by Jim Benton
I ALMOST told Isabella today. I talked to
her on the phone first thing, and I forgot I was mad
at her and forgot I promised and I came close to
telling her about Angeline’s hair sale.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have used you as the
‘Before’ picture,” Isabella said, which was the most
heartfelt apology I’d ever heard her make. See
how nice she is? I would have cried, except she
would have made fun of me for it and that would
have made me cry even more.
“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. We’re still going
to Screamotopia,” I said.
“Well, Jamie, I’m not sure tha — ” She stopped
herself in mid-sentence. “What makes you think
so?” she said, and I could feel suspiciousness
rays beaming out of the phone.
127
“Oh. Just because,” I said. Then I winked, but
I realized she couldn’t hear that over the phone. “I
just winked,” I added.
I asked Isabella to come over, but she said
her mom was still cranky because she did commit a
little bit of a huge beauty-product-selling crime
and she figured she’s grounded for at least a day.
I couldn’t call Angeline, because I would
surely give it away that I knew that she had sold her
hair so that we could all go to Screamotopia. Plus, I
was grateful for her sacrifice, and I really didn’t
feel like being grateful to Angeline any sooner than
I had to.
128
So I was on my own.
Since we’re now wealthy, I really didn’t have
anything to do all day. I just luxuriated
uselessly.
I set up a lounge chair in the backyard to
drape myself over — a favorite rich-person
activity — and brought out my iPod, a book, a
lemonade, my sunglasses, some nail polish, some
premium gum (that kind in the sophisticated
package), and a bottle of mom’s perfume to spray
around because wealthy people do that, too.
I let Stinker and Stinkette play out in the
yard, and I pretended that they were my priceless
miniature Shetland ponies. Except Stinker, who is a
Shetland hippopotamus.
129
I relaxed and stretched out glamorously, and
enjoyed my book and lemonade and premium gum
and every thing, and after about 15 minutes of
being fabulously wealthy, I was so bored I couldn’t
stand it.
And I came upon this wealth for free. Aren’t
the best things in life supposed to be free? They
should be easier to enjoy.
130
Tuesday 24
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella came over today, and so did
Angeline. I talked and talked about Screamotopia
and neither Isabella or Angeline seemed very
excited, which was weird.
“You know, Jamie,” Isabella said, “unless you
found a suitcase of money somewhere, I don’t see
any way we’re going.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but you know. You know.
You
know, right, Angeline? I mean, right? You
know.” I started making discreet clippy motions
with my fingers, and then cleverly rubbed them
together to represent money.
A light came on in Angeline’s eyes. “Oh. Yeah.
I know what you’re getting at,” she said.
131
“ANGELINE CUT HER HAIR
AND SOLD IT SO WE CAN GO TO
SCREAMOTOPIA,” I blurted out, not really
breaking any promise because Angeline was about
to say it anyway.
Isabella looked at Angeline’s head. “Really?
How much can you get for a head?” she asked. “I
mean — you know — a head of hair.”
“Hair like Angeline’s goes for like three
thousand bucks, I bet,” I said. “Right, Angeline?”
Angeline smiled and nodded. “Yeah, it could
go for that much,” she said, but she looked kind of
uncomfortable. I wondered if the sensation of being
nice and nicely earning us money was unusual to
her, and therefore a bit unsettling.
Isabella smiled. “Hmmmmmm,” she said.
“Well then, thanks, Angeline. Did you get the
money yet?”
“No,” Angeline said. Then she suggested we
set up the lemonade stand again or wash cars or
something, but we didn’t see why we would need to.
We’re all set now. No problems.
132
Wednesday 25
Dear Dumb Diary,
Angeline called today, and you are not going
to believe how SELFISH she is, Dumb Diary: We’re
not getting any of her hair money to go to
Screamotopia.
Because there isn’t any.
At first I thought it might be because her hair
doesn’t look like it came from a human being, so
the wigmakers might not want it.
But that wasn’t it.
Angeline SELFISHLY donated her hair to
charity.
She said that she was going to sell it, but
her stylist told her about this charity for kids who
are having medical treatments that make their hair
fall out. They use donated hair to make wigs for the
kids until their real hair grows back.
