Jasper John Dooley, NOT in Love (4 page)

At lunchtime on Wednesday the boys were playing knights in their new way, behind the gym, with Jasper as the lookout. Jasper looked one way — no girls. He looked the other way — no girls. Then he turned to watch the terrible battle that was going on between Ori, the knight, and Leon, the dragon. But only for a minute. He had to keep looking out for the girls.

The next time Jasper turned to watch the battle, the dragon had managed to tear Ori's sword out of his hand. He broke it in three pieces. Now he crept toward Ori, flashing angry dragon eyes and roaring “Agh! Rawr! Grrr!” His claws reached for Ori, but instead of running away, Ori ran straight for the dragon and crashed into him. The dragon fell on his bum in the grass.

Ori used his next best weapon, his bare hands. Tickle-tickle! Tickle-tickle!

The dragon flopped down. Ori sat on his chest and let out a cheer.

At just that moment, just as Jasper was about to take his turn being a knight, two girls appeared. Zoë and Bernadette.

“Come on, Jasper! Let's go!”

“What?” Jasper cried as the girls grabbed him by the arms.

Ori and Leon jumped to their feet and rushed over. “Leave him alone!” Ori yelled. He and Leon tickled the girls so they had to give up Jasper.

But more girls showed up. They swarmed Jasper and started dragging him toward the back of the schoolyard where the bushes were. Leon and Ori tried to free Jasper by tickling all the girls, but there were just too many. As soon as one girl let go, another grabbed Jasper instead. It seemed like every girl from their class was there trying to steal Jasper. But Jasper noticed that one girl was missing.

And here she came. Jasper froze when he saw her. So did Ori and Leon.

Isabel was coming toward them with a crown of dandelions in her hair. She was riding on Rollo.

“Izzy!” Mandy called across the schoolyard. “I brought your lunch! Rollo can't run in the playground! Dogs aren't allowed at school!”

“Giddy up, Rollo,” Isabel said, and the dog began to bound toward the group of kids. Isabel held tight to his collar. The other girls all cheered and clapped. They weren't afraid of Rollo.

Leon was. He turned and ran into the gym.

Ori stepped in front of Jasper. “I'll protect you,” he said.

Just then Rollo stopped so suddenly Isabel nearly flew off his back. He'd found something to sniff. He pushed his big snout into the grass and turned so that his back was to Ori and Jasper. Whatever Rollo smelled made him so happy that his big waggy tail began slashing back and forth.

Thwunk!

It knocked Ori over. While he was still on the ground wondering what had hit him, Isabel jumped off Rollo's back.

Mandy arrived. “Are you all right?” she asked Ori, who nodded and sat up.

“Your mother isn't going to be very happy when she hears about this,” Mandy told Isabel. Isabel didn't answer. She was already leading Jasper away with the rest of the girls.

“Heel, Rollo,” Mandy said, taking the dog by the leash and leading him away like Jasper, but in the other direction.

The swarm of girls and Jasper passed Paul C. sitting at a picnic table. “Paul C.!” Jasper cried. “Help me!”

Paul C. looked up from his book, but he couldn't do anything.

The girls dragged Jasper all the way to the bushes at the back of the schoolyard where the playground monitor hardly ever went. “Stand beside me,” Isabel told Jasper. “Stop wiggling.” She wrapped her arm tight around Jasper's arm.

“Ouch!” he said.

She was a very strong girl. A strong, freckled girl with a dandelion crown drooping on her head.

Zoë stood in front of them, her hands pressed together like a book. She opened the book. Some of the other girls were giggling. Some were stripping leaves off the bushes and tossing them in the air so they fluttered down on Isabel and Jasper.

“What am I supposed to say?” Zoë asked Isabel.

“Say I love Jasper. Say we're getting married. And then ask Jasper if he takes me for his wife. That's what they say on TV. Jasper? When she says that? You have to say, ‘I do.'” She jabbed him with her freckly elbow.

Jasper frowned.

“Jasper,” Zoë said. “Isabel loves you. She never stops talking about you. Do you take her for your wife?”

He stood in the circle of girls, waiting for an idea. Hurry, hurry, he thought.

Isabel elbowed him again, and just then Jasper's knees gave out. He fell to the ground, almost pulling Isabel down with him.

