by Jim Benton
From New York Times bestselling author Jim Benton
free
Diploma of
Everything
Inside!
DUMB
ARE
YOU?
HOW
What’s on the other side???
Find out in this handy,
highly accurate
IQ DUMBNESS SCALE
This document
YOUR NAM
knows everything about
but not dumb stuff that
Jamie KellY, Professor
and ToTal Genius
certifies that
Your name here
knows everything about everything important
but not dumb stuff that nobody cares about.
1STP P
IT’S NOT MY FAULT
I KNOW EVERYTHING
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
b
Diary,
iT’s noT my FAULT
i know EVERYTHING
SCHOLASTIC INC.
Jim Benton’s Tales from Mackerel Middle School
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted,
downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced
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invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For
information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention:
Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-64946-9
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, March 2009
1STP P
For all the Jamies, Angelines, and
Isabellas of the world; I hope you
don't mind me using your name.
Special thanks to the team at
Scholastic: Steve Scott, Cheryl
Weisman, Susan Jeffers Casel,
Anna Bloom, and most of all,
editor Shannon Penney.
And thanks to Mary K
for all your help.
1STP P
1STP P
1STP P
Dear Whoever Is Reading My Dumb Diary,
Are you sure you’re supposed to be
reading somebody else’s diary? I mean, you
must know about the SACRED SECRECY
OF THE DIARY — it’s a principle that
must never be violated. Unless you were to
find yourself in a position where you HAD
to read another person’s diary. Like if a
bear or teacher or animal like that MADE
you do it, then you wouldn’t have a choice.
Or if you just really really really really needed
to know something, and there were at least
four or more “reallys” involved, then that
might be okay. And if there were some sort
of zombie-related issues.
But none of these conditions apply to
parents, so if you are my parents, then you
are just committing unauthorized reading,
and if you punish me for anything I may have
written here, then I will cleverly know that
you read my diary, which you do not have
my permission to do. (Although I might be
able to overlook it in exchange for a puppy.)
Now, by the power vested in me, I do
promise that everything in this diary is true,
or, at least, as true as I think it needs to be.
Signed,
PS: Also if you are a blond girl at my school
whose initials are Angeline the Blondwad,
you aren’t allowed to read my diary, either.
Even if zombies are about to eat you.
PPS: Especially if they are.
1
Sunday 01
Dear Dumb Diary,
It’s not my fault I know everything.
Okay, I don’t know where Timbuktu is, but I
refuse to know that. Even if somebody told me,
I would flush my brain like a Thought -Potty and
wave good-bye to Timbuktu as it swirled down my
brain hole.
I know everything that I want to know.
2
Sunday is the day that many of the world’s
great civilizations set aside to do homework.
Isabella came over today so we could do homework
together, which makes the time we waste not
doing it go faster.
To mask the scent of homework, she brought
over a bunch of magazines with quizzes and pictures
of celebrities. We noticed how ugly people turn
nice- looking by being famous — like there’s this one
boy on this one TV show, and if he wasn’t on a TV
show he would look like a girl that had been bitten
horribly on the face by an ape, but since he’s on TV,
he looks like a girl that was bitten handsomely on
the face by an angel.
3
Remember how I know everything? The reason
this came up today is that these magazines feature
lots of important quizzes and tests you can take,
like ARE YOU A FASHION HIT OR FASHION
TWIT? and JUST HOW MUCH NICENESS
DO YOU HAVE? and ARE YOUR PARENTS
ANNOYING OR SUPER -ANNOYING?
Magazine people are Geniuses and supercool
because they can figure out your whole life with
multiple- choice questions. I think they should
make it so all Life’s Questions are multiple choice.
4
Isabella kept getting mad at me because
I always came out in the very top of the ratings
in these quizzes. She kept coming out a little bit
subhuman and said that we need better magazines
with better tests. Then she tore them into a jillion
pieces.
As I tried to put some of the pictures back
together, I realized that the fam
ous boy -girl
actually looked better with most of his face torn
off than he did when he was just famous.
5
Monday 02
Dear Dumb Diary,
I went back and read some of my very oldest
diaries. There were no entries about important
matters like Hudson Rivers — eighth cutest boy
in my grade — or things that should happen to
Angeline.
The entries say things like “I eated salad
dressing” and “I got a Barbie shoe stuck in Stinker’s
nose again” and “The vet was mean to me about the
Barbie shoe so I tried to bite him but vets are quick
at not getting bit because dogs try all the time but
dogs don’t usually kick so I did that.”
What amazed me was just how dumb I used
to be, considering how smart I am now. There must
have been a day when I just woke up smart.
6
I wonder if there was a day when Angeline
woke up annoying. Like one night, she goes to
bed and she’s hardly perfect at all, and the next
morning, she wakes up in a puddle of her own
beauty, and she glides over to the mirror and
radiates gorgeous glamour all over the place.
She sees that she’s the most beautiful person that
has ever lived, and she smiles prettily because she
knows how much it’s going to bug me.
7
And maybe there was a moment when Hudson
Rivers was only the ninth cutest boy in my grade,
and then he cutely said some sort of cute thing and
realized that now he was number eight????
I sort of doubt this one, because I don’t think
boys realize things.
8
Tuesday 03
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today, Mr. Evans gave us a new assignment
in English class. Get this: He wants us to keep
a diary for almost three weeks. This sounds pretty
easy except for one thing: The diaries are going to
be read by everyone. In fact, Evans explained
that Old Mrs. Penney, the ancient media specialist
(or librarian, as they were called when she was hired
and books were just being invented) is going to
type up all of our diary entries and put them in the
library where anybody can just walk in and check
them out. This is a clear violation of the Sacred
Secrecy of Diaries.
