by Jim Benton
never heard anybody else describe Isabella in that
exact way. I wonder how Mom would describe
other people?
Isabella photographed my old doll clothes
and the fairy-tale book to sell. My mom wouldn’t let
me sell the souvenir thing my grandma got me, and
Stinker ate the prehistoric sandwich.
My mom set up the account, and then
Isabella started telling her exactly what to do to
post the information, upload the pictures, all that
stuff.
Pretty soon Isabella was working the
keyboard and my mom was just watching her.
Isabella was very fast at picking up exactly how to
manage the account, even though she had never
done it before. What can I say? My BFF’s a genius.
We called Angeline and asked if she had
anything to sell, and she said yes. Plus, Isabella still
needed to photograph her for the flyers she wants
to make. So after lunch, my mom drove us over to
Angeline’s house. I remember it all very clearly,
because people say you always remember your first
genuine heart failure.
84
85
Friday, when I saw Angeline last, she was as
I’ve always known her: A disturbingly pretty girl with
annoyingly beautiful long blond hair, and some
other qualities I can’t really recall.
Today when we went over, she was different.
Way different. Totally totally totally
totally totally totally totally totally
totally totally different.
It was as though Angeline was no longer
Angeline. She looked more like the framework on
which they were constructing an Angeline, but
hadn’t quite finished. And that’s because . . .
86
Angeline cut off her hair. All of it.
Well, not all of it. She still has eyebrows and
eyelashes and a little bit of hair on her head, and if
people like Angeline had nose hairs or arm hairs
she’d still have those, but the long cascading
waterfall of golden shimmering silk is GONE.
Isabella and I just stood there for a second
not knowing what to say, until Isabella quietly said
a swear and then another one. Generally, I’m not
for swears because they usually indicate an
underdeveloped vocabulary, but if Isabella hadn’t
done it, I might have, although I would have
selected one less nasty.
87
I remember one time I saw this machine on TV
that they roll across fields to harvest stalks of corn.
I always thought it would be nice if they would roll it
over Angeline and harvest her hair.
Without her hair, I knew that Angeline
wouldn’t be that pretty anymore. I had tested the
theory on Barbies, and it was always the same
result: Without her hair, Barbie resembled a toe with
a face. I knew that Angeline would also look like a
toe, and the world would be happier.
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Except I was wrong. With less hair, our
eyes were drawn to the rest of Angeline’s face —
which, it turned out, was far prettier than we’d
ever noticed before. This seemed to make Isabella
angrier than I could have expected, and she started
to yell at Angeline.
“Why did you get your hair cut off???” she
demanded.
“Just because,” Angeline said.
“You didn’t ask us what we thought,” Isabella
shot back.
Angeline’s jaw pushed forward and her
eyebrows flattened. “It’s my hair, Isabella. I can
do anything I want with it.”
“No. No. That’s where you’re mistaken,
Rapunzel,” Isabella said angrily. “When there are
other people involved, you can’t just go and do
something like that.”
I had no idea this whole thing would make
Isabella so upset. I mean, c’mon Isabella, it’s just
hair. Shimmering, sparkling, radiant, heavenly,
magnificent hair. No big deal.
“Besides, Isabella,” Angeline said, “you wear
your
hair kind of short. Why is it only a good idea
for you?”
89
And that was how it ended. Isabella stormed
off to Emmily’s house, ands Angeline was in no mood
to talk or raise money. So I went home and walked
Stinker and Stinkette, just to see if we might enjoy
starting. a dog-walking ser vice to raise money that
we’d call the Dog-o-tastical-abulous
Walking and Grooming Emporium.
It seemed like a good idea until they both
went to the bathroom for the third time. Then I
realized that walking more dogs would mean picking
up more yuckies.
I think I’m closing this business before I open
it, like I have with several others.
90
Monday 16
Dear Dumb Diary,
Emmily called this morning to pass along a
memo from her boss, Isabella, that we should get
together later to discuss the personal style our
company is projecting.
I made Emmily put Isabella on the phone and
reminded her that Emmily was not just her personal
employee, but that I owned her, too.
I could hear Isabella immediately turn to
Emmily and say, “Jamie owns you, too.”
