“Ben” was Michael’s third hit as a solo artist, following on the heels of “Got To Be There” and his cover of the old Bobby Day tune, “Rockin’ Robin.” It was Berry Gordy’s idea that he and a couple of the other boys also record on their own. (Jermaine had a Top Ten hit himself in 1973 with his version of Shep and the Limelites’ 1961 hit, “Daddy’s Home.”)

     I know that being given the opportunity to record “Ben” was a dream come true for Michael. Not only was it a beautiful ballad -- if you didn’t know that Ben was a rat, you never would have guessed -- but, also, Michael just happened to adore rats.

     I recall having dinner with the family in a restaurant one night and watching Michael as he picked up crumbs from his plate and dropped them in his shirt pocket. “Michael, what are you doing?” I finally asked him.

     At that moment a rat poked its head out of Michael’s pocket, and I had my answer.

     Michael bred rats while we lived in Beverly Hills. We lived in an area where there was a great deal of vegetation, and I’d see big brown rats scurrying through the ivy and bushes from time to time. After a while, I was surprised to see the rats seemingly change color; some were partially white, a few totally white. Then it dawned on me that Michael was letting his white rats out into the yard, and they were mating with the wild rats.

     I never confronted Michael about his breeding project, but when we moved to our Encino house I informed him, “Your rats are not coming with you.”

     In addition to liking rats, Michael loved magic. At the age of twelve he would blow his entire three-dollar weekly allowance on magic tricks.

     He also loved to draw and paint. Two of his favourite “subjects” were Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse; his sketches of them adorned a wall of his bedroom in our Encino home.

     Like a typical kid, Michael also had his fears, the worst of which was flying during a thunderstorm or lightning.

     REBBIE: After my brothers’ concert in Memphis, they were supposed to catch a flight to Atlanta. Everybody was ready to leave the hotel, but they couldn’t locate Michael. They looked everywhere. Finally they found him -- hiding in a closet. He had heard that a thunderstorm was in the offing.

     The next time Rebbie saw her brothers was some months later, in Nashville. Rebbie brought along her six-month-old daughter, Stacee, whom Joe and the boys hadn’t met yet. Michael was so delighted to see his niece that he climbed into her crib to play with her .... after which they both promptly fell asleep.

     And yet while Michael acted like your average kid in many ways, when I watched him sing “Ben” on the 1973 Academy Awards show I was once again reminded of the fact that, professionally speaking, he was savvy beyond his years.

     I can’t imagine a more nerve-wracking situation in show business than performing on the Oscars show. Yet fourteen-year-old Michael appeared to be no more nervous singing “Ben” that night than he had been singing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” at Garnett Elementary School in the first grade.

     Even the comment he made to me after the show -- “Ben” was fated to win the Oscar for Best Song -- smacked of a seasoned pro: “Mother, did you notice that in his acceptance speech the writer of “Ben” didn’t thank me for singing the song and helped to make it a success? That he didn’t even mention my name?”

     Fourteen was a rough age for Michael. In 1972 he watched with mixed feelings as Tito started a trend among the older brothers by getting married. By 1975, Jermaine, Jackie, and Marlon had also tied the knot.

     “A part of me,” Michael confessed in Moonwalk, "wanted us to stay as we were -- brothers who were also best friends .... “

     REBBIE: Actually, I think Michael resented his brothers’ getting married and moving out of the house -- on both a personal and professional level. Professionally speaking, Michael didn’t see how he and his brothers could build effectively on the strong musical foundation that they had established if the brothers didn’t remain one hundred percent focused on the Jackson Five, like him.

     He didn’t say this in so many words. Even as a young teenager, Michael found it difficult to express the way he felt, especially if his opinions would cause unpleasantness or pain. But he did make statements from time to time that clued me in to his true feelings -- i.e., how he was losing another writing partner when one of the brothers moved out.

     At the same time that Michael was fretting about his brothers and the future of the Jackson Five, he was suffering through the usual teen traumas: a growth spurt, a voice change, and a bad case of acne. But with Michael’s being in show business, these traumas were magnified.

     Regarding his clear falsetto, people had been telling us for years, “What are you going to do when Michael’s voice changes?” It was as if the success of the Jackson Five had been totally dependent on his falsetto.

     As it turned out, Michael’s voice wasn’t affected too much -- high voices run in our family -- but at first he didn't even want to accept the fact that it had changed at all. “You know, Michael doesn’t want to give up his voice,” LaToya said to me one day. “He has to, but he’s still trying to sing high.”

     But whatever worry he had about his voice paled next to the shame he felt about his acne. In contrast to Jermaine and Marlon, who took their acne in stride, Michael was so embarrassed by the bumps on his face that he didn’t want to leave the house. When he did, he kept his head down. Even when he talked to me, he couldn’t look at me in the face.

     I was worried sick for him. I took him to a specialist, but there wasn’t much that the doctor could do to help.

     Michael’s acne disappeared eventually, but the changes that it seemed to have wrought in him became permanent. He was no longer a carefree, outgoing, devilish boy. While he would still occasionally join his brothers for a basketball game in the backyard (“How can you be this good when you hardly ever play?” the brothers would always ask Michael in amazement), he was now quieter, more serious, and more of a loner.

     I could see the new Michael in the photographs he was taking. While LaToya and I enjoyed going to Lion Country Safari to shoot the animals, Michael preferred to stay around the house photographing flowers and dewdrops .... delving into his own world.