A/M: Hey guys. I'm back!...ish. I've been toying with this idea for a while and I'm really happy with this first chapter!
Disclaimer: Well…I think I own Twilight…thank God…I KNOW I don't own really…anything…I OWN A DISCMAN. It's way too rad for you to understand.
Full Summary: The lonely Jasper Whitlock needs community service hours in order to graduate. His guidance counselor tells him he must do Stage Crew at a school in Port Angeles. When he is accepted into the tight-knit group what will he learn about his fellow "techies".
Take A Chance On Me: Chapter One
As Befitted My 'Delicate Birth'
Jasper Whitlock was not surprised in the least when he received a pass to his guidance counselor on a surprisingly sunny Tuesday morning. In fact, Jasper Whitlock had been anticipating it.
He knew he was going to be called down to the office because he was missing a significant amount of college information. Jasper Whitlock seemed like the type of person who knew what they wanted to do the moment they popped out of the womb and from then on, their whole life had revolved that thought.
If this were to be true about Jasper Whitlock, he would have been born high as a kite.
Jasper Whitlock was tall, nearing 6'2", with a proportionate body. He had blond hair and blue eyes that were always "the size of the moon". He always had on a pair of baggy jeans, a royal blue hoodie and a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses.
Despite his outward appearance and his seemingly endless drug use, once you got to know Jasper Whitlock, it was nearly impossible to give up on him. He had an addicting personality, which Mrs. Emma Delancy worked continuously to set free and release from drugs and masks.
As Jasper Whitlock sat in a padded chair and awaited his guidance meeting he folded the blue slip of paper into the smallest triangle he could manage. He did this whenever he had a spare bit of paper and her was nervous. A nervous habit if you will.
As the time between 3rd and 4th period drew to a close more people ran through the crammed guidance office to get to the Gym.
Jasper recognized a few different people who he had played roles in drug exchanges, even some people who he had gotten high with at parties and in the woods. Though they had pretended to be Jasper's best friend for the moment to get high but at school, in the halls, they did not even acknowledge his presence.
He found himself to be an outcast in that sense. He had a lot of acquaintances out of school when no one else had to know they talked, but in school he was always alone. He never had anyone to sit at a lunch table with so he always ended up walking off campus to the market square where he would smoke instead of eating.
Jasper Whitlock did not like this existence, but sometimes you don't get to like what you do, you just have to do it.
"Jasper?" Emma Delancy's voice called from her doorway. "Wanna come in?"
According to Jasper's visible stereotype, one would assume his thoughts would be something along the lines of 'Let's get this fucking shit done with already' however, Jasper's real thoughts were something along the lines of, 'You are so brave, thank you for helping me all these years'.
Jasper nodded and stood up. He placed the pass in his pocket knowing he wouldn't need it in Emma's office.
Emma Delancy, guidance counselor extraordinaire, hadn't made Jasper Whitlock feel nervous since his freshman year. How could she? All she ever did was help him and her room was the most comforting place there was. There were three different chairs which were all very comfortable – Jasper had sat in all of them multiple times just to see which was the most comfortable, not one of them won.
However, he had a different chair for a different occasion. Emma had never really decoded his seating patterns but she knew that there had to be a method to his madness.
As Jasper walked in and saw many college banners and posters – none for quitting drugs or smoking, though there was a Safe Rides application form bin on her desk. Even in a small town like Forks, there is a Safe Rides program. They had so few students, they needed to keep them all alive.
He sat down in his shame chair. He had a shame chair, it was the fluffy blue one the farthest away from Emma's desk where she sat. There was also the problems chair, which was closest to the door and a box of tissues. The last chair was the miscellaneous chair and that's all it was used for. After he had created this chair system he would usually sit in the miscellaneous chair and blabber one period ever Thursday afternoon during his free 9th period.
Emma Delancy had never quite understood why Jasper would choose to spend time with her – time that could easily be spent with his family, friends, even drugs (though she was supposed to be blissfully ignorant of that) – on a Thursday afternoon during the last period. Emma knew Jasper had a car.
It was just one of those things she had never quite understood about Jasper Whitlock.
