Diary of a Wimpy KidDog Days
Jeff Kinney
Trang 3Friday June
For me, summer vacation is basically a three-month guilttrip.
Just because the weather's nice, everyone expects youto be outside all day ``frolicking'' or whatever And if youdon't spend every second outdoors, people think there'ssomething wrong with you.
But the truth is, I've always been more of an indoorperson.
The way I like to spend my summer vacation is in frontof the TV, playing video games with the curtains closedand the lights turned off.
Trang 4Mom says it's not ``natural'' for a kid to stay indoors whenit's sunny out I tell her that I'm just trying to protect myskin so I don't look all wrinkly when I'm old like her, butshe doesn't want to hear it.
Mom keeps trying to get me to do something outside,like go to the pool But I spent the first part of the sum-mer at my friend Rowley's pool, and that didn't work outso good.
Trang 5Then we made the mistake of inviting this girl namedTrista who just moved into our neighborhood I thoughtit would be really nice of us to share our country clublifestyle with her But five seconds after we got to thepool, she met some lifeguard and forgot all about the guyswho invited her there.
Trang 6Me and Rowley were better off without a girl hangingaround, anyway We're both bachelors at the moment,and during the summer it's better to be unattached.
A few days ago I noticed the quality of service at thecountry club was starting to go down a little Like some-times the temperature in the sauna was a few degreestoo hot, and one time the poolside waiter forgot to putone of those little umbrellas in my fruit smoothie.
Trang 7Which is kind of weird If it was me who was paying fora country club membership, I'd want to make sure I wasgetting my money's worth.
Trang 8Saturday
Like I said, Mom keeps trying to get me to go to thepool with her and my little brother, Manny, but the thingis, my family belongs to the town pool, not the countryclub And once you've tasted the country club life, it'shard to go back to being an ordinary Joe at the townpool.
Besides, last year I swore to myself that I would nevergo back to that place again At the town pool you have togo through the locker room before you can go swimming,and that means walking through the shower area, wheregrown men are soaping down right out in the open.
Trang 9I'm probably lucky I didn't go blind Seriously, I don't seewhy Mom and Dad bother to try and protect me fromhorror movies and stuff like that if they're gonna exposeme to something about a thousand times worse.
Trang 10Sunday
Well, now I'm Definitely staying indoors for the rest ofthe summer Mom had a ``house meeting'' last night andsaid money is tight this year and we can't afford to go tothe beach, which means no family vacation.
That really stinks I was actually looking forward to ging to the beach this summer Not because I like the o-cean and the sand and all of that, because I don't I re-alized a long time ago that all the world's fish and turtlesand whales go to the bathroom right there in the ocean.And I seem to be the only person who's bothered by this.
Trang 11Anyway, I was looking forward to going to the beach be-cause I'm finally tall enough to go on the Cranium Shaker,which is this really awesome ride that's on the boardwalk.Rodrick's been on the Cranium Shaker at least a hundredtimes, and he says you can't call yourself a man until youride it.
Trang 12fun stuff as a family and one day we'll look back on thisas the ``best summer ever.''
Well, now I only have two things to look forward to thissummer One is my birthday, and the other is when thelast ``Li' l Cutie'' comic runs in the paper I don't know if Iever mentioned this before, but ``Li' l Cutie'' is the worstcomic ever To give you an idea of what I'm talking about,here's what ran in the paper today ''
Trang 13``Li'l Cutie'' has been around for at least thirty years, andit's written by this guy named Bob Post I've heard Li' lCutie is based on Bob's son when he was a little kid.
Trang 14A couple of weeks ago the newspaper announced thatBob Post is retiring and the final ``Li'l Cutie'' is gonna beprinted in August Ever since then me and Dad have beencounting down the days until the last comic runs.
Trang 15Monday
Even though me and Dad see eye to eye on ``Li'l Cutie,''there are still a lot of things we butt heads over The bigissue between us right now is my sleep schedule Duringthe summer I like to stay up all night watching TV orplaying video games and then sleep through the morning.But Dad gets kind of crabby if I'm still in bed when hegets home from work.
Lately, Dad's been calling me at noon to make sure I'mnot still asleep So I keep a phone by my bed and use mybest wide-awake voice when he calls.
Trang 17Tuesday
Dad got Mom a new camera for Mother's Day, and late-ly she's been taking lots of pictures I think it's becauseshe feels guilty about not keeping up on the family photoalbums.
Trang 18Once I came along I guess Mom got busy, so from thatpoint on there are a lot of gaps in our official family his-tory.
