Public Library Enemy #1 Read online

  Baskets, bird feeders, pencil holders, mobiles, penguins, sheep, spiders, dragons, race cars, binoculars, Christmas crackers, hanging lanterns, napkin rings …

  “I could make a lint holder,” Jasper said. “I could make you a golf-ball holder.”

  “Sorry,” Dad said, looking from the TV to Jasper. “What did you say?”

  “What do you want to learn how to make?” Jasper showed him the book.

  “Whatever you want,” Dad said.

  “I got this book to practice my reading skills with Molly, the grumpy dog at the library,” Jasper told Dad. “She’s going to love this book when I go back to read it to her. She’ll be happy it’s not about ballerinas or bulldozers.”

  Jasper put a pillow in his lap. “The best way to practice your reading skills is with a dog in your lap, but we don’t have one, so I’m going to read to you and this pillow about how to make a spider out of a toilet-paper tube.”

  “Hold on,” Dad said.

  On the TV, a man in a pink shirt tapped the ball into a hole. “Yes!” Dad said. Then he turned to Jasper. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “Materials,” Jasper began.

  He read the list of things you needed to make a spider out of a toilet-paper tube: scissors, glue, construction paper, pipe cleaners, felt pens, tape, string. When he had finished reading the list, he read the instructions. Then he looked at Dad.

  Now Dad was watching a man in a yellow shirt tap the ball into a hole. He hadn’t listened to a word Jasper had read. Jasper closed the book.

  “Finished?” Dad asked. “Good job, Jasper.”

  “Really?” Jasper snatched up the tip jar and hoped. But instead of tipping Jasper for his reading, Dad told him it was time to get ready for bed.

  Jasper shuffled off. The tip jar was no more jangly than it had been before he read to Dad.

  In the bathroom, Jasper set the book about toilet-paper-tube crafts on the edge of the tub and turned on the water. He added a big squirt of bubble bath. Mom always read in the bath. It was her favorite place to read. Usually Jasper played or piled bubbles on his head and sculpted them into horns. But tonight he was more interested in toilet-paper tubes. He checked how much toilet paper was left on the roll — lots — then undressed and stepped into the tub. He lifted one leg over the side into the hot bubbly water, then the other, so so so carefully, so he wouldn’t get the book wet.

  Jasper sat down, but when he reached for the book, his hands were wet. If he read the book with wet hands, the pages would get wet and wavy. They might even stick together. If that happened, the library might make him pay for the book. It had happened once, the time Mom forgot her book outside on a lawn chair and it rained.

  So so so carefully, Jasper stepped out of the tub to dry his hands on the towel. So so so carefully, he got back in, lifting one leg over the edge, then the other.

  Bloop!

  Jasper screamed.

  Chapter 4

  Dad burst into the bathroom. By then Jasper had scooped up the book and was standing in the tub holding it, both Jasper and the book dripping with water and bubble bath suds.

  “I was so so so careful!” Jasper wailed.

  “Don’t worry, Jasper. It’ll be fine,” Dad said. “I know just what to do.”

  “What?”

  “It’s wet, isn’t it? We just have to dry it. Finish your bath then put on your pajamas.”

  Dad hurried away with the dripping book.

  Jasper dried himself off and dressed for bed. He found Dad in the kitchen staring through the oven window the way he’d stared at the TV. The book was lying open on the top rack.

  “You’re cooking it?” he asked Dad.

  “I thought of putting it in the clothes dryer, but that would make things worse. Do you want some nachos? The oven’s on.”

  Jasper said yes.

  “Okay. You keep watch. Tell me if you smell smoke.”

  Dad poured tortilla chips into a pan. He took the cheese from the fridge and grated it. It fell like orange snow onto the chips.

  “Don’t watch me,” Dad told Jasper. “Watch the book.”

  “Right!” Jasper turned back to the oven window. After a minute, he thought of something. “Shouldn’t we turn the pages? They might stick together.”

  Dad clapped his hand across his forehead. “Jasper John, you astound me! I didn’t think of that. Open the oven.”

  Jasper pulled the door open, and Dad slid the pan of nachos in next to the book. Then he turned a page.

