Free Jasper John Dooley, Star of the Week by Caroline Adderson, Ben Clanton Page A

just like Jasper. Except Ori’s mom was expecting a baby and for a month now had been going around looking like there was a watermelon stuffed under her shirt. Once, when Jasper mentioned it to Ori, Ori said, “Maybe it is! Maybe it is a watermelon!” Since then, whenever they talked about the baby, which wasn’t very often, they called it the watermelon. Jasper rang the doorbell, but nobody answered because of wa-wa-wa-wa coming from the open kitchen window. A watermelon or a baby? Jasper wondered. He was pretty sure he knew which one it was.
    He knocked loudly. Finally, Ori came to the door wearing a winter hat with earflaps. The strings that held the flaps down were tied in a bow under his chin.
    â€œHi,” Ori said.
    â€œHi,” Jasper said.
    â€œWhat?” Ori said, cupping an earflap.
    Jasper asked, “Is that the Watermelon crying?”
    Ori stepped outside and closed the door behind him. “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.”
    â€œDid the Watermelon come?” Jasper asked.
    â€œUnfortunately.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œFriday, but they only brought it home today.”
    â€œCan I see it?”
    â€œAre you sure you want to?” Ori asked.
    When Jasper said he did, Ori made a face. He motioned for Jasper to cover his ears. The boys went inside pressing their hands to the sides of their heads. Ori pressed his earflaps.
    â€œIs it a girl watermelon or a boy watermelon?” Jasper asked, but Ori didn’t hear him.
    In the living room, Ori’s dad was walking around in a circle. All his walking had flattened a path in the living room carpet. He rounded the circle with his arms full of crying, which was when Jasper saw that Ori’s dad had orange things sticking out of both ears. They looked like baby carrots but turned out to be earplugs.
    â€œJasper!” Ori’s dad said. “Look at Ori’s new sister!” He stopped and held the baby out.
    Jasper came over. Purple! A purple baby! Somehow he had expected her to be red, like the inside of a watermelon.
    â€œIsn’t she beautiful?!” Ori’s dad yelled.

    â€œYes,” Jasper said. He liked her little purple face and the way her tongue pushed back in her mouth and quivered. “She doesn’t have any teeth,” Jasper said, but nobody heard him.
    â€œCome on,” Ori said, tugging Jasper by the arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
    â€œI like her!” Jasper told Ori as they went back down the hall. “She’s purple!”
    â€œThe thing is,” Ori said, “all she does is cry.”
    Just then, Ori’s mother came out of the bedroom wearing orange earplugs, too, and a really tired face. She smiled at Jasper. She patted Ori’s hat. And she still looked like she was carrying a watermelon!
    Jasper and Ori went outside. “Did you remember I’m the Star of the Week tomorrow?” Jasper asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, I am,” Jasper said. What a good Show and Tell a baby would be, he thought, and suddenly he felt very, very glad that Ori had already been the Star of the Week and brought a model airplane for Show and Tell.

    The rest of the day Jasper couldn’t stop thinking about Ori’s baby sister and her little wrinkled purple face. He wondered how he could ever have imagined she was a watermelon. A watermelon! She was the opposite of a watermelon — small and purple. She was a plum!
    At supper that night, he announced that he wanted a baby, too. “A purple one,” he said. “The purple ones are the nicest.”
    â€œNicer than the green ones?” Dad asked.
    â€œThere’s no such thing as a green baby.”
    â€œWhere would we get a purple baby?” Mom asked.
    â€œYou grow it in your stomach and then you go to the hospital and have it taken out,” Jasper told her. “Everybody knows that.”
    Mom patted her stomach. “But I don’t have anything