“Okay,” Emmily said.
I know that technically I can’t really
exactly own a person, and that technically,
Emmily is a person. But explaining things like this
to Emmily makes her eyes involuntarily cross and
stay crossed for hours, so we’re just better off using
the term “own.”
91
Isabella got back on the phone and said that
she had been thinking about Angeline’s haircut. She
decided that it gave our operation a more
professional look. It said to the world:
Look, if you
need a job done, we can do it, and we won’t waste
valuable seconds putting our hair back in a ponytail
before we do.
And then she set down the phone and cut off
Emmily’s hair.
I heard it all. I heard her tell Emmily to sit
down, I heard the scissors snipping, I heard Emmily
ask what was going on, and I heard Isabella say to
shut up and stop squirming.
When Isabella picked up the phone she was
panting a little.
“See? You’re next. We’re on our way over,”
she huffed.
92
In the movies, the crazy psychopaths don’t
usually call you up and tell you that they’re on their
way over and they’re bringing an employee to help
hold you down, right? Here’s why: It would
give you time to go tell your mom on them. Plus,
employees usually seek more secure types of
employment than with crazies.
By the time Isabella and Emmily arrived, Mom
was waiting at the door for them.
“No haircuts,” she said to Isabella. And then
she turned to say something to E
mmily, but
Emmily’s recent haircut made Mom say the same
swear that Isabella had said yesterday.
“I’m going to even it up,” Isabella explained,
gesturing to Emmily’s hair. My mom gently offered
to help with that, even though I’m sure I heard her
do that swear again under her breath.
93
While my mom called Emmily’s mom (to
explain things and get permission to do first aid
on her hair), Isabella and I talked it out in the
living room.
“Jamie,” she said, “we all have short hair
now. It’s kind of our look. I’m not pressuring you,
and you don’t have to get yours cut if you don’t
want to. But if you don’t want to, promise me you’ll
close your eyes and ask yourself this simple
question out loud:
Why am I such a stupid buttface
loser who won’t say okay?
”
And while I was asking myself that question
with my eyes closed, Isabella quickly cut a huge
patch of hair off the left side of my head.
94
“Why. Did. You. Do. That?” I asked,
stunned.
“You said
okay
,” Isabella said. “Now let me
finish.”
“I only said
okay
because it’s the last word in
the question you asked me to consider.”
Isabella shrugged. “Oh. I probably shouldn’t
have phrased it that way,” she said. “You were
confused by it. But you did say
okay
.”
She had a point.
I took the handful of hair and showed it to my
mom. I explained what happened, and how it was a
misunderstanding, and how misunderstandings can
cause a person to innocently lunge at you with
scissors.
Mom was less upset than I thought she’d be.
She said it would grow back, and that maybe I’d like
short hair for the summertime anyway.
95
I had to think for a moment. There were
ramifications.
In the end, I sat down, and Mom cut the rest of it.
96
Angeline came over later so the four of us could
compare our short hair, and I was really surprised at
how adorable we all looked. Isabella and Angeline
made up from their little issue yesterday, although
neither one of them apologized. (It was one of those
invisible apologies people do when they don’t want
to fight anymore but they don’t want to actually
say “I’m sorry,” either, so both parties silently agree
to pretend it never happened.)
Isabella took pictures of Angeline and Emmily,
but only Angeline had to wear the black T-shirt like I
had.
That’s because Emmily is not going in our ads. I wrote that last
sentence in a whisper.
Angeline also brought over a few items for
our eBay auction, which included a plush bear, an
unopened bottle of old lady perfume her aunt
gave her, and an ugly vase. These are, of course,
horrible junk, and therefore will fit in perfectly
with my items. We’re going to stack so much cheese!
(“Stack cheese” is cool-talk for “make money.” At
least I think it’s still cool.)
Isabella still hasn’t chosen her items, she
says, but she’s taking care of posting all of our stuff
in the meantime.
We didn’t really talk money today, and
Angeline hardly even bothered me — even though
she insisted on helping my mom clean up the haircut
mess like a big kiss-up. I think she mostly didn’t
bother me because she didn’t have her hair
anymore, just like the rest of us.
