From New York Times bestselling author Jim Benton
The Super-Nice Are
Super-Annoying
Think you can handle
Jamie Kelly’s FIrst year of diaries?
#1 Let’s pretend this never happened
#2 My pants are haunted!
#3 Am I the Princess or the Frog?
#4 never do anything, ever
#5 can adults become human?
#6 the problem with here is that it's where i'm from
#7 Never Underestimate your dumbness
#8 It’s Not My Fault I Know Everything
#9 That’s What Friends Aren't For
#10 The worst things in life are also free
#11 Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers
#12 Me! (Just Like You, Only Better)
And don’t miss year two!
Year Two #1: School. Hasn’t This Gone On Long Enough?
Year Two #2: The Super-nice Are Super-annoying
Year Two #3: Nobody's Perfect. I'm as Close As It Gets.
De
a
r Dum
b
Diary,
The Super-Nice Are
Super-Annoying
BY JAMIE KELLY
SCHOLASTIC INC.
Jim Benton’s Tales from Mackerel Middle School
Y
EAR
TWO
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e-ISBN 978-0-545-58655-9
Copyright © 2012 by Jim Benton
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
scholastic and associated logos are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
dear dumb diary is a registered trademark of Jim Benton.
First printing, June 2012
For my family, who are always
paradigms of good manners
and junk.
Special thanks to the delicate and
well-mannered creatures of grace at
Scholastic: Shannon Penney, Anna Bloom,
Jackie Hornberger, and Yaffa Jaskoll.
And thanks to Kristen LeClerc for her
clean, polite assistance.
Dear Whoever Is Reading My Dumb Diary,
Do you have any idea how RUDE you look,
with your nose in somebody else’s diary? What
do you think we’ll think of you and your nose
now? We certainly won’t ever invite you to smell
something polite, like a bouquet of roses or an
opera.
Honestly, how do you think that appears to
others? Do you think that’s
nice? (And, hey,
sit up straight.)
And whatever you do, don’t get all super-
apologetic about it now, because we find that
pretty annoying as well.
Politeness Experts worldwide agree
that reading somebody’s diary isn’t just like
chewing with your mouth open, it’s like chewing
with your mouth open in your underpants with
your bare feet in the soup bowl and a finger
up your nose, and what you’re chewing is a piece
of raw chicken wrapped up in an old piece of
notebook paper on which is written a disgusting
joke in very bad handwriting.
Signed,
P.S. I know you should never call people
names like “gross” or “disgusting” or “stupid,”
but I didn’t call them anything. I
wrote it.
And if my parents punish me for it, I will know
that they have read my diary, which would be
inexcusably impolite.
Sunday 01
Dear Dumb Diary,
You probably don’t believe that a nostril can
do you harm. You’re wrong about that.
My favorite show of all time, in addition to my
other favorite shows of all time, is on TV right now.
But I’m up in my room, unable to watch it because
of a nostril.
I know what you’re thinking, Dumb Diary.
You’re thinking, Jamie, the nostrils are some of the
least destructive of the head holes.
Sure, the mouth is the most destructive head
hole by far, with its ability to both bite and whistle
songs badly, but nostrils are hazardous in ways you
may not be able to imagine.
Also, Dumb Diary, you’re probably thinking
something about how nice my eyes look tonight.
Kisses!
Oh, Dumb Diary, you have SO much to learn
about nostrils. You know a lot about eyes and how
nice they can look, but you’d get a C in nostrils.
And since we’re discussing the subject of
getting something in nostrils, let me tell you about
Friday. I’ll tell you in the least horrible way I can:
At lunch, Pinsetti laughed until a spaghetti
noodle came out his nose. It just dangled
there for a moment, and it was incredibly disgusting,
but I also found myself staring at it, imagining for
a moment that maybe a mouse was preparing to
descend a tiny rope.
Isabella, who has mean older brothers and
therefore no longer reacts to the brain chemical
that causes disgust to occur, reached over, slowly
drew the entire spaghetti noodle out of Pinsetti’s
nostril, and laid it gently on the back of my
unsuspecting hand.
