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

  SMILING.

  SMILING about electricity shooting down

  from the sky and frying you on the sidewalk like an

  unsuspecting strip of bacon.

  I wanted Mr. Smith to hear this, but just then,

  Miss Anderson — my art teacher, who is beautiful

  enough to be a lady wrestler but settled for

  being a teacher instead — walked by and waved.

  This caused Mr. Smith to adjust his wig, tell us to

  keep working, and trot out the door, calling to her

  about some nonsense he was clearly making up

  as an excuse to talk to her.

  Teachers are attracted to other teachers. It’s

  only natural. They date for a while, get married, buy

  a house, and start having little substitute teachers

  of their own.

  41

  After Mr. Smith left, I tried a few more things

  on Angeline.

  42

  “Angeline! Are you some kind of mental case?

  Not everything has a bright side,” I said,

  probably a bit too loud.

  “Not everything has a dark side,” she

  retorted.

  “Try me,” I said.

  “Babies,” she said smugly.

  “Are you kidding? DIAPERS, Angeline. Give

  me a hard one.”

  “Sunny days,” she said.

  “Sunburn. C’mon, Angeline. Are you even

  trying?”

  “Friendship,” she said.

  “Don’t answer that,” Isabella

  interrupted.

  I realized that Isabella had been listening to

  us, and listening closely. Fights never get past

  Isabella. She’s always ready to either join in, or

  watch for loose change that falls out of pockets if

  people start to wrestle.

  “Why don’t you two piranhas settle this like

  adults?” she said softly.

  “What are you suggesting?” Angeline asked.

  “Well, Angeline seems to like everything.

  Jamie seems to dislike everything. Only one of

  you can be right,” Isabella said, and for some

  weird reason, I felt like Isabella was setting some

  sort of giant mousetrap and was slowly edging us

  toward the cheese.

  “Nobody likes mean, negative people, Jamie,”

  Angeline said. “Why do you think everything is so

  terrible?”

  “It’s better than stumbling around like a fool,

  saying that everything is so great all the time,” I

  said. “Nobody respects people who are cheerful all

  the time. They think they’re dumb.”

  “You couldn’t go a month without saying

  something mean,” Angeline said.

  “Yeah, well, you couldn’t go a month

  without saying something nice,” I blasted back.

  44

  “You wanna bet?” she asked.

  “You got it,” I said. I’m pretty sure betting is

  against some kind of school rule, but Mr. Smith was

  still out of the room.

  “Okay,” she said. “The loser has to —”

  Isabella interrupted.

  “The loser has to play Dare or Worse

  Dare with me,” she said quietly.

  I lunged to cover Angeline’s mouth. I had to

  stop her from agreeing. Angeline had no idea what

  Isabella was talking about.

  45

  Isabella stopped playing regular old Truth or

  Dare back in first grade. The problem with regular

  Truth or Dare is that the Truth part never really

  works. Somebody chooses Truth knowing that they

  can just lie, and then the asker has been swindled.

  And Isabella can’t deal with being swindled.

  So Isabella invented Dare or Worse Dare.

  The problem with Dare or Worse Dare is that

  nobody, anywhere, ever, should play it with

  Isabella.

  This is not just my opinion. This is an

  ordinance in several counties.

  You see, Isabella customizes her dares.

  She crafts each one especially for the person being

  dared. These are handmade dares, assembled

  one at a time, based on the specific weaknesses

  of the player.

  The last time I played her was in third grade.

  She dared me to sneak into the cemetery with her

  and lie down for thirty minutes, with my eyes

  closed, on the grave of Abner Hogsnetter.

  When he was alive, Abner had been a clown.

  An old, cranky clown. He called himself “Hoggy.”

  I knew him as “Hoggy with the doggy.”

  The first time I ever met Abner was at

  Shannon Nichol’s birthday party, way back in first

  grade. Abner was the entertainment, and he was

  twisting balloon animals for all the kids.

  I didn’t want to go anywhere near him,

  but they made everyone get a balloon animal.

  “What’s your name?” he asked in between

  coughs.

  “Jamie,” I said, looking at his dirty clown

  costume.

  “That’s a nice name. What kind of animal do

  you want, Jenny?”

  “I don’t want one,” I said, eyeing the clown

  makeup that was beginning to flake off the wrinkly

  parts of his face.

  “Okay, a nice doggy,” he said, blowing up the

  balloon and twisting it into shape.

  I took it and ran away as fast as I could.

  But I tripped and fell directly on top of my

  balloon dog.

