Dear Dumb Diary #11: Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers

by Jim Benton

  because I suspect that learning about ants is only

  about half as boring as being one:

  Ant 1: So, uh, do you ever worry that your itsy

  little neck is just going to snap under the weight of

  your head?

  Ant 2 : Stop asking me that. You ask me that, like,

  every five minutes.

  Ant 1: Sometimes I notice my antennae out of the

  corner of my eye and I’m all, like: AHH! Something is

  on me! Get it off! Get it off!

  Ant 2: Yeah. The antennae again. Listen, I just

  remembered, I have to go wander around

  aimlessly now.

  Today at school I saw Hudson Rivers (still

  the eighth cutest boy in my grade), and I attempted

  to sense what he was feeling with my superpowers. I

  may have unintentionally struck a bit of a Sensing

  Pose, because he walked right over and asked me

  what the heck I was doing.

  I was pretty embarrassed that Hudson

  caught me sensing him. I’m not sure what the

  rules are for using your superpowers, but sensing

  somebody right out there in public might be

  kind of rude.

  “Nothing,” I said, which is what you say when

  you mean “something,” which is pretty stupid,

  I guess. Everybody knows that’s exactly what

  “nothing” means.

  Hudson looked at me and grinned. I tried to

  sense him secretly, but Pinsetti walked past,

  publicly scratching himself with an enthusiasm and

  lack of modesty that you rarely see outside of the

  zoo. The image was so horrific that I could think

  of nothing other than washing my eyeballs.

  I can’t lose that bet.

  By the time I came to my senses again it was

  time to go to class, and Hudson had walked away.

  In science, Mrs. Maple told us more about

  ants and how strong they are. They can lift twenty

  times their own body weight. If I was as strong as an

  ant, I suppose that means I could lift a piano.

  If I could do that, I would only do it so that I

  could drop it on the rest of the ants in my colony,

  because the one thing I’m really learning about ants

  is that I don’t like them.

  Isabella took notes again, but this time, she

  took them in class, which is the fourth weirdest

  thing I’ve ever seen her do in class.

  Tuesday 10

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Isabella made Angeline go with her to watch

  basketball practice after school today. Angeline

  begged me to go along, and Emmily couldn’t

  remember which bus she was supposed to ride

  home, so she went, too.

  Isabella and I had never been to a basketball

  game at our school, much less a practice. It turns

  out that basketball is this sport that involves a lot

  of running and jumping and throwing. The most you

  can hope for per shot is three points, although it is

  usually just two. Frankly, I would find two points a

  little insulting after all that effort.

  But my superpowers told me that the boys

  were actually quite thrilled with their measly two

  points. This was both adorable and sad, like when a

  baby is thrilled if you give it half a cracker that’s

  been on the floor.

  Isabella watched the practice very carefully,

  and I thought I saw her taking notes, but that had

  to have been my imagination. Every once in a while

  she would tell Angeline to stand up and cheer, and

  when she did, the boys would play extra hard. I

  realized (thanks, superpowers) it was

  because they wanted to impress Angeline.

  Angeline didn’t really seem impressed. I’m

  sure she was just doing it to make Isabella happy.

  But the whole thing was really entertaining Emmily,

  who had to be asked three times to give back the

  ball and stay off the court.

  My mom gave everybody a ride home. Just

  before Isabella got out of the car, she said that

  she had some posters I had to help her make. She

  gave me the rough draft she had scribbled on a

  piece of paper:

  She explained that all she needed me to do

  was make a couple posters . . .

  . . . and get Angeline to come. And come up

  with some kind of prize. And try to be cute on

  Friday. (Isabella had observed that girl cuteness

  seemed to make the basketball players try harder.)

  “Or at least, be cuter,” she added, to nicely

  take some of the pressure off. You see, World?

  Isabella can be nice when she wants to be.

  Emmily wanted to help with the posters —

  she’s understandably amazed by my glitter

  abilities — but I told her this looked like a rush job,

  and I wouldn’t be able to train her correctly under

  this sort of pressure.

  Later on, after something that Mom referred

  to as “dinner,” I told my dad about the basketball

  practice.

  He was very interested and even said he’d

  take me to a real professional game if I wanted to

  go. ( I didn’t.) He put his arm around me and we

  watched some other sport on TV together, maybe

  soccer or baseball? It had some guys running

  around doing something and some other guys trying

  to keep them from doing it. That’s football, right?

  Or is that all of them?