After both Emma and Jasper were perfectly comfortable, Emma began talking. Jasper knew he was in trouble. She never called him down with a pass unless he was in trouble. She could always wait until Thursday, 9th period.
Jasper Whitlock knew what he was in trouble for. That was the worst thing, he didn't like when Emma had to point out his faults for him when he knew them.
"I suppose you know why you're here?" She asked him knowing that he hated her to point out his faults.
"Will community service hours really cause a college to not accept me?"
Yes, Jasper Whitlock knew why Emma Delancy had called him down to the office on this Tuesday morning. Jasper Whitlock also knew what Emma Delancy's answer would be.
"Yes."
Jasper groaned and sat back in his chair. He ha done a lot of community service in his freshman and sophomore year working with children at the church but when it had become a competition more than anything else, he had pulled away from the only safe social activity he had. Neither Emma nor Jasper considered smoking pot with some popular kids on the weekends to be neither safe nor social.
"You missed a whole year on your transcript!" Emma insisted. Jasper assumed this is what most mothers were like, nudging at their child's work, or lack thereof.
Jasper slumped but refrained from crossing his arms like a child. "I'll go back and as Father John for another job there." He knew he wouldn't and he knew Emma knew that he wouldn't.
Emma shook her head. "I've already arranged something else for you." She said. "You need variety so I signed you up for stage crew."
Jasper blinked once. We have a stage crew? He thought to himself. We have a stage? "What stage crew?" He asked completely flabbergasted by this fact.
Emma smiled knowingly, "There's a public high school in Port Angeles that takes auditions from our students and so in return we help them with stage crew. We have a very dedicated bunch of kids, they'll make you feel welcome."
If anyone else were to suggest that a group of kids Jasper Whitlock didn't know would make him feel welcome he would laugh in their face and stomp away. However, Jasper was talking to Emma and he knew Emma wouldn't put him in a place where he'd be unhappy.
"The stage manager knows you're coming and so does the director. I'll tell you more on Thursday." Jasper slowly nodded but did not move.
"Is that all?" He asked.
Everyone has somewhere special to be. Everyone has a sanctuary where they always feel wanted and loved. Be it the gym during volleyball practice or your bedroom when you're home alone. Everyone savors these places and relishes them, inhaling and loving them forever.
For Jasper Whitlock, this place was Emma Delancy's office. He didn't like the idea of him being rushed out of the room he loved the most. It made him feel like a burden.
"Unless you wanted to talk about something." She confirmed.
He shut his eyes and shook his head. He stood up and tried not to glare at her.
"See you on Thursday, Jasper." She said. She was now distracted by the computer and was reading very carefully.
Jasper didn't say anything as opened the door and left the room.
He walked through the offices with anger burning him. He did not want to be angry but he was horrified by the way Emma had treated him; and on top of it all he had to do stage crew for community service!
He walked through the main hallway having no idea what his final destination would be. There was one music room for the ten or fifteen students who chose to take a music class and there were two art rooms for everyone else.
He peered into the first art room used by freshman and sophomores. Nobody was in the room this period. Not even the teacher. He thought about going in and lying on a table and sleeping till the bell – or a teacher, or students – woke him.
The next art room over had a few juniors in it who were laughing and having a good old time but there were also seniors. There were no junior/senior art classes that mixed so he assumed they had come to finish a project during their free period. Jasper leaned on the door and watched them for just a moment.
One girl, a short girl whom Jasper did not know, was showing off her artwork to a very interested Edward Masen – a senior who Jasper didn't know very well. Next to Edward sat a girl with long, smooth brown hair that made a curtain between her face and Edward as she drew on a piece of paper.
"And this," the short girl said pulling out the next piece. "Is for the beating scene." Jasper blinked a few times trying to decide if he had actually heard that or not.
"What's the rectangle?" Edward asked her, pointing out something on the picture.
The girl glanced down at the paper trying to locate the rectangle he was speaking of. "Oh! That!" She said noticing it now. "That's the tree they lean against! And I can't decide if it's made from the piano bench or two upside-down chairs." Edward nodded as if this made complete and total sense to him.
"So basically, there's no building it's all a matter of props and objects of the time?" Edward clarified.