Trang 19seashells at a gift shop, and later on I saw her bury themin the sand for Manny to ``discover.''
Well, I wish I didn't see that, because it made me re-evaluate my whole childhood.
Trang 20But I never would've agreed to get my hair cut if I knewthat Mom was taking me to Bombshells Beauty Salon,which is where Mom and Grammar get their hair cut.
I have to say, though, the whole beauty salon experiencewasn't that bad First of all, they have TVs all over theplace, so you can watch a show while you're waiting to getyour hair cut.
Trang 22But when Mom asked Gramma where she got her in-formation, Gramma said
Gramma's dog, Henry, died recently, and ever since thenGramma has had a lot of time on her hands So Mom'sdealing with stuff like the cordless phone thing a lot thesedays.
Whenever Mom finds any tabloids at Gramma's house,she takes them home and throws them in the garbage.Last week I fished one out of the trash and read it in mybedroom.
I'm glad I did I found out that North America will beunderwater within six months, so that kind of takes thepressure off me to do well in school.
Trang 23When I got my hair cut, I found out the best thing aboutthe beauty salon, which is the gossip The ladies who workthere know the dirt on just about everyone in town.
Unfortunately, Mom came to pick me up right in themiddle of a story about Mr Peppers and his new wife,who's twenty years younger than him.
Trang 24Friday
I think Mom's starting to regret taking me to get myhair cut the other day The ladies at Bombshells intro-duced me to soap operas, and now I'm totally hooked.
Yesterday I was in the middle of my show, and Mom toldme I had to turn off the TV and find something else todo I could tell there was no use arguing with her, so Icalled Rowley and invited him over.
Trang 25The best thing I found in Rodrick's junk drawer thistime around was one of those little souvenir picture k-eychains you get at the beach.
Trang 26I don't know how Rodrick got that picture, because I'vebeen with him on every single family vacation, and if I sawhim with that girl, I definitely would have rememberedher.
I showed the picture to Rowley, but I had to hold thekeychain because he was getting all grabby.
Trang 27I asked Mom if Rowley could spend the night, and shesaid yes I made sure I asked Mom when Dad was outof the room, because Dad doesn't like it when I havesleepovers on a ``work night.''
Last summer Rowley spent the night at my house, andwe slept in the basement.
I made sure Rowley took the bed that was closest tothe furnace room, because that room really freaks meout I figured if anything came out of there in the middleof the night, it would grab Rowley first and I'd have afive-second head start to escape.
At about 1:00 in the morning, we heard something inthe furnace room that scared the living daylights out ofus.
Trang 28Me and Rowley practically trampled each other to deathtrying to get up the basement stairs.
We burst into Mom and Dad's room, and I told themour house was haunted and we had to move immediately.
Trang 29I was pretty sure Dad wasn't going to get out of therealive I heard some rustling and a few bumps, and I wasready to make a run for it.
Trang 30Last night me and Rowley waited for Mom and Dad togo to bed, and then we watched our movie Technically, Iwas the only one who watched it, because Rowley had hiseyes and ears covered the whole entire time.
The movie was about this muddy hand that goes aroundthe country killing people And the last person who seesthe hand is always the next victim.
The special effects were really cheesy, and I wasn't evenscared until the very end That's when the twist came.
Trang 31I turned the TV off, and then I described the wholemovie to Rowley from beginning to end.
Well, I must've done a pretty good job telling the story,because Rowley got even more freaked-out than I was.
Trang 32I just wish we had managed to stay awake the wholenight, because when Dad found us in the morning, it was-n't a pretty scene.
Dad wanted to know what was going on, and I had tofess up Dad told Mom, so now I'm just waiting to hearhow long I'm gonna be grounded for But to be honestwith you, I'm a lot more worried about this muddy handthan any punishment Mom can dream up.
I thought about it, though, and I realized there's only somuch ground a muddy hand can cover in a day.
Trang 34Tuesday
Yesterday, Mom lectured me about how boys my agewatch too many violent movies and play too many videogames, and that we don't know what Real entertainmentis.
I just stayed quiet, because I wasn't sure exactly whereshe was going with all this.
Then Mom said that she was gonna start a ``reading club''for the boys in the neighborhood so she could teach usabout all the great literature we were missing out on.
Trang 35So today was the first meeting of the Reading Is FunClub I felt kind of bad for all the boys whose moms madethem come.
Trang 36I'm starting to think maybe Fridley's a little dangerous,but luckily he doesn't really leave his front yard during thesummer I think his parents must have an electrical fenceor something.
