Diary of a Wimpy Kid 01 - Greg - Jeff Kinney

Dear reader:

I’m very excited that you’re holding theKindle edition of Diary of a Wimpy Kidin your hands.

When I read my first e-book on a Kindle,I was amazed at the possibilities.Carrying a whole library around with me

on a device I could fit in the palm of myhand? Amazing.

What’s been very rewarding to me as anauthor has been seeing kids carryingtheir dog-eared copies of Diary of aWimpy Kid with them. The Kindleallows kids to have the whole series attheir fingertips, and the readingexperience is crisp and clean every time. . . with no chance of today's breakfaststaining the pages.

Thank you for purchasing Diary of aWimpy Kid on your Kindle. I hope itgives you lots of laughs and you have asmuch fun reading it as I did writing it.

Jeff Kinney

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

GREG HEFFLEY’SJOURNAL

TO MOM, DAD, RE, SCOTT, ANDPATRICK

September

Tuesday

First of all, let me get something straight:This is a Journal, not a diary. I knowwhat it says on the cover, but when Momwent out to buy this thing I specificallytold her to get one that didn’t say “diary”on it.

Great. All I need is for some jerk tocatch me carrying this book around andget the wrong idea.

The other thing I want to clear up rightaway is that this was mom’s idea, notmine.

But if she thinks I’m going to write downmy “feelings” in here or whatever, she’scrazy. So just don’t expect me to be all“Dear Diary” this and “Dear Diary” that.

The only reason I agreed to do this at allis because I figure later on when I’mrich and famous, I’ll have better things todo than answer people’s stupidquestions all day long. So this book isgonna come in handy.

Like I said, I’ll be famous one day, butfor now I’m stuck in middle school with

a bunch of morons.

Let me just say for the record that I thinkmiddle school is the dumbest idea everinvented. You got kids like me whohaven’t hit their growth spurt yet mixedin with these gorillas who need to shavetwice a day.

And then they wonder why bullying issuch a big problem in middle school.

If it was up to me, grade levels would bebased on height, not age. But then again,I guess that would mean kids like ChiragGupta would still be in the first grade.

Today is the first day of school, andright now we’re just waiting around forthe teacher to hurry up and finish theseating chart. So I figured I might aswell write in this book to pass the time.

By the way, let me give you some goodadvice. On the first day of school, yougot to be real careful where you sit. Youwalk into the classroom and just plunkyour stuff down on any old desk and thenext thing you know the teacher is saying

—

So in this class, I got stuck with ChrisHosey in front of me and Lionel James inback of me

Jason Brill came in late and almost satto my right, but luckily I stopped thatfrom happening at the last second.

Next period, I should just sit in themiddle of a bunch of hot girls as soon asI step in the room. But I guess if I dothat, it just proves I didn’t learn anythingfrom last year.

Man, I don’t know what is up with girlsthese days. It used to be a whole lot

simpler back in elementary school. Thedeal was, if you were the fastest runnerin your class, you got all the girls.

And in the fifth grade, the fastest runnerwas Ronnie McCoy.

Nowadays, it’s a whole lot morecomplicated. Now it’s about the kind ofclothes you wear or how rich you are or

if you have a cute butt or whatever. Andkids like Ronnie McCoy are scratchingtheir heads wondering what the heckhappened.

The most popular boy in my grade isBryce Anderson. The thing that reallystinks is that I have always been intogirls, but kids like Bryce have only comearound in the last couple of years.

I remember how Bryce used to act backin elementary school.

But of course now I don’t get any creditfor sticking with the girls all this time.

Like I said, Bryce is the most popularkid in our grade, so that leaves all therest of us guys scrambling for the otherspots.

The best I can figure is that I’msomewhere around 52nd or 53rd mostpopular this year. But the good news isthat I’m about to move up one spotbecause Charlie Davies is above me,and he’s getting his braces next week.

I try to explain all this popularity stuff tomy friend Rowley (who is probablyhovering right around the 150 mark, bythe way), but I think it just goes in oneear and out the other with him.

Wednesday

Today we had Phys Ed, so the first thingI did when I got outside was sneak off tothe basketball court to see if the Cheesewas still there. And sure enough, it was.

That piece of Cheese has been sitting onthe blacktop since last spring. I guess itmust’ve dropped out of someone’ssandwich or something. After a coupleof days, the Cheese started getting allmoldy and nasty. Nobody would playbasketball on the court where the Cheesewas, even though that was the only courtthat had a hoop with a net.

Then one day, this kid named DarrenWalsh touched the Cheese with hisfinger, and that’s what started this thingcalled the Cheese Touch. It’s basicallylike the Cooties. If you get the CheeseTouch, you’re stuck with it until youpass it on to someone else.

The only way to protect yourself from

the Cheese Touch is to cross yourfingers.

But it’s not that easy remembering tokeep your fingers crossed every momentof the day. I ended up taping minetogether so they’d stay crossed all thetime. I got a D in handwriting, but it wastotally worth it.

This one kid named Abe Hall got theCheese Touch in April, and nobodywould even come near him for the rest ofthe year. This summer Abe moved awayto California and took the Cheese Touchwith him.

I just hope someone doesn’t start theCheese Touch up again, because I don’tneed that kind of stress in my life

anymore.

Thursday

I’m having a seriously hard time gettingused to the fact that summer is over and Ihave to get out of bed every morning togo to school.

My summer did not exactly get off to agreat start, thanks to my older brotherRodrick.

A couple of days into summer vacation,Rodrick woke me up in the middle of thenight. He told me I slept through thewhole summer, but that luckily I wokeup just in time for the first day of school.

You might think I was pretty dumb forfalling for that one, but Rodrick wasdressed up in his school clothes and heset my alarm clock ahead to make it looklike it was the morning. Plus, he closedmy curtains so I couldn’t see that it was

still dark out.

After Rodrick woke me up, I just gotdressed and went downstairs to makemyself some breakfast, like I do everymorning on a school day.

But I guess I must have made a pretty bigracket because the next thing I knew,Dad was downstairs, yelling at me foreating Cheerios at 3:00 in the morning.

.

It took me a minute to figure out what theheck was going on.

After I did, I told Dad that Rodrick hadplayed a trick on me, and He was theone that should be getting yelled at.

Dad walked down to the basement tochew Rodrick out, and I tagged along. Icouldn’t wait to see Rodrick get whatwas coming to him.

But Rodrick covered up his tracks prettygood.

And to this day, I’m sure Dad thinks I’vegot a screw loose or something.

Friday

Today at school we got assigned toreading groups.

They don’t come right out and tell you ifyou’re in the Gifted group or the Easy

group, but you can figure it out rightaway by looking at the covers of thebooks they hand out.

I was pretty disappointed to find out Igot put in the Gifted group, because thatjust means a lot of extra work.

When they did the screening at the end oflast year, I did my best to make sure I got

put in the Easy group this year.

Mom is real tight with our principal, so Ibet she stepped in and made sure I gotput in the Gifted group again.

Mom is always saying I’m a smart kid,but that I just don’t “apply” myself.

But if there’s one thing I learned fromRodrick, it’s to set people’sexpectations real low so you end upsurprising them by practically doingnothing at all.

Actually, I’m kind of glad my plan to getput in the Easy group didn’t work.

I saw a couple of the “Bink Says Boo”kids holding their books upside down,and I don’t think they were joking.

Saturday

Well, the first week of school is finallyover, so today I slept in.

Most kids wake up early on Saturday towatch cartoons or whatever, but not me.The only reason I get out of bed at all onweekends is because eventually, I can’tstand the taste of my own breathanymore.

Unfortunately, Dad wakes up at 6:00 inthe morning no matter what day of theweek it is, and he is not real considerateof the fact that I am trying to enjoy mySaturday like a normal person.

I didn’t have anything to do today so Ijust headed up to Rowley’s house.

Rowley is technically my best friend, butthat is definitely subject to change.

I’ve been avoiding Rowley since thefirst day of school, when he didsomething that really annoyed me.

We were getting our stuff from ourlockers at the end of the day, andRowley came up to me and said—

I have told Rowley at least a billion

times that now that we’re in middleschool, you’re supposed to say “hangout,” not “play.” But no matter howmany noogies I give him, he alwaysforgets the next time.

I’ve been trying to be a lot more carefulabout my image ever since I got tomiddle school. But having Rowleyaround is definitely not helping.

I met Rowley a few years ago when hemoved into my neighborhood.

His mom bought him this book called“How to Make Friends in New Places,”and he came to my house trying all thesedumb gimmicks.

I guess I kind of felt sorry for Rowley,and I decided to take him under mywing.

It’s been great having him around,mostly because I get to use all the tricksRodrick pulls on me.

Monday

You know how I said I play all sorts ofpranks on Rowley? Well, I have a littlebrother named Manny, and I could never

get away with pulling any of that stuff onhim.

Mom and Dad protect Manny like he’s aprince or something. And he never getsin trouble, even if he really deserves it.

Yesterday, Manny drew a self-portraiton my bedroom door in permanentmarker. I thought Mom and Dad werereally going to let him have it, but asusual, I was wrong.

But the thing that bugs me the most aboutManny is the nickname he has for me.When he was a baby, he couldn’tpronounce “brother,” so he startedcalling me “Bubby.” And he still callsme that now, even though I keep trying to

get Mom and Dad to make him stop.

Luckily none of my friends have foundout yet, but believe me, I have had somereally close calls.

Mom makes me help Manny get readyfor school in the morning. After I makeManny his breakfast, he carries hiscereal bowl into the family room andsits on his plastic potty.

And when it’s time for him to go to daycare, he gets up and dumps whatever hedidn’t eat right in the toilet.

Mom is always getting on me about notfinishing my breakfast. But if she had toscrape corn flakes out of the bottom of aplastic potty every morning, shewouldn’t have much of an appetiteeither.

Tuesday

I don’t know if I mentioned this before,but I am super good at video games. I’llbet I could beat anyone in my grade

head-to-head.

Unfortunately, Dad does not exactlyappreciate my skills. He’s alwaysgetting on me about going out and doingsomething “active.”

So tonight after dinner when Dad startedhassling me about going outside, I triedto explain how with video games, youcan play sports like football and soccer,and you don’t even get all hot andsweaty.

But as usual, Dad didn’t see my logic.

Dad is a pretty smart guy in general butwhen it comes to common sense,sometimes I wonder about him.

I’m sure Dad would dismantle my gamesystem if he could figure out how to doit. But luckily, the people who makethese things make them parent-proof.

Every time Dad kicks me out of thehouse to do something sporty, I just goup to Rowley’s and play my video

games there.

