Page 21

Chapter 21

THE BOOK THIEF

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11

By a few copies in his office , Xavier meant thirty-eight copies.

Only Saint Valentine knows how many copies of Love Is a Broken Party Clown are also on our Mr. Grimes and Mr. von Hevringprinz bookcase back in our room. Jasper claimed we would meet here after STRIP Time for him to grade my love letters, but he hasn’t shown up yet, and that’s left me studying the bindings designed as red-and-white-striped circus tents. At least, until a pang snakes down my leg. I wince, but Xavier insists that pain means training is working.

I hope that methodology applies to these love letters I nearly ripped my hair out over to finish with Blaze’s help. These last two weeks, my combined STRIP hours, gym training, and midterms workload kept me grinding until the witching hour, so much so that my chemistry quiz slipped my mind. I had to skip lunch with Luis to panic cram. Thankfully, Mr. Stern waited until today to introduce our project on Benjamin Franklin’s neighbor—a man who apparently invented blackout poetry with newspapers. If I’d been given more poetry on top of my love letters, I’d have jumped off the Dixon Writing Gazebo.

While I wait for Jasper, I could sneak a peek at Love Is a Broken Party Clown.

My original mission was to uncover his love life in order to craft letters he’d undoubtedly appreciate, but with this week’s workload, I forgot to read his poetry like Xavier suggested a couple of weeks ago. Really, there’s no reason to dig anymore, since I’ve already finished my letters.

Yet I still glance both ways and grip one of the spines. No footsteps. Just the unsettling silence of the crypt. I snatch the copy from the shelf, a few horse trading cards tucked underneath it falling onto the floor. The clown’s beady eyes on the cover stare at me judgmentally, like it knows I’m sticking my nose into something I shouldn’t.

“Listen, this will help me predict the grade I’m about to get from Jasper,” I insist to the clown. The clown doesn’t respond.

So I flip to the first page.

1.

love is a broken party clown

who has forgotten his lines

after a thousand performances

who honks a horn

and no sound comes

speechless

2.

round and round

the carousel of love

we go

spinning, spinning

never catching up

always chasing

you

My brow spikes. This isn’t a Jasper encyclopedia like Xavier promised. This is barely poetry. Just weirdly constructed sentences. Yet he sold thousands of copies. I suppose this is what Luis meant when he called Jasper’s writing basic .

And, without a doubt, it sounds nothing like what I wrote.

“What are you reading so passionately over there?”

I spin around on my heel. Jasper grins at the front of his office, holding two Laney’s Bean Shack cups and wearing his leather JFG bag. I didn’t hear the bookcase door open.

“Nothing,” I say, tucking the book behind my back. “What’s the F for?”

“Excuse me?”

“On your bag. Your journal. The JFG initials.”

“Are you asking a fun fact about moi? I never thought the day would come.”

“I just see it on your stuff all the time.”

“Really? You’re not trying to distract me from that book tucked behind you?”

My cheeks burn. “I—No.”

“Firstly, it’s Ferdinand. Jasper Ferdinand Grimes.”

I thought my last name was rough. “Okay.”

“Secondly.” Jasper closes the distance between us, handing me one of his coffees. “You didn’t sleep much.”

We may be roommates, but I didn’t think he cared enough to notice. Maybe this is a perk of him thinking I’m special, like Xavier said.

A small smile creeps up my face. “Thank you, Jasper. That’s really nice of you.”

Jasper’s eyes widen a hair, shifting around my own.

A simple thank-you couldn’t have triggered his memory. No way. But why else would he be staring? I hurry to readjust my blazer collar higher up my face. “What’s wrong?”

That seemingly knocks Jasper out of his stupor. “Nothing!” He quickly gestures at the book in my grasp. “Thirdly, what do you think of my work?”

My stomach crumples into a ball. I lift the cover, focusing on the crying clown instead the humiliation confetti cannoning through me. “It’s fine, I guess.”

“Is that a compliment or a critique?”

I try to think of a kinder word than basic . “It’s… straightforward. Different than I expected. You always read P.M. Laframboise’s stuff, which is too deep to understand.”

Jasper scoffs and tosses his bag on the floor. A puff of dust rises into the air. He grabs the duster from the cleaning bucket and knocks away a nearby cobweb. “That strawberry shortcake doesn’t understand a lick about poetry.”

“Why do you keep calling him a strawberry?”

“Apologies, Laframboise is French for strawberry. I forgot you wouldn’t understand, not knowing such a romantic language.”

“Doesn’t la framboise mean raspberry?”

Jasper whips out a thin leather pamphlet from his plaid slacks’ pocket. A French-to-English dictionary. He flips through the middle section until his face twists.

I raise my brow at him.

He slaps the dictionary shut. “To me, straightforward is a compliment. I’m expressing my feelings in a way an audience can relate to. Is that not the point of art?”

“Is that not what P.M. does?”

“Well, his poetry takes more effort to understand. Yet his emotions are still so visceral on the page. That’s much more difficult to pull off. I suppose that’s why he sells more copies than me.” Jasper glances away.

Xavier mentioned their fallout was best not to be touched, but witnessing Jasper feel so strongly about someone else throws me. Apparently, he has a heart, but only toward others on his level. My time with him at camp just wasn’t deserving enough. Mr. Talented P.M. is, though.

Maybe this coffee doesn’t mean as much as I thought.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I slip the copy of Love Is a Broken Party Clown back into the other thirty-seven on the shelf. Is relatability over art what gathers a million followers? Is this relatable?

The bookcase door opens again. A short white boy slips through the crack. Our first patron from the one-on-ones.