  “Keep watching,” he told Jasper on his way back to the living room.

  Jasper watched. The pages already looked wavy. After a minute, he called, “The pages are getting wavier! And the cheese is melting!”

  “Don’t worry about the pages,” Dad called back. “We’ll iron them later!”

  “The cheese is bubbling!” Jasper called. “And we need to turn the page!”

  Dad came back and put on an oven mitt. Jasper opened the door for him to take out the nachos. The hand not wearing the big, clumsy oven mitt turned a page in the book.

  “Looking good,” he said. “We’ll lower the temperature a bit. Can you get the salsa? And the sour cream?”

  Jasper climbed onto an open bottom drawer so he could reach the bowls in the cupboard. He spooned out the salsa and the sour cream then carried the two bowls to the table. They sat down to eat the nachos.

  The cheese stretched so so far off his chip trying to stay with the rest of the cheese. But it didn’t unstick from the chip.

  “Does cheese have glue in it?” Jasper asked.

  Dad scooped some salsa onto his chip. “It doesn’t, but that’s an interesting idea, Jasper. If there were cheese glue, you could glue different foods together before you eat them.”

  As they ate, they talked about the best foods to glue with cheese glue. Broken crackers could be glued back together.

  “Or broken celery sticks”, Dad said.

  “Yuck,” said Jasper. “You could glue down pepper. So you don’t breathe it in by accident and —”

  Jasper was going to say “sneeze,” but just then a so so so so loud BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!! interrupted him. He and Dad jumped right out of their chairs.

  Thick black smoke was pouring from the oven.

  “FIRE!!!” Dad and Jasper yelled.

  Dad ran for the fire extinguisher in the cupboard. Jasper kept on yelling, “FIRE!!! FIRE!!! FIRE!!!” and the smoke alarm kept on shrieking BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!

  “Open the back door, Jasper! Open the window!”

  BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!

  Jasper raced to the door and flung it open. Dad yanked out the pin on the fire extinguisher. He crouched low with the extinguisher under his arm and moved toward the oven like he was sneaking up on it.

  “Be careful, Dad!” Jasper shouted over the BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!

  Dad pulled open the oven. More and more smoke poured into the room. When the worst of it had cleared, they could see the book. Flames were gobbling up its pages.

  “Dad, shoot!” Jasper yelled. “Shoot!”

  Dad aimed the nozzle and fired. The book, hidden by smoke a moment before, disappeared again in the white spray of the fire extinguisher. Jasper and Dad coughed and coughed.

  BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!

  When the spray cleared, Dad said, “Phew. That was a close one.”

  Jasper peered in at the book and cringed.

  “We put out the fire, Dad. But I think we killed the book.”

  They opened all the doors and windows. They waved tea towels around. Finally, the alarm stopped. Dad found some air-freshener spray and sprayed it all around.

  But the house still smelled of smoke when Mom got home.

  “What burned?” she asked first thing.

  “We made nachos,” Dad said.

  Jasper was already in bed, listening to Mom and Dad talking in the hall. When Mom came into Jasper’s room to say good night, she asked, “What did you and Dad do?”

  �
��Nothing.” Jasper pulled the covers up to his eyes.

  “That sounds like fun.”

  Mom laughed. She kissed his forehead, then left him lying in the dark thinking about the “nothing” that had happened. How the book had blooped as it sank under the water. Jasper had thought he’d killed the book then, but he hadn’t. It hadn’t even died when it caught on fire. Not until Dad shot it. Then Dad flung it, all wavy and burned and covered in foam, out the back door.

  Nobody would ever read that book again.

  Chapter 5

  At breakfast the next day, Jasper made himself a piece of toast while Dad made Jasper’s lunch.

  “Where’s the book now?” Jasper asked.

  “It’s still in the backyard,” Dad said. “We’ll dispose of it on the way to school.”

  The toast popped and Jasper carried it to the table. “What do you mean, ‘dispose of it’?”

  “Get rid of it. We should hurry or you’ll get the lates, Jasper.”

