Dog Days (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 4) Read online

  Dad was out of the room, because Dad doesn’t

  like it when I have sleepovers on a “work night.”

  Last summer Rowley spent the night at my

  house, and we slept in the basement.

  25

  I made sure Rowley took the bed that was closest

  to the furnace room, because that room really

  freaks me out. I figured if anything came out of

  there in the middle of the night, it would grab

  Rowley first and I’d have a five-second head

  start to escape.

  At about 1:00 in the morning, we heard something

  in the furnace room that scared the living daylights

  out of us.

  It sounded like a little ghost girl or something,

  and it said —

  i’m hiding…

  can you

  find me?

  Me and Rowley practically trampled each other to

  death trying to get up the basement stairs.

  26

  We burst into Mom and Dad’s room, and I

  told them our house was haunted and we had

  to move immediately.

  Dad didn’t seem convinced, and he went down to

  the basement and walked right into the furnace

  room. Me and Rowley stayed about ten feet back.

  I was pretty sure Dad wasn’t going to get out

  of there alive. I heard some rustling and a few

  bumps, and I was ready to make a run for it.

  thunk

  whump

  27

  But a few seconds later he came back out with one

  of Manny’s toys, a doll named Hide-and-Seek Harry.

  peekaboo!

  Last night me and Rowley waited for Mom and

  Dad to go to bed, and then we watched our

  movie. Technically, I was the only one who

  watched it, because Rowley had his eyes and ears

  covered the whole entire time.

  chips

  28

  The movie was about this muddy hand that goes

  around the country killing people. And the last

  person who sees the hand is always the next victim.

  crawl

  crawl

  The special effects were really cheesy, and I

  wasn’t even scared until the very end. That’s

  when the twist came.

  After the muddy hand strangled its last victim,

  it came crawling straight at the screen, and

  then the screen went black. At first I was a

  little confused, but then I realized it meant the

  next victim was gonna be me.

  I turned the tv off, and then I described

  the whole movie to Rowley from beginning to end.

  29

  Well, I must’ve done a pretty good job telling the

  story, because Rowley got even more freaked-out

  than I was.

  I knew we couldn’t go to Mom and Dad this

  time because they’d ground me if they found out

  we watched a horror movie. But we didn’t feel

  safe in the basement, so we spent the rest of

  the night in the upstairs bathroom with the

  lights on.

  30

  I just wish we had managed to stay awake the

  whole night, because when Dad found us in the

  morning, it wasn’t a pretty scene.

  Dad wanted to know what was going on, and

  I had to fess up. Dad told Mom, so now I’m

  just waiting to hear how long I’m gonna be

  grounded for. But to be honest with you, I’m a

  lot more worried about this muddy hand than

  any punishment Mom can dream up.

  I thought about it, though, and I realized

  there’s only so much ground a muddy hand can

  cover in a day.

  31

  So hopefully that means I have a little while

  longer to live.

  Tuesday

  Yesterday, Mom lectured me about how boys my

  age watch too many violent movies and play too

  many video games, and that we don’t know what

  Real entertainment is.

  I just stayed quiet, because I wasn’t sure

  exactly where she was going with all this.

  32

  Then Mom said that she was gonna start a

  “reading club” for the boys in the neighborhood so

  she could teach us about all the great literature we

  were missing out on.

  I begged Mom to just give me a regular punishment

  instead, but she wouldn’t budge.

  So today was the first meeting of the Reading

  Is Fun Club. I felt kind of bad for all the boys

  whose moms made them come.

  reading is fun

  33

  I was just glad Mom didn’t invite Fregley, this

  weird kid who lives up the street, because he’s

  been acting stranger than usual lately.

  wanna hear

  about my

  “hygiene issues”?

  I’m starting to think maybe Fregley’s a little

  dangerous, but luckily he doesn’t really leave his

  front yard during the summer. I think his parents

  must have an electrical fence or something.

  Anyway, Mom told everyone to bring their

  favorite book to today’s meeting so we could pick

  one and discuss it. All the guys laid their books

  on the table, and everyone seemed pretty happy

  with the selection except Mom.

  34

  sudoku

  insanity

  ULTIMATE

  VIDEO GAME

  CHEATS

  volume

  8

  green

  wasp

  a major

  motion

  picture

  xtreme

  pop-up

  sharks

  Mom said the books we brought weren’t “real”

  literature and that we were gonna have to

  start with the “classics.”

