by Jim Benton
100
OKAY DIARY. IF ONLY SHE COULD JUST BE
HERSELF AND STOP WORRYING ABOUT HER
LOOKS SHE WOULD BE PERFECT. I INVENTED
A NEW KIND OF SLOPPY JOE AT LUNCH.
IT HAS NO BUN AND IT’S JUST CALLED A
SLOPPY. BYE.
Did you catch it, Dumb Diary? It was that
part about “cool and funny.” I’m sure this is
Hudson’s diary, and I’m sure this was about me.
Hudson is right. Completely Right. This hair
thing isn’t me. I’m not the beautiful-hair girl. I’m
cool and funny. Oh Hudson, thou art so wise. Wise
enough even to be Thou Arted.
Now it’s so clear. Angeline gave me this hair
to make Hudson reject me. I should have guessed.
It’s just like her to kill me with beautifulness, her
obvious weapon of choice. And now that I think
about it, she got me over to her house on the made-
up reason of needing help to name the puppies.
101
Her dog is named STICKYBUNS — only the
third or fourth cutest name I’ve heard of for a dog.
She has no problem coming up with names. The
whole scam was all to get my guard down, to fill my
head with puppy fumes, then to spring her trap.
I’m just thankful I found out in time — before
I became so gorgeous that there was no turning back.
I called Isabella and told her everything.
She said that none of it made any sense, but that
I should not bring it up with Angeline until she gets
her puppy, and to keep working on the diaries.
102
Sunday 22
Dear Dumb Diary,
Isabella came over today because it’s
homework day. (I’ll bet it’s always been like this. I’ll
bet the pyramids were due on a Monday, but they
didn’t start making them until Sunday afternoon.)
I stopped brushing and spraying my hair last
night, of course. It is in a state of decay, but I am
still partially breathtaking. (I’m thinking about
having a funeral for the beautiful hair wad I pulled
out of my brush.)
103
In the middle of our homework, Angeline
called. After what she did. Can you believe the
nerve? Here is our conversation:
Angeline: Hi, Jamie. How’s the diary
project coming?
Me: (coldly) Just fine. How are the puppies?
Angeline: They’re great.
Me: Wait. I didn’t hear what you said.
Isabella lunged at the phone.
Angeline: I said they’re great. Want me to
bring one over for Isabella?
Me: I thought your ankle was messed up.
Angeline: Oh, yeah. I guess I can’t do that.
You guys could come over here.
Me: I could send Isabella over to pick one.
Angeline: No. No. Don’t do that. I mean,
my ankle hurts again. I have to go. Bye.
It was all I could do to keep myself from
calling her a big fat faker liar.
104
There was no way to finish typing up all the
diaries today. Isabella spent too much time on
non-homework stuff. And now that I think about
it, Isabella wasn’t even on my neck about the
magazine quiz that I never finished. Mostly all she
wanted to do was talk about stuff we had done
together, which was weird.
105
Monday 23
Dear Dumb Diary,
I threw away the stuff Angeline gave me
for my hair, and it’s back to its former mutation.
I miss my gorgeous mane, but I had no idea how
long people spend on their beautiful hair. Add the
makeup and outfits and it’s anybody’s guess who
spends more time on their looks: models or clowns.
106
When Angeline saw me at school she sucked
in a breath, probably because she knew that all of
her wicked sorcery on my head had come undone.
Her ankle seemed like it was all better and she
just stood in front of me, not saying anything, like
she was waiting for me to say something. Finally, I
couldn’t help myself.
“I know what you did.”
107
Angeline looked like she might cry.
“Awful, right?” she said, which of course
she is.
“Yes, you are,” I said, because she is.
(Remember, Diary? I just told you that.)
“But you know that my heart is in the right
place,” she said.
I must have looked like I didn’t know anything
about her heart or where she had it, because she
narrowed her eyes and said, “Did you finish working
on the diaries?”
108
I told her I hadn’t and she asked where they
were. I told her that Isabella was going to drop
them off with Old Mrs. Penney.
Angeline turned around and RAN toward the
library.
109
By the time I had caught up, Isabella was
sitting at a table with the neat stack of diaries in
front of her. Angeline was standing there, puffing.
“Are those all the diaries?” Angeline asked.
“All the ones Jamie had.” Isabella grinned.
“Every single one.”
