Dear Dumb Diary #9: That's What Friends Aren't For
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Isabella was not happy. “You’re just
going to walk out on me?” she said. “The show is
tomorrow.”
I did kind of walk out on her, and I wanted to
take it back, but it was for all the right reasons. The
Talent Show was really important to me, but I know
I couldn’t act all happy participating in a show that
the school had decided to do instead of the Art
Show. I guess I’m not that good at acting, after all.
I’m probably no longer qualified to pronounce
it as “duh - rama.”
112
Isabella stared at me in such an angry way
that it made me think about how happy I was that
there were witnesses around. Then she quietly said
that she understood, and drank my milk without
asking. I could tell that she was pretending that it
was all of my precious bodily fluids.
I watched her walk out of the lunchroom.
She stopped just long enough to talk to
Angeline. I
couldn’t tell what they were saying, but Angeline shot
a furious look my way, and I swear I saw her eyes
turn from baby -blue to baby -red.
As hard as it is to find BFFs, it seems pretty
easy to lose them.
113
After school, I just sat on my bed for a long
time and watched Stinkette chew up Stinker’s
beloved Grossnasty. I still don’t understand why he
doesn’t go all crazy werewolf on her for it. Maybe
he’s just too dumb to notice.
114
Friday 27
Dear Dumb Diary,
The Talent Show was tonight. I’ve been mad
all day about the Art Show, but my parents made
me go to the Talent Show — and I’m glad they did.
It was long, and pretty boring at times. There
was the usual assortment of acts: a baton twirler, a
violin player, and a kid who tried to juggle (but I’m
pretty sure he just started practicing this morning).
Isabella did her magic act — but not with
Angeline. She had Emmily assisting her. But here’s
the thing. You know how Isabella’s main interest
in magic is fooling people ? She had never in her
wildest dreams hoped to fi nd a magician’s assistant
who would be easier to fool than the
audience.
Emmily was shocked and amazed by
everything Isabella did. She gasped and clapped
at each little trick. And her astonishment was
contagious.
115
Isabella just went with it. Toward the end,
Isabella started laughing a little, and the audience
laughed and Emmily laughed and it was hard to tell
who was laughing at what. I’ve seen Isabella do
these magic tricks a million times, and I’ve never
enjoyed them more than when I watched Emmily —
sweet, stupid Emmily — get completely taken in by
Isabella’s wizardry. I could tell that Isabella had
never enjoyed them more, either.
A note to magicians everywhere: Get
Yourself an Emmily.
116
The next act was — believe it or not —
T.U.K.W.N.I.F. They rolled out a piano for him to
play, but he turned it so we couldn’t see him, just
the front of the piano, which I thought was a pretty
reasonable way to hide his face from the audience.
But I was wrong — he turned it like that because
there was something on the front of the piano.
My Art Show drawing. For a second, I didn’t
really recognize it. When you see something that’s
totally unexpected, your brain can’t understand
what you’re seeing: like if you found your shoes
in the refrigerator or saw your custodian walking
down the street in a dress. (To be fair, that might
not have been him.)
But, there it was, and for his entire song, it
glittered and shimmered and sparkled in the bright
spotlight even more beautifully and dazzlingly than
I knew it could. T.U.K. made the school look at my
drawing for a full four minutes, and he did a pretty
good job on the piano. Who knew he could play?
He stood up and took a bow, and for a
second, I think I very nearly remembered his name.
117
Next, Nadia, Anika, Margaret, and
Fléurrål came out and lip- synched a song. As
embarrassingly horrible and awful as they were,
they were at least twice as good as we would
have been.
At that moment, I realized how fortunate we
were that The Jamie Kelly Experience did
not perform.
Finally,
Angeline came out with a guitar.
OMG. She was going to do our lip-synching
act ALL BY HERSELF.
I felt a wave of sickness come over me.
Part of me knew it would be delicious to watch
Angeline fry in the spotlight’s scorching flames of
embarrassment. (You can’t even put aloe on those
kinds of burns.) But part of me weirdly wanted to
protect her from it, because this was pretty much
my fault.
I started to stand up. I don’t know what I was
planning to do. I suppose I was going to scream,
“Stop!” and pull her off the stage or maybe throw
a shoe at the lighting guy, but I didn’t have to do
either one.