  35

  Then she brought out a bunch of books that she

  must’ve had since she was a kid.

  little women

  THE YEARLING

  old yeller

  Anne

  of green gables

  These are the exact same types of books our

  teachers are always pushing us to read at school.

  36

  They have a program where if you read a “classic”

  in your free time, they reward you with a sticker

  of a hamburger or something like that.

  I don’t know who they think they’re fooling.

  You can get a sheet of a hundred stickers down

  at the arts-and-crafts store for fifty cents.

  I’m not really sure what makes a book a “classic”

  to begin with, but I think it has to be at least

  fifty years old and some person or animal has to

  die at the end.

  Mom said if we didn’t like the books she picked

  out, we could go on a field trip to the library

  and find something we all agreed on. But that

  won’t work for me.

  37

  See, when I was eight years old I borrowed a

  book from the library, and then I forgot all about

  it. I found the book a few years later behind my

  desk, and I figured I must’ve owed about two

  thousand dollars in late fees on that thing.

  So I buried the book in a box of old comics in my

  closet, and that’s where it is to this day. I haven’t

  been back to the library since then, but I kno
w if

  I ever do show up, they’ll be waiting for me.

  Greg heffley, you are

  under arrest for

  failing to return “how

  to make sock puppets.”

  fictio

  return

  38

  In fact, I get nervous if I even see a librarian.

  is that

  you, susan?

  pat? it’s

  been such

  a long

  time!

  I asked Mom if we could get a second chance to

  pick out a book on our own, and she said we

  could. We’re supposed to meet again tomorrow and

  bring our new selections with us.

  Wednesday

  Well, the membership of the Reading Is Fun

  Club took a big hit overnight. Most of the guys

  who came yesterday bailed out, and now there’s

  only two of us.

  39

  Rowley brought two books along with him.

  How to Find

  Garden

  Faeries

  Me & My

  Mommy

  Silly

  Playgroup

  Activities

  The book I picked was the ninth volume in the

  “Magick and Monsters: Dark Realms” series. I

  figured Mom would like it because it’s pretty long

  and there aren’t any pictures.

  Shadowdoom

  dark realms

  Volume 9

  40

  But Mom didn’t like my book. She said she didn’t

  approve of the illustration on the cover because

  she didn’t like the way it portrayed women.

  I’ve read “Shadowdoom,” and from what I can

  remember, there aren’t even any women in the

  story. In fact, I kind of wonder if the person

  who designed the cover even Read the book.

  Anyway, Mom said that she was gonna use her

  veto power as the Reading Is Fun Club’s founder

  and choose the book for us. So she chose this

  book called “Charlotte’s Web,” which looks like one

  of those “classics” I was talking about before.

  Charlotte’s

  Web

  41

  Just from looking at the cover, I guarantee either

  the girl or the pig doesn’t make it to the end of

  the book.

  Friday

  Well, the Reading Is Fun Club is down to one

  member, and that’s me.

  Yesterday Rowley went golfing or something with

  his dad, so he kind of hung me out to dry. I

  didn’t do my reading assignment, and I was really

  counting on him to cover for me at the meeting.

  It’s not really my fault that I couldn’t finish

  my reading assignment, though. Mom told me I

  had to read in my bedroom for twenty minutes

  yesterday, but the truth is, I just have trouble

  concentrating for long periods of time.

  42

  After Mom caught me horsing around, she

  banned me from watching tv until I read the

  book. So last night I had to wait until she went

  to bed before I could get my entertainment fix.

  I kept thinking about that movie with the muddy

  hand, though. I was afraid that if I was watching

  tv all by myself late at night, the muddy hand

  might crawl out from under the couch and grab my

  foot or something.

  The way I solved the problem was by making a

  trail of clothes and other stuff all the way from my

  bedroom down to the family room.

  43

  That way I was able to make it downstairs

  and back without ever touching the ground.

  Hop

  This morning Dad tripped over a dictionary I

  left at the top of the stairs, so now he’s mad

  at me. But I’ll take Dad being angry over the

  alternative any day of the week.

  My new fear is that the hand is gonna crawl up

  on my bed and get me in my sleep. So lately I’ve

  been covering my whole body with the blanket

  and leaving a hole so I can breathe.