I asked Angeline why she didn’t at least keep
a pigtail for us so we could go to Screamotopia,
but she said she couldn’t bring herself to sell it
after she heard about the kids.
Angeline said she took my hair that day and
donated it as well. Which, when you think of it, is
stealing, even though my mom had tossed it in the
trash.
Then she said she’d see how much babysitting
money she had, and maybe that would be enough
for all of us to go to Screamotopia.
I was so mad I just hung up on her.
I called Isabella, and she wasn’t very worried.
She said that Angeline had given her an idea for
another sale she had going, a very special sale that
was going to make us all the money we needed.
See, Isabella almost never has just one plan.
She says that any idiot can come up with a plan. If
you really want to succeed, you have to have a
plan B in case your first plan, like selling a
fraudulent beauty product, doesn’t work out.
133
134
I was so relieved that Isabella had this all
under control. Nothing to worry about.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? How one second you
think you’re going to Screamotopia, then you think
you aren’t, then you think are again, then you
think you aren’t. Then you talk to your best friend
and you know you are again. I wonder if
Screamotopia has any roller coasters this
nauseating.
135
Thursday 26
Dear Dumb Diary,
Angeline came over today and tried to talk
me into one last attempt at making the money
we need.
“No worries,” I told her. “Isabella has us
covere
d.”
Then Isabella’s mom showed up with Isabella
and sat her right down on the couch.
“Tell them,” she said.
“You’re not allowed to sell human heads,”
Isabella said. “And I did and the police came and
now I don’t have the money we need. Can we go now?”
136
Her mom explained it a little better. Isabella
sold a shrunken head to her mean older brothers for
THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS, and they turned
around and sold it to another kid whose dad is a
policeman.
Have you ever seen a shrunken head, Dumb
Diary? It’s one of those little horrible heads you see
in scary movies. They’re all gross and withered and
look like an old rotten peach . . . which
Isabella admitted this was.
I was so moved.
“Isabella,” I said. “You loved that peach.
And you were willing to sacrifice it for us?”
Isabella’s mom answered for her. “She carved
it up a little, stuffed the mouth full of her old baby
teeth, attached some hair to it, and tricked her
brothers into buying it.” She didn’t seem to be as
moved as I was, for some reason.
137
I asked Isabella where she got the hair, but
she didn’t want to talk about that.
Isabella’s mom explained what had
happened. “The kid they sold the peach to showed
it to his dad, the cop, who instantly realized that it
wasn’t a shrunken head. His son had been swindled,
so he came over to our house to get the money back
and have a talk with Isabella and her brothers.”
“He remembered me,” Isabella said. “He was
the one that came when I did my disease report. He
put me in handcuffs.”
“He did not, Isabella,” her mom snapped.
“And she would have been in a lot more trouble,
except she reminded the policeman that since his
son bought it thinking it was a real head, he
would be in trouble, too,” Isabella’s mom added.
Isabella smiled slightly.
138
But her mom was not smiling. “Promise me
you won’t sell human body parts anymore,
Isabella.”
“You never let me do anything,” Isabella said.
Of course, I agreed with her. “Besides, it wasn’t
even real,” she added.
Then Isabella’s mom got a little louder and
started talking about how if one more policeman
showed up it would give her a heart attack and all
that stuff.
Finally, Isabella yelled "OKAY!” which is
really the only way to make a mom stop yelling. I’ve
even seen my dad do it.
139
So that looks like the end, Dumb Diary. No
money means no amusement park.
We were so close. We all tried. We tried every-
thing we could think of. Angeline even tried to sell
her beloved hair, but her goodness stopped her.
Isabella tried to sell her beloved peach, but
federal law stopped her.
I know they say the best things in life are
free, but it seems to me that the worst things in life
are also free.
140
Friday 27
Dear Dumb Diary,
Angeline and Isabella came over for lunch
today. I didn’t want to tell Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan
all by myself that we had bombed out. We sat out
front and tried to figure out what to say, when a
small pack of teeny children came around the
corner with ropes tied to their waists. They were
followed by Emmily, who was holding on to the other
ends of the ropes.
“Hi, guys,” she said.
141
“What are you doing to those kids?” Angeline
asked.
