DON’T MISS THESE OTHER

  JIM BENTON

  TITLES:

  Victor Shmud, Total Expert #1: Let’s Do a Thing!

  Franny K. Stein #1–7

  Dear Dumb Diary Year One #1–12

  Dear Dumb Diary Year Two #1–6

  The Handbook

  AND DON’T MISS . . .

  Dear Dumb Diary, Deluxe:

  Dumbness Is a Dish Best Served Cold

  Copyright © 2018 by Jim Benton

  This book is being published simultaneously in hardcover by Scholastic Press.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.,

  Publishers since 1920.

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  registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

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  permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department,

  557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are

  either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events,

  or locales is entirely coincidental.

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-93287-5

  First printing 2018

  Book design by Jim Benton

  Thanks to Kristen LeClerc,

  Summer Benton,

  Abby McAden, Yaffa Jaskoll,

  and Kerianne Okie

  Nothing can keep you down.

  Table of Contents

  1. WHAT TO DO. WHAT TO DO.

  1

  2. SPORTS EQUIPMENT

  6

  3. THE NEW CHEF

  12

  4. A NOTE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

  16

  5. WELL, CELLO THERE

  28

  6. NOZZLEBURP

  38

  7. DIG THIS MUSIC

  47

  8. ANOTHER NOTE

  56

  9. GETTING A BITE WITH

  AN OLD FRIEND

  60

  10. BACK AT SCHOOL

  66

  11. SYMPHONY OF DISASTER

  77

  12. CREAM AND SUGAR

  90

  13. GARGGH GARGH GLARGH

  95

  Chapter 1

  WHAT TO DO. WHAT TO DO.

  Victor threw another carrot at Dumpylumps and it stuck with a loud thunk in the wall behind him.

  1

  “It’s thrilling and dangerous, but I don’t think vegetable-throwing has the same sort of flash that knife-throwing does,” Victor said, putting the last carrot into his pocket. “And Mom won’t let me throw knives, so I don’t think that this is a thing we’ll be doing.”

  Dumpylumps offered him an ax.

  “No, I’m not throwing axes at you,

  either,” Victor said. “And you really shouldn’t even have this. You could have broken it.”

  Victor placed the ax safely on a shelf

  while Dumpylumps put on a tiny cowboy hat and galloped around the room as if he were riding a horse.

  “The Old West again?” Victor sighed. “I appreciate you helping me come up with ideas for our next thing to do, Dumpylumps, but I don’t think it’s possible to do a cowboy thing without a horse.”

  Dumpylumps handed Victor the hat and

  pouted.

  4

  “I know you really want to do this one, but it’s just not going to work,” Victor said, and he tossed the hat across the room, where it landed in a laundry basket.

  “Hey! Great thinking, Dumpylumps!”

  Victor said. “I know just the thing that we’re

  doing tomorrow!”

  Chapter 2

  SPORTS EQUIPMENT

  Victor walked with Dumpylumps down the

  school hallway.

  “We’ll need to pick up a couple kinder-

  gartners before we go to gym class,” Victor said. “Go choose a couple lively volunteers.”

  6

  Dumpylumps walked into a classroom and came out with two kindergartners.

  “I’ll bet they have names,” Victor said,

  patting them on their heads. “Maybe we’ll find out what they are sometime.”

  He handed Dumpylumps some rope.

  “Help me tie these children to my feet,”

  he said.

  Victor walked into gym class and

  his teacher, Mr. Durtburt, immediately noticed that Victor was much taller than he used to be.

  “Victor. What are you wearing?” Mr.

  Durtburt shouted.

  “It’s a shirt with a big letter

  V on it. It

  stands for Victor.”

  “I mean, on your feet.”

  “Oh, these? These are my new basketball

  shoes. They’re made out of kindergartners. They make me taller and I won’t get as tired running up and down the court.”

  8

  Victor took off dribbling the basketball while the happy kindergartners huffed and puffed beneath his feet.

  “This is really a major improvement over

  the old kind of shoe,” he shouted. “I wonder if they’d make good swim fins.”

  “It’s against the rules!” Mr. Durtburt

  yelled.

  “Show me where it says that,” Victor

  said, steering the kindergartners to walk over to his teacher.

  “I don’t have a copy of the rules,” he said. “Good thing that I do,” Victor said, and

  he pulled them out of his pocket and handed them to Mr. Durtburt.