  And it popped.

  47

  I suppose that a great deal has already been

  written about what the inside of a clown’s lungs

  smells like, but until you’ve really been smothered

  in it, wallowed in it, and inhaled it yourself, it’s

  really quite hard to describe.

  It’s like a combination of wet raw chicken,

  cigar smoke, cotton candy, and socks. With hints of

  makeup and a kind of sad bitterness.

  The experience was made worse by everybody’s

  insistence that Hoggy make me a replacement

  balloon dog right away, which I carried around for

  the remainder of the party like a grenade that

  could go off at any second.

  When we got home, I made Dad bury it.

  48

  After that, we crossed paths several more

  times — at parties, or if a store had a big sale and

  they’d hired Hoggy to stand out front and attract

  customers. That clown worked for cheap, I guess, so

  he was always the one you’d see.

  Hoggy remembered me as that little girl

  (Jenny, Janey, and one time, Fred) who was so

  upset when her balloon dog popped.

  “How about a new doggy?” he’d call to me

  every time, as I hid behind somebody. Eventually,

  when I got invited to birthday parties, my parents

  had to ask ahead of time if Hoggy was going to

  be there.

  The truth is, Hoggy is the reason I’m so

  creeped out by clowns.

  So after Isabella dared me to lie down on his

  grave, I asked her what the Worse Dare was. She

  wouldn’t tell me, but she said it involved a shovel.

  I didn’t demand details.

  And so I lay there. Trembling. Every seven

  or eight minutes, Isabella would scream something

 
like, “It’s him! It’s Hoggy the clown! Run, Jamie!”

  If I opened my eyes or got up, I would have to

  start my thirty-minute dare all over again.

  I had to restart so many times that eventually

  Isabella didn’t find it funny anymore and we went

  home, where I took an hour-long shower to wash off

  the clowngrave dirt.

  50

  And now back to Angeline’s dumbness —

  “Deal,” Angeline said boldly.

  I couldn’t very well let Angeline be braver

  than me.

  “Deal,” I said quietly. I sensed that deep in

  the earth, a pair of decaying, bony fingers was

  slowly pulling a rotting balloon out of a baggy,

  checkered pants pocket.

  “How about a new doggy, Jeanie?” Hoggy

  cackled.

  51

  Tuesday 10

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  I didn’t see any reason to waste time. There

  was no way that I was going to lie down on Abner

  Hogsnetter’s grave again. So before school, I

  posted something on our blog to end this thing

  before it even begins. My post was brief and

  brilliant:

  I'd just like to congratulate Hudson Rivers and his

  soccer team on a fine victory in last week's game

  against Wodehouse Middle School. I think everybody

  here at the Student Awareness Committee is a big

  fan of soccer, although I'm not sure about Angeline.

  Angeline, what do you think of soccer?

  — Jamie

  Pretty clever, huh? Let’s see you not say

  something nice about this, Ang.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  She struck back in Mrs. Curie’s science class

  this morning.

  52

  I’m pretty sure Mrs. Curie has a crush on

  diseases. All teachers are probably fascinated with

  them. A disease is like a test that nature gives your

  body. You want to get an A, but you’ll be happy if

  you just don’t fail.

  Today she wanted to talk about gum disease,

  which is the most common complaint on Earth,

  unless you count the complaints of kids having to

  learn about it.

  One of the main contributing factors is not

  brushing and flossing regularly. You need to brush

  your teeth at least twice a day and pretend to floss

  every day, but at the very least do it before you go

  to the dentist, because it’s super embarrassing

  when you tell him you floss all the time and he pulls

  a little chunk of coconut out from between your teeth.

  “Hey, where did THAT come from? I haven’t

  had coconut in weeks!” you’ll say, immediately

  realizing what an idiot I sounded like you sound like.

  53

  Mrs. Curie was showing gruesome pictures

  of gum disease up on her big monitor. When one

  came up that was particularly nasty, Angeline

  pounced.

  “Hey, Jamie, what do you think of that guy?”

  she asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Isabella folded her arms and waited for my

  answer. A small smile curled on her lips. She clearly

  thought I’d have to say something mean. But I

  wasn’t ready to lose this bet.

  “I think that guy is, uh, pretty brave to be

  photographed like that, just to teach people about

  gum disease,” I said, and the other kids in the class

  nodded in agreement.

  Isabella angrily slouched in her chair and

  Angeline gave me her ugliest scowl, which —

  just being honest here — is still a fairly

  attractive scowl.

