Jasper John Dooley, Star of the Week (3 page)

“I wish it had more branches.”

“I understand.”

“I wish we had a bigger family,” Jasper said. But he wasn't sure anymore that he wanted a baby to make it bigger. Not if they cried so much.

“Small families are good, too,” Dad said.

“Big families are better,” Jasper said. “They have bigger trees.”

“Some of these big families?” Dad said. “The parents don't even know their own kids' names. Sometimes they move house and accidentally leave five or six kids behind.”

Jasper said, “Name tags. And, at school? Ms. Tosh takes attendance every morning.”

“You have an answer for everything, Jasper. I can see why you're the Star.” Then he said, “Jasper, I've got an itch. Right between my shoulder blades.”

Jasper sat up to scratch it. Dad moaned. “Ah! That's wonderful. Lower.”

Jasper scratched lower. Then he scratched some letters and asked Dad if he could read them, which he could. He scratched H-I, and H-E-L-L-O and J-A-S-P-E-R. Dad asked Jasper if he needed a scratch, too, before he went to sleep.

“I think I do,” Jasper said.

Dad scratched I L-O-V-E Y-O-U on Jasper's back, and it felt really good.

“Thanks,” Jasper told him. Then he kissed Dad good night and lay down thinking that maybe, maybe, a small family wasn't so, so bad.

Chapter 5

At recess the next day, Isabel and Zoë got Ori and Jasper to play babies with them. They still had Halloween candy left over from last year, and they paid the boys with it. Isabel was Ori's mother, and Zoë was Jasper's mother. The boys lay on the grass and wailed while the girls went to collect food. Food was pinecones and twigs. As soon as Ori and Jasper finished pretending to eat the twigs and pinecones, they started wailing again for more food.

“You're not doing it loud enough,” Ori told Jasper.

Jasper wa-wa-waed louder, so loudly that the playground monitor came over to see what the problem was. She stared at where they were lying on the ground waving their arms and legs around.

“The thing is, we're pretending to be babies,” Ori explained.

Jasper didn't say anything. Babies can't talk.

The playground monitor said, “Babies shouldn't be left alone. I'll stay until your mother gets back.”

When the two mothers showed up a few minutes later with more food, the monitor asked to be paid for baby-sitting. Zoë gave her a pinecone. Jasper said, “We're doing it for Halloween candy. You should ask for that.” The monitor laughed and moved on while the girls got down on their knees and hauled their babies onto their laps.

“Be careful of my star,” Jasper told his mother.

“Eat up,” Zoë said, waving a twig in Jasper's face.

“I want Halloween candy instead of twigs.”

“I'm not giving it to you now. You'll just run off. You can have it when the bell rings,” Zoë said.

“This is boring,” Jasper said.

“I told you,” Ori said. “Babies are boring. All they do is cry.”

“Wa-wa-wa-wa!” Jasper cried. Then he decided to be a baby that bites. That was much more interesting, except before he'd even started biting, Zoë said to Isabel, “Maybe they're crying so much because their diapers need changing.”

Jasper and Ori jumped to their feet. “No, we're not!”

Luckily, the bell rang just then, and the babies ran safely into the school. By the time they got back into the classroom, Jasper was having more second thoughts about getting a baby, even a pretty purple one. He'd forgotten about diapers! Who would change them? Mom and Dad made him clear the table. They made him make his bed. They would definitely make him learn to change diapers!

He had just slid into his place at his table when Ms. Tosh called on him to present his Family Stick. Jasper went over to his cubby and took it down. He carried it by the Styrofoam stand to the front of the classroom, and when he passed Zoë at her table, he whispered, “Where's my candy?”

Ms. Tosh said to everybody, “Kids, look. Jasper made a real tree.” All the other Stars had made posters.

“It's a stick, not a tree,” Leon said.

“That's right,” Jasper said. “It's my Family Stick.”

Everybody laughed, and Jasper felt pleased with himself.

“I see some leaves on your Family — Stick,” Ms. Tosh said, smiling. “Tell the class about them.”

“This leaf is me,” Jasper said, pointing to his foil-covered leaf. “I made it in the shape of a star because I'm the Star of the Week.”

“It looks like a Christmas decoration,” somebody said, and Jasper felt extra pleased. He explained who the people were in the pictures glued to the green leaves.

“And what about that nice purple leaf?” Ms. Tosh asked. “Who is that?”

Jasper looked at the purple leaf. Because he was having second thoughts about getting a baby, he wished he'd taken it off. But he hadn't. There it was dangling from the stick. He thought about explaining how he had wanted to borrow Ori's sister, but he felt silly about that now. So he said the first thing that came into his head. He said, “That's my brother.”