Two thoughts race through your head
at a moment like this. The first one is:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!
While it’s true that the pasta entered
Pinsetti’s mouth as spaghetti, and spaghetti —
even cafeteria spaghetti — is one of my all-time
favorite foods, once an object exits through a
nostril, it is transformed into booger. This is just
science, plain and simple. It works for anything. Put
a raisin into your nose for even one second, then
pull it back out, and it becomes booger.
Look, if you don’t believe me, why don’t you
go ahead and eat that raisin?
You won’t: It’s booger now.
The second thought that goes through your
head at a moment like this is: I bet I can fly upward
and backward, away from this spaghetti noodle,
just by flapping my arms in a panic.
Nobody can really fly, of course, but that
won’t stop you from trying. All that you’ll really do
is shoot backward out of your chair hard enough to
crash into the cafeteria monitor, Miss Bruntford.
&
nbsp; This will send her toppling over, causing her to
make the sound of a meteor hitting the Earth, if the
meteor was made out of an enormous mass of very
wet ham.
I’m not saying any of this was her fault, but
let’s face it: She is expecting a little much from
those tiny heels she wears. It’s like trying to balance
a bowling ball on a pair of chopsticks.
Anyway, everything after that is kind of a
blur. I think I spent the rest of lunch hour scrubbing
Pinsetti’s nose residue off my hand.
Of course, Dad made spaghetti for dinner
tonight, which normally would be a huge relief,
because ANYTHING OTHER THAN MOM’S
COOKING is one of my favorite foods. But even
though I really wanted to eat it, I couldn’t.
Because now, for me, spaghetti isn’t spaghetti
anymore. Now spaghetti is a product of Pinsetti’s
nostril.
We got into an argument about dinner, and
I got sent to my room. I may have referred to the
meal as booger without explaining what happened
have shoved the plate away from me, and I may have
screamed it a few more times.
So I’m missing my TV show. I blame Pinsetti’s
nostril, and somehow I feel that Isabella may have
to share some of the blame as well.
Monday 02
Dear Dumb Diary,
I have mostly all new teachers this year. This
is because teachers only learn enough to teach up
to a certain level. See, third-grade math teachers
can’t even do fourth-grade math. They only learn
it up to a third-grade level, so that’s what they
teach, and that’s why you have to keep getting
new teachers.
Think about it: Kindergarten teachers
probably can’t even go the bathroom by themselves.
My new social studies teacher is Mr. Smith. I
know that sounds like a fake name, but if you had
to choose a fake name, would you choose Smith?
Everybody would know it was a fake. It’s so obvious
that Smith is a fake name that the people who
say that their name is Smith are the only ones that
are, for sure, telling the truth.
Besides, we don’t have any reason to believe
he’s using a fake name.
Except that he’s wearing a wig.
Don’t look at it. Don’t look at it.
When a man wears a wig, it’s customary to
call it a toupee, because calling it something in a
foreign language is supposed to make it look less
ridiculous.
For this toupee to look less ridiculous, he’d
also have to actually wear it in that foreign country.
Where we couldn’t see him.
I don’t think men need to worry about their
hair that much. Many attractive individuals are
bald, like,
Um
Homer Simpson and
Um
Voldemort and
Um
My big toe.
Okay, Mr. Smith. Keep the toupee. Maybe you
can see if they manufacture smiles that you could
wear as well.
Dumb Diary, like most people, I hate the
alphabet. Mostly because I can’t alphabetize things
unless I sing part of the alphabet song in my head
when I’m doing it, and people can tell I’m doing that
because it makes me bob my head a little.
This came up today because Mr. Smith has us
starting a unit on how people in other cultures
approach different issues. We do a lot of projects
in groups at my school now, because they say it’s
great preparation for the real world. This is
because projects often go wrong in the real world,
and so we need to learn how to swiftly blame things
on somebody else nearby.
