Chapter 2: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

(Saturday)

Well, the first week of school is finally over, so

today I slept in.

Most kids wake up early on Saturday to watch

cartoons or whatever, but not me. The only reason

I get out of bed at all on weekends is because

eventually, I can't stand the taste of my own

breath anymore.

Saturday

Unfortunately, Dad wakes up at 6:00 in the

morning no matter what day of the week it

is, and he is not real considerate of the fact

that I am trying to enjoy my Saturday like

a normal person.

I didn't have anything to do today so I just

headed up to Rowley's house.

Rowley is technically my best friend, but that is

definitely subject to change.

I've been avoiding Rowley since the first day of

school, when he did something that really

annoyed me.

We were getting our stuff from our lockers at

the end of the day and Rowley came up to me

and said—

I have told Rowley at least a billion times that

now that we're in middle school, you're supposed

to say "hang out," not "play." But no matter

how many noogies I give him, he always forgets

the next time.

I've been trying to be a lot more careful about

my image ever since I got to middle school. But

having Rowley around is definitely not helping.

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.

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.

(Monday)

Do 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.

Monday

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.

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.

And when it's time for him to go to daycare, he

gets up and dumps whatever he didn't eat right in

the toilet.

Mom is always getting on me about not finishing

my breakfast. But if she had to scrape the corn

flakes out of the bottom of a plastic potty

every morning, she wouldn't have much of an

appetite either.

(Tuesday)

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I

am super good at video games. I' l belt 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.

Tuesday

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

Dad is a pretty smart guy in general but when

it comes to common sense, sometimes I wonder

about him.

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.

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.

I'm getting a little sick of playing Formula One

Racing with Rowley, because he's not a serious

a gamer like me. All you have to do to beat

Rowley is name your car something ridiculous at

the beginning of the game.

And then when you pass Rowley's car, he just

falls to pieces.

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. 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.

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—

Us kids have pretty much figured Fregley out by

now, but I don't think the teachers have really

caught on yet.

Today, I probably would have gone up to Rowley's

on my own anyway, because of my brother Rodrick

and his band were practicing down in the basement.

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.

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.

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.

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 of her, all music is the same. In

fact, earlier today, Rodrickwas listening to one

of his CDs in the family room, and Mom came in

and started dancing.

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.

(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 of Mom and Dad never

let me buy them at the mall. So I realized the only

the way I was gonna get a chance to listen to

Rodrick's CD was if I snuck it out of the house.

(Thursday)

This morning, after Rodrick left, I called up Rowley

and told him to bring his CD player to school.

Then I went down to Rodrick's room and took

the CD off his rack.

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, I 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.

The winner was whoever could shake the headphones

off in the shortest amount of time.

I had the record with seven and a half seconds,

but I think I might have shaken 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.

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."

Honestly, sometimes I don't know about that boy