Jasper John Dooley, Star of the Week Read online

  “Nobody can take my star away, Mom. Not even Mrs. Kinoshita. Even if I bring a Show and Tell that nobody understands. Even if I have a Family Stick instead of a Family Tree. Even if I forget to do a Science Experiment.”

  Mom stopped walking. “Jasper! We forgot the Science Experiment!”

  “I’m still the Star.”

  Ori said, “Ms. Tosh said he really was one. Really a Star.”

  “I’m so sorry about your Science Experiment,” Mom said. “I feel terrible.”

  “I feel great!” Jasper said. “I’m over the hump!”

  “Over the hump” was something his Nan always said. It meant you had finished the hard part, and the easy part was coming up. The hard part about being the Star of the Week was the Show and Tell, the Family Tree and the Science Experiment. Sharing his Talent and Bringing a Special Snack for everybody to eat while they were writing Compliments to him — a piece of cake!

  Ori asked Jasper, “You’re not too busy today, are you? Can I please, please, please come over?”

  “Sure!” Jasper said. “I’m over the hump!”

  When they got in the house, Mom phoned Ori’s mom to say he had come over to play and to congratulate her on the baby. Ori and Jasper went into Jasper’s room. Jasper asked, “What do you want to do?”

  Ori lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

  “I know,” Jasper said. “Let’s jump over some humps!”

  Jasper gathered his stuffed toys and scattered them around the floor. He made Ori get off the bed so he could take the bedspread off and cover the stuffed animals with it. Under the bedspread they looked like humps. “Okay,” Jasper said, “let’s start jumping.”

  He and Ori jumped. After a few minutes Ori asked if he could be a hump instead. He crawled under the bedspread and Jasper jumped over him. “You’re the best hump!” Jasper told him.

  When Jasper finally got tired of jumping over the humps, he went down to the basement to check the dryer screen. He came back up and read a book backward to see if the story turned out differently. Then it was suppertime.

  “Well?” Dad asked when they were all sitting at the table. “What did they think of Earl?”

  “They liked him a lot,” Jasper said.

  “Guess what?” Mom said. “Ori’s mom had the baby. A little girl. She doesn’t have a name yet.”

  “Yes, she does,” Jasper said. “It’s Wa-wa-wa-wa.”

  “Wonderful news,” Dad said. “I’m glad it wasn’t us!”

  “And guess what else? We forgot Jasper’s Science Experiment.”

  “Not so wonderful,” Dad said.

  “It was Earl’s fault,” Jasper said.

  Mom got up from the table and went to the fridge to check the Star of the Week schedule. “Share Your Talent,” she read.

  “Jasper?” she asked, coming back to the table with a worried look on her face. “You’ll have to be extra good at your Talent to make up for missing the Science Experiment.”

  “I will be. Don’t worry.”

  The worried look didn’t go away. She asked, “What talents did the other kids share?”

  Jasper said, “Isabel did Scottish dancing. Leon played the violin. Ori played the violin. Paul C. played the violin.”

  “I wish we’d started you on the violin,” Mom said. “I guess it’s too late.”

  “Don’t worry about my Talent,” Jasper said.

  “We’re not very musical,” Mom said.

  “I’m musical,” Jasper said. “I’m really musical.”

  “Really?” Mom said.

  “Yes, you just worry about the Special Snack.”

  The phone rang and Dad got up to answer it. He said, “Congratulations! I just heard about the baby! Where’s Ori? I don’t know.”

  “Oh, no!” Jasper cried. “He’s still a hump!”

  Chapter 9

  That night Jasper was very excited. Not only was he over the hump, he was going to have his first sleepover. His wooden brother Earl was going to sleep with him.

  Mom and Dad stood in the doorway. “Don’t talk all night,” Dad said. “You have school tomorrow.”

  “You don’t want to be too tired to Share Your Talent,” Mom said.

  Jasper said, “I won’t.”

  “Are you sure about your Talent?” Mom asked.

  “Yes,” Jasper told her.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable tonight?”