Trang 37Mom said the books we brought weren't ``real'' literatureand that we were gonna have to start with the ``classics.''Then she brought out a bunch of books that she must'vehad since she was a kid.
These are the exact same types of books our teachersare always pushing us to read at school.
Trang 38free time, they reward you with a sticker of a hamburgeror something like that.
I don't know who they think they're fooling You canget a sheet of a hundred stickers down at the arts-and-crafts store for fifty cents.
I'm not really sure what makes a book a ``classic'' to beginwith, but I think it has to be at least fifty years old andsome person or animal has to die at the end.
Mom said if we didn't like the books she picked out, wecould go on a field trip to the library and find somethingwe all agreed on But that won't work for me.
Trang 39So I buried the book in a box of old comics in my closet,and that's where it is to this day I haven't been back tothe library since then, but I know if I ever do show up,they'll be waiting for me.
Trang 41Wednesday
Well, the membership of the Reading Is Fun Club took abig hit overnight Most of the guys who came yesterdaybailed out, and now there's only two of us.
Rowley brought two books along with him.
Trang 42But Mom didn't like my book She said she didn't ap-prove of the illustration on the cover because she didn'tlike the way it portrayed women.
I've read ``Shadowdoom,'' and from what I can remem-ber, there aren't even any women in the story In fact,I kind of wonder if the person who designed the covereven Read the book.
Trang 44Friday
Well, the Reading Is Fun Club is down to one member,and that's me.
Yesterday Rowley went golfing or something with hisdad, so he kind of hung me out to dry I didn't do myreading assignment, and I was really counting on him tocover for me at the meeting.
Trang 45After Mom caught me horsing around, she banned mefrom watching TV until I read the book So last night Ihad to wait until she went to bed before I could get myentertainment fix.
I kept thinking about that movie with the muddy hand,though I was afraid that if I was watching TV all by my-self late at night, the muddy hand might crawl out fromunder the couch and grab my foot or something.
The way I solved the problem was by making a trail ofclothes and other stuff all the way from my bedroomdown to the family room.
Trang 46This morning Dad tripped over a dictionary I left at thetop of the stairs, so now he's mad at me But I'll take Dadbeing angry over the alternative any day of the week.
My new fear is that the hand is gonna crawl up on mybed and get me in my sleep So lately I've been coveringmy whole body with the blanket and leaving a hole so Ican breathe.
Trang 47Sunday
Today was my deadline for finishing the first three chap-ters of ``Charlotte's Web.'' When Mom found out I wasn'tdone yet, she said we were gonna sit down at the kitchentable until I was finished.
Trang 48Mr Jefferson had an official-looking piece of paper withthe country club logo on it He said it was a bill for all thefruit smoothies me and Rowley ordered at the clubhouse,and the grand total was eighty-three dollars.
All those times me and Rowley ordered drinks at theclubhouse, we just wrote down Mr Jefferson's accountnumber on the tab Nobody told us someone actually hadto pay for all that.
I still didn't really understand what Mr Jefferson wasdoing at my house I think he's an architect or something,so if he needs eighty-three bucks, he can just design anextra building He talked to Mom, though, and they bothagreed that me and Rowley needed to pay off the tab.
Trang 50Tuesday
Me and Rowley racked our brains all day yesterday try-ing to figure out how to pay off that eighty-three dollars.Rowley said maybe I should just go to the ATM and with-draw some money to pay off his dad.
The reason Rowley said that is because he thinks I'mrich A couple of years ago during the holidays, Rowleycame over and we had just run out of toilet paper at myhouse My family was using these holiday cocktail napkinsas a substitute until Dad got to the store again.
Rowley thought the holiday napkins were some kind ofreally fancy toilet paper, and he asked me if my familywas rich.
Trang 51Anyway, I'm Not rich, and that's the problem I triedto figure out a way a kid my age could get his hands onsome cash, and then it hit me: We could start a lawn careservice.
I'm not talking about some average, run-of-the-mill lawncare service, either I'm talking about a company thattakes lawn care to the next level We decided to nameour company the V.I.P Lawn Service.
We called up the Yellow Pages people and told them wewanted to place an ad in their book And not just oneof those tiny little text ads, but a really big one with fullcolor that takes up two whole pages.
But get this: The Yellow Pages people told us it wasgonna cost us a few thousand bucks to put our ad in theirbook.
Trang 52haven't even earned any money yet?
Me and Rowley realized we were gonna have to do thisa different way, and make our own ads.
I figured we could just make flyers and put them inevery mailbox in our neighborhood All we needed wassome clip art to get us started.