by Jim Benton
Heavenly Sunshine” came out the exact color of raw
chicken. I could have hidden in the poultry case at
the supermarket and been perfectly camouflaged.
21
So now I had to go back to the store and get a
kit that would dye my hair back to its original color
before Isabella or my mom could get on my case for
not loving myself.
I pulled a clump of my old hair out of my
brush so I could match it at the store, which didn’t
really strike me as gross until I saw how the clerk
reacted when I handed it to her to help me find the
right color. Luckily, they had the correct shade, and
I brought it home and dyed my hair back.
By the way, you know how the name for
Angeline’s hair color is “Glorious Heavenly
Sunshine”? The people at the dye company named
the one that matches mine “Groundhog.”
22
Sunday 08
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella came over much too early today (I
was so glad that my hair was back the way that
nature had inflicted).
She came over so early, in fact, that she
actually saw my dad in his ugly plaid bathrobe that
she said looks like he stole it off a homeless
zombie, but I think looks way worse.
Anyway, Isabella just completed her Loser
Scale, which identifies how much of a Loser
somebody is, and therefore is a useful guide by
which Loser-ness can be measured.
Isabella says that this is how the metric
system started: that somebody just like her woke up
one day and decided that a liter was a liter and
pretty soon everybody agreed (even though nobody
knows how much a liter actually is).
23
Isabella will probably be a Professor of
Popularity Science one day.
Here is Isabella’s Metric System of Dorkology:
25
Sunday 08 (late - breaking news)
Dear Dumb Diary,
After Isabella finished making me study her
Dorkology System, I talked her into going up to the
store to try to choose a new lip balm flavor. (She SO
did not want to do it, but I made her. This sort of
Gentle Pressure is part of the grieving process when
somebody loses a loved one such as ChocoMint
flavoring.)
Even though Isabella made me stand there
forever while she rejected about forty perfectly
good lip treatments, I had to tell her that the jumbo
lip gloss she finally selected and liked was actually
a roll-on deodorant.
So the effort was a huge failure, but I’m
sorry: Friends tell friends they’re wearing
antiperspirants on their mouths.
Monday 09
Dear Dumb Diary,
School was okay today. Actually, it was
better than okay. Angeline got her long, beautiful
hair tangled in one of the jillion things she has
dangling from her backpack and the school nurse —
who is now one of my main heroes —took a pair of
scissors and snipped two feet of silky blond hair
from the left side of her head, so now Angeline only
looks like The Prettiest Girl in the World if you’re
standing on her right. (Although personally, I think
she would look better if I was standing on her neck.)
26
Also, I got an assignment in English class to
do a report on mythology. I asked my teacher Mr.
Evans what “mythology” meant exactly, and he said
it’s about things that don’t exist. I asked if that
would include the hair on the left side of Angeline’s
head, which got a pretty good laugh from everyone
except Mr. Evans and Angeline.
Mr. Evans said that I pretty much need an A
on my mythology report or my grades would be with
the mermaids. “You know,” he said, “Below C level.”
Pretty funny, huh? I hope beautiful silky,
blond hair grows on his big shiny bald head so that
the nurse can cut half of it off.
27
Tuesday 10
Dear Dumb Diary,
How weird am I?
I had to go down to the school nurse today
because I think Mom may have accidentally
poisoned me with some sort of mushy noodley stuff
we had with dinner last night that tasted almost
exactly like socks smell.
I was hoping the nurse could give me some
medicine or something, but she couldn’t. She just
had me lie quietly on a little cot for a while.
Evidently, this is how they taught her to unpoison
people.
28
It was pretty boring, of course, just lying
there trying my hardest not to be poisoned, and I
started looking around. And that’s when I saw it in
the wastebasket: A huge clump of long, beautiful
blond hair. Angeline’s hair.
And here’s the weird part: I took it. I don’t
know why I took it —it’s not like I know how to do
voodoo against her or anything.
Yet.
I just wanted it.
29
And in case you’re worried, Dumb Diary, it
turns out I wasn’t poisoned after all. The nurse said
I probably just had a little “dyspepsia,” which I
think is the medical way to say that I had a
humongous, gigantic amount of gas that could
choke a horse.