Unfortunately, the only games I can playat Rowley’s are car-racing games andstuff like that.

Because whenever I bring a game up toRowley’s house, his dad looks it up onsome parents’ Web site. And if my gamehas any kind of fighting or violence in it,he won’t let us play.

I’m getting a little sick of playingFormula One Racing with Rowley,because he’s not a serious gamer likeme. All that you have to do to beatRowley is name your car somethingridiculous at the beginning of the game.

And then when you pass Rowley’s car,he just falls to pieces.

Anyway, after I got done mopping thefloor with Rowley today, I headed home.I ran through the neighbor’s sprinkler acouple times to make it look like I was

all sweaty, and that seemed to do thetrick for Dad.

But my trick kind of backfired, becauseas soon as Mom saw me, she made mego upstairs and take a shower.

Wednesday

I guess Dad must have been pretty happywith himself for making me go outsideyesterday, because he did it again today.

It’s getting really annoying to have to goup to Rowley’s every time I want to playa video game. There’s this weird kidnamed Fregley who lives halfwaybetween my house and Rowley’s, andFregley is always hanging out in hisfront yard. So it’s pretty hard to avoidhim.

Fregley is in my Phys Ed class at school,and he has this whole made-up language.Like when he needs to go to thebathroom, he says—

Us kids have pretty much figured Fregleyout by now, but I don’t think the teachershave really caught on yet.

Today, I probably would have gone upto Rowley’s on my own anyway,because my brother Rodrick and hisband were practicing down in thebasement.

Rodrick’s band is really awful, and Ican’t stand being home when they’rehaving rehearsals.

His band is called “Loaded Diaper,”only it’s spelled “Löded Diper” onRodrick’s van.

You might think he spelled it that way tomake it look cooler, but I bet if you toldRodrick how “Loaded Diaper” is reallyspelled, it would be news to him.

Dad was against the idea of Rodrickstarting a band, but Mom was all for it.

She’s the one who bought Rodrick hisfirst drum set.

I think Mom has this idea that we’re allgoing to learn to play instruments andthen become one of those family bandslike you see on TV.

Dad really hates heavy metal, and that’sthe kind of music Rodrick and his bandplay. I don’t think Mom really careswhat Rodrick plays or listens to,because to her, all music is the same. In

fact, earlier today, Rodrick was listeningto one of his CDs in the family room,and Mom came in and started dancing.

That really bugged Rodrick, so he droveoff to the store and came back fifteenminutes later with some headphones.

And that pretty much took care of theproblem.

Thursday

Yesterday Rodrick got a new heavymetal CD, and it had one of those“Parental Warning” stickers on it.

I have never gotten to listen to one ofthose Parental Warning CDs, becauseMom and Dad never let me buy them atthe mall. So I realized the only way Iwas gonna get a chance to listen toRodrick’s CD was if I snuck it out of thehouse.

This morning, after Rodrick left, I calledup Rowley and told him to bring his CDplayer to school.

Then I went down to Rodrick’s roomand took the CD off his rack.

You’re not allowed to bring personalmusic players to school, so we had towait to use it until after lunch when theteachers let us outside. As soon as wegot the chance, me and Rowley snuckaround the back of the school and loadedup Rodrick’s CD.

But Rowley forgot to put batteries in hisCD player, so it was pretty muchworthless.

Then I came up with this great idea for agame. The object was to put theheadphones on your head and then try toshake them off without using your hands.

The winner was whoever could shakethe headphones off in the shortest amountof time.

I had the record with seven and a halfseconds, but I think I might have shooksome of my fillings loose with that one.

Right in the middle of our game, Mrs.Craig came around the corner and caughtus red-handed. She took the music playeraway from me and started chewing us

out.

But I think she had the wrong idea aboutwhat we were doing back there. Shestarted telling us how rock and roll is“evil” and how it’s going to ruin ourbrains.

I was going to tell her that there weren’teven any batteries in the CD player, but Icould tell she didn’t want to beinterrupted. So I just waited until shewas done, and then I said, “Yes,ma’am.”

But right when Mrs. Craig was about tolet us go, Rowley started blubberingabout how he doesn’t want rock and rollto ruin his “brains.”

Honestly, sometimes I don’t know aboutthat boy.

Friday

Well, now I’ve gone and done it.

Last night, after everyone was in bed, Isnuck downstairs to listen to Rodrick’sCD on the stereo in the family room.

I put Rodrick’s new headphones on andcranked up the volume really high. ThenI hit “play.”

First, let me just say I can definitelyunderstand why they put that “ParentalWarning” sticker on the CD.

But I only got to hear about thirty

seconds of the first song before I gotinterrupted.

It turns out I didn’t have the headphonesplugged into the stereo. So the musicwas actually coming through thespeakers, not the headphones.

Dad marched me up to my room and shutthe door behind him, and then he said—

Whenever Dad says “friend” that way,you know you’re in trouble. The first

time Dad ever said “friend” like that tome, I didn’t get that he was beingsarcastic. So I kind of let my guarddown.

I don’t make that mistake anymore.

Tonight, Dad yelled at me for about tenminutes, and then I guess he decidedhe’d rather be in bed than standing in myroom in his underwear. He told me I wasgrounded from playing video games fortwo weeks, which is about what Iexpected. I guess I should be glad that’sall he did.

The good thing about Dad is that whenhe gets mad, he cools off real quick, andthen it’s over.

Usually, if you mess up in front of Dad,he just throws whatever he’s got in hishands at you.

Mom has a totally different style when itcomes to punishment. If you mess up andMom catches you, the first thing she doesis to take a few days to figure out whatyour punishment should be.

And while you’re waiting, you do allthese nice things to try to get off easier.

But then after a few days, right when youforget you’re in trouble, that’s when shelays it on you.

Monday

This video game ban is a whole lottougher than I thought it would be. But at

least I’m not the only one in the familywho’s in trouble.

Rodrick’s in some hot water with Momright now, too. Manny got a hold of oneof Rodrick’s heavy metal magazines, andone of the pages had a picture of awoman in a bikini lying across the hoodof a car. And then Manny brought it intoday care for show-and-tell.

Anyway, I don’t think Mom was toohappy about getting that phone call.

I saw the magazine myself, and ithonestly wasn’t anything to get workedup over. But Mom doesn’t allow thatkind of stuff in the house.

Rodrick’s punishment was that he had to

answer a bunch of questions Mom wroteout for him.

Wednesday

I’m still grounded from playing videogames, so Manny has been using mysystem. Mom went out and bought awhole bunch of educational videogames, and watching Manny play them islike torture.

The good news is that I finally figuredout how to get some of my games past

Rowley’s dad. I just put one of my discsin Manny’s “Discovering the Alphabet”case, and that’s all it takes.

Thursday

At school today, they announced that

student government elections are comingup. To be honest with you, I’ve neverhad any interest in student government.But when I started thinking about it, Irealized getting elected Treasurer couldtotally change my situation at school.

And even better ...

Nobody ever thinks about running for

Treasurer, because all anyone ever caresabout are the big- ticket positions likePresident and Vice President. So I figureif I sign up tomorrow, the Treasurer jobis pretty much mine for the taking.

Friday

Today, I went and put my name on thelist to run for Treasurer. Unfortunately,this kid named Marty Porter is runningfor Treasurer, too, and he’s real brainyat math. So this might not be as easy as Ithought.

I told Dad that I was running for studentgovernment, and he seemed prettyexcited. It turns out he ran for studentgovernment when he was my age, and he

actually won.

Dad dug through some old boxes in thebasement and found one of his campaignposters.

I thought the poster idea was prettygood, so I asked Dad to drive me to thestore to get some supplies. I loaded up

on poster board and markers, and I spentthe rest of the night making all mycampaign stuff. So let’s just hope theseposters work.

Monday

I brought my posters in to school today,and I have to say, they came out prettygood.

I started hanging my posters up as soonas I got in. But they were only up forabout three minutes before VicePrincipal Roy spotted them.

Mr. Roy said you weren’t allowed towrite “fabrications” about the othercandidates. So I told Mr. Roy that thething about the head lice was true, and

how it practically closed down thewhole school when it happened.

But he took down all my postersanyway. So today, Marty Porter wasgoing around handing out lollipops tobuy himself votes while my posters weresitting at the bottom of Mr. Roy’s trashcan. I guess this means my politicalcareer is officially over.

October

Monday

Well, it’s finally October, and there areonly thirty days left until Halloween.Halloween is my favorite holiday, eventhough Mom says I’m getting too old to

go trick-or-treating anymore.

Halloween is Dad’s favorite holiday,too, but for a different reason. OnHalloween night, while all the otherparents are handing out candy, Dad ishiding in the bushes with a big trash canfull of water.

And if any teenagers pass by ourdriveway, he drenches them.

I’m not sure Dad really understands theconcept of Halloween. But I’m not gonnabe the one who spoils his fun.

Tonight was the opening night of theCrossland High School haunted house,and I got Mom to agree to take me andRowley.

Rowley showed up at my house wearing

his Halloween costume from last year.When I called him earlier I told him tojust wear regular clothes, but of coursehe didn’t listen.

I tried not to let it bother me too much,

though.

I’ve never been allowed to go to theCrossland haunted house before, and Iwasn’t going to let Rowley ruin it forme. Rodrick has told me all about it, andI’ve been looking forward to this forabout three years.

Anyway, when we got to the entrance, Istarted having second thoughts aboutgoing in.

But Mom seemed like she was in a hurryto get this over with, and she moved usalong. Once we were through the gate, itwas one scare after another.

There were vampires jumping out at youand people without heads and all sortsof crazy stuff.

But the worst part was this area calledChainsaw Alley. There was this big guyin a hockey mask and he had a realchainsaw. Rodrick told me the chainsawhas a rubber blade, but I wasn’t takingany chances.

Right when it looked like the chainsawguy was going to catch us, Mom steppedin and bailed us out.

Mom made the chainsaw guy show uswhere the exit was, and that was the endof our haunted house experience rightthere. I guess it was a little embarrassing

when Mom did that, but I’m willing tolet it go this one time.

Saturday

The Crossland haunted house really gotme thinking. Those guys were chargingfive bucks a pop, and the line stretchedhalfway around the school.

I decided to make a haunted house of myown. Actually, I had to bring Rowley inon the deal, because Mom wouldn’t letme convert our first floor into a full-outhaunted mansion.

I knew Rowley’s dad wouldn’t be crazyabout the idea, either, so we decided tobuild the haunted house in his basement

and just not mention it to his parents.

