24 January

What’s up, diary?

My starvation continues. 
The Floyd family is on a diet. 
Including their skeleton of a son. 
Stay tuned for ten gazillion sequels. And don’t miss today’s episode called:
DAD + CARROT JUICE = LOVE.

I am about to starve to death. 
I can feel the last of my strength draining from me as I write these final tragic words. 
In a hundred and three years someone will find my diary and my skeleton, and the truth will be revealed. 
Dad will have to go to jail for illegal dieting.
Yesterday we ate chopped sprouts and drank carrot juice for dinner. 
I HATE CARROT JUICE! 
I see carrots in my dreams. 
They’re chasing me. 
It even seems like Nadia’s rabbit has been flirting with me. 
A little while ago I measured my front teeth to see how much longer I have until I’m a bunny. 
The transformation should be complete by Saturday morning.

Now I’m getting ready to go have my diet breakfast: a cup of herb tea and half a piece of toast with fake, sissy cheese.

I wonder if the Red Cross could set up a private steak collection for the starving children at 1804 Raspberry Drive. 
If they do, tell them to look for the door that says “Floyd.”

Bye, bye,
 mmmmmmm ... pie ...

23 January

What’s up, diary?

The crisis has begun. 
In a BIG way. 
Just a little while ago my clumsy dad got around to weighing himself on the bathroom scale. 
It turns out he’s gained seven pounds.
“Seven pounds!” Dad screamed. 
“The new diet starts NOW! Only soup and water for a month.”
“Oh, I feel so sorry for you,” I laughed.
“Too bad the diet goes for all three of us,” Dad said.
“Oh, I feel so sorry for me,” I cried.

I tried to convince Dad that he looks a lot better with seven extra pounds. 
He didn’t believe me. So I tried a tougher approach.

“If you’re fat,” I said, “it doesn’t have a thing to do with me. Get it through your head, old man!”
“I’m the one who buys the food in the house,” Dad answered. “Get it through your head, pipsqueak.”

Now for the first time I understand what the phrase “exploitation of the people” means.
In a very short time I’m going to look like an x-ray of myself. 
I’m going to end up lying like a twig on the sidewalk begging for bread crumbs. 
The social-service department will have to pick me up and take care of me and the newspaper will write a scandalous article about the whole tragedy.

There’s going to be a riot,
 if we stay on this diet!

22 January

What’s up, diary?

On my way home from Nadia’s yesterday, there was so much snow that I felt I just had to roll around in it for a while. 
I rolled thirty-two times to the right and four times to the left. 
Then these two drunk guys showed up. 
I was sure they were going to rob me or force me to drink whiskey. 
But they didn’t. 
They started rolling around in the snow too. 
They had thought it looked fun when they saw me doing it. 
We rolled around for half an hour. 
Then Berry wanted to throw up because he was so dizzy. 
He felt he had to have a drink. 
Sam took one too. 
They asked me if I wanted a sip.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Good thinking,” Sam said.
Then Berry offered me a bag of chips that he’d stolen from the gas-station. 
I thought for a minute about whether I could get in trouble for eating stolen chips. 
I decided to chance it. 
Berry and Sam were super nice. We talked about cows. 
Berry liked red ones the best. Sam preferred Swiss cows and I said that black-and-white ones were the best. 
Then I went home. 
Berry and Sam asked me if I wanted them to steal me a car so I wouldn’t have to walk.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Good thinking,” they said. 
Then they stayed and rolled around in the snow a little more. 
After I left, I couldn’t help thinking that it felt just like Berry and Sam were old friends. 
Strange.

Earlier today the Floyd family had a visitor. 
Not a visitor from outer space but from 682 Orchard Road. 
The visitor didn’t have four green eyes or stringy, microscopic legs. 
She had thick-rimmed glasses and round thighs. The visitor’s name was Grandma.
“Believe in the Lord,” Grandma said when she came in.
“Leave in a Ford,” I rhymed, trying to be funny.
Grandma asked me if I wanted to go with her and Henry on a bus trip to the big outlet mall at Jones Mill Junction next weekend. 
It’s a local retirement home that’s organizing the trip. 
Grandma is going to buy plant-colored yarn and a Valentine’s Day table cloth. 
Iris Lindboom is going to take one of her grand-kids. I politely answered “no” by screaming hysterically right in Grandma’s face. 
Then I took off. 
I didn’t dare turn around in case my bad breath had knocked her out.

Gotta go rush,
 find my tooth-brush!

21 January

What’s up, diary?

Yabadabadoo! 
A dead man is talking to you.
Yesterday I had the worst luck in the world. 
Our class had a history test. 
I knew everything ... about the wrong war. 
“I’m a little before my time,” I told our teacher.
“You’ll get another chance next week,” she said.

I saw Nadia today, that’s what the yabadabadoo was about. 
She’s become friends with the new guy in her class. 
That’s why I’m a dead man. 
As soon as Nadia started talking about him, I could tell that the marriage was over. 
Nadia told me that the new guy has cute dimples. 
I glanced at myself in the mirror. 
I have puffy cheeks. 
But then Nadia told me that she loves me. 
I didn’t believe her. I had to make her take a lie-detector test by taking her pulse.

“You can take someone’s pulse best near their heart,” Nadia said.
I took her pulse. It felt 100% ok.
I told Nadia that someone had broken into my school.
“Yeah, I know,” Nadia said.
“WHAT?!” I screamed and remembered my suspicions about the thief being a certain guy with cute dimples.
“Yeah, it was in the paper that they caught the guy who did it.”
“WHAT?!” I screamed again.
“Are you going deaf??” Nadia asked. “It said in the paper that they caught some 56 year-old guy who had done it.”

