by Jim Benton
OKAY, SO MAYBE I DO
HAVE SUPERPOWERS
DE
A
R DUM
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From New York Times bestselling author Jim Benton
OKAY, SO MAYBE I DO
HAVE SUPERPOWERS
THINK YOU CAN HANDLE
JAMIE KELLY’S FIRST YEAR OF DIARIES?
#1 LET’S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED
#2 MY PANTS ARE HAUNTED!
#3 AM I THE PRINCESS OR THE FROG?
#4 NEVER DO ANYTHING, EVER
#5 CAN ADULTS BECOME HUMAN?
#6 THE PROBLEM WITH HERE IS THAT IT'S WHERE I'M FROM
#7 NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR DUMBNESS
#8 IT’S NOT MY FAULT I KNOW EVERYTHING
#9 THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS AREN'T FOR
#10 THE WORST THINGS IN LIFE ARE ALSO FREE
#11 OKAY, SO MAYBE I DO HAVE SUPERPOWERS
#12 ME! (JUST LIKE YOU, ONLY BETTER)
AND DON’T MISS YEAR TWO!
YEAR TWO #1: SCHOOL. HASN’T THIS GONE ON LONG ENOUGH?
YEAR TWO #2: THE SUPER-NICE ARE SUPER-ANNOYING
YEAR TWO #3: NOBODY'S PERFECT. I'M AS CLOSE AS IT GETS.
YEAR TWO #4: WHAT I DON’T KNOW MIGHT HURT ME
DE
A
R DUM
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DIARY,
OKAY, SO MAYBE I DO
HAVE SUPERPOWERS
SCHOLASTIC INC.
Jim Benton’s Tales from Mackerel Middle School
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
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e-ISBN 978-0-545-65523-1
Copyright © 2009 by Jim Benton
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
DEAR DUMB DIARY is a registered trademark of Jim Benton.
First printing, January 2011
No actual clowns were harmed in
the making of this diary. Much.
Superhuman thanks to Kristen LeClerc
and my Scholastic partners in crime:
Steve Scott, Elizabeth Krych, Susan Jeffers,
Anna Bloom,and Shannon Penney.
Dear Whoever Is Reading My Dumb Diary,
I command you to stop reading it NOW.
I am just an average, mild- mannered citizen
of this fair city, and there is no reason for
you to suspect that I am secretly keeping
something about myself a secret.
If you are my parents, I know that I am
not allowed to call people names or point
out their weaknesses or stuff like that. But
I am allowed to write it. And, if you accuse
me of doing anything that I’ve written in
this diary, I will know that you read it,
which I do not give you permission to do.
(Although perhaps you used mutated
mental powers to read my mind. If
so, you’re just going to have to knock that
off, too.)
All other criminals, villains, misfits, and
mutants be warned, for I am watching
your every move — except gross, private,
behind- closed- doors things — and will
bring down a terrible justice upon you if
you violate the sanctity of my diary.
If you could see me now, you would be
really threatened by how massively I am
flexing.
Signed,
P.S. Also, even if you aren’t a villain or
criminal, I’m still watching, so set down the
diary and walk away. Still flexing here,
so watch it.
Sunday 01
Dear Dumb Diary,
If somebody ever asks you to kick her in the
face, the first thing she will do is forget that she
asked you to do it.
Isabella was over today, and we were working
on my hair. I cut my hair really short over the
summer and thought that it might grow back
beautiful and luxurious because that’s what
would have happened in a fairy tale, and I believe
that sooner or later I’m entitled to a fairy tale.
But it grew in thicker. SO thick, in fact, that I
think that maybe each of my hair holes now has two
hairs crowding out through the space that used to
have only one.
Angeline also cut her hair really short, and
of course hers DID grow back silkier and more
spectacular, but I sort of expected that. I’m
almost surprised that money didn’t grow out of her
head as well.
We actually had some fun with Angeline over
the summer: going to an amusement park, going
to the zoo, sitting quietly and listening to her hair
grow. ( You really can hear it. Her nails, too.)
At some point during the summer, I started to
think that it was wrong of me to hate Angeline
because of how she looked. And smelled. And
laughed. And smiled. And blinked. And sat.
