Jasper John Dooley, Left Behind

For Nana and Baba, who left us behind — C.A.

Text © 2013 Caroline Adderson
Illustrations © 2013 Ben Clanton

ISBN 978-1-77138-075-1 (ebook)

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This is a work of fiction and any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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Published in Canada by
Kids Can Press Ltd.
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Toronto, ON M5A 0B5

Published in the U.S. by
Kids Can Press Ltd
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www.kidscanpress.com

Edited by Sheila Barry
Designed by Rachel Di Salle

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication



Adderson, Caroline, 1963–
           Jasper John Dooley left behind / written by Caroline Adderson ; illustrated by Ben Clanton.

(Jasper John Dooley ; 2)
ISBN 978-1-55453-579-8 (bound)

           I. Clanton, Ben, 1988–  II. Title.  III. Series: Adderson, Caroline, 1963–.  Jasper John Dooley ; 2.

PS8551.D3267L44 2013         jC813'.54         C2012-905447-X

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

On Sunday morning Jasper John Dooley's Nan left on a holiday. Dad carried her big suitcase out of her apartment, and Mom carried Nan's small suitcase. Jasper took her purse. He rapped the jaws of the lion-head knocker that guarded Nan's place and said in a loud, liony voice, “Have a good trip, Nan!”

In his Jasper voice he asked, “Where are you going, anyway, Nan?”

“She's going on the trip of a lifetime,” Dad said. “A cruise to Alaska.”

“You mean on a boat?” Jasper said, going ahead to press the elevator button.

“On a ship,” Nan said. “A huge ship.”

“You're going on a ship trip?”

Everybody laughed. Then the elevator came, and they all got in. Jasper pressed “L” for lobby. “Why didn't you tell me about the ship?” he asked Nan.

“I did. I told you last Wednesday when you were over.”

As they rode down, Nan told him about the ship again. “It has a swimming pool, a ballroom and ten restaurants. Imagine! Ten restaurants on one ship.”

“Oh, right,” Jasper said. “Now I remember. But I didn't know
you
were going on it. I thought it was something you saw on TV.”

“She's really going,” Mom said.

The elevator pinged and opened, and they all stepped out into the lobby. It looked like a jungle because of all the plants. A jungle with an elevator.

“It's going to be a wonderful week,” Mom said.

“Week?” Jasper said. “Week? You're going to be back on Wednesday, aren't you, Nan?”

Every Wednesday after school Jasper went to Nan's to play Go Fish for jujubes.

Nan didn't answer. Maybe she hadn't heard him. Sometimes he had to get right up close for her to hear what he was saying. Then he thought of something else. Jasper liked going to the pool, and he really liked going to restaurants. He loved playing with balls — kicking them or trying to stand on them or balancing them on his head. He loved stuffing them up his shirt and saying, “Boy, I ate so so so so much.”

“Can I go with you on the cruise, Nan?”

Everybody laughed again.

“What's so funny?” Jasper asked.

“It's an Elder Cruise, Jasper,” Nan told him.

“What's that?”

“That,” Dad said, “is eight hundred old people looking at icebergs.”

“How old do you have to be to go on the cruise?” Jasper asked.

“About seventy-eight,” Nan told him.

The car was parked out front. Dad put the suitcases in the trunk. When they were all in the car, they drove away from Nan's apartment, Nan and Jasper together in the backseat. “But you'll be back on Wednesday, right?” Jasper said.

“She'll be gone the whole week, Jasper,” Mom said from the front seat. “She'll be home next Monday.”

“Nan! What about Go Fish? Nothing is as fun as playing Go Fish for jujubes!”

Nan sighed. “That is true, Jasper. That is true.”

“Jasper,” Dad said, “Nan has been planning this trip for a long time. If you keep talking like this, she won't want to leave.”

“Don't leave!” Jasper cried. “Don't leave me behind!”

He grabbed Nan's hand and kissed the freckly brown spots on the back of it. Nan laughed and laughed. Then she asked for her purse, which was on the floor at Jasper's feet. He passed it to her, and she took a tissue out and dried her eyes. Jasper couldn't tell if they were sad tears or tears from laughing so hard. He took another tissue and pretended to dry his own tears with it. Pretending to cry made him feel all watery inside. For the rest of the drive, he held Nan's hand and sniffed it. Her perfumey smell was so nice.

Dad and Mom left Jasper and Nan on the dock while they went to drop off the suitcases and park the car. The ship was huge, just like Nan said. It looked like Nan's apartment building lying on its side, except it was white and it floated. Nan seemed worried when she saw how big it was. “Maybe you're right, Jasper. Maybe I'm too old to be taking a trip by myself.”

Jasper looked around at the other people going up the ramp to the ship. Everybody had white hair except the people with gray hair. Many people walked with canes. Jasper pointed at one of the people with canes. “You're not so old, Nan. Look at him.”

Nan smiled. “You always say the right thing, Jasper,” and she kissed him seven times, once for every day of the cruise.

When Mom and Dad came back, Nan kissed them good-bye, too, and started up the ramp. Jasper waved and called, “Bye, Nan! Bye!” There were lots of people waving and calling good-bye at the same time. Jasper wanted to make sure Nan saw him so he took the tissue from his pocket and waved it. Just before Nan stepped onto the ship, she turned and blew kisses to Jasper.

They stayed a few more minutes after Nan got on the ship. Jasper waved with the tissue, then put it in his pocket in case any of Nan's kisses had got caught in it. He kept on waving with his hand, hoping Nan would see him through one of the cruise ship's tiny windows. He waved so hard his arm almost fell off.

Then Nan was really, truly gone.

Back at the car, Jasper looked at himself in the side mirror. He saw four lipstick flowers on one cheek and three lipstick flowers on the other. Usually, lipstick flowers made him yuck. Today they made him sad.

“What about that ship, Jasper?” Dad asked.

Jasper said, “What ship?”

Later that night, after he went to bed, Jasper thought about his Wednesdays at Nan's. If Jasper won at Go Fish, which he almost always did, he got to take a jujube from the crystal bowl on the coffee table. He liked the red ones best, then the green, then the orange, then the yellow. He didn't like the black ones at all. But if Jasper let Nan win, which he did when he felt sorry for her, she always picked a black jujube. Black jujubes were her favorite. When all the jujubes were gone, they stopped playing cards.

Thinking about Wednesday made Jasper feel funny, not watery like he had in the car, but like all the air was seeping out of him. He called from his bed, “Mom! Mom! Mo-o-om!!!!”

Mom came. “What's the matter, Jasper?”

“I feel funny,” Jasper said.

Mom laid her hand across his forehead. “You don't have a fever. Does your tummy hurt?”

“It doesn't hurt,” Jasper said. “It just feels
pththth
.”

“What's
pththth
?”

“It's like when my beach ball leaked. Do I look all flat?”

Mom sat on the bed. “You look like you miss Nan. But this week will go by so fast, Jasper John Dooley. Before you even know it, Nan will be back.”

“Maybe I should stay home from school tomorrow and work on my lint collection,” Jasper said.

Mom didn't think he should stay home. She said the best cure for missing somebody was just to get on with things. “I don't know if this will make you feel any better,” she said, “but I bet Nan really misses you, too.”

It did make him feel better. Nan was lying in her bed somewhere thinking about Wednesday, too. But where? Where was she lying?

“Where is Alaska, anyway?” Jasper asked.