  “These aren’t the real rules, Victor. It

  looks like you wrote these yourself last

  night.”

  “That’s not true. I wrote them this morn-

  ing. That makes them the most updated rules available. They’re fresh.”

  “Take those kids off your feet and return them to their classroom,” Mr. Durtburt said

  firmly.

  “Well, you’re breaking the rules,” Victor

  said. “But you’re the boss.”

  He removed the children and gestured

  to Dumpylumps, who took the kindergart-

  ners by the hands.

  “No worries, Mr. Durtburt. That chicken

  has a way with kids.”

  The kindergartners waved as they left. “Good-bye, shoes,” Victor called to them.

  Chapter 3

  THE NEW CHEF

  Victor walked into the lunchroom and sat

  down next to his friend Patti.

  “Hi, Patti. Dumpylumps and I are look-

  ing for our next thing. I was already a shoe

  designer and a professional basketball

  12

  player this morning, but it turns out that the basketball leagues can be very close- minded about their rules.”

  Patty took a bite of her hot dog.

  “I always think of you as one of the

  smartest people I know. I’ll bet you have a thing we can do,” he told her.

  “Ugh.” She scowled. “This hot dog is ter- rible. Maybe you should be in charge of the school lunches. That could be your new thing.”

  “It’s true that I am an expert chef,” Victor said. “You’ve probably heard of my famous dish, ‘Bread with Clear Gravy.’ It’s spectacular.”

  “What’s clear gravy?”

  “It’s water,” he said in a whisper. “But

  please, don’t share that with everybody. Since we’re friends, I’ll give you a copy of the recipe, but we chefs like to keep our secrets.”

  Dumpylumps took out his little

  notebook.

  “Dumpylumps. Please give Patti a copy

  of the recipe.”

  Dumpylumps handed her a sheet of

  paper with scribbles on it.

  Victor walked back into the kitchen of the cafeteria. He looked around at the peo-

  ple getting the food ready.

  He banged a big metal spoon on a pot

  and spoke in a loud, firm voice.

  “Which one of you is the head chef? My

  name is Victor Shmud and we’re going to do things differently around here from now on.”

  15

  Chapter 4

  A NOTE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

  Victor’s mom and dad shook their heads sadly as they read the note from the principal.

  “Victor, you can’t just walk into the caf-

  eteria and start telling adults what to do.”

  16

  “You’re wrong, Mom. That comes quite

  easily to me.”

  “Your mother means that

  you’re not

  allowed to do it,” Victor’s dad said.

  “Okay. I understand. No more telling

  adults what to do,” Victor said. “And the chicken won’t do it, either.”

  “You know that thing’s a duck, right?” Victor’s mom said as Victor went up to his room.

  17

  “Dumpylumps, it looks like I have to

  postpone my cooking career. I’m especially concerned because it’s nearly bedtime and we haven’t done a thing yet today. Please give me the list of things I’ve been telling you to write down.”

  Dumpylumps handed him an official

  memo.

  “First, I must say, Dumpylumps, that your handwriting has improved greatly,

  especially when you consider that you don’t have hands, and those make handwriting much easier.”

  Dumpylumps blushed and grinned.

  “But I don’t remember saying anything

  about you being a cowboy.”

  Dumpylumps shrugged.

  “And although I still feel that number

  two on the list is a terrific idea, I really like what I see going on in number four.”

  Dumpylumps nodded thoughtfully.

  “It’s not a specific thing, and it’s a known

  fact that if you aren’t making specific plans,

  they never fall through.”

  21

  Dumpylumps handed Victor his phone. Dumpylumps had already dialed Victor’s

  friend Patti.

  “Excellent thinking. Let’s begin with

  number five. Patti is quite brilliant about

  things like this. She’ll have an idea.”

  Patti answered her phone.

  “I’m so glad you called, Victor,” she

  said. “You’re rescuing me from my cello

  practice.”

  “Rescuing is one of my main things,”

  Victor said, and he listed some of his earlier rescues.

  “Remember when I saved that lady who was being eaten by a bear?”

  “That was just a fur coat, Victor.”

  “Well, what about that time that

  Plumporski was attacked by a python? I saved him.”

  “That was a garden hose, and he wasn’t

  happy that you cut it in half.”

  “And nobody will ever forget when I res-

  cued that turtle who was being kidnapped

  by that bicycler.”

  “That was a bike helmet.”