Me and Rowley spent most of the daycoming up with an awesome plan for ourhaunted house.

Here was our final plan:

I don’t mean to brag or anything, butwhat we came up with was way betterthan the Crossland High School hauntedhouse.

We realized we were gonna need to getthe word out that we were doing thisthing, so we got some paper and madeup a bunch of flyers.

I’ll admit maybe we stretched the truth alittle in our advertisement, but we had tomake sure people actually showed up.

By the time we finished putting the flyersup around the neighborhood and got backto Rowley’s basement, it was already2:30, and we hadn’t even started puttingthe actual haunted house together yet.

So we had to cut some corners from ouroriginal plan.

When 3:00 rolled around, we lookedoutside to see if anyone had showed up.And sure enough, there were abouttwenty neighborhood kids waiting in lineoutside Rowley’s basement.

Now, I know our flyers said admissionwas fifty cents, but I could see that wehad a chance to make a killing here.

So I told the kids that admission was

two bucks, and the fifty-cent thing wasjust a typo.

The first kid to cough up his two buckswas Shane Snella. He paid his moneyand we let him inside, and me andRowley took our positions in the Hall of

Screams.

The Hall of Screams was basically abed with me and Rowley on either sideof it.

I guess maybe we made the Hall ofScreams a little too scary, because

halfway through, Shane curled up in aball underneath the bed. We tried to gethim to crawl out from under there, but hewouldn’t budge.

I started thinking about all the money wewere losing with this kid clogging up theHall of Screams, and I knew we had toget him out of there, quick.

Eventually, Rowley’s dad camedownstairs. At first I was happy to seehim, because I thought he could help usdrag Shane out from under the bed andget our haunted house cranking again.

But Rowley’s dad wasn’t really in ahelpful mood.

Rowley’s dad wanted to know what wewere doing, and why Shane Snella wascurled up under the bed.

We told him that the basement was ahaunted house, and that Shane Snellaactually PAID for us to do this to him.

But Rowley’s dad didn’t believe us.

I admit that if you looked around, itdidn’t really look like a haunted house.All we had time to put together was theHall of Screams and the Lake of Blood,which was just Rowley’s old baby poolwith half a bottle of ketchup in it.

I tried to show Rowley’s dad ouroriginal plan to prove that we reallywere running a legitimate operation, buthe still didn’t seem convinced.

And to make a long story short, that wasthe end of our haunted house.

The good news is, since Rowley’s daddidn’t believe us, he didn’t make usrefund Shane’s money. So at least wecleared two bucks today.

Sunday

Rowley ended up getting grounded forthat whole haunted house messyesterday. He’s not allowed to watchTV for a week, and he’s not allowed tohave me over at his house during thattime.

That last part really isn’t fair, becausethat’s punishing me, and I didn’t even doanything wrong. And now where am Isupposed to play my video games?

Anyway, I felt kind of bad for Rowley.So tonight, I tried to make it up to him. Iturned on one of Rowley’s favorite TVshows, and I did a play-by-play over thephone so he could kind of experience itthat way.

I did my best to keep up with what wasgoing on on the screen, but to be honestwith you, I’m not sure if Rowley wasgetting the full effect.

Tuesday

Well, Rowley’s grounding is finallyover, and just in time for Halloween,too. I went up to his house to check outhis costume, and I have to admit, I’m alittle jealous.

Rowley’s Mom got him this knightcostume that’s way cooler than hiscostume from last year.

His knight outfit came with a helmet anda shield and a real sword andeverything.

I’ve never had a store-bought costumebefore. I still haven’t figured out whatI’m gonna go as tomorrow night, so I’llprobably just throw something togetherat the last minute. I figure maybe I’llbring back the Toilet Paper Mummyagain.

But I think it’s supposed to rain

tomorrow night, so that might not be thesmartest choice.

In the past few years, the grown-ups inmy neighborhood have been gettingcranky about my lame costumes, and I’m

starting to think it’s actually having aneffect on the amount of candy I’mbringing in.

But I don’t really have time to puttogether a good costume, because I’m in

charge of planning out the best route forme and Rowley to take tomorrow night.

This year I’ve come up with a plan that’will get us at least twice the candy wescored last year.

Halloween

About an hour before we were supposedto start trick-or-treating, I still didn’thave a costume. At that point I wasseriously thinking about going as acowboy for the second year in a row.

But then Mom knocked at my door andhanded me a pirate costume, with an eyepatch and a hook and everything.

Rowley showed up around 6:30 wearinghis knight costume, but it didn’t lookanything like it looked yesterday.

Rowley’s mom made all these safetyimprovements to it, and you couldn’teven tell what he was supposed to be

anymore.

She cut out a big hole in the front of thehelmet so he could see better, andcovered him up in all this reflectivetape. She made him wear his winter coatunderneath everything, and she replacedhis sword with a glow stick.

I grabbed my pillowcase, and me andRowley started to head out. But Momstopped us before we could get out the

door.

Man, I should have known there was acatch when Mom gave me that costume.

I told Mom there was no way we were

taking Manny with us, because we weregoing to hit 152 houses in three hours.And plus, we were going to be on SnakeRoad, which is way too dangerous for alittle kid like Manny.

I should never have mentioned that lastpart, because the next thing I knew, Momwas telling Dad he had to go along withus to make sure we didn’t step footoutside our neighborhood. Dad tried tosquirm out of it, but once Mom makes upher mind, there’s no way you can changeit.

Before we even got out of our owndriveway, we ran into our neighbor Mr.Mitchell and his kid Jeremy. So ofcourse they tagged along with us.

Manny and Jeremy wouldn’t trick-or-treat at any houses with spookydecorations on them, so that ruled outpretty much every house on our block.

Dad and Mr. Mitchell started talkingabout football or something, and everytime one of them wanted to make a point,they’d stop walking.

So we were hitting only about one houseevery twenty minutes.

After a couple of hours, Dad and Mr.Mitchell took the little kids home.

I was glad, because that meant me andRowley could take off. My pillowcasewas almost empty, so I wanted to makeup as much time as possible.

A little while later, Rowley told me heneeded a “potty break.” I made him holdoff for another forty-five minutes. But bythe time we got to my gramma’s house, itwas pretty clear that if I didn’t letRowley use the bathroom, it was gonnaget messy.

So I told Rowley if he wasn’t backoutside in one minute, I was gonna starthelping myself to his candy.

After that, we headed back out on theroad.

But it was already 10:30, and I guess

that’s when most grown-ups decideHalloween is over.

You can kind of tell because that’s whenthey start coming to the door in theirpajamas and giving you the evil eye.

We decided to head home. We made upa lot of time after Dad and Manny left,

so I was pretty satisfied with how muchcandy we took in.

When we were halfway home, thispickup truck came roaring down thestreet with a bunch of high school kids init.

The kid in the back was holding a fireextinguisher, and when the truck passedby us, he opened fire.

I have to give Rowley credit, because heblocked about 95% of the water with hisshield. And if he hadn’t done that, all ourcandy would have gotten soaked.

When the truck drove away, I yelled outsomething that I regretted about two

seconds later.

The driver slammed on the brakes andhe turned his truck around. Me andRowley started running, but those guys

were right on our heels.

The only place I could think of that wassafe was Gramma’s house, so we cutthrough a couple backyards to get there.Gramma was in bed already, but I knewshe keeps a key under the mat on herfront porch.

Once we got inside, I looked out thewindow to see if those guys hadfollowed us, and sure enough, they did. Itried to trick them into leaving, but theywouldn’t budge.

After a while, we realized the teenagers

were going to wait us out, so wedecided we were just gonna have tospend the night at Gramma’s. That’swhen we started getting cocky, makingmonkey noises at the teenagers andwhatnot.

Well, at least I was making monkeynoises. Rowley was kind of making owlnoises, but I guess it was the samegeneral idea.

I called Mom to tell her we were goingto crash at Gramma’s for the night. ButMom sounded really mad on the phone.

She said it was a school night, and thatwe had to get home right that instant. Sothat meant we were gonna have to makea run for it.

I looked out the window, and this time, Ididn’t see the truck. But I knew thoseguys were hiding somewhere and werejust trying to draw us out.

So we snuck out the back door, hoppedover Gramma’s fence, and ran all theway to Snake Road. I figured ourchances were better there because therearen’t any streetlights.

Snake Road is scary enough on its ownwithout having a truckload of teenagershunting you down. Every time we saw acar coming, we dove into the bushes. Itmust’ve taken us a half hour to go 100yards.

But believe it or not, we made it all theway home without getting caught.Neither one of us let our guard down

until we got to my driveway.

But right then, there was this awfulscream, and we saw a big wave of watercoming toward us.

Man, I forgot all about Dad, and wetotally paid the price for it.

When me and Rowley got inside, welaid out all our candy on the kitchentable.

The only things we could salvage were acouple of mints that were wrapped incellophane, and the toothbrushes Dr.Garrison gave us.

I think next Halloween I’ll just stayhome and mooch some Butterfingersfrom the bowl Mom keeps on top of therefrigerator.

November

Thursday

On the bus ride into school today, wepassed by Gramma’s house. It got rolledwith toilet paper last night, which Iguess was no big surprise.

I do feel a little bad, because it lookedlike it was gonna take a long time toclean up. But on the bright side, Grammais retired, so she probably didn’t have

anything planned for today anyway.

Wednesday

In third period, Mr. Underwood, ourPhys Ed teacher, announced that the boyswill be doing a wrestling unit for thenext six weeks.

If there’s one thing most boys in myschool are into, it’s professionalwrestling. So Mr. Underwood might aswell have set off a bomb.

Lunch comes right after Phys Ed, and thecafeteria was a complete madhouse.

I don’t know what the school is thinking

having a wrestling unit.

But I decided if I don’t want to gettwisted into a pretzel for the next monthand a half, I’d better do my homeworkon this wrestling business.

So I rented a couple of video games tolearn some moves. And you know what?After a while, I was really starting to getthe hang of it.

In fact, the other kids in my class hadbetter look out, because if I keep this up,I could be a real threat.

Then again, I better make sure I don’t dotoo good. This kid named Preston Muddgot named Athlete of the Month for being

the best player in the basketball unit, sothey put his picture up in the hallway.

It took people about five seconds torealize how “P. Mudd” sounded whenyou said it out loud, and after that, it wasall over for Preston.

Thursday

Well, I found out today that the kind ofwrestling Mr. Underwood is teaching iscompletely different from the kind they

do on TV.

First of all, we have to wear these thingscalled “singlets,” which look like thosebathing suits they used to wear in the1800s.

And second of all, there are no piledrivers or hitting people over the heads

with chairs or anything like that.

