Jasper Jones

by Craig Silvey;

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2009 by Craig Silvey

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in paperback in Australia by Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, in 2009.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Silvey, Craig.

  Jasper Jones / Craig Silvey. — 1st American ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In small-town Australia, teens Jasper and Charlie form an unlikely friendship when one asks the other to help him cover up a murder until they can prove who is responsible.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89678-1

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Secrets—Fiction. 3. Murder—Fiction. 4. Family problems—Fiction. 5. Recluses—Fiction. 6. Australia—Fiction. 7. Mystery and detective stories.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.S58846Jas 2011

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010009364

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Acknowledgments

  asper Jones has come to my window.

  I don’t know why, but he has. Maybe he’s in trouble. Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

  Either way, he’s just frightened the living shit out of me.

  This is the hottest summer I can remember, and the thick heat seems to seep in and keep in my sleepout. It’s like the earth’s core in here. The only relief comes from the cooler air that creeps in between the slim slats of my single window. It’s near impossible to sleep, so I’ve spent most of my nights reading by the light of my kerosene lamp.

  Tonight was no different. And when Jasper Jones rapped my louvres abruptly with his knuckle and hissed my name, I leapt from my bed, spilling my copy of Pudd’nhead Wilson.

  “Charlie! Charlie!”

  I knelt like a sprinter, anxious and alert.

  “Who is it?”

  “Charlie! Come out here!”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Jasper!”

  “What? Who?”

  “Jasper. Jasper!”—and he pressed his face right up into the light. His eyes green and wild. I squinted.

  “What? Really? What is it?”

  “I need your help. Just come out here and I’ll explain,” he whispered.

  “What? Why?”

  “Jesus Christ, Charlie! Just hurry up! Get out here.”

  And so, he’s here.

  Jasper Jones is at my window.

  Shaken, I clamber onto the bed and remove the dusty slats of glass, piling them on my pillow. I quickly kick into a pair of jeans and blow out my lamp. As I squeeze headfirst out of the sleepout, something invisible tugs at my legs. This is the first time I’ve ever dared to sneak away from home. The thrill of this, coupled with the fact that Jasper Jones needs my help, already fills the moment with something portentous.

  My exit from the window is a little like a foal being born. It’s a graceless and gangly drop, directly onto my mother’s gerbera bed. I emerge quickly and pretend it didn’t hurt.

  It’s a full moon tonight, and very quiet. Neighborhood dogs are probably too hot to bark their alarm. Jasper Jones is standing in the middle of our backyard. He shifts his feet from right to left as though the ground were smoldering.

  Jasper is tall. He’s only a year older than me, but looks a lot more. He has a wiry body, but it’s defined. His shape and his muscles have already sorted themselves out. His hair is a scruff of rough tufts. It’s pretty clear he hacks at it himself.

  Jasper Jones has outgrown his clothes. His button-up shirt is dirty and fit to burst, and his short pants are cut just past the knee. He wears no shoes. He looks like an island castaway.

  He takes a step toward me. I take one back.

  “Okay. Are you ready?”

  “What? Ready for what?”

  “I tole you. I need your help, Charlie. Come on.” His eyes are darting, his weight presses back.

  I’m excited but afraid. I long to turn and wedge myself through the horse’s arse from which I’ve just fallen, to sit safe in the hot womb of my room. But this is Jasper Jones, and he has come to me.

  “Okay. Wait,” I say, noticing my feet are bare. I head toward the back steps, where my sandals sit, scrubbed clean and perfectly aligned. As I strap them on, I realize that this, the application of pansy footwear, is my first display of girlishness and has taken me mere moments. So I jog back with as much masculinity as I can muster, which even in the moonlight must resemble something of an arthritic chicken.

  I spit and sniff and saw at my nose. “Okay, you roit? You ready?”

  Jasper doesn’t respond. He just turns and sets off.

  I follow.

  After climbing my back fence, we head downhill into Corrigan. Houses huddle and cluster closer together, and then stop abruptly as we reach the middle of town. This late, the architecture is desolate and leached of color. It feels like we’re traipsing through a postcard. Toward the eastern fringe, past the railway station, the houses bloom again and we pass quietly under streetlights which light up lawns and gardens. I have no idea where we’re going. The further we move, the keener my apprehension grows. Still, there is something emboldening about being awake when the rest of the world is sleeping. Like I know something they don’t.

  We walk for an age, but I don’t ask questions. Some way out of town, past the bridge and the broad part of the Corrigan River and into the farm district, Jasper pauses to feed a cigarette into his mouth. Wordlessly, he shakes the battered pack my way. I’ve never smoked before. I’ve certainly never been offered one. I feel a surge of panic. Wanting both to decline and impress, for some reason I decide to press my palms to my stomach and puff my cheeks when I wag my head at his offer, as if to suggest that I’ve smoked so many already this evening that I’m simply too full to take another.

  Jasper Jones raises an eyebrow and shrugs.

