The Autobiography of a "Troubled Soul"

By

S. Jeffery Sands

Edited and Approved By

E. S. Young

Chapter Two: Everything Happens for a Reason (Including Sands)

I'm shocked that so many people liked this fic! Well . . . not really if you consider how many times I've read posts on message boards requesting a Sands-Childhood fic. There are a lot, believe you me. Still surprises me, though. :)

"I just don't know why none of you can understand this," Mr. Perry the geometry teacher lectured as he passed back tests from the previous day. Each and every one was covered with red slash marks, telltale signs of bad grades. Mr. Perry shook his head and sighed in disappointment. These kids just didn't get it.

"I put the notes in your notebooks," he continued to scold. "I put the examples in your notebooks. I tell you three days ahead of time when the test is going to be . . ."

'No you don't,' mouthed Sands as he accepted his exam from the teacher.

". . . and yet you still fail!" Mr. Perry complained. "I think it's because you need more practice. And that's why I give you so many assignments."

"Noo," Sands said aloud, "you do that because you're lazy."

He grinned when his fellow classmates snickered at the remark. Everyone knew that Mr. Perry was a bitter, spiteful, domineering, sexist pig who hadn't taught a single day in his entire career. Unless one counted whenever members of the school board came in to observe the teachers. Then he always jumped to his feet and acted like teaching was his life – after children, of course.

Sands snorted. Disgusting. This guy wasn't an educator. The only reason anybody passed his class was because he gave mega-easy extra credit so parents and the superintendent didn't become aware of his miserable teaching skills. And the kids never said anything because the extra credit was so well supplied, they never had to study for a test or even do their homework. They could still get above an 83 in Perry's class and anything higher than a 70 was passing.

I could probably teach geometry better than this guy, Sands thought as he shot the flabby, troll-like educator with the hooked nose a look of severe loathing. There was something about people who didn't do their job that really got on his nerves.

Part II

Why is it I am constantly finding myself unable to remember events from my childhood? Also, why is it I am constantly being asked to describe my childhood? Autobiography, of course, that would be the answer. I suppose if I have to, I can always interrogate my parents for recollections. Then again, that may not be the best idea seeing how my dad tends to make fun of how I behaved as a child and our housekeeper turns into this matron that begins spouting embarrassing – though she considers them adorable – memories of yesteryear. So rather than go through that, I will have to try and dig up some accounts from my own mental inventory. If worst comes to worst, I can always make something up.

There is one thing I remember, not about me, but my sister. This takes place when she was in second grade and really hated a lot of the kids around her. It doesn't have much to do with me, but it's an interesting story so I think it deserves to be in here.

At least once in her lifetime, mostly between the ages of three and seven, every girl wants to be a movie star, a princess, or a super model. Whether she wants to admit it or not is another story because admitting to behaving in a girly manner may wreck the image a girl has set up for herself. I can comfortably say that long, long ago my sister Lynné shared the same kind of dreams. However, like most kids her age, she quickly threw away any hopes of being a princess when, as is with most girls when they hit the age of eight, the concept of being a veterinarian moved in. However, for a brief period of time during those deluded years she wanted to be something other than a princess, a super model, or a movie star.

It all started when our mom's sister, Aunt Audrey, brought home a book entitled Harriet the Spy. In it the main character, Harriet, was a writer-in-training who gained her inspiration by eavesdropping on her friends, family, and neighbors, recording everything in her black-and-white splotched notebook. Instantly Lyn had a sudden urge to do this, to write about everyone and everything that happened in her life. While in school she filled her own journal with the accounts of each day of her life. That is, until it was deemed a 'problem' by her second grade teacher, Mrs. Harpster. She informed our parents that my sister was being distracted by the notebook and that the class already wrote once each and every day of school. The kids wrote, yes, but they wrote what she wanted; there was no choice for them. Most kids couldn't care less, but nobody ever said Lynné was like most kids. She cared and was tired of writing stupid summaries about the asinine stories that filled her phonics books. However, as is unfortunately a regular occurrence in elementary school, no one listened to her, and her notebook was taken away. The concept of writing soon dropped and Lyn morphed into an aspiring animal doctor just like many of my peers.

