My name is Jonathan Bower and I'm five and a half years old. I live in Fairfield, Connecticut with my family in a big white house with a gray roof. There's my mommy, who makes commercials so people will buy what they don't know they want. There's Tony, who's like a daddy except I have a daddy who makes true movies all over the world. Tony got married to Mommy when I was very, very little. He stays home and goes to college. (College is school for grown-ups.) Tony's daughter Sam lives with us, too. Sam is short for Samantha. She's nine and she's like a big sister. She helps me and she tells me what to do. Mommy says someday we might have a dog or a baby live with us, but not yet. (Not yet means either never ever or a long, long time from now.)
Tony used to be a baseball player, but he got hurt. (I kind of remember it, but I was real little. It was scary.) His job now is to help take care of my friend David's baby sister Amber, because David's mommy, Mrs. Schaeffer, is learning to be a doctor. Babies are cute but smelly. I think I would rather have a dog, because they can fetch. I really want a snake, but I don't think Mommy will buy me one. Maybe I'll ask Daddy next time he visits.
Tony is the one who cooks and cleans and takes care of me and Sam most of the time. It's not like that in other families. The mommies do that, or the maids. But Tony is good at it, and Mommy isn't. Well, she can take care of me and Sam, but not cook or clean.
Grandma can't either. She is Mommy's mommy but she's not old with gray hair and arthuritis. She has red hair and can do the limbo and arrow-bricks. She has lots of boyfriends.
One of her boyfriends is Tony's daddy. He is like my grandpa. I don't have any real grandpas. He is nice and drives a garbage truck and lives in Brooklyn. Sam's other grandpa is not nice and he lives in jail.
Sam's mommy died before I met Sam. And now Sam's best friend Marci's mommy is dead. Mrs. Ferguson was hit by a drunk driver. Sometimes grown-ups drink things that kids can't drink and sometimes they get in cars, but they shouldn't. Mrs. Ferguson was crossing the street and the car didn't stop for her. Now I make Mommy look both ways before she crosses the street.
Marci's daddy is a doctor but he couldn't make her mommy better. Sometimes doctors can't. They made Tony's shoulder better after he got hurt playing baseball but not enough for him to play baseball anymore, except just for fun, not money.
I like money. Sam and Marci are teaching me to play Monopoly because I can count to twenty. When I can count higher, they will let me be banker.
I will learn to count more in school. And I will learn to read. Mommy loves books, specially ones where people fall in love, but mostly books that were written a long, long time ago before Grandma was born. I like it best when Tony reads me books about animals and does funny voices. But it would be fun to read to myself when he's busy.
Today is the first day of kindergarten. Mommy and Tony are both here. Mommy is crying and saying that her baby is growing up, but she means me, not a real baby. Sam is here because she is going to third grade. And David is here and Jenny Wittener, who is our other best friend, even though she's a girl, because our mommies are all best friends. Tony says I will make new friends in school. Sam says to let her know which kids beat me up so she can beat them up. She's tough because she was born in Brooklyn.
There is my teacher. There are the other kids. I don't want my family to go. But they have to. Sam has to go meet her teacher. And Mommy and Tony have to work.
The teacher tells us to sit on mats, which are little rugs. I pick a green one with a frog. We sit in a circle.
"Now, Everyone, we'll go around the circle and when it's your turn, say your name and something about you."
When it's my turn I say, "My name is Jonathan Bower. I like snakes and money."
Everyone laughs, but it wasn't a joke. Maybe I should've said something different. I don't think I'll talk about myself anymore.