Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley is a character from a real-life novel. He gets crushed with a bulletin board at night, which makes him as thin as paper hence able to fold himself, mail himself to his gramma and have his brother fly him as a kite. In the second grade Greg and his class each got a paper cut-out of him, which they had to color and send to a relative who lives far away and they have to take a photo of him in front of something. In The Long Haul, Susan takes a cutout with herself to take photos of it, but Greg doesn't like them and later it gets blown away. Susan had mailed it to her cousin Stacey in Seattle, who put him in a storage of newspapers and magazines.

The story gave Greg a "deathly fear" of bulletin boards. Not long after (presumably second grade) Rowley asks Greg if he wants to sleep in his bed, but the bulletin board above made him forfeit.

Trivia

 * Flat Stanley is a real life book series.
 * Jeff Kinney took a picture holding Flat Stanley.