Thinking back on it, a lot happened when I was eight too. A friend of my uncle Bernard's – Bill – called him asking for help with the new house he was building. Uncle Bernard complied, bringing me along with him. I was told not to play with any of the power tools, to be on the look out for falling objects, and, generally, to stay out of their way. Well, this did not leave much to the eight-year-old mind, but, nonetheless, I found a way to entertain myself. Turns out, Bill had a dog. More specifically, a golden retriever named Sara. Since a dog was no less a hazard than an eight-year-old, Bill made an effort to keep her out of the way as well. So I took Sara outside on the front porch. It was unfinished – only the planks had yet to be put down – but safer than staying inside where Bill and my uncle were busing themselves with building a set of steps. So, being young and confident that I could do anything and not be killed, I began to walk the narrow beams of the bare porch. Everything seemed to be going fine. My arms were out, I wasn't wobbling even slightly, and I had yet to fall off.

As I neared the end of the porch, I felt a surge of triumph as I had (almost) successfully crossed the makeshift balance beam. Then Sara – forgot all about her, I'll bet – came up out of nowhere. In complete hyperactive puppy-mode, she jumps on me from behind, trying to paw at my face. In the chaos, my arms flailed, my legs became entangled with one another, and I fell . . .

. . . directly onto the solid, wooden beam I had been balancing on just moments before. If any of the readers have ever been smacked in the face with a hammer, then they will know what this felt like. After what seemed like two hours worth of screaming my yells finally reached my uncle. He came barreling out of the house in a panic, demanding to know what happened. Finally managing to subdue me a bit, he finally got some answers.

"It'll be fiiine," he assured me. "You'll probably have a bit of a bruise tomorrow but nothing worse. I doubt it's broken or anything. Yeah...you'll be fine, just don't tell your mother. If she asks tomorrow, you just say you woke up that way."

I did not attend school the next day, the reason being my nose. Apparently, while he is an exceptional interior designer/cook/fashion maven, Uncle Bernard knows nothing about injuries, at least not ones to the face. My nose was still hurting, so I stayed home from school. Eventually, my mother grew worried and took me to the hospital for X-rays, and, as it turned out, my nose was broken after all. So I had a fractured nose at the age of eight and 24 hours went by before anyone did anything about it, so now you know the reason behind my face being as abhorred as it is.

School was strange. Teachers, and of course students, claimed that I was the strange one, but I knew better. Just because my peers and I didn't see things in the same light, I was automatically deemed 'the weird kid.' No, that's a lie. In the beginning, whenever school first starts for a child, everybody is accepted. It helped to be nice, but whoever had the newest, best, coolest toy in the whole world was the kid everyone wanted to play with. Luckily, I was one of those children.

Eleven years have gone by and I still loathe lunch period. When I came to school, I was expecting trays to drop, mutant casseroles to fly off the trays and attack people, and food fights to be regular occurrences. When my very first lunch period rolled around, I was expecting mayhem. No, this was not the scene I was met with when I entered the cafeteria. The food was disgusting – a fact that secured ten to twelve years of brown bagging for this individual – but it wasn't flying through the air. Kids were sitting calmly in their seats, chatting not yelling, and actually eating what was on their trays with placid expressions on their faces. It was all a severe letdown ,to say the least, but I suppose that taught me not to expect too much out of anything in the future.

