Jasper John Dooley, Star of the Week

by Caroline Adderson

  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.”

  Chapter 7

  It was a miracle that the Star didn’t get the lates on Wednesday. He was up until ten o’clock the night before making his wooden brother Earl with Mom and Dad. When he woke the next morning, Earl’s paint was dry, but Jasper had to rush to get to school on time. He put a pillowcase over Earl’s head so that nobody would meet his brother on the way.

  Jasper just made it, but Ori got the lates again. He staggered in while the class was doing the calendar. The Star of the Week, Jasper, slid the card that said Wednesday into the slot on the calendar. He slid in the month and the date. Then Ms. Tosh said, “Hurry, hurry, Ori.”

  Ori joined Isabel and Leon at his table. He looked really, really tired. He looked like nobody had made him brush his hair.

  “Jasper,” Ms. Tosh began. “Are you going to show the class what you’ve brought?”

  “Yes,” the Star answered. “I’ve brought my brother.”

  Everybody laughed.

  “Your brother, Earl?” Ms. Tosh asked.

  “Yes,” Jasper said.

  “Class? Would you like to meet Earl?”

  “Yes!” all the kids cried.

  “Presenting — Earl!” Jasper tore the pillowcase off his brother. Everybody laughed again. They fell into each other laughing. At first Jasper was hurt, but then he saw that Earl was funny looking. He had a purple face and long thin arm
s and legs and blocks of wood for feet. So many hands were waving in the air. Everybody had a question. They asked:

  “Are you really allowed to saw?”

  “Have you made other things out of wood?”

  “Is making wooden people what you want to do when you grow up?”

  Jasper answered all the questions. He felt proud. Ms. Tosh said she had a question, too. She asked, “Can you tell us, Jasper, how Earl is a Science Experiment?”

  “A Science Experiment?” Jasper said.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it Wednesday?” Jasper asked. He looked at the calendar and saw the word Wednesday that he had slid into the slot himself. “If it’s Wednesday,” he said, “then Earl is my Science Experiment.”

  Everybody got very quiet waiting to hear what the Star was going to say about his Science Experiment. Jasper waited to hear what the Star was going to say, too. He had no idea.

  “Jasper?” Ms. Tosh asked.

  “Earl is my brother. I named him after the man who came to fix our oven,” Jasper began.

  “He isn’t really your brother,” Isabel said. “He isn’t real.”

  “That’s my Science Experiment,” Jasper said.

  “How is that your Science Experiment?” Ms. Tosh asked.

  “Shh,” Jasper said, so he could think. He waited for some ideas. If he waited long enough, one or two usually came along. Finally, one did, just as a few kids were starting to squirm at their tables. Jasper asked, “Did you hear something?”

  “No,” they all said.

  “That’s because Earl didn’t say anything. One of the ways you can tell that somebody isn’t real is if they don’t talk. Real kids talk all the time. They practically never shut up.”

  Even Ms. Tosh laughed when he said that.

  “Now, put your hand here,” Jasper said, placing his on his chest, right over the star. All the kids put their hands on their own chests.

  “Do you feel something?”

  “Yes!”

  Jasper invited the class to feel Earl’s chest. “Let me feel! Let me!” Everybody ran up to the front with reaching hands until Ms. Tosh made them stop pushing and line up properly. One by one everybody in Jasper’s class got a chance to touch Earl.

  “His body is a board,” Ori said.

  Ms. Tosh clapped her hands. “Okay, everybody. Back to your tables.”

  As soon as everybody was sitting down again, Ms. Tosh said, “Jasper has brought us an excellent Science Experiment. It teaches us one of the ways to tell if something is alive or not. Earl isn’t alive. Why not?”

  Everybody called out the answer: “He doesn’t have a heart!”

  Chapter 8

  On Wednesday, Jasper didn’t want to play babies with Isabel and Zoë, not even for Halloween candy. He didn’t want his diapers changed. Also, he was too busy with his brother, poor heartless Earl. Ori didn’t want to play babies either. He wanted to stay in the classroom and sleep in the Book Nook. Nobody ever stayed in the classroom during lunch unless they had gotten in trouble, but Ori said, “I don’t care. I’m going to lie down in the Book Nook. Before you go to the lunchroom, cover me with pillows.”

  Jasper did. Then he and Earl ate lunch together in the lunchroom. Really, only Jasper ate. Earl stood beside him, leaning against the wall, grumbling because Dad hadn’t packed Earl any lunch. Then Jasper and Earl went outside to play.

  Isabel and Zoë came up to Jasper and Earl on the jungle gym. “Come on! Be babies!” they called.

  “We’re not babies!” Jasper said. “Babies are boring!”

  “They are not!”

  The girls kept bothering Jasper and Earl, who just wanted to climb in peace.

  “You have to obey me!” Jasper called down to them. “I’m the Star of the Week!” He flashed his star at them.

  The girls laughed at that, which made Earl so mad that he jumped down from the jungle gym and started to chase them away. Since he couldn’t talk, he made growling sounds. Isabel and Zoë screamed.

  “You better be careful!” Jasper shouted. “My brother doesn’t have a heart!”

  Zoë and Isabel were so terrified they ran right up to the monitor and told on Jasper. Terrifying other kids wasn’t allowed at their school.