Because Angeline didn’t start the lip-
synching act. She just stood there and talked.
118
“The funding for the Art Show was cut,” she
said, “and we need your help so it can go on next
month as planned. Please drop a dollar or whatever
you can in the donation buckets by the exit as you
leave tonight. Thank you.”
And maybe that would have raised a buck
or two, but she wasn’t done. Because then Angeline
turned on those switches inside that she had kept
turned off all month. It was like watching some
immense nuclear power plant activate and then
slowly begin generating electricity.
First, the smile; the spotlight hit Angeline’s
gleaming white teeth and a blinding ray of toothy
beauty blazed into the audience. Then she batted
her long eyelashes. They created a breeze that
we all felt flutter across our faces. And when she
was up to full output, she tossed her glimmering
hair back and forth in slow motion, causing every
hand in the auditorium to plunge helplessly into
pockets and purses and fork over what added up to
more than three hundred bucks — much more than
they needed to put on the Art Show.
Angeline did that for me. I didn’t ask
for it. I didn’t expect it. Angeline hadn’t lost
her gorgeousness — she could turn on the
charm anytime she wanted. She had been
intentionally not using it on Hudson. And now
I’m sure it was for Isabella’s sake.
119
120
Right after the show, I caught up to Angeline
and Isabella in the hall.
“You’re not mad?” I said.
“We were mad,” Isabella s
aid. “For a
minute.” And then shoved me hard into the wall to
show me that she wasn’t mad anymore. I shoved
her back to show how happy I was that I hadn’t lost
my BFF.
Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan walked over to
say hi.
“Nice job, everybody,” he said. “And good
news about the Art Show. Thanks to the donations,
that’s back on.”
And then he asked Angeline why she hadn’t
played her guitar.
“Changed my mind,” she said.
“You can
play
that?” I blurted out.
121
Uncle Dan laughed. “She’s been taking
lessons for years. She’s amazing. She would have
won the Talent Show hands down— no offense,
Isabella. But you guys have a band or something,
don’t you? You knew she could play.”
And then it happened. Before I could
stop myself, I actually GAVE ANGELINE A
HEARTFELT HUG and I even thanked her. It was
a really quiet whispered “thank you,” but I’m pretty
sure she heard it because she whispered back an
equally quiet “You’re welcome” that I very nearly
heard.
It was so weird. I never hug Isabella, and
we’ve been BFFs forever. But it didn’t seem right to
shove Angeline.
Angeline hugged me back. Really hard. Like a
crazy person.
Am I friends with Angeline? Can I be friends
with somebody that is so perfect all the time? Can I
overcome Angeline’s perfection handicap?
122
Saturday 28
Dear Dumb Diary,
This morning while I was watching TV
(and by the way, I’ve lost some respect for its
expertness), the doorbell rang. My mom answered
the door.
“Jamie — it’s for you. Somebody named Tuc
or Tuckster or something like that. The boy who
played the piano last night.”
I couldn’t believe it. He actually goes
by T.U.K.W.N.I.F.?!
123
When I went to the door, he had my drawing.
“I wanted to get this back to you right away. I
knew you’d want it,” he said.
“Thanks. And thanks for making it part of
your act. That was really great,” I said, and he
smiled. It was weird, because when he smiled, like,
at least a gallon of ugly poured off his face.
“It was Isabella’s idea. But I agreed with
her right away. She didn’t have to threaten me
like that.”
I knew just what he was talking about.
“Sometimes she does that without thinking. A
threat is just like ‘please’ to her,” I said.
T.U.K.W.N.I.F. nodded. “I’m glad the Art Show
is going on after all. You’re really going to want to
hang this one up.”
He was right. I did want to hang it up.
It’s probably the best drawing I’ve ever done.
124
But standing there looking at him, something
changed my mind. “I was thinking of putting that
other one up,” I said. “The portrait I did of you. If
that’s okay.”
Then T.U.K.W.N.I.F.’s face did all sorts of
things. It was confused, then happy, then confused
again, then really happy. He nodded and laughed,
and even more ugly poured off his face.
“But I want to make sure I spell your name
right,” I cleverly said. I still couldn’t remember it,
and this was an ingenious way to get it.
“T-U-,” he began, “C-K-E-R.”
“Tucker? Your name is Tucker?
