by Jeff Kinney
we stepped out the sliding glass door.
Each of us had to walk into the woods and write
our name on the tree fort we built last summer.
And whoever chickened out was wrong about
volleyball and had to call the other guy “sir” for
the rest of his life.
53
Rowley seemed to think that was a fair deal.
I told Rowley I’d go first, and I walked into
the woods. But as soon as I knew he couldn’t see
me, I ran around to the front of my house.
zip
There’s no way I was gonna go into those
woods by myself at night. I had written my name
on the tree fort when me and Rowley built it over
the summer, and that’s the reason I came up
with the dare.
54
Greg
I walked in the front door, made a bowl of ice
cream, and relaxed for a while. And I have to
say, some time to myself was just what I needed.
aahh!
55
Once I finished my ice cream, I walked around
the side of the house, rubbed some dirt on my face
and clothes, then came running out of the woods.
there was a big dog or
a bear or something
back there, but
luckily i outran it!
I probably shouldn’t have added that last part,
because Rowley totally gave up on the dare after that.
can we please go
inside now, “sir”?
56
Anyway, that break was just what the doctor
ordered, and the rest of the night was
argument-free.
shudder
shudder
This morning my family headed to church, and
Rowley came with us. I don’t think Rowley’s
family really goes to church that much, so he’s
not used to all the rules about what you’re
supposed to do and when. So I always have to
tell him when you need to kneel and stand and
all that.
Toward the end we all did the “Peace be with you”
part, where you’re supposed to shake everyone’s
hand. I said “Peace be with you” to Rowley, but
he started giggling.
57
I think he must’ve thought I said “Peas be with
you,” like the vegetable.
peace
be with
you.
no, peas
be with
you! hee
hee hee!
shake
shake
I don’t think Rowley totally understood that
you’re just supposed to shake hands with people,
either, because when the woman in the pew behind
us said “Peace be with you,” Rowley gave her a big
wet kiss on the cheek.
smooch
After church we dropped Rowley off at his house,
and I was glad he was gone and that I could go
back to playing my game.
58
And something tells me Mom felt the same way.
peas be
with you.
hee hee hee!
DECEMBER
Tuesday
Today I was playing Net Kritterz in my room,
and Mom walked in. She watched for a while, then
asked what I was doing in the game. I explained
that I was watching my Chihuahua watch TV,
because if your virtual pet watches at least two
hours of commercials a day, it makes him happy and
you get twenty bonus tokens.
59
Then I asked Mom if she wouldn’t mind spotting
me ten bucks because the Net Kritterz store
just started carrying trampoline shoes and I was
pretty sure Gregory’s Little Friend would really
like to have them.
But I guess I picked the wrong time to ask Mom
for a loan, because it seemed like she was in a bad
mood. She said I didn’t have any appreciation for
the “value of money” and that if I wanted to pay
for my Net Kritterz “habit,” it was gonna have
to come out of my own pocket.
I told Mom I didn’t have any money of my own
and that’s why I kept hitting up her and Dad.
But she said there were plenty of things I
could do to earn some. She said it’s supposed to
snow tonight and I could go out and shovel our
neighbors’ driveways tomorrow.
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I really don’t feel comfortable knocking on
doors and asking our neighbors for money. My
school has three fundraisers a year, and I have
to go from house to house begging people I
hardly know to buy something from me.
And half the time I don’t even really know what
it is I’m selling.
hello, mr. kappler.
would you like to
purchase some hardy
geranium bules?
I wish the school would give us something useful
to sell, like candy bars or cookies. The Girl Scouts
are lucky, because at least they get to sell stuff
people actually want.
61
The way the system works with these fundraisers
is that us students do all the work and the
school gives us these junky prizes as rewards.
One time I sold twenty dollars’ worth of gourmet
coffee beans, and all I got was a cheap yo-yo
that broke before I even got off school property.
what
the—?
snap
boink
But Rowley really got stiffed. He sold $150
worth of beans and got a Chinese finger trap as
his prize. It actually worked like it was supposed
to, but Rowley couldn’t get his fingers out, and
his mom had to cut it off when he got home.
snip
62
Last year the school tried something different.
