Jasper John Dooley, Lost and Found Read online

  “Marcel isn’t the kind of mouse to be afraid. But sure. Let’s sing.”

  And it worked! While Jasper was dressing and he and Dad were singing, “Marcel Mouse! Marcel Mouse! A mouse who’s lots of fun!,” Dad found Marcel jammed between Jasper’s mattress and the headboard.

  Jasper lunged for Marcel and snatched him from Dad.

  “I know you,” Jasper told Dad. “You’re a tricky one.”

  Jasper got the lates. He got the lates because Marcel was lost, then found, and because all the way to school he and Dad sang the Marcel Mouse song at the top of their lungs and danced the dance. It was slower dancing to school than walking because some of the dance was turning in a circle.

  When Jasper came into the classroom, he stopped to explain to everybody why he’d got the lates. He showed them Marcel Mouse hanging around his neck.

  “My Nan found Marcel in a box in her storage room. He used to be my dad’s mouse. My dad even slept with him. He’s lucky that he never strangled on Marcel’s string.”

  Ms. Tosh said, “Jasper? Bernadette is the Star this week. She presented her Show and Tell on Monday.”

  “I’m just explaining why I got the lates.”

  Ms. Tosh told him to sit down. “You can tell everybody about your mouse at recess.”

  Jasper sat down at his table. Now he wished he’d made the so so long string longer. If it had been just a bit longer, if it had been so so so long, Marcel would reach the chair and be sitting, too.

  Instead, Jasper stood him up on the table. Margo, who sat next to Jasper, leaned over to look at Marcel. “He’s so cute!” she said.

  Ori, at the next table, leaned across the aisle to get a better look at Marcel. The two kids who sat in front of Jasper — Leon and Paul C.— turned in their seats to look, too.

  “Jasper John Dooley,” Ms. Tosh called, “put that mouse away.”

  Good thing the string was so so long! Marcel could be in the book slot under the table and still hang from the string around Jasper’s neck.

  When the bell rang for recess, everybody followed Jasper outside so they could meet Marcel. They lined up. With Marcel still hanging on the string around his neck, Jasper let everybody touch him. Some of the girls kissed Marcel. Some of the boys kissed him, too. When Ori got to the front of the line, Jasper whispered, “I’ll let you wear him after school.”

  Then Jasper taught all the kids the Marcel Mouse song and dance. Some kids who weren’t even in their class saw what they were doing and ran over to join in. After they had sung the song and danced the dance, they formed a big circle around Jasper so he could show them how Marcel could fly. Jasper shifted from foot to foot. Marcel swung higher and higher until he was level with Jasper’s shoulders.

  Then Jasper planted his feet and moved his upper body in a circle like he was Hula-hooping.

  Marcel took off. Around and around Jasper’s neck, at the end of the so so long string, Marcel soared.

  “I want to try!” Leon yelled.

  He stepped forward and — smack! Marcel flew right into Leon.

  “OWWW!!!!!”

  Leon fell to his knees holding the side of his head. Jasper crouched beside him. “Sorry, Leon.” He stood Marcel on Leon’s shoulder and made him squeak that he was sorry, too.

  The playground monitor arrived just as the bell rang. Everybody went back to the classroom except for Leon and Jasper and Marcel, who went to the principal’s office.

  “Marcel Mouse! Marcel Mouse! A mouse who’s lots of fun! Marcel Mouse! Marcel Mouse! He’s a tricky one!”

  Jasper waved his hands high. He waved them low. He turned in a circle, waving his hands and singing.

  “Jasper?” Mrs. Kinoshita said.

  Jasper stopped singing and dancing and waving because he had to. Mrs. Kinoshita was the principal.

  She pointed to the big chair across from her desk. Jasper didn’t like to sit there. It made him nervous because his feet didn’t touch the ground. He said, “I found the gold pencil crayon you gave me. It was under my bed with some dust bunnies.”

  “Please sit down,” Mrs. Kinoshita said.

  “I need to show you how Marcel flies. So you know what happened to Leon.”

  Leon was okay. He’d already gone back to the classroom.

  “Jasper? This is how you got in trouble in the first place.”

