Dad picked up Jasper and lifted him high in the air. When Jasper was back on the ground, Coach Ben patted him all over, like he was trying extra hard to be confident in him.
“What a great game, Jasper. This is the first time that you’ve stayed with the other kids. Usually, you’re over at the side of the field by yourself.”
“That’s where the dandelions are,” Jasper said.
“Get back out there and do just what you’re doing,” Coach Ben told him. Then he turned to Dad. “A jug of milk? I would never have thought of that.”
Chapter 7
On Sunday, Nan was coming over for supper. Jasper planned to show her the black mark against him in the alley. He didn’t plan to drink the Bad drink again, but as soon as he thought of the black mark, he wanted the Bad drink. Then he couldn’t stop himself from drinking it. He snuck five sips.
When Nan arrived, they went out. Jasper went fast! Nan went at her normal speed. Jasper had High Energy and Nan didn’t.
The black mark was faded from cars driving over it, but Jasper could still see it. He got down on his knees and sniffed it. Too bad the smoky smell was gone.
“My goodness,” Nan said. “You must have done something terrible.”
“I did so many terrible things!” Jasper said.
He told her about stinging everybody at soccer. He told her about wearing the wrong Day-of-the-Week underpants. He told her about writing the wrong answers on his math worksheet — on purpose!
“But why are you doing these Bad things, Jasper?” Nan asked. “You’re the best boy I know.”
Jasper stared at Nan. He didn’t want to tell her about the Bad drink. And he didn’t want not to be her best boy anymore.
“Is it because you’re having fun?” Nan asked.
“Yes!” Jasper said. “That’s why!”
“Have fun, Jasper John, but not too much.”
He got back on his bike. With Nan watching the alley for cars, he rode up and down, up and down — fast! — making wind. Right in front of Nan, he squeezed his brakes so they made their scary cat-screech sound.
“Jasper!” Nan cried, and stepped back with a hand pressing her heart. “That’s what I meant by too much fun.”
Jasper laughed. He rode over to look at the mark. “Nan?” he said, smiling. “That one’s for stinging kids at soccer. The next one’s for wrong underpants!”
At supper, Jasper still had High Energy. He bounced on his chair while he ate. When Mom asked him why he was bouncing again, Jasper said, “Because it’s fun!”
Mom told him to stop. Then Dad told him to stop. Jasper said he couldn’t. Nan frowned.
“No more bouncing,” Dad said. “If you want to bounce, eat in your room.”
Jasper stomped off with his plate. “No fair!” he shouted back. “Then I don’t get to have supper with Nan!”
He had to sit alone in his room, bouncing on the bed. It wasn’t fun.
Later, Nan came to say good-bye. “Am I still your best boy?” he asked.
“You’re my best boy no matter what.”
But there were tidal waves at bath time again. And in bed that night, Bad thoughts crowded into Jasper’s head — black marks and orange teeth and stains on his clothes. He kept hearing Beep! Beep! and knew it meant “Hurry! Hurry!”
All he wanted to do was go to sleep.
On Monday morning, Jasper’s head hurt again and he had Low Energy from his Bad sleep. At school he couldn’t focus on anything Ms. Tosh said.
Ori followed Jasper outside at recess. “You’re not running today, Jasper.”
Jasper was dragging his feet. He dragged himself over to the picnic table. “I need a little nap,” he said, and he lay down on the table.
“Did you drink the Bad drink again, Jasper?” Ori asked.
“Yes.” Jasper closed his eyes.
“You have to stop. You have to pour it out.”
“I know,” Jasper said. “I feel so so so Bad today. I never want to drink it again.”
Ori leaned so close that Jasper could smell his breath. “The thing is, Jasper?”
Jasper opened his eyes. “What did you have for breakfast?”
“Cinnamon toast. Jasper, you have to stop drinking that Bad drink. You have to drink good things instead.”
“I had a glass of milk at breakfast.”
“Then you have to eat something good. Eat the most good food. The most good food will take away the Badness and make you good again.”
“The most good food?” Jasper said. “You mean celery?”
After school, Mom was waiting to walk Jasper and Ori home. She always walked them home because Ori’s mom was busy with Ori’s baby sister. Ori gave her the instructions.
“Jasper has to eat celery as soon as he gets home. I would come to help him eat it, but I have my violin lesson.”
Jasper dragged his feet because he was so tired and because he didn’t want to eat celery.
“Jasper hates celery,” Mom said.
“I know, but it’s good for him,” Ori said. “Cut it into little pills. He should take it with milk. Or juice.”
Mom laughed. “You sound like a doctor, Ori.”
“The thing is, Jasper’s my friend. I know what’s good for him.”
When they reached the alley where Ori turned to go home, he hugged Jasper. Jasper hugged him back. “You can do it, Jasper,” Ori said.
“I guess you had a hard day,” Mom said after Ori left.
Jasper groaned.
At home, Jasper sat at the kitchen table holding his headache in his hands. He didn’t bounce on the chair. He couldn’t. He had even Lower Energy than at school.
Mom cut the celery on the cutting board. She brought it to him on a plate with a glass of milk. Jasper looked at the pale green celery pills.
