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Trang 4I’m very excited that you’re holding the Kindle edition ofDiary of a Wimpy Kid in your hands.
When I read my first e-book on a Kindle, I was amazed atthe possibilities Carrying a whole library around with me on adevice I could fit in the palm of my hand? Amazing.
What’s been very rewarding to me as an author has beenseeing kids carrying their dog-eared copies of Diary of aWimpy Kid with them The Kindle allows kids to have thewhole series at their fingertips, and the reading experienceis crisp and clean every time with no chance of today'sbreakfast staining the pages.
Trang 16JuneFriday
For me, summer vacation is basically a three-monthguilt trip.
Just because the weather’s nice, everyone expectsyou to be outside all day “frolicking” or whatever.And if you don’t spend every second outdoors,people think there’s something wrong with you.But the truth is, I’ve always been more of anindoor person.
The way I like to spend my summer vacation is infront of the tv, playing video games with the
Trang 18Unfortunately, Mom’s idea of the perfect summervacation is different from mine.
Mom says it’s not “natural” for a kid to stayindoors when it’s sunny out I tell her that I’mjust trying to protect my skin so I don’t lookall wrinkly when I’m old like her, but she doesn’twant to hear it.
Trang 19pool, and that didn’t work out so good.
Trang 20Rowley’s family belongs to a country club, andwhen school let out for the summer, we weregoing there every single day.
Then we made the mistake of inviting this girl
Trang 22The lesson I learned is that some people won’tthink twice about using you, especially whenthere’s a country club involved.
Me and Rowley were better off without a girlhanging around, anyway We’re both bachelors atthe moment, and during the summer it’s betterto be unattached.
Trang 23the poolside waiter forgot to put one of thoselittle umbrellas in my fruit smoothie.
Trang 24I reported all my complaints to Rowley’s dad.But for some reason Mr Jefferson never passedthem on to the clubhouse manager.
Which is kind of weird If it was me who waspaying for a country club membership, I’d wantto make sure I was getting my money’s worth.
Trang 25take a sip.
Trang 26Saturday
Like I said, Mom keeps trying to get me to go tothe pool with her and my little brother, Manny,but the thing is, my family belongs to the townpool, not the country club And once you’ve tastedthe country club life, it’s hard to go back to beingan ordinary Joe at the town pool.
Besides, last year I swore to myself that Iwould never go back to that place again At thetown pool you have to go through the locker
Trang 27men are soaping down right out in the open.
Trang 28The first time I walked through the men’slocker room at the town pool was one of themost traumatic experiences of my life.
I’m probably lucky I didn’t go blind Seriously,I don’t see why Mom and Dad bother to tryand protect me from horror movies and stuff likethat if they’re gonna expose me to somethingabout a thousand times worse.
Trang 29hard to forget.
Trang 30Sunday
Well, now I’m Definitely staying indoorsfor the rest of the summer Mom had a “housemeeting” last night and said money is tight thisyear and we can’t afford to go to the beach,which means no family vacation.
that really stinks I was actually lookingforward to going to the beach this summer.Not because I like the ocean and the sand andall of that, because I don’t I realized a longtime ago that all the world’s fish and turtles andwhales go to the bathroom right there in the
Trang 32My brother Rodrick likes to tease me because hethinks I’m afraid of the waves But I’m tellingyou, that’s not it at all.
Trang 34Mom said maybe if we “save our pennies” we can goback to the beach next year Then she said we’dstill do a lot of fun stuff as a family and one daywe ’ ll look back on this as the “best summer ever.”
Well, now I only have two things to look forwardto this summer One is my birthday, and the
other is when the last “Li ’ l Cutie” comic runs inthe paper I don’t know if I ever mentioned
Trang 36But here’s the thing: Even though I hate “Li ’ lCutie,” I can’t stop myself from reading it, andDad can’t, either I guess we just like seeinghow bad it is.
Trang 38But I guess now that the real Li ’ l Cutie is allgrown up, his dad’s having trouble coming up withnew material.
A couple of weeks ago the newspaper announcedthat Bob Post is retiring and the final “Li ’ l Cutie”is gonna be printed in August Ever since then meand Dad have been counting down the days untilthe last comic runs.
Trang 39will have to throw a party, because something likethat deserves a serious celebration.
Trang 40Monday
Even though me and Dad see eye to eye on “Li ’ lCutie,” there are still a lot of things we butt
heads over The big issue between us right now ismy sleep schedule During the summer I like tostay up all night watching tv or playing videogames and then sleep through the morning ButDad gets kind of crabby if I’m still in bed whenhe gets home from work.
Lately, Dad’s been calling me at noon to make sureI’m not still asleep So I keep a phone by my bedand use my best wide-awake voice when he calls.
