by Jeff Kinney
Up to this point we’d been really careful packing
so nothing got DAMAGED. But now there was no
TIME for that.
208
The movers REALLY didn’t care if our stuff got
broken. And that’s why it was probably a bad idea
to let them pack up our DISHES.
Mom asked the movers to just focus on the
FURNITURE instead, and they went down to
the basement to start there.
Then someone rang the doorbell. It was the guy
we’d hired to take the HOT TUB away, and his
crane was parked in our front yard.
With everything ELSE going on in the house,
this was pretty terrible TIMING.
209
The crane operator explained that he couldn’t get
his vehicle into our backyard without running over
our neighbour’s flower garden, so his plan was to
lift the hot tub OVER the house.
That sounded a little crazy to ME, but I figured
this guy probably knew what he was doing.
210
I showed the guy where the hot tub was, and he
put some straps around it. Then he attached the
straps to a giant HOOK and lifted the hot tub
off the deck.
But when he tried to reverse his vehicle, he
COULDN’T, because the movers had piled up a
bunch of FURNITURE in our yard. So now the
hot tub was dangling above our ROOF.
211
As if the whole situation wasn’t stressful enough
ALREADY, all of a sudden ROWLEY showed up
in my front yard.
212
But I didn’t have TIME to deal with Rowley,
because now I had a NEW problem.
That guy from Whirley Street had pulled up
in front of our house, and he was taking the
FURNITURE that the movers had left by
the kerb. And that’s when I remembered it
was SUNDAY, which is the day we leave our
TRASH out.
I tried to wave the guy off to make him go away.
But the crane operator thought I was giving him
a signal that it was OK to reverse his vehicle,
which is what he DID.
213
And that was the end of our living-room COUCH.
The CRANE stopped, but the hot tub DIDN’T.
It started swinging in crazy circles above the
house, and then it slammed into our CHIMNEY.
214
The bricks slid off the roof and just missed my
PARENTS, who had come outside to see what all
the COMMOTION was.
After that, I thought it was OVER, because I
couldn’t imagine anything ELSE happening. But
something DID.
Some wasps had built a nest in our CHIMNEY,
which explains how they’d been getting into the
house all this time. And now they were LOOSE,
looking for REVENGE.
We all ran for cover inside the house, but the crane
operator wasn’t quick enough to get away.
215
The wasps flew into the cabin of his vehicle,
which made him kick the lever that released the
HOT TUB, which fell through the ROOF.
And at that point, to tell the truth, I was
kind of RELIEVED. Because now I knew for
SURE that things really couldn’t get any
WORSE.
216
Thursday
There was one bright spot from what happened
over the weekend, and it’s that Rodrick made it
through the experience ALIVE.
The hot tub landed smack in the middle of his
BEDROOM, so we thought he’d got CRUSHED.
But, when the movers had hauled Rodrick’s bed
out of the basement, they loaded it on to one of
the lorries and took him WITH it.
Everything else is BAD news. The people who were
supposed to buy OUR house pulled out, and that
meant we couldn’t afford the NEW one. So I
guess that means we’re STUCK here for a while.
217
To be honest with you, I’m not totally sure I
was ready to move, anyway. Looking for a new
best friend would’ve been a huge hassle, and,
besides, there’s so much more I need to TEACH
Rowley before I go.
There’s probably a LESSON I could learn from
this whole experience, like “be happy with what
you’ve got” or “there’s no place like home” or that
sort of thing. But that’s the kind of corny stuff
they put in books for little kids.
So here’s the lesson I’M taking away from all
this: don’t be late for an old lady’s funeral.
Because, believe me, she’ll make you PAY.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my wife, Julie, for your love and support, especially during my
deadlines. Thanks to my family for cheering me on all these years.
Thanks to Charlie Kochman for caring about every period, comma,
and semicolon in these books. Thanks to everyone at Abrams, including
Michael Jacobs, Andrew Smith, Hallie Patterson, Melanie Chang, Kim
Lauber, Mary O’Mara, Alison Gervais, and Elisa Gonzalez. Thanks also
to Susan Van Metre and Steve Roman.
Thanks to my awesome, friendly Wimpy Kid team: Shaelyn Germain,
Anna Cesary, and Vanessa Jedrej. Thanks to Deb Sundin, Kym Havens,
and the incredible staff at An Unlikely Story.
Special thanks to Chad W. Beckerman for your outstanding design skills
and for your friendship over these many years. Thanks to Liz Fithian for
all the great memories on our travels.
Thanks to Rich Carr and Andrea Lucey for your outstanding support.
Thanks to Paul Sennott for all your help. Thanks to Sylvie Rabineau and
Keith Fleer for everything you do for me.
As always, thanks to Jess Brallier for your continued support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Kinney is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and a six-time
Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award winner for Favourite Book. Jeff has
been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the
World. He is also the creator of Poptropica, which was named one of
Time’s 50 Best Websites. He spent his childhood in the Washington,
D.C., area and moved to New England in 1995. Jeff lives with his wife
and two sons in Massachusetts, where they own a bookstore, An
Unlikely Story.
