This blog is based on a fanfic I thought about a while ago. Based on the Hunger Games universe by Suzanne Collins, we follow Isadora’s life in this dystopian future.
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Nightmare
Word count: 1636
Daddy got me feeding the chickens today, been doing it all week, actually. I think this his way to keep me busy. Been asking too many questions he says, but it’s cause he never got anything to say when I ask about Eddy. Even told me to stop talking to Vano. That’s probably cause I made him cry. All I did was ask if he been watching the games.
Besides that, I’ve been real good since I threw that “tantrum in front of the whole family”, or so momma says. I mean, daddy ain’t say none about it but she looks pretty mad. Scolds me about anything now. Even yelled at me this morning cause I was watching her throw up but I was only curious. She’s never thrown up before.
I spend the feeding playing with the chickens but daddy’s now yelling at me to stop. Says I’m scaring them. I’m pretty sure I’d know if they were scared. Them flapping their wings like that means they’re happy. I read that in a book somewhere.
When I’m done feeding them, daddy tells me to haul a bucket of water for the goats. I tell him I can’t cause I need both hands to hold it since my right is still in a cast. He said “do it and you best not drop it”, gave me a real tired look. One that says “if you inconvenience me I’m gonna inconvenience you”, with a spanking probably.
Now, I’ve already dropped it twice but daddy ain’t seen so I figure I’ll head to the barn house to see if Vano ain’t using the wagon for hay. Gonna use it to put the bucket in there and haul it to the goats. In here, I find him raking horse poo with a real sad look on his face.
“You need anythin’?”, he asks. Sounds real sad too.
“Can I use the wagon?” I ask. My hands behind my back, I rock myself from side to side. I’m a little embarrassed for making him cry but I don’t wanna talk about it.
“For?”
“I need it”
“For?”
“Isadora why is that water tub empty?”, daddy yells at me from across the dairy cow pen. I don’t turn to look at him and run straight back to the well. It’s not until I drop the heavy bucket two more times that I earn me another yell from daddy. Tells me to go back inside since I’m of no use. This hurts my feelings and I don’t cry until I’m back in the kitchen.
In here, momma Bilmin makes breakfast. Tells me everyone misses Eddy as much as I do but we all got different ways of showing it. Daddy shows it with irritation she says.
“He must be missing people all the time then”, I say. She hushes me.
“Now take them boots off, you’re messin’ up my floor and I just mopped”, she scolds, hands on her hips.
Barefoot, I skip around the cold floor tiles around the kitchen and hallway making my way to the living room. Sasha lays on the sofa covered in one of my old blankets and watches Bean murder Mrs Wallace. She’s one of my favorite dolls, I even cut her hair in a mullet cause that’s the type of gal she is.
“Bean! No!”, I yell at him but he runs off with Mrs Wallace. I should of listened to daddy when he said no dogs! At the time I was sad I couldn’t keep him though, cried until momma Bilmin talked him into letting Bean stay.
Sitting up straight, Sasha giggles. “You ain’t play with it in a minute”, she says. She’s right but that don’t mean I want my doll to be ripped to shreds by that maniac dog!
It ain’t long until I wanna cry. He’s running all over the place thinking I wanna play. Won’t let me catch him. Sasha ain’t helping either, she just keeps laughing every time he slips through my hands. Momma Bilmin says to leave him alone and that he’ll bore himself with the doll but when will that be? When he’s done and finished killing her?
Finally, out of breath and given up I lay on the opposite end of the sofa. Sasha kicks her blanket to me and we cover ourselves. She kicks me a couple of times but I ignore her, last thing I want is play with her. She always ends up crying.
It’s not long until I start feeling sleepy.