Trang 41work while the rest of us get to kick back andtake it easy every day.
Trang 42But if he’s gonna be all grumpy about it, heshould just become a teacher or a snowplowdriver or have one of those jobs where you getto take summers off.
Mom’s not really helping improve Dad’s mood,either She calls him at work about five times aday with updates on everything that’s going onaround the house.
Tuesday
Trang 43think it’s because she feels guilty about notkeeping up on the family photo albums.
Trang 44When my older brother, Rodrick, was a baby,Mom was totally on top of things.
Trang 45from that point on there are a lot of gaps inour official family history.
Trang 47and later on I saw her bury them in the sandfor Manny to “discover.”
Trang 49Today Mom said I was looking “shaggy,” so shetold me she was taking me to get a haircut.
Trang 50But I never would’ve agreed to get my hair cut ifI knew that Mom was taking me to BombshellsBeauty Salon, which is where Mom and Grammaget their hair cut.
I have to say, though, the whole beauty salonexperience wasn’t that bad First of all, theyhave tvs all over the place, so you can watch ashow while you’re waiting to get your hair cut.
Second, they have lots of tabloids, those newspapers you see in the checkout lines at grocerystores Mom
Trang 51some really important stuff in those things.
Trang 54But when Mom asked Gramma where she got herinformation, Gramma said —
Gramma’s dog, Henry, died recently, and ever sincethen Gramma has had a lot of time on her hands.So Mom’s dealing with stuff like the cordless phonething a lot these days.
Whenever Mom finds any tabloids at Gramma’shouse, she takes them home and throws them inthe garbage Last week I fished one out of thetrash and read it in my bedroom.
Trang 55of takes the pressure off me to do well in school.
Trang 56I had a long wait at the beauty salon, but Ididn’t really mind I got to read my horoscopeand look at pictures of movie stars without theirmakeup, so I was definitely entertained.
When I got my hair cut, I found out the bestthing about the beauty salon, which is the gossip.The ladies who work there know the dirt on justabout everyone in town.
Trang 57the middle of a story about Mr Peppers and hisnew wife, who’s twenty years younger than him.
Trang 58Hopefully my hair will grow out fast so I cancome back and hear the rest of the story.
Friday
I think Mom’s starting to regret taking me toget my hair cut the other day The ladies at
Bombshells introduced me to soap operas, and nowI’m totally hooked.
Trang 59Rowley and invited him over.
Trang 60When Rowley got to my house, we went straightto Rodrick’s room in the basement Rodrick isoff playing with his band, Löded Diper, andwhenever he’s away I like to go through hisstuff and see if I can find anything interesting.
Trang 62If you look into it, you see a picture of Rodrickwith some girl.
I don’t know how Rodrick got that picture,
because I’ve been with him on every single familyvacation, and if I saw him with that girl, I
definitely would have remembered her.
Trang 64We dug around some more, and then we found ahorror movie at the bottom of Rodrick’s drawer.I couldn’t believe our luck Neither one of us hadactually seen a horror movie before, so this was areally big find.
Trang 65Last summer Rowley spent the night at myhouse, and we slept in the basement.
Trang 66I made sure Rowley took the bed that was closestto the furnace room, because that room reallyfreaks me out I figured if anything came out ofthere in the middle of the night, it would grabRowley first and I’d have a five-second headstart to escape.
At about 1:00 in the morning, we heard somethingin the furnace room that scared the living daylightsout of us.
Trang 67Me and Rowley practically trampled each other todeath trying to get up the basement stairs.
Trang 68We burst into Mom and Dad’s room, and Itold them our house was haunted and we hadto move immediately.
Dad didn’t seem convinced, and he went down tothe basement and walked right into the furnaceroom Me and Rowley stayed about ten feet back.
Trang 70But a few seconds later he came back out with oneof Manny’s toys, a doll named Hide-and-Seek Harry.
Last night me and Rowley waited for Mom andDad to go to bed, and then we watched ourmovie Technically, I was the only one who
Trang 72The movie was about this muddy hand that goesaround the country killing people And the lastperson who sees the hand is always the next victim.
The special effects were really cheesy, and Iwasn’t even scared until the very end That’swhen the twist came.
After the muddy hand strangled its last victim,it came crawling straight at the screen, andthen the screen went black At first I was alittle confused, but then I realized it meant thenext victim was gonna be me.
Trang 73the whole movie to Rowley from beginning to end.
Trang 74Well, I must’ve done a pretty good job telling thestory, because Rowley got even more freaked-outthan I was.
Trang 76I just wish we had managed to stay awake thewhole night, because when Dad found us in themorning, it wasn’t a pretty scene.