There’s not even a ring with ropesaround it. It’s just basically a sweaty matthat smells like it’s never been washedbefore.

Mr. Underwood started asking forvolunteers so he could demonstrate somewrestling holds, but there was no way Iwas going to raise my hand.

Me and Rowley tried to hide out in theback of the gym near the curtain, butthat’s where the girls were doing theirgymnastics unit.

We got out of there in a hurry, and wewent back to where the rest of the guyswere.

Mr. Underwood singled me out,probably because I’m the lightest kid inthe class, and he could toss me around

without straining himself. He showedeverybody how to do all these thingscalled a “half nelson” and a “reversal”and a “takedown” and stuff like that.

When he was doing this one move calledthe “fireman’s carry,” I felt a breezedown below, and I could tell my singletwasn’t doing a good job keeping mecovered up.

That’s when I thanked my lucky stars thegirls were on the other side of the gym.

Mr. Underwood divided us up intoweight groups. I was pretty happy aboutthat at first, because it meant I wasn’tgoing to have to wrestle kids like BennyWells, who can bench-press 250

pounds.

But then I found out who I did have towrestle, and I would have traded forBenny Wells in a heartbeat.

Fregley was the only kid light enough tobe in my weight class. And apparentlyFregley was paying attention when Mr.

Underwood was giving instructions,because he pinned me every which wayyou could imagine. I spent my seventhperiod getting way more familiar withFregley than I ever wanted to be.

Tuesday

This wrestling unit has totally turned ourschool upside down. Now kids arewrestling in the hallways, in theclassrooms, you name it. But the fifteenminutes after lunch where they let usoutside is the worst.

You can’t walk five feet without trippingover a couple of kids going at it. I justtry to keep my distance. And mark mywords, one of these fools is going to rollright onto the Cheese and start theCheese Touch all over again.

My other big problem is that I have towrestle Fregley every single day. Butthis morning I realized something. If Ican move out of Fregley’s weight class,I won’t have to wrestle him anymore.

So today, I stuffed my clothes with a

bunch of socks and shirts to get myselfinto the next weight class.

But I was still too light to move up.

I realized I was gonna have to gainweight for real. At first I thought I should

just start loading up on junk food, butthen I had a much better idea.

I decided to gain my weight in muscle,not fat.

I’ve never been all that interested ingetting in shape before, but thiswrestling unit has made me rethinkthings.

I figure if I bulk up now, it couldactually come in handy down the road.

The football unit is coming in the spring,and they split the teams up into shirts andskins. And I always get put on skins.

I think they do that to make all the out-of-shape kids feel ashamed of themselves.

If I can pack on some muscle now, it’llbe a whole different story next April.

Tonight, after dinner, I got Mom and Dadtogether and told them my plan. I toldthem I was going to need some serious

exercise equipment, and some weight-gain powder, too.

I showed them some muscle magazines Igot at the store so they could see howripped I was going to be.

Mom didn’t really say anything at first,but Dad was pretty enthusiastic. I think

he was just glad I had a change of heartfrom how I used to be when I was a kid—

But Mom said if I wanted a weight set, Iwas going to have to prove that I couldstick with an exercise regimen. She saidI could do that by doing sit-ups andjumping jacks for two weeks.

I had to explain that the only way to gettotally bulked up is to get the kind ofhigh-tech machines they have at the gym,but Mom didn’t want to hear it.

Then Dad said if I wanted a bench press,I should keep my fingers crossed forChristmas.

But Christmas is a month and a halfaway. And if I get pinned by Fregley onemore time, I’m gonna have a nervousbreakdown.

So it looks like Mom and Dad aren’tgoing to be any help. And that means I’mgoing to have to take matters into my

own hands, as usual.

Saturday

I couldn’t wait to start my weight-training program today. Even thoughMom wouldn’t let me get the equipment Ineeded, I wasn’t going to let that holdme back.

So I went into the fridge and emptied outthe milk and orange juice and filled thejugs with sand. Then I taped them to abroomstick, and I had myself a prettydecent barbell.

After that, I made a bench press out of anironing board and some boxes. Once Ihad that all set, I was ready to do someserious lifting.

I needed a spotting partner, so I calledRowley. And when he showed up at mydoor wearing some ridiculous getup, Iknew I made a mistake inviting him.

I made Rowley use the bench press first,mostly because I wanted to see if thebroomstick was going to hold up.

He did about five reps, and he wasready to quit, but I wouldn’t let him.That’s what a good training partner is

for, to push you beyond your limits.

I knew Rowley wasn’t going to be asserious about weight lifting as I was, soI decided to try out an experiment to test

his dedication.

In the middle of Rowley’s set, I wentand got this phony nose and mustacheRodrick has in his junk drawer.

And right when Rowley had the barbellin the “down” position, I leaned overand looked at him.

Sure enough, Rowley totally lost hisconcentration. He couldn’t even get thebarbell off his chest. I thought abouthelping him out, but then I realized that ifRowley didn’t get serious about workingout, he was never going to get to my

level.

I eventually had to rescue him, becausehe started biting the milk jug to let thesand leak out.

After Rowley got off the bench press, itwas time for my set. But Rowley said hedidn’t feel like working out anymore,

and he went home.

You know, I figured he’d pull somethinglike that. But I guess you can’t expecteveryone to have the same kind ofdedication as you.

Wednesday

Today in Geography we had a quiz, andI have to say, I’ve been looking forwardto this one for a long time.

The quiz was on state capitals, and I sitin the back of the room, right next to thisgiant map of the United States. All thecapitals are written in big red print, so Iknew I had this one in the bag.

But right before the test got started, PattyFarrell piped up from the front of theroom.

Patty told Mr. Ira that he should cover upthe United States map before we gotstarted.

So thanks to Patty, I ended up flunkingthe quiz. And I will definitely be lookingfor a way to pay her back for that one.

Thursday

Tonight Mom came up to my room, andshe had a flyer in her hand. As soon as Isaw it, I knew exactly what it was.

It was an announcement that the school ishaving tryouts for a winter play. Man, Ishould have thrown that thing out when Isaw it on the kitchen table.

I Begged her not to make me sign up.Those school plays are always musicals,and the last thing I need is to have to singa solo in front of the whole school.

But all my begging seemed to do wasmake Mom more sure I should do it.

Mom said the only way I was going tobe “well-rounded” was by tryingdifferent things.

Dad came in my room to see what was

going on. I told Dad that Mom wasmaking me sign up for the school play,and that if I had to start going to playpractices, it would totally mess up myweight-lifting schedule.

I knew that would make Dad take myside. Dad and Mom argued for a fewminutes, but Dad was no match for Mom.

So that means tomorrow I’ve got toaudition for the school play.

Friday

The play they’re doing this year is “TheWizard of Oz.” A lot of kids camewearing costumes for the parts they weretrying out for.

I’ve never even seen the movie, so forme, it was like walking into a freakshow.

Mrs. Norton, the music director, madeeveryone sing “My Country’ is of Thee”so she could hear our singing voices. Idid my singing tryouts with a bunch ofother boys whose moms made themcome, too. I tried to sing as quietly as

possible, but of course I got singled out,anyway.

I have no idea what a “soprano” is, butfrom the way some of the girls weregiggling, I knew it wasn’t a good thing.

Tryouts went on forever. The grandfinale came with auditions for Dorothy,who I guess is the lead character in theplay.

And who should try out first but PattyFarrell.

I thought about trying out for the part ofthe Witch, because I heard that in theplay, the Witch does all sorts of meanthings to Dorothy.

But then somebody told me there’s aGood Witch and a Bad Witch, and with

my luck, I’d end up getting picked to bethe good one.

Monday

I was hoping Mrs. Norton would just cutme from the play, but today she said thateveryone who tried out is going to get apart. So lucky me.

Mrs. Norton showed “The Wizard ofOz” movie so everyone would know thestory. I was trying to figure out what partI should play, but pretty much everycharacter has to sing or dance at onepoint or another. But about halfwaythrough the movie, I figured out whatpart I wanted to sign up for. I’m going tosign up to be a Tree, because 1) they

don’t have to sing and 2) they get to beanDorothy with apples.

Getting to peg Patty Farrell with applesin front of a live audience would be mydream come true. I may actually have tothank Mom for making me do this playonce it’s all over.

After the movie ended, I signed up to bea Tree. Unfortunately, a bunch of otherguys had the same idea as me, so I guessthere are a lot of guys who have a boneto pick with Patty Farrell.

Wednesday

Well, like Mom always says, be carefulwhat you wish for. I got picked to be aTree, but I don’t know if that’s such agood thing. The Tree costumes don’tactually have arm holes, so I guess that

rules out any apple-throwing.

I should probably feel lucky that I got aspeaking part at all. They had too manykids trying out, and not enough roles, so

they had to start making up characters.

Rodney James tried out to be the TinMan, but he got stuck with being theShrub.

Friday

Remember how I said I was lucky to geta speaking part? Well, today I found outI only have one line in the whole play. Isay it when Dorothy picks an apple off

my branch.

That means I have to go to a two-hourpractice every day just so I can say onestupid word.

I’m starting to think Rodney James got abetter deal as the Shrub. He found a wayto sneak a video game into his costume,and I’ll bet that really makes the time goby.

So now I’m trying to think of ways to getMrs. Norton to kick me out of the play.But when you only have one word tosay, it’s really hard to mess up yourlines.

December

Thursday

The play is only a couple of days away,and I have no idea how we’re going to

pull this thing off.

First of all, nobody has bothered to learntheir lines, and that’s all Mrs. Norton’sfault.

During rehearsal, Mrs. Norton whisperseveryone’s lines to them from the side ofthe stage.

I wonder how it’s going to go nextTuesday when Mrs. Norton is sitting ather piano thirty feet away.

Another thing that’s screwing everythingup is that Mrs. Norton keeps adding newscenes and new characters.

Yesterday, she brought in this first-grader to play Dorothy’s dog, Toto. Buttoday, the kid’s mom came in and saidshe wanted her child to walk around ontwo legs, because crawling around onall fours would be too “degrading.”

So now we’ve got a dog that’s gonna bewalking around on his hind legs for thewhole show.

But the worst change is that Mrs. Nortonactually wrote a song that us trees haveto sing.

She said everyone “deserves” a chance

to sing in the play.

So today we spent an hour learning theworst song that’s ever been written.

Thank God Rodrick won’t be in the

audience to see me humiliate myself.Mrs. Norton said the play is going to bea “semiformal occasion,” and I knowthere’s no way Rodrick is going to weara tie for a middle school play.