9
Now, I’m an expert on diaries, as you know.
That makes me a diareer. Or maybe that makes
me diaretic. Anyway, this expertness made me
blurt out, “You can’t let people read our diaries.
Diaries are private.”
This probably would have made the point just
fine, but my expertness made me add, “You’ve got
to be out of your mind.”
10
Mr. Evans’s vein instantly swelled up and
throbbed on his bald head like a skinny blue snake
attacking a giant egg.
Isabella, who is an expert on knowing when
somebody has been Pushed Too Far, sensed
that Mr. Evans was going to punish me. She quickly
blurted out, “Jamie, if you know so much about
diaries, maybe you should have to help Old Mrs.
Penney with the project.”
Normally, I would have been mad that she
had offered me up that way, but she probably
spared me from something much worse. What would
I do without her?
11
Suddenly, Mr. Evans’s face looked like a big
wad of cheese with a little curved cut in it, which
is how his face makes a smile. He said that the
diaries would be anonymous, and that was why
Mrs. Penney would be typing them up — so nobody
could recognize anyone’s handwriting. And as far as
privacy, he wanted us to understand that anything
we write MUST BE TRUE. But since everyone could
read these things, we might want to use fake names
if something is very personal.
Then he said he thought that Isabella had a
great idea, and even though Mrs. Penney has been
doing this for decades (in fact, she even invented
the assignment), she would certainly love the help
of an expert like me.
Note to Mr. Evans: Yes, I understand
sarcasm when I hear it, you pleasant, not fat,
unbald, young teacher, you.
12
Wednesday 04
Dear Dumb Diary,
Okay, so here’s the deal, Dumb Diary. I have
to write diary entries to hand in for my assignment,
but I’m not going to stop my important regular diary
work, such as documenting the number of times
Hudson has sat with me and Isabella at lunch in the
last month (eleven times), or the number of times
he’s stopped and talked to us at our lockers (eight
times) or the number of times he’s spit out his gum
on the sidewalk this week (four times . . . why am I
counting this?).
Anyway, I’ll keep up my real diary as well as
the fake pages, and at the end of the three weeks,
I’ll just tear out the Fake Diary assignment pages
and turn those in.
Don’t get jealous, Dumb Diary. I’m not
cheating on you with this fake diary. So don’t
put on the saddest music you can find and write
weepy poems about your broken heart or spine or
whatever. It’s true that I would be worth a whole
bunch of VERY weepy poems, but not over this.
13
To be sure that I don’t tear out the wrong
pages and turn those in, my assignment pages will
look different,and will be exactly what I’m willing
to let people read.
Here’s what I’m thinking my fake entries
should look like:
My Dearest Diary:
Today I went to school and appreciated the crap out
of my teachers, especially Mr. Evans, who gave us this really
awesome assignment of diary-writing that I get to do
instead of watching TV.
Fondly,
Anonymous
14
Perfect, right? Sometimes it amazes me how
ingenious I am about everything.
Oh, and I stopped by the library to ask Old
Mrs. Penney how she wanted me to help her and she
said, “You’re the one that likes to write, aren’t you?
And draw? Friends with Isabella?”
What was next? The color of my underpants?
Evidently, Old Mrs. Penney is one of those teachers
that knows everything about every kid in the
school.
She said that once she gets the diaries from
Mr. Evans, she’ll explain what I have to do. Then she
said something old and I didn’t understand her.
15
Thursday 05
My Dearest Diary:
Thursday, as you may have heard, is Meat Loaf
Day in the cafeteria. It feels so good to know that our cooks
are doing their part to make sure that the elbow meat of
weasels —--- which is too often wastefully discarded after
weasels are run over —--- is carefully made into lunch for
me and my fellow innocent children. At
least I think it is
weasel elbow meat.
Signed,
Anonymous but really pretty
16
Dear Dumb Diary,
Now for the real entry: Angeline has been
sitting down right next to me in the cafeteria more
often lately, and I think it’s because she thinks
we’re family. Not because her uncle, Assistant
Principal Devon, married my Aunt Carol (my mom’s
sister). No —because my dog, Stinker, and her dog,
Stickybuns, had puppies together, which makes
them married in Dog World.
17
But this really doesn’t make me and Angeline
related, exactly. What this makes us is Dog-in-
Laws. And in-laws — any kind of in-laws — are
only family when they’re around.
In- laws are like a side order that you didn’t
ask for that comes on the plate with the food you
did order. And sometimes the side order you get is
onion rings or grapes or something good like that,
but you could also get a little cup of soggy coleslaw
or deep-fried fingernails.
It’s like the waiter brought the puppies over
with a side order of Angeline -slaw in a giant pink
bowl, and he accidentally gave me a diet drink with
no ice in it. Also my fork has a hair on it and all they
have for dessert is unflavored Jell-O.
Wait. Why am I writing about food? Oh, yeah.
Thursday is Meat Loaf Day so I didn’t eat lunch.
18
You remember that Isabella is getting one of
the puppies right, Dumb Diary? She keeps asking
if her puppy is done yet, which I don’t like talking
about because even though I’ve asked my mom over
and over, she won’t let me have one.
Isabella is really anxious to get a puppy
because she has had six kittens run away from
home, plus one turtle who is currently in the process