  “It wasn’t me!” Jasper said. “It was my brother!”

  This was the strict monitor, not the nice one who would baby-sit for pinecones. She marched Jasper John and Earl straight to the principal’s office.

  “I can’t go to the principal’s office,” Jasper cried. “I’m the Star of the Week!”

  Mrs. Kinoshita was still eating her lunch in the staffroom. Jasper and Earl had to wait in the hall while the monitor went to fetch her. “Look what you did,” Jasper told Earl. “Now I might lose my star.”

  A few minutes later, Mrs. Kinoshita showed up. She didn’t seem very mad. She smiled when she saw Earl. Something green from her lunch was stuck in the smile, which made her seem even less scary. “Come in, boys,” she said, pointing to the big chair across from her desk. Jasper had been in that chair before. It made him nervous because his feet didn’t touch the ground. “Earl can’t sit,” he said. “His legs don’t bend. Can I just stand with him?”

  Mrs. Kinoshita let him. She asked, “So, Jasper John Dooley, what happened out there?”

  The words rushed out of Jasper. “It wasn’t me it was Earl the girls wanted us to be babies and he got mad. He doesn’t know when he’s being mean because he doesn’t have a heart are you going to take away my star?”

  Mrs. Kinoshita noticed the star then, shining on his chest. “Are you the Star of the Week, Jasper?”

  Jasper nodded. He was surprised she didn’t know. She was the principal.

  Mrs. Kinoshita smiled, showing the friendly bit of green again. “Jasper, if you’re the Star of the Week, nobody can take that away from you.”

  “Not even the principal?”

  “Not even me.”

  Jasper felt much, much better then.

  “So Earl is a bit of a troublemaker?” Mrs. Kinoshita asked, folding her hands on her desk.

  “He’s jealous,” Jasper said. “He wants to be the Star, too, but I’m the Star this week.”

  “I understand,” Mrs. Kinoshita said. “Did you know I once had two little boys?”

  “What happened to them?” Jasper asked.

  “They grew up. But when they were small? Oh, my goodness. They squabbled all the time. You used to be an only child, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must miss that now.”

  “I do!” Jasper cried. “If I was still an only child, I wouldn’t be here in your office!”

  Mrs. Kinoshita got up from her desk and opened her file cabinet. She rooted around for a minute. “That’s funny. I don’t have any record of Earl being registered at our school.”

  “He’s not.”

  “Well, that’s not allowed, Jasper. I’m afraid Earl can’t go back to the classroom with you. I suggest he stay here with me for the rest of the day and you pick him up when it’s time to go home. How does that sound?”

  “Just a minute, Mrs. Kinoshita. Earl is saying something.” Jasper leaned closer to his brother. He was starting to be able to understand Earl’s grumbles and growls. “Earl says his legs hurt from standing all the time. Can he lie down in the sickroom?”

  “Certainly. I’ll take him over in a minute. You can go now, Jasper. The bell has already rung.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Kinoshita,” Jasper said. He whispered, “I don’t think his legs really hurt. He just feels bad because he got in trouble.”

  Mrs. Kinoshita nodded. She knew how kids felt. “And congratulations on being the Star this week, Jasper,” she said.

  After he left the office, Jasper took his
time going back to his classroom, just in case math was happening there. He stopped to look at all the art on the walls. He drank from the water fountain. By the time he walked in the door, a big commotion was going on. It didn’t seem to be about math.

  Ms. Tosh asked, “Is Ori with you, Jasper?”

  “No,” Jasper said.

  “Leon? Go get Mrs. Kinoshita. Hurry.”

  “I was just talking to Mrs. Kinoshita,” Jasper said.

  “I told her,” Isabel said. “I told Ms. Tosh what you did with Earl.”

  Ms. Tosh didn’t seem to care what Jasper and Earl had done. “Ori is missing,” she said. “Nobody has seen him since lunch.”

  “He wasn’t playing babies with us!” Zoë cried. “He said he would!”

  “He didn’t,” Jasper said.

  “He did, too!”

  Jasper went over to the Book Nook and pulled all the pillows away. Ori sat up blinking. “You didn’t want to play babies, did you?” Jasper asked.

  Ms. Tosh put a hand over her heart. She said, “Oh, Jasper, you really are a Star.”

  After school, Jasper went to the sickroom to get Earl. He was lying on the cot with the blanket pulled up to his purple chin. “Wakie, wakie,” Jasper told him.

  They went outside to meet Mom and Ori. “Jasper!” Mom called. “I just found out from Ori that his mother had the baby! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I did. I said I wanted one, too. A purple one. But I don’t anymore. I’m completely happy with the brother I already have. Well, not completely.”

  Ori said, “Jasper had to go to the principal’s office today.”

  “Because of Earl,” Jasper said. “Earl got me in trouble.”

  “Earl was bad,” Ori said.

  On the walk home, Jasper told Mom how Earl had terrified the girls and how he had to stay in the sickroom for the rest of the day. “He’s not allowed back. He’s not registered at our school,” Jasper said.

  “Oh, dear,” Mom said. “It’s not very nice to have to go to the principal’s office during the week that you’re the Star.”