Jasper stuffed the underpants in his pocket. Everybody laughed.
As soon as he left the classroom, he took out the underpants again. Tears were spurting from his eyes. Mad tears. Embarrassed tears. He wiped his face with the Thursday underpants. He blew his nose.
Jasper was so so mad at that drink! So so mad and so so embarrassed. He muttered all the Bad B words he knew, but they didn’t help.
Just ahead, two boys went into the bathroom. They looked like they were in Grade Six. All Jasper wanted was to take off the inside-out girls’ underpants he was wearing. But he didn’t want to take them off with two big Grade Six boys in the bathroom.
The girls’ bathroom was beside the boys’ bathroom. Jasper went in.
He was surprised. The girls’ bathroom was almost the same as the boys’ bathroom. It wasn’t painted pink. He locked himself in a stall and took off his shoes so he could take off yesterday’s pants. Then he took off the inside-out Tuesday underpants and put yesterday’s pants back on. He was standing in sock feet with two pairs of underpants in his hands when he heard the bathroom door open and two girls come in, chatting.
“How did you do on the math test?” one asked in a squeaky voice.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” the other answered.
The lock on the stall rattled. Jasper jumped up on the edge of the toilet seat. He clung to the wall.
“Sorry,” the squeaky girl said.
Jasper held his breath, balancing in his sock feet on the seat.
“Who’s in there?” she asked.
Jasper kept quiet, and the two girls went into the other two stalls. Jasper heard two doors close.
“That’s weird,” the one girl squeaked. “If someone’s in there, why doesn’t she answer?”
“Look under the wall,” the not-squeaky girl said.
“I’m looking. The weird thing is, I see shoes, but I don’t see any feet.”
“Maybe it’s a ghost.”
“Stop it. You’re scaring me.”
Sock feet on a toilet seat was almost the same as skates on ice. The same thing happened as the last time Jasper tried skating. He slipped. But when he slipped skating, he only fell on his bum. A so so so terrible thing didn’t happen.
SPLOOSH!
“Did you hear that?” the squeaky one asked.
“I’m getting out of here,” the other said.
Two toilets flushed. Jasper stood with one foot in the cold, yucky water, soaked to the ankle. Only when he heard the girls run out without washing their hands did he step out of the toilet. His wet sock slapped the floor. He picked up his shoes.
Down the hall to the office he trudged — step, slap, step, slap, step, slap — to tell the office assisstant to call his mom. On the way he passed the Lost and Found box. He dropped the Tuesday and Thursday underpants in.
Chapter 10
“Why can’t you put on your shoe?” Mom asked Jasper when she got to the school.
“I have Toilet Foot!!!”
“What’s that?” She looked down at his foot in the sopping sock. “Oh.”
“Let’s go!”
Jasper and Mom left the school, Jasper’s shoe foot stepping, his Toilet Foot slapping. Mom carried his shoe. “Can you tell me how this happened?”
Jasper said, “I don’t want to talk about it!”
They walked the rest of the way without speaking. Step, slap. Step, slap. Step, slap.
At home, Jasper took a bath. Mom kept coming into the bathroom and smiling. Every time, Jasper put the wet cloth over his face. After she left, he added more hot water. He was going to stay in the bathtub for the rest of his life, even though his tummy was grumbling.
When Dad came home from work, Jasper was still there. Dad sat on the edge of the tub. “Let me see your foot.”
Jasper lifted the good foot out of the water.
“Whoa! Wrinkly toes! Let me see the other.”
Jasper shook his head.
“Please,” Dad said, and Jasper lifted out the Toilet Foot.
“Same!” Dad said. “Wrinkly!”
Dad explained to Jasper why his toes got wrinkly in the bath. The toe skin filled up with bathwater until it was size Extra Large. The skin was Extra Large but the toes were Extra Small. No wonder the skin got all wrinkly.
“And you know what else?”
“What?” Jasper asked.
“The clean tub water has swished out both your feet, and the rest of you, inside and out.”