My neighborhood is . . . quaint. I live on the nicest street in town, according to my dad. The sidewalks are clean; the houses are neat and taken care of; one could say that it's charming -- picturesque even. However, this is just what it looks on the outside. The inside is a whole other story. Within the adorable little brick homes dwell horrible creatures like no other. I will not mention the names of the people who lurk inside the faux abodes for the sake of privacy and safety (both my neighbors' and my own). For this autobiography, the two subjects I describe will be known only as "Mister and Misses Rubbernecker," two of the nosiest people I have ever met. Mr. and Mrs. Rubbernecker are the retired couple that lives across the street from me. They are, in my eyes, the nosiest people that ever lived. They will sit outside on their porch, talking the day away. However, when someone, whether it be a kid on a bike or Fidel Castro himself, if someone comes walking down the street, my neighbors will cease their chatter immediately to gawk at the pedestrian until the person is out of sight. Let it be known that gossip-mongers and/or rumor-spreaders such as my neighbors have problems and need serious help. There are better things they could be doing with their time. They could be reading a book or swimming with aquatic life or even bungee jumping in New Zealand – anything is better than spying on your decent (using the term loosely) neighbors, the Sands family.

If Mr. and Mrs. Rubbernecker have gleaned anything from me, it is that I have a strong resentment towards snakes, Santa Claus, and, most important of all, clowns. Can a person who goes around in white face paint and colorful wigs be trusted, I ask you? I think not. Who knows what they've got in those baggy pants of theirs, and don't get me started on the shoes. Those are just a disgrace to the shoe world. However, I didn't always hate the red-nosed menace. No, at one point in my life clowns were not a problem. However, as I neared my seventh birthday, my parents declared that a party was in order. After all, a person doesn't turn seven every day. So my mother called a man who went by the name of Heubey and made balloon animals for children's birthday parties and other social events. Unfortunately, a week before my birthday, Heubey gave us a call, explaining that he could not make my party but that we shouldn't worry because he was sending someone else over in his place, a good personal friend by the name of Clarabelle the Clown.

My seventh birthday arrived, and two hours into the party, Clarabelle decided to show up. Her beat up, brown, jalopy crawled its way into my driveway, belching smoke all the way and adding to the ozone layer's damage. The car may have seemed like a crime against nature, but it was nothing compared to its owner. Butch, burly, and blue-haired, Clarabelle the Clown heaved herself out of her wreck of a car and tossed her cigarette onto the pavement. After snubbing it out with the toe of her gigantic purple and yellow polka dotted shoes, she turned around to glare at the audience that had gathered on the sidewalk.

"Where's the birthday boy?" she demanded, her voice gnarled and raspy from too many smokes. It was then that I decided to ditch my party and fled to the safety of the backyard. Several of my smarter guests followed suit.

Clarabelle, however, would not allow a little terror to dampen her mood. Still just as crabby as ever, she stomped after me and began setting up for her 'show' while I (as well as many of the other children) hid behind my swing set. After putting on what could be considered a magic show, Clarabelle said that if anyone wanted to get his or her face painted, she would gladly do it. Everyone else seemed to have relaxed a bit after the so-called magic show, but not me. After years of enduring Uncle Bernard's tricks, I knew better.

"Hey! Buddy!" she hollered to my dad, her craggy voice grating on my already frazzled nerves. "Can I get some water!?"

My dad was more than a little disturbed, but complied and brought water to the thirsty horror in baggy pants, even adding a few ice cubes to the glass. Clarabelle took one look at the glass and snarled, "I didn't ask for ice! I just wanted a glass a' water!"

Not to be swayed by this, Clarabelle shrugged and began to paint the charming faces of my friends while my father decided to see how his son was faring in his hideout.