“I’m walking them,” Emmily said, “like I’ve
been doing all week. I just walk them up and down
the street. You know, for your business.”
She explained that last week, when she was
walking Cigarette Grandson, Mrs. Ryan saw her out
the window and asked her to walk the triplets, too,
probably just to get a minute’s peace. Then another
mom saw them and asked her to walk her son.
They’ve all been paying her a dollar per kid
per hour. I’m not even sure it’s legal to walk kids
like that.
142
“I have to get Joey home right away for his
lunch,” Emmily said. She headed down the street,
and we followed along behind her.
She walked Joey up to the door and he ran up
to Cigarette Lady, laughing. I guess he loved being
walked. The Ryan triplets were happy, too. Maybe
they were just screamy all the time because they
wanted to go outside.
“Thank you, Emmily,” Cigarette Lady
wheezed, waving at us.
“You’re welcome, Cigarette Lady,” Emmily
called back to her.
That’s when we saw Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan
pull up in my driveway. We told Emmily to meet us at
my house after she dropped off the rest of the kids.
143
We told Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan the
horrendously bad news, every single bit of it, from
the lemonade stand to Emmily’s baby-walking
service. And Aunt Carol rubbed our short haircuts
and said she might like to get hers cut, too, which
seemed beside the point to me.
When we were done, they both stood up and
said maybe we could try again next summer.
Then my mom came in holding the phone. She
said my dad had told her to go check the auction,
because it looked like somebody had bought our
disgusting junk for two hundred dollars.
It was a SCREAMOTOPIA MIRACLE!
We started jumping up and down and
laughing and I saw my mom shaking her head. There
was something about how she shook it that made
me wonder for a second if my dad had been the one
that bought all the stuff.
144
When Emmily knocked on the door we were all
still laughing, because it actually seemed possible
that we might really make it to Screamotopia
after all.
“Before I forget,” Emmily said, “here’s your
money.” And she handed me just under a
hundred dollars.
“You made all this?” I said. Added to the
auction money, and the $5.50 it took us all month
to earn, it was enough.
Emmily was so truly happy for us that her
genuine sweet smile was like a cheery pink
chainsaw cutting me in half with guilt. Only
Emmily, hardworking Emmily, had made any real
money this summer.
“So this is the baby walker,” Aunt Carol said.
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to walk us all
around Screamotopia?”
145
“Emmily can go?” Angeline, Isabella, and I all
said at the same time. (It hurt my brain a little that
Angeline and I would ever say anything at the same
time, but I tried to look past
it.)
“She worked as hard as you three. Maybe
harder,” Uncle Dan said. “If her parents say it’s
okay, sure, she can go. We’ll cover the extra cost.”
Emmily smiled and clapped and laughed and
laughed. And laughed. And laughed. “Go where?”
she finally asked.
Oh,Emmily.
I explained it all to her, which is why now I’m
too tired to write another word. I have to get up
early tomorrow morning for SCREAMOTOPIA!!
Good night!
146
Saturday 28
Dear Dumb Diary,
I only have a minute to write, because I
SLEPT IN.
I know, right?
I was supposed to be up early, and now
everybody (including Emmily) is on their way over
right this minute to pick me up to head to
SCREAMOTOPIA ! ! !
It’s going to be a blast. And honestly, for a
boring, stupid month of trouble, in a weird way it’s
been sort of fun.
147
I think I may understand how the best things
in life can be free, even though the worst things are
also free. Screamotopia is going to be great, and
it’s really expensive. But other really expensive
things, like fake shrunken heads, can be worthless.
You know, I don’t think you can tell how much
something is worth by how much it costs.
Maybe that saying should just go, “The
best things in life are.”
Thanks for listening, Dumb Diary,
148
P.S. They just pulled up, but one more thing:
When we get back next week, we’re all going to the
zoo. Even Isabella. Remember when Angeline said
she donated my hair? She never said where it went,
until yesterday.
And now there’s a warthog named Loverboy
who doesn’t mind the sun anymore, thanks to a new
artificial mane that somebody donated to him.
FOR FREE.
Thinking of cutting your hair?
Don’t forget to ask your parents first! They might
be able to help you get involved with Locks of Love,
