Mom didn’t like the sign as much as Isabel. She unlocked the door and asked Isabel to go ahead inside and make herself at home. “Jasper will be right there,” she said. She closed the door again and crossed her arms the way Jasper had crossed his before he needed them to hold up the sign.
“Jasper John Dooley,” Mom said. “Isabel is your guest. You will be as nice to her as she was to you when you were a guest at her house. Do you understand?”
“I don’t like her!” Jasper said. “Dad said I would start to like her more and more, but I don’t. I like her less and less. I’m not a knight anymore because of Isabel! Paul C. took my place, Mom. Paul C.!”
“That’s no reason not to have good manners. If you don’t make her welcome, you can forget about ever getting a trampoline for your birthday,” Mom said.
After she said that, she turned the color of jam.
“Am I getting a trampoline for my birthday?” Jasper asked.
Mom said, “That depends.”
Suddenly Jasper liked Isabel. He liked her a lot! Because if he had never gone over to her house, he would never have jumped on a trampoline and felt that soaring-through-the-air-stomach-flip-floppy feeling that was the best feeling he’d ever had. And if he had never had that feeling, he would never have asked for a trampoline, which he didn’t have to save three million dollars for anymore. All because of Isabel! He just had to be nice to her until Mandy came to pick her up!
He threw himself at Mom and hugged her. “I love you so so so so much!”
That was a good feeling, too. The flip-floppy-I-really-love-you feeling he felt right then.
“Thank you,” Mom said, laughing.
Jasper burst inside. “Isabel? Where are you?”
Isabel was in the living room jumping on the sofa.
“Oh,” Jasper said. “I don’t think you should do that. It’s not allowed.”
“I jump on the sofa at my house,” Isabel said, jumping even higher.
“You should stop before my mom sees you. Let’s go to my room and jump on the bed.”
“Okay!” Isabel yelled. She took a flying leap over the side table, almost knocking the lamp to the floor.
In Jasper’s room, Isabel ran all around looking at everything. “Is this your desk?” she asked.
Jasper wondered who else’s desk it could be. It was in his room. Before he could say this, Isabel dashed to his bookshelf and started pulling out books and lifting down his soccer trophies.
“What’s this, Jasper? What’s in this box?” Isabel asked, grabbing his lint collection off the shelf.
“Careful with that!”
Jasper lunged for the box and took it from her before she spilled out his lint.
“What is it? What is it? What is it?” she asked.
Jasper was surprised she didn’t know. He’d brought his lint collection to school when he was Star of the Week. Now he took it over to the bed. Isabel sat beside him and watched as he carefully unlatched the lid.
“Oh, right!” Isabel said. “I remember.”
His Nan had given this box to him. It was a jewelry box, but Jasper wasn’t using it for jewelry. It was for lint.
The biggest compartments in the jewelry box were packed with plain gray dryer lint. Lint with colored flecks went in another compartment. There was a compartment for pocket lint, too, and a very special compartment that had only a tiny bit of lint in it. That kind of lint was rare and hard to collect. It was belly-button lint. The only place Jasper could get belly-button lint was from his dad.
Jasper explained all this again to Isabel. She seemed interested because, as he explained the different compartments, she gasped.
But she wasn’t gasping. She was taking a huge gulp of air. With the huge gulp of air puffing out her cheeks, she leaned over his lint collection.
“No!”
Jasper slammed the lid closed before she could blow all the lint out of the box.
He pulled his desk chair over to his bookshelf and stood on it so he could put his collection on the top shelf. He was so so so so mad again.
“Okay! Let’s jump!” Isabel said, standing on the bed.
Jasper remembered the trampoline he was going to get for his birthday if he was nice to Isabel until her nanny picked her up. When he remembered, he wasn’t mad anymore. He jumped on the bed with Isabel until she said, “This is boring.”
“What do you want to do instead?” Jasper asked.
“Let’s wrestle!”
“Hey!” Jasper cried as Isabel pulled him down by the leg.
