Diary of a Wimpy Kid (8 page)

We went back inside, and Rowley showed me his Christmas loot.

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He sure got a lot more stuff than I did. He even got Twisted Wizard, so at least I can play it when I come up to his house. That is, until Rowley's dad finds out how violent it is.

And boy, you have never seen someone as happy as Rowley with his "L'il Cutie" book. His mom said it was the only thing on his list that he didn't get.

Well, I'm glad SOMEONE got what they wanted today.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy reading a book.] The Caption reads: " It's a Christmas miracle!"

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New Year's Eve

In case you're wondering what I'm doing in my room at 9:00 p.m. on New Year's Eve, let me fill you in.

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

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

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy holding a spider over the little boy.] The Caption reads: " Yaaaah!

Scream!!

Scream!!"

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

[Image: A cartoon showing a little boy.] The Caption reads: " Gulp"

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

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy, his little brother and Mom.]

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

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy, his little brother and Mom.] The Caption reads: " Sniff"

Mom brought Manny over to the kitchen table. Then she put a seed, a raisin, and a grape on a plate and told Manny to point to the thing that was the closest in size to the piece of thread he swallowed.

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

[Image: A cartoon showing the little boy sitting at the table.]

Then he walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out an orange.

[Image: A cartoon showing the little boy pulling out an orange from the fridge.]

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

And that's also why my only New Year's resolution is to never play with Manny again.

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JANUARY

Wednesday

I found a way to have some fun with the Big Wheel Rowley got me for Christmas. I came up with this game where one guy rides down the hill and the other guy tries to knock him off with a football.

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

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy riding a cycle.]

It's a lot harder to hit a moving target than I thought. Plus, I didn't get a lot of practice. It took Rowley like ten minutes to walk the Big Wheel back up the hill after every trip down.

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Rowley kept asking to switch places and have me be the one who rides the Big Wheel, but I'm no fool. That thing was hitting thirty-five miles an hour, and it didn't have any brakes.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy with a cycle and another boy holding a ball.] The Caption reads: " Do you want to have a turn now? (Pant, Pant)

No thanks...

I'm not as good as you!"

Anyway, I never did knock Rowley off the Big Wheel today. But I guess I have something to work at over the rest of Christmas vacation.

Thursday

I was heading up to Rowley's today to play our Big Wheel game again, but Mom said I had to finish my Christmas thank-yous before I went out anywhere.

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

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy thinking.]

Let me tell you, it's not easy writing thank-you notes for stuff you didn't want in the first place.

I started with the nonclothes items, because I thought they'd be easiest. But after two or three cards, I realized I was practically writing the same thing every time.

So I wrote up a general form on the computer with blanks for the things that needed to change. Writing the cards from there was a breeze.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy typing.] The Caption reads: " Type Type"

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Dear Aunt Lydia,

Thank you so much for the awesome encyclopedia! How did you know I wanted that for Christmas?

I love the way the encyclopedia looks on my shelf!

All my friends will be so jealous that I have my very own encyclopedia

Thank you for making this the best Christmas ever!

Sincerely, Greg

My system worked out pretty well for the first couple of gifts, but after that, not so much.

Dear Aunt Loretta,

Thank you so much for the awesome pants! How did you know I wanted that for Christmas?

I love the way the pants looks on my legs!

All my friends will be so jealous that I have my very own pants.

Thank you for making this the best Christmas ever!

Sincerely, Greg

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Friday

I finally knocked Rowley off the Big Wheel today, but it didn't happen the way I expected. I was trying to hit him in the shoulder, but I missed, and the football went under the front tire.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy fallen down from his cycle.] The Caption reads: " Flip"

Rowley tried to break his fall by sticking out his arms, but he landed pretty hard on his left hand. I figured he'd just shake it off and get right back on the bike, but he didn't.

I tried to cheer him up, but all the jokes that usually crack him up weren't working.

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So I knew he must be hurt pretty bad.

[Image: A cartoon showing two boys.] The Caption reads: " Hey, look at me!

I'm your dad!

Darr Darr Darr.

(sniff) Heh, Heh."

Monday

Christmas vacation is over, and now we're back at school. And you remember Rowley's Big Wheel accident? Well, he broke his hand, and now he has to wear a cast. And today, everyone was crowding around him like he was a hero or something.

[Image: A cartoon showing three children.] The Caption reads: " Does it still hurt?

A little, I guess.

You poor thing!"

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I tried to cash in on some of Rowley's new popularity, but it totally backfired.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy talking to other three children.] The Caption reads: " I'm the one who broke his hand!

You meanie!"

At lunch a bunch of girls invited Rowley over to their table so they could FEED him.

What really ticks me off about that is that Rowley is right-handed, and it's his LEFT hand that's broken. So he can feed himself just fine.

[Image: a cartoon showing three children.] The Caption reads: " Here comes the airplane!

Yum, yum!"

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Tuesday

I realized Rowley's injury thing is a pretty good racket, so I decided it was time for me to have an injury of my own.

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

[Image: a cartoon showing a boy talking to other children.] The Caption reads: " It's a raging infection caused by a splinter that was left untreated!"

I couldn't figure out why the girls weren't swarming me like they swarmed Rowley, but then I realized what the problem was.

See, the cast is a great gimmick because everyone wants to sign their name on it. But it's not exactly easy to sign gauze with a pen.

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

[Image: a boy talking to a girl.] The Caption reads: " Would you like to be the first one to sign my sympathy sheet?"

That idea was a total bust, too. My bandage did end up attracting attention from a couple of people, but believe me, they were not the type of people I was going for.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy trying to look at the other's infection.] The Caption reads: " Can I peek at your infection?

Go away."

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Monday

Last week we started the third quarter at school, so now I have a whole bunch of new classes. One of the classes I signed up for is something called Independent Study.

I WANTED to sign up for Home Economics 2, because I was pretty good at Home Ec 1.

But being good at sewing does not exactly buy you popularity points at school.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy carrying an embroidered bag.] The Caption reads: " Hey, look, greg has a purse!

Actually, it's an embroidered bookbag.

Ok, pursie."

Anyway, this Independent Study thing is an experiment they're trying out at our school for the first time.

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The idea is that the class gets assigned a project, and then you have to work on it together with no teacher in the room for the whole quarter.

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

Ricky's big claim to fame is that he'll pick the gum off the bottom of a desk and chew it if you pay him fifty cents. So I don't really have high hopes for our final grade.

[Image: a cartoon showing a boy chewing a gum.]

Tuesday

Today we got our Independent Study assignment, and guess what it is? We have to build a robot.

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

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But Mr. Darnell told us we don't have to build an actual robot. We just need to come up with ideas for what our robot might look like and what kinds of things it would be able to do.

Then he left the room, and we were on our own. We started brainstorming right away. I wrote down a bunch of ideas on the blackboard.

[Image: a cartoon showing a boy looking at the blackboard.] The Caption reads: "

the robot would

Do my homework do the dishes make my breakfast

Brush my teeth"

Everybody was pretty impressed with my ideas, but it was easy to come up with them. All I did was write down all the things I hate doing myself.

But a couple of the girls got up to the front of the room, and they had some ideas of their own. They erased my list and drew up their own plan.

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They wanted to invent a robot that would give you dating advice and have ten types of lip gloss on its fingertips.

[Image: a cartoon showing two girls looking at the blackboard.]

All us guys thought this was the stupidest idea we ever heard. So we ended up splitting into two groups, girls and boys. The boys went to the other side of the room while the girls stood around talking.

Now that we had all the serious workers in one place, we got to work. Someone had the idea that you can say your name to the robot and it can say it back to you.