“Really?” Ms. Tosh said. “I didn't know you had a brother, Jasper.”

“He doesn't,” Ori said.

“I do,” Jasper said, feeling his face heat up. “You just haven't met him. He doesn't go to our school.”

“Oh, I see,” Ms. Tosh said, like she really did understand. “What's his name?”

“Plum,” Jasper said.

“Plum's not a name,” Zoë said. “It's a fruit.”

“It's not Plum then,” Jasper said. “It's …” What? He thought of the man in blue coveralls who had come to the house to fix the oven the week before Jasper was the Star. There was a badge sewn over his pocket. The badge said
Earl
.

“Earl,” Jasper said.

“Very interesting, Jasper,” Ms. Tosh said in a different voice now, the voice she used when she didn't believe a word you were saying. “Thank you for sharing your Family Tree with us. You can go back to your seat now.”

The Star of the Week set his Family Stick down on the Sharing Table where yesterday he had left the box of lint that nobody had understood either. He went back to his desk to start his work. Every time he looked up and saw the purple leaf hanging down from the stick, he felt sure he had a brother somewhere. Where? He had to find him. He had to find him or he'd be Liar of the Week.

Chapter 6

Being the Star of the Week was not going as well as Jasper John Dooley had expected. There hadn't been a banner draping the front of the school the first day. There hadn't been any kids chanting, “Jasper! Jasper! Jasper!” and waving little flags. Not even the kids in his class had chanted “Jasper!” Nobody had asked him the right questions during Show and Tell. Nobody had gone up to the Sharing Table to admire his Family Stick. Ms. Tosh hadn't even noticed that he hadn't gotten the lates once so far this week. By the end of the school day, when he turned in his star, Jasper didn't dare ask Ms. Tosh if he was still going to be the Star tomorrow.

Mom met Ori and Jasper outside. “What's the matter with you boys?” she asked. “You look terrible.”

Ori yawned. “Can I come over?”

Jasper said, “I'm still too busy.”

“Did something happen today?” Mom asked.

“Yes,” Ori said. “Jasper told everybody he had a brother.”

“Jasper John. Did you say that?” Mom asked.

Jasper nodded.

“Why?”

“Because of the purple leaf on my Family Stick.”

Mom looked worried, but just then Ori took his hat with the earflaps out of his backpack. He put it on his head and tied the strings in a bow under his chin. Mom laughed. “Why are you wearing a winter hat, Ori?”

“To protect my ears,” Ori said, setting off down the alley.

“Am I still going to be the Star tomorrow?” Jasper asked as soon as Ori was too far away to hear.

“Of course,” Mom said. “You're the Star of the Week.”

“Ms. Tosh takes the star away every day. What if she doesn't give it back tomorrow?”

“Has that ever happened, Jasper? Has the Star of the Week ever been fired?”

“Not yet, but if I don't get myself a brother by tomorrow,” Jasper said, “I'll be the first.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Jasper said.

“And it has to be a boy?”

“That's what a brother is,” Jasper said. “A boy.”

As soon as they got home, Jasper went down to the basement where they had a workbench and some tools. Jasper liked to build things out of wood. He'd built an iceberg for his Nan when she went away on a cruise to Alaska. He'd made a soap dish for Mom. Now Jasper poked around in the big cardboard box of wood scraps. He found some long thin pieces he could saw into the right lengths. He had to be quiet sawing, though, and careful. Mom and Dad would be mad if he sawed himself.

A little while later, Jasper heard Dad come home from work and ask where he was. “In the basement,” he heard Mom say.

Dad asked, “What's he doing down there?”

Mom said, “Getting the lint out of the dryer, I think.” Then she said his dad's name in a very serious voice. “David? We need to talk.”

“What is it, Gail?” his dad said, also very seriously.

After that Jasper could only hear whispering between his quiet sawing, and now and then a word. He heard, “Whisper, whisper, baby, whisper, whisper, whisper, maybe we should.” They talked for a long time. Then Jasper heard his parents clomp down the basement stairs. They stood in the door holding hands and smiling big pretend smiles.

“Jasper John?” they said. “Could you stop for a minute? We'd like to talk to you.”

Jasper quickly put down the saw. Mom and Dad didn't say anything about it. They just came over.

Mom said, “Jasper, if you're really unhappy —”

Dad said, “If the size of our family —”

“If you're disappointed in the way we are —,” Mom said.

“What are you talking about?” Jasper asked.

Dad said, “Maybe we should talk about our too-small family.”

“I'm too busy to talk now,” Jasper told them. “I'm making myself a brother.”