30
Wednesday 11
Dear Dumb Diary,
I tried to figure out something to do with
Angeline’s hair clump today. There’s not quite
enough to make a decent wig. I thought about
planting it like a bush to see if it would grow and
grow until I had actually grown another Angeline
head. But then I worried it might be more beautiful
than the real first head, so forget that.
I guess for now I’ll just keep it like a trophy,
kind of like you might keep a moose’s head on the
wall, except that in this case I only got a wad of the
moose’s hair.
On the subject of her head, Angeline was
wearing a little beret on it today to cover up her
butchered haircut. (Beret is French for stupid
hat). Anyway, nobody could believe how totally
goony it looked. I’m sure this will be the end for her
and Hudson.
31
Thursday 12
Dear Dumb Diary,
Like, half the people at school were wearing
berets today (including Hudson!!!). It’s like they
were all secret beret - owners, just waiting for a
signal from Angeline that it was okay to start
wearing their berets. I don’t understand it. What if
Angeline had accidentally worn her underpants on
her head? I think we all know exactlywhat would
have happened. Half the school would have been
walking around peeking out the leg holes of their
boxers.
32
33
There are only two things about this that
really bugme:
1) People only like Angeline because she is
totally beautiful and nic
e and smart.
2) I don’t have a beret.
It was Meat Loaf Day again today, like it is
every Thursday.The Cafeteria Monitor, Miss
Bruntford, made a big deal (again) about the
uneaten meat loaf, but the kids who were wearing
their dumb berets were all kind of unified, like the
French Resistance, and they just ignored her. This
made her even madder, and I noticed that she
waggled her neck blubber extra furiously at
Angeline, as if she knew that the berets were all
Angeline’s fault.
34
Food - Crime Update: Mom made
something for dinner that was so bad, I decided to
chance the lecture on Wheretheheckistan and sneak
it to Stinker, my beagle. Stinker tried a bite and
then, to get the taste out of his mouth, went and
ate half of the grit in the cat box.
Now I am a little bit afraid of Stinker, who I
think might blame me for how sick he got later,
although it was totally Mom’s fault and if he is
planning on biting somebody’s neck while they
sleep, it should not be mine. (Dumb Diary, I am
saying this out loud as I write so that Stinker can
hear me.)
35
Friday 13
Dear Dumb Diary,
It’s only about one week until my cousin gets
here and Mom and Dad are on FULL CHILD
SAFETY alert.
They’ve been putting special indestructible
childproof latches on the cabinets where we keep
cleaning products and bug killers because,
evidently, little children like to eat them.
Seems like a lot of work. If we don’t want kids
to eat those things, wouldn’t it be simpler to just
make them broccoli flavored?
36
Saturday 14
Dear Dumb Diary,
I figured that I had better do something to
prepare for the mythology thing in Mr. Evans’s class.
I went online and read about Medusa, who
had poisonous snakes growing out of her head, and
who would have been totally jealous of a girl with
real hair even if it was the color of a groundhog.
I have one piece of advice for people with
poisonous vipers for hair: Ponytails. Bangs.
Something.
I also read about Icarus who made wings out
of wax and then flew too close to the sun and they
melted. The moral is this: If Icarus had been meant
to fly, he would have been born a flight attendant
like my cousin Terrence.
Did you know, Dumb Diary, that mythology
can include things like trolls and giants and talking
fish since it wasn’t just the Greeks and Romans that
had mythology? Old Dead Guys everywhere had
mythology, which I think is very,very interesting to
somebody somewhere, maybe.
Saturday 14 (late - breaking news)
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella and I were out walking this
afternoon and we accidentally walked about a half
mile out of our way and accidentally found
ourselves way over by Derby Street, which was a
peculiar coincidence because that is sort of near
where Hudson Rivers lives exactly.
Isabella said that walking past his house like
this was a form of stalking, but I told her that it
wasn’t because stalkers are crazy, and we were sane
enough to wear disguises.
The disguises turned out to be a pretty good
idea because as we walked past, Hudson happened
to look out the window, which freaked out Isabella
who ran —but not before she pushed me down on
the lawn.
