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Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl (also known as Party Time) is the second book of the Dork Diaries series. It was released on June 8, 2010.

Summary[]

Nikki Maxwell is hoping her crush, Brandon Roberts, will ask her to Halloween dance. But, she is heartbroken when she overhears her nemesis, MacKenzie Hollister, bragging that she and Brandon are going to the dance together.

Having nothing better to do on the night of the dance, Nikki reluctantly agrees to serve on the dance clean-up committee with her best friends, Chloe and Zoey, as well as help out a ballet class Halloween party for her little sister, Brianna.

Nikki is shocked when Brandon asks her to the dance and realizes that MacKenzie was lying. However, in spite of her prior commitments, Nikki agrees to dance with him and she ended up spending the evening juggling 2 events and wearing 3 costumes at the same time with hilarious results.

Synopsis[]

Friday, October 11

Nikki Maxwell is having a bit of a breakdown. Not only is she still locker neighbors with MacKenzie Hollister,but she also did something completely embarrassing around Brandon in biology class. She was waiting for him to ask her to the big Halloween Dance coming up, and when he was about to ask her, it turned out he asked her why their microscope was unplugged. This causes Nikki to run into the girls' bathroom and vent.

Saturday, October 12

Nikki is celebrating her victory for winning first place in the avant-garde art competition and enjoying the award banquet. She plans to use the money she won for art camp next summer to get her dream job of being a professional illustrator. Brandon takes a few shots of her with her prize while Zoey and Chloe do a little teasing in the background. Nikki tries to get Brandon to ask her to the dance but slips. MacKenzie comes by to (unwillingly) congratulate Nikki for winning and get Brandon to shoot photos of her piece before it's taken down.

Sunday, October 13

Nikki imagines what she could do with a love potion...with unfortunate side effects. Meanwhile, Brianna tries to scare Nikki with her toy spider until it's revealed that a real spider is in Nikki's room.

Monday, October 14

Nikki meets up with Zoey and Chloe who have exciting news. They tell her they're going to the Halloween dance and they have a plan to get dates. They'll say that their dates are the members of the band that will be performing there and sign up as members of the clean-up crew. Unsure of the possible results, Nikki suggests that they go as bags of trash. But her friends shoot it down. So, they end up signing up and find out that some students are signing up to be chairperson of the committee; specifically, one MacKenzie Hollister.

Tuesday, October 15

While Nikki is working as an LSA during 5th hour, she gets a call from her parents saying she has to go to a funeral for Wilbur Roach, the former president of the company Nikki's dad works for. At the funeral, Nikki gets an unexpected case of the hiccups.

Wednesday, October 16

At morning, Nikki's dad sees her mom relaxing with a mud mask and freaks out, which got her laughing. At school, she finds out that, unfortunately, MacKenzie was chosen to be the chairperson of the committee. At the committee's first meeting, MacKenzie invites everyone, including Nikki and her friends, to attend her rescheduled birthday party. She also comes up with a design for the clean-up crew's uniforms, which Nikki finds distasteful.

Thursday, October 17

Brianna is performing a ballet recital. Brianna doesn't like ballet, and neither does her sister Nikki. Nikki used to attend ballet class but dropped out. Brianna keeps getting sent home early for tampering with ballet equipment and blames it on Miss Penelope. At the recital, a fairy song starts to play and Brianna is paralyzed with fear of the tooth fairy possibly showing up. Mrs. Hargrove gives Brianna an invitation to a Halloween party at the petting zoo and Nikki a $150 paycheck to work on face paintings at the party because she heard about the tattoos Nikki did from her niece.

Friday, October 18

Nikki needs to talk to Brandon bad about the interview he wanted to do with her after winning the art competition. But to do that, she'll have to talk to him at MacKenzie's party. And she needs a new dress for the dance. She finds one at the mall and decides to use the money she got from that paycheck to buy it. Of course, getting it off the mannequin is a bit of a trial in and of itself.