But today wasn’t all bad. Toward theend of practice, Archie Kelly trippedover Rodney James and chipped histooth because he couldn’t stick his armsout to break his fall.

So the good news is, they’re letting usTrees carve out arm holes for theperformance.

Tuesday

Tonight was the big school production of“The Wizard of Oz.” The first sign thatthings were not going to go wellhappened before the play even started.

I was peeking through the curtain tocheck out how many people showed upto see the play, and guess who wasstanding right up front? My brotherRodrick, wearing a clip-on tie.

He must have found out I was singing,and he couldn’t resist the chance to seeme embarrass myself.

The play was supposed to start at 8:00,

but it got delayed because Rodney Jameshad stage fright.

You’d figure that someone whose job itwas to sit on the stage and do nothingcould just suck it up for oneperformance. But Rodney wouldn’tbudge, and eventually, his mom had tocarry him off.

The play finally got started around 8:30.Nobody could remember their lines, justlike I predicted, but Mrs. Norton keptthings moving along with her piano.

The kid who played Toto brought a stooland a pile of comic books onto the stage,and that totally ruined the whole “dog”effect.

When it was time for the forest scene,me and the other Trees hopped into ourpositions. The curtains rose, and when

they did, I heard Manny’s voice.

Great. I have been able to keep thatnickname quiet for five years, and now

all of the sudden the whole town knewit. I could feel about 300 pairs ofeyeballs pointed my way.

So I did some quick ad-libbing and Iwas able to deflect the embarrassmentover to Archie Kelly.

But the major embarrassment was stillon the way. When I heard Mrs. Nortonplaying the first few bars of “We Three

Trees,” I felt my stomach jump.

I looked out at the audience, and Inoticed Rodrick was holding a videocamera.

I knew that if I sang the song andRodrick recorded it, he would keep thetape forever and use it to humiliate mefor the rest of my life.

I didn’t know what to do, so when thetime came to start singing, I just kept mymouth shut.

For a few seconds there, things went ok.I figured that if I didn’t technically singthe song, then Rodrick wouldn’t haveanything to hold over my head. But aftera few seconds, the other Trees noticed Iwasn’t singing.

I guess they must’ve thought I knewsomething that they didn’t, so theystopped singing, too.

Now the three of us were just standingthere, not saying a word. Mrs. Nortonmust have thought we forgot the words tothe song, because she came over to theside of the stage and whispered the restof the lyrics to us.

The song is only about three minuteslong, but to me it felt like an hour and a

half. I was just praying the curtainswould go down so we could hop off thestage.

That’s when I noticed Patty Farrellstanding in the wings. And if looks couldkill, us Trees would be dead. Sheprobably thought we were ruining herchances of making it to Broadway orsomething.

Seeing Patty standing there reminded mewhy I signed up to be a Tree in the firstplace.

Pretty soon, the rest of the Trees startedthrowing apples, too. I think Toto evengot in on the act.

Somebody knocked the glasses off of

Patty’s head, and one of the lensesbroke. Mrs. Norton had to shut down theplay after that, because Patty can’t seetwo feet in front of her without herglasses.

After the play was over, my family wenthome together. Mom had brought abouquet of flowers, and I guess theywere supposed to be for me. But sheended up tossing them in the trash can onthe way out the door.

I just hope that everyone who came tosee the play was as entertained as I was.

Wednesday

Well, if one good thing came out of theplay, it’s that I don’t have to worry aboutthe “Bubby” nickname anymore.

I saw Archie Kelly getting hassled in thehallway after fifth period today, so itlooks like I can finally start to breathe alittle easier.

Sunday

With all this stuff going on at school, Ihaven’t even had time to think about

Christmas.

And it’s less than ten days away.

In fact, the only thing that tipped me offthat Christmas was coming was whenRodrick put his wish list up on therefrigerator.

I usually make a big wish list every year,but this Christmas, all I really want isthis video game called Twisted Wizard.

Tonight Manny was going through theChristmas catalog, picking out all thestuff he wants with a big red marker.Manny was circling every single toy inthe catalog. He was even circling reallyexpensive things like a giant motorizedcar and stuff like that.

So I decided to step in and give himsome good big-brotherly advice.

I told him that if he circled stuff that wastoo expensive, he was going to end upwith a bunch of clothes for Christmas. Isaid he should just pick three or fourmedium-priced gifts so he would end upwith a couple of things he actually

wanted.

But of course Manny just went back tocircling everything again. So I guesshe’ll just have to learn the hard way.

When I was seven, the only thing I reallywanted for Christmas was a BarbieDream House.

And not because I like girls’ toys, likeRodrick said.

I just thought it would be a reallyawesome fort for my toy soldiers.

When Mom and Dad saw my wish listthat year, they got in a big fight over it.Dad said there was no way he wasgetting me a dollhouse, but Mom said itwas healthy for me to “experiment” withwhatever kind of toys I wanted to playwith.

Believe it or not, Dad actually won thatargument. Dad told me to start my wishlist over and pick some toys that weremore “appropriate” for boys.

But I have a secret weapon when itcomes to Christmas. My Uncle Charliealways gets me whatever I want. I told

him I wanted the Barbie Dream House,and he said he’d hook me up.

On Christmas, when Uncle Charlie gaveme my gift, it was not what I asked for.He must’ve walked into the toy store andpicked up the first thing he saw that hadthe word “Barbie” on it.

So if you ever see a picture of me whereI’m holding a Beach Fun Barbie, now atleast you know the whole story.

Dad wasn’t real happy when he sawwhat Uncle Charlie got me. He told meto either throw it out or give it away tocharity.

But I kept it anyway. And ok, I admitmaybe I took it out and played with itonce or twice.

That’s how I ended up in the emergencyroom two weeks later with a pinkBarbie shoe stuck up my nose. Andbelieve me, Rodrick has never let mehear the end of that.

Thursday

Tonight me and Mom went out to get agift for the Giving Tree at church. TheGiving Tree is basically a Secret Santakind of thing where you get a gift forsomeone who is needy.

Mom picked out a red wool sweater for

our Giving Tree guy.

I tried to talk Mom into gettingsomething a lot cooler, like a TV or aslushie machine or something like that.

Because imagine if all you got onChristmas was a wool sweater.

I’m sure our Giving Tree guy will throwhis sweater in the trash, along with theten cans of yams we sent his way duringthe Thanksgiving Food Drive.

Christmas

When I woke up this morning and wentdownstairs, there were about a milliongifts under the Christmas tree. But whenI started digging around, there werehardly any gifts with my name on them.

But Manny made out like a bandit. He

got every single thing he circled in thecatalog, no lie. So I’ll bet he’s glad hedidn’t listen to me.

I did find a couple things with my name

on them, but they were mostly books andsocks and stuff like that.

I opened my gifts in the corner behindthe couch, because I don’t like openinggifts near Dad. Whenever someoneopens a gift, Dad swoops right in andcleans up after them.

I gave Manny a toy helicopter and I gave

Rodrick a book about rock bands.Rodrick gave me a book, too, but ofcourse he didn’t wrap it. The book hegot me was “Best of L’il Cutie.” “L’ilCutie” is the worst comic in thenewspaper, and Rodrick knows howmuch I hate it. I think this is the fourthyear in a row I’ve gotten a “L’il Cutie”book from him.

I gave Mom and Dad their gifts. I getthem the same kind of thing every year,but parents eat that stuff up.

The rest of the relatives started showing

up around 11:00, and Uncle Charliecame at noon.

Uncle Charlie brought a big trash bagfull of gifts, and he pulled my present outof the top of the bag.

The package was the exact right size andshape to be a Twisted Wizard game, so I

knew Uncle Charlie came through forme. Mom got the camera ready and I toreopen my gift.

But it was just an 8 x 10 picture of UncleCharlie.

I guess I didn’t do a good job of hidingmy disappointment, and Mom got mad.All I can say is, I’m glad I’m still a kid,

because if I had to act happy about thekinds of gifts grown-ups get, I don’tthink I could pull it off.

I went up to my room to take a break fora while. A couple minutes later, Dadknocked on my door. He told me he hadmy gift for me out in the garage, and thereason it was out there was because itwas too big to wrap.

And when I walked down to the garage,there was a brand-new weight set.

That thing must have cost a fortune. Ididn’t have the heart to tell Dad that Ikind of lost interest in the whole weight-

lifting thing when the wrestling unitended last week. So I just said “thanks”instead.

I think Dad was expecting me to dropdown and start doing some reps orsomething, but I just excused myself andwent back inside.

At about 6:00, all the relatives clearedout.

I was sitting on the couch watchingManny play with his toys, feeling prettysorry for myself. Then Mom came up tome and said that she found a gift behindthe piano with my name on it, and it said,“From Santa.”

The box was way too big for TwistedWizard, but Mom pulled the same “bigbox” trick on me last year when she gotme a memory card for my video gamesystem.

So I ripped open the package and pulledout my present. Only this wasn’t Twisted

Wizard, either. It was a giant red woolsweater.

At first I thought Mom was playing somekind of practical joke on me, becausethis sweater was the same kind webought for our Giving Tree guy.

But Mom seemed pretty confused, too.She said she did buy me a video game,and that she had no idea what thesweater was doing in my box.

And then I figured it out. I told Momthere must have been some kind of mix-up, and I got the Giving Tree guy’s gift,and he got mine.

Mom said she used the same kind ofwrapping paper for both of our gifts, soshe must’ve written the wrong names onthe tags.

But then Mom said that this was really agood thing, because the Giving Tree guywas probably really happy he got such agreat gift.

I had to explain that you need a gamesystem and a TV to play TwistedWizard, so the game was totally uselessto him.

Even though my Christmas was not goingthat great, I’m sure it was going a wholelot worse for the Giving Tree guy.

I kind of decided to throw in the towelfor this Christmas, and I headed up toRowley’s house.

I forgot to get a gift for Rowley, so I justslapped a bow on the “L’il Cutie” book

Rodrick gave me.

And that seemed to do the trick.

Rowley’s parents have a lot of money,so I can always count on them for a goodgift.

But Rowley said that this year he picked

out my gift himself. Then he brought meoutside to show me what it was.

From the way Rowley was hyping hispresent, I thought he must have gotten mea big-screen TV or a motorcycle orsomething.

But once again, I let my hopes get toohigh.

.. Rowley got me a Big Wheel. I guess I

would have thought this was a cool giftwhen I was in the third grade, but I haveno idea what I’m supposed to do withone now.

Rowley was so enthusiastic about it thatI tried my best to act like I was happyanyway.