When I finally saw past the gorgeousness, when
I peered deep into the essence of Angeline, when I
tried not to see the cascading waterfall of
glimmering blond satin spilling over her shoulders
and puddling in the hearts of every boy nearby, I
saw a person who was kind, and generous, and
honest, and good. And I realized that I shouldn’t
hate her for her looks.
There’s just so, so, so much more to
hate her for.
And yet, I really don’t think I do hate her
anymore. While it’s true that she won the looks
lottery, and the personality lottery, and the
soul lottery, and all of the other lotteries, none
of that is really her fault.
So, if anything, I suppose I should pity
Angeline for being born so hatable.
I know, Dumb Diary. It’s hard to understand
how excellent that makes me — to not hate
somebody who seems to be asking for it — but let
me clear it up for you: It makes me PURE
excellent. As excellent as an angel with the power to
shoot frosting out her eyes.
Now, back to my foot and the relationship it
recently had with Isabella’s face.
We were watching one of those super- stupid
superhero movies after we gave up on my hair
(there’s really nothing to be done), and I noticed
that there was a lot of face kicking — like, more
than you normally see in a day. So, I commented on
how fake it was. I mean: You don’
t have to kick a
person’s face — if somebody just stepped on your
face a couple times, you’d go into total meltdown.
(I know what I’m talking about: In fourth grade,
Isabella saw an ant on my cheek while I was lying on
the couch.)
Isabella said that getting kicked in the face
isn’t that big of a deal and that I could kick her in
the face just to prove it, and I said no way I would
never do that and then I kicked her in the face
anyway, because I guess I changed my mind
really quick.
Minds are so silly.
Isabella stayed on the floor for about five
minutes saying things that probably could only be
understood by others recently kicked in the face. I
explained what happened and helped her up. In her
daze, she didn’t believe that she had asked me to
kick her, but mostly she didn’t believe that I had
done it.
Fortunately, I’ve watched a lot of crime
shows and so provided a smear of her lip balm on
the bottom of my sock as evidence. (Also, I pointed
out that her glasses were on top of the bookshelf.)
Isabella was having a hard time with this,
because her mean older brothers have made her
into a good fighter. She couldn’t accept that a
“huge, girly, sissy girl” like me could ever
land a kick on her.
Later on, as I was wiping her saliva off a wall,
I apologized, but Isabella still seemed a little
dazed. I feel bad now, but I think I proved my point
about how dumb superhero movies are — and in
particular, how much more significant face-
kickery actually is than it seems in movies.
Monday 02
Dear Dumb Diary,
So they’re still making me do science even
though I have been helpfully pointing out for years
that nobody really needs it.
Seriously, the scientists we already have
seem to have it under control. I can’t imagine
them wanting me to walk into the lab and start
fiddling around with some big bowl of electrons
they had out.
Wouldn’t it be simpler just to tell the
scientists what we want them to discover, and leave
it to them to figure it out? We don’t have to invent
food when we go to restaurants; we just tell
waitresses what we want and they bring it. Seems
like this should work for science as well.
Besides, scientists already have their lab
coats and accessories and everything.
My new science teacher, Mrs. Maple — who is
always in a bad mood and likes to wear sandals so
that we may observe that her third toes are, like,
two inches longer than her big toes and are,
therefore, medically considered to be fingers —
doesn’t see it this way, of course. She is making me
do science anyway. Right now we’re studying ants,
which might sound boring, but let me assure you,
it’s really a lot less interesting than boring.
It turns out that ants have all kinds of
complex and highly sophisticated features
that have developed over millions and millions of
years but can’t keep them from getting stepped on
by a five- year-old, in spite of the fact that
everybody who sees a five-year-old studying an ant
knows what’s coming next.
It’s kind of amazing that nobody in Antworld
ever predicted the trouble that a size-two shoe was
going to present. Seems like maybe it’s the ants
that need some scientists.
It was during the most fascinating part of the
lesson about ants that Isabella woke me up with
a nudge between my shoulder blades.
She whispered, “You could never kick me in
the face like that again.”