  “Please,” Jasper said, “can you close the door? I’m ready for the sleepover to start.”

  Mom and Dad closed the door.

  Jasper cozied up to Earl. Mom was right. It wasn’t very comfortable sleeping with a person made of wood. It would be a lot more comfortable if Earl was wearing pajamas.

  Jasper turned on the light. He got out of bed and went over to his pajama drawer, took a pair out and held them up for Earl to see. Earl didn’t like them.

  “They’re nice,” Jasper said. “They’re my second favorite.”

  Earl let Jasper know that he wanted to wear the ones with the sheep, the ones Jasper was wearing, Jasper’s first favorite.

  “Earl,” Jasper sighed.

  Jasper changed into the fire-truck pajamas. He dressed Earl in the sheep pajamas, then turned off the light and got back into bed. He felt sleepy. The night before, he’d been up way past his bedtime making Earl. He rolled over onto his side with his back to Earl. Earl jabbed him with his wooden arm.

  “Stop it,” Jasper said.

  Earl didn’t. He was a bit of a troublemaker. Jasper wiggled closer to the edge of the bed, out of Earl’s reach. For a while, Earl lay there getting madder and madder because Jasper was falling asleep and not paying any attention to him. Jasper knew because Earl was making quiet little growling sounds that Jasper ignored. Finally, Earl got so mad he leaned over and bit Jasper.

  Jasper sat up with a howl. When Dad rushed in, Jasper hollered, “Earl bit me!”

  There, sticking out of his shoulder, was one of Earl’s teeth!

  Dad pulled the sliver out, then said Earl wasn’t allowed in Jasper’s bed anymore. Earl had to sleep on the floor. Dad kissed Jasper good night for the second time and closed the door.

  Earl lay all by himself on the hard cold floor. “It’s your own fault,” Jasper whispered down to him. “You ruined our sleepover. You have no heart.”

  Chapter 10

  The next day, both Jasper and Ori got the lates. Jasper really wanted to be on time because he knew Ms. Tosh would be waiting by her desk to take the star out of the drawer and pin it to his chest. The whole class would be waiting for him to do the calendar and Share His Talent. But two things happened. First, when Jasper got up — not late yet — he accidentally stepped on Earl, who was sleeping on the floor. Earl got really mad, and Jasper had to say sorry so, so, so many times. Then Jasper went into the kitchen where he found a book on the table next to Mom’s coffee cup. The book was called Name Your Baby.

  Jasper spent a lot of time finding a really good place to hide the book before Mom even realized he was up. “Jasper!” she called. “Jasper John!”

  He came in from outside where he had been burying Name Your Baby in the garden. By then he had the lates.

  Ori and Jasper ran into the school together. Jasper didn’t want to be even later, but he had to tell Ori about the book. They stopped outside the classroom. “It’s my own fault,” he said. “I told her I wanted a baby. But now I don’t. I changed my mind. What am I going to do?”

  “Bring her over to our house,” Ori said. “She’ll change her mind, too, once she hears our baby.”

  Ms. Tosh poked her head out the door. “Boys? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Jasper said.

  “We’re waiting for you, Jasper.”

&nbs
p; Jasper and Ori went into the classroom. While Jasper got his star pinned on his chest, Ori went and sat at his table. Jasper noticed then that he looked really, really, really tired. He looked like nobody had told him to take off his pajama top and put on a shirt.

  After they had done the calendar, Ms. Tosh brought a shoebox over from her desk. She asked the class to guess what was in it. Everybody shouted, “Lint!”

  Ms. Tosh laughed. “No,” she said, “but it has something to do with our Star. It has something to do with his Science Experiment.”

  The Star said, “There’s a heart in the box,” and everybody laughed, but he was right. Inside the box was a plastic model of a heart. It looked like a big purple fruit. Ms. Tosh let everybody hold it, then she showed them how it twisted open. Inside were four compartments, like in a jewelry box. Ms. Tosh explained how the heart sent the blood around the body. Jasper felt really sorry for Earl then. He didn’t have a heart so he didn’t have any nice warm blood squirting through his wooden body.

