Jasper John Dooley, NOT in Love (5 page)

Every Thursday at school, the Star of the Week presented his or her talent. Margo was the Star that week, and her talent was crocheting potholders. She stood at the front of the class pulling potholder after potholder out of a big bag. She passed them around. All the potholders were orange.

“This is the first one I made. As you can see, it's not very square,” Margo said. “Now I'm going to show you how I crochet a potholder. When I finish, I'm going to ask you which potholder is your favorite.”

Out of the bag came a ball of orange wool and a stick with a hook on the end. Margo tied a loop at the end of the ball of wool and attached it to the stick. She wiggled the stick around.

Jasper couldn't really see what she was doing because his table was at the back of the classroom. Anyway, it didn't seem interesting. When Jasper was the Star of the Week, he'd drunk a lot of water and jumped around making sloshing music with his stomach. As soon as he thought of that, he remembered the trampoline and the soaring-through-the-air-stomach-flip-floppy feeling that he loved and would never feel again. Not until he saved three million dollars. It made him so sad and watery that when somebody passed him a potholder, he used it to wipe his eyes.

“Does anybody have a question for Margo?” Ms. Tosh asked.

“I haven't finished crocheting my potholder,” Margo said.

“I think we'll have question time while you are crocheting, Margo. Otherwise it will take too long.”

Isabel's hand shot in the air.

Ms. Tosh said, “Isabel, did you have a question for Margo?”

“I just wanted to say that I have a playdate with Jasper John after school today. I'm going to his house. He came to my house twice, and now I'm going to his.”

Jasper slithered down as far as he could in his chair. He piled three potholders on his face.

“Thank you for that information, Isabel. But now we're talking about Margo's talent.”

Ori, at the table next to Jasper's, whispered across to him, “I thought you were coming to my house!”

Jasper tore the potholders off his face. “I want to come to your house! I didn't ask her for a playdate! My mom did. She said I had to invite her because I went to her house twice.”

“You're in love,” Ori sniffed.

“I'm not!” Jasper said.

“And the thing is? You used to be a knight.”

Ms. Tosh said, “Can the boys at the back of the room please stop whispering?”

Everybody in the class thought Jasper and Isabel were going to get married. Half the class, all the girls, had seen them almost get married. Now everybody in the class knew that Isabel was coming to Jasper's house after school. They probably thought that Jasper would get married to Isabel then.

During math, Jasper spent most of his time making a sign. It looked like this:

He would have to get home first, before Isabel, and tape the sign to his door.

Because he was making his sign, Jasper didn't finish his math worksheet. Ms. Tosh made him stay in at recess until it was done. By the time he got outside, recess was half over. He had to run all over the playground looking for Leon and Ori, who were playing knights somewhere where the girls couldn't find them. When Jasper finally spotted them on the hopscotch court, he got a big surprise.

Ori was the dragon. Leon was chasing him around waving a stick. Leon was always the dragon because he was the best at being dead. But now he was a knight. And so was Paul C.

“Paul C.?” Jasper said. “What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here, Jasper?” Paul C. asked. “I thought you were playing babies with the girls.”

“I wasn't!” Jasper cried. “I was finishing my math!”

“That math was so easy,” Paul C. said, waving his stick and running off.

Easy for Paul C.! Jasper ran with him, because he was chasing Ori. “Ori!” Jasper called. “I can play, too, right? I'm still a knight, right?”

“Agh! Rawr! Grrr!” Ori said, running right past Jasper.

And then the bell rang.

Jasper was so so so so mad at Isabel. So so so so so so mad! He came out of school at the end of the day, and instead of going over to where Mom stood with Isabel and Ori, he stomped ahead to the corner of the schoolyard and waited there with his arms crossed tight.

Isabel skipped along beside Mom and Ori. She chattered away. “You're not coming to Jasper John's house, too, are you, Ori? I thought it was just me and Jasper. I like to have Jasper all to myself. We do lots of things.”

“What things?” Ori asked.

“Jasper really liked it when I brushed his hair,” she said. “I put lipstick on him, too.”

Mom said, “Did you want to come over, Ori? I think Jasper would really like that.”

“The thing is, I don't like hair brushing or putting on lipstick,” Ori said. “So, no thank you.”

Jasper couldn't even look at Ori. He was so so so so so embarrassed.

