by Jim Benton
now.
Good luck with that, Grandma.
I got really excited when I told Dad about the
bracelet. Sudden bursts of excitement bother Stinker,
so he bit me a little, which made me try to get him to
eat the bracelet again, but he wouldn’t do it.
In the weeks that followed, the food company
started advertising our Salad Glamorizer, and
they told us it seemed to be selling well.
Uncle Dan said that he didn’t think it was a good
idea to make salads with soda pop, but he admitted
that
—
as a person who works with kids every day
—
sometimes you choose the
little wrong things
over the big wrong things. The kids were eating
more salads than ever before, and that was a pretty
big deal.
Stinker recovered completely and started
stealing food from his dogdaughter, Stinkette, again.
You never really know how much you love
something until you almost lose it.
You also never really know how much you wish it
had stayed lost until you get it back again, but for
now, I’m glad Stinker is still around.
My dad helped Angeline’s dad find a job.
Apparently, he called her dad right after he heard the
news, and started talking to people he knew, and just
kept at it until something came up. It’s not like they’re
close friends or anything, but he did it for Angeline
—
and me.
Now Angeline is her old self again, inflicting
delight on everyone she sees. We’ve all made some
progress in our bank accounts, and we owe it all to the
dumbest idea we ever had: Salad Glamorizer. Even
though we didn’t exactly have the idea
—
it just
showed up.
Mr. Henzy could not have been more proud of us.
We got so much extra credit that Isabella is actually up
to a low C now.
He asked us to stay after class one day just so
he could tell us so.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, repeating
what I wrote up there a second ago. “You young women
are the next generation of inventors and
businesspeople.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Can we go now?” Isabella asked.
He took a box from his desk and opened it. He
pulled out a neat little plastic tree and twirled it
around.
“You know what this is?” he asked.
“A back scratcher?” Isabella said. In a way, she
was right: She scratches her back with everything.
“It’s your Klever Kebab,” Mr. Henzy
explained. “I redesigned it a bit and found a partner to
make a prototype on a 3-D printer. We made it flat,
so they would be easier to produce and ship. That will
also cut down on the costs.”
“Great. Pay us,” Isabella said, showing how
well she had mastered the whole business-world thing.
“Of course!” Mr. Henzy said. “In fact, I’d like to
have these manufactured and pay you girls a royalty,
like the deal you got for your salad dressing. You’re
beginning quite an empire.”
“You’re going to quit teaching?” I asked him,
optimistic that he could finally escape school.
“If it became the biggest product in the world,
sure, I might quit. But things like this take a long time
to succeed. And remember what I told you: Most of
them fail. But won’t it be fun to try?”
He was right. Trying is the fun part. And why
not let him try? I’d like to help a teacher escape. If he
managed to get out, other teachers would probably
write a folk song about me.
But Angeline had an idea of her own.
Remember? Angeline Cares About People. She
really, sincerely wanted to help people with her
HEALTH- O-PLATES. She wanted to make money,
too, but helping people is REALLY important to her
—
and let’s face it, we’re not helping people much by
putting soda pop on their salads.
So we let Angeline have her way.
Isabella made Mr. Henzy pay us an advance. She
explained that he could get a business loan from a
bank, just like he had taught us.
It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough for
Angeline to start the best- financed club ever at
Mackerel Middle School. She bought a computer and a
printer, and talked Mr. Henzy into being the supervisor.
She called it the Kash Klub, spelled badly in
honor of the Klever Kebab, and she made it a place
where kids could get information about making their
ideas happen. REAL ideas, like dumb plates, and dumb
salad dressing, and dumb kebabs.
She was really getting to help people.
Isabella was not 100% in favor of all this,
obviously, since it did not meet her requirement of
benefiting her.
But Angeline explained that any one of these
kids could invent the next computer, or electric car, or
time- travel machine, and since we’d helped them,
they’d naturally want to pay us back one day.
“Blackmail,” Isabella said slowly. “I like
that. I’m in.”
