Taylor Davis: Flame of Findul Episode One (Serial Adventures, 1.1)
Page 2
****
I suppose this would be a good time to explain how I ended up in such a pickle. You see, I’m the last of three children. My siblings don’t really come into this story, but you should probably know they’re both perfect. Jessica attends law school at the University of Michigan where she’s never earned less than an A, and Bobby skipped his first year of college to compete in motocross. He’s always being featured in those extreme sports magazines. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been asked to get his autograph…
How’s a kid supposed to compete with that? I’m sure there’s a natural law against having three superstars in one family. They’ve condemned me to life as a nobody. Not a prospect I’m doing cartwheels over, I assure you.
Maybe that’s how I got into the performing arts. Growing up, I was always pretending to be someone cooler than I am. Mom says I’m a natural actor and I’ll wind up with an Academy Award someday. Guess that would stand up next to my siblings’ accomplishments, but it’ll never happen. Mom has a vivid imagination—she writes children’s books. She still uses the name Sarah Gail Jones, even though that hasn’t been her real name since she married my dad. She says it has a certain ring to it and gives her more credibility than Sarah Davis.
All that still doesn’t explain how I got into this mess. Or why I’m the only blond in a family of brunettes. Or why I possess all the grace and athleticism of a five-footed beagle. Those would be my dad’s fault. (At least two out of three—I don’t know where the beagle footedness comes from.) Dad looks like he just got off the boat from Scandinavia. We share the same blond hair and ice-blue eyes. He’s a bigwig in an international tourism company. When they needed someone to manage a brand new resort in the Dominican Republic, they sent my dad—and a few cases of sunblock.
So on a windy April day, Mom and I packed up everything we owned and put it in storage. Then we moved away from the only home I had ever known. A few days later I started at Zander National Academy, fell through the cafeteria floor, and ended up at the point of a broadsword somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean.