Cabin Fever

Greg’s mom finds some old toys and games in the basement for entertainment, including an old magic set. Greg manages to trick Manny into thinking that there is a hole in the table, but when Manny tries the same trick on his mom’s glasses, she is left without the ability to see properly for days. She makes Greg and Rodrick responsible for Manny, but Rodrick makes an excuse about doing homework and disappears, leaving Greg to deal with Manny alone. Greg has to serve Manny cereal in a specific way and entertain him while he uses the bathroom, among other things. He reflects that Manny seems to have his parents under his control, which calls their authority and good sense into question. For example, Manny throws a tantrum one day when Greg puts the mustard on his ketchup the wrong way (vertically rather than horizontally), and by this point, Greg has begun to wish that he would get a letter from a school for magic and be sent away, just like Harry Potter.

Greg goes down to the basement to wake up Rodrick and discovers that the entire basement is flooded. Lots of family belongings have been destroyed, but Greg is grateful for the destruction of some particularly embarrassing memories, including a calendar of his bed-wetting when he was eight. There is also a fifth-grade yearbook in which Greg was the only student to choose a photo of himself sitting on a tree branch, instead of the usual headshot. Greg is sad to see that his mom’s scrapbooks are getting wrecked, although those also contain some embarrassing moments, such as a picture of Greg crying in the middle of a pony ride. Rodrick sleeps through the flood, and Greg’s dad relaxes in the pool at his hotel. The worst part is that Rodrick has to move upstairs to Greg’s room until the flood damage is fixed.

Greg thinks that sharing a room with Rodrick is horrible because Rodrick is messy, gross, and moves all of his belongings in, as though Greg’s room is his own space. Greg even puts on Rodrick’s dirty underwear one day by accident. Greg goes downstairs to see if anything can be saved from the flood and finds his old Alfrendo doll, which is now wet, old, and gnawed through by mice. He is glad to know that he never actually lost the doll, but he figures that his dad must have hidden it when Greg wasn’t paying attention.

The family starts to run low on food, and Greg even considers eating dog food at one point. He remembers winning a goat at the state fair one year, but his parents didn’t let him take the goat home. Greg knows that the goat would have come in handy now. He also regrets giving away all the old canned food to the local food drive. Greg ends up living off an old jawbreaker candy.

Greg’s mom says that the power might go out, and a few minutes later, it does. Manny is hiding in his room, and Greg huddles under a blanket with Rodrick and their mom as the house’s temperature drops. They endure an entire day and night of increasing cold and hunger.

Greg loses his doll again, but he isn’t as sad about it the second time. His mom makes him take an ice-cold shower, and he dries off with some gauze. Later, Greg hears a knock at the door and finds Rowley standing outside. Rowley has cookies and asks Greg to come out and play, but Greg is freezing and can’t imagine going outside. Rowley says that the power is working fine in his house and all the neighbors’ houses, which makes Greg suspicious. He checks the circuit board and discovers that every panel is turned off except for the one for Manny’s bedroom. He investigates further and finds Manny sitting in his well-heated room, surrounded by lost items such as the Alfrendo doll, Greg’s jawbreaker, and the Christmas elf.

Thankfully, the roads are soon cleared, and Greg’s dad comes home with food for everyone, and then takes Greg’s mom to get new glasses. Greg is tasked with taking a gift to the church's toy donation bin. While there, he decides to check for the cash that he requested at the giving tree. Greg shovels out the walk in search of the recycling bin, but when he eventually finds it, there’s nothing underneath. When he gets home, the police are there, and Greg is afraid that he is about to be arrested, but he relaxes when he realizes that they’re just collecting toy donations.

On Christmas morning, Greg wakes up to a heated house and promises never to take food for granted again. Greg’s mom has put all the gifts in garbage bags and lets the kids dig through them, which isn’t as magical as opening them under the tree, but Greg is still grateful. His mom also surprises him with a legitimately signed copy of Tower of Druids, but the author got his name wrong, calling him “Craig.” Afterward, the family goes to church together, and Greg is so overdressed that he sweats profusely during the sermon. 

The newspaper publishes a story about a local boy who selflessly shoveled out the church walkway before the Christmas soup kitchen, and a photo of Greg in a ski mask is posted next to the article. Although helping the church was never Greg’s intention, he happily takes credit and publishes his response in The Neighborhood Tattler, revealing himself to be “the masked hero” responsible for the shoveled walkway (217).