Dear Dumb Diary #11: Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers
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poking the lump that was choking him to death
down his throat.
I started clapping, since lifesaving is a
pretty magnificent thing to do. But Jake wasn’t
thanking her, and Emmily looked pretty upset.
“You didn’t tell me he was going to blow food
all over me!” she said to Isabella, and she looked as
though she might cry. “Did he even bite
you?” she added.
This is the point where Isabella clapped her
hand over Emmily’s mouth and led her out of the
cafeteria, with me following close behind.
“Bite you?” I said. And I was going to ask why
she would want him to bite her, and then it all
became clear.
The bite.
“You thought if he bit you that you would get
boypowers, didn’t you?” I peered at Isabella.
“And you just wanted Emmily and Jake to spend
time together so you could get close enough to
make your move.”
Isabella always tells the truth. Every time.
Every time you catch her in a lie, she tells the
truth. If she can’t get away with lying more, she
tells the truth.
“He was really jumpy after the bubble-gum
thing,” she said. “What else could I do?”
Isabella said it was my fault because I
cheated by practicing the bottle toss. She
figured that if Jake bit her, she might get powers the
way I got them from Fat Ricky, and then it would be
a fair bet again. The basketball game and the arm
wrestling were to help her determine who was the
most powerful boy, and whose bite would do her
the most good.
Then she whispered, “I was afraid I was
turning into a girly girl, because we hang around
with Angeline more now. I was afraid that whatever
she has is contagious, and maybe that was how
you kicked me in the face.”
I was flattered that Isabella respects me
enough to cheat so badly, and with such little
regard for others.
Only a true friend could resent me
that much.
Friday 27
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today we handed in our ant reports. Emmily
ran in late with the finished report cover (she forgot
where the classroom was again), stapled it to the
report, and put it on Mrs. Maple’s desk. I think we
did a good job. I hope so anyway.
I didn’t see the ant jar, and I asked Emmily
where the dead ants were.
“They’re in a better place,” she said.
Such a sweet sentiment. I smiled. She
probably gave them an adorable, stupid little
funeral.
They use some of the classrooms for the Fun
Fair. This year, they’re using Mrs. Maple’s class for
the bottle toss, where I’m afraid things are going to
go badly for me and my lips, Pinsetti-wise.
When class was almost over, Mrs. Maple
asked some of the boys to help move her desk to
get ready for the fair. Emmily stood up and
said girls are strong, too, and in the ant colonies
the girls do all of the hard work, so why can’t girls
help her move it?
Teachers are always shocked when they
discover that you’ve learned something, and are
even more shocked when you actually apply it
somehow to the real world. Plus, this was Emmily
who said it, and realizing that Emmily had learned
something could make a teacher’s entire career.
Mrs. Maple had to say okay.
Isabella and I stood up to help. I guess we
were obligated to, since we were Emmily’s report
partners. Plus, I think Isabella might have been
trying to make up for the events of the last
couple weeks.
Mrs. Maple got on one side of the desk, and
we got on the other three sides and lifted it.
As we were huffing and puffing, I said it
would be easier to just slide it, and Isabella agreed,
and we all dropped the desk before Mrs. Maple had
a chance to share her opinion. Now that I think
about it, her opinion might have been something
like, “Okay, just let me get my mutant toes out
of the way before you do.”
But she didn’t, and we didn’t, and the next
thing you know, she was screaming and we were
lifting the desk off her finger toes and she was
flopping down in her chair.
Mrs. Maple was angry and in pain and making
those grunting sounds that adults make when there
are kids around and they can’t shout the swear
words they crave.
I knelt down and examined her toes to see if
they looked broken.
Then she suddenly stopped grunting, and I
figured she had died from toe pain. But she was
staring at the cover of our report that was sitting on
her desk. She was squinting and turning her head
back and forth the way beagles and dads do when
they’re trying to understand something.
And then I realized why.
It was Emmily’s glitter job.
When she got home with our report, Emmily
discovered that she didn’t have any glitter to
complete the cover. She had glue, but no glitter.
But she did have a bottle of dead ants.
That’s right. Emmily had used the ants
for glitter.
Mrs. Maple’s recovery was nothing short of a
miracle. She started laughing, and then getting
creeped out, and then laughing again. She limped
out of the room and we heard her walk down to the
next teacher’s room.