  Jasper nodded and said, “Every day Marcel gets in trouble. Every day he gets out again.”

  “It’s better if Marcel doesn’t get in trouble while he’s at school. Either he stays in the office during school time or he stays home. Do you understand?”

  “Marcel was my dad’s mouse. He wore him all the time. He never took him off.”

  Mrs. Kinoshita folded her hands on the desk and looked at Jasper. She only had to look at him. She was the principal.

  Jasper said, “Can he stay with you?”

  “I’ll leave him on Mrs. Jamil’s desk.”

  Jasper didn’t want to, but he lifted off the so so long string around his neck. He wrapped it around and around Marcel’s orange plastic body until he looked like a little mouse mummy with his head sticking out. He peered in Marcel’s orange, surprised eyes and said, “I’ll come and get you after school. Don’t get lost again.”

  Chapter 4

  After school, Ori went out to meet Jasper’s mom. She always walked them both home because Ori’s mom was busy with Ori’s baby sister. Jasper went to the office to pick up Marcel Mouse.

  “A mouse?” said Mrs. Jamil. “On my desk?”

  “Yes,” Jasper told her. “Mrs. Kinoshita put him there. She says I can bring him to school as long as I leave him with you.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard about any mouse, Jasper. Come and see for yourself.”

  Jasper went around the big counter and looked at Mrs. Jamil’s desk. He saw papers and a computer and a mug of pens and pencils. He didn’t see Marcel Mouse. Mrs. Jamil even let Jasper look in the desk drawers. They were full of office assistant things, like paper clips and juggling balls and hand cream.

  Jasper didn’t panic the way he had that morning. He told Mrs. Jamil, “Marcel is a very tricky mouse. When he got lost this morning, we found him. All we have to do is sing the song.”

  “What song?”

  “The Marcel Mouse song. It’s easy. Sing with me.”

  When Mom and Ori came to the office looking for Jasper, they found him and Mrs. Jamil singing, “Marcel Mouse! Marcel Mouse! A mouse who’s lots of fun!” Ori joined in right away because he knew the words, then Mom did.

  Mrs. Jamil stopped singing. “Oh! Do you mean the little toy all wrapped up in dirty string?”

  “Yes!” Jasper cried.

  “I put him in the Lost and Found box. I didn’t realize he was a mouse.”

  They all went out to the hall where the big Lost and Found box was. Jasper and Ori looked inside. It was half full, mostly with clothes. But right on top was a little orange mouse with big ears and surprised eyes, wrapped in a so so long string.

  Jasper kissed Marcel. Ori kissed him. Mrs. Jamil took Marcel back to the office and dabbed his face with hand sanitizer. Then she kissed him, too.

  “I have an idea. Just so this never happens again, let’s leave Marcel in the sickroom from now on.”

  The sickroom was next to the office. Mrs. Jamil took a box of tissues from the cupboard there. She showed Jasper how Marcel could sleep inside the box, under a cozy tissue blanket, safe in the cupboard.

  Jasper said, “Thank you!” And he unwound the string and hung Marcel around his neck again. Marcel swung. “Wheee!”

  Mom and Ori and Jasper walked home. Jasper lived the closest to the school, just a block away. Ori lived the second closest, across the alley and one house down from Jasper.

  “I’m not surprised Marcel was hiding in the Lost and Found box,” J
asper told Mom and Ori. “He was living in a box in Nan’s storage room. He’s used to it.”

  “Can I wear Marcel now?” Ori asked.

  “Sorry! I forgot,” Jasper said.

  “That’s nice of you, Jasper,” Mom said.

  “The thing is,” Ori said, “Jasper promised me I could wear him on the way home.”

  Ori stopped at the alley. Before he walked to his own house, he tried to make Marcel swing, but couldn’t.

  “Don’t worry,” Jasper told him. “You can try again tomorrow.”

  Chapter 5

  The next day, after dancing with Dad to school singing the Marcel Mouse song, Jasper stopped at the sickroom and tucked Marcel in his tissue-box bed. “Marcel Mouse! Marcel Mouse!” Jasper sang. “Don’t get lost today!”

