Jasper John Dooley, NOT in Love

For Lucy H. — C.A.
 

Text © 2014 Caroline Adderson
Illustrations © 2014 Ben Clanton

ISBN 978-1-77138-167-3 (epub)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of Kids Can Press Ltd. or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit
www.accesscopyright.ca
or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Kids Can Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Media Development Corporation's Ontario Book Initiative; the Ontario Arts Council; the Canada Council for the Arts; and the Government of Canada, through the CBF, for our publishing activity.

www.kidscanpress.com

Edited by Sheila Barry and Yasemin Uçar
Designed by Marie Bartholomew

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Adderson, Caroline, 1963–, author
Jasper John Dooley not in love /
written by Caroline Adderson 
; illustrated by Ben Clanton. 


(Jasper John Dooley ; 3)

ISBN 978-1-55453-803-4 (bound)


I. Clanton, Ben, 1988–, illustrator II. Title. III. Series: Adderson, 
Caroline, 1963– . Jasper John Dooley ; 3.


PS8551.D3267J37 2014        jC813'.54        C2013-904117-6

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Jasper John Dooley and Ori were playing knights with Leon at lunch. They ran around in the bushes at the back of the schoolyard where the playground monitor couldn't see them. Jasper and Ori waved sticks. They chased Leon, who didn't have a stick. Chasing people with sticks wasn't allowed at their school. If a real dragon showed up, they probably wouldn't be allowed to chase it with sticks either. The principal would say it was Very Dangerous. Jasper and Ori ran after their dragon, but Leon was too fast. “Hey!” Jasper shouted. “Slow down or we'll never slay you!”

“What's slay?” Leon shouted back.

“Kill!” Ori shouted. “But when you're talking about dragons, you're supposed to say ‘slay'!”

Leon stopped running. Jasper caught up and flicked his stick across Leon's stomach. Leon let out a terrible roar.

“Sorry,” Jasper said.

Leon wrapped his arms around his middle. He crumpled on the ground, rolling around and roaring “Agh! Rawr! Grrr!”

Finally, he stopped. Jasper and Ori peered down. “Are you okay, Leon?”

“No,” Leon said. “I'm dead.”

Jasper laughed. “That's one dragon for me,” he told Ori. He told Leon, “You can get up now.”

Leon didn't get up. He lay there like he was really dead. Even when Jasper and Ori dropped their sticks and tickled Leon, he wouldn't stop being dead. Even when they said the playground monitor was coming over, Leon wouldn't get up. So Jasper and Ori ran off before the monitor got there and asked who slayed Leon.

They went to climb on the jungle gym for the last ten minutes of lunch. Zoë and Isabel were on the swings. As soon as they saw the boys, they wanted them to play babies. The two girls loved playing babies, but the two boys would only play if the girls had something to pay them with. Leftover Halloween candy was good, or cookies from their lunches.

“No cookies, no babies,” Jasper said.

Isabel smiled, showing she had no front teeth. From her pocket she took two small, square packets of jam like you get in restaurants.

“The thing is,” Ori said to Jasper, “I'd be a baby for jam.”

So would Jasper.

Isabel was always Ori's mother and Zoë was always Jasper's. The babies lay down in the grass and wa-wa-waed while the mothers went to collect food. Food was pinecones and twigs. The babies only got their candy or cookie at the end, for playing properly.

While Jasper and Ori were wa-wa-waing in the grass, the playground monitor came over and said, “I don't know what's going on today. There's another boy lying on the ground over there.” She pointed to the bushes at the back of the playground.

“Wa-wa-wa-wa!” the boys cried so she wouldn't ask who slayed Leon.

A few minutes later the two mothers showed up with pinecones. They got down on their knees and hauled their babies onto their laps. Jasper hated this part.

“Wa-wa-wa-wa!” he cried. “Wa-wa-wa-wa!”

Zoë pushed a pinecone in Jasper's face. He was supposed to pretend to eat it. Ori was pretending, but Jasper got an idea. “I want my jam now,” he said.

“No. You'll run away,” Zoë said.

“I won't. I'll run away if you
don't
give me my jam.”

Zoë took a jam packet from Isabel. She said she would feed it to Jasper. She peeled off the cover and used a twig as a spoon. Jasper opened his mouth and ate a twigful of the sweet jam. Like a real baby, he grabbed the twig and smeared jam around his mouth. Then he said, “Do you see what's on my face?”

“Jam,” Zoë said.

“No, it's blood,” Jasper said. “I'm a bad baby!”

Ori jumped up, too, and said, “We're bad, bad babies!”

The girls screamed and ran away. And then the bell rang.

After lunch, Ms. Tosh asked everybody to get together with their reading buddies. Jasper and Ori were reading buddies. They were reading buddies, knights, friends and neighbors. Ori lived across the alley and one house down from Jasper.

Before anybody else could, Jasper and Ori dove into the Book Nook at the back of the classroom and stretched out on the cozy pillows.

“You read first,” Ori said.

Jasper grabbed a book. But instead of reading out loud to Ori, he started chewing on the book. “I'm still a bad baby,” he told Ori. “And I eat books.”

“Don't,” Ori whispered. “Stop.”

Leon, who wasn't dead anymore, turned around at his table. When he saw Jasper eating his book, he laughed and pointed so that everybody in the class turned to look.

Ms. Tosh didn't laugh. She said, “Ori, go read with Zoë. Jasper, you read with Isabel.” She said it in a way that made both boys obey her right away.

“Just for today, right?” Jasper said.

“Until I say so,” Ms. Tosh said.

At least Jasper got to stay in the cozy Book Nook. Isabel came over and plopped down on the pillow beside him with her legs stretched out. She was a very freckly girl. She even had freckles on her legs.

“You read first, Jasper John,” she said, smiling and showing the no-teeth space in her mouth.

Jasper's book was about a dog that could skateboard. As soon as he started reading, he was interested. Isabel was interested, too. Jasper knew she was interested because as he read, Isabel leaned in close to him. She leaned so close Jasper could smell her. She smelled like strawberries.

He thought she was trying to see the page he was reading. Maybe she needed glasses, because she leaned in close enough to —

“Yuck!” Jasper roared when he felt Isabel's wet tongue on his cheek. “Yuck!”

And Ms. Tosh said, “Jasper John Dooley! You've disrupted us enough for one day!”