Diary of a Wimpy Kid (3 page)

I don't make that mistake anymore.

Tonight, Dad yelled at me for about ten minutes, and then I guess he decided he'd rather be in bed than standing in my room in his underwear. He told me I was grounded from playing video games for two weeks, which is about what I expected. I guess I should be glad that's all he did.

The good thing about Dad is that when he gets mad, he cools off real quick, and then it's over.

39

Usually, if you mess up in front of Dad, he just throws whatever he's got in his hands at you.

GOOD TIME TO SCREW UP:

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy creating a mess in front of his father.]

BAD TIME TO SCREW UP:

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy creating a mess in front of his father.]

Mom has a TOTALLY different style when it comes to punishment. If you mess up and Mom catches you, the first thing she does is to take a few days to figure out what your punishment should be.

40

And while you're waiting, you do all these nice things to try to get off easier.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy talking to his mother.] The Caption Reads: "I just dusted the dinning room for the Heck of it!

How thoughtful of you!"

But then after a few days, right when YOU forget you're in trouble, that's when she lays it on you.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy being scolded by his mother.] The Caption Reads: "are you having fun?

Yeah

No video games for a week"

41

Monday

This video game ban is a whole lot tougher than I thought it would be. But at least I'm not the only one in the family who's in trouble.

Rodrick's in some hot water with Mom right now, too. Manny got a hold of one of Rodrick's heavy metal magazines, and one of the pages had a picture of a woman in a bikini lying across the hood of a car. And then Manny brought it into day care for show-and-tell.

[Image: A cartoon showing children in day care.]

Anyway, I don't think Mom was too happy about getting that phone call.

I saw the magazine myself, and it honestly wasn't anything to get worked up over. But Mom doesn't allow that kind of stuff in the house.

42

Rodrick's punishment was that he had to answer a bunch of questions Mom wrote out for him.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy and his mother.]

Did owing this magazine make you a better person

No

Did owning this magazine make you a better person?

No.

Did it make you more popular at school?

No.

How do you feel about having owned this type of magazine now?

I feel ashamed.

Do you have anything you want to say to women for having owned this offensive magazine?

I'm sorry women."

43

Wednesday

I'm still grounded from playing video games, so Manny has been using my system. Mom went out and bought a whole bunch of educational video games, and watching Manny play them is like torture.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy with his younger brother watching an educational video game.] The Caption Reads: "what number comes after two and rhymes with "Tree"?

HMM...

Three! Three!"

The good news is that I finally figured out how to get some of my games past Rowley's dad. I just put one of my discs in Manny's "Discovering the Alphabet" case, and that's all it takes.

[Image: A cartoon showing two boys looking at a man working on a computer.]

44

Thursday

At school today, they announced that student government elections are coming up. To be honest with you, I've never had any interest in student government. But when I started thinking about it, I realized getting elected Treasurer could TOTALLY change my situation at school.

[Image: A cartoon showing two cheerleaders complaining to the boy.] The Caption Reads: "we cheerleaders are tired of riding to games in the same bus as the nerds in the bands!

HMM... let me see what I can do..."

45

And even better...

[Image: A cartoon showing two jocks complaining to the boy.] The Caption Reads: "we jocks just need an air pump to inflate our only football

YEAHH... sorry. Can't help you with the."

Nobody ever thinks about running for Treasurer, because all anyone ever cares about are the big-ticket positions like President and Vice President. So I figure if I sign up tomorrow, the Treasurer job is pretty much mine for the taking.

Friday

Today, I went and put my name on the list to run for Treasurer. Unfortunately, this kid named Marty Porter is running for Treasurer, too, and he's real brainy at math. So this might not be as easy as I thought.

46

I told Dad that I was running for student government, and he seemed pretty excited. It turns out he ran for student government when he was my age, and he actually won.

Dad dug through some old boxes in the basement and found one of his campaign posters.

[Image: a campaign poster.]

I thought the poster idea was pretty good, so I asked Dad to drive me to the store to get some supplies. I loaded up on poster board and markers, and I spent the rest of the night making all my campaign stuff. So let's just hope these posters work.

47

Monday

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

[Image: A cartoon showing a man carrying away the money.] The Caption Reads: "do you want Marty Porter to be tour treasurer?"

[Image: A cartoon showing a man.] The Caption Reads: "remember in second grade how Mary porter had head lice? Do you really want him touching Your money.?"