[̲̅I̲̅]’[̲̅m̲̅] [̲̅w̲̅][̲̅a̲̅][̲̅l̲̅][̲̅k̲̅][̲̅i̲̅][̲̅n̲̅][̲̅g̲̅] [̲̅d̲̅][̲̅o̲̅][̲̅w̲̅][̲̅n̲̅] [̲̅t̲̅][̲̅h̲̅][̲̅e̲̅] [̲̅h̲̅][̲̅a̲̅][̲̅l̲̅][̲̅l̲̅][̲̅w̲̅][̲̅a̲̅][̲̅y̲̅] into the kitchen, something tells me that’s where Eddy is. Last I saw him he was sneaking into momma Bilmin’s unfinished breakfast platter.
When I enter the room I stare at a big red desk. It looks fancy, kind of like the one in the mayor’s office. On the corner of the room, on a chair, Efrain sits with his back turned to me. I ask him what he’s doing but he doesn’t answer. Just bobs his head. It makes him look silly but I’m concerned.
“Efrain, you okay? Where’s Eddy?” I ask.
Efrain ignores me but he keeps bobbing his head. Just as I walk up to him, someone takes my hand. At first it’s Vano telling me it’s time to go, then it’s Eddy himself. He says we can’t stay here and takes me out into the hallway. It looks familiar and the blades spinning around in the middle of the room look familiar too.
I turn around to get one last glimpse of Efrain but there’s a wall where the door stood. I try to touch it but Eddy takes my arm and pulls me away. There’s no cast on it. Something tells me my hand is completely healed.
The hallway’s gotten longer now and the blades are coming at us from where we just stood.
Eddy let’s go of my hand, runs away and kicks the wall until he makes a hole into it. “C’mon Dora!”, he yells at me.
I run as fast as I can, but no matter how hard I try, it’s not fast enough. The blades are right behind me. Swish. Swish. They sound sharp and ready to kill. By now I’m crying but I make it just in time to crawl into the hole on the wall.
Just when I think we’re safe in my room, something in my closet starts to slam on the panels. Snapping and breaking the way it does looks like whatever it is is climbing.
Fingers peak out and grip slowly opening the closet door. I stare at it and take a step forward. A thought in my mind tells me it could be Bean making a ruckus but just when I’m only a couple of feet away, from the top of the door, emerging from the pitch black, a face peaks out.
It’s one I immediately recognize. With ugly cuts across her face and no life behind her eyes, the tribute’s head slides down ever so slowly. Once she’s reached the floor one of her arms come out from the darkness and then the other and then her entire body. Mangled with her arms snapped back like a spider she crawls towards me. As she does I can see the puddles of blood she leaves behind.
Frozen and scared, [̲̅I̲̅] [̲̅c̲̅][̲̅a̲̅][̲̅n̲̅]’[̲̅t̲̅] [̲̅s̲̅][̲̅c̲̅][̲̅r̲̅][̲̅e̲̅][̲̅a̲̅][̲̅m̲̅] [̲̅n̲̅][̲̅o̲̅] [̲̅m̲̅][̲̅a̲̅][̲̅t̲̅][̲̅t̲̅][̲̅e̲̅][̲̅r̲̅] [̲̅h̲̅][̲̅o̲̅][̲̅w̲̅] [̲̅h̲̅][̲̅a̲̅][̲̅r̲̅][̲̅d̲̅] [̲̅I̲̅] [̲̅t̲̅][̲̅r̲̅][̲̅y̲̅].
I wake up screaming. Seeing daddy run up to me from the corner of my eye keeps the scandal going and for a second it ain’t just me.
Sasha’s crying. Momma Bilmin holds on to her chest and I think I hear Vano stopping into the kitchen. Tryna force my back into the couch cushions, I keep bawling until I can’t no more. Even gone mute with a blurry eyesight from all the hot tears rolling down my face.
Daddy grabs my shoulders tight and shakes me asking what’s wrong. There are coffee stains all over his already dirty, sweaty shirt.
Just a second ago I seen that dead girl crawling to me, now it’s daddy all up in my face. If I wasn’t already screaming I sure would.
“I was in the games, daddy!”, I cry and hug him like I’ll never see him again. Out of breath from all my wailing I can only say just a few words. “I was in the games and she was coming to kill me!”
Daddy pulls me away and wipes my tears. He looks just like momma Bilmin. They both have a thin long face and straight black hair. Opposite of me and momma who have round chubby faces.
