by Jeff Kinney
out with the girls at recess. And the girl I liked
MOST back then was Becky Anton.
So sometimes I’d cheat a little when I was filling
out my M.A.S.H. categories to guarantee I got a
good result.
These days, Becky hardly knows who I AM,
even though we’re lab partners in Biology. I keep
thinking I should bring up the fact that we’re
supposed to get MARRIED one day, but the
timing never seems right.
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That’s ANOTHER good reason to move. I could
SERIOUSLY improve my dating situation.
Because if there’s one thing girls love, it’s the
NEW guy.
Kelson Garrity was the new guy at the beginning
of this school year. And when he showed up, the
girls went CRAZY for him.
Well, it took a few weeks before everyone realized
that Kelson was kind of WEIRD, and now the
girls won’t go NEAR him. But he had a good run
for a while there.
165
So there are probably a LOT of good reasons to
move. In fact, the only DOWNSIDE is that I’d
need to find a new BEST FRIEND.
And I don’t know if that would be WORTH it.
I’ve invested a lot of time and energy into Rowley,
and I can’t really see myself starting over with
someone NEW.
166
But, if we DO end up moving, I’ve got a whole list
of REQUIREMENTS for a future best friend.
Number ONE, they’ve got to like WATCHing
somebody playing video games more than they like
playing games themselves.
Number TWO, it would be nice if they could
actually DRAW. Because I’m really into creating
comics and stuff.
167
And, number THREE, they’ve gotta have junk
cereal in their house. I really don’t know if I can
be friends with another kid whose parents are
health nuts.
But, most important, they’ve gotta have a good
sense of HUMOuR. Because, if there’s one thing
you should know about me, it’s that I’m kind of a
practical joker.
Saturday
So it turns out Mom is actually SERIOUS about
this moving thing. She’s been spending time each
night looking at different houses online, and I’VE
kind of got into it, TOO.
Every place we’ve looked at so far has some kind
of ISSUE, though. There was one house with
a big backyard, but it was right near a sewage
treatment plant. And there was another one
that was brand new, but the house only had one
bathroom. Me and Mom were ready to give up
looking, but then we found a place that looked
PERFECT.
169
The house is just a few years old, and it looks
like it’s in a nice neighbourhood. But what got
MOM most excited was the big KITCHEN.
Mom looked up the local school, and the test scores
were pretty good. Then she called the estate agent
to find out when we could go and SEE the place.
The estate agent said there was an open house
this weekend, and we should drop by if we could.
So this morning Mom told everyone to get in the
car to check the place out.
Nobody else was HAPPY about that, because, like
I said before, the rest of my family doesn’t want
to MOVE.
170
But, when we pulled into the neighbourhood,
everyone started to change their tune.
The estate agent let our family in and showed
us around the house, which was WAY nicer than
ours. And the kitchen was even bigger than it
looked in the PICTURES.
171
But what really got my attention was the
SWIMMING POOL in the backyard.
Rodrick and Manny must’ve spotted it before I
did, because both of them were already out there
by the time I got down the back stairs.
172
We’ve been trying to get Mom and Dad to put a
pool in our backyard FOREVER. They always tell
us that the hot tub is just as GOOD as a pool,
but, believe me, it’s not the same.
And this was an IN-GROUND pool. We actually
had an above-ground pool when I was younger,
but it didn’t even last a WEEK.
173
The estate agent showed us a few more features
of the house, but she didn’t NEED to because we
were already SOLD.
On our way home, everyone was super excited.
Rodrick said that he’s gonna use the pool to do
summer CONCERTS, and it’ll be a totally crazy
scene every Friday night.
I decided that I’m gonna CHARGE people
to come and use our pool, but that I’ll make
exceptions for CERTAIN people.
But Manny was the most excited of ALL. He’s got
big plans for the pool, too, and all I can say is,
it’s gonna take a lot of chocolate PUDDING.
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Monday
We had another family meeting last night, and
this was a BIG one. Everyone’s on board with
moving to the new house, so that’s great.
