- happiness .

[sebastian clark lane.]

When life gave you lemons, you make a Jewish dessert for your brother's Bar Mitzvah. In Sebastian's opinion, he would most certainly like to smash them into lemonade or something a lot more fun than lemon bars. Still, being a rather agreeable child, he would settle for at least eating them now instead of waiting twenty years. What was the point of this anyway? Waiting was not part of the bargain here. Especially since he had to sit through the whole ceremony and do absolutely nothing. Sebastian hated “sitting still”. He had learned the hard way that this meant not being able to play with, talk to, or tackle any of his many friends. Oh well – Jimmy was being a jerk face anyway and he was usually the only one who could match Sebastian's brute tackling skills. Jimmy had once asked him why he didn't stick up for himself when people made jokes about his name. They referred to the Little Mermaid a little too often. It would be nice to have some originality in insults. “Because I don't care. I like my name,” Sebastian had answered, and this was the truth. His name was unique, and even if it did remind a lot of people of a red crab in a Disney animation, it was different. Sebastian liked being different.

Sebastian had successfully exited the house without his mother knowing. He just knew her poofy hair would wobble as her head jerked around when she talked on forever about being safe. Sebastian hated safe. He hated a lot of things – including stupid Topher and stupid Max and this stupid Bar Mitzvah junk that was going on. Why did they have to do it again? And more importantly, why didn't he get one? Sebastian would have liked to instead go to soccer practice, or see how many jumps it took him to get to China. But no – he had to support Topher in this stupid, stinky ceremony. On the surface, Sebastian liked to pretend he was happy for Topher. In reality, though, he felt quite left out of the loop. Max got to wear one of those cool hats and all Sebastian got was a “Go play in the other room, honey.” What kind of deal was that? He wanted to help. That was why he was special, his mother had told him. Because he liked to help people. Sebastian wanted to be a doctor after all. Who needed Superman when you had the magic of healing on your side?

Sebastian looked at his backyard after shutting the door carefully behind him. His mother was forever warning that someday they'd be able to use alarm systems on him since he so frequently used the windows and doors. Sebastian wouldn't worry about this, however, until it had happened. Now what he was concerned with was find what Topher told him was a spaceman. Though Topher meant specimen, Sebastian had certainly taken it for the other thing, and that was just that. Who needed specimen when you had spaceman anyway? Certainly not Sebastian. In his eight-year-old mind, that was the last thing he needed. Right now he wanted his spaceman, and that spaceman would come in the form of...

Oh, look there! A frog. A green frog. It was bright and shiny, and looked fun to touch. Sebastian planned his actions to capture said spaceman. Without further a due, he grabbed a concrete dish thing from one of his mother's angel statues and clapped it over the frog.

“Sorry, Mr. Frog,” Sebastian said, actually pretty sorry he had to do this to the poor green guy. “You're a spaceman now. Don't be afraid!” he said, reaching his hand under the dish to grab the frog. It didn't directly look at him, so Sebastian thought this might mean that he was angry. This happened with is parents too. When Sebastian lost his tall socks for a soccer game one time, his parents wouldn't look him in the eye but instead gave him what their dad said was “the silent treatment”. Now, Sebastian had definitely always taken “treatment” to be entailed to candy. Candy was good, even if it stuck to your teeth sometimes. That made him wary of it, but he still enjoyed it nonetheless. One time, his mom had told him that if he ate too much that his teeth would rot out of his head. He had learned since then, of course, that it only happened if you didn't brush your teeth. Sebastian thoroughly enjoyed brushing his teeth. It made him feel like a doctor, because they cleaned teeth sometimes. Dentists, they were called. At least that's what Max had told him.

“It's okay! Don't squirm, green butt,” Sebastian requested as the frog attempted to make a grand escape to the pond. “I just need to test you,” and in truth, Sebastian had no idea what he was going to test the frog with. It reminded him of Frankenstein rather than a doctor, which made him frown. Still, doctors always had spaceman, so he would need one too.

“And for the first test, you'll need to swim,” Sebastian said in what he thought a doctor's voice might sound like, deep and kind of like an adult. But Sebastian would never grow up to be like his parents. He had sworn this to himself from the day he realized what they did to him so very often, which was keeping him on the leash. That's what Lois had told him they did, anyway, and usually Lois had pretty good ideas. She was the oldest, after all. That made her right about everything – another thing she had told him. But he trusted her. She was smart and wore glasses. People who wore glasses were smart. Doctors wore glasses, even! This is partly the reason why Sebastian so often sneaked into Lois's room to try her glasses on. They were round and made his eyes look big, but this pleased him. Oh, what he would give to have glasses! Right now they'd be so cool. They kind of would get in the way when he played soccer, though. That would suck. How could he perform a perfect tumble if he had glasses to worry about losing or breaking? Sebastian's dad was always losing his glasses.