Today,. surprisingly, for the first time ever, the
alphabet ACTUALLY HELPED SOMEBODY
when it had to acknowledge that J (for Jamie)
was pretty close to H (for Hudson Rivers, eighth-
cutest boy in my grade). Because Mr. Smith was
choosing teams alphabetically by first names, he
put us together for the project.
A very, very long time ago — like months —
being paired with Hudson would have made it
difficult for me to breathe. But I’m older now, and
quite a sophisticated young lady at that, so all it
did was make me sweat my pits off.
I know what you’re saying, Dumb Diary. You’re
saying, “Where was Isabella when this happened?”
How many times have I heard that exact
question?
Answer: She was down in the principal’s
office. Lately, the principal has been talking to
Isabella before she does anything wrong. He likes
to guess what she might do next. I’ve been doing
this for years. It’s kind of fun.
If Isabella hadn’t been down at the principal’s
office, she would have been paired with Hudson,
because, of course, Isabella’s name begins with I.
This is really appropriate since most of her
“I want that.”
“I will mess you up.”
“I didn’t wipe insect remains on that.”
But she wasn’t in the room and I was, so I was
paired with Hudson. When she got back, Isabella
was paired up with Yolanda, who is one of the
dainty people.
Do you know the type of person I mean? These
people are nice, with small, thin, clean necks and
tiny clean fingers that are just right for holding
perfect, clean little sandwiches and clean, fragile
ceramic objects. Nobody has a problem with the
dainty — they’re never loud, and they never argue.
I would draw Yolanda here, but I can’t remember
exactly what she looks like, just that she’s
massively dainty. I’ll remember more tomorrow.
When Isabella returned, she didn’t really care
much that she didn’t get paired up with Hudson.
She’s really great like that. Isabella can work well
with anybody who is doing all of the work.
Oh, and one other thing. Mr. Smith made
Angeline partners with Mike Pinsetti. And it turns
out that Mike is his middle name. (Something
revealed on this year’s attendance lists.) His first
name is actually Antonio, but Isabella said that
since every male in his family is named Antonio,
lots of them go by their middle names. Isn’t that
interesting?
No. Not really.
Of course, this isn’t ALL good news. I did
really bad on the last social studies project — like,
SUPER AWFUL bad. I was teamed up with Isabella.
Our project was about Pilgrims, and Isabella put in a
whole bunch of research she did about them
dressing in black because they were ninjas.
Yeah, guess what. They weren’t. I failed.
That’s how these group projects work.
Somebody lied to Isabella about those ninjas, and
we both had to pay for it.
&nb
sp; A lot more is riding on this grade, though, so I
really have to nail this project.
Tuesday 03
Dear Dumb Diary,
Today at lunch, Angeline was nicely
circulating a nice card to give to Miss Bruntford,
who twisted one of her tree-trunk ankles on Friday
because she decided to be standing behind me when
I was noodled.
Isn’t that nice?
I was really the one who deserved the right
to nicely apologize to Bruntford, but Angeline was
somehow taking credit for the apology without
going to the trouble of committing the crime.
Angeline has a condition that causes her to
be annoying. Doctors refer to this as Niceism
Disease or Nicenicity, and we’re pretty sure it
has no cure. The problem is that when doctors try
to cure them of it, the patients are so appreciative
that they get little gift baskets for the doctors
and — BAM! — now they’re even nicer than they
were before.
It’s tragic, really.
I probably might have been sad that I had
crippled somebody, but then I saw Sebastian, who,
evidently, is the person filling in for Bruntford as
cafeteria monitor while she’s recovering.
Some people just have the sort of charm that
makes you okay with crippling somebody.
Sebastian is older than we are, but young
enough that it’s not terribly creepy that we
recognize his handsomeness. He’s not old, but he’s
not a kid. And he’s young enough that he doesn’t
make people call him Mr. This or Mr. That.
He has those kind of looks that makes him
seem familiar somehow, like you’ve known him for
years, even though you’ve never met him before.
Sebastian dresses well, and acts
sophisticated. It’s hard to believe that the boys in
my school and Sebastian are the same species, and
that one day, these boythings of ours could grow
up to be people who care how they act around