The girl nodded. "Yah," she said. "There are no walls like in the original because the back wall is made of mirrors," Edward nodded understanding this foreign language. "Though the two mirrors here," she pointed to the picture. "And here are doors like in the original. Remember because everyone takes their first and last entrance out of the because the curtain opens during the last song but the problem with mirrors is…" The girl babbled on about the pros and cons of mirrors and Edward just sat taking it all in.
The other girl, with the long brown hair, seemed so detached from everything else in the room as she sketched and drew.
Jasper glanced at the clock in the room. The period was almost over. He walked away from the art room still trying to decode the secret wordings of the three friends. The bell rang and he waded through shorter students and even a few taller students. He kept his head down the entire time. He just wasn't feeling well.
"I don't even know who Jasper Whitlock is!" A girl's voice exclaimed in exasperation. "Edward! He's a senior, right?" The girl's voice got lost in a screaming fight between two freshman girls who simply had not grown up yet.
"BITCH! That's my BOYFRIEND!" One girl shouted.
"SHUT UP! He hooked up with ME!" The other one shouted.
"Guys, you're making a scene." The third wheel whispered. She obviously had not felt the effects of this boy's whoring personality. She looked better for it. She was the prettiest among the three friends but at the same time she was far more conservative wearing jeans when the others wore shorts that allowed Jasper to see the first girl's underwear.
Ew.
Jasper shuddered and continued to walk to his Statistics class though other people stopped to watch like it was a crime scene or a car accident. He scoffed and muttered, "Vultures."
He glanced out a huge glass window as he walked and saw it was drizzling slightly. He hoped for thunder and lightning he liked driving in it. It gave him a thrill but he knew he could drive through it without a problem.
Everyone else would be driving like old Grannies.
Jasper shook his head and smiled to himself thinking about Mike What's-his-face a centimeter from the steering wheel in complete Granny-Garb. This image made him think of – for some reason or another – Alan Rickman dressed in Neville Longbottom's grandmother's clothing and at this he had to fight to keep a full out laugh down. He didn't want to seem too crazy.
Statistics class was alright. Jasper got a test back that he didn't even remember taking, but apparently he knew the material very well and got a 98 percent.
The rest of the day went by in a similar fashion, he went to his English class where he talked about a chapter in the book that the class hadn't read yet and he narrowly escaped a detention. He blamed his love of books – which actually did exist he didn't just SparkNotes the wrong chapters.
In Music, where Jasper played the guitar, Ms. Cullen quietly slipped him a packet that had the title PORT ANGELES HIGH SCHOOL STAGE CREW INFORMATION PACKET. She didn't say anything other than "Bring it on Saturday." before she went to assist a frightened looking exchange student whose Handel research had come up with a bunch of porn pop-ups.
Jasper pretended not to notice the offending packet and continued to strum the chords for the concert in two months, but when the bell rang he silently tucked the packet into his bag and moved on to physics.
After physics – a class he had with complete blonde bimbos who constantly asked him for pot which really irked Jasper. Why would he pot to a school the police chief's daughter attended? – he headed out into the parking lot. He had ninth period free every day so he got to go home early.
The rain had subsided to Jasper's displeasure but he drove home anyway. Only a few other seniors were as lucky as I was to have ninth period free (including Mike What's-his-face who – despite the lack of rain was still driving a centimeter from the steering wheel like an old Granny.
When he stopped at the one stop light on the way to his house, his bag toppled forwards and the stage crew packet nearly fell out. The top of it was clearly visible and it screamed at Jasper like a thousand bullhorns.
As the light turned to green and a car behind him honked their horn, Jasper Whitlock tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and pushed down on the gas pedal and remembered what he had once said all the time to his mother in the car:
"Green, green, green for go, go, go."
A/M: Okay so, that's the first chapter. I can't wait to hear what people think of it. I hope everyone liked my interpretation of Jasper Whitlock!!!!!
Oh and everyone will use their original surnames:
Jasper Whitlock
Mary "Alice" Brandon
Edward Masen
Bella Swan
Emmett McCarty
Rosalie Hale
Oh and the whole Esme Cullen as a Music Teacher will be thoroughly explained later.
So. Yah. Please review? Maybe? Pweese? –cuteface–
