11

Well, I guess I took it too far, because the next day Mom came to school with that letter, demanding to speak to Curtis Litz. The secretary told Mom there was no student named Curtis Litz at the school, and when Mom asked me about him I said he must be homeschooled. After that I got kind of nervous, and for the next two weeks I had Rowley eat my apple at lunch and give me the core.

Mom seemed to forget all about it until we sat a row behind the Bartlemans at church one weekend. Their fifth-grade son, Tevin, looked just like my description of Curtis Litz, and he caught Mom's eye. Mom told Tevin's parents they're raising a rotten kid and that they owed her some apples. I felt pretty bad, because Tevin Bartleman is a nice kid and his family volunteers at the soup kitchen downtown every Saturday morning. Later on in the year Mom joined the Fundraising Committee, which was headed up by Mrs. Bartleman. It didn't take long for Mom to figure things out from there, and I lost TV privileges for a whole month as punishment.

But I actually ended up getting a DOUBLE punishment, because for the rest of that year, every time Tevin saw me in the hallway, he really let me have it. Last night Mom decided that my punishment for lying was for me to take THREE chores out of the Grab Bag every day this week. Unfortunately, she already cleared out all of Rodrick's slips of paper, which means there's no chance I'll get an easy one. EAT SOME ICE CREAM.

When we wrapped up our conversation last night, Mom said I'm a smart kid with a good imagination, but I just need to DO something with it. Listen, I'm not proud of myself for lying, but trust me, I'm not the ONLY one in this family who bends the truth. I've heard grown-ups lie ten times a week, but if you ask me I'll bet it's even MORE than that. The first time I remember Mom telling me a lie was when I was about three years old and she had me try broccoli. IT TASTES LIKE CANDY! And Mom doesn't seem to have any problem lying to MANNY, either.

Last December, when Mom put the gingerbread house out on the kitchen table, she told Manny not to touch it until Christmas or it would turn into a million spiders, which is kind of a crazy thing to tell a little kid. But it backfired when Manny fumigated the gingerbread house with a can of bug spray. Dad's a pretty honest guy in general, but even He fibs when it's convenient for him. Dad used to HATE it when the ice cream truck came through our neighborhood, because me and Rodrick would always start begging him for money as soon as we heard the music. So Dad told us the ice cream truck only plays music when they're OUT of ice cream.

I actually think lying might be inherited, because GRANDPA does it, too. But he should've gotten his stories straight with Dad, because Grandpa used to say the ice cream truck driver was a clown who spanked children he caught roaming around outside. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that when Grandpa first told me that, I actually BELIEVED him.