They had us sell raffle tickets, and whoever won
the raffle would get a spring yard cleanup from
the seventh-grade class.
Mrs. Spangler, who lives down the street from
me, won the raffle, and on the first day of
spring the whole seventh grade showed up at her
house. But there were only two rakes for all those
kids, so most of the class just ended up sitting
around with nothing to do.
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And by the time the “spring cleanup” was done, Mrs.
Spangler’s yard was worse off than when it started.
The new thing the school is doing is these
Walkathons. The idea is that we’ll walk around
the track at school a certain number of times, like
one hundred or two hundred laps, and get our
neighbors to sponsor us for each lap we complete.
walkathon
Sponsor Sheet
$0.25/lap
Name
# of laps
Deorgette Kramer
Tony Sinclair
Henry Nielson
Leslie Simpson
Barbara Preston
Lavar Collison
64
I can understand asking someone to pay for seeds
or coffee beans or whatever, but I don’t know
what kind of person gets pleasure out of having
some kid walk around a football field a coupl
e
hundred times.
The reason the school put on the Walkathon in
September was so they could pay for a billboard
near the town park.
keep the town
park clean
65
I couldn’t figure out why the school didn’t
just skip the Walkathon and have the kids
clean up the town park instead. But I guess if
the seventh grade was involved, they might’ve
completely trashed it.
I’ve done the math, and I’ve figured out
that each grown-up on my street gives me an
average of twenty-three dollars a year for school
fundraisers.
So I should just invite all the neighbors to my
house once a year and tell them to bring me the
twenty-three bucks in cash, because it sure would
save everyone a lot of pain and anguish.
66
Wednesday
It snowed last night just like Mom said it would,
and while all the other kids in the neighborhood
were enjoying their day off from school, I was
pounding the pavement looking for work.
I thought about whose door I should knock
on first, but it wasn’t easy. Mrs. Durocher lives
right across the street, but she’s a little too
affectionate, and I usually do my best to avoid her.
how about
a hug,
gregory?
did somebody
just drop
this pebble?
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Then there’s Mr. Alexander, who moved into the
Snellas’ house. He must not have worn braces as
a kid, because his teeth aren’t very straight.
Unfortunately, the first time Dad met Mr. Alexander
was on Halloween, and Dad must’ve thought his
teeth weren’t real.
ha ha! those
teeth are
hilarious!
So I decided to skip Mr. Alexander’s house, too.
There are people who live on my street that I
haven’t spoken to in years. When I was about
four, Mom and Dad had a cocktail party for some
of the couples in the neighborhood, and I went
downstairs during the party to use the bathroom.
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But I guess back then I didn’t know you were
supposed to keep the door locked, so Mr. Harkin
walked right in on me.
When I was done I found Mom and told on
Mr. Harkin, and I’m sure he felt like a jerk.
So I’m not about to knock on the door of some
guy I ratted out when I was in preschool and ask
him for money, either.
oops! sorry
’bout that,
buddy!
69
Today I realized there’s just too much history
between me and the people in my neighborhood, so
I decided to go one street over to Prentice Lane
and start fresh.
I walked up to the house on the corner and
knocked on the door. But I recognized the lady
who answered. She was Mrs. Melcher, one of
Gramma’s friends from Bingo.
I told Mrs. Melcher I was trying to earn a
little money shoveling people’s driveways and that
I’d be happy to do hers for five bucks.
70
But she told me she never gets visitors and
invited me inside to chat.
I didn’t want to be rude, so the next thing I
knew I was sitting in Mrs. Melcher’s living room
surrounded by the lawn ornaments she took inside
for the winter. I felt a little uncomfortable, but
I figured if I was gonna ask someone for money
the least I could do was try and be polite.
But all I could think about the whole time I
sat there was how much money I could’ve been
making if I’d just knocked on someone else’s
door instead.