It wasn’t anything like blackmail, of course,
but when Isabella is happy, sometimes it’s best to just
go with it.
So far, none of the other kids’ ideas look that
great, but neither did ours when we started. Ideas
often need a little time to cool off before you can tell
the good dumb ones from the bad dumb ones. After
all, dumbness is a dish best served cold.
So, what was THE BIG WEIRD THING I was
talking about, Dumb Diary?
Do you think it was the success we had? Or
realizing how much Angeline’s happiness meant to
me? Or Stinker coming back to life? Or Isabella
passing math?
Those were weird things, but not the weirdest.
The Big Weird Thing is us.
Because I’ve realized that it won’t be long before
we’re all going to college or starting jobs and becoming
the sort of creatures that buy houses and boring cars
and get all excited over new plates.
It’s going to happen to us. It’s going to happen
to all of us.
And if there’s anything ANYWHERE weirder
than that, Dumb Diary, I’d sure like to know what it is.
Thanks for listening,
P.S. The file.
Angeline’s permanent record.
Somehow or another, Isabella let it slip that we
knew about her toilet mints, and Angeline asked if
we also knew about the fight. We said that we had
glimpsed the file but didn’t know the details.
She told us that she went through a chubby
phase when she was younger, and one day, a young
Mike Pinsetti called her a mean name and she hit him
so hard she gave him a bloody nose. This explains why
Mike has always been a little bit afraid of Angeline.
She got in a lot of trouble for it, but instead
of
letting it destroy her, she started reading the
nutritional labels on packages and learning about
food. That’s why this cupcake knows so much
about those cupcakes.
Can you guess what Mike called her to start this
whole mess? A Big Weird Thing.
Whip Up Some Salad Glamorizer!
Just like Jamie, Angeline, and Isabella, you can
mix different ingredients to make your own salad
dressing.
Try some combinations of the ingredients on the
next page! (Make sure to avoid anything you’re allergic
to, and have an adult help, especially if you need to
use the stove or a knife.)
•
Garlic
•
Soda pop of your choice
•
Ginger
•
Vinegar
•
Olive oil
•
Salt & pepper
•
Soy sauce
•
Dill
•
Honey
•
Basil
•
Mustard
•
Parsley
•
Pesto
•
Sugar
•
Lemon juice
•
Parmesan cheese
•
Apple juice
•
Shallots
•
Cilantro
•
Mint
•
Maple syrup
Once you find a perfect fit, DON’T tell anyone
the recipe —just enjoy your glamorous salad!
Make Your Own Health-O- Plate!
Okay, so maybe it’s not a million-dollar idea, but
you can still make your own fabulous Health-O- Plate
to use at home.
You’ll need:
•
Paper plate
•
Non-toxic markers
1.)
Draw a line down the center of your plate.
2.)
Turn the plate 90 degrees and draw
another line, this time about 1/3 of the way
down from the top of the plate. Now you have
four sections on your plate!
3.)
In the two smaller sections, write “Fruit”
and “Protein.” In the two larger sections, write
“Vegetables” and “Grains.”
4.)
Decorate the outer edge of your plate
however you like!
Now be like Dicky Flartsnutt and eat
everything on your plate!
Don’t miss where it all started
—
Jamie Kelly’s very first diary!
Be sure to look for
Turn the page for a peek
.
.
.
but whatever you do,
DON’T tell Jamie!
Wednesday 04
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today Hudson Rivers (eighth cutest guy in my
grade) talked to me in the hall. Normally, this
would have no effect on me at all, since there is still
a
chance that Cute Guys One Through Seven might
actually talk to me one day. But when Hudson said,
“Hey,” today, I could tell that he was totally in love
with me, and I felt that I had an obligation to be
irresistible for his benefit.
So just as I’m about to say something cool
back to Hudson (Maybe even something
REALLY
cool. We’ll never know for sure now.), Angeline
comes around the corner with her jillion cute things
dangling from her backpack, and intentionally
looks cute
RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS EYES.
