Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2 page)

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I met Rowley a few years ago when he moved into my neighborhood.

His mom bought him this book called "How to Make Friends in New Places," and he came to my house trying all these dumb gimmicks.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy reading out a joke to another one.] The Caption Reads: "Knock knock!, Thermos! Thermos be some way to tickle your funny bone!

Huh?, excuse me?, say what?"

I guess I kind of felt sorry for Rowley, and I decided to take him under my wing.

It's been great having him around, mostly because I get to use all the tricks Rodrick pulls on ME.

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[Image: A cartoon showing two boys talking.] The Caption Reads: "Did you know that if your hand is bigger than your face it's a sign of "Low intelligence"?"

Really?

Ha gotcha!

But do I have "Low intelligence"?

HMM...let me check again."

21

Monday

You know how I said I play all sorts of pranks on Rowley? Well, I have a little brother named Manny, and I could NEVER get away with pulling any of that stuff on him.

Mom and Dad protect Manny like he's a prince or something. And he never gets in trouble, even if he really deserves it.

Yesterday, Manny drew a self-portrait on my bedroom door in permanent marker. I thought Mom and Dad were really going to let him have it, but as usual, I was wrong.

[Image: A cartoon showing a family looking at the drawing made by the little one on the wall.]

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But the thing that bugs me the most about Manny is the nickname he has for me. When he was a baby, he couldn't pronounce "brother," so he started calling me "Bubby." And he STILL calls me that now, even though I keep trying to get Mom and Dad to make him stop.

Luckily none of my friends have found out yet, but believe me, I have had some really close calls.

[Image: A cartoon showing children celebrating Birthday.] The Caption Reads: "hey this one says It's to "Bubby"!

Must be a mistake."

23

Mom makes me help Manny get ready for school in the morning. After I make Manny his breakfast, he carries his cereal bowl into the family room and sits on his plastic potty.

[Image: A cartoon showing a little boy sitting on his plastic potty.] The Caption Reads: ""C is for cookie is for me!

Ha!""

And when it's time for him to go to day care, he gets up and dumps whatever he didn't eat right in the toilet.

[Image: A cartoon showing a child throwing something in the toilet.]

Mom is always getting on me about not finishing my breakfast. But if she had to scrape corn flakes out of the bottom of a plastic potty every morning, she wouldn't have much of an appetite either.

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Tuesday

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I am SUPER good at video games. I'll bet I could beat anyone in my grade head-to-head.

Unfortunately, Dad does not exactly appreciate my skills. He's always getting on me about going out and doing something "active."

So tonight after dinner when Dad started hassling me about going outside, I tried to explain how with video games, you can play sports like football and soccer, and you don't even get all hot and sweaty.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy convincing his dad about the benefits of video games.]

But as usual, Dad didn't see my logic.

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Dad is a pretty smart guy in general but when it comes to common sense, sometimes I wonder about him.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy standing outside the closed door.]

I'm sure Dad would dismantle my game system if he could figure out how to do it. But luckily, the people who make these things make them parent-proof.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy with a video game.] The Caption Reads: "dag nab these fancy gadgets!"

26

Every time Dad kicks me out of the house to do something sporty, I just go up to Rowley's and play my video games there.

Unfortunately, the only games I can play at Rowley's are car-racing games and stuff like that.

Because whenever I bring a game up to Rowley's house, his dad looks it up on some parents' Web site. And if my game has ANY kind of fighting or violence in it, he won't let us play.

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

I'm getting a little sick of playing Formula One Racing with Rowley, because he's not a serious gamer like me. All that you have to do to beat Rowley is name your car something ridiculous at the beginning of the game.

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And then when you pass Rowley's car, he just falls to pieces.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy falling down.]

Anyway, after I got done mopping the floor with Rowley today, I headed home. I ran through the neighbor's sprinkler a couple times to make it look like I was all sweaty, and that seemed to do the trick for Dad.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy entering the house.] The Caption Reads: "Whew!"

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But my trick kind of backfired, because as soon as Mom saw me, she made me go upstairs and take a shower.

Wednesday

I guess Dad must have been pretty happy with himself for making me go outside yesterday, because he did it again today.

It's getting really annoying to have to go up to Rowley's every time I want to play a video game. There's this weird kid named Fregley who lives halfway between my house and Rowley's, and Fregley is always hanging out in his front yard. So it's pretty hard to avoid him.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy showing his freckles to another one.] The Caption Reads: "wanna see my "secret Freckle"

Um... No thanks."