  All the way to the classroom, he hummed the Marcel Mouse song under his breath. On the way to school, Dad had said, “The Marcel Mouse song is a very catchy tune. Everybody at work is humming it. Even Mom is humming it.”

  When Jasper got to the classroom, everybody was humming it there, too. While everybody was writing Compliments to Bernadette, the Star, and eating the special cupcake snack that she had brought, they sang the song under their breaths.

  “Marcel Mouse! Marcel Mouse! He’s a tricky one!”

  At recess Jasper went to the sickroom to check on Marcel Mouse. He was sleeping.

  “Is he still there?” Mrs. Jamil asked.

  Jasper gave her the thumbs-up.

  He met Ori, Leon and Paul C. outside.

  “Let’s dig for treasure,” Ori said.

  Treasure! Jasper had forgotten all about the treasure Nan had given him. “We’ll never find treasure here,” Jasper said. “Next week I’ll bring a whole box of things that we can bury and dig up.”

  So they played hide-and-seek. Paul C. was It. He sat on the picnic table and took off his glasses. He didn’t need to cover his eyes. Without his glasses, he couldn’t see a thing.

  While Paul C. counted loudly to ten, Leon ran to the bushes at the back of the schoolyard where the playground monitor couldn’t see him. He thought that Paul C. wouldn’t find him there either, even after he put his glasses back on. But that was everybody’s favorite place to hide, so it was the first place Paul C. looked. Jasper, hiding under the picnic table, watched Paul C. tag Leon.

  Leon was It.

  Now Leon sat on the picnic table. He covered his eyes and shouted, “Marcel Mouse! Marcel Mouse! One, two, three, four, five!”

  Paul C. crouched behind a garbage can. Jasper and Ori snuck into the school.

  Usually they hid outside, but hiding outside was getting boring. Bushes, picnic table, garbage can, trees. Bushes, picnic table, garbage can, trees …

  “Here!” Jasper said, stopping in the hall in front of the Lost and Found box.

  Ori crouched next to it.

  “No,” Jasper said. “Inside.”

  Jasper lifted the lid and climbed into the box. He dug a hole in the clothes deep enough to make a little nest. That way the lid of the box wouldn’t touch his head. “Come on,” he told Ori. “There’s lots of room.”

  Ori climbed in, too, and dug himself a nest. They closed the lid.

  Inside, the box smelled of that special flowery lint smell, the fabric-softener-clean-clothes-start-of-a-new-day smell that Jasper loved. And old cheese, which Jasper didn’t love.

  “Dark!” Ori said.

  “Just think,” Jasper said, “Marcel was in a dark box like this almost forever before I took him out.”

  They stopped talking because they heard footsteps near the box. Ori poked Jasper. “Stop humming.”

  “I’m not humming.”

  “You are. You’re humming the Marcel Mouse song. If Leon walks by, he’ll hear us.”

  A different tune chimed out then, but not from Jasper. Muffled and far away, it sounded like an ice-cream truck three streets over. It was coming from under them, from under all the lost clothes in the Lost and Found box. When the tune finished, they heard a soft “Bleep!”

  “What was that?” Ori asked.

  “A game,” Jasper said. “Let’s find it.”

  In the darkness of the box, through all the Lost clothes, they dug down. The game helped them. It went “Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!” which meant, “You’re getting closer!”

  Jasper’s hand closed around the game. He pulled it out through the tunnel of Lost clothes. The game seemed happy to be rescued. It played its tune again and flashed its colored lights so Jasper could see Ori’s face in the dark of the Lost and Found box. His eyes were wide.

  “Wow!” Ori said.

  And the lid of the box opened and daylight flooded in. A hand came down on Ori’s head.

  “You’re It!” Leon hollered.

  At lunch Jasper went to the sickroom to check on Marcel Mouse. He ended up staying so he could fly Marcel around and around his neck at the end of the so so long string.

  Ori stood in the doorway so he wouldn’t get smacked the way Leon had the day before. He asked Jasper, “Who do you think lost that game?”

  Jasper said, “I don’t know.”

  “What happens if nobody comes for it?”

  “They give it away.”

  “Who to?”

  “People.”