She sat on his back and bounced up and down, making the air pfft-pfft-pfft out of him and not come back in. Jasper knew then that he would never get a trampoline. Pfft-pfft-pfft! He would never get a trampoline because he couldn’t — pfft-pfft-pfft! — be nice to Isabel until her nanny picked her up.
He’d be dead by then.
Jasper thought of Ms. Tosh. How did she keep not only Isabel but all the kids in the class from throwing books on the floor and bouncing on each other?
She did it by talking to them in a voice they had to obey.
“Isabel!” Jasper said. “You’ve disrupted us enough for one day!”
And Isabel stopped.
Jasper sat up and breathed some air. What else? What else did Ms. Tosh do to keep control?
She gave seatwork.
Jasper pointed to the chair. “Isabel? Will you please sit down?”
Isabel sat on the chair. Jasper got up and cleared space on his desk, which was piled with toys. On the bookshelf, he found some puzzle books. “Here. Do this page.”
He tapped the book twice with his finger, the way Ms. Tosh did, so that Isabel would focus.
“Okay,” she said. “Do you have a pencil?”
Jasper couldn’t find a pencil anywhere. “You stay in your seat, Isabel,” he said, backing out of the room.
“I will,” Isabel promised.
He ran to the kitchen, where there were pens in a jar by the phone. He was surprised that Isabel was still in the chair when he got back. She took the pen and started on the crossword puzzle. Jasper opened another puzzle book and sat on the bed to connect the dots.
“Done!” Isabel sang before Jasper had even connected half the dots.
He got up to check her work. Isabel had filled the little squares like this:
Isabel asked, “Do you know what X and O mean, Jasper?”
“No,” Jasper said.
“X is a kiss. O is a hug.”
“What letter is a lick?” Jasper asked.
“A lick?” Isabel laughed. “Jasper John, you’re so funny!” She snatched Jasper’s puzzle book out of his hand. “Connect-the-dots! I love connect-the-dots! Connect my dots, Jasper.”
She held out her arm.
“Okay,” Jasper said.
They sat on the floor together. Jasper put the tip of his pen on one freckle and drew a straight line to another. He had no idea what he was drawing. He was just connecting Isabel’s dots. Soon he saw a picture coming.
“A sailboat!” Isabel sang. “You’re good at drawing, Jasper. Draw a dog on this arm. Draw Rollo.”
She held out her other arm and Jasper connected the dots to make a dog.
Isabel laughed. Jasper laughed. Then Isabel stretched out on the floor so Jasper could connect more of her dots. She had so so so many dots on her stomach.
The doorbell rang. Mom didn’t hear it from the basement, so Jasper went to answer it. Isabel followed him.
“Where’s your mom?” she asked.
“She’s working.”
“What does she do?”
“Right now she’s writing a book,” Jasper said.
“A book! What kind of book? A kids’ book?”
“A small, blue book.”
Jasper opened the doo
r. It was Mandy. “Already?” he said.
“It’s five thirty,” Mandy said. Then she turned to Isabel. “Izzy! Look at you! Your mother isn’t going to be very happy. You’d better have a bath as soon as you get home.”
“Do you want to have a playdate tomorrow, Jasper?” Isabel asked him. “This was fun!”
Jasper laughed because she looked so so so funny with a cat on her forehead and its tail hanging down her nose. There was a flower on one cheek and a bird on the other. Her arms and legs were doodle pads. And so was her stomach under her shirt.
Chapter 11
The next day Isabel got the lates. The kids were all at their tables writing Compliments to Margo and eating the cupcakes she had brought when somebody knocked on the door. Ms. Tosh answered it. Jasper saw Mandy in the hall. Ms. Tosh stepped out and closed the door. A few minutes later she came back inside with Isabel. Ms. Tosh had her arm around Isabel the way she put her arm around a kid coming back from the sickroom.
Everybody stared at Isabel. Ms. Tosh put a finger to her lips.
All the kids nodded and went back to writing Compliments to Margo just as if Isabel had not come in late with connect-the-dot drawings all over her face.
The Star, Margo, got to do anything she wanted while the rest of the class was writing Compliments to her. She was playing with Hammy, the little brown hamster in the cage at the back of the room. She didn’t see Ms. Tosh put her finger to her lips. Now she turned and saw Isabel. In a very loud voice, she cried out, “Isabel! What happened?”
“Jasper John did this to me!” Isabel told the class. “He connected all my dots when I was at his house yesterday! Look!”
She pulled up her shirt to show her stomach. She pulled up her long sleeves and the legs of her pants. Everybody saw how Jasper had turned her into a connect-the-dots doodle pad.
“Didn’t you have a bath?” Jasper asked.
“I had three baths,” Isabel said. “This is permanent marker. Do you know what ‘permanent’ means?”
“Forever?” Jasper said.
“It means I’m going to have a cat on my forehead for the rest of my life!”
Leon said, “I like how the tail is hanging down your nose.”
“It looks terrible!” Isabel roared. “I’m not allowed to play with you ever again, Jasper John. My mom is going to phone your mom. She’s really mad.”
Jasper slithered down in his desk. He wished he had some potholders to cover his face.
“Isabel,” Ms. Tosh said. “Please sit down. We’re writing Compliments to Margo.”
When Isabel’s mom phoned Jasper’s mom, Jasper’s mom would change her mind about getting him a trampoline for his birthday. Jasper felt sad about that. But he felt better in the lunchroom with Ori and Leon and Paul C., because Paul C. said, “I guess those girls won’t be bothering you anymore. I guess you’re going to be a knight again.”
Being a knight with his friends was better than having a trampoline. Jasper knew that now.
Paul C. took off his glasses and cleaned them. He looked just as sad as Jasper had felt a moment ago.
“You can be a knight, too,” Jasper told him.
“Can I?” Paul C.’s face lit up. “Look,” he said, turning over the book he had brought down to the lunchroom. It was about knights. The boys leafed through it while they were eating. It gave them some good ideas about shields.
As soon as they finished eating, they rushed outside to play.
They were eenie-meenie-miney-moeing to see who would be the dragon when Isabel pushed through the bushes. “Come on, Jasper,” she said in a voice that was hard not to obey.
“Where?” Jasper asked.
“You have to get married to me. Nobody else will now that you drew all over my face.”
Jasper stood up. He could see all the girls on the other side of the bushes waiting with crossed arms. Isabel crossed her arms, too. She wiggled her nose. The cat’s tail twitched. That cat was so so so so mad!
“In case you’re wondering, I still love you,” she said. “I just don’t like you anymore.”
Jasper’s stomach flip-flopped, but not in a nice way. Isabel was going to make Jasper get married to her, and there was nothing he could do about it. Jasper started to go with Isabel. He had to.
But just then Paul C. sprang up and rushed at Isabel with the book about knights in his hands. Isabel looked surprised because usually Paul C. was so quiet and just sat by himself at the picnic table minding his own business.
Paul C. turned the book sideways and opened and closed it in front of his face. The book opening and closing looked just like the horrible snapping jaws of a dragon, jaws that came closer and closer to Isabel.
“I’m going to bite you,” the dragon said in a quiet voice that was twice as scary as a roar.
“Ah!” Isabel yelled. “I’m telling on you, Paul C.! I’m going to find the monitor! You’re in big trouble! Biting isn’t allowed!”
Chapter 12
Jasper invited Ori, Paul C. and Leon to his house after school. Leon couldn’t come because he had a piano lesson. Paul C. was allowed even though he had spent part of lunch in the principal’s office where he had never been in his whole life. He had to go to the principal’s office because what he’d done to Isabel was Very Dangerous.
“You had to go to the principal’s office?” Paul C.’s mother asked after school.
“It’s Very Dangerous to scare people with a book about knights,” Paul C. said.
“He was protecting his friend,” Ori told her.
