BSC PORTRAIT COLLECTION: Jason's Book

A/N: This is the autobiography of the new guy, Jason Everett.

CHAPTER 1

It was a fairly typical Thursday afternoon in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. I was coming home from school on my motor scooter, and thinking about the assignment that the entire eighth grade had just been given: we each had to write our autobiographies. I could tell that writing mine would be quite a challenge, because a lot had happened to me until now.

Wait, where are my manners? You don't know who I am, do you? How silly of me!

My name is Jason Todd Everett. I'd just turned fifteen this past February, and I'm in eighth grade. I have black shoulder-length hair that I keep in a ponytail, green eyes, peaked eyebrows, and a scar on my right cheekbone, both of which I'll explain later—the scar, and the reason why I'm in eighth grade at my age.

I was born in Scotland, in a little town just an hour and a half outside of Glasgow. I don't remember the name of the town anymore, though. You see, my mum and I moved to America when I was four years old. Even though I was that young at the time, for some reason, my accent never went away completely. My friends tell me that I sound like a cross between Ewan McGregor (in his pre-Star Wars days when he guest-starred on ER during the show's third season) and Nanny Stella from Nanny 911. The fact that I still have my accent used to bother me a lot, but I'm more used to it these days.

I was recently made a member of the Baby-sitters Club, which was started by my friend and neighbor, Kristy Thomas. She told me that she got the idea for the club last year when she watched her mum make a hundred phone calls, just looking for a baby-sitter for her little brother, David Michael—or DM, as Bebe and I call him. Anyway, Kristy made me a member after or school finished their recent production of Carnival, in which I played the same part that Jerry Orbach did in the original Broadway production. It was the most fun I've ever had in my life.

Getting back to the BSC. I'm an associate member, which means that they can call on me if there's a job that none of them can take. One of the reasons why Kristy asked me to join is because her two little stepsiblings, Karen and Andrew Brewer, have taken quite a liking to me ever since I came to Andrew's aid after his bike accident last fall. Karen has even told me that I'm her hero, and that really meant the world to me.

A few days ago, I went on my first job. Kristy wanted me to go on a job with her so she could see how I did. Our job was with the Felder girls: Susan, who just turned nine, has autism, and Hope, who's seven months old. While we were there, Susan played the entire score from The Music Man, beginning to end, on the piano. I was really impressed. Kristy told me that Susan can play any piece of music after hearing it only once. I played "Don't Stop Believin'" from my Journey CD, and Susan picked that up really fast, too. I'm also told that Susan has a calendar in her head, and when I told her my birthday—February 9, 1991—she automatically said, "Saturday", and she was right on the money! When she wasn't playing or giving calendar dates, she'd flap her hands and click her tongue, but would stop whenever I spoke to her. Not only that, but every time I came near her, she'd take one of my hands, press it against her face, and breathe deeply. I still don't know what it is about me that made her calm down like that.

There's also something else Kristy told me about Susan. She said that one of the neighborhood kids, Mel somebody-or-other, had charged some of the kids a dollar apiece to see Susan play the piano and perform her calendar trick, like she was some kind of sideshow freak. I was really stunned and horrified that anyone could be that cruel. (Oh, I don't mean to get off the subject here, but Kristy also told me that this Mel kid would constantly tease the Hobart boys by calling them "Crocs", because they're Australian. You know, like Crocodile Dundee.) Another time, when he was being punished by his parents, he'd sneak out and leave threatening notes for the BSC members, and play pranks on them. When his parents found out, they sent him to a psychiatrist, because they knew that he was a troubled kid. That's one of several reasons why I'm so protective of Susan, and Kristy says she really admires me for that.

Okay, back to me. I pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, and saw Mum watering the lawn. "Hi, Mum!" I called as I turned off the bike's motor.

"Hi, son," she smiled. "How was school today?"

"Oh, pretty good," I said as I chained up my bike. "Oh, our English teacher wants us to write our autobiographies."

"That sounds interesting," Mum said, turning off the hose. "Would you like some help with it?"

"Sure," I answered as we went inside, and I sat down at the kitchen table with my English notebook while Mum started a pot of tea. This particular notebook is my favorite, because not only is the front cover blue—one of my favorite colors—but I'd also doodled the names and logos of some of my favorite bands, like Thin Lizzy, the Scorpions, Black Sabbath, the Misfits, and Van Halen, to name a few. My friends sometimes ask me why I don't listen to more of today's current music. In my opinion, I think the music industry has become a real parody of itself.

"So, what did you want to know?" Mum asked, handing me cup of green tea, and sitting down across the table with another one.

"Well, we can start with the day I was born," I suggested, opening my notebook, uncapping my pen, and preparing to write.

"Sure. Well, I went into labor around 8:00 in the evening on February 8th. Your Granny McLeod—my mum, God rest her soul—took me to the hospital and helped me through the birth, and you were born at 2:15 the next morning. Sometime after we brought you home from the hospital, the colonel stopped by with your real father's ID tags. I promised to hold onto them until you were old enough to understand what happened."

While Mum was talking, I was writing and clutching the tags in my left hand. They were the only connection I have to him, because before I was born, he was shot down in the Persian Gulf War. It still saddens me to this day that I never knew him.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know?" Mum asked.

"Do you remember my first step or my first word?"

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, I believe you were ten or eleven months old when you started walking, and you were pretty hard to catch once you got going," Mum remembered. "I can still see you in the icebox getting into your granny's strawberry shortcake."

Both of us laughed at that memory, which is something she'll never let me forget. She even has a picture of that, and in it, I'm buck naked, the icebox door is standing wide open, and my whole hand is is buried into that cake. I'm just glad she's never shown it to anyone, because if that ever got out, I'd never hear the end of it.

"How about my first word?" I inquired, taking a sip of tea.

"I remember that day like the back of my hand," Mum said, picking up a pack of Virginia Superslims. "Let's see...yes, there's a mole on my thumb and a scar on my wrist from when I burned it ironing your overalls."

"Mum!" I laughed. Honestly, I think Mum's seen too many Muppet movies.

"Okay, okay," she giggled. "You started talking soon after you started walking. Since your father was already dead, we couldn't expect your first word to be 'Dada'. I thought for sure it'd be 'Mama'. Well, I was close. It was actually 'Nana'. We were so happy, we broke down and bawled right then and there. I'll remember it till the day I die. So, is there anything else you'd like to know?"

"No, I think that pretty much covers it," I said, standing up and gathering my notes. "Thanks, Mum."

"You're more than welcome, love," she said, lighting her cigarette.

I went to my room, set my tea on my desk, and got out a fresh sheet of paper, a pencil, and my lap desk. As I flopped down onto my bed, I knew, from what Mum had told me, and from my own memories, that I had quite a story to tell.