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I must’ve been in there for an hour before I
was finally able to steer the conversation back
to the subject of me shoveling her driveway.
But Mrs. Melcher said her son was coming by in
his pickup truck any minute and he plows her
driveway for free. So that’s an hour of my life
I’ll never get back.
rumble
scrape
I headed back out onto Prentice Lane and
started knocking on doors. I guess most people
were at work, so it took me a while to find
someone who was actually home. I finally got lucky
when a guy who looked like he just woke up came
to the door. I told him I’d shovel his driveway
for five bucks, and he said it was a deal.
72
I got to work and was making pretty good
progress. But it started snowing again while I
was shoveling.
By the time I finished, it had snowed so much
that you could barely tell I did any work.
73
So I rang the doorbell and asked the guy if
he wanted me to shovel his driveway again for
another five bucks. But he wouldn’t go for it.
And to make things worse, the guy said he
wasn’t gonna pay me the first five bucks until his
driveway was clear like I promised. See, this is
why it’s a good idea to have a contract before you
start working for someone.
I got back out there and started shoveling, but so
much snow was falling that I was getting nowhere.
(pant,
pant)
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Then I had an idea. Gramma’s house was only a
few streets away, and I remembered that she
keeps her lawn mower in the garage. So I walked
over to her place and pushed the mower back to
the driveway I was working on.
I thought the snow-mowing idea was genius,
and I couldn’t believe no one had ever thought
of it before.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go as smoothly as I
hoped it would. I thought the snow would shoot
out of the side, but the blade cut right through
it and the snow stayed where it was.
rrrrrrrrrr
Eventually the mower started making funny
sounds, and then all of a sudden it stopped.
75
So I guess those things aren’t really built for
cold weather.
rattle
shudder
I pushed the mower to Gramma’s and put it back
in her garage. Hopefully it will thaw out before
the summer rolls around.
I still had this guy’s driveway to deal with, but
now the snow was REALLY coming down, and
there was no way I was gonna spend the rest of
my day working for five bucks. I needed a quick
solution so I could move on.
I could see that his garden hose was attached to
the house, so I turned it on, put the nozzle to
the “shower” setting, and sprayed down the snow
in the driveway.
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It was GREAT. The water melted the snow
on contact, and I was cruising. Then I saw a
sprinkler leaning up against the house, and I got
an even BETTER idea.
Once I was finished, I turned off the sprinkler
and knocked on the guy’s door. He
paid me my five
bucks when he saw that his driveway was cleared.
77
I was pretty excited about the way things
worked out, and I figured if I found some more
people with sprinklers, I could have multiple jobs
going at once.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone else who
was home. But my idea probably wouldn’t have
worked out anyway. Because by the time I
walked back down Prentice Lane, the driveway I
hit with the sprinkler was frozen over.
waaaugh!
slide
When Dad got home, we had to go out and buy five
big bags of rock salt to melt the guy’s driveway.
78
So now instead of having money in my pocket for
all my hard work, I’m twenty bucks in the hole.
shake
shake
crackle
pop
Thursday
Dad wasn’t too happy that I turned somebody’s
driveway into an ice-skating rink yesterday, and
he said he was disappointed in me for using “poor
judgment.” That’s the exact same phrase he used a
few weeks ago when I scratched up his car.
It all started when I won Student of the Week
at school. When you win Student of the Week,
they give you a bumper sticker that you can put
on your family’s car.
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The bumper sticker is pretty corny, but it was
still cool to win it.
My child is the
STUDENT OF THE WEEK
and I’m MIGHTY PROUD!
I’m not sure why I won, but I think they
just give it to everyone eventually. Fregley won
Student of the Week this past Friday, and I’m
guessing it was for not biting anyone for five
days straight.
Mom wanted to put my sticker on her car, but
her bumper is so overcrowded that I knew it
would just get lost on there. So I asked Dad if
I could put it on his car.
80
Dad recently bought a new car, and I thought
my Student of the Week sticker would look really