“It was just a dream Dora, just a nightmare”, he says worriedly and holds my face. I don’t feel better but daddy would never let anything bad happen to me and this is proof. I hug him again sucking in sharp streaks of air. I’m not the only one in tears, though.
Momma Bilmin holds on to the hallway door frame. Sasha pulls on her dress. “Don’t cry” she begs, but momma Bilmin ain’t listening. She’s tryna keep herself together and failing.
Daddy takes his attention away from me almost immediately and helps her on the sofa. She holds on to her chest and stares at him with a look I ain’t ever seen.
This is entirely my fault. We should never talk about the games in this house. That’s the only rule I’ve always been told to never break and this is exactly why. I hug momma Bilmin telling her how sorry I am but she ignores me.
“I can’t”, she says shaking her head and closing her eyes letting her tears fall down her face.
“No, no, no”, she rocks back and forth, crying into her hands.
“Not again, no, please not again.”
#isadora wyetka#polomir wyetka#momma Bilmin#sasha#eddy#vano#the hunger games imagine#hunger games imagine#age 10
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Big Announcement
Word count: 880
Delilah was running away from the careers, they were laughing and she was screaming. She went underneath a bed and found a vent that took her out to an empty hallway. In there, she got up quietly and startled walking real slow cause if the house hears you, it finds a way to get you.
It’s alive, I just know it.
Just seconds before I looked up at the television I was staring at Sarbia, the girl who sits in front of me. She had a fly on her hair and for not another second, it flew off her head and away. This is why I looked up. I wish I hadn’t.
Delilah made a floor board creek. Just like her, the whole class froze. Myself included.
From the opposite ends of the hallway two poles with big blades that swung like a helicopter’s started zooming towards her. She ain’t move a hair, just watched them blades come at her. I almost wanted to scream at her to run but I just watched knowing she wasn’t gonna hear me. The blades cut her face, throat, chest, body, everything. Her blood was spilling out like water on a hose with holes in it. She was torn and I could see her liver halfway out a slash on her stomach so big it looked like she’d been cut in half.
Her body was on the tv for very little but it’s like when you stare at a second on a clock and it lasts longer than the other seconds. It was enough for me to see every detail possible.
Momma Bilmin puts a plate of potatoes, chicken and rice in front of me. She’s been tryna get me to eat meat again but I’ve said it once, I’ll say it twice. I’m never eating meat in my life ever again, never ever! Not since I found out who we’ve been eating.
My food’s dirty now, so I look right at her and push the plate away but she doesn’t notice. This makes me even more mad.
The dining room table is different from the breakfast table. This one is for eight people, that one is for four. On this table we don’t eat unless it’s a special occasion. I sit at the edge of the table next to momma who sits at the end. In front of me is daddy and he hasn’t stopped smiling at momma all night. His elbow rests on the table and he leans his head on his hand just staring at her with a goofy smile. Momma grabs his hand. This makes me mad too.
What’s making them so happy? There should be nothing making them smile, specially when Eddy is fighting to stay alive in the games.
“Elbows on the table?”, grandma Ester snorts and shakes her head. She’s sitting on my opposite end and grandpa Alvaro shushes her. Daddy doesn’t notice but I do and I’m one more scoff away from telling her to shut up, too.
Next to daddy sits uncle Beriah who thanks momma Bilmin for his plate of food. At the edge sits aunt Lucia with fat Ignacio on the corner sitting on a plain breakfast table chair. I hope he’s uncomfortable. I’m mad at him cause he broke all my crayons.
All I said was he’s so fat he ain’t got a neck, how is he gonna be mad at a fact?
Everybody eats but me, I just play with my food until momma touches my arm. “Polomir and I have some to say”, she smiles at me and then at everyone else. Daddy still got that stupid smile on his face. It makes me wanna scream at him.