“Jasper,” Mom said. “Why did you go ahead like that?”

Jasper didn't answer.

“Jasper?” Mom said. “Hello?”

“Agh! Rawr! Grrr!” Jasper said.

Isabel laughed and laughed, showing the empty space in her mouth. Then she tried to take Jasper's hand. He stuffed both of them under his arms and turned away.

They all crossed the street together — Mom, Jasper, Ori and Isabel.

“What are we going to do at your house, Jasper? We can play babies. We can play with your toys,” Isabel chattered. “We can brush hair again. I think it's boring, but I'll do it because you like it.”

Ori turned and headed down the alley to his house. He didn't say good-bye, and neither did Jasper.

Mom said, “My goodness, Isabel. These boys seem really grumpy.”

“They're always like that,” Isabel said. “I'm used to it.”

Jasper remembered his sign then and bolted ahead to get home first. But the door was locked, so he couldn't go in and get the tape. Instead, he took the sign out of his backpack, uncrumpled it and stood by the door holding it up.

Mom and Isabel arrived a few minutes later. When Isabel saw Jasper's sign, she clapped her hands. “Is that a picture of me, Jasper? Can I keep it? I want to keep it. I'll put it on my wall.”

Mom didn't like the sign as much as Isabel. She unlocked the door and asked Isabel to go ahead inside and make herself at home. “Jasper will be right there,” she said. She closed the door again and crossed her arms the way Jasper had crossed his before he needed them to hold up the sign.

“Jasper John Dooley,” Mom said. “Isabel is your guest. You will be as nice to her as she was to you when you were a guest at her house. Do you understand?”

“I don't like her!” Jasper said. “Dad said I would start to like her more and more, but I don't. I like her less and less. I'm not a knight anymore because of Isabel! Paul C. took my place, Mom. Paul C.!”

“That's no reason not to have good manners. If you don't make her welcome, you can forget about ever getting a trampoline for your birthday,” Mom said.

After she said that, she turned the color of jam.

“Am I getting a trampoline for my birthday?” Jasper asked.

Mom said, “That depends.”

Suddenly Jasper liked Isabel. He liked her a lot! Because if he had never gone over to her house, he would never have jumped on a trampoline and felt that soaring-through-the-air-stomach-flip-floppy feeling that was the best feeling he'd ever had. And if he had never had that feeling, he would never have asked for a trampoline, which he didn't have to save three million dollars for anymore. All because of Isabel! He just had to be nice to her until Mandy came to pick her up!

He threw himself at Mom and hugged her. “I love you so so so so much!”

That was a good feeling, too. The flip-floppy-I-really-love-you feeling he felt right then.

“Thank you,” Mom said, laughing.

Jasper burst inside. “Isabel? Where are you?”

Isabel was in the living room jumping on the sofa.

“Oh,” Jasper said. “I don't think you should do that. It's not allowed.”

“I jump on the sofa at my house,” Isabel said, jumping even higher.

“You should stop before my mom sees you. Let's go to my room and jump on the bed.”

“Okay!” Isabel yelled. She took a flying leap over the side table, almost knocking the lamp to the floor.

In Jasper's room, Isabel ran all around looking at everything. “Is this your desk?” she asked.

Jasper wondered who else's desk it could be. It was in
his
room. Before he could say this, Isabel dashed to his bookshelf and started pulling out books and lifting down his soccer trophies.

“What's this, Jasper? What's in this box?” Isabel asked, grabbing his lint collection off the shelf.

“Careful with that!”

Jasper lunged for the box and took it from her before she spilled out his lint.

“What is it? What is it? What is it?” she asked.

Jasper was surprised she didn't know. He'd brought his lint collection to school when he was Star of the Week. Now he took it over to the bed. Isabel sat beside him and watched as he carefully unlatched the lid.

“Oh, right!” Isabel said. “I remember.”

His Nan had given this box to him. It was a jewelry box, but Jasper wasn't using it for jewelry. It was for lint.

The biggest compartments in the jewelry box were packed with plain gray dryer lint. Lint with colored flecks went in another compartment. There was a compartment for pocket lint, too, and a very special compartment that had only a tiny bit of lint in it. That kind of lint was rare and hard to collect. It was belly-button lint. The only place Jasper could get belly-button lint was from his dad.

Jasper explained all this again to Isabel. She seemed interested because, as he explained the different compartments, she gasped.

But she wasn't gasping. She was taking a huge gulp of air. With the huge gulp of air puffing out her cheeks, she leaned over his lint collection.

“No!”

Jasper slammed the lid closed before she could blow all the lint out of the box.

He pulled his desk chair over to his bookshelf and stood on it so he could put his collection on the top shelf. He was so so so so mad again.

“Okay! Let's jump!” Isabel said, standing on the bed.

Jasper remembered the trampoline he was going to get for his birthday if he was nice to Isabel until her nanny picked her up. When he remembered, he wasn't mad anymore. He jumped on the bed with Isabel until she said, “This is boring.”

“What do you want to do instead?” Jasper asked.

“Let's wrestle!”

“Hey!” Jasper cried as Isabel pulled him down by the leg.

She sat on his back and bounced up and down, making the air
pfft-pfft-pfft
out of him and not come back in. Jasper knew then that he would never get a trampoline.
Pfft-pfft-pfft!
He would never get a trampoline because he couldn't —
pfft-pfft-pfft!
— be nice to Isabel until her nanny picked her up.

He'd be dead by then.

Jasper thought of Ms. Tosh. How did she keep not only Isabel but all the kids in the class from throwing books on the floor and bouncing on each other?

She did it by talking to them in a voice they had to obey.

“Isabel!” Jasper said. “You've disrupted us enough for one day!”

And Isabel stopped.

Jasper sat up and breathed some air. What else? What else did Ms. Tosh do to keep control?

She gave seatwork.

Jasper pointed to the chair. “Isabel? Will you please sit down?”

Isabel sat on the chair. Jasper got up and cleared space on his desk, which was piled with toys. On the bookshelf, he found some puzzle books. “Here. Do this page.”

He tapped the book twice with his finger, the way Ms. Tosh did, so that Isabel would focus.

“Okay,” she said. “Do you have a pencil?”

Jasper couldn't find a pencil anywhere. “You stay in your seat, Isabel,” he said, backing out of the room.

“I will,” Isabel promised.

He ran to the kitchen, where there were pens in a jar by the phone. He was surprised that Isabel was still in the chair when he got back. She took the pen and started on the crossword puzzle. Jasper opened another puzzle book and sat on the bed to connect the dots.

“Done!” Isabel sang before Jasper had even connected half the dots.

He got up to check her work. Isabel had filled the little squares like this:

Isabel asked, “Do you know what
X
and
O
mean, Jasper?”

“No,” Jasper said.

“
X
is a kiss.
O
is a hug.”

“What letter is a lick?” Jasper asked.

“A lick?” Isabel laughed. “Jasper John, you're so funny!” She snatched Jasper's puzzle book out of his hand. “Connect-the-dots! I love connect-the-dots! Connect my dots, Jasper.”

She held out her arm.

“Okay,” Jasper said.

They sat on the floor together. Jasper put the tip of his pen on one freckle and drew a straight line to another. He had no idea what he was drawing. He was just connecting Isabel's dots. Soon he saw a picture coming.

“A sailboat!” Isabel sang. “You're good at drawing, Jasper. Draw a dog on this arm. Draw Rollo.”

She held out her other arm and Jasper connected the dots to make a dog.

Isabel laughed. Jasper laughed. Then Isabel stretched out on the floor so Jasper could connect more of her dots. She had so so so many dots on her stomach.

The doorbell rang. Mom didn't hear it from the basement, so Jasper went to answer it. Isabel followed him.

“Where's your mom?” she asked.

“She's working.”

“What does she do?”

“Right now she's writing a book,” Jasper said.

“A book! What kind of book? A kids' book?”

“A small, blue book.”

Jasper opened the door. It was Mandy. “Already?” he said.

“It's five thirty,” Mandy said. Then she turned to Isabel. “Izzy! Look at you! Your mother isn't going to be very happy. You'd better have a bath as soon as you get home.”

“Do you want to have a playdate tomorrow, Jasper?” Isabel asked him. “This was fun!”

Jasper laughed because she looked so so so funny with a cat on her forehead and its tail hanging down her nose. There was a flower on one cheek and a bird on the other. Her arms and legs were doodle pads. And so was her stomach under her shirt.