Dad wanted to know what was going on, andI had to fess up Dad told Mom, so now I’mjust waiting to hear how long I’m gonna begrounded for But to be honest with you, I’m alot more worried about this muddy hand thanany punishment Mom can dream up.
Trang 77there’s only so much ground a muddy hand cancover in a day.
Trang 78So hopefully that means I have a little whilelonger to live.
Tuesday
Yesterday, Mom lectured me about how boys myage watch too many violent movies and play toomany video games, and that we don’t know whatReal entertainment is.
Trang 80Then Mom said that she was gonna start a
“reading club” for the boys in the neighborhood soshe could teach us about all the great literature wewere missing out on.
I begged Mom to just give me a regular punishmentinstead, but she wouldn’t budge.
Trang 82I was just glad Mom didn’t invite Fregley, thisweird kid who lives up the street, because he’sbeen acting stranger than usual lately.
I’m starting to think maybe Fregley’s a littledangerous, but luckily he doesn’t really leave hisfront yard during the summer I think his parentsmust have an electrical fence or something.
Anyway, Mom told everyone to bring their
Trang 83on the table, and everyone seemed pretty happywith the selection except Mom.
Trang 85literature and that we were gonna have tostart with the “classics.”
Trang 87These are the exact same types of books ourteachers are always pushing us to read at school.
Trang 88They have a program where if you read a “classic”in your free time, they reward you with a stickerof a hamburger or something like that.
I don’t know who they think they’re fooling.You can get a sheet of a hundred stickers downat the arts-and-crafts store for fifty cents.
I’m not really sure what makes a book a “classic”to begin with, but I think it has to be at leastfifty years old and some person or animal has todie at the end.
Trang 89and find something we all agreed on But thatwon’t work for me.
Trang 90See, when I was eight years old I borrowed abook from the library, and then I forgot all aboutit I found the book a few years later behind mydesk, and I figured I must’ve owed about twothousand dollars in late fees on that thing.
Trang 92In fact, I get nervous if I even see a librarian.
I asked Mom if we could get a second chance topick out a book on our own, and she said we
could We’re supposed to meet again tomorrow andbring our new selections with us.
Wednesday
Trang 94Rowley brought two books along with him.
Trang 96But Mom didn’t like my book She said she didn’tapprove of the illustration on the cover becauseshe didn’t like the way it portrayed women.
I’ve read “Shadowdoom,” and from what I canremember, there aren’t even any women in thestory In fact, I kind of wonder if the personwho designed the cover even Read the book.
Anyway, Mom said that she was gonna use herveto power as the Reading Is Fun Club’s founderand choose the book for us So she chose this
Trang 98Just from looking at the cover, I guarantee eitherthe girl or the pig doesn’t make it to the end ofthe book.
Friday
Well, the Reading Is Fun Club is down to onemember, and that’s me.
Yesterday Rowley went golfing or something withhis dad, so he kind of hung me out to dry I
didn’t do my reading assignment, and I was reallycounting on him to cover for me at the meeting.
Trang 99yesterday, but the truth is, I just have troubleconcentrating for long periods of time.
Trang 100After Mom caught me horsing around, shebanned me from watching tv until I read thebook So last night I had to wait until she wentto bed before I could get my entertainment fix.
I kept thinking about that movie with the muddyhand, though I was afraid that if I was watchingtv all by myself late at night, the muddy handmight crawl out from under the couch and grab myfoot or something.
Trang 101trail of clothes and other stuff all the way from mybedroom down to the family room.
Trang 102That way I was able to make it downstairsand back without ever touching the ground.
This morning Dad tripped over a dictionary Ileft at the top of the stairs, so now he’s madat me But I’ ll take Dad being angry over thealternative any day of the week.
Trang 104But that strategy has its own risks Rodrickgot into my room today, and I had to spendthe morning trying to wash the taste of a dirtysock out of my mouth.
Sunday
Trang 106About a half hour later there was a knock atthe front door, and it was Rowley I thoughtmaybe he was coming back to the Reading IsFun Club, but when I saw that his dad was withhim, I knew something was up.
Mr Jefferson had an official-looking piece ofpaper with the country club logo on it He said itwas a bill for all the fruit smoothies me andRowley ordered at the clubhouse, and the grandtotal was eighty-three dollars.
Trang 107account number on the tab Nobody told us someoneactually had to pay for all that.
Trang 108I still didn’t really understand what Mr Jeffersonwas doing at my house I think he’s an architector something, so if he needs eighty-three bucks, hecan just design an extra building He talked to Mom,though, and they both agreed that me and Rowleyneeded to pay off the tab.
I told Mom me and Rowley are just kids and it’snot like we have salaries or careers or whatever.But Mom said we were just gonna have to be
“creative.” Then she said we would have to suspendthe Reading Is Fun Club’s meetings until we paidwhat we owed.