“There’s gonna be a new addition to the family”, momma says biting her lips together. Aunt Lucia shrieks and startles me. I stare at her wide eyed. She stands up and hugs momma swaying from side to side. Grandma Ester touches her chest like she’s gonna cry. Grandpa Alvaro rubs my back smiling with both his eyes and lips. “Dora!”, he hugs my head, “a big sister?”, he chuckles. Uncle Beriah congratulates daddy with a firm handshake.
All the smiles at the table make my face feel hot with anger.
Why would momma and daddy wanna have another baby?
Aren’t I enough?
They ain’t ever talk to me about this and expect me to be okay with it?
Even momma Bilmin is smiling and out of everyone I expected her to be as mad as I am. She hates the Hunger Games and another baby means another name to be added into the pool of names.
“What is 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 with you!?”, I jump out of my seat and slam my hands on the table. Now it’s aunt Lucia staring at me wide eyed. Everyone just stares. The second feels long and an image of Delilah flashes in my mind. I wanna scream in everyone’s faces but instead I just look at momma waiting for her to explain herself.
“Dora?”, momma Bilmin whispers softly. For that same second my body feels light, my eyes and nose tickle and if I wanna talk I’m gonna have to clear my throat but I don’t wanna do that. Instead, when I hear my name, without a word I run to my room and slam the door behind me.
#age 10#isadora wyetka#polomir wyetka#esperanza wyetka#momma Bilmin#aunt lucia#grandma Ester#grandpa Alvaro#Ignacio#the hunger games imagine#hunger games imagine
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41st Annual Hunger Games
Word Count: 2802
I raise my hand and wave it knowing for a fact Ms Weston, my fifth grade teacher sees me. With a loud sigh, she rolls her eyes and puts her hands on her hips. “What is it now, Isadora?”, she snaps.
“The other teachers never made us watch the games.. and I ain’t allowed to watch at home”, I inform. Ms Weston gives me a fake smile. “Well, I ain’t the other teachers and I ain’t gettin’ in trouble ‘cause the Wyetka’s think if they ignore some, it’ll go away. Now shut up or i’ll kick you out of my class”, she says and raises the volume. Just as she does, the classroom doorknob jiggles for a second until it opens and in walks a peacekeeper, only unlike most, this one seems to have more authority.
His uniform is just the same as every other except his armour is thicker over his chest, and has more coverage on his arms and thighs. His helmet looks different too. Usually if I look hard enough, I can see a peacekeeper’s eyes through the tinted section over the face, but not his, it’s shiny and pitch black with a couple of dings on it, like he’s been shot at before. This makes him look intimidating and even though I can’t see him, I feel his eyes on me.
His head faces my direction for a moment. Making a fist he looks up at the television screen, where Caesar Flickerman, Capitol citizen and Hunger Games host excitedly exclaims about the games starting in an hour. His body language.. he’s mad? He turns to look at Ms Watson. She sits at the edge of her table looking at him the way Jenae looks at daddy. Menacingly, he leaves the room. This makes Ms Watson suck her teeth, I’d laugh if I weren’t so sad.
This past week has been hard for me and I can’t imagine how Efrain and his family gotta feel. When we got to say our goodbyes everyone was crying, even Eddy. I hugged him so tight, begging him to not let go. “They can’t take you if i don’t let’em”, I cried. This made him chuckle through his tears, “don’t stop bein’ you, Dora”, he said right before our time was up.
Yesterday, momma Bilmin made a big meal to take to Efrain’s, when we got there, everyone was either crying or their eyes were red and puffy. Mrs Oxoro’s health has gotten real bad too. So much so she ain’t join us in the living room while we watched the interviews. No one really had much to say but when we all saw Eddy come out we were cheering and clapping. He looked so handsome with his new haircut, wearing a shiny tanned suit embroidered with cacti shaped patterns. There was this glow about him too. He was confident and ready to be part of the games. “I’m nervous ‘bout tomorrow, but don’t confuse my jitters for weakness”, he said to Caesar Flickerman, “don’t you worry momma, i’m comin’ home”, were his last works before he stepped offstage.