  I concentrated, and I think I very nearly

  understood why dudes want to watch this stuff so

  much. My powers are increasing, but I still couldn’t

  quite get it.

  Wednesday 11

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  Oh. Some of the ants in our jar found

  themselves so boring that they died from it. I didn’t

  want to try to take the dead ones out, because they

  all seem pretty grouchy and I think if I don’t draw

  attention to the dead ones, maybe the live ones

  won’t notice, since the dead ones don’t really look

  any different.

  It’s probably a source of great

  embarrassment in the ant world when you’re

  talking to a friend for a while and then you notice

  they’re dead, and all the other ants start laughing

  at you.

  Before I left for school, I fed the ants some

  leaves and Cap’n Crunch, but they didn’t seem as

  interested in eating the stuff as they were in

  dodging it as it crashed down around them.

  I suppose this would be like somebody

  dropping a sugar- frosted van on me from an

  airplane, and I made a note for our report about

  what an unpleasant breakfast experience this

  would be.

  Before I left, I put the ants in front of the TV,

  hoping they would enjoy that more than the radio,

  and I gently encouraged them to die less.

  Emmily helped me and Isabella put up the

  arm- wrestling posters in the hallway at school.

  When Angeline saw them, she was really, really

  angry that Isabella had used her name on the

  poster without asking her first. I’m telling you, the

  gorgeous of t
he world can actually look pretty

  intimidating when they scowl. Imagine a snow-

  white swan with a scary tattoo holding a chain saw.

  There’s just no way to really prepare for that.

  Besides the crime of being prettier than those

  that deserve prettiness more than she does, it’s

  true that we’ve never actually seen Angeline do

  anything mean. But like I said, you’re never

  prepared for the chain-saw swan, and Isabella’s

  natural, perfectly normal response to being blamed

  for something (which is to fist-fight) was

  replaced by the response she usually reserves for

  times when the other person is much bigger, or

  a policeman.

  She just lied.

  Emmily is obviously the least able to defend

  herself, so Isabella blamed Emmily.

  Emmily was somewhat surprised to learn that

  the Arm-Wrestling Championship had all been her

  idea, and she started freaking out and squealing

  saying that it was going to be so much fun, and that

  it was the best idea she ever had.

  I’m pretty sure I saw a little smile try to

  squirm out from underneath Angeline’s chain saw–

  swan scowl.

  Freaking out is exhausting, even for

  full- time freaks, and eventually Emmily ran out of

  energy. But by then, her enthusiasm had us all

  looking forward to Isabella’s arm-wrestling

  competition, even Angeline.

  Thursday 12

  Dear Dumb Diary,

  I don’t think any more of the ants died, but I

  can’t be sure because I forgot to count them, and

  when they’re all moving around it gets pretty

  difficult to tell which ants I’ve already counted.

  I had the great idea of using markers to

  gently color the ants so I could tell them apart, but

  I learned that this is exactly like somebody trying to

  gently color on you with a thirty- story building.

  Without dwelling on tragedy, I’d just like to say that

  I’m deeply sorry to Mr. Purple and the surviving

  Purple family.

  I made a note of this in the report, although I

  did skip over the details of flicking Mr. Purple off

  the tip of the marker, you know, because it seemed

  a bit undignified.

  I actually heard people talking about the

  arm- wrestling event this morning, and it was hard

  to believe that my posters had done such a great job

  of getting people psyched about something so weird.

  It was like I was one of those tremendously

  talented people that make great commercials

  for awful movies.

  But by lunch, when we were ready to begin the

  competition, I realized that it had not been my

  posters that did the job. It was Emmily that had

  everybody all wound up.

  This wasn’t hard to figure out. First, Emmily

  had given everybody the impression that arm

  wrestling was an Olympic event. (Emmily loves

  the Olympics. The rings remind her of pancakes,

  another favorite of hers.) And second, somewhere

  along the line, Emmily determined that first prize

  was a horse.

  Emmily’s mistakes didn’t hinder Isabella at

  all. (Few things can. I’ve seen her hindered, like,

  twice in her life.) Isabella started setting up the

  arm wrestlers. She ran the competitions two at a

  time, with the winner from each competition arm

  wrestling the winner from the other.

  I made sure to watch cutely and cheer.

  Angeline did, too, although she only had her cute

  turned up to about a three. (It goes up to eleven.)

  I have to admit that Angeline did a good

  job getting this whole thing approved by the

  principal, which is something Isabella almost never

  remembers /cares to do.