48

I started hanging my posters up as soon as I got in. But they were only up for about three minutes before Vice Principal Roy spotted them.

[Image: A cartoon showing a man and a boy looking at a poster.]

Mr. Roy said you weren't allowed to write "fabrications" about the other candidates. So I told Mr. Roy that the thing about the head lice was true, and how it practically closed down the whole school when it happened.

But he took down all my posters anyway. So today, Marty Porter was going around handing out lollipops to buy himself votes while my posters were sitting at the bottom of Mr. Roy's trash can. I guess this means my political career is officially over.

49

OCTOBER

Monday

Well, it's finally October, and there are only thirty days left until Halloween. Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday, even though 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. On Halloween night, while all the other parents are handing out candy, Dad is hiding in the bushes with a big trash can full of water.

And if any teenagers pass by our driveway, he drenches them.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy throwing water to other people.]

50

I'm not sure Dad really understands the concept of Halloween. But I'm not gonna be the one who spoils his fun.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy talking to two persons.] The Caption Reads: "trick or treat! Heh, Heh!"

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

Rowley showed up at my house wearing his Halloween costume from last year. When I called him earlier I told him to just wear regular clothes, but of course he didn't listen.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy wearing his Halloween costume from last year.]

51

I tried not to let it bother me too much, though. I've never been allowed to go to the Crossland haunted house before, and I wasn't going to let Rowley ruin it for me. Rodrick has told me all about it, and I've been looking forward to this for about three years.

Anyway, when we got to the entrance, I started having second thoughts about going in.

[Image: A cartoon showing children lined up to enter Crossland haunted house.] The Caption Reads: "good eeeveninggg"

But Mom seemed like she was in a hurry to get this over with, and she moved us along. Once we were through the gate, it was one scare after another. There were vampires jumping out at you and people without heads and all sorts of crazy stuff.

52

But the worst part was this area called Chainsaw Alley. There was this big guy in a hockey mask and he had a REAL chainsaw. Rodrick told me the chainsaw has a rubber blade, but I wasn't taking any chances.

[Image: A cartoon showing children running away.]

Right when it looked like the chainsaw guy was going to catch us, Mom stepped in and bailed us out.

[Image: A cartoon showing children being saved by their mom.] The Caption Reads: "that's not nice!

I'm sorry ma'am!"

53

Mom made the chainsaw guy show us where the exit was, and that was the end of our haunted house experience right there. I guess it was a little embarrassing when Mom did that, but I'm willing to let it go this one time.

Saturday

The Crossland haunted house really got me thinking. Those guys were charging five bucks a pop, and the line stretched halfway around the school.

I decided to make a haunted house of my own. Actually, I had to bring Rowley in on the deal, because Mom wouldn't let me convert our first floor into a full-out haunted mansion.

I knew Rowley's dad wouldn't be crazy about the idea, either, so we decided to build the haunted house in his basement and just not mention it to his parents.

Me and Rowley spent most of the day coming up with an awesome plan for our haunted house.

54

Here was our final plan:

[Image: A cartoon showing a haunted house.]

I don't mean to brag or anything, but what we came up with was WAY better than the Crossland High School haunted house.

We realized we were gonna need to get the word out that we were doing this thing, so we got some paper and made up a bunch of flyers.

55

I'll admit maybe we stretched the truth a little in our advertisement, but we had to make sure people actually showed up.

[Image: an advertisement of a haunted house.]

By the time we finished putting the flyers up around the neighborhood and got back to Rowley's basement, it was already 2:30, and we hadn't even started putting the actual haunted house together yet.

So we had to cut some corners from our original plan.

56

When 3:00 rolled around, we looked outside to see if anyone had showed up. And sure enough, there were about twenty neighborhood kids waiting in line outside Rowley's basement.

Now, I know our flyers said admission was fifty cents, but I could see that we had a chance to make a killing here.

So I told the kids that admission was two bucks, and the fifty-cent thing was just a typo.

[Image: A cartoon showing children trying to enter Rowley's basement.]

The first kid to cough up his two bucks was Shane Snella. He paid his money and we let him inside, and me and Rowley took our positions in the Hall of Screams.

57

The Hall of Screams was basically a bed with me and Rowley on either side of it.

[Image: A cartoon showing children in the hall of Screams.]