  “But, I’m saving you, right?” Victor said hopefully. “You said I’m saving you.”

  “Yes, Victor. You’re saving me from

  practicing.”

  “Well, if you don’t like the cello, why do

  you keep playing it?”

  “I love how it sounds, but it’s kind of heavy and a chore to lug around.”

  “Fortunately for you, I’m an instrument

  inventor,” Victor said. “We’ll have a new and improved cello ready for you tomor- row. See you in the morning, Patti. Just get to school bright and early.”

  Victor hung up his phone with a smile.

  “Whew!” Victor huffed as he dragged

  Dumpylumps out of his bed. “That was close, wasn’t it? We nearly went an entire day without doing a thing.”

  Dumpylumps pretended to smile.

  “Now please bring me my box of instru-

  ment parts,” he asked him. “We have important work to do.”

  Chapter 5

  WELL, CELLO THERE

  The next morning, Victor walked into his parents’ bedroom very, very early. Neither was awake yet and his dad was snoring loudly.

  He heard their alarm go off and he watched his mom angrily slap at the clock.

  29

  He moved close and stared into her tired eyes.

  “Ugh,” he said. “What happened to you?” “Nothing happened to me,” she groaned.

  “I just woke up. I haven’t even had my cof- fee yet. Why are you up so early?”

  “This is when we instrument inventors

  wake up, Mom. My cellos are full of notes, and if my musicians don’t get started early, they’ll never be able to play them all. I just wanted to say good-bye.”

  After a quick breakfast, Victor’s mom and dad gave him a big hug and he and

  Dumpylumps hurried out the front door, dragging a large bag behind them.

  They made it to school swiftly and

  waited patiently for Patti to arrive. When she got there, Victor proudly revealed his newest creation to her.

  “What do you think, Patti?” he asked, modeling the invention for her. “It’s light- weight and super easy to carry, because you don’t have to actually carry it at all. It’s a cello that you wear.”

  Dumpylumps handed him the bow.

  “It’s really comfortable. I think I could

  probably climb a coconut tree in this.”

  “Why would you need to climb a coco-

  nut tree wearing a cello?” Patti asked.

  “What kind of a tree would

  you climb to

  get coconuts, Patti?” Victor answered, and

  he began to play.

  32

  As Victor pulled the bow across the strings, it made a loud, screechy sound, like something a goat in a terrible mood might make if it sat on a cactus. And when he pushed in the other direction, it moaned like a whale with a tuba stuck in its blow- hole. Patti had never heard anything like it in her entire life.

  And she wasn’t the only one who

  heard it.

  “How do you like that?” Victor asked proudly. “Pretty musical, huh? You might not believe it, but I’ve never had a single lesson.”

  “I believe it,” Patti said.

  “Well, this beautiful cello is yours now,”

  he said. “I’ll be looking forward to hearing

  you play it.”

  Patti smiled, hoping that she could do a

  little better with it than Victor had.

  “I can’t wait to show it to my music

  teacher,” she said.

  “Isn’t that her coming now?” Victor

  asked.

  Patti’s music teacher, Miss Steinway,

  shuffled past them and grunted something that sounded a bit like “good morning,” but not exactly.

  “What happened to her?” Patti

  whispered.

  “I’ve seen this before. Adults are a little

  slow when they wake up. If she’s like my mom, she needs her coffee.”

  He turned to Dumpylumps.

  “Please add that to my list of why

  adults are weird,” he told him, and Dumpylumps added to

  the bottom of a very, very

  long list.

  Chapter 6

  NOZZLEBURP

  Mrs. Nozzleburp walked over to the board. When the class was silent, they could hear her organs sliding around like pork chops in a grocery bag.

  38

  Still, Victor considered her to be one of the most beautiful women he had ever met,

  and it filled him with delight when he caught the faint fragrance of one of her many prescription ointments dancing on the breeze.

  He knew that he would never forget the first time he saw her. He had walked into the classroom early, and she was sitting peacefully at her desk, surrounded by a beautiful light, like you might see surround- ing an angel or fairy princess.

  It turned out to be some sort of therapy lamp her doctor made her sit under every day due to a skin condition, but it was still a beautiful glow, and it really brought out the watery glimmer of her weepy left eye.

  “Today, we’re going to be talking about the Old West,” she said. “But Patti, you may be excused to go down to your music class.”

  Victor raised his hand.

  “Mrs. Nozzleburp, I need to go with

 

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