56 year-old, I thought to myself. Do they have kids that old in Nadia’s class? 
He must have failed a whole heap of times.
“Did the thief have cute dimples?” I asked.
He didn’t. 
My suspicions were wrong, both about the thief and about Nadia. 
And unfortunately, about the new guy in Nadia’s class.

Bye, bye, bimpels,
 I hate dimples!

20 January

What’s up, diary?

Now I’m going to tell you the tragic story of what happened when my class had their history test on World War II. 

Yesterday I studied like a real pro. 
I read through 83 pages in 16 ½ seconds.
“Are you finished with your homework already?” Mom asked.
“Sure,” I said, “because I have such a strong foundation in History.”
“Good,” Mom said, and quizzed me for two hours. 
During the two hours, I had two heart attacks, one stroke and was transformed into Milton the Caveman somewhere around 14 times. 
By the time I went to bed, I knew everything there is to know about World War II. 
By the time I woke up, I didn’t know a thing. 
My brain had collapsed during the night. 
I think doctors call it a brain-fart.
“Mom! Mom! I had a brain-fart!” I screamed out from my bed.
“Nonsense! Get up and eat,” Mom said.

Before school, the poor children of class 7A were nervous. 
Everyone bit their nails, except for Arnold who bit his knee-caps.
“It’s bad hygiene to bite your nails,” he said.
Benny tried to cheat. 
He wrote down all the important dates on his palm. 
Unfortunately for Benny, he’s an extra nervous kind of guy. 
His hands got so sweaty that all the numbers disappeared. Now Benny has a new nick-name. Sweaty-Benny.
I was standing there wishing intensively that I knew what the questions were going to be. 
Then I got a hyper-smart idea. 
I snuck into the classroom and dug through the files until I found last year’s test on World War II. 
I wrote down all the questions. 
Then I ran back outside and looked up all the answers in our history book. 
After that, I knew World War II inside and out. 
The test went super-great ... until I looked at the first page. 
It said: “History Test. World War I.”
 I died.

Bye, bye,
 wrong war pie!

19 january

What’s up, diary?

Hip hip hurray! Today is a special day. 
Because today is January 19th. 
Our principal’s birthday. 
January 19th is the only day of the year when our principal laughs. 
All the teachers buy him a cake that he gets to eat in the teachers’ lounge. 
It’s a big party. 
Cake, ice cream, coffee, cookies and candy ... for the teachers. 

The only party that us kids get is raising the flag in the morning. 
All the seventh-graders try to throw snowballs at the flag as it goes up. 
After all, we should get to have some fun, too. 
It’s extra fun when the principal sees our snowball attack. Then he chases us around the school. 
One time he almost choked on a piece of cake.

I really shouldn’t be writing in you right now, diary. 
I have to study for my history test. 
The execution is going to take place tomorrow. 
We have a test on World War II. 
Good thing it’s not on World War III. Then there wouldn’t be any Earth left. 
I hate studying. 
I wish I had photographic memory. 
Then you can flip through a book and like take pictures of all the pages with your mind. 
It sounds totally cool.
A friend of a friend of mine had a friend who knew this guy who had photographic memory. 
He got everything right on every test. 
Except for once when he had to look up somebody’s number in the phone book right before class. 
When he got the question: WHO STARTED WWII? the guy answered: Andersen, Oscar - 301 Rose Field Ln - 555-3924. 
The guy could only remember what he had seen in the phone book. 
I guess maybe having photographic memory isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Now I’m going to fix a new recipe I made up: Cheetos with sweet and sour sauce. 
If it’s good I’m probably going to win the Nobel Grease Prize.

Thanks, peace,
 sweet and sour grease!

18 January

What’s up, diary?

This was a sad week for our apartment building. Our neighbor downstairs and to the right, the Captain, died. He was a funny guy. His apartment looked like a bomb had hit it and on the walls he had guns and two war maps. The Captain liked to swing with us kids out on the playground. Sure, he was 59 years old, but he played like a 12 year old. Mom told me once that the Captain had been hit in the head with a bullet when he was younger. Since then he’s been a little wacky.

“Same to you,” I said. “Do you think that us kids are wacky too just because we like to swing on the swings??”

The Captain died of a sport’s injury. He got so mad when his favorite football team was losing in the playoffs. His heart stopped during half-time.

I’m sad about the Captain. He was a good friend. He wasn’t wacky at all. For example, the Captain told us once about when he and a friend had gone out to catch lobsters. The Captain punched holes in the lid of the bucket so that the lobsters could breathe. Then he let them go. A man who cares about lobsters just can’t be wacky.

When the Captain was alive he used to always talk about losing his mind. Tomorrow Arnold and I are going to go look for the Captain’s mind. We’re going to put it in a jar. But we have to remember to punch holes in the lid so that his mind can breathe.

The Captain doesn’t have any relatives left. The local authorities are going to have to pay for his funeral. I doubt anyone will even go. But Arnold and I are. Even though we’re not related to him. I’m thinking of reading a poem that I wrote myself:

Poem to a Dead Friend

Your funeral is for eternity,

paid for by the city.

You played like a little kitty,

with lots of dignity.

You were a really good friendly. Amen.

“It should be: You were a really good FRIEND,” Arnold corrected me when I read it to him.

“No it shouldn’t,” I said, “because then it doesn’t rhyme.”

Farewell to our friend,

 the Captain.