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

84

  One nice little word about Uncle Dan out of

  her nice little mouth and that would end it all. She

  would lose.

  “I . . . uh . . .”

  Angeline is super-proud of her uncle. She

  couldn’t possibly say anything mean.

  “I know I wouldn’t want a big picture of me

  up in the hallway. It would be about five minutes

  before you-know-who drew a mustache on it,”

  she said, and thumbed her little thumb at me.

  People laughed, and Isabella’s head hit the

  desk like a steel bowling ball hitting a sidewalk.

  I hate to admit it, Dumb Diary, but Angeline

  is every bit as good at avoiding the traps as I am.

  85

  She proved it again later, in her response to

  Isabella’s recycling question on the blog:

  Isabella, I read your post about recycling. My opinion

  is that people who don't recycle are inconsiderate

  slobs.

  — Angeline

  And, of course, there were 90 likes and many

  joyful comments about her post.

  She’s good at being good, and she’s good at

  being bad. Makes me wonder how she could be so

  good at it all. Bad at it all. Whatever.

  86

  Thursday 19

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  I had to go down to the school office today. I

  got gum in my hair and wanted Aunt Carol to get it

  out. Isabella offered, but I knew she would just pull

  it until I swore a lot and then I would have lost

  the bet. And I wasn’t going down like that.

  Aunt Carol is kind of an expert on adult

  lady beauty, anyway, so I’m sure she’s read

  many fashion magazines featuring tips on gum

  removal.

  87

  She was so excited to see me, because she

  was in the middle of making Uncle Dan consider

  various coat, tie, and shirt combinations for his big

  award photo.

  She was having a lot of fun, but he looked like

  a cat that knew it was getting a bath soon.

  “Why couldn’t we do this at home?” he asked.

  “We’re missing lunch, and I’m starving.”

  “Because the light here is different than at

  home,” she said with a smile. “The light affects

  how the photo looks. You always have to decide

  on these things using the same light you’ll be

  photographed in.”

  Uncle Dan made a sound like his soul was

  escaping through his nostrils.

  “This photo is going to hang in these halls

  until the end of time. Everybody will see it every

  day. It has to be perfect,” she said.

  Evidently he had a little bit of soul left in one

  nostril, and it escaped as well.

  88

  Aunt Carol held up tie after tie, tilting her

  head, as if seeing with a tilted head was better than

  seeing with a regular upright head.

  She asked me what I thought.

  I said that I thought I needed the gum out of

  my hair before I was late for class.

  She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a

  huge jar of peanut butter.

  “You have peanut butter here?” Uncle Dan said.

  She smeared the peanut butter all over the

  gum, and it slid right out. Then she got out a jar of

  Vaseline and used that to get the peanut butter out

  of my hair. Then she used some adhesive-remover to

  get the Vaseline out of my hair.

  “That’s great stuff for getting out Vaseline,”

  I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It gets gum out, too.”

  89

  Yes. I know. But she was distracted with

  the important business of picking out her husband’s

  clothes.

  I closed the door behind me quietly, pausing

  for just long enough to glimpse Uncle Dan eating an

  enormous wad of peanut butter off a pen.

  90

  Friday 20

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Isabella and Angeline came by my locker this

  afternoon. Isabella said that she thought our blog

  needed a little pizzazz, which I was immediately in

  favor of, because at first I thought it had something

  to do with pizza.

  It turns out that pizzazz, Dumb Diary, means

  eye-catching, or fun, or fancy.

  Isabella thought maybe we should have a logo.

  I told her I would get right on it, but she said

  she had it under control. “I know you have a lot to

  do what with all that stuff you have going on,” she

  added.

  “What stuff?” I asked. I didn’t have any

  stuff going on except for cleaning my room, helping

  my dad get some junk out of the garage, a bunch of

  homework, and a stack of thank-you cards I still

  owed people from Christmas and my birthday, and

  another Christmas and another birthday.

  “I’ve got this under control,” Isabella said,

  smiling. Then she gave me a nice good-bye shove.

  92

  When I got home, Dad had picked up Chinese

  food, which is how my dad often celebrates things.

  He just found out that he’s up for a promotion

  and raise at work, and he has a big review next week.

  He’s only about halfway sure he’s going to get it. His

  boss is a little stuffy, and he says he needs to be on

  his best behavior until then.

  I made him a handy checklist of how to be

  stuffy until he gets the promotion.

