Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball (Book 14) (Diary of a Wimpy Kid 14) Read online

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  DIARY OF A WIMPY KID

  by Jeff Kinney

  Puffin

  PUFFIN BOOKS

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  Puffin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose

  addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

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  First published in the English language in the USA

  by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS, 2019

  Original English title: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball

  (All rights reserved in all countries by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)

  Published simultaneously in Great Britain by Puffin Books 2019

  Wimpy Kid text and illustrations copyright © Wimpy Kid, Inc., 2019

  DIARY OF A WIMPY KID®, WIMPY KID™, and the Greg Heffley design™

  are trademarks of Wimpy Kid, Inc., and the design of this book’s jacket

  is trade dress of Wimpy Kid, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Book design by Jeff Kinney

  Cover design by Chad W. Beckerman and Jeff Kinney

  The moral right of the author/illustrator has been asserted

  ISBN: 978–0–241–39694–0

  All correspondence to:

  Puffin Books, Penguin Random House Children’s

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL

  to scooter

  1

  MARCH

  Sunday

  I’ve read that in ancient times they used to bury

  kings and pharaohs with all their possessions.

  Back then I guess they thought you could take

  your things WITH you into the afterlife.

  Well, if I get buried with all MY junk, I might

  really REGRET it later on.

  2

  Mom’s having me do some spring cleaning to get rid

  of things I don’t NEED. Well, that seemed like a

  good idea until I realized just how much stuff I’ve

  actually GOT.

  I spent the whole morning going through my

  closet, and it’s crazy how much was packed in there.

  And it’s not like it was ORGANIZED or anything.

  I’ve basically been throwing things in my closet since

  we first moved in.

  3

  Digging through my closet was like going through

  my CHILDHOOD. And the further back I went,

  the further back in TIME it took me.

  The stuff near the front of the closet was all

  junk I tossed in there over the past year, like

  homework and comic books. But after I got

  those things out of the way I started finding

  stuff I’ D FORGOTTEN about.

  I found a model rocket I got for my tenth

  birthday and a costume I wore for Halloween a

  few years ago. And there was a bunch of other

  things I didn’t even know I still had.

  4

  When I dug a little DEEPER, I found something

  I thought I’d lost YEARS ago. It was a binder

  full of stickers I’d collected in the third grade.

  I used to be OBSESSED with stickers, especially

  the scratch-and-sniff kind. I collected all the

  GOOD smells, like bubble gum and candyfloss

  and that sort of thing, but I had all the really

  GROSS ones, too.

  So, when a kid on my street wanted to know

  what giraffe poop or rotten meat loaf smelled

  like, they’d come to ME.

  5

  One of these days I’m gonna write my

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY, and it’s gonna include

  scratch-and-sniff stickers to mark all the

  different moments in my life.

  6

  I kept digging through my closet and found stuff

  from KINDERGARTEN, like a fish I made by

  tracing my hand on to a piece of card.

  I used to LOVE doing arts and crafts back

  then. And, if anyone ever tried to BULLY me

  about it, they’d get a face full of glitter.

  7

  Another project I found in my closet was a gift

  I made for my mom in pre-school but never gave

  her. It was a paper flower with a picture of my

  face in the middle, glued to a popsicle stick.

  When I made the thing, I put it in a little plant

  pot filled with earth. But I tripped on the front

  step when I got home from school that day, and

  that’s why I never gave it to her.

  8

  I was GLAD when I finally reached the back

  of my closet, but, to be honest, I was a little

  DISAPPOINTED, too.

  When I was younger I read this book about

  these kids who could visit a whole different

  WORLD by going through their wardrobe, and

  I always wondered if I might be able to do the

  same thing with MINE.

  But I thought that whoever lived on the other

  side might not be too happy with me for tossing

  all my JUNK in there over the years.

  9

  When I told Mom I was done emptying my closet

  today, she said I needed to put everything into

  three piles: one to keep, one to donate and one

  to throw away. But I figured if I had to let

  go of any of my junk I might as well make some

  MONEY from it. So I decided to have a YARD

  SALE.

  Mom thought that was a GREAT idea. So she

  gave me a magazine that had all sorts of tips on

  how to do it RIGHT.

  10

  All the ideas in the magazine were corny and

  old-fashioned, though. There was one section on

  how to create a sign to get people to come to

  your yard sale, and all the examples they showed

  were really BORING.