  And as cute as Angeline and I were, Emmily

  might have been the cutest of all, even though she’s

  usually not terribly cute. (In her defense:

  Shirts really look their best when you don’t wear

  them backward, and Emmily says dressing in the

  mirror gets her all confused about left and right

  and inside out.)

  Something about her enthusiasm just gets

  to people.

  The final match came down to Mike Pinsetti

  and Jake Baker. Jake is in our grade, but he’s easily

  the biggest kid in our school. He’s about as wide as

  he is tall.

  Everybody always assumes that big, strong

  guys like Jake are dumb, but if you thought that

  about Jake, you’d be wrong. Jake could go to college

  for ten years and he still wouldn’t be smart enough

  to be classified as “dumb.”

  Pinsetti’s hand disappeared inside the fleshy

  folds of Jake’s. Emmily, unable to contain herself,

  let out this ear-piercing cheer that brought a

  peculiar dumb smile to Jake’s dumb face.

  Isabella said, “Go,” Jake slammed Pinsetti’s

  hand to the table, and everybody cheered — except

  for Pinsetti, who was making this thin, wheezy pain

  whine as he stood up and stumbled to the nurse’s

  office to see if somebody there could reassemble

  the bones in his hand.

  Isabella patted Jake on the back and smiled

  broadly until he turned to her and asked, in a

  voice that sounded like a garbage disposal full

  of raw meat:

  “Where’s my prize? Where’s my

  horse?”

  But Jake was just asking a place in the air

  where Isabella used to be.

  Isabella knew the same thing about

  psychotic- maniac- vampire- cannibals that I did. In

  fact, Isabella probably taught me. You don’t have

  to be able to outrun them, you just have to be

  able to outrun whoever you’re with.

  And Isabella was with us.

  Angeline quickly turned her cute up to about

  a seven, causing anybody directly in front of her

  face to feel a mild, but pleasant, burning sensation.

  She smiled at Jake and said, “Yeah. You see, about

  that horse . . .”

  But Jake wasn’t affected. “Where’s my

  horse?” he said again.

  Angeline turned it up to a nine, but he was

  unaffected. It was like he was throwing Kryptonite

  all over Angeline’s cuteness. He stood up and

  started looking around for Isabella, like how you

  might imagine a Tyrannosaurus would look around

  for a caramel- covered lamb.

  And my superpower tingled. That’s what

  they do, right? Or do they jingle? My superpower

  wiggled. I don’t know. But I felt something.

  “You haven’t beaten everybody yet,” I said.

  Angeline looked over at me and gritted

  her teeth.

  I steered Emmily to the seat opposite Jake.

  “You still have to beat Emmily,” I said.

  “Yay!” Emmily cheered, unaware that there

  was a real chance she could be going home with her

  detached arm in a cooler full of ice.

  Emmily put her teeny hand up, and Jake

  grasped it. As he did, Jake�
��s face became softer and

  pinker, and he giggled. He giggled like a puppy

  being tickled by a kitten wearing a duckling

  costume.

  I said, “Go!” and Emmily strained against his

  giant ham of an arm. Jake started giggling so hard

  he began to shake. This made Emmily giggle, and he

  let her slowly push his hand down to the table.

  “Emmily wins!” Angeline shouted, and

  everybody clapped — nobody harder than Jake. I

  was proud of myself for sensing that Jake’s anger

  would be calmed by Emmily’s Emmilishness.

  But I had neglected to consider one thing.

  It was that thing where guys will work way

  harder to win a prize for a girl than they ever would

  for themselves.

  “WHERE’S HER HORSE?” Jake shouted,

  now a million times louder and angrier than before.

  This time, his shouts were directed at the place

  where Angeline used to be standing.

  Now that Isabella and Angeline had both

  bailed, there was only one victim left. Jake stared

  at me and snorted and my superpowers told me that

  there was a chance that somebody was going to get

  punched in half at any moment.

  And that’s when Angeline dragged Bruntford

  up to the table. She slid a plate of cafeteria meat

  loaf in front of Emmily.

  “There’s your horse,” Bruntford said.

  We all went silent. We had always suspected

  that the meat loaf was made of something like that,

  but was she telling the truth? Or was Bruntford just

  saying it to quiet everyone down?

  “Horsey!” Emmily said and took a big bite.

  She offered the next one to Jake. who took it with a

  dumb, sweet smile.

  Everybody walked away, and left the two

  adorable dopes to enjoy their repulsive lunch

  in peace.

  On the way out, I thanked Bruntford and

  asked her if it was really horse.