Jasper John Dooley, NOT in Love Read Online Free

means, Jasper, is that if you spend enough time with Isabel, you’ll probably start to love her.”
    â€œYuck!” Jasper cried. He ran out of the kitchen and all through the house waving his arms and yucking because the thought of loving Isabel was so horrible.

Chapter 6

    The next week, Jasper and Ori started playing knights in a new way. First, Jasper was a knight chasing Leon the dragon and Ori was the lookout. He looked out for Isabel and Zoë and two other girls, Bernadette and Patty, who wanted to play babies now, too. If Ori saw the girls, he shouted to Jasper and Leon, who quickly moved to a new place. Then Ori took a turn being a knight and trying to slay Leon while Jasper looked out for the girls.
    They even asked another boy in their class who wasn’t a knight, Paul C., to help. Paul C. always sat at a picnic table reading a book during recess and lunch. From the picnic table, he could watch what everybody was doing.
    â€œIf you see them sneaking up on us?” Jasper told Paul C. “Shout to us.”
    Paul C. nodded and pushed up his glasses.
    This way the knights avoided being babies at both recess and lunch.
    After lunch on Monday, they had reading time. When Ms. Tosh told everybody to sit with their reading buddies, Jasper rushed to Ori’s table. He hoped that Ms. Tosh wouldn’t remember that she had switched his buddy the week before.
    â€œMs. Tosh!” Isabel called out in a very loud voice. “Aren’t I Jasper’s reading buddy now? Didn’t you say last time that we were buddies until you said so?”
    Jasper started reading out loud with the book an inch from his face. He didn’t chew the book. He read so so so fast and so so so well with his old reading buddy, Ori.
    His old reading buddy, Ori, giggled. “Jasper’s reading in fast forward,” he said.
    â€œJasper, your reading buddy is Isabel. Please sit with her as you are supposed to.” Ms. Tosh said this in a way that made Jasper obey her.
    He dragged his feet all the way to the Book Nook at the back of room where Isabel was waiting for him with a big smile on her front-toothless face. He dropped down beside her. Leaning as far away as he could, he picked up a pillow and pressed it to his face so only his eyes showed. He started reading.
    â€œI can’t hear you, Jasper John,” Isabel said. She squeezed in close, like she wanted to lick him.
    Jasper pressed the pillow harder to his face.
    Isabel put up her hand. “Ms. Tosh! Jasper still isn’t being my buddy! He’s being buddies with a pillow!”
    Twice Isabel got Jasper in trouble! And he still had to go to her house for a playdate after school!

    While he was at Isabel’s house, a terrible thing happened. Isabel asked Jasper to marry her. She asked him while they were jumping on the trampoline. Jasper should have climbed down right then and phoned his mom to pick him up, but he was enjoying the trampoline flip-floppy feeling so so so so much.
    Before they started jumping, they ate a whole jar of cheese spread without bread while sitting on the kitchen floor. Then Jasper and Isabel drank two big glasses of water each. Now when they jumped there was a wonderful sloshing sound to go with the wonderful flip-floppy feeling in their stomachs.
    Even though Isabel had let Rollo lick cheese spread off her spoon, then dipped it back in the jar and licked the next spoonful herself, and even though this had made Jasper feel like he might throw up, he stopped feeling sick once he was on the trampoline. He didn’t even feel like throwing up when Isabel asked him to marry her. He would have felt sick for sure if he’d been standing on the boring, unspringy ground.

    He jumped high in the air after she asked him, twisted, then came back down with his back to her. Flip-flop-slosh-slosh went his stomach. He was waiting for an idea. If he waited long enough, one or two usually came along. Back up in the air he