We went back inside, and Rowleyshowed me his Christmas loot.

He sure got a lot more stuff than I did.He even got Twisted Wizard, so at leastI can play it when I come up to hishouse. That is, until Rowley’s dad findsout how violent it is.

And boy, you have never seen someoneas happy as Rowley with his “L’ilCutie” book. His mom said it was theonly thing on his list that he didn’t get.

Well, I’m glad someone got what theywanted today.

New Year’s Eve

In case you’re wondering what I’mdoing in my room at 9:00 p.m. on NewYear ’s Eve, let me fill you in.

Earlier today, me and Manny werehorsing around in the basement. I found atiny black ball of thread on the carpet,and I told Manny it was a spider.

Then I held it over him pretending like Iwas going to make him eat it.

Right when I was about to let Manny go,he slapped my hand and made me dropthe thread. And guess what? That foolswallowed it.

Well, Manny completely lost his mind.He ran upstairs to where Mom was, andI knew I was in big trouble.

Manny told Mom I made him eat aspider. I told her there was no spider,and that it was just a tiny ball of thread.

Mom brought Manny over to the kitchentable. Then she put a seed, a raisin, anda grape on a plate and told Manny topoint to the thing that was the closest insize to the piece of thread he swallowed.

Manny took a while to look over thethings on the plate.

Then he walked over to the refrigeratorand pulled out an orange.

So that’s why I got sent to bed at 7:00and I’m not downstairs watching theNew Year ’s Eve special on TV.

And that’s also why my only NewYear’s resolution is to never play withManny again.

January

Wednesday

I found a way to have some fun with theBig Wheel Rowley got me forChristmas. I came up with this gamewhere one guy rides down the hill andthe other guy tries to knock him off witha football.

Rowley was the first one down the hill,and I was the thrower.

It’s a lot harder to hit a moving target

than I thought. Plus, I didn’t get a lot ofpractice. It took Rowley like ten minutesto walk the Big Wheel back up the hillafter every trip down.

Rowley kept asking to switch places andhave me be the one who rides the BigWheel, but I’m no fool. That thing washitting thirty-five miles an hour, and itdidn’t have any brakes.

Anyway, I never did knock Rowley offthe Big Wheel today. But I guess I havesomething to work at over the rest of

Christmas vacation.

Thursday

I was heading up to Rowley’s today toplay our Big Wheel game again, butMom said I had to finish my Christmasthank-you's before I went out anywhere.

I thought I could just crank out my thank-you cards in a half hour, but when itcame to actually writing them, my mindwent blank.

Let me tell you, it’s not easy writingthank-you notes for stuff you didn’t wantin the first place.

I started with the nonclothes items,because I thought they’d be easiest. Butafter two or three cards, I realized I waspractically writing the same thing everytime.

So I wrote up a general form on the

computer with blanks for the things thatneeded to change. Writing the cards fromthere was a breeze.

My system worked out pretty well forthe first couple of gifts, but after that, notso much.

Friday

I finally knocked Rowley off the BigWheel today, but it didn’t happen theway I expected. I was trying to hit him inthe shoulder, but I missed, and thefootball went under the front tire.

Rowley tried to break his fall by sticking

out his arms, but he landed pretty hardon his left hand. I figured he’d just shakeit off and get right back on the bike, buthe didn’t.

I tried to cheer him up, but all the jokesthat usually crack him up weren’tworking.

So I knew he must be hurt pretty bad.

Monday

Christmas vacation is over, and now

we’re back at school. And youremember Rowley’s Big Wheelaccident? Well, he broke his hand, andnow he has to wear a cast. And today,everyone was crowding around him likehe was a hero or something.

I tried to cash in on some of Rowley’s

new popularity, but it totally backfired.

At lunch a bunch of girls invited Rowleyover to their table so they could feedhim.

What really ticks me off about that is that

Rowley is right-handed, and it’s his lefthand that’s broken. So he can feedhimself just fine.

Tuesday

I realized Rowley’s injury thing is apretty good racket, so I decided it was

time for me to have an injury of my own.

I took some gauze from home, and Iwrapped up my hand to make it look likeit was hurt.

I couldn’t figure out why the girlsweren’t swarming me like they swarmedRowley, but then I realized what theproblem was.

See, the cast is a great gimmick becauseeveryone wants to sign their name on it.But it’s not exactly easy to sign gauzewith a pen.

So I came up with a solution that Ithought was just as good.

That idea was a total bust, too. Mybandage did end up attracting attentionfrom a couple of people, but believe me,they were not the type of people I wasgoing for.

Monday

Last week we started thethird quarter at school, so now I have awhole bunch of new classes. One of the

classes I signed up for is somethingcalled Independent Study.

I wanted to sign up for Home Economics2, because I was pretty good at Home Ec1.

But being good at sewing does notexactly buy you popularity points atschool.

Anyway, this Independent Study thing isan experiment they’re trying out at ourschool for the first time.

The idea is that the class gets assigned aproject, and then you have to work on ittogether with no teacher in the room forthe whole quarter.

The catch is that when you’re done,everyone in your group gets the samegrade. I found out that Ricky Fisher is inmy class, which could be a big problem.

Ricky’s big claim to fame is that he’llpick the gum off the bottom of a desk andchew it if you pay him fifty cents. So Idon’t really have high hopes for our finalgrade.

Tuesday

Today we got our Independent Studyassignment, and guess what it is? Wehave to build a robot.

At first everybody kind of freaked out,because we thought we were going tohave to build the robot from scratch.

But Mr. Darnell told us we don’t have tobuild an actual robot. We just need to

come up with ideas for what our robotmight look like and what kinds of thingsit would be able to do.

Then he left the room, and we were onour own. We started brainstorming rightaway. I wrote down a bunch of ideas onthe blackboard.

Everybody was pretty impressed withmy ideas, but it was easy to come upwith them. All I did was write down allthe things I hate doing myself.

But a couple of the girls got up to thefront of the room, and they had someideas of their own. They erased my listand drew up their own plan.

They wanted to invent a robot that wouldgive you dating advice and have tentypes of lip gloss on its fingertips.

All us guys thought this was the stupidestidea we ever heard. So we ended upsplitting into two groups, girls and boys.The boys went to the other side of theroom while the girls stood aroundtalking.

Now that we had all the serious workersin one place, we got to work. Someone

had the idea that you can say your nameto the robot and it can say it back to you.

But then someone else pointed out thatyou shouldn’t be able to use bad wordsfor your name, because the robotshouldn’t be able to curse. So wedecided we should come up with a listof all the bad words the robot shouldn’tbe able to say.

We came up with all the regular badwords, but then Ricky Fisher came upwith twenty more the rest of us hadnever even heard before.

So Ricky ended up being one of the mostvaluable contributors on this project.

Right before the bell rang, Mr. Darnellcame back in the room to check on ourprogress. He picked up the piece ofpaper we were writing on and read it

over.

To make a long story short, IndependentStudy is canceled for the rest of the year.

Well, at least it is for us boys. So if therobots in the future are going around

with cherry lip gloss for fingers, at leastnow you know how it all got started.

Thursday

In school today they had a generalassembly and showed the movie “It’sGreat to Be Me,” which they show usevery year.

The movie is all about how you shouldbe happy with who you are and notchange anything about yourself.

To be honest with you, I think that’s areally dumb message to be telling kids,especially the ones at my school.

Later on, they made an announcementthat there are some openings on theSafety Patrols, and that got me thinking.

If someone picks on a Safety Patrol, itcan get them suspended. The way Ifigure it, I can use any extra protection Ican get.

Plus, I realized that maybe being in aposition of authority could be good forme.

I went down to Mr. Winsky’s office andsigned myself up, and I got Rowley tosign up, too. I thought Mr. Winsky wouldmake us do a bunch of chin-ups orjumping jacks or something to prove wewere up for the job, but he just handedus our belts and badges on the spot.

Mr. Winsky said the openings were for aspecial assignment. Our school is rightnext to the elementary school, andthey’ve got a half-day kindergarten there.

He wants us to walk the morning sessionkids home in the middle of the day. Irealized that meant we would misstwenty minutes of Pre-Algebra. Rowleymust have figured that out, too, becausehe started to speak up. But I gave him awicked pinch underneath the desk beforehe could finish his sentence.

I couldn’t believe my luck. I was gettinginstant bully protection and a free passfrom half of Pre-Algebra, and I didn’teven have to lift a finger.

Tuesday

Today was our first day as SafetyPatrols. Me and Rowley don’ttechnically have stations like all theother Patrols, so that means we don’thave to stand out in the freezing cold foran hour before school.

But that didn’t stop us from coming tothe cafeteria for the free hot chocolatethey hand out to the other Patrols beforehomeroom.

Another great perk is that you get toshow up ten minutes late for first period.

I’m telling you, I’ve got it made with thisSafety Patrol thing.

At 12:15, me and Rowley left school

and walked the kindergartners home.The whole trip ate up forty-five minutes,and there were only twenty minutes ofPre-Algebra left when we got back.

Walking the kids home was no sweat.But one of the kindergartners started tosmell a little funny, and I think maybe hehad an accident in his pants.

He tried to let me know about it, but Ijust stared straight ahead and keptwalking. I’ll take these kids home, butbelieve me, I didn’t sign up for anydiaper duty.

February

Wednesday

Today it snowed for the first time thiswinter, and school was canceled. Wewere supposed to have a test in Pre-Algebra, and I’ve kind of slacked offever since I became a Safety Patrol. So I

was psyched.

I called Rowley and told him to come

over. Me and him have been talkingabout building the world’s biggestsnowman for the past couple of yearsnow.

And when I say the world’s biggestsnowman, I’m not kidding. Our goal is toget into the “Guinness Book of WorldRecords.”

But every time we’ve gotten seriousabout going for the record, all the snowhas melted, and we’ve missed ourwindow of opportunity. So this year, Iwanted to get started right away.

When Rowley came over, we startedrolling the first snowball to make thebase. I figured the base was going tohave to be at least eight feet tall on itsown if we wanted to have a shot atbreaking the record. But the snowballgot real heavy, and we had to take abunch of breaks in between rolls so wecould catch our breath.

During one of our breaks, Mom cameoutside to go to the grocery store, but oursnowball was blocking her car in. So wegot a little free labor out of her.

After our break, me and Rowley pushedthat snowball until we couldn’t push itany farther. But when we looked behind

us, we saw the mess we had made.

The snowball had gotten so heavy that ittore up all the sod Dad had just laiddown this fall.

I was hoping it would snow a few moreinches and cover up our tracks, but justlike that, it stopped snowing.