  93

  Saturday 21

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  So today Dad lost the tie that my mom made

  him. He woke up early to get us donuts, and he

  decided to wear his tie to the donut shop. And when

  he was getting back into the car, he scratched

  himself really, really, really, really badly

  and had to keep himself from bleeding to death, so

  he used his tie to stop the bleeding.

  And on the way home, he had his arm out the

  window and the tie blew off. He would have

  stopped, but it was right on that bridge down by

  Lincoln Road, so the tie fell in the river and it’s long

  gone by now. Many people have reported seeing

  bears down near that spot, anyway.

  And it’s a good thing that Dad tried this

  HUGE DUMB LIE out on me first, because Mom

  would have seen right through it.

  94

  “Just for starters, Dad, you’re wearing a

  T-shirt. Who wears a tie with a T-shirt? You go for

  donuts on Sunday, not Saturday, Lincoln Road isn’t

  on the way, and you don’t have a scratch on your

  arm. Not even a little one.”

  He shrugged and pulled his monkeyvomit tie

  out of his pocket.

  “Did you believe the bear part?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “Why can’t you just keep

  taking the tie off on your way to work?”

  “Because it’s wrong to keep lying. It’s

  deceitful and wrong, Jamie.”

  “You were just getting ready to tell a huge

  lie about bleeding to death,” I pointed out.

  He looked at me and knew I was right.

  “You’re grounded for that,” he said. “You’re

 
grounded for suggesting that terrible plan. Sometimes

  your mom pops in unexpectedly for lunch, and your

  plan would get me busted. So I’m grounding you for

  giving me that very terrible plan.”

  95

  “You’re not grounding me,” I said. “You’re

  just frustrated. We’ll figure this out, Dad.”

  He nodded. He knew he couldn’t ground me.

  And besides, if you can’t count on a middle school

  kid for a reliable lie, who can you count on?

  96

  Sunday 22

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Isabella called me and Angeline today about

  having an emergency meeting of the Student

  Awareness Committee at her house. She had never

  called for an emergency meeting before.

  Isabella rarely uses the word “emergency,”

  so there were just a few questions I wanted to ask

  first.

  1.) Is there an enormous fire that you need help

  putting out?

  2.) Is there any kind of “thing” that you need

  help burying?

  3.) Is there an enormous fire that you need help

  starting?

  After she answered “no” to these three

  things, and I confirmed that there was nothing that

  would involve running from police or guard dogs, my

  mom drove me over to her house.

  97

  I might have preferred the guard dogs.

  Angeline was already there when I arrived. So was

  Dicky Flartsnutt, who was holding a poster board

  and dancing up and down, due to either excitement

  or a trip to the bathroom that was super incredibly

  overdue.

  Isabella sat us down.

  “I asked Dicky to design a logo,” she began.

  “You know, for the Student Awareness Committee.

  I love it, of course, but I told him that we all had

  to agree.”

  I knew this wasn’t going to go well.

  “Dicky, could you please turn your drawing

  around? Let’s get their opinions.”

  With a squeal of delighted

  anticipation, Dicky showed us his drawing.

  “It’s a clown,” he said. “Isabella thought

  a clown would be a good idea, because they’re so

  colorful and everybody likes them.”

  I wheezed.

  Angeline squinted. “Hey, that looks a little

  like . . .”

  “It is!” Isabella said with a grin. “It’s our dear

  departed Hoggy the clown. Do you remember Hoggy,

  Jamie? He was a very popular local celebrity before

  he passed away. This will be a great tribute to

  him, don’t you think?”

  More wheezing.

  “What do you think of Dicky’s artwork?”

  Isabella asked Angeline. “He worked on it for hours,

  so be honest.”

  Isabella had thought this through. She knew

  that I couldn’t deal nicely with a clown, and that

  Angeline wouldn’t be able to hurt Dicky’s feelings.

  Somebody had to crack.

  99

  “I love the idea of a logo,” I said.

  “Yes,” Isabella said. “But THIS logo. What

  do you think of this CLOWN logo?”

  “You shouldn’t have made Dicky draw a

  clown,” Angeline said. “You should have let him

  choose whatever he wanted. The logo doesn’t even

  have to be a drawing.”

  Ah. Very smooth, Angeline. Nothing nice,

  but nothing directed at Dicky.

  “Angeline’s right,” I said. “Dicky’s creative,

  and he could easily come up with his own idea for

  the logo.” Nice, right? Nothing mean there.