  You aren’t the only one who can fake this

  positive garbage, Angeline.

  54

  Wednesday 11

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Dad burst into my room this morning before

  my alarm clock went off.

  (Alarm clocks have horrible lives. They do

  one of the most important jobs in the house, and

  everybody hates them for it.)

  “Don’t ask questions,” he said, pushing

  a shopping bag toward me. “Don’t ask

  questions.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked, totally not

  following instructions.

  “Jamie? Are you up yet?” my mom said from

  the hallway.

  Dad tore open the bag and, in a panic,

  pushed a shirt into my hands.

  “Say, ‘Oh my gosh, thanks, Dad,’” he

  whispered urgently. “You say that. Say it now.”

  55

  “Oh. My. Gosh. Thanks. Dad,” I said flatly,

  just as Mom walked in, holding an animal that she

  had recently run over with her car, and then backed

  over for good measure, and then sewed buttons on.

  Except that it wasn’t an animal. It was

  another shirt she had made for me.

  “Oh, wow!” Dad said with this kind of

  fakey enthusiasm. “Two shirts! Two new shirts for

  Jamie. Look, honey, I got her one, too. Such an odd

  coincidence. Well, I guess she should wear the one I

  got her first since I gave it to her first well good-bye

  you two have a nice day! I was first.”

  Dad was down the stairs and out the front

  door in three steps.

  56

  Mom looked confused and then shrugged.

  “I made you another shirt, Jamie,” she said.

  “But it looks like Dad already . . .”

  “Yeah,” I said. “This is kind of a new thing for

  Dad, huh?”

  I said that since this IS kind of a brave new

  attempt for Dad, buying me clothes and all, that we

  shouldn’t discourage him. And even though I really

  loved the new monkeyvomit shirt she made me, we

  should probably not hurt Dad’s feelings.

  Mom nodded in agreement, and I dodged the

  monkeyvomit for another day.

  I totally owe Dad a favor.

  57

  And when I got to school, I learned why I owed

  him a BIG favor: Today was picture day. I wonder

  if Dad knew and wanted to save me from being

  photographed in monkeyvomit.

  58

  Thursday 12

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Dad DID know. After dinner last night, I was

  doing homework at the kitchen table and he leaned

  in and quietly proved it.

  “How do you think that shirt I gave you is

  going to look in your picture?”

  I told him how glad I was, and that I owed

  him one.

  “ONE?” He laughed. “You owe me a lot

  more than one for that, kid. Can you imagine having

  to look at that photo the rest of our lives?”

  59

  After dinner, I checked the Student

  Awareness Committee blog. Angeline had posted her

  response to my soccer post. Remember, I wrote:

  I'd just like to congratulate Hudson Rivers and his

  soccer team on a fine victory in last week's game

  against Wodehouse Middle School. I think everybody

  here at the Student Awareness Committee is a big

  fan of soccer, although I'm not sure about Angeline.

  Angeline, what do you think of soccer?

  — Jamie

  And she responded:

&nb
sp; Those little turds at Wodehouse Middle School got

  the beating they deserved.

  — Angeline

  60

  Holy smokes, Angeline, how brutal can you

  get? A BEATING? Nice sportsmanship.

  And everybody always thought you were so

  sweet. I can’t wait to see how revolted they all are

  by their precious little Angeline now that they see

  she’s in favor of BEATINGS.

  61

  FRIDAY 13

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  The soccer team was so revolted with

  Angeline’s bad sportsmanship that, out of pure

  disgust, they got to school early and decorated her

  locker with ribbons and balloons.

  They put a sign saying ANGELINE:

  NUMBER ONE FAN in big cutout letters on her

  locker door, and used gold and silver glitter to

  signify how disappointed they were in her post.

  I’m sure the letter jacket they gave her was

  also supposed to let her know just how deeply

  sickened they were by her post.

  As I stood there, staring, Isabella slid up

  beside me silently, in the way only an anaconda or

  Isabella can do.

  “What do you think of all this?” she asked me.

  I snorted. “I hope Angeline takes that jacket,

  and . . .”

  I knew that if I said something unpleasant,

  I’d lose the bet.

  62

  “. . . I hope she takes that jacket and wears

  it with pride. It’s really nice of them to honor her

  that way,” I finished.

  Isabella made that sound that spiders make

  when a fly avoids their web instead of plowing right

  into it.

  I don’t know what that sound is.

  Somebody knows. Spider scientists know.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?” Isabella said. “Angeline

  says something mean and people love her for it. It’s

  like she’s stealing your essence.”