“Including Hudson’s,” I said meanly, like
a mean person pointing out something a meaner
person had done.
Isabella laughed a little. “I know which one
you’re thinking of, Jamie. That wasn’t Hudson’s,”
she said.
110
I grabbed it out of the pile and shoved it at
Angeline. “It is so. Read it, Angeline. I know what
you did to me.”
Angeline read it and said, “Isabella’s right.
This isn’t Hudson’s. It’s written too well. Plus,
Hudson is pretty much oblivious to you, Jamie. He
doesn’t notice me anymore, either.”
Angeline shuffled through the stack and
found a dirty, poorly written diary that looked like
it had been dirtily folded and kept in a dirty pocket
for a dirty while.
“This is Hudson’s. Read it. I’ll bet I can
already tell you what it says.”
I read a couple entries — enough to make
things clear to me. The most telling entry said:
Dear Diary:
I saw a video game in a magazine
and I want to get it.
On TV I saw a car I want someday.
I like pizza and I want to have
some for dinner.
Isabella is the coolest girl that
ever lived.
Bye.
111
“Isabella?” I said. “Hudson and Isabella?”
“Jamie, you could tell, couldn’t you? I mean,
anybody could tell,” Angeline said.
“Anybody could tell,” Isabella echoed. “Not
like I care. He’s a dope. If you had read my diary,
you would have known that.”
It was like my brain was playing clips from
old tapes. In one, I saw Hudson smiling at Isabella.
In another, I heard him asking her to go for tacos
after the dance. In another, I saw Stinker choking
on a pair of my mom’s p
antyhose. Guess I had that
tape misfiled.
“But, Angeline, you lied about not being able
to name the puppies. It was part of your scheme.
You came up with the name ‘Stickybuns,’ only
about the third cutest name ever,” I said.
“Stickybuns was a rescue dog, Jamie.
Remember? She had a name when I got her. You
can’t change that. It’s Puppylaw, and everybody
knows that.”
112
But OH- HO! I found a flaw in Angeline’s
little alibi.
“Then why did you fix my hair?” I said
triumphantly.
“Because I thought you’d like it,” Angeline
said. Isabella shrugged her shoulders and tilted her
head, which is Isabella -language for “and there you
have it.”
Then Isabella handed Angeline her own diary
assignment back.
“Bet you’re looking for this,” Isabella said.
“Did you read it?” Angeline asked.
“Some of it,” Isabella said. “Enough, I think.”
She started to laugh.
113
Old Mrs. Penney finally came over, scooped
up all the diaries, and said she’d finish typing the
ones that I hadn’t.
We all walked out of the library. I’m still not
sure exactly what happened. I didn’t understand
Isabella’s exchange with Angeline about Angeline’s
fake diary, and I was too stunned to quiz them
about it.
I don’t think anything will ever ever ever ever
top THE ISABELLA AND HUDSON THING.
I’m considering flushing all of this down my brain
hole anyway.
114
Tuesday 24
Dear Dumb Diary,
I sat with Isabella at lunch today, like
always, and I saw Hudson looking over at us, even
though now I realize that he’s actually looking at
Isabella. I should have seen this coming. They have
so much in common, like, um, masculinity.
But sort of like how being famous made those
ugly boy-girls in the magazine more handsome,
seeing Isabella crushed on makes her seem prettier.
And since it’s Isabella and not Angeline, I really
don’t mind at all that Hudson isn’t focused on me.
At all. Even a little. Like a jerk.
115
Angeline walked by and said hi, but clearly
had no intention of slowing down. And then Isabella
Spilled It.
“That was Angeline’s REAL diary,”
she said. “You know how both you and Angeline
made a fake one just for the assignment? Her mom
dropped off the real one by accident. That’s why
Angeline was in such a panic. She thought you had
already read it.”
“And you read it??” I asked, hoping that
Isabella had violated the Sacred Secrecy of
the Diary.
116
“I didn’t have time to read all of it. But I
read some.”
I begged Isabella to tell me what it said, and
she threw that dumb Sacred Secrecy of the
Diary thing in my face.
I explained that privacy and sacredness are
really more guidelines than rules. They’re really
meant to be sacred suggestions.
Then Isabella said, “There’s stuff about
Angeline you would never have guessed. But I don’t
want to violate your whole big sacred thing.”
117
“Violate it,” I said, loud enough for Bruntford
to walk over and tell me to be quiet through that
giant hole in the front of her face.
