Cabin Fever (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 6) Page 5

  end up getting cheated out of a gift.

  It’s not fair, but I guess it’s been happening for

  thousands of years.

  this gift counts

  for christmas

  and your

  birthday, jesus!

  gee,

  thanks.

  107

  I realized something today, though. I might not

  have any cash, but I DO have something valuable:

  my first-edition signed copy of the “Tower of

  Druids” graphic novel.

  tower

  of

  druids

  by kenny

  centazzo

  tower

  of

  druids

  centazzo

  I got “Tower of Druids” signed by the author,

  Kenny Centazzo, at the comics convention in the

  city last year.

  Well, actually, I didn’t technically get it signed—

  Mom did. I waited in line for two and a half

  hours, and then I had to take a bathroom break.

  By the time I got back, Mom had gotten my

  book signed.

  108

  COMICS EXPO

  I was bummed that I didn’t get to meet Kenny

  Centazzo, but at least I got his autograph.

  I looked on the computer today and found out

  that a first-edition signed copy of “Tower of

  Druids” is worth forty bucks. So that’ll cover me

  for Christmas presents, and I’ll have enough left

  over to get Gregory’s Little Friend that jacuzzi

  he seems to want.

  I told Mom about my plan to sell my book, and

  she didn’t like the idea. She said I waited a long

  time to get that thing signed and I would really

  regret selling it.

  109

  Mom said that when I had kids, they’d be mad I

  sold it because it’ll be worth a lot of money.

  Well, that settled it for me. I’ve already decided

  I’m not HAVING any kids. I want to be a

  bachelor like my Uncle Charlie, who spends all his

  money on vacations and heated toilet seats and

  stuff like that, instead of forking it over to a

  bunch of ungrateful kids.

  hey there,

  plummers!

  110

  I can thank my librarian, Mrs. Schneiderman, for

  getting me into the “Tower of Druids” series to

  begin with, because she’s the one who started the

  graphic novel section in our school library.

  I don’t know when they started calling comic

  books graphic novels, but I’m glad they did. Some

  of the teachers complain that they don’t count as

  REAL reading, but the way I see it, if they’re

  in the library, they’re fair game for book reports.

  OUCH.

  111

  Unfortunately, when Mrs. Schneiderman put in

  the graphic novels, she got rid of the Easy

  Reader section. I always used the books in the

  Easy Reader section to do my reports for Social

  Studies, because you could whip through one of

  them in about forty-five seconds.

  As a boy,

  Abraham

  Lincoln liked

  to read. He

  liked to read

  a lot!

  When I was little I used to want to be an

  author myself. But whenever I started telling

  Mom my ideas, she’d say my story was just like

  some book that was already published.

  112

  I realized all the good ideas were taken before I

  was even born.

  Mom said if I wanted to be an author, I should

  try coming up with something original. But it was

  really hard coming up with a fresh idea, so I just

  took one of my favorite books and more or less

  copied it word for word with a few small tweaks.

  When Mom read what I wrote, she was really

  impressed, and I guess she thought I was some

  kind of genius or something.

  But I think Mom got a little carried away. She

  sent my book to a publisher in New York, who

  told her I’d plagiarized “Geoffrey the Gorilla,”

  which was already a bestselling kids’ book.

  113

  Mom was pretty mad at me for passing off the

  book as my own, but I’m surprised she couldn’t

  figure it out herself from reading it.

  Geoffrey the Dinosaur

  Swings from vine to vine.

  He perches in a tree and

  eats a banana.“Ooh ooh

  ooh,” Geoffrey says as he

  pounds his chest.

  Thursday

  Well, it turns out my first-edition copy of “Tower

  of Druids” is totally worthless. I brought it to

  the comic book shop yesterday afternoon hoping

  to cash in, but the guy who works there told me

  the autograph was a forgery.

  114

  I told him he didn’t know what he was talking

  about, because Mom got my book signed by the

  actual author. But the comic book guy showed me

  a catalog with Kenny Centazzo’s signature in it,

  and it looked COMPLETELY different.

  I was really confused, but on the walk home I

  realized what must’ve happened. Mom probably got

  tired of waiting in line at the comics convention

  and just signed the book HERSELF. In fact, I

  should’ve figured that out from the inscription.

  Readers are winners! Keep reading to

  make your dreams come true!

  Your pal,

  Kenny

  115

  It wouldn’t be the FIRST time Mom pulled this

  sort of thing, because she has ZERO patience for

  waiting in line.