One might think that that was the last I ever saw of the infamous Clarabelle the Clown, but no. Several months after my birthday party, I was sitting in the passenger's seat of my mother's flashy red Chevrolet when a car came out of nowhere and nearly ran us off the road. Smoke churned out of the vehicle in great, black clouds of exhaust fumes as the driver barreled down the highway with one hand on the steering wheel and the other clasped tightly around a bottle of Jack Daniel's. I didn't need to look at the advertisement on the side of the car to know who the driver was. The blue hair was all I needed. It was Clarabelle the Clown driving haphazardly down the highway, puffing on a cigarette the entire time. It was then that I realized that Clarabelle wasn't a clown at all. She merely liked to wear more makeup than your average person and had an interesting choice in hairstyles. She was just another drunken, chain-smoking pedophile. Had the adults ever left my friends and me alone at my seventh birthday party, I'm sure my childhood would have been even more traumatizing.

The years passed, and while my nightmares of evil clown demons still ran strong, I began not to fear them quite as much. I can be around one now for almost a whole minute without screaming and running from the room. Now that's progress.

Partially overcoming my fear of clowns was definitely an important step in my life. Had I not managed to conquer my terror even slightly, I doubt I would have lasted when my family went to Canada, more specifically, central Québec. When I was thirteen, my family and I all trekked across the country on our way to Nova Scotia. Along the way we made several stops, Salem and Bar Harbor in Massachusetts and the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia being the most memorable places in my mind. Once we couldn't find a hotel while we were in Nova Scotia. We had been traveling all day, all of us suffering from fatigue, hunger, sunburn, and mosquito bites in every area imaginable (and I do mean every area).

It was late, but we were intent on finding a hotel anyway, no matter how dilapidated or rat-infested. The purple sky soon faded into an impenetrable black, but my father insisted we press onward. At last, we wound up renting out a plot of land on the campgrounds of a national park. Unfortunately, while my dad had brought the items necessary for camping, he forgot the tent poles. We couldn't sleep outside; my dad's car was already encrusted with the squished carcasses of the bugs that had hit the vehicle as it sped down the deserted roads, so we could only imagine what the menacing insects would do to us. As it turned out, we all sought refuge in the car. My dad and stepmom reclined their seats as much as possible, my sister and stepsisters propped their pillow up against her window and leaned against it. As for me, I slept sitting up upside down. More specifically, I had sat down on the back seat of the car and flipped around so my legs were where my head should have been and vice versa. Sound uncomfortable? It was.

It turns out, no one got much sleep anyway, what with my stepmother panicking about the bugs that had somehow managed to get past our tightly sealed windows and securely locked doors and broken into our car. Shouts of "Oh my God, that bug was the size of a small bird!" could be heard throughout the night. We ignored her for the most part; after all, this was just my stepmother being, well, my stepmother.

My stepmother, Melinda Johnson believes herself to be a regular Little Miss Mary Sunshine, but anyone who has spent more than five minutes in her presence knows her better than that. It's amazing how she can manage to turn even the brightest day cloudy. Take a church with flowers around its entrance, for example. While one might assume that a lovely couple recently joined together in holy matrimony, my stepmother would think that a funeral had just taken place. Keep in mind that she would say this in a pleasant tone. For someone who is obsessive-compulsive about a clean home, my stepmom would be a nightmare. She is the most slovenly woman I have met, and I say that out of love, of course. In my house, shoes are not allowed, but fortunately that rule doesn't apply to my mother, or else there may be a problem. What irritates me the most is when she eventually does take off her shoes (which is twenty minutes after she's tracked mud through the house), she'll leave them lying in the middle of the floor. Neat freaks such as my dad, my sister, and me are driven up a wall by this small action alone.

At this point I probably should take the time to explain a few things. Previously I mentioned my mother. Now I suddenly have a stepmother. Confusing, I'm sure so I'll clear this up a bit. When I was eight my mother was in a car crash. Lynné was in the car with her, but she was all right save for a few scrapes. My mother, however was bleeding internally and, according to the doctors, there was nothing the hospital could do about it. She died. That's all I have to say on the subject. I'm sure there's more – of course there is – but honestly don't feel like sharing it with you, so you'll excuse me if I don't.