After a minute, we heard them both
explode with laughter. Mrs. Maple came back
with tears in her eyes.
“Grossest — and most amazing — visual aid
I’ve ever seen,” she said, and started laughing
some more.
I apologized for dropping the desk on her, and
she said, “Oh, I’m okay. With these weird toes of
mine it happens all the time. I’m surprised you
haven’t noticed them before.”
We all said no, no, we hadn’t noticed them,
and they look perfectly normal to us, and they’re
just regular toes, and all that stuff.
Except Emmily, who said she noticed them all
the time and wasn’t surprised that we dropped the
desk on them.
And Mrs. Maple laughed even harder.
Saturday 28
Dear Dumb Diary,
TODAY WAS THE FUN FAIR.
And I was terrified.
Aunt Carol drove me and Angeline over to the
school this morning. They could probably detect
that I was slightly nervous by the way I was
trembling violently.
I didn’t want to tell them, but I had to get it
off my chest. Even though they were an adult and a
gorgeous person, Aunt Carol is okay for a grown-up,
and Angeline is less detestable to me now than she
used to be.
As we pulled into the parking lot, I couldn’t
wait any longer. “I’m going to have to kiss Pinsetti,
and eve
n my superpowers can’t save me.”
They looked at each other and Aunt Carol
silently parked the car. Then they turned around and
asked in one voice, “WHAT superpowers?”
I explained everything. How I acquired my
powers through a boy bite, how I kicked Isabella
with them and used them to sense boyfeelings. They
listened quietly and sympathetically about each
and every stage of my transformation and nodded
thoughtfully.
And then Aunt Carol lost it. I mean, she
laughed so hard she choked on her gum. At the
time, I thought I might have caused the chokage
with other superpowers of mine, because I was
really happy about how well it shut her up.
After Aunt Carol managed to swallow the gum
(remaining in her stomach now for seven years,
which serves her right), she and Angeline gave
me their opinions.
First, Aunt Carol said, you don’t get
superpowers from being bitten by a boy, or a spider,
or anything else. And if those kinds of superpowers
really existed, we wouldn’t have oil leaks or
earthquakes or anything like that. Our superheroes
would save the day all the time, and clearly there
are days that just don’t get saved.
And Angeline said that she understands how
boys think. Not all boys, and not all the time, but
sometimes. Even though she doesn’t have
superpowers at all.
And then I said that if they were right,
how was it that I understood all boys all the time,
and how could I flawlessly answer questions
about them?
Angeline said it was because I’m just
good at observations. I watch people carefully.
I listen to them.
“Besides,” Angeline said finally, “you don’t
understand all boys.”
I nodded. “If you mean understanding why
all guys like to watch sports and no girls do, I’m
working on that one.”
Aunt Carol started laughing again, so hard
that I offered her another piece of gum to choke on.
“What are you talking about?” she howled. “I love
watching basketball. And I kind of like baseball
sometimes, too. Dan likes football, but he would
rather watch a movie than baseball or basketball.”
“I like watching football,” Angeline said.
“Although my dad doesn’t. He does like hockey, but
only when his team is winning.”
This, frankly, was a lot to absorb. These were
two of the girliest girls I knew, but they liked
some of the boyiest things there are. Evidently,
sports aren’t just a boy thing. Some girls like
watching some sports. Some boys don’t.
Is it possible that human beings aren’t just
like ants?
But they had forgotten something. I’d
kicked Isabella. In the face. I asked them to explain
how I managed that.
“You’re fast, Jamie,” Aunt Carol said, waving
her arms around. “Plus, Isabella probably didn’t
expect it. Maybe it was dumb luck. Maybe Isabella
just isn’t that tough.”
Angeline put her hand on Aunt Carol’s
shoulder. “No. Not that last one. You’re wrong
about that last one,” she said quietly. “Isabella is
that tough. It was more likely dumb luck. Really
dumb. The dumbest.”
I spent a long time saying good-bye to Aunt
Carol, since I was in no mood to go to the bottle
toss without my superpowers. Finally, she pried my
hands apart and wriggled free from my farewell hug
and Angeline and I went in to the Fun Fair together.
Isabella found us right away, of course,
because more than anything on earth, she was
really looking forward to making me look like
a dope at the bottle toss.
We ran into Hudson inside and he asked me
where Chip was, and I said I had no idea.