The Capitol sigil is shown along with a fading black screen. Flickerman excitedly presents this year’s arena. “This year Pompreek Gustav has created an arena specially made for his last year as Gamemaker, and I do say, he has outdone himself. You see, folks, unlike most arena’s this one is our very own Gamemaker’s project home in the middle of Gesler street. Yes, that big mansion you drove past this morning on your way to work is exactly where this years Hunger Games will take place. Isn’t that exciting!”
Flickerman wears his signature navy blue suit with flickering light bulbs. He sits behind a desk while a montage of this year’s tributes play behind him. A glimpse of Eddy standing on the stage, here in District 10, is shown. My heart skips a beat. The thought of having to watch him die makes my eyes watery, my nose ticklish and my throat tight. Last time he talked to me was when he told me it’s okay to like girls. That meant a lot cause momma had me believing I was different in a bad way.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the games will begin in one minute! Ha ha!”, Flickerman yelps showing off his unnaturally white teeth.
The sixty second countdown begins and everyone is elevated into the seventh floor. Boys wear tuxedos. Girls wear elegant red gowns, caked in makeup, their hair up and pretty. All tributes appear separated in small rooms big enough to just stand in. Most are motionless, some are wide eyed and hyperventilate. Ms Weston says they’re standing in the dark cause there’s a green tinge to the imagery and their pupils are big with a white glare in them. The whole class is quiet and when the countdown reaches zero, it feels like time has slowed down.
A door opens in front of them and they stand in separate rooms of their own. For the female career from District 2, she’s been placed in a small library. For the male career from District 1, he’s been placed in a bathroom. For the female tribute from District 12, she’s been placed in a large closet. Eddy has been placed in a study. A clock on the wall is shown giving them the time. It’s 10:01 A.M.
There’s a silence in the school, we all watch curiously, wondering what it is that they’re supposed to do but it’s not long until it turns obvious.
The walls of the small library close in causing books to fall off their shelves. Abruptly, they stop. Startled, the girl from 2 looks around, her eyes wide, her arms extended. I bet none of the careers expected to be treated so equally.
In a bathroom, the shower head, bath, sink, and toilet water start to flow. In a study, a fireplace turns on along with the panels on the walls which turn bright red. In a closet, from vents hidden within the clothes, gray gas leaks. The first to realize what’s going on is a girl from District 3. Water rises to her ankles, she looks all over the room until she notices something on the ceiling. It’s a hatch. Climbing on the sink counter, she grabs the handle only to realize its locked. By now, some of the other tributes are noticing the hatch as well. It seems that every room has one.
The first death happens at 10:08 A.M when the boy from District 5 is electrocuted touching a pipe connected to the wall. He twitches, his hand catches fire and within seconds he’s flung across the bedroom, landing motionless near a wardrobe. The camera zooms on top of a tall dresser near the pipe, there lies a small golden key.
Realizing the hatch needs to be unlocked, the girl from District 8 opens every drawer in the bedroom she’s in. Suddenly, she’s swept off her feet. The floor shifts violently, back and forth, once it stops, it slowly moves upwards and comes to a halt.
The time is 10:22 A.M when the second death occurs. The little boy from District 12 coughs blood, his eyes cry and no matter how hard he tries to cover his face, the gas still gets to him. One last cough and he drops, twitching and foaming at the mouth.
Sweating profusely, Eddy wipes the sweat off his forehead and watches his step on top of a desk. Having tied his bowtie to the latch, he sticks in the golden key being the first to escape. A cheer erupts in class and what sounds like the entire school as well. “Ladies and gentlemen, our first escapee!”, Caesar announces. “But not so fast, he’s been placed in yet another room, this one seems to be some sort of botanist heaven, ha ha!” he fake laughs. Confused and on high alert, Eddy breathes heavily looking all over his surroundings. There’s a smile on my face, but deep down I’m terrified for him.
Second to escape is the girl from District 3, she’s found the key and with her gown heavy from having gotten wet, she rips it up. Flickerman whistles. Ms Weston makes a sound of disgust, “she’s fourteen”, she says.