“Really?”
Dad nodded. “Feel like coming out and having some supper?”
Jasper’s tummy grumbled again. “What are we having?”
“Chicken, I think.”
“Okay.” Jasper climbed out of the tub and stood dripping on the mat, the cleanest he’d ever been in his life. Dad wrapped a towel around him.
Chapter 11
Before Mom went out on Saturday night, she looked in the fridge to make sure there was something for Jasper and Dad to eat. She opened a yogurt container and stuck her nose in.
“Yuck!”
Into the green bin went the furry green food. She looked in all the containers one by one and yucked. By the time she finished yucking, the fridge was almost empty.
“I guess we’re ordering pizza,” Dad said.
“Pizza! Hurray!” Jasper said.
Because the fridge was almost empty, Mom found the can of Torpedo High Energy Drink that had been tucked in the back. She held it away from her, like it might explode. “Where did this come from?”
Dad looked at the can. “I have no idea.”
“These kinds of drinks are Bad,” Mom told Jasper. “They’re Very Dangerous for kids.”
“I know that!” Jasper said.
Mom took the can to the sink. She was about to pour it out when Dad stopped her. “I’ll drink it.”
“Don’t!” Jasper cried.
He rushed over, but it was too late! Dad tilted back his head and glugged down the rest of the Bad drink — fast! He squeezed the empty can so that it crumpled in his hand. Jasper shivered and backed away.
Mom frowned at Dad. “Didn’t I just finish saying how Bad that drink is?”
He tossed the crumpled can in the recycling box and cackled.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, shaking her head. “Have fun, you two.”
Jasper followed Mom to the front door. “Do you have to go out?”
She put on her jacket. “I’ve been looking forward to tonight all week, Jasper. And so has your dad. He has some special things planned. Bye, sweetheart.”
“Jasper!” Dad called from the kitchen. “Where are you? Let’s get started!”
“Bye,” Jasper said, hugging Mom hard, holding her tight until she pulled away.
He crept back to the kitchen and hovered in the doorway. “What’s in that Bad drink, Dad?”
“The drink I just drank? A lot of sugar. A lot of caffeine.”
“What’s caffeine?”
“The same thing that’s in coffee. Drinking that drink is like drinking ten cups of coffee. That’s why it’s not for kids.”
Jasper felt better then. Mom and Dad drank coffee every morning. Dad waved the pizza menu and Jasper ran over.
“Okay. First things first,” Dad said. “No vegetables.”
“Hurray!” Jasper shouted.
“What kind of pizza do you want?”
“A Bad pizza!” Jasper said.
Dad read the menu. He found one called Dynamite Pizza, but it had peppers.
“Peppers are fruits but they seem like vegetables,” Jasper said.
“Even if they seem like vegetables, we’re not having them,” Dad said.
“But tomato sauce is okay, right? A tomato is a fruit,” Jasper said.
“Really?” Dad asked.
&nb
sp; “Ms. Tosh said.”
“If Ms. Tosh said, we can have it,” Dad said.
They decided on the Meat Monster Pizza. While Dad was on the phone ordering, Jasper chanted in the background, “No veggies tonight! No veggies tonight! No celery especially!”
“Okay,” Dad said, hanging up. “It’ll be here in twenty minutes. That gives us just enough time to do another Bad thing.”
“What?” Jasper asked.
“What’s the Worst thing you could do at supper?” Dad asked Jasper.
Jasper thought about it. He thought hard and then he knew. “The worst thing you could do at supper is eat in your underpants.”
Dad laughed and laughed. “That wasn’t what I was thinking, but let’s do it!”
“Hurray!” Jasper said. “Except let’s wait for the pizza or you’ll have to pay in your underpants.”
“Jasper John,” Dad said. “You astound me.”
“What Bad thing were you thinking of?” Jasper asked.
“This!” Dad went to the freezer and took out a tub of ice cream.
“Before supper?” Jasper asked.