“But you’re meeting up with him here,”
he said.
“No, I’m not. Angeline’s meeting up with him.”
“No, she’s not. Angeline is hanging out with
Mike Pinsetti today. Everybody heard about that.
Besides, I saw Chip ask you at the mall.”
“No, no,” I explained, “he was asking
Angeline.”
Then Angeline walked up behind me with
Pinsetti. “Nope, I’m hanging around with Mike
today,” she said, and she pointed down the hall.
Before I could even process what I was
seeing, Angeline leaned in and whispered, “I asked
Chip to stick with her, and honestly, I’ve never seen
him happier.”
She was right. Emmily was walking
along with Chip, cutest boy in our class, and
she was making him grin and laugh the way she does
it to us. He just couldn’t stay supercool around her.
Emmily had Kryptonited his cool.
Then I looked at Hudson, and he said
something I’ll never forget until somebody
says something better to me. “I was hoping you’d
want to hang around at the fair, but then I thought
you were hanging around with Chip, but I never
see you guys talking, like ever, and I thought
maybe something had changed, so I’ve been trying
to say something about it for weeks.”
What? HE. HAD. WANTED. TO.
HANG. AROUND. WITH. ME. I hadn’t sensed
it. Not at all. Not one bit.
So I don’t have superpowers. Aunt Carol was
right, and Angeline was right. HUDSON was the
boy Angeline was talking about in the car. He was
right up there in my face, liking me, and I hadn’t
picked up a thing.
Isabella was listening, and suddenly she also
knew that I didn’t have superpowers.
“Let’s go try out the ol’ bottle toss,” she
said, yanking me along to my doom.
“You coming?” I said to Hudson, and
he smiled.
I was really not looking forward to having
Isabella make me look like an idiot, or make me pay
up with Pinsetti, in front of everybody.
I was sweating and my stomach hurt and I
was a little wobbly.
“You go first,” Angeline said, and she pushed
me up to the front of the line where the guy handed
me three balls and explained that I had three tosses
to knock over all the bottles. Right. Like the
explanation was going to help.
Angeline said, “Wait.”
But I threw the first ball, and it bounced off
the chalkboard and landed in the back of the room.
I picked up the second ball.
Angeline said, “Wait.”
I threw, and the ball bounced off the ceiling
and into the wastebasket.
Only one more ball before my fate would be
sealed. I could hear my lips softly weeping.
But Angeline said, “Wait,” and grabbed
my arm.
“Don’t throw it at the bottles. You’re not a
thrower-atter. Think about how you throw the
ball to Stinkette. You’re a thrower-toer. Do i
t
your own way.”
She was right.
I threw the third ball to the bottles, and
knocked two of the three of them over. Not enough
for a prize, but nothing to be embarrassed about.
Isabella was shocked.
She was shocked, but not intimidated. She
took her place as Angeline leaned in and said
something to the man running the booth, just as he
was preparing to hand Isabella the balls. He went
pale in the face, grabbed a stuffed pink koala, and
handed it to Isabella.
“GAme's Over. You win a prize. Who’s next?”
The kids in line behind us jostled Isabella out
of line as she started to complain, “Wait a second! I
didn’t get to throw.”
The guy at the booth shook his head. “You
already won a prize. The limit is one prize to a
player. Those are the rules, Jamie.”
“Jamie?” Isabella said.
“Jamie?” I echoed.
As we walked out of the room, Angeline
grinned at Isabella in such a way that made it clear
that it had been her who had foiled Isabella’s plan.
“Why did that guy call her Jamie?” Hudson
asked.
Angeline smiled. “I told him that Isabella was
Jamie Kelly.”
“So?” I asked. “Why would that win her a
prize?”
Isabella answered for her. “Because all of the
guys running the games know about you and Dart
Number Three. They’re probably friends with
that clown, Beepo — maybe they visited him the
hospital, or drove him to his physical therapy.”
Isabella scowled at Angeline, but I think I saw
a faint, respectful smile wriggling around
underneath it.
Angeline was totally nice to Pinsetti for the
rest of the day, and it never seemed weird or
boyfriendy-girlfriendy. It was just normal,
and Pinsetti wasn’t even all that gross.
Chip and Emmily laughed and laughed so
much that they had us all going.
Later on, Jake joined our little group, and he