  “Hey,” somebody said, “look at Ori! He’s wearing his pajamas!”

  Ori looked down at himself. Everybody laughed and pointed. Ori was so embarrassed he turned as purple as his sister.

  “The same thing happened to me!” Jasper said. “Except I was wearing my bottoms, too! And no shoes! I came to school barefoot!” He started to tell the whole story about getting locked out of the school on the first day that he was the Star of the Week. Everybody forgot about Ori because they were laughing at Jasper’s story instead. Jasper hadn’t even got to the part about it being a dream when Ms. Tosh interrupted him.

  “Jasper? I’m really looking forward to you Sharing Your Talent.”

  “Okay. May I please get a drink of water?”

  Ms. Tosh let him go. She said, “Hurry, Jasper. We’re all waiting.”

  Jasper hurried to the water fountain. He drank for a long time. He drank for so long Ms. Tosh stuck her head out the classroom door and said, “That’s enough, Jasper.” He marched into the classroom again, very confidently. He could hear the sloshing.

  “What is Your Talent, Jasper?” Ms. Tosh asked when he was back standing in front of the class.

  “Music. I’m going to play an instrument.”

  “What instrument are you going to play?”

  “Me!” Jasper said.

  Of course everybody laughed. They didn’t believe him.

  Jasper started very slowly, the way Ori had on his violin. He bent and straightened his knees. Faster, faster. He began to jump.

  “He’s jumping over the humps,” Ori said.

  “He’s dancing,” somebody else said.

  “Listen,” the Star said. “It’s a song.”

  And then they heard it, the music coming from Jasper, the sloshing of the water in his tummy. He was jumping so high now his heart was beating like a drum. His heart was playing, too.

  “I hear it! I hear it!” everybody shouted.

  And they all leapt up to play the song with Jasper. The song about being alive.

  On their way out of school at the end of the day, Jasper reminded Ori that they had a plan. Ori nodded. As soon as they met up with Mom outside, Jasper said, “Let’s go over to Ori’s. I want you to see the baby.”

  “We want you to hear her,” Ori said.

  Mom said, “What about the Special Snack?” She got an idea. “I know. Why don’t we make extra and bring it over to Ori’s? I really do want to see the baby.”

  Ori went home to tell his mom visitors were coming. Jasper and Mom went home to make the Special Snack. There was a little bag sitting on the kitchen counter when they got in. “That’s a present for you, Jasper,” Mom said.

  Jasper reached in the bag and pulled out a cookie-cutter in the shape of a star. “Thank you!” he cried.

  Mom powdered the counter with flour. She let the Star roll out the sugar-cookie dough. Sugar cookies were Jasper’s favorite. He liked to lick the sugar sprinkles off the top after they were baked. Now he stood on a chair and drove over the dough with the rolling pin. “I’m flattening the hump,” he said.

  “How did Your Talent go?” Mom asked.

  “It was great. I’ll be the Star tomorrow for sure. But what if nobody can think of any Compliments to write to me?”

  “Did you write nice Compliments to the other Stars?”

  “Yes,” Jasper said.

  “Then I’m sure they’ll have nice things to say to you.”

  Jasper wished then that he’d written even nicer Compliments. He wished he’d said some Compliments out loud to the other Stars. Mom passed him the cookie-cutter. Jasper said, “I love this cookie-cutter. Look at how well it’s cutting! What a great job it’s doing making stars!”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Mom said.

  “I love it!”

  Mom laughed.

  “I love you!” Jasper said.

  “Oh, Jasper,” Mom said. “That’s so nice.”

  “I love Dad, too,” Jasper said. “And Earl.”

  Jasper thought of a really nice thing to do for his poor wooden brother Earl, who scared people and bit them and had to sleep on the floor. He climbed off the chair and went to the drawer where all the kitchen things were jumbled together. After digging around for a bit, he found another cookie-cutter. It was in the shape of a heart.

  “I’m going to make a special cookie for Earl,” Jasper said. “Because I love him so much.”

