something was seriously wrong.
There was at least a FOOT of water covering
the basement floor. I guess all that snow was
too much for the ground to hold and it caused
the basement to flood.
I told Mom to come downstairs quick, and when
she did, she was REALLY upset that a bunch of
our stuff was ruined. But to be honest with you,
there were some things floating in the water that
I didn’t MIND getting wrecked.
176
Mom keeps a “memory box” for each of us kids,
and mine was on the bottom shelf, so it was
mostly underwater. One of the things that was in
the box was my bed-wetting calendar from when I
was eight years old.
Let me just say in my defense that there was
a perfectly good reason why I was wetting the
bed back then. In those days I drank a lot of
water before I went to sleep at night, and then
I’d have these crazy dreams that made me need
to go.
Our hose is ripprd!
How are we gonna
put out the fire?
SLURRRP
177
I finally figured out what the issue was, but not
before I got five frowny-face stickers in a row.
March
Some of the yearbooks from my elementary school
days were soaked, but I didn’t mind that, either.
My fifth-grade yearbook was in my memory box,
and that’s the one where we were allowed to
choose whatever kind of background we wanted for
our school picture.
I was the only kid in the whole school who chose
“Natural Setting.”
178
Haverly,
Jordan
Health,
Olivia
Heffley,
Gregory
Henry,
Jared
I knew I should’ve just gone with a regular
background, but Mom talked me into it when the
forms came home from school.
Pick this one!
you’ll look so
Rugged!
I don’t really understand why Mom was so upset.
Most of the stuff that got ruined was in the
basement for a reason, and that’s because we
never USE it. One of the things Mom was really
sad about was a “spoon carousel” Gammie gave us
five or six years ago.
179
I think we were supposed to collect a spoon from
every country in the world, but we only got up
to Canada.
I did feel pretty bad for Mom when she found
out one of the family photo albums got ruined. A
few years ago Mom got into scrapbooking, and
she spent a lot of time cutting out pictures and
doing these really fancy photo pages.
Spring has
sprung!
180
But there’s one page in that album I didn’t like,
because Rodrick always teases me about it. It’s
the one where I had a breakdown before a pony
ride at the state fair.
HELP!
Dregory isn’t
happy on his first
pony ride
Rodrick always says I was scared of the pony,
but that’s not true at all. I was scared of the
guy HANDLING the pony, but Mom cropped
HIM out of the picture.
181
Speaking of Rodrick, the flooding didn’t seem to
bother him at all. In fact, I’ll bet if I hadn’t
woken him up he would’ve kept sleeping even if his
bed floated up the stairs and out of the house.
The rest of the day was pretty awful. The water
in the basement kept getting higher, so we had
to make a bucket relay line with some of Manny’s
sand pails.
zzzzz
sploosh
182
Dad called from his hotel room to check in on
us, and Mom told him what happened. Dad said
he was really sorry he wasn’t home to help, but
something tells me he’s OK with the way things
worked out for him.
I would LOVE to trade places with Dad right
now, because he’s got a clean room and a king-size
bed all to himself.
Mom told me and Rodrick that since the basement
was flooded, we’re gonna have to share MY room.
She said it would be good for both of us to get
used to having a “roommate,” because it was practice
for college.
aaahhhh!
183
Me and Rodrick shared a room this summer for
a weekend. We had to spend a few days at
Gramma’s while Mom and Dad took Manny to a
kiddie amusement park. Gramma has a guest room,
so I figured one of us would sleep on her couch
and the other would get the guest bed.
But Gramma said the guest room was “occupied,” so
we couldn’t sleep there. She’d given the whole room
to Sweetie, the dog we gave her. But you’d hardly
know he’s the same dog, because Gramma feeds him
so much he looks like a tick that’s about to pop.
Gramma said me and Rodrick could sleep together
on the pullout couch she has in the living room.
sweetie
184
But that couch is covered in plastic because she
doesn’t trust us kids not to spill something on it.
So me and Rodrick spent a whole weekend sleeping
side by side on a queen-size pullout couch. I’d wake
up every morning in a pool of sweat, and I don’t
even know if it was Rodrick’s or mine.