Our plan to build the world’s biggestsnowman was starting to fall apart. So I

came up with a better idea for oursnowball.

Every time it snows, the kids fromWhirley Street use our hill for sledding,even though this isn’t theirneighborhood.

So tomorrow morning, when the WhirleyStreet kids come marching up our hill,me and Rowley are going to teach thoseguys a lesson.

Thursday

When I woke up this morning, the snowwas already starting to melt. So I toldRowley to hurry up and get down to myhouse.

While I was waiting for Rowley to showup, I watched Manny trying to build asnowman out of the piddly crumbs ofsnow that were left over from oursnowball.

It was actually kind of pathetic.

I really couldn’t help doing what I didnext. Unfortunately for me, right at thatmoment, Dad was at the front window.

Dad was already mad at me for tearingup the sod, so I knew I was in for it. Iheard the garage door open and I saw

Dad coming outside. He marched rightout carrying a snow shovel, and I thoughtI was going to have to make a run for it.

But Dad was heading for my snowball,not me. And in less than a minute, hereduced all our hard work for nothing.

Rowley came by a few minutes later. I

thought he might actually get a kick outof what happened.

But I guess he had his heart set on rollingthat snowball down the hill, and he wasreally mad. But get this: Rowley was

mad at me for what DAD did.

I told Rowley he was being a big baby,and we got in a shoving match. Rightwhen it looked like we were going to getin an all-out fight, we got ambushed fromthe street.

It was a hit-and-run by the WhirleyStreet kids.

And if Mrs. Levine, my English teacher,was there, I’m sure she would have saidthe whole situation was “ironic.”

Wednesday

Today at school they announced there’san opening for the cartoonist job in theschool paper. There’s only one comicslot, and up until now this kid namedBryan Little has been hogging it all tohimself.

Bryan has this comic called “WackyDawg,” and when it started off, it wasactually pretty funny.

But lately, Bryan’s been using his stripto handle his personal business. I guess

that’s why they gave him the axe.

As soon as I heard the news, I knew Ihad to try out. “Wacky Dawg” madeBryan Little a celebrity at our school,

and I wanted to get in on some of thatkind of fame.

I had a taste of what it’s like to befamous at my school when I wonhonorable mention in this antismokingcontest they had.

All I did was trace a picture from one ofRodrick’s heavy metal magazines, butluckily, no one ever found out.

The kid who won first place is namedChris Carney. And what kind of ticks me

off is that Chris smokes at least a pack ofcigarettes a day.

Thursday

Me and Rowley decided to team up anddo a cartoon together. So after school

today he came over to my house, and wegot to work.

We banged out a bunch of charactersreal quick, but that turned out to be theeasy part. When we tried to think upsome jokes, we kind of hit a wall.

I finally came up with a good solution.

I made up a cartoon where the punch lineof every strip is “Zoo-Wee Mama ! ”

That way we wouldn’t get bogged downwith having to write actual jokes, andwe could concentrate on the pictures.

For the first couple of strips, I did thewriting and drew the characters, andRowley drew the boxes around thepictures.

Rowley started complaining that hedidn’t have enough to do, so I let himwrite a few of the strips.

But to be honest with you, there was apretty obvious drop in quality onceRowley started doing the writing.

Eventually I got kind of sick of the “Zoo-Wee Mama” idea and I pretty much letRowley take over the whole operation.

And believe it or not, Rowley’s drawing

skills are worse than his writing skills.

I told Rowley maybe we should come upwith some new ideas, but he just wantedto keep writing “Zoo-Wee Mamas.”Then he packed up his comics and wenthome, which was fine by me. I don’t

really want to be partnered up with a kidwho doesn’t draw noses, anyway.

Friday

After Rowley left yesterday, I really gotto work on some comics. I came up withthis character called Creighton theCretin, and I got on a roll.

I must’ve banged out twenty strips, and Ididn’t even break a sweat.

The great thing about these “Creightonthe Cretin” comics is that with all the

idiots running around my school, I willnever run out of new material.

When I got to school today, I took mycomics to Mr. Ira’s office. He’s theteacher who runs the school newspaper.

But when I went to turn my strips in, Isaw that there was a pile of comics fromother kids who were trying out for thejob.

Most of them were pretty bad, so Iwasn’t too worried about thecompetition.

One of the comics was called “DumbTeachers,” and it was written by this kidnamed Bill Tritt.

Bill is always in detention, so I guess hehas a bone to pick with just about everyteacher in the school, including Mr. Ira.

So I’m not too worried about thechances of Bill’s comic getting in,

either.

There were actually one or two decentcomics in the bin. But I slipped themunder a pile of paperwork on Mr. Ira’s

desk.

Hopefully, those ones won’t turn up untilI’m in high school.

Thursday

Today, during morning announcements, Igot the news I was hoping for.

The paper came out today at lunch time,and everyone was reading it.

I really wanted to pick up a copy to seemy name in print, but I decided to justplay it cool for a while instead.

I sat at the end of the lunch table so therewould be plenty of room for me to startsigning autographs for my new fans. Butnobody was coming over to tell me howgreat my comic was, and I started to getthe feeling something was wrong.

I grabbed a paper and went into the

bathroom to check it out. And when Isaw my comic, I practically had a heartattack.

Mr. Ira told me he had made some“minor edits” to my comic. I thought hejust meant he fixed spelling mistakes andstuff like that, but he totally butchered it.

The comic he ruined was one of my

favorite ones, too. In the original,Creighton the Cretin is taking a math test,and he accidentally eats it. And then theteacher yells at him for being such amoron.

By the time Mr. Ira was done with it,you practically couldn’t recognize it asthe same strip.

Creighton the Curious Studentby Gregory Heffley

So I’m pretty sure I won’t be signingautographs anytime soon.

March

Wednesday

Me and Rowley were enjoying our hotchocolate in the cafeteria with the rest ofthe Patrols today, and there was an

announcement on the loudspeaker.

Rowley went down to Mr. Winsky’soffice, and when Rowley came backfifteen minutes later, he looked pretty

shaken up.

Apparently Mr. Winsky got a call from aparent who said they witnessed Rowley“terrorizing” the kindergartners when hewas supposed to be walking them homefrom school. And Mr. Winsky was reallymad about it.

Rowley said Mr. Winsky yelled at himfor about ten minutes and said hisactions “disrespected the badge.”

You know, I think I might just know whatthis is all about. Last week, Rowley hadto take a quiz during fourth period, so Iwalked the kindergartners home on myown.

It had rained that morning, and therewere a lot of worms on the sidewalk. So

I decided to have some fun with the kids.

But some neighborhood lady saw what Iwas doing, and she yelled at me from herfront porch.

It was Mrs. Irvine, who is friends withRowley’s mom. She must have thought Iwas Rowley, because I was borrowinghis coat. And I wasn’t about to correct

her, either.

I forgot about the whole incident untiltoday.

Anyway, Mr. Winsky told Rowley he’sgoing to have to apologize to thekindergartners tomorrow morning, andthat he’s suspended from Patrols for aweek.

I knew I should probably just tell Mr.Winsky it was me who chased the kidswith the worms. But I wasn’t ready toset the record straight just yet. I knew if Iconfessed, I’d lose my hot chocolateprivileges. And that right there wasenough to make me keep quiet for thetime being.

At dinner tonight, Mom could tellsomething was bothering me, so she

came up to my room afterward to talk.

I told her I was in a tough situation, and Ididn’t know what to do.

I got to give Mom credit for how shehandled it. She didn’t try to pry and getall the details. All she said was that Ishould try to do the “right thing,”because it’s our choices that make uswho we are.

I figure that’s pretty decent advice. ButI’m still not 100% sure what I’m goingto do tomorrow.

Thursday

Well, I was up all night tossing andturning over this Rowley situation, but Ifinally made up my mind. I decided theright thing to do was to just let Rowleytake one for the team this time around.

On the way home from school, I cameclean with Rowley and told him thewhole truth about what happened, andhow it was me who chased the kids with

the worms.

Then I told him there were lessons wecould both learn from this. I told him Ilearned to be more careful about what Ido in front of Mrs. Irvine’s house, andthat he learned a valuable lesson, too,which is this: Be careful about who youlend your coat to.

To be honest with you, my messagedidn’t seem to be getting through toRowley.

We were supposed to hang out afterschool today, but he said he was just

going to go home and take a nap.

I couldn’t really blame him. Because if Ididn’t have my hot chocolate thismorning, I wouldn’t have had muchenergy, either.

When I got home, Mom was waiting forme at the front door.

Mom took me out to get some ice creamas a special treat. And what this wholeepisode has taught me is that every oncein a while, it’s not such a bad idea to

listen to your mother.

Tuesday

There was another announcement on theloudspeaker today, and to be honest with

you, I kind of figured this one wascoming.

I knew it was just a matter of time beforeI got busted for what happened last

week.

When I got to Mr. Winsky’s office, hewas really mad. Mr. Winsky told me thatan “anonymous source” had informedhim that I was the real culprit in theworm-chasing incident.

Then he told me I was relieved of mySafety Patrol duties “effectiveimmediately.”

Well, it doesn’t take a detective to figureout that the anonymous source wasRowley.

I can’t believe Rowley went andbackstabbed me like that. While I wassitting there getting chewed out by Mr.Winsky, I was thinking, I need to

remember to give my friend a lectureabout loyalty.

Later on today, Rowley got reinstated asa Patrol. And get this: He actually got aPromotion. Mr. Winsky said Rowley had“exhibited dignity under false

suspicion.”

I thought about really letting Rowleyhave it for ratting me out like that, butthen I realized something.

In June, all the officers in the SafetyPatrols go on a trip to Six Flags, andthey get to take along one friend. I need

to make sure Rowley knows I’m his guy.

Tuesday

Like I said before, the worst part ofgetting kicked off Safety Patrols is losing

your hot chocolate privileges.

Every morning, I go to the back door ofthe cafeteria so Rowley can hook me up.

But either my friend has gone deaf orhe’s too busy kissing the other officers’butts to notice me at the window.

In fact, now that I think of it, Rowley hasbeen totally giving me the cold shoulderlately. And that’s really lame, because ifI recall correctly, He’s the one that soldme out.

Even though Rowley has been a total

jerk lately, I tried to break the ice withhim today, anyway. But even that didn’tseem to work.

April

Friday

Ever since the worm incident, Rowley

has been hanging out with Collin Leeevery day after school. What reallystinks is that Collin is supposed to be mybackup friend.

Those guys are acting totally ridiculous.Today, Rowley and Collin werewearing these matching T-shirts, and itmade me just about want to vomit.