“What don’t you like about celery?” Mom asked.
“The taste,” Jasper said. “And how it has strings. I don’t like food with strings.”
“Just take one. With a big swig of milk. And if that goes all right, you can try another.”
Jasper picked up one of the celery pills. He could feel the strings! Then he sniffed it. Strings!
“Go on,” Mom said. “One or two, then I’ll make you something you like. Or — here’s an idea. You can just tell Ori you ate some celery.”
“Mom!” Jasper said. “That’s lying!”
“Okay, okay. I’ll leave you to it. I have a phone call to make.”
Mom left Jasper in the kitchen, staring at the celery pills. He poked at them and pushed them around on his plate. Finally, he took a pill in one hand and the glass of milk in the other. He swigged the milk and, holding it in his mouth, jammed one of the celery pills between his lips.
BLAHHH!!!
Milk sprayed everywhere. Jasper coughed and gagged. He stomped over to the sink for a cloth. After he had wiped up the spit-milk, he went straight to the fridge to take out the Bad drink and pour it down the sink.
The can was behind even more yogurt containers full of furry green food. Jasper jiggled it to see how much was left. A little less than half.
And he got an idea. It would be so so so much easier to swallow a pill with Torpedo High Energy Drink than with milk.
Chapter 8
“Pour yourself a glass of milk,” Dad told Jasper at breakfast on Tuesday morning.
“Can you pour it for me?” Jasper asked.
“I thought you were doing it yourself now. I’m busy making your lunch. Go ahead and pour it.”
Jasper knew what would happen. If he opened the fridge, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from checking if the Torpedo High Energy Drink was still there. Then he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from jiggling the can. He didn’t want to drink it. He didn’t like that Bad drink anymore. But he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
He went to the fridge and, just as he thought, ended up taking four sips of the Bad drink before he filled his milk glass. He torpedoed through breakfast, then torpedoed to his room to dress. When he opened his underwear drawer, he saw only one pair of Day-of-the-Week underpants.
“Mom!” he yelled. “Mom! Mom!”
Mom came to his room. “What, Jasper? What’s wrong?”
“Where are all my underpants?”
“They’re probably over in the corner where you keep throwing your dirty laundry.” She pointed to the pile of clothes that had been growing and growing all week. “There are clean underpants in here, Jasper,” she said, looking in his drawer.
“I can’t wear those. I can only wear the Day-of-the-Week ones.”
“Here,” she said, fishing out a pair and holding them up. “This is exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Those say Tuesday!”
“Well, it is Tuesday,” Mom said.
“That’s what I mean,” Jasper said.
Mom sighed. “Jasper, I’ll do the laundry tonight. Now get dressed or you’ll get the lates.”
If he couldn’t wear the wrong Day-of-the-Week underpants, the next best thing would be to wear the right underpants inside out! He put them on. Then, because his pants drawer was empty, Jasper went over to the pile of yesterday’s clothes, put on yesterday’s dirty jeans and cackled.
Dad called that it was time to go.
On the way to school, Jasper asked Dad, “Were you ever Bad when you were a kid?”
“You bet.” Dad said this proudly, sticking out his chest.
“What did you do?”
“Once I said a Bad word to my mother.”
“To Nan?” Jasper asked, and Dad nodded.
Jasper smiled, but really it made him feel watery inside to think of anybody saying a Bad word to Nan.
Dad told him about some other Bad things he’d done. He’d painted his brother’s — Jasper’s Uncle Tom’s — toy soldiers with Nan’s pink nail polish. He’d wrapped Uncle Tom’s bike in toilet paper.
“Wow!” Jasper said.
“It was fun, but Tom was pretty mad. I’ll tell you what, Jasper. On the weekend, Mom is going out with her friends. It will be just you and me at home.”
“Can we be Bad?” Jasper asked.
“That’s just what I was thinking,” Dad said.
And Jasper said, “Hurray!”
At school, they played What Am I? Ms. Tosh waited for all the kids to settle at their tables. Then she picked somebody to come to the front of the room. That person had to pretend to be something they’d learned about. Everybody else had to guess what it was.
Jasper’s High Energy made it hard to focus again. He kept bouncing on his chair and wondering what Bad things he and Dad would do together on the weekend when Mom was out.
Zoë was at the front of the room flapping her hands and running in circles on the carpet. Everybody was shouting out.
“You’re a bird!” Paul C. called.
Zoë shook her head and ran and flapped.
“You’re the number eight!” Ori shouted.
“How could she be the number eight?” Leon asked.
“She’s running in the shape of the number eight,” Ori said.
Zoë changed the way she was running. She kept flapping.
How Bad would they be? Jasper wondered. He looked at Zoë. Why didn’t she make a buzzing sound?
“She’s a bee,” Jasper said.
“Yes.” Zoë ran flapping back to her table.
“Very good, Jasper,” Ms. Tosh said. “It’s your turn.”
Now Jasper could focus! Everybody was looking at him!
Jasper got up from his table. He thought again about the walk to school with Dad. Dad had said a Bad word to Nan. Jasper could say a Bad word when he got to the front. That would be so so so so Bad!