“Me!” Jasper said.
And Paul C.’s mom looked so so so so happy. She said to Jasper’s mom, “Paul is new to this school. I’m so glad he’s found friends.”
Ori and Paul C. came to Jasper’s house to make a plan. Their plan was about how to make Isabel NOT in love with Jasper. Jasper had tried ignoring her. He had tried being nice. The only thing he hadn’t tried was pretending to love her, too.
“Girls like quiet boys who mind their own business. That’s why she loves me. Girls don’t like boys who dip their pigtails in ink,” Jasper explained.
“The thing is,” Ori said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My Nan told me,” Jasper said.
But at Jasper’s school, they didn’t draw with nib pens in art class. They mostly used colored pencils.
“Mom!” Jasper called.
Mom came and the boys asked her, “Would you like it if a boy dipped your hair in jam?”
“In jam? No,” she said. “I’d be really mad.”
“What about if he did this?” Paul C. asked. He smiled so that his cheeks lifted up. Then he pushed the frames of his glasses into his cheeks so his eyes stretched down. He looked so so so ugly!
“Stop it, Paul!” Mom said. “You’re scaring me!”
The boys smiled evil smiles.
And Mom took the little blue notebook out of her pocket and wrote something down.
At breakfast on Monday, Jasper asked for toast.
“Toast?” Dad said. “You always have cereal. Is something wrong?”
Jasper said, “I feel toasty.”
While the toast was toasting, Jasper took the jam from the fridge. He did a test with his own hair. He had to hold the jar against the side of his head because his hair was too short to dip.
“Jasper?” Dad asked. “What are you doing with the jam?”
Jasper took the jar away. “Is there jam on my hair?”
“Just a little. Are you okay, Jasper?”
“The jam’s too thick,” Jasper said. “How can I make it more like ink?”
“Like ink?” Dad said. “Well, you could add water.”
While Jasper was at the kitchen sink stirring water into the jam, Dad used a wet cloth to wipe the jam out of Jasper’s hair. He went to put the cloth
in the laundry hamper. When he came back, Jasper was sitting at the table pouring out cereal for himself.
“I thought you were having toast,” Dad said.
“The jam was too watery.”
“You seem funny this morning, Jasper,” Dad said. He put a hand on Jasper’s forehead. “Uh-oh. It’s not what I think it is, is it?”
Jasper nodded.
Girl-itis!
At school, Ms. Tosh noticed right away that Jasper had got new glasses. She didn’t notice that Paul C. didn’t have glasses anymore.
“I still can’t see very well,” Jasper told her. “I need to move closer to the board.”
“Go to the seat where you would see best, Jasper,” Ms. Tosh said.
Jasper didn’t need to pretend he was having trouble seeing. He had to wave his arms in front of himself as he walked so he wouldn’t crash into anything. How could Paul C. be so good at math when everything was so blurry?
Jasper stopped at Margo and Bernadette’s table. He looked over the top of the glasses to make sure it was the right place. “I need to sit here, behind Isabel,” he told Ms. Tosh.
Margo and Jasper switched places. As soon as Jasper was seated behind Isabel, he squinted at the back of her head through Paul C.’s glasses. Paul C.’s glasses were junk! Jasper couldn’t even see Isabel’s pigtails!
He slid the glasses down and looked at Isabel over the top of them.
Isabel didn’t have pigtails. Her hair barely reached her shoulders. Dipping her hair was going to be harder than he thought.
Jasper decided to skip ahead to the next part of the plan. He tapped Isabel’s shoulder. When she turned around, Jasper pushed the frames of Paul C.’s glasses into his smiling cheeks so that his eyes stretched down.
Instead of screaming, Isabel laughed. “Jasper John, I’m so happy you’re sitting behind me now. Did you notice? The cat is almost gone?” She pointed to the ghost of the connect-the-dots cat on her forehead. The tail had completely vanished.
“I took eleven baths on the weekend,” she said.
Jasper John Dooley, NOT in Love Page 4