by Jim Benton
Just then, Hudson walked over.
“Thanks for the post on your blog,” he said to
me. “You should come watch us play sometime.”
He walked away with a smile, and Isabella
and I looked at each other.
I immediately wondered if maybe, just
maybe, there could be something good about
goodness that the human mind can’t comprehend.
63
Strictly speaking, many of my posts to the
Student Awareness Committee blog probably have
very little to do with Student Awareness, but let’s
face it, as far as students go, I can come up with
LOTS more interesting things to be aware of.
As an experiment, I put a new post up on our
blog. First, I need to make it clear, Dumb Diary, that
I HATE mushrooms. If planet Earth had a nose, I’m
sure that mushrooms are what it would pick out of
that nose, if Earth also had a finger.
But I couldn’t say that. So here’s what I said:
Mushrooms on a pizza? My mom loves 'em. But
make mine pepperoni.
— Jamie
See? I didn’t come right out and say that
mushrooms are squeaky little wads of soil and snot.
I said something nice about them — I said that
somebody else loved them.
64
I waited, and within a few minutes, a few
people said that they also loved pepperoni, and
green peppers, and bacon.
Soon, the post was up to 72 likes — a new
record. It turns out that there are a lot of people in
the world who respond well to niceness.
Weirdos.
65
Saturday 14
Dear Dumb Diary,
No school today. No plans. But as I was
staring into space, Isabella’s wisdom on homemade
clothes came back to me. There was only one
thing to do.
“Hey, Mom. Can I have that new shirt you
made me now?”
She was so happy I asked for it that she
didn’t even question the fact that I wanted it on a
Saturday.
To work in the yard.
Cleaning up my beagles’ turds.
66
But when I got outside, Dad was already busy
cleaning up.
In his tie.
And he was purposely leaning waaaay over
so that the tie would dangle enticingly in front of
Stinkette’s nose. Stinkette is still a puppy, and will
chew on just about anything.
But not Dad’s monkeyvomit tie.
He didn’t know I had come outside, and I
startled him as he was trying to push the tie into
Stinkette’s mouth.
“I WAS NOT DOING ANYTHING TO IT
JUST NOW IN THE DOG’S MOUTH,” he
blurted out before he realized that I wasn’t Mom.
“Don’t sneak up on me, Jamie,” he said,
exhaling hard. “Now, tell your dog to eat my tie.”
“Eat his tie, Stinkette,” I ordered.
Stinkette stared stupidly, one eye wandering
slightly.
67
“It won’t work, Dad,” I said. “These beagles
only want to eat the things you don’t want them to
eat. Trust me. I’ve put beef gravy on homework.
They can sense what you want, and they live to deny
you these things.”
“What are we supposed to do?” he whined
pathetically.
“I dunno, Dad.”
He held up the bag of turds he had scooped
and smiled hopefully.
“Do you think Mom would believe it if we said
we got in a turd fight wearing her handmade
clothes?”
68
Don’t worry. We didn’t have a turd fight. But I
liked the way Dad was thinking, and it inspired me
to spill on my shirt at dinner. His eyes lit up, and
then he intentionally spilled on his tie when Mom
was out of the room.
“Oh, nuts!” she said, sitting back down at the
table. “Look at you two.”
We made our best WE ARE ASHAMED OF
OURSELVES faces.
“Good thing that fabric won’t stain,” she
said. “Nope. That will all come off in the wash.”
We made our best WE ARE GRATEFUL
THAT WE GET TO KEEP THIS WONDERFUL
CLOTHING faces.
I wonder how many times you can lie with your
face before you just wear it out and it won’t lie for
you anymore.
69
Sunday 15
Dear Dumb Diary,
Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan came over for
coffee and donuts this morning. We don’t really
observe a lot of nutritional rules on Sunday
mornings, because evidently, calories eaten on
Sundays don’t count.
You can have a frosted donut, or a frosted
jelly-filled donut, or a frosted jelly-filled ox. Have
anything you want to eat for Sunday
breakfast.
Aunt Carol was bragging that Uncle Dan is
getting some kind of educational award for his work
as assistant principal at our school. I guess it’s kind
of a big deal. They’re taking a picture of him and it’s
getting framed and hung in the hallway until the
end of time, so that future civilizations can dig
up our school and see how strange we looked with
our normal-sized heads and clothing not made out
of aluminum foil and bodies not fighting aliens,
which is how movies tell us we will be spending most
of our time in the future.
We all congratulated Uncle Dan through
mouthfuls of breakfast. I think that if you’re going
to talk with your mouth full, it should be full of
donuts. This way, the things you say will sound
nicer, as they are covered with deliciousness
molecules.
71
Monday 16
Dear Dumb Diary,
More debate practice in social studies today.
Everybody was paired off, so Isabella was working
with Dicky Flartsnutt, and Angeline and I were
having our small, private debates.
“Pretty clever post about the soccer team,” I
said, carefully phrasing it in such a way as to be
perfectly nice. I nodded toward the letter jacket
draped over the back of her chair.
“You wish that you had thought of it,”
Angeline said back, carefully selecting her words to
be mean.
“I’m learning how to pretend to be nice, like
you,” I said. “People like it. Did you see how many
people liked my little mushroom post? Like seven
people commented.”
“I’m learning, too,” she said. “And I might
never change back, you butt.” There was something
about the way she said “butt” — not the funny,
joyous way that people usually say it — but something
a bit sinister, like an evil wizard might say it.
“Read my post tonight,” she said.
72
And I did.
Angeline responded to my post about
mushrooms. She wrote:
Jamie, who are you kidding about mushrooms?
They're a fungus. Know what else is a fungus? The
They're named “mush” as a warning for what they're
going to do when you bite down on them, and “room”
because that's what you're going to be running from
after that first bite.
They live in the dark, like some sort of miserable
deformed little trolls. If you ever see me eating one,
it means that somebody has kidnapped every single
kitten on Earth, and the kidnappers have told me
that unless I eat a mushroom, terrible harm will
come to the kittens. Not just most of the kittens.
Every. Single. One. It would take every single one.
— Angeline
I noticed that a few people had liked her post.
75 people.
SEVENTY-FIVE.
I called Isabella.
“Did you see how many people liked
Angeline’s post on mushrooms?”
“Sure did,” she said. “This new, mean
Angeline is even more popular than nice Angeline.
Maybe you should write a post and really give her a
piece of your mind.”
Nope. Nope nope nope. “I know you’re just
trying to get me to lose the bet, Isabella. To be
honest, I have to admit that I thought her post was
pretty funny.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Isabella said. “You
wrote it.”
It suddenly came back to me. I did write
that. A year ago. In an email to Angeline. I
slumped down hard on my bed and then slumped
right up again because I had slumped on Stinker’s
face. I moved down and reslumped.
74
“She can’t do that,” I said.
“Why not?” Isabella asked with a laugh.
“Because it’s mean to copy off people? Angeline is
supposed to be mean now, so I’m going to allow it.
But is there anything you want to say about it?”
There was a lot I wanted to say. But I wasn’t
going to lose this bet.
“NO.”
75
Tuesday 17
Dear Dumb Diary,
I wasn’t in a very good mood when I woke up
today. I had dreamed that I was being chased by
zombies but I wasn’t allowed to hurt them, even
in self-defense. I spent eight hours trying to
politely persuade the zombies to spit out my
arm. Exhausting.
I screamed a little when I woke up, because
there was a grimy, hideous zombie torso dragging
itself across my bed.
After a couple of blinks, I realized that Mom
had slipped in while I was asleep and carefully laid a
new homemade shirt across my bed. This one even
had a little happy face embroidered on it.
Mom stuck her head around the corner and
made me scream again.
76
“I was thinking that the little happy face
could be, like, your thing. You know, because you’re
so happy all the time. I’ll put it on everything. It will
be your trademark!” she squealed.
I looked down at the happy face. He looked
happy-ish, but not totally happy. He also looked
a little mutated, and maybe a little too pleased
about being mutated.
It would make somebody wonder if he was
happy that the bear stopped mauling him halfway
through the mauling, or maybe he was happy that
the tree had fallen on only half his face, and not his
whole face.
I smiled at Mom.
Ironically, I probably smiled the exact
same smile that the embroidered happy-face
guy was smiling.
“DAD, CAN YOU TAKE ME TO
SCHOOL TODAY?” I shouted.