They looked at each other and cackled.
The pizza arrived just as they finished dessert. Dad paid in his pants. As soon as he closed the door, he let them fall to the floor, stepped out of them and left them lying in the hall. He brought the pizza to the kitchen in his checkered boxer shorts. Jasper dropped his pants on the kitchen floor.
“Mom would be so so so mad if we left our clothes all over the house,” Jasper said.
“We’re not going to do that, Jasper. We’re going to stop being Bad and clean up before she gets home,” Dad said.
“Okay,” Jasper said. “What’s the worst way to eat pizza?”
“I don’t know — what?”
“Face down!” Jasper said.
Face down, the meat and cheese fell off. They ate it the normal way but didn’t use napkins. After they finished, Dad asked, “Now what?”
“Now we lick the plates instead of rinsing them!”
It was easy to think of the next Bad thing to do. It was one of the Worst things they could do at their house.
Jump on the living room furniture!
Jasper raced Dad to the sofa and got there first. Dad threw some cushions on the floor and jumped on them.
“What about our digestion?” Jasper asked.
“What about it?” Dad replied.
Bad!
“Bad, Bad, Bad!” they chanted as they jumped. They got so hot jumping and chanting that Dad took off his shirt. Jasper took off his shirt, too.
Jasper got another Bad idea. “Let’s say Bad words while we’re jumping!”
“What Bad words?” Dad asked.
“Bad words that start with B! Like bottom!” Jasper shouted.
“Bottom!” Dad shouted.
“Bum!”
“Bum!”
“Butt!” they shouted at the same time.
Then both of them were jumping on the living room furniture, chanting, “Bottom! Bum! Butt!” — wearing only underpants! Nobody had ever done a so so so so Bad thing as that! At least not at Jasper’s house.
While they were jumping and chanting, Jasper noticed a little flash of white in his dad’s belly button. It was lint. That kind of lint — belly-button lint — was the rarest and hardest to find. The only place Jasper could get belly-button lint for his lint collection was from his dad’s belly button.
Jasper took a huge leap from the sofa to the coffee table. From the coffee table, he planned to leap right onto the cushion Dad was jumping on. Then, before Dad knew it, Jasper would pluck the tiny bit of lint out of his belly button and run away with it. Dad would chase him, screaming “Stop, thief! Stop!” like he always did.
Except something Bad happened instead. Something so so so so Bad.
When Jasper jumped from the sofa to the coffee table, the coffee table tipped and Jasper skidded down it and halfway across the living room carpet. When he finally stopped skidding, his head snapped back — crack! — against the edge of the coffee table.
“Ow!” Jasper roared. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”
Dad bent over him. “Jasper! Where does it hurt?”
“My leg!” Jasper shouted. “My leg!”
“Your leg?” Dad said. “Then why is there blood pouring from your head?”
Jasper could get up, but it hurt. His leg hurt. Dad said it wasn’t broken because the hurt was on the outside. All down his leg, from his bottom to his calf, the skin was a bright, angry red.
Dad helped Jasper to the kitchen where he wet a towel to wipe the blood off. He put ice in a plastic bag and held it to Jasper’s head while he tied Jasper’s shirt around it.
“We’re going to Emergency,” he said.
First they had to find their pants. The worst thing for Jasper was getting his hurt leg in the pants. He started to cry.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!”
He limped out to the car.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!”
Dad drove away — fast! The tires squealed like an angry cat. “I’m really sorry, Jasper. I feel so bad about this.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jasper said through his tears. “It was the drink.”
“What drink?”
“The Bad drink you drank.”
Dad said, “Hang in there, son. They’ll fix you up. I love you so much, Jasper.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
When they got to the hospital, Jasper limped slowly through the parking lot. He couldn’t let Dad carry him because it would hurt too much if he touched his leg. The outside air felt cold on his bare chest. Only then did he remember he was wearing his shirt on his head. He probably looked so so funny, except that he was crying.