Really?” I laughed. “That’s easy to remember.”
He looked a little confused, but I decided not
to explain.
I watched him walk down the sidewalk. A
few of his friends had been waiting for him. All of
a sudden, I almost couldn’t remember why I’ve
called him T.U.K.W.N.I.F. all these years.
125
Later today, Isabella popped in
unannounced, which is her favorite way to pop.
She said she wanted to come over today because
tomorrow she’d be studying with Angeline, and we
need at least one day each weekend to just hang.
She missed our fake homework Sundays, too. I
thanked her for threatening Tucker for me, and she
cutely blushed.
She said that she thinks, with Angeline’s
help, she won’t have to go to summer school and
watch me and Angeline having fun out the window
without her. That mattered to Isabella. Turns out,
Isabella is a little possessive, too.
But not about Hudson. Earlier this morning, I
had called Isabella and begged her to tell Angeline
that she was officially throwing him away. That way,
if Angeline wanted to work her voodoo on him, it
was okay with Isabella. Hudson was the first boy to
ever have a crush on Isabella, so it was very difficult
for her to just give him away like that. Isabella
doesn’t even like throwing old shoes away.
126
“You were right, Jamie. Angeline is protecting
me from summer school. And she got your Art Show
back for you, even though you bailed on us. I called
her and told her that I didn’t care about Hudson,
and it made her really happy.” It was such a kind
thing for Isabella to do that I couldn’t breathe for
a second because I thought that maybe she was
dying.
127
Isabella smiled. “And did you see how
Angeline worked the bucks from the crowd? It’s
like I’ve said all along, being friends with her is a
good idea. She’s going to be a very handy friend
to have.”
So now it comes out: Isabella thinks we own
Angeline, like our socks, or our infections.
And we’ve been thinking of Hudson the exact
same way.
Isabella must think of me that way, and
Angeline probably does, too.
Is this how friendships work? Maybe we really
are just like each other’s socks or infections.
128
Isabella and I made plans to meet tomorrow
at Angeline’s house after they do their math stuff.
We called Emmily to meet us, too, even though it
took us twenty minutes to give her directions.
Emmily lives four doors down from
Angeline.
This whole business with Angeline had me
questioning what friends really are.
The truth is (and I know you won’t believe
this, Dumb Diary), I may be an eensy, weensy,
beensy bit jealous of Angeline. In my defense,
she is so perfectly kind and pleasant and pretty
that it would be hard for a normal person not to
despise her.
129
I thought that since we were kind of related.
by the marriage of our aunt and uncle AND by
the puppies that our dogs had together, that we
were some sort of cousins or something and that
made us Automatic Friends. But just being relatives
really doesn’t make yo
u automatically
friends.
I mean, I think of Aunt Carol as a friend,
and I think of my parents as friends when they’re
not telling me what to do or making me eat Mom’s
cooking. Stinker thinks of his dogdaughter,
Stinkette, as a friend. But some relatives aren’t
really friends, like Isabella’s brothers, who are
archenemies she eats dinner with every night.
And now I think there is no such thing as an
Automatic Friend.
130
I used to think that friends were there
to give you things or to do things for you. They
will, of course, but actually, that’s what friends
aren’t for.
It’s just the opposite.
If you want to know who your friends are, look
at the people you do things for, or who you give
things to —whether it’s saving them from a shark, or
giving them a heartfelt crazy- person hug, or letting
them have Hudson Rivers. Or maybe you’re saving
an Art Show for them, doing a drawing of them, or
going along with their dumb band idea even though
you know your magic act would be way better. Or
maybe you’re letting them have your Grossnasty.
Especially letting them have your
Grossnasty.
There’s no way around this: Angeline is my
friend. And I just can’t stand it.
Thanks for listening, Dumb Diary,
131
P.S. I asked Isabella about the drawing
she did of Angeline, and why it had so much great
detail, and why the drawings she did of me were
always so simple.
“Because,” she said, “I always wanted to
finish mine as fast as possible so I could watch you
draw. Angeline watches you draw, too — she’s so
jealous. ”
Angeline, jealous of me? It was such a sweet
thing to say that I punched her in the arm for it,
hard. And Isabella warmly punched me back.
Money can’t buy happiness.
But it can buy an awesome
summer vacation.
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella asked her mom for money, but since Isabella’s