I’m pretty sure that in prison you sleep in bunk
beds, so if they lock me up at least I’ll have
a better sleeping arrangement than I did at
Gramma’s this summer.
crinkle
crinkle
crinkle
zzzzz
185
Monday
After twelve hours of sharing a room with
Rodrick, I’m thinking of marching down to the
police station and turning myself in. Because there’s
no punishment they can dream up that could be
worse than what I’m dealing with at home.
Last night Rodrick brought a bunch of his stuff
from the basement and put it in my room. This is
supposed to be a temporary living situation, but
Rodrick is treating it like a permanent one.
blink
Rodrick’s got his drum set on stacks of books to air
it out, and his dirty clothes are EVERYWHERE.
186
This morning when I was getting dressed, I put
on a pair of boxer shorts that was sitting on my
dresser. But by the time I realized it was actually
Rodrick’s dirty underwear, it was too late.
scream!
So until Mom did a load of laundry, I wore my
Halloween costume. It was uncomfortable, but at
least I knew for sure it was CLEAN.
chew
chew
This afternoon we were down in the basement
seeing if there was anything we could salvage
from the flood.
187
I noticed something strange floating in the water
in the storage room, and when
I picked it up I
almost passed out.
At first I thought it was a real baby, but then
I realized it was my long-lost doll, Alfrendo.
After all this time, Alfrendo wasn’t looking too
good. I think a mouse must’ve gotten to him, and
spending a day in the water didn’t help, either.
188
But in a weird way I was kind of glad to see him.
I was living with the guilt of losing Alfrendo for
all these years, and now I found out he was in
the house all along.
In fact, I couldn’t figure out how he wound up
in the storage room. But I realized it HAD to be
Dad. He was never really on board with the whole
doll idea, and I’m sure he got rid of Alfrendo
when I wasn’t looking.
does alfrendo have
a rash from being
in his yucky old
diapie too long?
I figured I’d confront Dad about kidnapping my
doll when he got home, but at the moment I had
bigger things to worry about. The first one was
what I was gonna EAT.
189
Over the past few days we’ve been running low on
food, and if this snow doesn’t melt quick, I don’t
know WHAT we’re gonna do.
Mom was supposed to go grocery shopping the day
the blizzard hit, so we have less food than usual
to begin with. She said we’re gonna have to start
“rationing” until she can go back out.
That could be a while, though. The snow is piled
up three feet high against the front door, so
we’re basically trapped inside.
190
And Rodrick is spoiling the food we DO have
left. He drinks milk straight from the carton, so
there’s no way I’m gonna touch that now.
glug
glug
glug
I’m actually kind of mad at Dad, because if it
wasn’t for him, we’d have all the milk we wanted.
A few years ago I won a contest at the state
fair where you had to guess how much a baby goat
weighed, and the winner got to take it home. I
guessed the weight right, but Dad wouldn’t let me
have the goat. And if we had that goat, I could
have a glass of milk whenever I wanted.
ahh...
191
Mom found some burritos in the back of the
freezer last night and made them for dinner,
but they tasted funny, so I wouldn’t eat them.
Mom said I needed to eat SOMETHING, so I
had ketchup as my main course.
glop
Manny didn’t seem to mind the burritos, but he’ll
eat just about ANYTHING as long as he’s got
his favorite condiment on it. When Sweetie lived
with us, he used to chew on the furniture, so we
sprayed it with this stuff called “Bitter Apple
Spray” that dogs can’t stand the taste of.
yuck!
Bitter Apple
Spray
192
But for whatever reason, Manny LOVES the
taste of Bitter Apple Spray, and to this day he
uses it on almost everything he eats.
spray
spray
Speaking of Sweetie, I got so hungry today that
I was seriously thinking about eating some of the
dog treats I found in the back of our pantry.
But Mom told me they have different standards for
making dog food than they do for people food, so
that stopped me from eating any, at least for now.