“Violate it,” I whispered.
“Okay,” Isabella said, and she began to tell
me what she read in Angeline’s diary. For starters,
Angeline didn’t hurt her ankle that day with the
puppies. She faked that. And she learned how to
do it by watching Isabella fake injuries. Isabella
and I both had to stop and give some respect to the
fakery. Isabella especially liked how Angeline bit
her lower lip in agony.
“Nice touch,” she said. “She fooled me.” And
I nodded. I think now we know how teachers feel
when they see real progress in a student.
118
“But why would she do that?” I asked.
“Because she knew which puppy I was about
to choose, and that was the one she wanted.”
They were all adorable, except Stinkette.
What difference could it make?
“Angeline likes us, Jamie,” Isabella said.
“She thinks of us as friends. But you knew that
already, because you know how everybody feels
about you, right?”
“Yes,” I totally lied. “I totally do.”
And then Isabella explained that Angeline
wrote about how she was really happy that the
puppies connected her to me, and that they
connected her to Isabella, too, and how we would
all be one big happy family. But she thought that
one puppy, in particular, would do that better than
the rest. Angeline and Isabella wanted the same
puppy.
“She wrote that we’d be like sisters,”
Isabella said.
The word really hit me. I don’t have any
siblings. Neither does Angeline. Isabella has
brothers, but those are really more like enemies
that live at her house.
119
Sisters. Like my mom and Aunt Carol.
And then Isabella said something I never
thought I would ever hear her say.
“I think maybe Angeline isn’t a total turd,
Jamie. Anybody that fakes an injury like that can’t
be all bad.”
That’s high praise from Isabella. That’s
friend- talk. It’s almost exactly what Isabella wrote
to me in the first birthday card she ever gave me.
I thought that Hudson and Isabella was tough to
swallow, but now Angeline and Isabella? Friends?
Sisters?
I looked out the window to see if it was the
end of the world, like if it was raining lizards or a
big earthquake was tearing a huge crater in the
earth that would swallow all of humanity. Then I
wondered for a moment — if that happened, would
the news anchors get to report it, or would it be
more of a weathergirl thing?
120
There was one more question I needed
answered, and only Old Mrs. Penney could do that. I
went to the library and asked her why she told me to
look at that one diary in particular.
“I’ve been here a long time, Jamie,” she said.
“Like since right after the earth started
cooling,” I offered quietly, counting on her old ears
not being able to hear it.
“That diary was from another student. One
from a long time ago, when I first started here.”
“Who?”
She looked at me very seriously and said,
“George Washington.”
121
And then she started to laugh. I guess maybe
she had heard my little joke.
“That diary was your dad’s, Jamie. He did
the exact
same assignment when he was your age. I
thought you’d like to read it.”
Uck. I can’t believe that this assignment
actually made me call my dad wise. Further proof
that assignments of any kind are bad for people.
And to double the uck- factor, he was writing about
some girl who was not my mom. (He met my mom in
college.)
I told Mrs. Penney that the next assignment
will probably be worse and that it’s my fault. I told
her it was going to be writing a magazine quiz.
“I’m not surprised Mr. Evans is doing
that,” she said, and my guts tensed up waiting to
hear why.
122
“Teachers don’t make a lot of money, Jamie.
Mr. Evans does some freelance writing. He writes a
ton of those quizzes for magazines. I’m sure you’ve
done them.”
And now the very assignment I gave birth to
has turned around and made me refer to Mr. Evans
as smart and a Genius and supercool. This has been
a long day, Dumb Diary. I have to go to bed. I’ve
said a lot of things I wish I hadn’t meant.
123
Wednesday 25
Dear Dumb Diary,
It was a half day at school today. I don’t
know why. Sometimes teachers say that they use
half days to work on grades or something. I think
they might just be hosing the coffee odor off each
other in the parking lot.
Isabella was sort of smiley all morning, so I
kept waiting for something terrible to happen, but
it never did.
124
When I got home, Mom was in a strange
mood — sort of angry but also sort of happy. Would
you call that Hangry? I don’t even know where
that emotion comes from.
But I had a better idea when Aunt Carol
showed up with Angeline, Isabella, and a basket.
125
“We have puppies!” Aunt Carol sang, and
Stinker started barking like crazy. Mom tried to look
all angry and upset but it is scientifically impossible