I caught up to her six blocks later. She
apologized, explaining that she only pushed me
down before running because of what was probably
just an instinct, like if a bear was chasing us.
Since it was only that, I forgave her.
39
Sunday 15
Dear Dumb Diary,
I finally found a beret at the mall. It cost me
thirty bucks, which wiped me out, and I don’t even
like it, but a fad is a fad, and frankly, I’m not sure if
I’m cool enough to ignore a fad. It’s a very difficult
thing to judge.
I heard about a girl who went to a different
school and tried to ignore some huge fad, like cargo
pants or something. The next thing you know her
family forced her to marry her own first cousin
once - removed and she went insane. Although, as I
write this, I’m not sure if that has anything to do
with cargo pants, and I don’t even think the
government lets people marry their first cousins
whether they are once - removed or not. It’s all
probably a lie except the cargo pants and insane
parts.
42
Anyway, I’m tired and it’s time for bed. I’m
going to try to force myself to dream that a huge
toad gobbles up Angeline and then the toad is
eaten by a giant hog and then the hog is made into
this awful toad-flavored ham that is served at
Angeline’s sixteenth birthday party and everybody
gets sick including Angeline who is somehow
magically alive again to eat her own ghastly toad-
hog-ham self.
I don’t always remember my dreams but I’ll
know if I dream this one because I’ll wake up
laughing so hard my stomach will hurt.
43
Monday 16
Dear Dumb Diary,
The beret fad is over. As I threw my thirty-
dollar beret in the trash, I wondered how could it
be over so fast. Do you wonder, too, Dumb Diary?
Well, stay tuned . . .
Today in science, Mr. Tweeds gave us an out-
loud pop quiz where he asked everybody one
question. This was the question he gave me:
“How could you determine which way north is
using only a needle?”
Here is what I answered: “Find a smart person
and threaten to stick it in him if he won’t tell you
which way north is.”
Which I guess I knew was wrong, but didn’t
realize it was wrong enough to get you sent to the
principal’s office.
44
And by the way, Diary, here’s an easy way to
remember if you spell it principle or principal.
(Maybe you’ve heard it before, Diary?) Just
remember that pal eontology is the study of fossils
that are about a jillion years old.
Oh. And by the way: I have solved The Mystery
of the Sudden Demise of the Beret Fad. On my way
to the principal’s office I saw that all of the
secretary women in the school office were wearing
berets.
Thanks a lot, ladies. Maybe next time I’ll take
achance on marrying cousin Terrence.
Now get this, Dumb Diary: While I was
in his office, the principal pulled out the folder
containing my permanent record to make a note of
this latest smartmouthery. (As you know, your
permanent record follows you through school and
is not destroyed until you are married or dead or
something.) But when he pulled out my folder, I
noticed, just a couple folders away from
mine . . .ANGELINE’S PERMANENT
RECORD.
Instantly, I knew I had a goal in life: To
possess and share the horrible contents of this
folder with the world, and to reveal to mankind the
boyfriend/ scent thief that Angeline really is.
Oops. I got so excited on that last part that I
dropped my diary on Stinker’s head,
who was asleep. And I think he
might be swearing in dog language
right now.
Tuesday 17
Dear Dumb Diary,
I tried to think about doing something on my
mythology report today, since it’s getting close to
the deadline, and it’s probably time to actually
make some progress regarding starting to worry
about it. I want to work on it, really and truly I do,
but I think I may have caught a little case of OCD
about Angeline’s permanent record.
47
OCD, in case you’ve never heard of it, Dumb
Diary, stands for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
and it’s this condition where you become obsessive
and compulsive about things. It makes you think
about something so much that you do things like
wash your hands a hundred times a day, or open
your locker over and over to make sure you haven’t
forgotten anything for your next class, or keep
saying over and over to yourself “I must have
Angeline’s permanent record.”
Anyway, since it’s psychological, and not
from germs, I’m pretty sure you can catch it from
watching a talk show about it, which is how I think I
may have caught it. Obviously,Mom will be calling
me in sick tomorrow morning.