  “What people?”

  “I don’t know their names. They pack all the Lost and Found things in boxes and take them away. I saw them do it last year.”

  “Maybe I could borrow the game,” Ori said.

  Jasper said, “Wheee!” because Marcel was having so much fun flying in the sickroom.

  “Would you borrow the game?” Ori asked Jasper.

  “I don’t need a game. I have Marcel Mouse! Marcel Mouse! A mouse who’s lots of fun!”

  “I don’t have a mouse,” Ori said.

  “Then borrow the game.”

  “The thing is, I’m not allowed games that bleep.”

  Mrs. Jamil came back from lunch and found the boys in the sickroom. “Jasper, are you still here? Go outside and play. You, too, Ori.”

  “I was just checking on Marcel. He was bored. He wanted to fly.”

  “Out, out!” she said.

  By then, lunch was nearly over. They didn’t have time for more hide-and-seek.

  After lunch, when all the kids were back in the classroom, an announcement came over the intercom. It was Mrs. Kinoshita reminding everybody about the assembly on Monday.

  “And Jasper John Dooley?” she added. “Marcel Mouse is doing fine.”

  Everybody, even Ms. Tosh, laughed.

  Chapter 6

  Jasper, Mom and Ori walked home after school. On the way, Mom asked, “Do you need to go to the bathroom, Jasper?”

  Jasper said, “How did you know?”

  “The thing is, moms always know,” Ori said. He was wearing Marcel Mouse on the so so long string around his neck.

  “I never know when you have to go,” Jasper told Mom.

  Mom laughed. “I guess I don’t do a little dance.”

  “Was I dancing?” Jasper asked.

  “Yes. And humming a song.”

  “Like this?” Jasper waved his hands high and low and turned in a circle. He hummed the Marcel Mouse song.

  “Not quite,” Mom said. “Hurry ahead if you need to.”

  “Then Ori won’t get a whole turn with Marcel.”

  They all walked together, Jasper dancing and humming. He really needed to go. As soon as they reached the alley and Ori had hung Marcel back around Jasper’s neck, Jasper took off running.

  Jasper ran all the rest of the way home and up the back stairs. Luckily, Mom hadn’t locked the door. He slipped out of his shoes without undoing the laces and raced to the bathroom. The toilet lid was down. Mom had been the last person in the bathroom, Jasper could
tell. If Dad or Jasper had been the last one to use the bathroom, the toilet seat and lid would be up.

  Jasper was in such a hurry that he only lifted the lid, not the seat. Marcel Mouse got quite a view from where he hung down by Jasper’s belly button. Marcel probably thought he was standing at the top of a waterfall!

  Then a terrible thing happened.

  Jasper leaned over to flush the toilet. When he leaned, Marcel Mouse swung forward on the so so long string around Jasper’s neck. With Marcel dangling right above the toilet bowl, Jasper flushed. His hand knocked against the lid and it fell closed.

  Crack! went the lid against the toilet seat.

  Snap! went the so so long string around Jasper’s neck.

  Down, down, down went Marcel Mouse! Down, down, down the toilet!

  “NOOOO!!!!!!” Jasper screamed.

  “What happened?” Mom called from the front door. She ran all the way to the bathroom where Jasper had sunk onto the floor.

  “Marcel’s lost!” Jasper wailed. “He’s lost forever!”

  When Dad got home from work, Jasper was lying on the sofa with a cold cloth over his eyes. They were so so so puffy from crying. Dad sat on the sofa and put Jasper’s head in his lap. He lifted the cloth and smiled at Jasper, but Jasper didn’t smile back.

  “Jasper John,” Dad said, “tell me what happened.”

  “Marcel Mouse got flushed down the toilet. The lid fell just as I flushed. It snapped the string. Marcel’s dead. He drowned.”

  Jasper felt his whole body start to shake with new sobs. But no tears came. He had dried up from so much crying.

  “Look.” Jasper pulled up his shirt to show Dad the two Band-Aids stuck in an X on the left side of his chest. “These Band-Aids are because my heart is broken.”

  “Now, Jasper,” Dad said, “remember how I told you about Marcel Mouse’s TV show?”