Disclaimer: I do not own Cheaper By The Dozen. Sadly…
Author's Note: Okay, I'm not abandoning my other stories, but I had the urge to do this one. And I'm not claiming that these ages are definite, this is just what I think. If anyone wants to correct me, go for it.
Jake
Baker: The High School Years
Chapter
One
High school. They call it the "best years of our lives," but is it really? I mean… You've got all this drama, backstabbing, I guess if you're into that kind of thing then high school is awesome. I'm… not really into that. I've been hanging out with the same group of kids since I was thirteen, and we haven't had all that much drama, which is pretty sweet in my eyes.
Oh, yeah, you don't know me. Do you? I'm Jake. That's enough for now, I'll get into more details later. But if you hear someone talking about Jake in this school then it's usually me. If someone talks about the Jake with a lot of siblings, then it's more likely going to be me. But enough about me, I'm not all that interesting.
Well here we go, let's dive into my life.
I was sitting in the passenger seat of my older sister's car. Of course, I towered over her, but she honestly terrified me. Five years ago, my dad said she had a dark gift. And I will continue to believe that until she proves otherwise. We were driving towards our school, and in the backseat, we had one of our younger brothers. I watched the scenery pass by, well… It was a suburb, the majority of scenery was houses.
My sister, Sarah, was rambling about something… I'm going to be completely honest and say I wasn't listening. But a red light stopped that. I heard the rambling stop. And next, a hand was meeting my head and a loud smacking sound echoed. "Ow! That was my head."
She glared at me, "I'm aware. You weren't listening to me." I mentioned that she scared me, right? Because that was definitely coming into effect right now.
"But I can put the gist of it together…" I muttered. It was true, lately she'd been bitching about how Elliot was getting distant, and he hadn't been calling. They'd been a couple for… four years. Things weren't going to stay the same forever. Hell, I hadn't been too involved in dating and I knew that. But that wasn't even the reason I tuned out Sarah's Elliot rants. I tuned them out just because I hated hearing about him. He had been my friend first, and now me and him were distant too. It was pretty sweet, not going to lie.
"Shut up Jake." She muttered, before the light turned green and she started driving towards the school again. Sarah and I used to be really close, and we still were. It's just… people grow up, and people grow apart. Welcome to the world of Jake and Sarah right there. We fight a lot now. And based on the past week, I'm lucky I'm not walking right now.
We pulled up to the school, and Sarah went to her usual parking spot. I hopped out of the car and starting walking up to the school. Mark was shortly behind me. But I had people to see. I walked through the front doors, going to my locker, where I knew my friends would be waiting. "Yo Baker!"
I shook my head, walking up to the locker, "So how much have you had this morning?" I asked my best friend Cody. He smirked at me.
He shrugged slightly, "Wouldn't you like to know?"
My other friend, Matt, laughed slightly, "I think that's code for so much shit he lost track." The three of us had been the Three Musketeers since our eighth grade year. And I couldn't imagine going through the hell that was Evanston High without them. Cody, Matt, and I were pretty much inseparable. We did everything together. That sounds a little… bad. But I don't mean it like that. I'm talking about clean stuff.
Cody scoffed, "No. I don't do anything until noon. You should know that." He said, crossing his arms, and he was obviously annoyed. I'm sure you can figure out what we're talking about. If not? Well… we'll get into that later.
Matt sighed, "Open your locker Jake, I forgot your combo and I need my notebook. Cooney is going to kill me if I'm unprepared again." I shook my head laughing, but I opened my locker anyway. Matt dove in front of me, grabbing his notebook, "And now. I need to go."
I raised my eyebrow, "You've got like ten minutes dude."
Matt looked at me, "Dude, three words, I'm failing." That was something they had both picked up from me, it didn't bother me that they used it, I was kind of honored actually. As weird as that sounded.
I nodded, "Perfect sense. Go boost your English grade. Don't be one of those idiots that fails their own language."
Cody looked up, "I'm failing English…"
I raised an eyebrow, "Point proven." My friends were amazing, and we were close enough that we could insult each other as much as we wanted, and still be best friends. We were just that good.
Cody shrugged, "Whatever, I know I'm a moron." He said, looking at me, "I really don't want to go to first period."
"Tell me something I don't know." I said to him. Cody was a total idiot, there was no denying that. He never wanted to go to class. Except gym. And oddly enough math…
"Hmm. Give me a minute to think." He said, stroking his chin. This could take a while. Cody and thinking, as I've pointed out many times, didn't exactly go hand in hand. I could see the smoke beginning to come out of his ears. "THC is the most common chemical in marijuana?"
I couldn't help but laugh. "And you think I didn't know that?" I asked, shaking my head. A lot of people knew that, some for different reasons than others. My reasons… Well, we're not going to get into that yet. I barely know you.
Cody opened his mouth to say something, but he ended up bursting out laughing as well. I raised my eyebrow, but soon knew what he was laughing at. I had a bunch of weight on my back that hadn't been there earlier, "Hi Jake."
"Hey Tay," I said to the girl on my back, adjusting her so I could be comfortable and hold her at the same time. Taylor was a sophomore, she was in a couple of classes with my brother. And that was how I knew her. She was pretty sweet.
Cody scoffed, "Sorry to interrupt your little lovefest, but what am I? Chopped liver?"
I rolled my eyes, "No lovefest genius, just two friends. One friend on the other friend's back because she doesn't feel like standing."
"Interesting way of putting it Jake…" Taylor retorted, laughing slightly, "As awkward as that sounds though… It's true."
Cody rolled his eyes, "I'm going to start taking bets on when you two are going to go out." He said, "The sparks between you two are undeniable."
I shook my head as the bell rang, "Cody, just stop talking. Do the world a huge favor." After the bell, Taylor hopped off my back and we started walking to class. I had English.
So tell me what you think. Be honest, I can take it.