  100

  “FINE,” Isabella said through her gnashing

  teeth. She turned to Dicky, her glasses gleaming.

  Mercifully, Dicky couldn’t see the fire that burned

  inside her eyes behind the glare on the lenses.

  “Dicky,” she said, continuing to talk through

  her teeth, “what would you like to use for a logo?”

  Dicky had no power to resist her.

  “A clown,” he said meekly.

  Isabella smiled.

  101

  “You two warts happy now?” she asked us.

  “Now what do you guys say to the clown?”

  “I’m not sure,” Angeline said.

  I echoed her. “I’m not sure, either.”

  Not negative, not positive, not nice, not

  mean. It was the perfect way to respond if you don’t

  care that it makes you sound very, very dumb.

  I don’t know why I never thought of it before. Since

  Angeline is a blond, it’s possible that she’s just

  more fluent in dumb.

  Isabella started to muscle the three of us to

  the door.

  “Fine. A clown it is. Time to go home,

  everybody. Meeting over.”

  102

  Outside on the porch, as we all waited in

  the rain for our rides, I considered asking Angeline

  rapid-fire questions about what she thought of

  Dicky’s rubber shoes, or his strange pants, or his

  shirt with a design that was clearly meant for a

  much younger wearer. But I had the feeling that she

  might be able to dodge every question.

  I noticed that Dicky was holding his drawing

  behind his back, so he didn’t realize that the paint

  was washing off the poster board and down Isabella’s

  steps. I thought about how proud he was of the logo,

  and how hard he had worked on it, and how now it

  would never get used.

  I nearly told him, but then I thought about

  how Isabella’s mom would probably make her

  clean it up, so I didn’t say anything.

  Good-bye, Hoggy.

  103

  Monday 23

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Today when I opened my locker, I found a

  little gift-wrapped box with a note on it that said:

  Let’s end this bet.

  Signed, Angeline

  It was in her pretty lacy handwriting, and it

  smelled of her delicious strawberry scent, which she

  secretes naturally the way normal people secrete

  sweat. I kind of knew she wouldn’t be able to take

  the pressure, so I wasn’t surprised at her little gift

  offering.

  I opened it happily, and 100 spiders

  crawled out.

  104

  You can’t climb the air. I’ve seen

  others try, I tried it today, and it can’t be done. As

  hard as you pretend that there’s an invisible ladder

  for you to go up, it won’t be there, and you’ll end up

  just standing in place, flapping and screaming.

  After I calmed down, I realized what

  Angeline’s little note meant. She was planning on

  ending the bet when I went nuts on her for leaving

  me the spiders.

  I picked up the empty box (spiders are,

  evidently, afraid of girl screams so they ran away),

  and marched down the hall with it toward Angeline’s

  locker.

  When I got there, she was smiling and holding

  a box almost identical to mine.

  105

  It had a little note on it that said:

  It looked like my handwriting, and it even had

  glitter all over it, which is my thing. Totally my th
ing.

  It was full of chocolates.

  “Did you put this here for me?” she asked.

  “Because I was thinking that if you had, I should

  come and say something nice.”

  “No. Did you leave a box of spiders in my

  locker?” I said. “Because if you had, I probably

  would have said something really mean.”

  “One of us would have lost,” Angeline said

  with a frown. “Isabella did this. What a dirty trick.

  I’m going to find her right now.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  106

  When we found Isabella, Angeline started to

  yell at her.

  “This is low, even for you, Isabella. Of all the

  rotten ways to make us lose this bet . . .” She turned

  to me, giving me the chance to take a crack at her.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but

  then I hesitated. Gift wrap and glitter costs money.

  Those chocolates were expensive, and not a single

  one was missing from the box.

  “Very clever, Angeline,” I said sweetly.

  “You almost had me. But Isabella would never spend

  the cash, and she would have never been able to part

  with the chocolate. You sent me the box, and you

  made one for yourself in order to frame Isabella.”

  “Well, aren’t you a smart little goatface,”

  Angeline said, dropping the box and walking away.

  “Did she really come up with that?” Isabella

  asked through a mouthful of floor chocolate.

  “That’s pretty diabolical.”

  Tuesday 24

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Mrs. Curie is still all about the diseases. We

  talked about antibiotics in science today, and I

  remembered seeing something on a yogurt

  container saying it was full of probiotics.

  “Mrs. Curie, are we antibiotic or probiotic?” I

  asked, feeling that maybe we were sending mixed