  44

  But that strategy has its own risks. Rodrick

  got into my room today, and I had to spend

  the morning trying to wash the taste of a dirty

  sock out of my mouth.

  Sunday

  Today was my deadline for finishing the first

  three chapters of “Charlotte’s Web.” When Mom

  found out I wasn’t done yet, she said we were

  gonna sit down at the kitchen table until I

  was finished.

  READING IS FUN

  45

  About a half hour later there was a knock at

  the front door, and it was Rowley. I thought

  maybe he was coming back to the Reading Is

  Fun Club, but when I saw that his dad was with

  him, I knew something was up.

  Mr. Jefferson had an official-looking piece of

  paper with the country club logo on it. He said it

  was a bill for all the fruit smoothies me and

  Rowley ordered at the clubhouse, and the grand

  total was eighty-three dollars.

  All those times me and Rowley ordered drinks at

  the clubhouse, we just wrote down Mr. Jefferson’s

  account number on the tab. Nobody told us someone

  actually had to pay for all that.

  46

  I still didn’t really understand what Mr. Jefferson

  was doing at my house. I think he’s an architect

  or something, so if he needs eighty-three bucks, he

  can just design an extra building. He talked to Mom,

  though, and they both agreed that me and Rowley

  needed to pay off the tab.

  I told Mom me and Rowley are just kids and it’s

  not like we have salaries or careers or whatever.

  But Mom said we were just gonna have to be

  “creative.” Then she said we would have to suspend

  the Reading Is Fun Club’s meetings until we paid

  what we owed.

  To be honest with you, I’m kind of relieved.

  Because at this point, anything that doesn’t

  involve reading sounds pretty good to me.

  clink

  47

  Tuesday

  Me and Rowley racked our brains all day yesterday

  trying to figure out how to pay off that eighty-

  three dollars. Rowley said maybe I should just go

  to the Atm and withdraw some money to pay off

  his dad.

  The reason Rowley said that is because he thinks

  I’m rich. A couple of years ago during the holidays,

  Rowley came over and we had just run out of toilet

  paper at my house. My family was using these holiday

  cocktail napkins as a substitute until Dad got to the

  store again.

  Rowley thought the holiday napkins were some

  kind of really fancy toilet paper, and he asked

  me if my family was rich.

  merry

  Christmas

  48

  yep.

  I wasn’t gonna pass up the opportunity to

  impress him.

  Anyway, I’m Not rich, and that’s the problem.

  I tried to figure out a way a kid my age could

  get his hands on some cash, and then it hit me:

  We could start a lawn care service.

  I’m not talking about some average, run-of-the-mill

  lawn care service, either. I’m ta
lking about a company

  that takes lawn care to the next level. We decided

  to name our company the V.I.P. Lawn Service.

  We called up the Yellow Pages people and told

  them we wanted to place an ad in their book.

  And not just one of those tiny little text ads,

  but a really big one with full color that takes up

  two whole pages.

  49

  But get this: The Yellow Pages people told us it

  was gonna cost us a few thousand bucks to put

  our ad in their book.

  I told them that didn’t make a lot of sense to

  me, because how’s someone supposed to pay for an

  ad if they haven’t even earned any money yet?

  Me and Rowley realized we were gonna have to do

  this a different way, and make our oWN ads.

  I figured we could just make flyers and put them in

  every mailbox in our neighborhood. All we needed was

  some clip art to get us started.

  So we went down to the corner store and bought

  one of those cards women get each other on their birthdays.

  50

  Hope your

  birthday is

  HOT, HOT, HOT!

  Then we scanned it into Rowley’s computer and

  pasted pictures of our heads onto the bodies

  from the card.

  51

  After that we got some clip art of lawn tools and

  put it all together. Then we printed it out, and

  I have to say, it looked great.

  v.i.p.

  lawn service

  pamper yourself and

  your lawn with our

  award-winning,

  world-class service!

  call 555-2941

  52

  I did some math, and I figured it would cost

  us at least a couple hundred bucks in color ink

  cartridges and paper to make enough flyers for

  the whole neighborhood. So we asked Rowley’s

  dad if he’d go out to the store and get us all

  the stuff we needed.

  Mr. Jefferson didn’t go for it. In fact, he told

  us we couldn’t use his computer or print out any

  more copies of our flyer.

  I was a little surprised by that, because if Mr.