Mom told us not to TELL anyone yet, because
we still have to sell OUR house so we can afford
to buy the NEW one. It was a little hard
for me to keep that information to MYSELF,
though, and I figured there wouldn’t be any
harm in telling just ONE person.
But maybe I should’ve told someone besides
ROWLEY, because he didn’t take the news
too well.
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I guess I could’ve eased Rowley into it instead of
hitting him with the information all at once.
I tried to make him feel better by saying we’d
stay FRIENDS and that he could come and use
my pool on days when it wasn’t too CROWDED.
But that didn’t seem to cheer him up at ALL.
Hopefully Rowley will come round, though, because
I’m not sure I can deal with this kind of drama
every day.
After dinner tonight, Mom asked her friend who’s
an estate agent to come over and help us sell
OUR house. So we went from room to room, and
Mrs Laghari told us what we were gonna have to
CHANGE before we could put it on the market.
She said we were gonna need to replace our
carpets, give everything a fresh coat of paint and
put new tiles in the kitchen and bathrooms. And
that was just for STARTERS.
Mrs Laghari said that we’d have to take down
our family photos, because buyers like to imagine
THEMSELVES living in the house. Well, that was
fine with ME, because there are SOME pictures
that should’ve come down a long TIME ago.
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Then Mrs Laghari told us that when we have an
open house we should lock the basement door so no
one sees what’s down there.
The last thing Mrs Laghari told us is that most
of our furniture was “outdated” and we should
probably just cover it up with sheets for the open
house. I thi
nk that hurt Mom’s feelings, and she
said people would LOVE her taste in furniture.
179
But Mrs Laghari said that if we didn’t do all the
things she recommended she’d have a hard time
selling our house. So Mom said in THAT case we’d
sell the house OURSELVES, and she showed Mrs
Laghari to the door.
I guess this means Mom and Mrs Laghari aren’t
FRIENDS any more. But that’s OK, because
we’re moving soon ANYWAY.
Sunday
Mom wants to prove our house is great the
way it IS, so we’re trying to sell it without
making any big changes. The open house was
this afternoon, but we spent the whole WEEK
getting ready for it.
180
It was MY job to write the description to post
online. And I got a little creative to try and
make it stand out.
We took photos of every room and posted those,
too. The house was a MESS when we took the
pictures, though, so we had to move some stuff
around to make it LOOK clean.
181
The open house started at noon, and we really
had to scramble to get everything nice and neat.
We did the best we could and got out of there
just before people started to arrive.
But it was kind of hard sitting there doing
NOTHING while total strangers went into
our house.
Mom said none of the people at our open house
actually knew we were the OWNERS, so WE
could pretend to be checking the place out, TOO.
And that way we could listen in on what everyone
was saying.
182
Well, I thought that sounded kind of FUN, so
I went inside with Mom. But everyone ELSE in
the family thought it was a dumb idea and stayed
back in the car.
It turns out the spying idea was a MISTAKE,
though. Most of the people didn’t have anything
NICE to say about our house, and it was kind of
tough hearing all the criticism.
But I think Mom was taking it a little harder than
I was. Because, whenever someone had something
NEGATIVE to say, she’d speak up.
183
Mom got so upset that she went back out to the
CAR. But I stayed in the HOUSE, because I
wasn’t comfortable with all these random strangers
poking around our things.
184
But not everyone was exploring the house. There
were a bunch of men in the family room watching a
football game, and, from the look of things, they
had helped themselves to our SNACKS.
These guys were letting their kids run wild in our
house while they sat back and watched TV. So
they were basically using the open house for free
BABYSITTING.
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Since these dads weren’t watching their KIDS, it
was up to ME to make sure they didn’t BREAK
anything.
But I couldn’t be everywhere at ONCE, and I
was upstairs chasing kids out of our bathroom when
there was a loud noise DOWNSTAIRS.
It sounded like a kid had tipped over the FRIDGE
or something, so I ran down to make sure nobody
was HURT. But it wasn’t a KID who’d made the
noise, it was one of the DADS.
One of the guys had gone into the laundry room
looking for more SNACKS, but that’s where we were
keeping all the stuff we couldn’t hide anywhere ELSE.
I guess the noise freaked out the other dads, because