  Too bad Earl couldn’t write. Jasper would have got some really good Compliments for that!

  As soon as the cookies were baked, the Star of the Week decorated four of them for Ori’s family. In icing, he wrote the nicest thing he could think of ­— SHH! — then sprinkled all four with colored sugar sprinkles. Jasper and Mom put the cookies on a plate and carried them across the alley and one house down.

  They heard crying as soon as they were in the yard. “Maybe this isn’t a good time,” Mom said.

  “This is a really good time,” Jasper said, ringing the doorbell.

  They had to ring twice. Ori answered wearing his hat with earflaps.

  “I don’t think I told you before,” Jasper said. “You look nice in that hat, Ori.”

  “The thing is,” Ori said, “it’s really hot.”

  “I hear the baby,” Mom said.

  Ori pointed to the living room where the crying was coming from. Mom went ahead with the cookies. Ori and Jasper smiled at each other behind her back because the crying was so loud. But when they got to the living room, Mom was giving the baby Compliments!

  “Oh, isn’t she darling! Isn’t she sweet! I’d love to hold her!”

  “Please do,” Ori’s mom said. As soon as Jasper’s mom took the baby, Ori’s mom stretched out on the couch. “Excuse me,” she said. “It’s been a hard week. Ori’s grandmother was supposed to come and help, but she got sick. My sister is coming on Saturday, thank goodness.”

  “You’re almost over the hump,” Jasper told her.

  “Yes, but poor Ori. He hasn’t been getting much attention.”

  “I haven’t been getting much sleep!” Ori said.

  Jasper’s mom was walking around the circle in the carpet with the baby, who still wouldn’t stop crying. She was smiling at the baby, but she looked up to say, “Why doesn’t Ori sleep over at our house tonight?”

  “Please!” Ori cried over the crying. “Can I? Please?”

  “I had a sleepover with Earl last night,” Jasper said. “I’d like to try again.”

  Ori’s mom said yes, and Jasper was so happy he almost forgot that they were there to show Mom how loud and boring babies were. And he almost forgot to say some Compliments. He told Ori’s mom, “I like your new, smaller watermelon.”

  “Do you want to hold the baby?” Mom asked Jasper.r />
  He did want to. Babies were loud, but they were only boring if you had to be around one all the time. If you just visited them, you saw they had tiny little hands that would curl around your finger and that they made googly faces in between their wails.

  Mom passed him Ori’s sister. “Hold her head like this.”

  “I know,” Jasper said as he took her in his arms. Right away, the baby stopped crying and gazed up at Jasper with her big eyes. After a minute, her face didn’t look so purple.

  Ori undid the ties on his hat and pulled it off. Ori’s mom sat up. Everybody Looked and Listened. Everybody smiled.

  “How did you do that?” Ori’s mom whispered.

  “I’m the Star of the Week,” Jasper said.

  Chapter 11

  Ori came for the sleepover right after supper. Jasper answered the door. “Did you bring your own pajamas?”

  “I’m already wearing them,” Ori said.

  “Come in,” Jasper said. “We’re decorating the Special Snack for everybody to eat while they’re writing Compliments to me. You can help.”

  Ori sat at the table with Jasper and Mom and Dad, his head propped up in his hands. He watched them draw the letter J, for Jasper, with icing then dip each cookie in a bowl of sugar sprinkles, but he didn’t help. He said he was too tired. After all the cookies were decorated, Ori said he was too tired to jump over humps. He was too tired to play cards.

  “I guess it’s time to get ready for bed,” Dad said.

  “I’m already ready,” Ori said.

  “Go ahead,” Dad said. “Jasper will meet you in bed.”

  Jasper changed into his sheep pajamas. He brushed his teeth and washed his face. After he said good night to his parents, he went to his room where Ori was sleeping with the light on. Jasper got quietly into bed. He leaned over the side to say good night to Earl. “Uh-oh,” Jasper said, “what’s the matter?”

  He knew what the matter was. Earl was jealous. “You would be sleeping here if you hadn’t bit me,” Jasper told him.