By 10:48 A.M, bathrooms have been filled almost entirely with water, tributes desperately swimming around. In studies, objects catch fire. In bedrooms, depending on each, emit lightning like surges of electricity creating fires, others have their furniture crushed by walls or floors. Gas fogs up closets. Seven tributes are now dead, the rest, if they haven’t escaped yet then their fate has already been sealed.
A body floats in the water filled bathroom. One is shown as their skin melts from the enferning heat, and another twitches their finger as they are squished between furniture. Eddy is shown again, he’s spitting a chewed up leaf on his burnt finger tips. The female career from District 1, bleeding from her nose, coughing profusely, stumbles out of the room she’s emerged from, into a hallway and is struck in the head by a swift, lethal blow with a pipe. The first to kill is the male tribute from District 7. He searches her, peeks into the room she came from and moves on to try and open other unopened doors.
The lunch bell startles me into a jump. It’s 11:00 A.M. Ms Weston tells us to make a single file line by the door, no one says anything and we silently do as we’re told.
“Now, word is, there are eight floors and no elevators”, Caesar makes a disgruntled sound. “I don’t know about you folks, but I just hate taking the stairs. Ha ha!”, his fake laugh is the last thing I hear when I leave the classroom.
Alone at a table, rubbing the tears out of my eyes, all I can see is the boy from 12 dropping dead and twitching. Any second, it can be Eddy dying like that or in an even more horrible way. The tears keep coming. I don’t like to cry in front of people, I refuse to be a wuss but it’s so hard to swallow. Somebody hugs me from behind. When I look up, my eyesight is too blurry to tell who it is, but the wild shade of red sitting next to me gives herself away. Ari rubs my shoulder.
“I know you ain’t wanna be friends no more”, I don’t let her finish that sentence. “Ari, I missed you so much,'' I say through tears a little too loud for my liking. I’m sure there’s a lot of looks on me right now. She giggles in my ear and hugs me back. Clearly she missed me too.
Lunch with her ain’t the same, but that’s cause of my predicament. According to Ari, Mr Bale actually has them doing school work, he put his sweater over the television. “That ain’t fair, everyone with eyes knows you knew Eddy”, she says with a frown on her face. “I told you Ms Weston don’t like me”, I mumble under my breath handing her an extra piece of honey walnut bread. Even though momma Bilmin heard momma tell me to never talk to Ari again, she still adds one extra. Ari smiles when she takes it, somehow this is enough to cheer me up. I smile back.
For some reason lunch feels like it’s been cut short. I’ve had so much fun talking to her about random things I learned from books. Unlike Efrain, Ari always looks interested and don’t cut me off unless she making a joke or asking questions. It’s like this whole week without her never happened. Back to class, we even hug goodbye.
I was away for thirty minutes, within that time, two more tributes died. Another was heavily injured by a career and Eddy is nowhere to be seen. “It seems that each floor has its own.. Sort of theme, wouldn’t you say?” Flickerman sits behind a desk talking to another man who looks like a founding father. “After his tumble earlier, the tribute from seven, Clarke Hale, has slowed down drastically! But so far, he’s the only one who’s made it to the sixth floor and this one seems to just be one big empty room?”, Flickerman questions. “It’s a tennis court”, the other man adds. Note to self, learn what tennis is.
Clarke is the center of attention. He’s everything the Capitol loves. Tall and visibly strong with pretty green eyes and dirty blonde hair. I think it’s silly how they shaped his mustache, the tips curl. Using the shower pipe, he limps his way into the vast room. A replay shows him running down the stairs. Just as he reaches the seventh floor the dimmed, flickering lights give in and he misses a step. Just as he stumbles down the steps turn smooth and he glides until he hits a wall coming to a full stop. The lights turn back on and he’s only a few feet away from the female tribute from District 4. Not backing down, she jumps on top of him and tries to strangle him with an extension cord. Being bigger than her, Clarke gets the upper hand by punching her square in the face. When she falls back, he pins her down and chokes her with his own hands. A warm sensation covers my whole body. It feels like I just woke up from a nightmare and don’t wanna look anymore but the sound of crackling fire calls my attention.