  He turns, rests his hip on a gatepost. As Jasper sucks at his smoke, I look past him and recognize where we are. I step back. Here, ghostly in the moonlight, slumps the weatherworn cottage of Mad Jack Lionel. I quickly look back at Jasper. I hope this isn’t our destination. Mad Jack is a character of much speculation and intrigue for the kids of Corrigan. No child has actually laid eyes on him. There are full-chested claimants of sightings and encounters, but they’re quickly exposed as liars. But the tall stories and rumors all weave wispily around one single irrefutable fact: that Jack Lionel killed a young woman some years ago and he’s never been seen outside his house since. Nobody among us knows the real circumstances of the event, but fresh theories are offered regularly. Of course, the extent and nature of his crimes have grown worse over time, which only adds more hay to the stack and buries the pin ever deeper. But as the myth grows in girth, so too does our fear of the mad k
iller hidden in his home.

  A popular test of courage in Corrigan is to steal something from the property of Mad Jack Lionel. Rocks and flowers and assorted debris are all rushed back proudly from the high drygrass sprawl of his front yard to be examined with wonder. But the rarest and most revered feat is to snatch a peach from the large tree that grows by the flank of the cottage like a zombie’s hand bursting from a grave. To pilfer and eat a peach from the property of Mad Jack Lionel assures you instant royalty. The stone of the peach is kept as a souvenir of heroics, and is universally admired and envied.

  I wonder if we’re here to steal a peach each. I hope not. As much as I like the idea of raising my station, I was born without speed or courage, which are both essential to the operation. Besides, even if I miraculously managed to acquire one, I’m certain that no one, not even Jeffrey Lu, would ever believe me anyway.

  Still, I notice that Jasper is staring intently at the house. He flicks and grinds his cigarette.

  “Is this it? Is this where we’re going?” I ask.

  Jasper turns.

  “What? No. No, Charlie, just stoppin for a smoke.”

  I try to conceal my relief as we both survey Lionel’s property.

  “D’you reckon it’s all true?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I reckon. It’s all bullshit what people say mostly, but I reckon he’s mad, all right.”

  “Fersure,” I say, and sniff and spit again. “Completely.”

  “I seen him, you know. A bunch of times.” Jasper states it so plainly that I believe him. I beam at him.

  “Really? What does he look like? Is he tall? Does he really have a long scar down his face?”

  But Jasper just kicks dirt over his smoke and swivels as though he doesn’t hear me. We are moving again.

  “C’mon,” he says.

  I shuffle on.

  ***

  We link back with the river. We walk east along its worn banks for some time. Neither of us speaks. The paperbarks and floodgums that shroud us look eerie and ethereal in the silver light, and I find myself matching Jasper’s step.

  I begin to recognize the landscape less and less. The banks become more littered and cluttered as the river thins, and small shrubs frost its edge. Soon we’re confined to filing along the narrow kangaroo tracks further from the water.

  Jasper’s stride is long and strong. I walk behind, watching his calves clench in the gloom. His sureness and his presence make him easy to follow. I’m still afraid, of course, but something about being in his bubble is reassuring. I trust him straight up, though I have no reason to, and that makes me one of few.

  Jasper Jones has a terrible reputation in Corrigan. He’s a Thief, a Liar, a Thug, a Truant. He’s lazy and unreliable. He’s a feral and an orphan, or as good as. His mother is dead and his father is no good. He’s the rotten model that parents hold aloft as a warning: This is how you’ll end up if you’re disobedient. Jasper Jones is the example of where poor aptitude and attitude will lead.

  In families throughout Corrigan, he’s the first name to be blamed for all manner of trouble. Whatever the misdemeanor, and no matter how clear their own child’s guilt, parents ask immediately: Were you with Jasper Jones? And of course, more often than not, their kids will lie. They nod, because Jasper’s involvement instantly absolves them. It means they’ve been led astray. They’ve been waylaid by the devil. And so, as the cases are closed, the message is simple: Stay away from Jasper Jones.

  I’d heard Jasper Jones described as a half-caste, which I’d never really understood until I mentioned it one night at the dinner table. My father is a serene and reasonable man, but those words had him snapping his cutlery down and glaring at me through his thick black-rimmed glasses. He asked me if I understood what I’d just said. I didn’t. Then he softened and explained that it was rude to discuss somebody’s racial heritage.

  Later that night, he came into my room with a stack of books and quietly offered me the very thing I’d wanted all my life: permission to read whatever I liked from his library. My father’s rows and stacks of novels had awed me since he taught me to read, but he always chose the volumes he thought were appropriate. So it felt important, and it was clear to me that he thought it was significant too. But I wondered if it came about because he thought I was growing up, or if he worried that Corrigan might be luring me toward things that troubled him.

  Either way, something forbidden had been lifted. He gave me a leather-bound stack of Southern writers to start with. Welty, Faulkner, Harper Lee, Flannery O’Connor. But the biggest portion of the stack was Mark Twain. There must have been a dozen of his books in there.

  As he laid them gently on my desk, my father told me Twain was the single reason he taught literature. He said there was nothing he couldn’t teach you, and nothing he didn’t have an opinion about. He said that Twain was as wise a counsel as any, and that if every man read at least one of his books at some time in his life, it would be a far better world for it.