Isabella must have been thinking about this
all night. After many years, I know that whenever
Isabella thinks about something too long, there’s
going to be trouble. (Though if she doesn’t think
about something long enough, it can go badly, too.)
I blatantly tried to change the subject by saying,
“The Fun Fair is coming.”
The stupidly named Fun Fair is a big fund-
raiser for our school. They set up games where you
can win prizes and there’s a big auction of stuff
that people donate.
Isabella loves the Fun Fair because a lot of
the games involve throwing things at other things,
which is one of the Destructive Arts, and
Isabella is an expert in them all. The Destructive
Arts are exactly like Martial Arts, except they don’t
have uniforms or usefulness and the end result
doesn’t resemble art in any way.
Of course, we are too sophisticated to
officially enjoy the Fun Fair. But I’ve learned that
as long as you keep laughing at how dumb
something is, you can secretly enjoy it without
risking your cool.
When she noticed us whispering, Mrs. Maple
gave me a mean look that I knew was meant to say,
Be quiet or I’ll walk over there with my elongated
toes and maybe one of them will brush up against
you and how would you like that?
She may not have meant to mention her
elongated toes in this look, but if somebody has
mutated third toes that are two inches longer than
their big toes, that threat is always implied.
Always.
After class, Isabella was talking to Angeline
about the Fun Fair, and how last year I made
them stop doing the game where you pop balloons
with darts.
I hadn’t really meant to make them stop. It’s
just that I got a little wild with a toss and it landed
in Beepo’s nose.
I had to point out — for her information —
that this is actually precisely why clowns wear
those protective fake noses. And by the way, they’re
stronger than you think: They can pretty much very
nearly almost stop a dart. Plus, they shouldn’t even
have clowns at these things anyway, because they
make some people a little uncomfortable since they
are demons.
The two of them were cackling pretty hard,
and Angeline said that she was sure that I couldn’t
be THAT bad at those fair games.
This made Isabella laugh harder and explain
that I was so rattled by the clown’s screams that my
second dart — which I really think would have
missed Beepo if he hadn’t flinched so bad — stuck
in his palm when he put up his large, comical gloves
to protect his face.
Angeline correctly pointed out that these
were just two accidents that could have happened
to anybody, and the clown really wasn’t hurt due to
his protective clown attire. Isabella agreed but
gasped, between howls of laughter, “Jamie had
three darts.”
I don’t want to talk about the third dart.
While it’s true that Dart Number Three is
probably the main re
ason they banned the game at
our school and most schools in the state, and why
the hospital actually has an official procedure now
called the Third Dartectomy, I feel that I’m
much better at those games now. (I’ve heard Beepo
feels much better now, too.)
Angeline said that she was sure I was every
bit as good as Isabella at the games, and Isabella’s
eyes flashed first with a terrible anger, and then
with an immeasurable joy.
“Okay, we’ll have a contest at the Fun Fair,
Jamie. You and I will play the bottle- toss game.
And whoever loses,” Isabella said slowly as she
tried to concoct a suitable penalty, “has to take
a one- minute inhale of the inside of Mike Pinsetti’s
locker.”
“No,” Angeline whispered deviously. “Loser
has to kiss him.”
This caused a stomachache to ripple through
all three of us, and possibly through all females in
the universe. Honestly, when she drops him off at
school, even Pinsetti’s mom just shakes his hand.
I knew that anything that involved kissing
Pinsetti had BAD IDEA written all over it. And it
was written in pimple medicine.
“Deal,” Isabella said.
“Deal,” Angeline said.
“Wait!” I said.
But nobody waited, and I guess I made
a deal.
Tuesday 03
Dear Dumb Diary,
I didn’t sleep well last night. I kept thinking
about how, in just a few weeks, I will probably be
boiling my lips. That is the only way to remove the
Pinsetti stain that’s going to be left there.
At school, I pointed out to Isabella that
Angeline made this deal for the both of us, but
that Angeline is the only one with nothing to lose.
“I don’t have anything to lose, either,”
Isabella said. “Because I’m going to win.”
I asked her to please please please
let me out of the deal, but she said no. I told her
it wasn’t fair because my arm still hurt where Fat