But there was no answer. A chill ran through me.
“Mom, where’s Dad? I wanted him to drive
me to school today.”
She said he had left for work early. I looked
down at my new monkeyvomit shirt. Embroidered
guy smiled his mutated smile back up at me.
“You’ll have to take the bus,” Mom said.
That would mean wearing the shirt, and
everybody seeing.
I thought back to happier times, when Mom
and I would buy my clothes at a real store, made by
real people with fabric that did not appear to have
once lined a sick monkey’s cage.
Mom would pick something up, and hold it up
to my back to see if it fit. . . .
That was it.
78
I sat on my bed and waited, calculating the
timing so I’d be just a little late leaving the house.
When the time was right, I ran out the front door,
yelling good-bye to my mom.
I heard her yelling good-bye back to me as I
left, and I knew she got a good look at her shirt as
I ran away. She must have been so happy to see me
wearing it.
Half of it, anyway.
I had remembered how Mom would hold up a
shirt to my back to get an idea of how it would look.
So all I had to do was tape the shirt to my back —
and from behind, it would look like I was wearing it.
By the time I rounded the corner, the other
kids were already piling on the bus, so they couldn’t
see anything but my front.
I made sure I was the last one on the bus. As I
climbed on, I gave monkeyvomit one quick tug and
wadded it up in my backpack.
79
I was so happy that I had fooled Mom AND
made her happy in the process, that by the time we
got to lunch, it wasn’t even hard for me to make up
something nice to say about the new menu item
Bruntford was trying out.
It was her personal tribute to the Beatles — a
giant plate of peas that she called GIVE PEAS A
CHANCE. She held it out to me for an opinion.
“Gosh,” I said sweetly. “Look at ’em all.”
“Try it,” Bruntford said.
“No, thanks.”
“Have a taste,” she insisted.
“No, thank you.”
“Take a pea right here, right now,” she
said loudly, and everyone turned around to look.
Bruntford suddenly understood how that sounded,
and she just stood there, turning red, with her giant
mouth gaping open.
Isabella leaned forward, eyes filled with
hope, to hear my reaction.
80
It was a golden opportunity, but I
didn’t say anything mean to Bruntford. I didn’t even
give her a dirty look. I just took a pea and smiled
about how delicious it was.
I could see that Isabella was getting
frustrated. She glared at Angeline. I think she is
finally starting to sense that I’m not the one she
should be working on.
81
After school, I ran home and hopped the
fence into my backyard, which made both Stinker
and Stinkette start barking at the back door, just as
I had planned.
I waited a second, ran around to the front
door, went inside, and sprinted up to my room,
yelling, “MOM, I’M HOME!” Mom was, of
course, letting the barking dogs out, so she didn’t
&n
bsp; even see me. This gave me time to go in my room,
change into the monkeyvomit shirt she thought I
wore to school, and come back down.
It was almost too easy.
82
After dinner, I checked our blog. It’s getting
more hits all the time. Isabella posted this tonight:
Isabella here. Haven't had a chance to run this by my
partners at the Student Awareness Committee, so
I'll just post it here for them to see. I think we need
to really increase the amount of recycling we do at
Mackerel, because a clean Earth is important to us
all. Jamie and Angeline, what do you say?
— Isabella
I wasted no time in posting my response.
Awesome idea, Isabella. We should be working much
harder on this. C'mon, who doesn't believe we need
a cleaner planet?
— Jamie
Click click click. 85 likes.
And somewhere, tonight, if you close your
eyes and listen carefully, you’ll hear the sweet, soft
sound of a blond head exploding.
83
Wednesday 18
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today on the morning announcements they
said something about Assistant Principal Devon
getting this big award, and how his photo will go up
in the hallway, and how he’s a terrific example to us
all, and Isabella stood up and started applauding.
It’s weird, but applause is contagious, so
everybody joined in. And then, as it started to die
down, she looked at me and Angeline and I suddenly
knew what her devious plan was.
“Angeline and Jamie, you guys must be extra
proud, since Assistant Principal Devon is your uncle.
This is pretty cool, huh?”
“Awesome,” I said, and glanced at
Angeline, who was looking like she had perhaps just
swallowed a large burp that belonged to
somebody else.