After dinner tonight, I saw Rowley andCollin walking up the hill together,chumming it up.

Collin had his overnight bag, so I knewthey were going to do a sleepover atRowley’s.

And I thought, well, two can play at thatgame. The best way to get back atRowley was to get a new best friend ofmy own. But unfortunately, the onlyperson who came to mind right at thatmoment was Fregley.

I went up to Fregley’s with my overnightbag so Rowley could see I had otherfriend options, too.

When I got there, Fregley was in his

front yard stabbing a kite with a stick.That’s when I started to think maybe thiswasn’t the best idea after all.

But Rowley was in his front yard, and hewas watching me. So I knew there was

no turning back.

I invited myself into Fregley’s house.His mom said she was excited to seeFregley with a “playmate,” which was aterm I was not too enthusiastic about.

Me and Fregley went upstairs to hisroom. Fregley tried to get me to playTwister with him, so I made sure Istayed ten feet away from him at alltimes.

I decided that I should just pull the plugon this stupid idea and go home. Butevery time I looked out the window,Rowley and Collin were still inRowley’s front yard.

I didn’t want to leave until those guyswent back inside. But things started toget out of hand with Fregley prettyquickly. When I was looking out thewindow, Fregley broke into mybackpack and ate the whole bag of jellybeans I had in there.

Fregley’s one of these kids who’s notsupposed to eat any sugar, so twominutes later, he was bouncing off thewalls.

Fregley started acting like a totalmaniac, and he chased me all around hisupstairs.

I kept thinking he was going to comedown off of his sugar high, but he didn’t.Eventually, I locked myself in hisbathroom to wait him out.

Around 11:30, it got quiet out in thehallway. That’s when Fregley slipped apiece of paper under the door.

I picked it up and read it.

That’s the last thing I remember before Iblacked out.

I came to my senses a few hours later.After I woke up, I cracked the dooropen, and I heard snoring coming fromFregley’s room. So I decided to make arun for it.

Mom and Dad were not happy with mefor getting them out of bed at 2:00 in themorning. But by that point, I could reallycare less.

Monday

Well, me and Rowley have officiallybeen ex-friends for about a month now,and to be honest with you, I’m better offwithout him.

I’m glad I can just do whatever I wantwithout having to worry about carryingall that dead weight around.

Lately I’ve been hanging out inRodrick’s room after school and goingthrough his stuff. The other day, I foundone of his middle school yearbooks.

Rodrick wrote on everybody’s picture inhis yearbook, so you can tell how he feltabout all the kids in his grade.

Every once in a while, I see Rodrick’sold classmates around town. And I haveto remember to thank Rodrick for makingchurch a lot more interesting.

But the page in Rodrick’s yearbookthat’s really interesting is the ClassFavorites page.

That’s where they put pictures of thekids who get voted Most Popular andMost Talented and all that.

Rodrick wrote on his Class Favoritespage, too.

MOST LIKELY TOSUCCEED

You know, this Class Favorites thing hasreally got my gears turning.

If you can get yourself voted onto theClass Favorites page, you’re practically

an immortal. Even if you don’t live up towhat you got picked for, it doesn’t reallymatter, because it’s on permanentrecord.

People still treat Bill Watson like he’ssomething special, even though he endedup dropping out of high school.

We still run into him at the Food Barnevery once in a while.

So here’s what I’m thinking: This schoolyear has been kind of a bust, but if I canget voted as a Class Favorite, I’ll go out

on a high note.

I’ve been trying to think of a category Ihave a shot at. Most Popular and MostAthletic are definitely out, so I’m goingto have to find something that’s a littlebit more in reach.

At first I thought maybe I should wearreally nice clothes for the rest of the yearso I can get Best Dressed.

But that would mean I would have to getmy picture taken with Jenna Stewart, andshe dresses like a Pilgrim.

Wednesday

Last night I was lying in bed, and it hitme: I should go for Class Clown.

It’s not like I’m known for being realfunny at school or anything, but if I can

pull off one big prank right beforevoting, that could do it.

May

Thursday

Today I was trying to figure out how Iwas going to sneak a thumbtack onto Mr.Worth’s chair in History when he saidsomething that made me rethink my plan.

Mr. Worth told us he has a dentist’sappointment tomorrow, so we’re goingto have a substitute. Subs are like comicgold. You can say just about anythingyou want, and you can’t get in trouble.

Friday

I walked into my History class today,ready to execute my plan. But when I gotto the door, guess who the substituteteacher was?

Of all the people in the world to be oursub today, it was Mom. I thought Mom’sdays of getting involved at my schoolwere over.

She used to be one of those parents whocame in to help out in the classroom. Butthat all changed after Mom volunteeredto be a chaperone for our field trip to thezoo when I was in third grade.

Mom had prepared all sorts of materialto help us kids appreciate the differentexhibits, but all anyone wanted to dowas watch the animals go to thebathroom.

Anyway, Mom totally foiled my plan towin Class Clown. I’m just lucky there’snot a category called Biggest Mama’sBoy, because after today, I’d win thatone in a landslide.

Wednesday

The school paper came out again today. Iquit my job as school cartoonist after“Creighton the Curious Student” cameout, and I didn’t really care who they

picked to replace me.

But everyone was laughing at the comicspage at lunch, so I picked up a copy tosee what was so funny. And when Iopened it up, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It was “Zoo-Wee Mama.” And of courseMr. Ira didn’t change a single word ofRowley’s strip.

Zoo-Wee Mama by Rowley

Jefferson

So now Rowley’s getting all the famethat was supposed to be mine.

Even the teachers are kissing Rowley’sbutt. I almost lost my lunch when Mr.Worth dropped his chalk in Historyclass—

Monday

This “Zoo-Wee Mama” thing has reallygot me worked up. Rowley is getting all

the credit for a comic that we came upwith together. I figured the least he coulddo was put my name on the strip as theco-creator.

So I went up to Rowley after school andtold him that’s what he was gonna haveto do. But Rowley said “Zoo-WeeMama” was all His idea and that I didn’thave anything to do with it.

I guess we must’ve been talking prettyloud, because the next thing you knew,we attracted a crowd.

The kids at my school are always itchingto see a fight. Me and Rowley tried towalk away, but those guys weren’t goingto let us go until they saw us throw somepunches.

I’ve never been in a real fight before, soI didn’t know how I was supposed tostand or hold my fists or anything. Andyou could tell Rowley didn’t know whathe was doing either, because he juststarted prancing around like aleprechaun.

I was pretty sure I could take Rowley ina fight, but the thing that made menervous was the fact that Rowley takeskarate. I don’t know what kind of hocus-pocus they teach in Rowley’s karateclasses, but the last thing I needed wasfor him to lay me out right there on theblacktop.

Before me or Rowley made a move,there was a screeching sound in theschool parking lot. A bunch of teenagershad stopped their pickup truck, and theystarted piling out.

I was just happy that everyone’sattention was on the teenagers instead ofme and Rowley. But all the other kidstook off when the teenagers started

heading our way.

And then I realized that these teenagerslooked awfully familiar.

That’s when it hit me. These were thesame guys who chased me and Rowleyaround on Halloween night, and they hadfinally caught up with us.

But before we could make a run for it,we had our arms pinned behind ourbacks.

Those guys wanted to teach us a lessonfor taunting them on Halloween night,and they started arguing over what theyshould do with us.

But to be honest with you, I was moreconcerned about something else. TheCheese was only a few feet from wherewe were standing on the blacktop, and itwas looking nastier than ever.

The big teenager must have caught myeye, because the next thing I knew, hewas looking at the Cheese, too. And Iguess that gave him the idea he waslooking for.

Rowley got singled out first. The big kidgrabbed Rowley and dragged him overto the Cheese.

Now, I don’t want to say exactly whathappened next. Because if Rowley evertries to run for President and someone

finds out what these guys made him do,he won’t have a chance.

So I’ll put it to you this way: They madeRowley _ _ _ the Cheese.

I knew they were gonna make me do it,too. I started to panic, because I knew Iwasn’t going to be able to fight my wayout of this situation.

So I did some fast talking instead.

And believe it or not, it actually worked.

I guess the teenagers were satisfied theyhad made their point, because after theymade Rowley finish off the rest of the

Cheese, they let us go. They got back intheir truck and took off down the road.

Me and Rowley walked home together.But neither one of us really said anythingon the way back.

I thought about mentioning to Rowleythat maybe he could have pulled out acouple of his karate moves back there,but something told me to hold off on thatthought for right now.

Tuesday

At school today, the teachers let usoutside after lunch.

It took about five seconds for someoneto realize the Cheese was missing from

its spot on the blacktop.

Everybody crowded around to look at

where the Cheese used to be. Nobodycould believe it was actually gone.

People started coming up with thesecrazy theories about what happened to it.Somebody said that maybe the Cheesegrew legs and walked away.

It took all my self-control to keep mymouth shut. And if Rowley wasn’tstanding right there, I honestly don’tknow if I could have kept quiet.

A couple of the guys who were arguingover what happened to the Cheese werethe same ones who were egging me andRowley on yesterday afternoon. So Iknew it wasn’t going to be long beforesomeone put two and two together andfigured out that we must have had

something to do with it.

Rowley was starting to panic, and Idon’t blame him, either. If the truth evercame out about how the Cheesedisappeared, Rowley would be finished.He’d have to move out of the state, andmaybe even the country.

That’s when I decided to speak up.

I told everyone that I knew whathappened to the Cheese. I said I wassick of it being on the blacktop, and Ijust decided to get rid of it once and forall.

For a second there, everyone just froze. Ithought people were going to startthanking me for what I did, but boy, was

I wrong.

I really wish I had worded my story alittle differently. Because if I threwaway the Cheese, guess what that meant?It meant that I have the Cheese Touch.

June

Friday

Well, if Rowley appreciated what I didfor him last week, he hasn’t said it. Butwe’ve started hanging out after schoolagain, so I guess that means me and himare back to normal.

I can honestly say that so far, having the

Cheese Touch hasn’t been all that bad.

It got me out of doing the Square Danceunit in Phys Ed, because no one wouldpartner up with me. And I’ve had thewhole lunch table to myself every day.

Today was the last day of school, andthey handed out yearbooks after eighthperiod.

I flipped to the Class Favorites page,and here’s the picture that was waitingfor me.

All I can say is, if anyone wants a freeyearbook, they can dig one out of thetrash can in the back of the cafeteria.

You know, Rowley can have ClassClown for all I care. But if he ever getstoo big for his britches, I’ll just remindhim that he was the guy who ate the _ _ __ _ _.