Saturday, October 19

Nikki and her friends arrive at MacKenzie's party. First, they find a chocolate fountain and find Zoey and Chloe's crushes, Jason and Ryan, who ask the two to dance with them. Nikki encourages them and continues to stay by the fountain. MacKenzie and Jessica show up to greet Nikki. Jessica notices something on Nikki's plate only to then swat the plate out of her hand and get the chocolate and chocolate-covered fruit onto her new dress, meaning MacKenzie only invited Nikki to humiliate her. Nikki decides to leave, but not before the fountain gushes chocolate all over MacKenzie and Jessica. Just as Nikki waits for her mom to pick her up, Brandon comes by wanting to see what's wrong. Before he can get a word in edgewise, Nikki leaves and sees the hurt look on Brandon's face.

Sunday, October 20

After what happened last night, Nikki would rather not leave her room. Her mother comes by with a box her father found containing a Juliet dress. It looked beautiful, but Nikki decides not to wear it because she couldn't bare to wear it to the Halloween dance after what happened at MacKenzie's party. And she fears Brandon must not like her anymore.

Monday, October 21

MacKenzie is lying to everyone about how Nikki came by and ruined her birthday party. Chloe and Zoey want to know what's going on with Nikki and she explains it to them. After a good cry, they decide to resign from the clean-up crew.

Tuesday, October 22

Gym class is having gymnastics, and Nikki is doing her best to master it. After a few slow starts, she gets a B+. Later, it is time for another committee meeting. There, MacKenzie decides to resign from her position as chairperson because something happened to her. The other committee members outside the clean-up crew leave with her, leaving Nikki, her friends, Violet Baker, and Theodore L. Swagmire III as the only members left to put on the dance.

Wednesday, October 23

After having a nightmare that involved her melting into chocolate, Nikki waits for the other members of the committee that are left to talk about what they're gonna do about the dance. Brandon comes by and says he heard what happened. Nikki thinks he and MacKenzie could do something, but Brandon says he doesn't want to go with MacKenzie. The reason she resigned from her position and took everyone else with her is because Brandon turned down her invitation to the dance. He then asks Nikki if she'll go with him if the dance is still on, much to Nikki's delight. The dance still has a chance, but Nikki realizes all the things she's gonna have to do that night, such as work at the battle class's party, help the committee out, and hang out with her friends and date at the dance. Can she do it?

Thursday, October 24

Nikki is chairperson of the new committee. Violet will handle entertainment, Zoey has set-up, Chloe gets decorations, Theo is in charge of clean-up, and Nikki is working on publicity. They get one more new member named Jenny Chen to help out. Zoey and Chloe find out the hard way that Jason and Ryan asked two CCP girls to the dance, crushing their hearts. Nikki wanted to tell them that Brandon asked her to the dance, but now is not the best time. Nikki also flunks a geometry test. She remembers her old job as a sixth grade math tutor and how she got paid for helping them out. But her services proved to be less than satisfactory as all her clients flunked, so she gave their money back.

Friday, October 25

Nikki can't believe MacKenzie. When she resigned, she made sure everything was ruined. She had canceled any and all services previously hired for the dance. There are also no places in the school for them to have the dance. The committee can't get anything in time. They decide that they'll have to cancel the dance. Later, after school, Nikki rakes the leaves in the backyard, only for Brianna to jump into the pile afterward.

Saturday, October 26

Tired of Brianna waking her up in the middle of the night to help her go to the bathroom in fear of the tooth fairy being in there, Nikki decides to make her own fairy repellent so she can keep the tooth fairy away. She sprays Brianna's whole room. When their parents see this, Nikki says there was a really bad pest, assuming a bug, leaving them none the wiser.

Sunday, October 27

Mrs. Hargrove gives Nikki the art supplies for the ballet class's party and a costume courtesy of her niece, MacKenzie. Nikki realizes this is the aunt MacKenzie was talking about. The costume is a grody old rat suit. Nikki then remembers that the party is going to be at the petting zoo at the local zoo, so she gets an idea and calls Principal Winston to have the dance be at the zoo, and it is accepted. The dance is back on!