  He pressed his thumb on my cowlick, as he sometimes did, and ran his hand through my hair and smiled.

  That was winter. By now, I’m halfway through that bundle. I understand why he chose them. I enjoyed the Harper Lee book the best, but I told my father that Huckleberry Finn was my favorite. I started The Sound and the Fury, but had to abandon it. To be honest, I had no idea what the hell was going on. I refused to ask my father, though. I didn’t want him thinking I wasn’t smart enough.

  Because that’s all I’ve ever had, really. Corrigan is a town whose social currency is sports. That’s where most kids find and hold their own. The mine employs most people and the power station herds in the rest, which means there isn’t much class divide. And so kids have established a hierarchy based on their skill with a ball, rather than their clothes or their family car. I’m lousy at sports and better than most at school, which garners me only ire in the classroom and resentment when report cards are issued. But at least I have something over them, even though it’s a lonely celebration.

  Of course, it also means I’m mostly ignored. It’s worse for Jeffrey Lu, my best and only friend, who is younger and smaller and, if I’m honest, smarter than me. Jeffrey has been moved up a year, and he’s my main competitor for primacy other than Eliza Wishart, who I mainly blush at from the other side of the classroom. But I don’t mind either of them in the race. Least of all Eliza.

  Jeffrey’s parents are Vietnamese, so he’s ruthlessly bullied and belted about. He probably cops it worse than Jasper. But he takes it all astonishingly well, which has always eased my guilt, given that I’m never brave enough to intervene. Jeffrey is unflappable. He has a smile that you can’t wipe or slap or goad off his face. And unlike me, he never stoops to sycophancy or spite. In a way, he’s more assured than any of those vindictive bastards with peach pits in their pockets. But I’d never tell him that.

  ***

  When Jasper Jones stops and grabs my shoulder, I jolt like he’s shot volts through my body. I point the bridge of my glasses further up my nose and wait. Jasper pushes through a bush and ushers me through. We’re moving off the path. I hesitate.

  “Where are we going? What do you need me for?”

  “S’not far now, Charlie. You’ll find out.”

  I trust him. I have to. I’ve come too far. If he were to leave me here and now, I’d never make it back.

  I can’t hear the river anymore, and the canopy overhead has stolen the moonlight. As we press further, I’m finding it harder to imagine what kind of help Jasper needs. I don’t understand what particular unique skill I bring to the table. It’s a strange coalition, me and Jasper Jones. We’ve never really even spoken before. I’m surprised he knew my name, let alone where I lived. He’s rarely at school, just long enough to qualify for football. I’ve only ever caught glimpses of him from a distance, so I can’t help but thrill in this sense of inclusion. In my head, I’m already composing my recount to Jeffrey.

  We are in fairly thick bush now. It’s unear
thly quiet. Jasper still hasn’t said a word without my prompting, and his replies have been nothing but brusque bursts. Despite the absence of any landmarks, he seems to know exactly where he’s going, and I’m grateful. I stick close behind, like a loyal and leashless dog. My anticipation is growing. I wonder if my parents heard me leave. I’m not sure what they’d do if they found my room empty. Sheets bunched, bed pared bare, louvres stacked. They’d have to assume I’d been snatched. Kidnapped. They’d never believe I had slipped out of my own accord. This is, by far, my worst-ever transgression. Probably my only-ever transgression. And if I am caught out, I’d probably be the only kid in Corrigan who could truthfully argue that they’d been led astray by Jasper Jones.

  He’s starting to walk faster. Branches and shrubs snap back at me with more force. My arm has been scratched by bracken. I don’t complain. I just adjust my speed to match. Our feet share the same crisp military rhythm. I’m sweating.

  Then Jasper Jones stops.

  Right here. At the foot of an enormous old-growth jarrah tree. It has an astonishing girth. I can’t help but stare straight up to see how far it reaches into the sky. I can feel my pulse thrumming my temples. I’m panting. I need to clean my glasses. When I glance back down, I notice Jasper Jones is staring at me. I can’t place his expression. It’s as though he’s about to leap from something very high. I tilt my head to the side and I’m suddenly very fearful. My anticipation is usurped by a sense of dreadful foreboding. Something is wrong. Something has happened. My weight is on my heel. I don’t want to be here anymore.

  He motions toward a wattlebush to the left of the giant jarrah.

  “It’s through here,” he says.

  “What? What is?”

  “You’ll see it, Charlie. Shit. You’ll’ve wished you dint, but you’ll see it. It’s not too late but. Are you sure you’re gonna help me?”

  “Can’t you just tell me? What is it? What’s through there?”

  “I can’t. I can’t, mate. But I can trust you, Charlie. I reckon I can trust you.”

  It isn’t a question, but it seems like one.

  And I believe if it were anyone else, I would choose to step back and turn away right now. I would never bow my head and push through that bush, and its golden flowers would never shake loose and nestle in my hair like confetti. I would never grab at its rough trunk to save me from tripping. I would never part its locks of foliage. And I would never lift my head to see this neat clearing of land. I would never look past Jasper Jones to reveal his secret.