Authors: Jeff Kinney
hour later, they came back up to my room, and Manny was holding something in
his hands.
[Image: A cartoon of a child apologizing to his brother as the mother looks at
them.] "I'm Sowwy, Bubby."
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It was a ball of tinfoil with a bunch of toothpicks sticking out of it.
[Image: A cartoon of a foil ball with toothpicks stuck in it.]
Don't ask me how that was supposed to make up for my broken video game
system. I went to throw the stupid thing away, but Mom wouldn't even let me do
THAT.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy throwing the ball in the dustbin and the mother
scolding him for that.] "Your brother made that for you!"
The first chance I get, that thing's going in the trash. Because mark my words, if I
don't get rid of it, I'm gonna end up sitting on it.
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Even though Manny drives me totally nuts, there is ONE reason I like having him
around. Ever since Manny started talking, Rodrick has stopped making me sell
chocolate bars for his school fund-raisers. And believe me, I'm grateful for THAT.
[Image: A cartoon of a asking the man behind the door for help.] "Before"
[Image: A cartoon of a child asking the couple for help as his brother looks at him
happily.] "Now..."
Um...hello sir...would you like to help support...
Not interested!
Now...
Wood you wike some chokwits?
How precious!"
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Monday
Madame Lefrere made us write our first pen-pal letters today. I got assigned to this
kid named Mamadou Montpierre, and I guess he lives someplace in France.
I know I'm supposed to write in French and Mamadou is supposed to write in
English, but to be honest with you, writing in a foreign language is pretty hard.
So I really don't see the need for both of us to stress out over this whole pen-pal
thing.
Dear Mamadou,
First of all, I think we should both just write in English to keep things simple.
By the way, remember how I said I was gonna end up sitting on Manny's spiky
tinfoil ball thing? Well, I was half right.
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Rowley came over today to play video games, and HE ended up sitting on it.
I'm actually kind of relieved, to be honest with you. I lost track of that thing a
couple of days ago, and I'm just glad it finally turned up.
[Image: A cartoon of a lady dabbing the aching ass of the boy as the another boy
looks at them.]
And in all the commotion, I threw Manny's "gift" in the garbage. But something
tells me Mom wouldn't have stopped me this time.
Wednesday
Rodrick has an English paper due tomorrow, and Mom's actually making him do it
himself for once. Rodrick doesn't know how to type, so he usually writes his
papers out on notebook paper and then hands them off to Dad.
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But when Dad reads over Rodrick's work, he finds all sorts of factual errors.
[Image: A cartoon of a man talking to his son in their drawing room.] "Well, for
starters, Abraham Lincoln didn't write "to kill a mockingbird."
Rodrick doesn't really care about the mistakes, so he tells Dad to just go ahead and
type the paper like it is.
But Dad can't stand typing a paper with errors in it, so he just rewrites Rodrick's
paper from scratch. And then a couple days later, Rodrick brings his graded paper
home and acts like he did it himself.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy showing his report to his mother.]
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This has been going on for a few years, and I guess Mom decided she's going to
put an end to it. So tonight she told Dad that Rodrick was going to have to do his
OWN work this time around, and that Dad wasn't allowed to help out.
Rodrick went in the computer room after dinner, and you could hear him typing
about one letter a minute.
I could tell the sound of Rodrick typing was driving Dad totally bananas. On top of
that, Rodrick would come out of the computer room every ten minutes and ask Dad
some dumb question.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy asking his father a question.] "Where's the space bar
again?"
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After a couple of hours, Dad finally cracked.
Dad waited for Mom to go to bed, and then he typed Rodrick's whole paper for
him. So I guess this means Rodrick's system is safe, at least for now.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy lying down and listening to music and another boy
working hard on the type writer.] "Type type type"
I have a book report due tomorrow, but I'm really not sweating it.
I found the secret to doing book reports a long time ago. I've been milking the
same book for the past five years: "Sherlock Sammy Does It Again."
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There are about twenty short stories in "Sherlock Sammy Does It Again," but I just
treat each story like it's a whole book, and the teacher never notices.
These Sherlock Sammy stories are all the same. Some grown-up commits a crime,
and then Sherlock Sammy figures it out and makes the person look stupid.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy scolding the old men.] "Your first mistake Mr. Beasley,
was when you forgot to convert celsius to fahrenheit!
Greek!"
I'm kind of an expert at writing book reports by now. All you have to do is write
exactly what the teacher wants to hear, and you're all set.
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Man, Sherlock Sammy is so smart, and I'll bet that's cause he reads so many books.
I'll bet you're right!
There were a bunch of hard words in this book, but I looked them up in the
dictionary so now I know what they mean.
I guess you're a bit of a "sleuth" yourself!
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OCTOBER
Monday
There was a kid named Chirag Gupta who was one of my friends last year, but he
moved away in June. His family had a big going-away party, and the whole
neighborhood come. But I guess Chirag's family must have changed their mind,
because today Chirag was back in school.
Everyone was happy to see Chirag again, but a couple of us decided to have a little
fun with him before officially welcoming him back.
So we basically pretended he was still gone.
[Image: A cartoon of three boys all talking at the same time.] "Boy, I sure do miss
chirag.
Yeah... I wonder how he's doing?
Hey, guys! I'm right here!"
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I have to admit, it was pretty funny.
[Image: A cartoon of two boys talking to each other as the third boy looks at them.]
"Did you just hear something?
Nope must have been the wind!"
At lunch, Chirag sat next to me. I had an extra chocolate-chip cookie in my lunch
bag, and I made a big deal about it.