“Wa-wa-wa-wa!” he cried, waving his arms and legs in the air. “Wa-wa-wa-wa!”

And then the bell rang.

After school, Mom talked to Mandy for a long time while Jasper and Ori waited at the corner of the schoolyard. Isabel didn't come over. She couldn't because Mandy was holding on to the collar of her shirt. Every time Isabel tried to sneak away, Mandy yanked her back.

“Do you want to come to my house?” Ori asked Jasper.

Jasper did, but he was afraid that Ori would ask about what had happened after Rollo knocked Ori over with his tail. Then he remembered it was Wednesday. On Wednesday Jasper always visited his Nan.

That's what he told Ori. “I have to go see my Nan. I'll come to your house tomorrow.”

“Did they make you play babies?” Ori asked.

“Yes!” Jasper lied.

“So all those girls are your mothers now?”

Jasper nodded. He would rather they be his mothers than be married to them!

Ori hung his head like a sad orphan nobody loved.

Jasper's Nan lived in an apartment not far from Jasper's house. On Wednesdays, when Jasper visited, they did so so many fun things together. They rode up and down the elevator making horrible faces in the mirrors on the walls. They played Go Fish for jujubes. They played Dress Up Nan.

Mom dropped Jasper off but didn't go in like she usually did. Nan was waiting for him in the jungly lobby.

“Your mom has a lot of work this week,” Nan said.

Jasper nodded. “And now she's writing a book, too.”

“She is?” Nan said. “She didn't tell me that.”

Nan remembered to let Jasper press the elevator button. She always remembered. As soon as they started going up, Nan pulled back her lips so all her teeth showed. She looked so so so ugly. When she was a girl a long time ago, the dentists weren't very good.

“Yuck!” Jasper said.

Now Jasper turned to face the mirror. He tucked in his chin and puffed his cheeks and crossed his eyes.

“Stop!” Nan cried. “You win!”

When they reached Nan's floor, Jasper pressed the button again. They rode right back down, making more horrible faces. Jasper won every contest except the last one, when Nan used her glasses. She smiled so that her cheeks lifted up. Then she pushed the frames of her glasses into the pillows of her cheeks. This made her eyes stretch down. She looked so so so so ugly!

Before they played Dress Up Nan and Go Fish for jujubes, Nan made Jasper a snack. She made him toast fingers and a soft-boiled egg. Jasper was allowed to put as much pepper on his egg as he wanted. He put so much on that it looked like he was dipping his toast fingers in dirt.

“I hear you have a new friend at school,” Nan said.

Jasper stubbed his toast finger in his cup of dirt, frowning.

Nan laughed. “That's an ugly face! You must really like her!”

“I don't!”

Nan loved to tell Jasper stories about when she was young. Today she told him about when she was a girl at school. “In art class, we used to draw with nib pens. Nib pens are pens you dip in ink. The ink came in bottles. Do you know how a girl knew that a boy liked her?”

“No,” Jasper said.

“When he dipped the ends of her pigtails in ink during art.”

“Did you get your pigtails dipped?” Jasper asked, dipping another toast finger.

“All the time. It made me so mad. I never liked those boys. I only liked the quiet boys who minded their own business. Of course, those boys never liked me. What's the name of the girl you don't like?”

Jasper said, “Isabel.”

“What don't you like about her?”

“She's too rough. I like playing quiet games like knights. I mind my own business with my friends at recess and lunch. I look for dragons.”

Nan nodded. “You're just the kind of boy for me.”

Later, after Dress Up Nan and Go Fish, Mom came to pick up Jasper. She rapped the jaws of Nan's lion's head knocker. When Jasper and Nan opened the door, Mom was standing in the hall writing in the little blue notebook.

“That's the book I was telling you about, Nan,” Jasper said. “The one Mom's writing.”

“Oh, I see!” Nan said, laughing. “What's it about?”

Mom finished writing and turned the book around to show them. It said:

Picked up Jasper from Nan's

Jasper read what was written just above that:

Set up playdate with Isabel

“What?!” Jasper cried. “I don't want any more playdates with her!”

Mom said, “I know you said that, but you looked like you were having so much fun.”

“I like her trampoline,” Jasper said. But he didn't like it enough to marry Isabel. “I don't want to go over there ever again.”

“That's okay, then,” Mom said. “Because Isabel is coming to our house.”