The Dirt Diary by Anna Staniszewski Read Free Book Online

go to grab my journal and almost shriek when I see tons of little neon tabs sticking out of it. I flip it open, and sure enough, Mom went through and labeled all my recipes. As if that’s not bad enough, she tried to put the recipes into categories, ones that are completely wrong. And she used the permanent kinds of tabs that’ll rip the pages if I try to take them off. It’s like someone taking a Bible and drawing on it with glitter paint.
    When I flip to the “Dirt Diary” part, I almost shriek all over again as I remember what I wrote about how cute Evan Riley is. I expect there to be a tab with “Rachel’s Crush” scribbled on it, but I guess I’m in luck because the pages are untouched. Thank goodness I wrote down my notes in the very back of the notebook where Mom wouldn’t think to look.
    “Mom!” I yell. “Mom, come here!”
    She comes running, clearly thinking there’s a fire or something. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
    “How could you do this?” I say, holding up the journal. I’m so mad that my hands are shaking.
    She looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “What do you mean? I just organized it for you. It should make things easier now.”
    “Easier? You messed it up! You had no right to take my personal property!”
    “Oh really, Rachel. You’re being so melodramatic about this. It’s just some recipes.”
    “Not just some recipes, Mom. My recipes. My life is in here!”
    She rolls her eyes. “Fine, that’s the last time I do you a favor. Now finish getting ready and come eat breakfast.”
    As I hear her go down the hall, my whole face is throbbing like it might explode. I suck in a few breaths, trying to calm down. I wish more than anything that Dad were here. He’d wrap me up in a hug and tell me he’d find a way to make things better. Then again, if Dad hadn’t left, Mom would never have attacked my journal in the first place.
    I let out a sputtering sigh and carefully put my journal down like it’s a burn victim, hoping Marisol might be able to figure out a way to fix it. When I stomp into the kitchen to grab some cereal, Mom’s sipping coffee and looking at house listings online.
    “Before I forget, we have a couple new cleaning jobs,” she says, all calm and normal as if nothing happened. “So have your homework done and be ready to go when I get home from work tonight.”
    “Tonight? I thought we were just going to do weekends.”
    “We were, but I can’t say no to new clients. You don’t have anything else going on Thursday nights, right?”
    That’s not exactly true. They always replay episodes of Pastry Wars on Thursdays, and I like to study the episodes to see what wisdom I can get out of them. But that doesn’t mean anything to Mom except time away from my schoolwork. Anyway, more houses equal more money.
    “Whose places are we doing?” I ask, expecting her to list more names of kids I know.
    And sure enough, she says: “The Singhs’. Their sons go to your school. They’re twins.”
    I nod. The Singh twins are a year younger than me, but since they’re the only pair of completely identical twins in the entire school, everyone knows who they are. Luckily, I’m almost positive they have no idea who I am, so hopefully I can get in and out of there unscathed.
    “And also Robert Hammond’s house,” Mom adds.
    I almost spit out a bite of cereal. “Robert Hammond as in my vice principal?”
    “It’s funny how things work out,” Mom says, sitting down beside me at the table. “He called me to talk about you last night, and somehow we got on the topic of cleaning.”
    Oh, holy mango sorbet. “Mr. Hammond called you about me? What did he say?” I can just imagine him telling Mom all about my wardrobe malfunction and emotional meltdown in the hallway.
    She laughs at what must be total terror on my face. “Don’t look so worried, Rachel. I guess he heard our family was going through a rough patch, and he wanted to see if there was anything he could do to