In the tennis court, he’s found a new weapon, it looks like a big fly swatter made of shiny metal. Without skipping a beat he swings it, hitting the ball of fire headed his way. It lands across the room. Knowing he has to get out of there, with the pole in one hand, fly swatter in other, he limps as fast as he can towards the exit. On his way he manages to swat two more before he makes it out.
My heart skips a beat, the cameras switch to Eddy hiding inside a big wardrobe. He’s sweating and rocking back and forth from exhaustion. His eyes are closed tight and he has a hand over his mouth while the other shakes holding the doors shut. Just outside roams a white figure with no real shape. It hovers from one corner of the room to the other. It’s shape looks like a person walking around with a white sheet over themselves but it’s see through. I’ve never seen a ghost before. Goosebumps form on the back of my neck and shoulders, my heart beats fast. The figure, although not really touching anything manages to open drawers and even hovers back and forth in front of the wardrobe until it disappears completely.
The setting changes and now we follow up on the male tribute from District 2, he’s found the female career from 2 and male from 1, they walk around the halls of the eighth floor looking for who knows what. Probably following up on their bloodlust. Not interesting enough, the camera switches to the female tribute from District 3. Wouldn’t know who any of these people are if it weren’t for the informational panel on the bottom right corner. Here the words that appear are the age, district and names of those shown. Her name is Ada and she’s fourteen years old. Slowly, holding herself back by her back, arms and knees, she crawls downwards inside a vent. This makes me nervous and I'm not the only one. Wendy shakes her hand nervously and whispers to Destiny. Something horrible is bound to happen to Ada here. She’s visibly vulnerable and if something were to happen she’d be forced to let herself fall. The true horror is the underlying question, how far down would she go?
Replays of all the deaths make my stomach churn. Curiosity had me watching the games attentively but now, I don’t wanna open my eyes. I cover my ears and put my head on the desk. I shut my eyes just like Eddy but that look on the choked girl’s face keeps forcing itself in my mind. By the time the school day ends I feel the urge to leave everything behind and run out of class, but I don’t. Calmy, I put on my backpack noticing how shaky I am and silently walk out of the classroom. I’ve forgotten all about Ari until she catches up at the end of the hall. I don’t say much but I do hug her goodbye again before we walk out the building. I ain’t tryna get in trouble for talking to her. It feels like if anyone were to raise their voice at me, I’d drop where I stood, dig a hole to the center of the earth and never resurface. At least Eddy is still alive. For now.
#isadora wyetka#age 10#arielle#the hunger games imagine#the hunger games#hunger games imagine#hunger games
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The Reapings
Word Count: 2606
Today is reaping day. A boy and a girl will be chosen at the Plaza, in front of all of Panem, and be put to fight for their lives in an arena. The winner will bring riches and fame back home, or so that’s what president Snow says on the propaganda commercials. District 10 hasn’t had a victor in over a decade.
For the 4th Annual Hunger Games, daddy’s uncle Amos was chosen as a tribute, cause people still weren’t used to the idea of the games there were riots on the street. A lot people died in my family leaving only momma Bilmin and daddy alive, daddy was a newborn. My best friend Efrain’s daddy, who was just a little boy himself got shot but survived, a story Efrain loves to tell. While all of this happened, the government still took uncle Amos, who was sixteen at the time. Being all alone, mourning the death of her husband and family, momma Bilmin was forced to watch uncle Amos survive the games. He killed the most tributes, a goal some careers claim to wanna surpass, or so Efrain says they say, and came back home as that year’s victor.
With his wealth, uncle Amos bought miles of land and divided it into two with a road seven miles long making it a detour from Bloques, where the poor live, where momma Bilmin and daddy are from, to Littleburg, where the heart of District 10 sits. Here live the rich, where momma and her family is from, shopping centers, hospitals, the Mayoral building and more are located. Uncle Amos also purchased cattle, daddy says back then they only had two of every animal. Cows, goats, chickens, horses, pigs and even sheep, but we don’t have sheep no more. He also built momma Bilmin a pretty house on the land and then years later, before I was born, he killed himself.
