular.

  And I guess we need to learn debating skills in

  case we ever have a disagreement with somebody

  who is very att
ractive, and we can’t come up

  with anything to say that will hurt their feelings

  during the argument.

  5

  But I believe that nature is beautiful and

  perfectly balanced, and therefore there’s

  SOMETHING gross and ugly about everybody

  that you can haul out and criticize. Further proof

  of how optimistic I am, I suppose.

  This is why I asked Angeline if she wanted

  to be my opponent. This, and the fact that if we

  partnered up with each other, there would be no risk

  of either one of us having to face off with Isabella.

  I’m not that thrilled about partnering with

  Angeline, but when you face off with Isabella, she

  might actually try to take your face off.

  6

  Before we actually have the debates, we

  have to learn THE BIG OFFICIAL RULES OF

  DEBATE. Mr. Smith began listing them today.

  Like, if you make a statement, you have to

  give factual proof.

  And you may not throw things at your

  opponent. (He was looking right at Isabella when he

  said that rule.)

  And you must remain calm and may not call

  names. (Again, looking at Isabella.)

  And you may not threaten your opponent,

  either during class or later, at night, over the phone

  with a fake voice and the sound of a chainsaw in

  the background. (Isabella again. Seriously, I think

  almost all of the rules of debate were made for

  Isabella.)

  The winner of each debate gets to pick the

  debate topic for the next team. Mr. Smith says that

  way we won’t be able to prepare our arguments —

  we’ll have to debate using only our wits, the way

  wild animals do.

  7

  Isabella partnered up with Dicky Flartsnutt.

  You might remember, Dumb Diary, that Dicky is kind

  of a friend of ours, even though he will never let you

  totally forget that he was BORN TO NERD.

  Dicky is very sweet, but he’s sort of like a

  baby goat chained to a tree in a pit full of tigers

  with a bunch of cinnamon buns tied to him. (It’s a

  well-known science fact that tigers love cinnamon

  buns, probably.)

  We’ve become attached to Dicky and we

  feel a bit protective of him. None of us would ever

  do anything to hurt his feelings in a million years,

  which says a lot, because in most cases, Isabella

  would be willing to hurt most people’s feelings for

  a million years.

  8

  I’m sure Angeline will put something up on

  our Student Awareness Committee blog about the

  debate project. And I’m sure it will be very chirpy

  and perky, like all her posts.

  One time, she actually posted about how

  much fun it was to post on the blog. And then she

  put up pictures of herself doing it.

  And she posted about how much fun it was

  to put up the pictures.

  And then she posted about how much fun it

  was to post about how much fun it was to put up

  the pictures, too.

  Angeline, the Internet only APPEARS to be

  interested in what you’re saying because it can’t

  stand up and walk away while you’re talking to it.

  9

  Tuesday 03

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Diseases.

  That’s what Mrs. Curie, my science teacher,

  wanted to talk about today.

  I learned that very few diseases are

  appealing, and that you can protect yourself from

  a ton of them just by washing your hands.

  Hand sanitizer attacks 98% of all germs, and

  100% of all paper cuts and hangnails. I think it’s

  designed that way so that when you start violently

  shaking your hands in pain, the dead germs go

  flying off. Live germs all over your hands are

  only slightly worse than dead germs all over

  your hands.

  At first, this might make you think that

  sanitizer scientists are pretty clever, but remember,

  these scientists are still totally cool with not

  killing 2% of the germs on your hands. That’s about

  ONE MILLION GERMS, who are now full of

  alcohol, staggering around on your hands, super-

  angry that you wiped out their families and tried to

  kill them, too.

  Do we want this? Vengeful, incoherent germs

  plotting against us?

  Scientists: Think. Things. Through.

  Isabella seemed interested in what Mrs. Curie

  was saying, but I’m sure she was just curious about

  whether there were any minor diseases that could

  be slipped into her mean older brothers’ cornflakes

  undetected. Isabella is very sweet and would only

  want her brothers to have minor diseases. But she

  did ask if any germs were smart enough to be

  trained, like attack dogs.

  Angeline was perky and attentive throughout

  the disease discussion, and it occurred to me how

  different the three of us are:

  12

  After class, Angeline started bugging us to

  contribute something to the Student Awareness

  Committee blog thing.

  “You two are presidents of the Student

  Awareness Committee. You should be contributing,”

  Angeline hissed, but she didn’t really hiss exactly.

  It was more like “pleasantly chirped.” But I’m

  pretty sure that a hiss was implied.

  Isabella said that the blog sounded too

  much like homework and she already has a ton

  of homework from math and science and social

  studies to ignore, so she doesn’t think she can find

  the time to ignore more.

  Then Angeline pointed out that the whole

  school reads this blog, and it would be great for

  them to have the benefit of my observations.

  13

  Look, Blondy, I know when I’m being

  manipulated. I have dogs that are always begging

  for food, I have a best friend who is always trying

  to get me to do something hazardous, and most of

  all, I have PARENTS, okay, and they try it ALL

  the time.

  So don’t try to flatter me in order to get me

  to contribute.

  14

  This little attempt of Angeline’s is exactly

  the type of thing that people say in order to trick

  you into doing something. They think you are so

  conceited that you will actually believe everyone is

  just dying to have you do this thing or that thing.

  Seriously, who would really believe that the

  whole school would benefit from their blog entries?

  Unless it’s absolutely true, of course,

  like it is in my case.

  Angeline, you don’t need to bother using

  pretend flattery when real flattery is completely

  accurate.

  15

  Wednesday 04

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  It happened.

  It was exactly as I had feared.

  Mom left a shirt on my bed this morning that

  she made for me.

  It was full of her love and hard work and deep

  commitment and, from the look
s of it, probably a

  lot of monkey vomit.

  Not real monkey vomit. Just the same colors,

  texture, and smeariness.

  16

  It was so ugly that at first I thought one of

  my dogs had eaten the other, and then became

  tremendously sick on my comforter.

  No such luck.

  I tried it on, because I figured that was the

  least I could do.

  I’m pretty sure that, just for a moment, I

  noticed my reflection making fun of me. If this

  was my reflection’s reaction — and, Dumb Diary, my

  reflection and I have been through A LOT together —

  it was hard to imagine just what sort of abuse I

  would endure if I wore the shirt to school.

  I know my mom didn’t have to worry about

  this sort of thing when she was growing up, what

  with all the kids wearing the same period

  costume, but it’s different today, Mom. We have

  fashion now, and we all have sophisticated

  electronic devices to help us make fun of the people

  who do fashion wrong.

  17

  But she IS my mom, and I do love her, and

  sometimes love means that you have to do things

  you don’t want to do.

  Like lying to the people you love.

  So I decided to put the monkeyvomit shirt on

  over a regular shirt. Then I could just take it off at

  school before my friends saw it and destroyed

  me forever.

  Mom was so happy to see me wearing it that I

  could hardly understand why people think

  dishonesty is a bad thing.

  Dad drove me to school, and when we were

  halfway there I noticed his tie. It was monkeyvomit

  patterned. It matched my shirt.

  18

  “I bet you have a different tie in your

  briefcase,” I said.