  When I was little I used to like to get my

  picture taken with the characters at theme parks.

  But whenever there was more than a five-minute

  wait, Mom would just walk to the front of the

  line and snap a picture of the character and

  whatever kid was posing with him. That’s why

  our vacation photo albums are full of pictures of

  random people.

  Snap

  When I got home I went straight to Mom’s room

  with my book, and the look on her face said it all.

  So now I know why she didn’t want me to sell it.

  116

  I just hope Mom knows that when she doesn’t

  get a present from me on Christmas, she’s only

  got herself to blame.

  Friday

  Even though I was still pretty mad at Mom for

  forging that signature, she bailed me out today.

  At school Rowley was carrying a present, and

  I asked him what it was for. He said it was his

  Secret Holiday Buddy gift.

  I forgot all ABOUT the Secret Holiday

  Buddy thing.

  117

  Everyone at school is supposed to buy a gift for

  the person they get assigned and then give it

  anonymously.

  To: Leighton

  From: Your Secret

  Holyday Buddy

  The person I was supposed to get a gift for was

  Dean Delarosa, who I’ve known a long time. Back

  in third grade, I got invited to Dean’s birthday

  party, but Mom got the date wrong and I

  showed up at his house a week EARLY.

  Dean’s mom told
us the party was the following

  week, so we went home.

  118

  But the gift Mom bought for Dean was really

  cool, and I ended up playing with it myself.

  By the time Dean’s actual birthday rolled around,

  I’d already broken the robot’s hand and lost the

  gun that came with it, so I skipped the party.

  I’ve felt guilty about that ever since, and today

  I didn’t want to cheat Dean out of a gift for

  the second time. So when I got to school, I

  asked the secretary in the front office to call

  Mom and see if she could pick something up for me.

  And she came through just in time.

  Space

  Robot

  119

  The teacher started handing out the Secret

  Holiday Buddy gifts, and I got a jar of gummy

  bears. Finally, there was only one present under

  the tree, and it was the one for Dean.

  Unfortunately, Mom didn’t understand that the

  gift was supposed to be ANONYMOUS, so it

  was totally embarrassing when the teacher read

  the card on Dean’s present out loud.

  this one says, “to

  dean delarosa, from

  your secret holiday

  buddy, greg heffley.”

  Dean looked like he wanted to crawl under his

  desk and hide, and I felt the same exact way.

  120

  Saturday

  I always thought the only place in the world

  where you could get Drummies was at the Holiday

  Bazaar. But today me and Mom were at the

  grocery store, and you’ll never BELIEVE what I

  found in the frozen food aisle.

  drummies!

  drummies!

  20 count

  microwavable

  Now I know that I can have Drummies whenever

  I want and that they’re TOTALLY ripping us

  off at the Holiday Bazaar. You can buy a whole

  BOX at the store for what they charge for three

  or four individual Drummies at school.

  In fact, now that I could get my own Drummies,

  I realized I could run my OWN Holiday Bazaar.

  121

  But first I had to buy up the grocery store’s

  supply before the school beat me to it.

  Other kids in my neighborhood have done this sort

  of thing before. Last summer Bryce Anderson and

  a bunch of his cronies set up a restaurant for all

  the neighborhood parents.

  menu

  I heard they pulled in almost three hundred

  bucks, and I know for a fact that one of Bryce’s

  goons bought a brand-new BB gun with his share.

  122

  yowch!

  I knew I couldn’t run a Holiday Bazaar all by

  myself, so I called Rowley and asked him to help

  out. We found some Christmas ornaments and

  some other stuff in my basement we could sell.

  But I figured if we were gonna compete with

  the school’s Holiday Bazaar, we’d have to come up

  with better games than the beanbag toss and the

  ping-pong-ball bounce.

  Rowley suggested a dunk tank, but I told him

  I didn’t think Mom would allow that in the

  house. Plus, we had a dunk tank when we ran a

  Fun Fair in Rowley’s yard over the summer, and it

  was a DISASTER.

  123

  We didn’t know you were supposed to protect the

  guy in the dunk tank by putting him in a cage.

  gaaah!

  thwap

  dunk

  tank

  $1

  Me and Rowley decided it would be really cool if

  our Holiday Bazaar had a video game arcade. We

  didn’t have the money to buy real arcade machines,

  so we got a bunch of cardboard boxes out of the

  basement to make homemade versions.