  I knew that if I wanted people to actually show

  up at my yard sale I needed to do something a

  little more EYE-CATCHING. So I whipped up a

  sign I knew would do the trick.

  11

  I made a few copies of my sign and headed out to

  post them around the neighbourhood. But Mom

  stopped me before I got out of the front door.

  12

  Mom made me make signs that were more like the

  ones in the magazine, and after I was finished,

  I stapled them to some telephone poles on our

  street. Then I hauled everything down from my

  bedroom and started setting it all out on some

  plastic tables.

  Each table had its own category, like “clothes”

  and “books” and that kind of thing. But some

  stuff wasn’t easy to categorize, so I had to get

  creative.

  I had a bunch of gifts from my grandparents and

  older relatives that I’ve never even TOUCHED,

  so I put all those things together on one table.

  I also had a bunch of birthday cards that were still

  in pretty good shape. So I used some Tippex to

  cover up my name and set them out on their own

  table.

  I put all my broken to
ys on another table and

  hoped some little kids who couldn’t READ would

  come to the yard sale.

  14

  I stuffed all my random items, like marbles and a

  few pencil stubs, into some socks and pinned them

  to a table.

  I also created a table full of things for people

  who had money to burn.

  15

  I put all my old arts-and-crafts projects on

  their own table, just in case some kids needed a

  gift for their parents but didn’t want to put in

  the TIME.

  While I was finishing up, Mom came outside to

  check out my yard sale, and she seemed pretty

  IMPRESSED. But she said I should hold on to

  the things I’d made myself, since that stuff is

  really SPECIAL.

  I told Mom that if she wanted something, she

  could always buy it HERSELF. So she offered

  me three dollars for that paper flower I’d made

  for her in pre-school.

  16

  Mom seemed pretty eager to have that thing, and

  I could tell it was worth more than three bucks

  to her. So I told Mom it was all hers for TEN.

  I guess I pushed my luck, though, because she

  went back inside without buying ANYTHING.

  While I waited for customers to show up, I started

  getting a little NERVOUS. I realized that all my

  stuff was just lying out in the open, and I had no

  way to stop people from STEALING it.

  So I called my best friend, Rowley Jefferson,

  and asked him to come down and be my Theft

  Prevention Officer.

  17

  But Rowley said he was supposed to do something

  with his dad this afternoon, so he couldn’t help

  me with the yard sale.

  I told him I’d promote him to Theft Prevention

  MANAGER, and he’d even get to wear a BADGE.

  Luckily, that did the trick.

  As soon as Rowley got to my house, he started

  asking about that BADGE. All I could find was

  my old firefighter costume, but that seemed to

  make him feel important.

  18

  Rowley asked what he was supposed to DO as the

  Theft Prevention Manager, and I said mostly he

  needed to walk around and crack his knuckles to

  make sure nobody got any funny ideas.

  But Rowley wasn’t paying any attention to my

  instructions, because he was distracted by a table

  that had a bunch of birthday gifts he’d got me

  over the years.

  I’m pretty sure Rowley’s MOM picks out my

  presents, since they’re always things that

  help you LEARN. And they’re all still in mint

  condition, because I haven’t actually OPENED any

  of them.

  19

  I don’t know what made Rowley madder, the fact

  that I was SELLING this stuff or the sign I

  put on the table.

  Rowley said I couldn’t sell those things because

  they were GIFTS. I told him they were MINE,

  so I could do whatever I WANTED with them.

  And then we got into a big tug-of-war over the

  Magnet Fun set.

  20

  That’s when our first customers started to

  arrive. I told Rowley we could argue about this

  LATER, but for NOW we needed to act like

  PROFESSIONALS.

  At first just a few people showed up, but after

  a while a lot MORE came. And, when they

  started checking out my stuff, I went into sales

  mode.

  One lady seemed interested in a collector’s coin

  I got from my uncle, but she complained that it

  was DENTED. So I thought fast and told her

  the REASON it was dented was because it had

  stopped a bullet in the Second World War.

  21

  She didn’t seem to BELIEVE me, though,

  probably because the coin was dated last year.

  I spent a lot of time trying to close that deal,

  and I started worrying that people were stealing

  behind my back. Unfortunately my Theft Prevention