“Don't you want to be a part of my experiment?” Sebastian tried to reason with the frog, who was squirming again under Sebastian's fingers. “Don't be such a ninny. You should be happy that you can be a spaceman for me. I'm going to be the best doctor in the world some day. Don't worry, I'll give you credit. I'm not going to be a jerk and not give you credit because you know –“ But before he could finish his ode to the yellow frog, Ma herself came stumbling out into the back yard in high heels and a red suit-dress.

“Sebastian!” she said in a huffy tone. Oh, great. “Sebastian Clark Lane, you get into this house right now before you catch your death! Oh my dear! What have you done? Your shirt! Oh... oh, no. This will not do. Sebastian, why don't you stay where we want you to stay? Why don't you listen? Oh my.. what have you.. I don't even know what to do with you!” she ranted. The yellow spaceman sat as still as Sebastian was sitting. He guessed Ma didn't notice this yet. “Sebastian! I spent hours ironing that shirt for you! Look what you've done, oh.. I don't even know.. Come in, come in! Quickly now, the lemon bars will burn!” her voice was so fast that Sebastian had to pretend it was in slow motion for him to even understand her. “Sebastian!” she said again urgently, and he finally made himself move up from the bench in which he sat, Mr. Yellow Spaceman still in his right hand.

“But Ma, the –“

“No buts! I do not want your excuses, young man. I don't care if the ant colony needs medical attention again, okay? I just need you to cooperate! Lift your arms,” she said as they finally arrived in his bedroom. It was full of stethoscopes, telescopes, and other scopes that had no name as of yet. Sebastian did as his mother asked him, and she pulled on a white tee shirt. He would have loved it if she let him wear his pajama shark shirt to the Bar Mitzvah, but she had gotten rid of it that morning.

“This will have to do,” she commented, licking her finger and wiping his face. Sebastian frowned and he could swear (though he wasn't allowed) that Ma had softened her expression just a tiny bit. Lois said that whenever he made a “genuine unhappy face” it made Ma want to hug him.

“Ma, did you know that dog's mouths are cleaner than humans'?” Sebastian asked jerking his face away from her grasp. She just held on tighter, and it felt like she was smudging his face off.

“Enough, Sebastian. This is a very important day for Christopher, and you need to respect that,” she sighed, as if tired of something. What could she possibly be tired of? She looked alive to him. “Some day you will have a Bar Mitzvah –“ she used a funny accent when she said Bar Mitzvah. “ – and you will be thirteen, just like your brother. It is a great honor to come of age,” she sighed again, resting her hands on his narrow shoulders. She looked him in the brown eyes with her own. Sebastian thought they were the color of the coffee she had every morning. He tried it once and pretended to like it – but it was gross. And someone had told him it would stunt his growth when he was already pretty short for his age. Ma said something he hated for her to say just then and it was “You'll understand when you're older,”

He didn't want to understand when he was older. He wanted to understand now.

She took the comb from his dresser and brushed his hair to the side. It stuck up, so she made him go to the bathroom and use some of that disgusting yellow goo to hold it down, and even then, some of it stuck up. He sighed. “Ma, the lemon bars,”

Her eyes widened and she dashed for the kitchen. Sebastian looked down at his green spaceman, about ready to set him free now that things had been ruined. But maybe he could keep Sebastian company during this lame Bar Mitzvah thing. Yeah, maybe... Just then, Topher came strolling into the bathroom. Oh, great. What did the big cheese want now?

“Hey Topher. Ma says you're coming of age. Does that mean you get chest hair?” Sebastian asked, actually quite interested in this answer. Topher always had what he called “logical” answers. Usually Sebastian just went with what Lois said, because Topher had proven himself wrong a few times before.

Either way, he needed an answer to his questions, and Topher should be obliged to answer them.

“Look! I have a spaceman. Member' you told me about them? Well, I didn't get to test him, but... yeah. I think he might like you,” Sebastian offered Topher the frog, holding it out for him to take.

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----tagged, topher and maybe max and whoever else.
----status, completed.
----outfit, described.
----music, happiness by the fray.
----count, 2,025 words.
----notes, d'aww! sorry for the ramble, though. D:!

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