  We started off with Pac-Man because we thought

  it would be pretty easy to make. In Pac-Man

  you’ve got a little character who goes around

  eating pellets while getting chased by ghosts.

  124

  In our version we were gonna have Rowley on

  the inside of the box operating ghosts glued to

  pencils, while the person who was playing the

  game maneuvered Pac-Man from the outside with a

  popsicle stick.

  125

  We spent the next two hours making the box look

  just like the real thing.

  But while we were working, Rowley started asking

  questions about how long he was gonna be in

  the box and what would happen if he needed a

  bathroom break. I gave him an empty two-liter

  soda bottle to keep in the box for when he had to

  go Number One.

  Rowley asked what he would do if he needed to

  go Number Two, but I told him we’d cross that

  bridge when we came to it.

  126

  Once we were done coloring in our machine, we

  started cutting out the groove where the popsicle

  sticks were supposed to go.

  But I guess we weren’t really thinking ahead,

  because as soon as we cut the outer border, the

  whole maze fell inside the machine.

  fwoop

  So I guess we’re not gonna make a lot of money

  on Pac-Man unless people are willing to pay

  twenty-five cents to see Rowley sitting in a box.

  127

  Sunday

  Me and Rowley still have a lot of work to do to

  set up our Holiday Bazaar, but I realized we’d

  better not wait until the last minute to let people

  know about it. So we went down to the town

  newspaper’s office and told them we wanted to

  order up a full-page color ad in tomorrow’s edition.

  They said an ad like that would cost a thousand

  dollars, and I told them we could pay for it the

  day AFTER our event. But they wouldn’t take an

  IOU, even when I told them how many Drummies

  we were planning on selling.

  I suggested maybe they could just write an

  article about how two regular kids were putting

  together their own Holiday Bazaar and not

  charge us anything.

  128

  But they told us they didn’t consider our Holiday

  Bazaar “newsworthy.”

  I think it stinks that the newspaper basically

  gets to control the information people are

  getting. At home, I complained to Mom, and

  she suggested me and Rowley start our OWN

  newspaper and write about our Bazaar.

  I thought that was a GREAT idea, and we got

  right to work. We came up with a name for our

  paper and put together the front page.

  The Neighbourhood

  TATTLER

  Drummies

  Pricing Scam

  Exposed!

  Tattler reporters have uncovered a

  price-gouging scheme at the

  school Holiday Bazaar that has

  been running unchecked for years.

  The popular chicken drumstick

  items, “Drummies,” have been

  sold at the Bazaar for more than

  six times their retail value.

  “I’m outraged,” said a loyal

  customer who did not want to be

  See DRUMMIES, A2

  New Bazaar Offers Alternative to School Event

 
With the community reeling

  from the Drummies scandal,

  two boys have decided to

  make things right.

  “We’ve decided to start our

  own Holiday Bazaar,” said

  Greg Heffley, an entrepreneur

  See BAZAAR, A3

  129

  We realized we were gonna have to come up with

  some more pages for people to take our newspaper

  seriously, so we started brainstorming ideas for

  other sections we could add. I figured we needed

  a comics section, so we started there.

  T.G.I.F.

  by Rowley Jefferson

  Hey you! Why are

  you running around

  in your underwear?

  It’s Friday!

  Stinky Sebastain

  by Greg Heffley

  Ned the Napkin

  by Rowley Jefferson

  ok, who forgot to

  wear deodorant?

  Can you

  clean up

  my spilled

  soda, Ned?

  How come

  you always

  ask ME?

  We added an advice column, where people write in

  questions about problems they’re having. But we

  didn’t have time to wait for people to send in real

  questions, so we just made a few up.

  130

  Dear Greg,

  My wife is always

  criticizing everything I

  do. The other day it

  was a little chilly out so

  I wore socks with my

  sandals. My wife

  actually made me go

  back inside and put on

  shoes! I feel like she

  treats me like a child,

  but she has a very

  strong personality and

  I’m afraid to stand up

  to her. What can I do?

  Sincerely,

  FRUSTRATED

  Ask

  Greg

  Dear FRUSTRATED,

  It’s NEVER okay to

  wear socks with sandals!

  You should apologize to

  your wife immediately.

  Greg

  Dear Greg,

  Are you single?

  Sincerely,

  THE LADIES

  Dear THE LADIES,

  Why, yes, I am!

  Greg

  Rowley was all excited about this newspaper, and