The back page review goes like this : Greg Heffley is in big trouble.school property has been damaged, and Greg is the prime suspect. But the crazy thing is that he is innocent. Or at least a sort of.
The authorities are closing in, but when a surprise blizzard hits, the Heffley family is trapped indoors. Greg knows that when the snow melts he's going to face the music, but could any punishment be worse than being stuck inside with your family for the holidays?
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After twelve hours of sharing a room with
Rodrick, I’m thinking of marching down to the
police station and turning myself in. Because there’s
no punishment they can dream up that could be
worse than what I’m dealing with at home.
Last night Rodrick brought a bunch of his stuff
from the basement and put it in my room. This is
supposed to be a temporary living situation, but
Rodrick is treating it like a permanent one.
Rodrick’s got his drum set on stacks of books to air
it out, and his dirty clothes are EVERYWHERE.This morning when I was getting dressed, I
put on a pair of boxer shorts that was sitting on
my dresser. But, by the time I realized it was
actually Rodrick’s dirty underwear, it was too late.
So until Mom did a load of laundry I wore my
Halloween costume. It was uncomfortable, but at
least I knew for sure it was CLEAN.
This afternoon we were down in the basement
seeing if there was anything we could salvage
from the flood.I noticed something strange floating in the water
in the storage room, and when I picked it up I
almost passed out.
At first I thought it was a real baby, but then
I realized it was my long-lost doll, Alfrendo.
After all this time, Alfrendo wasn’t looking too
good. I think a mouse must’ve got to him, and
spending a day in the water didn’t help, either.But in a weird way I was kind of glad to see him.
I was living with the guilt of losing Alfrendo for
all these years, and now I’d found out he was in
the house all along.
In fact, I couldn’t figure out how he’d wound up
in the storage room. But I realized it HAD to be
Dad. He was never really on board with the whole
doll idea, and I’m sure he got rid of Alfrendo
when I wasn’t looking.
I figured I’d confront Dad about kidnapping my
doll when he got home, but at the moment I had
bigger things to worry about. The first one was
what I was gonna EAT.Over the past few days we’ve been running low on
food, and if this snow doesn’t melt quick I don’t
know WHAT we’re gonna do.
Mom was supposed to go grocery shopping the day
the blizzard hit, so we have less food than usual
to begin with. She said we’re gonna have to start
“rationing” until she can go back out.
That could be a while, though. The snow is piled
up three feet high against the front door, so
we’re basically trapped inside.And Rodrick is spoiling the food we DO have
left. He drinks milk straight from the carton, so
there’s no way I’m gonna touch that now.
I’m actually kind of mad at Dad, because if it
wasn’t for him we’d have all the milk we wanted.
A few years ago I won a contest at the state
fair where you had to guess how much a baby goat
weighed, and the winner got to take it home. I
guessed the weight right, but Dad wouldn’t let me
have the goat. And if we’d had that goat I could
have had a glass of milk whenever I wanted.Mom found some burritos in the back of the
freezer last night and made them for dinner,
but they tasted funny, so I wouldn’t eat them.
Mom said I needed to eat SOMETHING, so I
had ketchup as my main course.
Manny didn’t seem to mind the burritos, but he’ll
eat just about ANYTHING as long as he’s got
his favourite condiment on it. When Sweetie lived
with us, he used to chew on the furniture, so we
sprayed it with this stuff called “Bitter Apple
Spray” that dogs can’t stand the taste of.Mom found some burritos in the back of the
freezer last night and made them for dinner,
but they tasted funny, so I wouldn’t eat them.
Mom said I needed to eat SOMETHING, so I
had ketchup as my main course.But, for whatever reason, Manny LOVES the
taste of Bitter Apple Spray, and to this day he
uses it on almost everything he eats.
Speaking of Sweetie, I got so hungry today that
I was seriously thinking about eating some of the
dog treats I’d found in the back of our pantry.
But Mom told me they have different standards for
making dog food than they do for people food, so
that stopped me from eating any, at least for now.
I can’t believe I’m practically starving here
while Sweetie is living the good life at Gramma’s,
enjoying her home-cooked meals.
I only have myself to blame about the food
situation, though. We had a bunch of canned
food until a week before Thanksgiving, but then
I gave almost ALL of it to the Food Drive at
school. I got rid of the things I don’t like to
eat, like yams and beets.But I’ll bet whoever got our rejects is having a
pretty good laugh about it right now.
I was starting to wonder whether toothpaste had
any nutritional value when I remembered I actually
DID have something edible in my desk drawer.
When Dad wouldn’t let me take the goat home
from the state fair, Mom got me a giant
gobstopper to make up for it. I spent the whole
autumn working on that thingI figure, if we DO run out of food in the house,
that gobstopper will help me survive at least
another week.
Tonight the electricity cut out for a few seconds
and then came back on. Mom said there was a lot
of ice on the power lines and we were probably
gonna lose our electricity at some point.
She said if that happened we needed to keep the
freezer door closed so the food inside didn’t thaw
out and get ruined. She also said we’d need to
keep the doors to the house shut so we didn’t lose
too much heat.Manny got REALLY upset, and whenever he
gets scared he hides in his room. One time when
Manny was younger, I told him a witch lived in
our basement, and he got really spooked. He went
missing for a few hours, but we eventually tracked
him down to his sock drawer.
Mom was right about the electricity, because
fifteen minutes after her prediction the power cut
off and didn’t come back on. She tried to call the
electric company, but her mobile-phone battery
was dead. Every hour the temperature dropped
another two or three degrees, and we had to get
a blanket to keep ourselves warm.
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