Chapter 3: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

(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."

First, let me just say I can definitely understand

why they put that "Parental Warning" sticker

on the CD.

Friday

But I only got to hear about thirty seconds of

the first song before I got interrupted.

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.

Dad marched me up to my room and shut the

door behind him, and then he said—

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.

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

then 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.

Usually, if you mess up in front of Dad, he just

throws whatever he's got in his hands at you.

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.

And while you're waiting, you do all these nice

things to try to get off easier.

But then after a few days, right when you

forget you're in trouble, that's when she lays it

on you.

(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 ahold 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

daycare for show-and-tell.

Anyway, I don't think Mom was too happy about

getting that phone call.

I saw the magazine myself, and it honestly wasn't

Monday

anything to get worked up over. But Mom doesn't

allow that kind of stuff in the house. Rodrick's punishment was that he had to answer

a bunch of questions Mom wrote out for him.

(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.

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.

(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.

And even better ...

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 really brainy at math. So this might not be as

easy as I thought.

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.

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.

(Monday)

I brought my posters into school today, and I

have to say, they came out pretty good.

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.

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 trashcan. I guess this

means my political career is officially over.

*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.

I'm not sure Dad really understands the concept

of Halloween. But I'm not gonna be the one who

spoils his fun.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Right when it looked like the chainsaw guy

was going to catch us, Mom stepped in and

bailed us out.

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)

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

the idea, either, so we decided to build the haunted

house in his basement and just not mention it to

his parents.

I and Rowley spent most of the day coming up

with an awesome plan for our haunted house.

Here was our final plan:

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.

I'll admit maybe we stretched the truth a little

in our advertisement, but we had to make sure

people actually showed up.

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.

When 3:00 rolled around, we looked outside to

see if anyone had shown 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.

The first kid to cough up his two bucks was

Shane Snella. He paid his money and we let him

inside, and I and Rowley took our positions in

the Hall of Screams.

The Hall of Screams was basically a bed with me

and Rowley on either side of it.

I guess maybe we made the Hall of Screams a

little too scary, because halfway through, Shane

curled up in a ball underneath the bed. We tried

to get him to crawl out from under there, but

he wouldn't budge.

I started thinking about all the money we were

losing with this kid clogging up the Hall of Screams,

and I knew we had to get him out of there, quick.

Eventually, Rowley's dad came downstairs. At

first, I was happy to see him because I thought

he could help us drag Shane out from under the

bed and get our haunted house cranking again.

But Rowley's dad wasn't really in a helpful mood.

Rowley's dad wanted to know what we were

doing, and why Shane Snella was curled up under

the bed.

We told him that the basement was a haunted

house and that Shane Snella actually paid

for us to do this to him. But Rowley's dad didn't

believe us.

I admit that if you looked around, it didn't

really look like a haunted house. All we had time

to put together was the Hall of Screams and the

Lake of Blood, which was just Rowley's old

baby pool with half a bottle of ketchup in it.

I tried to show Rowley's dad our original plan

to prove that we really were running a legitimate

operation, but he still didn't seem convinced.

And to make a long story short, that was the

end of our haunted house.

The good news is since Rowley's dad didn't

believe us, he didn't make us refund Shane's

money. So at least we cleared two bucks today.