  Jasper buttered and jammed his toast. Usually, he liked spreading the jam in stripes, using different kinds of jam. Stripes kept the flavors separate. Today, though, he picked just blueberry, gulped down his toast and ran to get dressed. They left by the back door. Jasper followed Dad, who was carrying an empty plastic bag.

  The book was lying face down in the grass. It was black with an ugly white crust sticking to it. When they got closer, the stinky smell of it made Jasper yuck and plug his nose.

  “We’re going to have to pay for it now,” he said.

  Jasper bent over the book and looked for a price. It was hard to read what was written there because the cover was so burned. Jasper got down on his hands and knees. He saw a two and a five and two zeros. He gagged and scrambled to his feet again.

  Dad said, “They’ll send us a bill at some point. Keep an eye on the mail. If you see something from the library, bring it to me. I’ll take care of it.”

  “The time Mom left her book out on the lawn chair and it rained? She didn’t wait for the bill. She took the book back to the library the next day and paid for it. I went with her.”

  “Jasper, it’s one thing to show up with a book that got left out in the rain. It’s another to show up with this.” Dad picked up the book and held it in front of Jasper’s face. Jasper stepped back. The book looked so so so horrible and smelled so so so sour and burned!

  “If the librarians saw that book, we’d have to tell them that we drowned it, then set it on fire, then shot it with the extinguisher.”

  “Exactly, Jasper.”

  “We’re Book Killers,” Jasper said.

  Dad laughed, but Jasper didn’t. He said, “Mom paid right away because she didn’t feel good about using the library when she’d ruined a book. That’s what she said.”

  “I wouldn’t feel good about bringing this book into the library,” Dad said. He dropped it in the plastic bag. The hand that had held the book was smeared with horrible black stuff. He wiped it on the grass.

  Dad walked over to the garbage bin that stood beside the garage. He flipped open the lid and dropped the book in. Then they left for school.

  “If we had brought the book back,” Jasper said on the way, “do you think they would ever have let us in the library again?”

  “I doubt it,” Dad said. “Nobody likes a Book Killer.”

  After Calendar and Star of the Week, Ms. Tosh asked everybody to get together with their reading buddies. Jasper and Ori were reading buddies. They were reading buddies, friends and neighbors. They dove into the Book Nook together and stretched out on the cozy pillows. Ori had his library book about rockets with him.

  “Look,” Ori said. “It shows you how to make a rocket out of a soda bottle.”

  “You have to take good care of that book,” Jasper told Ori. “You don’t want anything bad to happen to it. If you accidentally drown it or set it on fire or shoot it, they might not let you back in the library to read to Molly.”

  “How could I drown it or set it on fire?” Ori asked.

  “You could drop it in the bath, then put it in the oven.”

  “But how could I shoot it?” Ori asked. “I don’t have a gun.”

  “You could use a fire extinguisher.”

  Ori threw back his head and laughed so hard that Jasper could see the dangly thing at the back of his throat wiggling around like a worm on a hook.

  Ms. Tosh came over because Ori was laughing. They were supposed to be reading silently. “Where’s your book, Jasper?” Ms. Tosh asked.

  “Something happened to it,” he said.

  “What happened?” Ms. Tosh asked.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Ms. Tosh crossed her arms and gave him a look he had to obey.

  He got up and pulled a book off the Book Nook shelf, sat back down and opened it. Only then did he notice it was one of those Cheeky the Squirrel books. Too late! Ms. Tosh was still standing over him with crossed arms.

  He dragged his eyes over the page, but all he read was glub, glub, glub.

  Chapter 6

  After school, Mom got the lates. Jasper and Ori sat on the steps and talked while they waited for her to show up.

  “Is twenty-five dollars a lot?” Jasper asked.

  “It’s a lot, but twenty-five with zeros is a lot lot more. A ride in a real rocket is twenty-five and four zeros. The more zeros after the number, the more it costs. My mom explained it to me. If you wanted to buy your own rocket, you couldn’t because it has so many zeros.”

  “What about twenty-five with two zeros?” Jasper said.