“Welcome back, Eli!” Jasper announces. He takes off the blazer cast over his shoulder and spreads it along the floor by the tome table. Then he sits and fans out my redone letters. “Please take a seat with us.”

“What’s he doing here?” I ask, joining Jasper at the table.

“He’s grading your letter.”

My heart races. Jasper reading my writing about romance is embarrassing enough. But a stranger? “You’re my teacher.”

“And soon, Eli will be your patron. If you please me but not them, what is the point?”

Eli approaches the table, brow deeply furrowed. “Sorry, but I thought you said you’d be writing our letters, Jasper?”

“I am, I am, I am,” Jasper says. I guess lies come in threes. He makes room for Eli, who sits nearby on his knees. “But Charlie is my student. Would you mind reading the letter he wrote for your distant love?”

Jasper passes Eli the first page. Eli grins, leaning over the notebook like he expects my words to make his wildest romantic dreams come true.

I stay calm by recalling the facts. If Eli were scoring with a rubric, he’d write an A+ in every square. I used Blaze’s words as a template and Jasper’s EROS. I run through them again.

Use different handwriting for every letter. Check. I used different styles while combining my ideas with Blaze’s on a separate page.

Write in an environment that will never sway your feelings. Check. No matter where I choose to write, my feelings can’t be swayed when I don’t believe in romance.

Craft for yourself—not your audience—for true connection. Check. I crafted these letters to save my ass and remain in STRIP to keep my deal alive. Not help my audience.

Love does not have to make sense; neither do your words. Check. At least, I think. Maybe I didn’t go the simplistic route like Jasper, but P.M. is difficult to understand too.

When I look at Eli again, his smile has dropped. “This is a prank, right?”

“What do you mean?” Jasper asks.

“This sort of sucks.”

My heart snaps into two.

“I heard a rumor that Charlie is another famous poet like you, Jasper, but that’s not true, is it?” Eli goes on. “I can’t understand a word. Would she even know I’m asking her to the mixer?” He points toward the bottom of the notebook. “What does wherefore mean? Where?”

“Why,” I mutter.

Jasper gestures at the bookcase door. “Once more, you have my word that your letter will be written by me. Don’t worry. We appreciate your honesty.”

Eli’s smile barely returns, like he’s not sure if that should be believed. A percentage of his trust has been lost. He leaves the crypt.

Jasper pulls his broken fountain pen out of his chest pocket and points the nib at my face. “Do you believe Eli’s review is correct?”

“Of course not,” I say, swatting away the pen. “Read it yourself. How does Eli not know what wherefore means? He’s fourteen. Hasn’t he read Shakespeare’s collection by now?”

Jasper silences me with a dismissive wave. As he pulls my notebook closer and flips through my other letters, I regret my answer.

A sharp rip pulls me out of my thoughts.

Jasper, crossing out my first letter in red ink so aggressively that the paper tears.

It takes my body a moment longer to catch up to my brain, to realize something is very, very wrong. I rush over to his side of the table. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m not approving these letters.”

“Why?”

“I don’t feel any love in them. Eli didn’t either.” Jasper flips to the next page. He crosses out my second love letter. My third. My fourth.

I’m too stunned to stop him. “What about your third EROS? Love doesn’t have to make sense, and neither do your words?”

Jasper lifts his pen so suddenly that I flinch. His hand plummets back down, stabbing the notebook with the same destruction as a knife, leaving behind a hole and splatters of red ink. All my hard work, destroyed. “Even if I lack understanding, I should still feel your feelings. I feel nothing.”

Nothing. After weeks. If this were a class, I’d have an F. My first F.

Defeat rattles through me as I stare at the destroyed notebook. The chances of Jasper thinking I’m special now are, without a doubt, zero. Just when I started to think maybe he—anyone—thought different.

“What does this mean, then?” I ask, my chest sinking. But I already know. No more deal. No more single room to myself.

“You’ll still practice with me.”

He’s not calling it off? “But the mixer is already a month away,” I say, confused. “I needed to start writing real letters with you, like, yesterday.”

“We have time.”

“What time? Aren’t you wasting more time trying to teach me than if you’d tackle the letters yourself?”

Jasper twirls his pen along his knuckles instead of answering. Not believing in me. Like Mom. Like Ms. Nallos. Like everyone at Valentine.

“Is my effort that invisible?” My voice rises enough to be heard beyond the bookcase door, but I don’t care, my chest tightening too painfully over what Jasper must think of me. Or rather, what he doesn’t think of me at all.

At least Jasper finally looks at me. His eyes are wide. With surprise or fear, I can’t tell.

“Don’t you care how much STRIP stops me from studying? How much my grades are tanking?” I slap my palms against the table as I rise to my feet. The coffee he bought me—what I foolishly thought proved Jasper cared about more than just himself—rattles and tips, leaking onto the floor. I can barely perceive it. Too many afternoons we spent together flash through my mind. Every moment Jasper willingly sat so close, looking me in the eye like I so undoubtedly existed. Too many times he chased after me around campus, inviting me to eat lunch with him in Dix or study after classes. “Do you realize how thoughtless you are toward everyone around you?”

“Charlie—?”

“You don’t. Because even after I got accepted into Valentine, became an Excellence Scholar out of thousands, and studied every waking second, you’re Rank One.”

“Charlie.”

“You never try. Yet you’re loved. You have no clue”—I squeeze my fist to stay in control, to stop my anger from turning into what the pressure behind my eyes threatens to—“ no clue what it’s like to be alone.”

Jasper stands, too, but I storm out before he can use his own words as a weapon and get my hopes up, like years ago, just to leave me crushed.