[Image: A cartoon of three boys having their lunch in school.] "I wish chirag was
here. Oh, how he loved chocolate-chip cookies.
But I'm sitting right next to you!
I'm not even that hungry..."
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OK, so maybe that one was a little cruel.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy crying and the two boys looking at him.] "(Gobble
Gobble Smack Smack)"
I guess we'll probably let Chirag off the hook tomorrow. But then again, this
Invisible Chirag thing could turn into the next "P.U."
Tuesday
OK, so the Invisible Chirag joke is still going, and the whole CLASS is in on it
now. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself or anything, but I think I might
have Class Clown in the bag for dreaming this one up.
In Science, the teacher asked me to count the number of kids in the classroom so
she'd know how many pairs of safety goggles to get out of the closet.
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So I made a big show of counting everyone in the room except Chirag.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy counting the children in the class.] "...33...34! There are
34 people in this class"
Well, that REALLY set Chirag off. He got up and started yelling, and it was really
hard to stare straight ahead and act like he wasn't there.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy talking to the children in the room.] "I...am...a...human
being ...too!"
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I wanted to tell him that we never said he wasn't a human being, it's just that he's
an INVISIBLE human being. But I managed to keep my mouth shut.
Before you go and say I'm a bad friend for teasing Chirag, let me just say this in
my own defense: I'm smaller than about 95% of the kids at my school, so when it
comes to finding someone I can actually pick on, my options are pretty limited.
And besides, I'm not 100% to blame for dreaming up this idea. Believe it or not, I
got the idea from Mom. This one time when I was a kid, I was playing under the
kitchen table, and Mom came looking for me.
[Image: A cartoon of a child hiding under the table as his mother searches for him.]
"Has anyone seen Gregory?"
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I don't know what made me do it, but I decided to play a joke on Mom and stay
hidden.
Mom went all around the house calling my name. I think she must have finally
seen me under the kitchen table, but she still pretended she didn't know where I
was.
[Image: A cartoon of a woman looking out of the window and a child hidden under
the table.] "Poor Gregory, all alone in the show oh, boo hoo hoo."
I thought it was pretty funny, and I probably would've stayed hidden under there
for a little while more. But Mom finally got me to crack when she said she was
gonna give my gum-ball machine to Rodrick.
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So if you want to point fingers on the Invisible Chirag joke, now you know who's
really to blame.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy crying and running towards his mother wanting to be
hugged.]
Thursday
Well, yesterday, Chirag pretty much gave up on trying to get anyone in our class to
talk to him. But today he found our weakness.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy talking to his friends.] "Rowley do you think I exist?
Nope! I can't even hear you or see you or see you!"
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I forgot ALL about Rowley. When the joke first started up, I made sure to keep
him away from Chirag, because I had a feeling Rowley would blow the joke.
But I guess I kind of got too cocky and let my guard down.
Chirag started working on Rowley at lunch, and he came really close to getting
him to crack.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy offering corn to his friends.] "If you say I exist, this
corn dog is yours!"
I could tell Rowley was about to say something, so I had to act quick. I told
everyone there was a floating corn dog hovering above our lunch table, and then I
plucked it out of the air and ate it in two bites.
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So thanks to my quick thinking, we were able to keep the joke going.
[Image: A cartoon of boys teasing their friend .] "(Gobble, smack.) not as good as
the regular kind, though."
But that REALLY made Chirag mad. He started punching my arm, but of course I
had to pretend like I didn't notice.
And let me tell you, that wasn't easy to do. Chirag might be small, but that kid can
really punch.
[Image: A cartoon of four boys having fun.] "Is there a flea breathing on me?
Because it feels like a tiny little flea is breathing on me."
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Friday
Well, I guess Chirag must have complained to a teacher about my little joke,
because today I got called down to the front office.
When I got to Vice Principal Roy's room, he was pretty mad. He knew all about
how I started the joke, and he gave me a speech about "respect" and "decency" and
all that.
But luckily, Mr. Roy got one crucial fact wrong, and that was the identity of the
person we were playing the joke on. So that made the apology part a whole lot
easier.
[Image: A cartoon of a teacher looking at a boy apologizing to another.] "I am
deeply sorry, and now I do indeed admit that you exist, Sharif."
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Mr. Roy seemed pretty satisfied with my apology, and he let me go without even
tacking on any detention.
I've always heard that when Mr. Roy is done chewing a kid out, he sends them off
with a pat on the back and a lollipop. And now I can tell you firsthand that it's true.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy looks at the other boy and a man standing in the
doorway.]
Saturday
Rowley's birthday party is tomorrow, so Mom took me to the mall to get him a gift.
I picked out this cool video game that just came out, and I handed it to Mom so she
could pay for it. But Mom said I had to buy it with my OWN money.
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I told Mom that first of all, I have zero money.
And second of all, if I DID have any money, I wouldn't be wasting it on
ROWLEY.
[Image: A cartoon of a boy talking to his mother.]
Mom didn't seem too happy with what I said, but it's not MY fault I'm broke. I
actually had a job this summer, but the people I worked for stiffed me, so I didn't
earn a single penny.
We have these neighbors named the Fullers who live a few doors up, and they go
away on vacation every summer.
They usually leave their dog, Princess, in the kennel, but this year, they told me
they'd pay me five bucks a day to feed Princess and take her out. I figured I'd earn
enough to buy a whole pile of video games with that kind of money.
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But I guess Princess is gun-shy about going to the bathroom in front of strangers,
so I ended up spending a lot of time standing around in the hot sun waiting for this