Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney Page B

out his tongue and flicked it up and down like a rock star,
    you could hear Mom ring in with her opinion.
    [Image: A cartoon of a man performing on T.V.] "I don't like that!"
    In fact, the only time Mom stopped talking was when Rodrick did his drum solo.
    But during that part, the camera was shaking around so much that you couldn't
    even see anything.
    At first, Rodrick and his bandmates were really mad. But then one of them
    remembered that the school taped the Talent Show, and it's supposed to be on the
    local cable channel tomorrow night.
    I guess that means they'll all be coming back over to watch THAT.
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    Thursday
    Well, things have gotten REALLY bad for me in the last few hours.
    Rodrick and his bandmates came over around 7:00 tonight to watch the Talent
    Show on TV. They sat through the whole three-hour show until their band came
    on.
    The school actually did a decent job of taping the performance, and things were
    looking pretty good up until Rodrick's drum solo.
    That's when Mom started dancing. And whoever was doing the filming zoomed

    right in on Mom, and kept the camera pointed at her for the rest of the song.
    [Image: A cartoon of a performance on stage.]
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    That meant Rodrick didn't have ANYTHING he could send to record companies.
    And he was really mad about it, too.
    At first he was mad at Mom for messing things up. But Mom said that if Rodrick
    didn't want people to dance, he shouldn't play music.
    Then Rodrick turned on ME. He said this was all MY fault, because if I just taped
    the show like he asked me to, none of this would've happened.
    But I told him that maybe if he wasn't such a jerk, I would have done it for him.
    [Image: A cartoon of two children fighting as their parents look at them.]
    We started to yell at each other. Mom and Dad broke us up, and then they sent
    Rodrick down to his room and me up to mine.
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    But a couple of hours later I went downstairs, and I ran into Rodrick in the kitchen.
    He was smiling, so I knew something was up.
    Rodrick told me my "secret was out."
    At first, I didn't know what he was talking about. But then I got it: He was talking
    about the thing that happened to me this summer.

    I ran down to the basement, and I picked up Rodrick's phone to see if he had made
    any calls. And sure enough, it looked like he had called EVERY friend of his who
    had a brother or sister my age.
    [Image: A cartoon of a boy looking at his phone.]
    By tomorrow morning, EVERYONE at my school will know the story. And I'm
    sure Rodrick exaggerated the facts to make the story sound even WORSE.
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    Now that my secret's out there, I want to put on record what REALLY happened,
    and not Rodrick's twisted version.
    So here it goes.
    Over the summer, me and Rodrick had to stay with Grandpa at his condo in
    Leisure Towers for a few days. But there was NOTHING to do, and I was going
    bonkers.
    I was so bored, I broke out my old journal and started to write in it. But taking out
    a book that said "diary" on the cover in front of Rodrick was a HUGE mistake.
    [Image: A cartoon of a boy taking away from the one on the sofa.] "Ha! Swipe"
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    Rodrick stole my journal and made a run for it. He probably would have made it
    into the bathroom and locked the door if someone hadn't left Gutbusters sitting out.
    [Image: A cartoon of a tripping to a fall.] "Gaah!"

    I scooped the book off the floor and ran out into the hallway and down the
    stairwell. Then, I ducked into the bathroom in the main lobby and locked myself in
    a stall.
    I kept my feet off the floor so that if Rodrick came in, he wouldn't know I was in
    there.
    I knew that if Rodrick got ahold of my journal, it would be a nightmare. So I
    decided to just rip the whole thing into tiny little pieces and flush them down the
    toilet. It was better to just destroy the thing than risk Rodrick getting his hands on
    it.
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    [Image: A cartoon of a boy sitting on the top of the potty and tearing the book.]
    But as soon as I started ripping pages out