In Emergency, they talked to a nurse in a little booth. She had lots of nice smiles for Jasper, but none for Dad. Then he and Dad went over to wait with the other people who were having Emergencies. Dad sat, but Jasper stood because it hurt to bend his leg. Dad held his hand.
They called Jasper’s name — fast!
Dad and Jasper followed another nurse into a little curtained room with bright white walls. The nurse gave Jasper a tissue to wipe his tears. “How did this happen, Jasper?”
“He was jumping on the —” Dad began.
“Sir?” the nurse said. “I’d like Jasper to tell the story.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, the way Mom and Ms. Tosh sometimes did when they were mad. Dad shrank down. Jasper could tell he felt bad.
Jasper blew his nose. “After soccer practice I was so so so thirsty from being a bee that I got a drink from the machine, a Bad drink, but I drank it anyway even though it was the same as ten cups of coffee. Then so so so many Bad things happened that I don’t want to talk about it. Me and Dad were only Bad because Dad drank the rest of the Bad drink and Mom went out so we jumped on the living room furniture in our underpants saying Bad words that start with B. It was fun until I tried to steal his belly-button lint and that’s how this happened.”
The nurse blinked at Jasper. She started to laugh. And Jasper laughed, too. The laughing erased all the crying he’d done.
“What Bad words?” she asked.
“Bottom! Bum! Butt!” Jasper said.
The nurse shook her head. “Bad!” Then she looked at Dad. “So your wife’s out?”
“Yes,” Dad said.
Now she looked sorry for him instead of mad. She unwrapped Jasper’s head.
“Wow!” Jasper said when he saw all the blood on his shirt. “I should be dead!”
“A head bleeds a lot when it’s cut,” the nurse said. “But it’s stopped. Tell me if this hurts.”
“My leg hurts,” Jasper said.
“Well, your head is going to need stitches.”
“Stitches
?” Jasper gasped.
The nurse said, “Stitches will make you look like a pirate. You’ll look Bad.”
“Hurray!” Jasper said.
The doctor who came to do the stitches was so nice. The pockets of her white coat were stuffed with suckers. She invited Jasper to take a sucker every time she did something that hurt. Nothing hurt too much. She peered and poked at his scalp. When she showed him the needle she was going to use to freeze his cut before she stitched him, she insisted he take a sucker.
“Uh-oh,” Dad said.
Dad was holding Jasper’s hand. At least that was what Jasper thought — except it turned out that, really, Jasper was holding Dad’s hand.
Dad said, “I think I’m going to faint.”
The doctor had to stop doctoring Jasper so she could help Dad over to the chair. She made him sit with his head between his knees.
“I’m sorry, Jasper,” Dad said. “I’m not much help.”
“Yes, you are,” Jasper told him. “You drove the car.”
The doctor stitched up Jasper’s head. The freezing needle pinched, then all he felt was a tugging on his scalp. She gave Jasper five more suckers, one for each stitch, bandaged him and showed Jasper her work in a mirror. The bandage went right around his head even though the cut was only at the back.
“I like it!” Jasper said. “You can look now, Dad.”
Dad lifted his head out from between his knees. His face was as white as the doctor’s coat.
The last thing the doctor did was check Jasper’s leg. Slowly, Jasper stepped out of his pants. Up the side of his leg to the very edge of his underpants, the long red skid mark glowed.
“That,” the doctor said, “is maybe the worst rug burn I’ve ever seen.”
She gave Jasper some ointment and a lot more suckers. By then Dad could stand up. Slowly, he and Jasper limped out to the car, holding on to each other.
It was already dark. All the streetlights were on. “Mom should just be getting home now,” Dad said as they were driving away. From the way his shoulders slumped, Jasper could tell he was worried.
Jasper thought of the licked plates not put away and the tipped-over coffee table in the living room and all the cushions on the floor. He thought of the trail of blood to the kitchen. He leaned over and patted Dad’s shoulder.
Jasper John Dooley, You're in Trouble Page 4