Everybody was watching Jasper, who was dressed in inside-out underpants under yesterday’s dirty jeans. He smiled back at everybody and stuck out his chest. They smiled, too, because he was walking so slowly, like there was glue on the floor. He was walking slowly to give himself time to think of the best Bad word.
One of his pant legs felt funny. Jasper stopped to shake his leg. That made everybody laugh. But soon they wouldn’t be laughing. Soon they would be shocked at the sound of the Bad word exploding in the room. Which one? All of the best Bad words started with B.
“Jasper John Dooley,” Ms. Tosh said, “we don’t have all day.”
Something was slipping down his pant leg. Jasper looked and saw it inching out around his ankle. Something white.
Something that looked a lot like underpants.
How? How had his underpants come off while he was wearing them? This had never happened before.
Jasper glanced back at the underpants left behind on the floor. He saw the word Thursday.
This morning he’d put on Tuesday underpants.
He kept walking, hoping nobody would notice. Nobody did. There were other things on the floor, like old crumpled worksheets and lunch boxes that should have been put away.
Once Jasper was standing in front of the class, he had to pretend to be something that nobody could guess so that everybody would keep looking at him. So that nobody would notice the Thursday underpants that had got stuck in the leg of yesterday’s pants and were now lying on the classroom floor.
He began to wave his arms around and jump in the air. He did some twists and turns, like he was on a trampoline.
Everybody shouted out.
“You’re a rabbit!”
“You’re a spider!”
“You’re a jumping bean!”
“If he was a jumping bean, he wouldn’t wave his arms! Beans don’t have arms.”
He jumped and twisted and waved. After a lot of jumping and twisting and waving, he felt his High Energy turn to Low Energy. He still didn’t know what he was.
“He’s crazy!” somebody shouted.
Jasper flopped down on the floor and lay there panting.
Somebody else shouted, “He’s dead!”
“Yes!” Jasper said.
He had died of embarrassment.
Chapter 9
After What Am I? they had to make good copies of the stories they’d written the day before. The Thursday underpants were still lying on the floor.
Jasper’s story was about a boy who got the wrong drink out of a machine and drank it anyway. Horns grew out of his head. All he could think were Bad thoughts. He got lots of black marks that he wore in a necklace around his neck. The story ended before the underpants slid out of the boy’s pant leg. Before the boy was so so sorry he had ever drunk the Bad drink. Before he died of embarrassment.
When Jasper finished the good copy of his Bad story, it was three pages long. He put up his hand and asked Ms. Tosh if he could get a paper clip from her desk. They used to staple their pages together until Jasper accidentally stapled his story to his stomach. Now stapling was Too Dangerous.
Ms. Tosh said, “Yes.”
Really, Jasper wanted to get rid of the Thursday underpants. Any second the recess bell would ring and everybody would stand up from their tables. They might notice the underpants. Jasper flicked them with his foot on the way to the front. They landed part way under Isabel and Patty’s table.
Now was the time to do something Bad. If he did something Bad now, everybody would look at him, not at the floor.
Jasper took the first page of his story and crumpled it into a ball. He did the same with the other two pages. He crumpled loudly so that Ms. Tosh would look up from her lesson book.
The bell rang.
“If you’re finished your story, please leave it on my desk,” Ms. Tosh told the class. She went over to the board and, turning her back, started writing.
> Ori came up with his own neatly printed story just as — one, two, three — Jasper tossed his crumpled story balls onto Ms. Tosh’s desk.
“Jasper! No!” Ori snatched up the balls. “You drank the Bad drink again, didn’t you?” he whispered.
“The celery didn’t work,” Jasper said.
“Did you swallow it?”
“I couldn’t!”
Ori hurried back to his table with the story balls. Jasper ran out of the room — fast! He stopped just outside the door, waiting for the room to empty so he could sneak back in and grab the underpants.
Ms. Tosh was still writing on the board. She wasn’t ever going to leave. Ori had uncrumpled each of Jasper’s story balls onto the seat of his chair. Now he sat on the wrinkly pages and bounced up and down to iron them out.
Ms. Tosh turned. “Ori? For goodness’ sake! What are you doing?”
Jasper ran off.
Leon found the underpants after recess when he got up to sharpen his pencil.
“Yuck!” he said, holding them up. “Whose are these?”
Everybody screamed.
Jasper hid behind a book.
Leon waved the Thursday underpants in Isabel’s face. “Are these yours?”
“No!” she shrieked. “Yuck!”
Leon shook them at Margo and Zoë. He shook them at Bernadette and Patty.
“They have to be a girl’s. Only girls wear Day-of-the-Week underpants!”
Jasper popped up from behind his book when Leon said this. He felt his face turn so so so hot and red.
“Leon,” Ms. Tosh said before he had waved the underpants in the face of every girl. “Bring those to the front right now.”
Leon did. He skipped to the front waving the underpants like a tissue. Everybody yucked.
Jasper put up his hand and asked to go to the bathroom. Ms. Tosh said he could.
“Would you put these in the Lost and Found on the way?” Ms. Tosh asked.
Jasper John Dooley, You're in Trouble Page 3