Bac’n
snax
Made with REAL animal by-products
193
I can’t believe I’m practically starving here
while Sweetie is living the good life at Gramma’s,
enjoying her home-cooked meals.
scrape
glop
I only have myself to blame about the food
situation, though. We had a bunch of canned
food until a week before Thanksgiving, but then
I gave almost ALL of it to the Food Drive at
school. I got rid of the things I don’t like to
eat, like yams and beets.
194
But I’ll bet whoever got our rejects is having a
pretty good laugh about it right now.
I was starting to wonder whether toothpaste had
any nutritional value when I remembered I actually
DID have something edible in my desk drawer.
When Dad wouldn’t let me take the goat home
from the state fair, Mom got me a giant
gobstopper to make up for it. I spent the whole
fall working on that thing.
195
I figure if we DO run out of food in the house,
that gobstopper will help me survive at least
another week.
lick
Tonight the electricity cut out for a few seconds
and then came back on. Mom said there was a lot
of ice on the power lines and we were probably
gonna lose our electricity at some point.
She said if that happened, we needed to keep the
freezer door closed so the food inside didn’t thaw
out and get ruined. She also said we’d need to
too much heat.
196
Manny got REALLY upset, and whenever he
gets scared he hides in his room. One time when
Manny was younger, I told him a witch lived in
our basement, and he got really spooked. He went
missing for a few hours, but we eventually tracked
him down to his sock drawer.
Mom was right about the electricity, because
fifteen minutes after her prediction, the power
cut off and didn’t come back on. She tried to call
the electric company, but her cell phone battery
was dead. Every hour the temperature dropped
another two or three degrees, and we had to get
a blanket to keep ourselves warm.
chatter
chatter
chatter
197
Manny just stayed in his room the whole time,
and I’m sure he was scared out of his mind. I was
actually pretty worried myself.
When you’re used to having electricity and then all
of a sudden it’s taken away, you’re basically just
one step away from being a wild animal. And with
no phone or TV, we were totally cut off from the
outside world.
I would’ve felt a lot better if our street was
plowed, because then we’d at least be connected to
the rest of civilization. But I’m sure the snowplow
guy is gonna come to our street last, because every
time he comes up our hill he gets ambushed.
splat
rumble
198
There really wasn’t any point in staying awake, so
I just went to bed, and Rodrick followed me into
the room a few minutes later.
It was freezing cold, and I remembered a story
I read in a magazine about these two guys who
were stranded out in the wilderness and had to
share a sleeping bag to conserve body heat.
I looked over at Rodrick and thought about it
for a second, but then I decided my dignity was
; more important to me than staying alive.
All I can say is, prison’s gotta be a lot better
than THIS. I’m pretty sure they guarantee you a
warm cell and three meals a day, so when the police
do come back, believe me, I’ll be ready to go.
shiver
shiver
shiver
199
Tuesday
When I woke up today, I realized I’d somehow
lost Alfrendo again, but I wasn’t too upset about
it. I was pretty happy to be reunited with my
doll yesterday, but it hasn’t been easy picking up
where we left off.
This morning I noticed it was snowing a lot less,
but the electricity was still out, and Mom said
we were just gonna have to adapt to our new
circumstances until the snow melted.
so, uh…what’s
been going on
with you?
She said I hadn’t showered in a few days and I
couldn’t live like a “savage.” I promised Mom I’d
bathe TWICE a day once the electricity came
back on, but she made me go upstairs to take a
shower anyway.
200
The water was freezing cold, and the only towel
in the bathroom was one Mom used yesterday. So
I had to dry myself with some gauze I found in
the cabinet under the sink.
dab
dab
After I got dressed, I heard a knock on
the front door. I thought maybe the police
had finally come to take me away, and I felt
dizzy. But when I looked out the window I saw
ROWLEY standing there, and he had something
in his hands.
201
I thought Rowley had come to RESCUE us. But
when I opened the door, he told me he brought us
Christmas cookies, and then he asked me if I wanted
to come outside and play. I told him he was out of
his MIND and asked him how his family was surviving
without any electricity, but he looked confused.
Rowley said his family still had electricity and
everyone else on the street did, too. And sure