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Fregley is in my Phys Ed class at school, and he has this whole made-up language. Like when he needs to go to the bathroom, he says-

[Image: A cartoon showing two boys looking at the third one who wants to go to the bathroom.]

Us kids have pretty much figured Fregley out by now, but I don't think the teachers have really caught on yet.

[Image: A cartoon showing two boys talking.] The Caption Reads: "Ok, kid... gee whiz!"

Today, I probably would have gone up to Rowley's on my own anyway, because my brother Rodrick and his band were practicing down in the basement.

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Rodrick's band is REALLY awful, and I can't stand being home when they're having rehearsals.

His band is called "Loaded Diaper," only it's spelled "Löded Diper" on Rodrick's van.

You might think he spelled it that way to make it look cooler, but I bet if you told Rodrick how "Loaded Diaper" is really spelled, it would be news to him.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy in a van.]

Dad was against the idea of Rodrick starting a band, but Mom was all for it.

She's the one who bought Rodrick his first drum set.

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I think Mom has this idea that we're all going to learn to play instruments and then become one of those family bands like you see on TV.

[Image: A cartoon showing children playing instruments.]

Dad really hates heavy metal, and that's the kind of music Rodrick and his band play. I don't think Mom really cares what Rodrick plays or listens to, because to her, all music is the same. In fact, earlier today, Rodrick was listening to one of his CDs in the family room, and Mom came in and started dancing.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy listening to a radio and a girl dancing.]

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That really bugged Rodrick, so he drove off to the store and came back fifteen minutes later with some headphones. And that pretty much took care of the problem.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy listening to a radio with a headphone.]

Thursday

Yesterday Rodrick got a new heavy metal CD, and it had one of those "Parental Warning" stickers on it.

I have never gotten to listen to one of those Parental Warning CDs, because Mom and Dad never let me buy them at the mall. So I realized the only way I was gonna get a chance to listen to Rodrick's CD was if I snuck it out of the house.

This morning, after Rodrick left, I called up Rowley and told him to bring his CD player to school.

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Then I went down to Rodrick's room and took the CD off his rack.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy walking away with a CD.]

You're not allowed to bring personal music players to school, so we had to wait to use it until after lunch when the teachers let us outside. As soon as we got the chance, me and Rowley snuck around the back of the school and loaded up Rodrick's CD.

But Rowley forgot to put batteries in his CD player, so it was pretty much worthless.

Then I came up with this great idea for a game. The object was to put the headphones on your head and then try to shake them off without using your hands.

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The winner was whoever could shake the headphones off in the shortest amount of time.

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy shaking off his headphone.]

I had the record with seven and a half seconds, but I think I might have shook some of my fillings loose with that one.

Right in the middle of our game, Mrs. Craig came around the corner and caught us red-handed. She took the music player away from me and started chewing us out.

[Image: A cartoon showing a lady shouting at the two boys.]

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But I think she had the wrong idea about what we were doing back there. She started telling us how rock and roll is "evil" and how it's going to ruin our brains.

I was going to tell her that there weren't even any batteries in the CD player, but I could tell she didn't want to be interrupted. So I just waited until she was done, and then I said, "Yes, ma'am."

But right when Mrs. Craig was about to let us go, Rowley started blubbering about how he doesn't want rock and roll to ruin his "brains."

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy blubbering in front of his teacher.]

Honestly, sometimes I don't know about that boy.

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Friday

Well, now I've gone and done it.

Last night, after everyone was in bed, I snuck downstairs to listen to Rodrick's CD on the stereo in the family room.

I put Rodrick's new headphones on and cranked up the volume REALLY high. Then I hit "play."

[Image: A cartoon showing a boy listening to music with headphone.]

First, let me just say I can definitely understand why they put that "Parental Warning" sticker on the CD.

But I only got to hear about thirty seconds of the first song before I got interrupted.

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It turns out I didn't have the headphones plugged into the stereo. So the music was actually coming through the SPEAKERS, not the headphones.

[Image: A cartoon showing a man shouting at the boy because of loud music.]

Dad marched me up to my room and shut the door behind him, and then he said---

[Image: A cartoon showing a man talking to the boy.] The Caption Reads: "Let's you and me have a talk, Friends."

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Whenever Dad says "friend" that way, you know you're in trouble. The first time Dad ever said "friend" like that to me, I didn't get that he was being sarcastic. So I kind of let my guard down.

[Image: A cartoon showing father and son.] The Caption Reads: "Friend = good"