This scorpion- like behavior on her part made me
forget what I was going to say, so the only thing
that came out of my mouth was a gush of air
without any words in it. Not like this mattered,
because he was staring at Angeline the same way
Stinker was staring at the ball a couple days ago.
It was pretty obvious that all of his love for
me was squirting out his ears all over the floor
.
Ask
Isabella if you don’t believe me. She was standing
right there.
As if that wasn’t vicious enough, get this:
He says to Angeline: “Wow, is that your Lip
Smacker I smell? ChocoMint? It’s great.”
Angeline stops for just a second and
LOOKS
RIGHT AT ISABELLA AND ME.
Then she says
to Hudson, “Yeah, it is.” And her radiant smile
freezes him in his tracks.
Frankly, I think that it is just rude and
obscene to have teeth white enough to hurt and
maybe
PERMANENTLY DAMAGE
the eyes of
onlookers.
Dear Dumb Diary,
Can’t get enough Jamie Kelly?
Check out all of her
Dear Dumb Diary books!
#1: Let’s Pretend This Never
Happened
#2: My Pants Are Haunted!
#5: Can Adults Become
Human?
#6: The Problem With Here Is
That It’s Where I’m From
#3: Am I the Princess
or the Frog?
#4: Never Do Anything,
Ever
#9: That’s What Friends
Aren’t For
#10: The Worst Things in Life
Are Also Free
#7: Never Underestimate
Your Dumbness
#8: It’s Not My Fault I Know
Everything
YEAR TWO
#1: School. Hasn’t
This Gone On Long Enough?
YEAR TWO #2: The Super-Nice
Are Super-Annoying
#11: Okay, So Maybe I Do
Have Superpowers
#12: Me! (Just Like You,
Only Better)
www.scholastic.com/deardumbdiary
YEAR TWO #5: You Can
Bet On That
YEAR TWO #6: Live Each Day
to the Dumbest
YEAR TWO #3: Nobody’s Perfect.
I’m As Close As It Gets.
YEAR TWO #4: What I Don’t
Know Might Hurt Me
scholastic.com/deardumbdiary
This is where all the dumbness begins!
Jamie juggles hair crises, friendship
auditions, and a super-secret crush on
the eighth-cutest boy in school.
Another dumb year of school,
another dumb year of teachers
who fail to recognize Jamie’s
somewhat hidden genius.
PEEK INSIDE
THE DIARIES OF
JAMIE
KELLY!
(Everything she writes is true
or at least as true as it needs to be.)
About Jim Benton
Jim Benton is not a middle-school girl, but do not
hold that against him. He has managed to make a
living out of being funny, anyway.
He is the creator of many licensed properties,
some for big kids, some for little kids, and some
for grown-ups who, frankly, are probably behaving
like little kids.
You may already know his properties: It’s Happy
Bunny™ or Catwad™, and of course you already know
about Dea
r Dumb Diary.
He’s created a kids’ TV series, designed clothing,
and written books.
Jim Benton lives in Michigan with his spectacular
wife and kids. They do not have a dog, and they
especially do not have a vengeful beagle.
Jamie Kelly has no idea that Jim Benton, or
you, or anybody is reading her diaries. So, please,
please, please don’t tell her.
Jim Benton’s Tales from Mackerel Middle School
Dumbness is the
spice of life.
Dear Dumb Diary,
I admit, I had gotten into the habit of
bringing cans of soda pop in for lunch.
(I recently learned that they call it POP
some places, and SODA other places. I like
using the full name because it shows how
much I love it.)
I knew that soda pop wasn’t the best
thing for me. But after a lifetime of dealing
with my mom’s horrible cooking, I’ve
become an expert on what flavors cancel
out other horrible flavors. Root beer can
cure a lot of them, including Cafeteria
Chicken Taco, which is what they were
serving that day at lunch.
www.scholastic.com/deardumbdiary
Cover art by Jamie Kelly with the help of Jim Benton
Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll
Printed in the U.S.A.
SCHOLASTIC PRESS
An Imprint of