I wonder if this is why old guys and tiny babies
get along so well with each other. Mutual baldness
takes the pressure off.
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Tuesday 17
Dear Dumb Diary,
I had planned to sleep in today. Instead, I
woke up screaming because it suddenly occurred
to me that, if my calculations are correct, we’ve
passed the halfway point toward earning money for
Screamotopia . . . and we have five dollars
and fifty cents. That means, if my calculations
are correct, by the end of the month we will
have about eleven dollars, which means, if my
calculations are correct, we are going to crash and
burn. This also clearly demonstrates why I have
always been against calculations.
99
Isabella came over early and suggested that I
go start a dog-walking business while she checked
to see how we were doing on eBay.
I told her that I had considered it, but didn’t
want to do that business because of the double
extra-intensity of the grossness involved with
cleaning up after additional poop machines.
Isabella had predicted this, and said that she
had Emmily waiting outside to do all of the dog
walking for me.
“I already told her every thing she has to do.
Just go outside and . . . you know, ‘activate’
her,” Isabella said.
100
And there Emmily was, standing on my porch,
awaiting activation.
“You really want to walk dogs for us?” I
asked her.
“Okay,” she answered with her typical stupid
sweetness, and I felt a wrenching, stabbing pain of
guilt for taking advantage of her that way. Then it
passed and I was fine.
101
But I had no idea what to charge our
customers. “Just ask for fifty cents, I guess, or a
dollar. And just walk the dogs up and down the
street here. And don’t go up to anybody’s door you
don’t know,” I said.
Emmily stepped off my porch, but to me, it
seemed like I was sending her off a cliff.
“Wait!” I cried. “Don’t do that. ONLY go
over to Cigarette Lady’s house. See if she wants
you to walk Smokey. Did Isabella tell you that you
have to clean up after the dog?”
Emmily’s eyes got wider than usual. “She said
to just kick it into the bushes. Or stomp it into the
grass so nobody can see it.”
You have to hand it to Isabella: They are
pretty good ideas, especially considering that those
aren’t our shoes that Emmily’s wearing.
102
And off our employee went. I watched her
cross the street and walk up to Cigarette Lady’s
door, then I headed back inside to see how high the
bidding had gotten on our auction items.
“It’s going to take a week,” Isabella said. “So
stop asking me every day.”
I asked how she got into the account without
my mom signing her in, and she said my mom made
it very clear to her that she was okay with Isabella
managing the account by selecting a password that
was so obvious for Isabella to guess.
I reminded h
er that time was slipping away
and we were still way off the total we needed
and that if we didn’t start planning, we were really
going to have a problem. Then Isabella and I were
horrified because for a moment, it seemed as
though my mom’s voice had just popped out
of my mouth.
103
Pretty soon, we were both trying to say things
our parents would say.
“Jamie,” I said like my dad, “stop sitting on
Stinker while I’m trying to watch baseball and
football and eat and shave.”
“Isabella,” Isabella said in a low voice like her
dad’s, “finish your milk and who broke this?”
“Don’t stand there with the refrigerator door
open, young lady!” I mommed.
“Why are there all these human teeth on
the dinner table?” Isabella scolded.
I was getting ready to ask Isabella about that
last one when we noticed Emmily across the street,
walking Cigarette Grandson on a leash.
104
We went out to talk to her. It turns out that
Cigarette Grandson’s name is Joey. Maybe that
sounds enough like Smokey that Cigarette Lady
thought Emmily was asking to take him for a walk.
“She understands that she has to pay, right?”
Isabella asked, grabbing briefly at Joey’s leash as if
she might toss him up in a tree if the answer was no.
Emmily pulled a dollar out of her pocket and
showed it to us. “She paid in advance.”
We shrugged and agreed that it was okay.
Joey had lost all of his dignity of course, but dignity
almost never shows up on a list of things three-
year-olds trea sure most.
105
Wednesday 18
Dear Dumb Diary,
Angeline and I met over at Isabella’s house
this afternoon. We called Emmily, but there was no
answer.
Isabella’s mom is a great cook, so her house
always smells incredible. Once, when I was little, I
secretly tasted their couch because I thought
maybe their entire house was made out of lasagna.