Monday, October 28

Nikki tells the committee that she got them a place for the dance and they plaster flyers all over the school. The other members of the committee manage to get other people to cater, decorate, perform, anything to help. Zoey says she's going as Beyoncé and Chloe is going as Sasha Silver, the character from the Canterwood Crest series. And Brandon is going as one of the three Musketeers. Now, the dance is saved. Nikki won't get to go trick-or-treating with Brianna this year, and she recalls former bully Chucky Reynolds getting his just desserts for stealing candy: a bucket of worms.

Tuesday, October 29

Nikki is in a real pickle now. She was finally gonna tell Zoey and Chloe about Brandon asking her to the dance, but she found out that they got trash bag costumes in place of the ones they were originally gonna wear. This was to show how bad they felt for their selfish demeanor and to thank her for saving the dance. Nikki accepts to go as that while wondering how she's gonna pull this off.

Wednesday, October 30

Nikki's dad is on a diet, and he has been sneaking snacks in the night and leaving them exposed, causing them to spoil. Meanwhile, Nikki still hasn't told her friends what she is gonna do and feels horrible about it.

Thursday, October 31

There's only one word Nikki can describe this night: UNBELIEVABLE! Nikki started her big operation by dressing up in the rat costume for the ballet class party. The costume is a little big, so she has to see through the nostrils of the mask. Brianna is the Easter Bunny. Some of the girls liked Nikki the rat while one cat girl was probably traumatized. She sneaks over to the dance and gets into her Juliet costume. Violet is the DJ playing music on her player. Nikki finds Brandon in his costume. Nikki notices Zoey and Chloe and runs back to the bathroom to change into her trash bag costume. After some time hanging out with them, she runs back to change into her rat costume and gets back to the ballet party and plays with the kids. The zookeeper takes the girls around for a tour of the animals, giving Nikki time to go back to the dance. She spends more time with Brandon as Juliet and her friends as the trash bag. She gets back to the party as her rat form and finds out she just has to give out goody bags as the parents had come to pick up their daughters. Just as she's about to go, she says something about going to see "his" cousin Mickey in Disney World, and Brianna wants to go. Nikki makes a plan to make the girls close their eyes while she counts to ten. She escapes and gets back to the dance only to find that MacKenzie is in the bathroom putting on her costume, which is a chic vampire. While still in her rat disguise, MacKenzie gets a little suspicious while Nikki sneaks into the stall and changes. When Nikki has her back turned, MacKenzie grabs her bag with her clothes and other costumes. Nikki decides to pursue and throttle MacKenzie in her rat disguise so no one would suspect it was her. She sneaks over to the table MacKenzie is at, which happens to be the one Brandon is at, and gets her bag back while she's not looking. Unfortunately, the ballet class finds Nikki and comes up to cuddle her. As Principal Winstone wonders what's going on, MacKenzie accuses the rat for everything and exposes Nikki right in front of everyone. Nikki had a lot of explaining to do to the parents, the ballet class, and her friends. She apologizes for what she had been doing and didn't want to hurt any of their feelings. She finds a park bench and sits alone where Brandon comes to comfort her by playing with the rat head she threw away. This cheers her up and Zoey and Chloe, still a little upset, tell Nikki that they could have helped her with all that she did tonight if she just asked. They get a picture of Nikki as Mr. Rat with the ballet class and send them to the parents. And the party continues with it only being halfway over. As for MacKenzie, not only is her plan foiled, but she also ends up using the "My date's a band member" tactic Zoey and Chloe considered using earlier...only to find out Theo is her so-called date. And Nikki enjoys the rest of the dance with Brandon.

Main characters[]

Minor characters[]

Back cover comic strip[]

Comic2

Editions[]

Trivia[]

  • This one of the least known dork diaries books Chloe and Zoey wanted to go to the Dance in plastic trash bag costumes.
  • Nikki went to the ball in her mother's Juliet costume.
  • Brianna's Halloween Party took place in the zoo.
  • MacKenzie invited the entire school (including Nikki, Chloe and Zoey) to her party.
  • In the previous book, the prize money for the art contest was $750. In this book, Nikki says it was $500.
  • It is hinted that Nikki hates Jessica Simpson, because her friends threatened her to force her listen to a CD of hers for two hours.
  • It is the only Dork Diaries book in the USA that has been published with two different cover arts.
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