Shortly after my mother's death, my father remarried. That's when Melinda and her two daughters, Catherine and Grace, came into my life. Unwanted, of course. Grace is all right. She's not a complete annoyance. Her older sister is a different story. Catherine or 'Cat' as she likes to be called (she thinks it's cute, please) is worse than Mr. And Mrs. Rubbernecker when it comes to being nosey. She will go to great lengths to pump information out of a person and can't keep a secret to save her life. The only good thing about Cat is the fact that she is so easy to get to. Just about anything annoys her, so you don't even have to be a relatively smart person in order to get under her skin.

My dad can be annoying at times – correction, make that 'incredibly intolerable, so much that he aggravates me to the point of insanity' – but, for the most part, he's tolerable. I'm sure that when he informs me that "A motorcycle helmet doesn't do anything except make it easier to identify the body," that's just his way of saying 'Drive safe, son.'

Then there's my sister. Beatrice Lynné Sands or 'Lyn' is my only biological sibling. As strange as it sounds, I get along with her more than my other relatives. She may be a smart-mouthed, irksome, little brat-child, but at least she's interesting. Take summer vacation for example. Normally, there's nothing to do, but when Lyn's around, things change – drastically.

As far as traditions, my family has none, unless you count making me the guest book attendant for weddings, and that's only happened twice. It's not that my family doesn't like each other; they're just not the warm, loving bunch that most people seem to have. If they were, they'd be stereotypes, and then I would have to poke fun and their overly done antics in this autobiography – more than I already have. There are rules in my house, of course. They're pretty basic: Don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't drink, don't gamble, don't drive underage . . . I think I've broken each of those at least twice. I guess that's because I myself only live by one rule, and that is: 'I don't care what you do. Go ahead; do drugs, smoke cigarettes, sleep around, be a boozehound, go out and off somebody – it doesn't matter. Just don't be stupid about it. And by stupid, I mean, if and when you go down, don't bring me with you.' Some may call that cynical. I call it accepting.

There are no 'family values' in my house, just words of caution. Of course my father cares about my grades and behavior in school but his emotion is never really expressed until things go wrong and I suddenly wind up in the principal's office for selling hemp jewelry on school grounds – not that I ever have, of course. Despite how apathetic my dad can be, I do know that my relatives care, at least the ones on my mom's side do. They provide enough warnings for me to know this fact. My sister especially, even though she's often more callous than my dad. A case in point: One time while shopping for groceries, Lyn remarked that it was amazing how many breakfast products contain the spice cinnamon. Suddenly hit with paranoia, she quickly informed me that it was all due to a government ploy. When I asked her what this meant, she replied, "Cinnamon is the aphrodisiac of the complacent happy family."

Big words for a twelve-year-old, I know. That's why she skipped a grade. Anyway, Lynné continued, "You've gotta understand: It's a drug infused by the government to lure us into a false sense of security; to trick us into thinking that everything is okay."

"Example?" I asked, both intrigued and amused.

"Whenever a mom makes her kids breakfast in the morning, what is always there no matter what? Cinnamon. Cinnamon toast, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, cinnamon bread... And why? Because cinnamon gives off a warm, homey feeling. It makes the kids believe that their mom goes out of her way for them. Don't get me wrong; it's not that she doesn't care for her kids, she's just lazy. We all are, so that's one of the reasons we have cinnamon."

"Oh, like that Pepperidge Farm commercial," I realized, nodding. "The dad leaves for work before his family even wakes up, but he puts a few slices of cinnamon bread in the toaster before he goes. That way, when the wife and kids get up, it's like, 'Aww, Daddy may be a work-aholic, but he still cares. After all, he made us cinnamon bread!'"

"Exactly," my sister replied. "Now you know."

I remembered this important bit of information, and have come to realize that it is what hatched my extreme distrust for the government – not that I had much faith in them to begin with.

Christ, somebody get me the hell outta here! He was up for anything. Fire drill, sudden appendicitis attack, trip to the principal's office . . . any excuse to leave Mr. Perry's classroom was fine with him.