  Ori got up and found a stick. Under the trees there wasn’t any grass, just dirt. He wrote 2-5-0-0. “That’s a lot. A lot more than twenty-five dollars.” Ori threw down the stick.

  “It is?” Jasper said.

  Mom appeared, waving and calling, “Sorry I’m late!” She stopped when she saw Jasper buckled over on the steps because of the two zeros. “What’s wrong, Jasper?”

  “I feel sick!” Jasper wailed.

  “Too sick to visit Nan?” Mom asked.

  Every Wednesday after school Jasper went to Nan’s. He didn’t want to miss his Wednesday visit. He unfolded himself and came down the steps of the school, clutching the handrail for support. “I’m okay now, I think.”

  First, Mom and Jasper walked Ori home. Ori talked on and on about how to build a rocket out of a soda bottle. Jasper didn’t say anything but good-bye. Then he and Mom continued on to Nan’s.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Jasper? You’re awfully quiet. Did something happen at school today?”

  “Zero happened at school,” Jasper said.

  “That’s good because Nan is really looking forward to hearing you read to Molly.”

  “What?” Jasper cried.

  Mom looked at her watch. “Maybe we should have ridden our bikes. But we might still be one of the first ones in line if we hurry. Nan’s meeting us there. She’ll listen to you read to Molly, then you’ll go home with her.”

  “No library!” Jasper said, waving his arms.

  “But Jasper, two days ago you were so excited about reading to Molly. What happened?” Mom asked.

  Jasper did want to read to Molly, but now he owed the library for the book about toilet-paper-tube crafts that he’d killed. He owed a lot more than twenty-five dollars. They wouldn’t blame Dad even though he had set the book on fire and shot it, and Jasper had only drowned it. The person they would blame was the person whose name was on the library card.

  That person was Jasper J. Dooley.

  Then Jasper thought of something. If he read to Nan, he’d probably get a tip. He needed tips — so so so many tips! — so he could pay for the book.

  “Today is Wednesday,” Jasper said. “Today I’m excited about reading to Nan.”

  Mom phoned Nan as they were walking. “Jasper says he doesn’t want to go to the library after all. He insists on going straight to your place.”

  “Tell her I’m going to read to her,” Jasper said.<
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  “And he wants to read to you,” Mom told Nan.

  Nan met them in the jungley lobby. After they said good-bye to Mom, Nan let Jasper press the elevator buttons the way she always did. “I was looking forward to seeing that little dog,” she told Jasper.

  “Me, too!” Jasper said. He felt all watery inside, wondering if he’d ever get a chance to read to Molly.

  Before Nan could ask why he didn’t want to meet her at the library, the elevator doors opened. Jasper dashed in and made a horrible face in the mirrored wall. He and Nan always made horrible faces when they rode up to her apartment. They had contests to see who made the most horriblest face. Jasper always won except when Nan pushed her glasses frames into her eye sockets so her eyes stretched down.

  Today Jasper’s face was almost as horrible as that. Nan said, “Jasper! Stop! You’re scaring me!”

  “That’s the face of a Book Killer,” Jasper told her.

  “It’s horrible,” Nan said.

  “I know.”

  The elevator reached Nan’s floor. Jasper pressed the button again. They went down and up three more times. When they finally stepped out, Nan had forgotten about Molly.

  The first thing Nan always did when Jasper visited was make a snack. Afterward, they went to the living room to play Go Fish for jujubes. If Jasper won at Go Fish, which he almost always did, he got to take a jujube from the crystal bowl on the coffee table. He always picked a colored one. But if Jasper let Nan win, which he sometimes did, Nan took a black jujube. When all the jujubes were gone, they stopped playing cards.

  The crystal bowl was filled to the top. There were twelve red, green, orange and yellow jujubes and four black jujubes. Jasper won twelve games and Nan won four. Then the crystal bowl was empty.

  Jasper said, “Okay. Now I’m going to read to you, Nan.”

  Nan kept the kids’ books on the shelf in the spare room. Some were Dad’s old books and some were new ones that she’d bought for Jasper. Jasper grabbed one without looking at it and raced back to the living room. He sat on the sofa next to Nan and put the crystal bowl between them.