"'If X is greater than 5, then X is greater than 3 is true,'" Perry was saying, droning on and on about God only knew what. The class certainly didn't.

Not that it matters since hardly any of us will use the math we learn after sixth grade . . .

"But 'X is greater than three, then X is greater than 5' is false because . . ." Mr. Perry's permanently swollen lower lip protruded even more as he scowled out at his students. He was obviously expecting someone to take the bate and answer, but nobody was biting. "Becaaause . . ."

"Because of the wonderful things he does," Sands sang, not bothering to keep his voice down.

The teacher's head immediately snapped up from his answer book. Perry's dull watery eyes, sunken into the mounds of fat that surrounded them, squinted as he zeroed in on the student who had dared to taunt him. Seeing this, Sands grinned.

Principal's office, here I come . . .

And thus concludes yet another chapter of Sands' autobiography! And once again 80 of it is based on tales from my own childhood. O.o; Yes, unfortunately, Clarabelle the Clown actually exists and still haunts me to this day. -.-; As does Mr. Perry the lazy-arsed geometry teacher even though I changed his name for this purpose. Not by much, mind you. -.9 I must admit I was kinda venting through Sands whenever I wrote the parts with him in it, but come on! Anyone who's ever met Perry would agree that he is a zit on the butt of mankind and deserves to be put out of his misery. But anyway, I digress . . . Luckily, Sands' family isn't based on my own. Except maybe Uncle Bernard who really acts a lot like my dad. o.o Author's Thanks and Review Responses

vanillafluffy: o.o! Really? Thank you! Nice to hear from you again, too :)

The Gilatas Monster: Yeah, I don't remember Miss K having a moustache either . . . hmm. Anyway, what the heck does 'sword-face' mean!? Somebody tell me! And I had to have her call him Shelmo, come on, that was so Miss K. u.u.

fanfiction fanatic: Hey, thanks! You know I appreciate the praise :)

Dawnie-7: It's so good to hear that this sounds like something Sands would write. You know me and keeping him in character 9.9

morph: Oooh, you mentioned the stuff in history :D I was hoping somebody would. I thought it would be something neat to throw into the autobio, not to mention the fact that I was required to include stuff like that when I wrote mine for English. Yeah, this takes place before Alaska, unfortunately. Sands was about twenty when that happened and in this he's seventeen. I suppose I could've made this into a college report but I like writing him as a teenager :)

Lynx Ryder: Hmm . . . so far a lot of people have said that I write Sands well . . . I'm beginning to wonder . . . should I be worried? o.o; I mean, Sands is a bit of a deranged psychopath who is more than a little unbalanced . . . but it's in a good way. He's still oddly lovable for some reason, after all. In any case, glad I could brighten your day! :D

websurffer: I liked your review. Very poetic. u.u And thank you!

Invader Nicole: Skool is definitely being evil anymore. I know what you mean about being bombarded with homework. 9.9 Damn teachers . . . Sorry to hear about the writer's block :( It is indeed a terrible thing to have. Hope you're hit with inspiration soon!

ringbearers-guardian: Thank you :) And believe me, I definitely intend on continuing this story.

DragonHunter200: lol! I definitely know how you feel about being freaked out by a teacher. Last year I was certain that my English teacher (who was female) was coming on to me. Not a fun time. Not at all. But one sings to show tunes? That wouldn't be so bad, mostly cuz I have a thing for musicals but anyway . . . Sword-face was what my ninth grade English teacher used to use as an insult along with other colorful catchphrases such as 'Wholly giant boots, Batman!' 'I'm gonna kung-fu you!' and 'I oughtta send you straight to T-Town fer that!' Yeah, she was just a little . . . intense. As for the poll thing . . . yeah, I'd say that's a little creepy. I'd probably keep the cash, though, knowing me. Mind if I ask if that actually happened? Or is the question just like a survey?

o