No one talks about uncle Amos or watches the games at our house cause it makes momma Bilmin cry a lot. So much so that last night I could hear her from my room, so I spent the night with her. She hugged me until we fell asleep. This morning I woke up to the smell of a thousand types of food.
Cause momma Bilmin knows what it’s like to go to bed hungry, with our money, she cooks big pots of food and feeds those who flock to us. Usually, on the mornings she’ll hand out her famous honey walnut bread to those who walk past our road, but on reaping day, she cooks a grand meal. This year she’s baked bread and a cinnamon version of it, two types of rice, an orange one with tomato and basil that’s a little spicy and a yellow one, which is my favotire cause it has eggs, vegetables and beef, but I’m not eating meat no more. Not after I seen where it comes from. Momma Bilmin also cooked a big pot of beans with bacon and sausage a long with another pot of mashed potatoes and cheese. Enough to feed up to a thousand people or more if portioned correctly.
Cause momma is Mayor Sotto’s secretary, she’s all about appearance. Today she wears an elegant dark blue pantsuit. It makes her look so pretty daddy wont stop hugging and kissing her. She tells him to stop with a smile on her face and makes him wear a tanned suit, threatning with “you ain’t gettin’ any honey” if he wears his cowboy hat. Daddy takes it off so fast it makes me laugh. I watch them from the mirror, where I stand and stare at myself while momma does my hair.
Momma’s made me wear a pink dress with itchy white socks and shiny white shoes I only use when I wear dresses like this. She makes a braid from the top of my head to the back, turning it into a low pony tail and adds a big bow to it. I hate the way I look. Can’t even go out to play when I’m dressed like this. I stare at my reflection wishing I could dress myself. I wonder what i’d chose if I were allowed. Then again, i’m only ten years old and can’t take a bath without supervision.
“Oh, my Dora you look so precious”, momma says kissing my cheeks. I don’t think I look like her, her skin is lighter than mines, but I do have curly hair. The curls aren’t as coily as hers though, just a little thicker in shape. I don’t look like daddy or momma Bilmin either, daddy is too dark skinned and his hair is straight, he looks like momma Bilmin but her skin is as brown as mines. Her hair is just as straight as his, too.
“Miss Esperanza”, Vano, Efrain’s cousin, knocks on the door frame. He clears his throat and takes off his hat showing off the waves on his hair. Unlike most days, him and Eddy, Efrain’s older brother, are dressed presentable and clean, that’s cause they’re both still eligible to be a part of the reapings. “We ready to go”, he says.
The reapings don’t start until one in the afternoon, but cause momma needs to be at work early, momma Bilmin will be feeding people and the boys have to sign up, we’re leaving early. Daddy’s gonna stay behind though, says last year someone stole a couple of chickens while we was in Littleburg.
The ride to the Plaza is boring and takes a lot longer than usual. The roads and highways are packed with new and old vehicles, run down wagons that look like they gon lose a wheel on a bump and horses carrying up to three people. Everyone wants to get there before noon since the peacekeepers are a lot more abundant and meaner on this day. Sometimes they break into homes in search for those that haven’t left yet and beat them out on the streets as a warning for others to hurry up. At one point, on the road we see a man getting frisked while his wife screams at peacekeepers tryna hold her back. This day is stressful as it is, peacekeepers always make things worse.
When we arrive to the Plaza, momma gives me a kiss on the cheek before leaving. She always asks if I wanna go inside the Mayoral Building with her cause there’s air conditioning but I like to stay with momma Bilmin, she doesn’t tell me to shush and sit every five seconds.
Left with just her while the boys go and sign up, I make sure to keep momma Bilmin safe. There’s always somebody ungreatful. Next to our wagon, people form a long line on the sidewalk waiting to be handed a plate of food, I help hand forks.
“Ain’t that some shit, Bilmin!”, an old man stands a few feet away eating some of the bread she’s made. “The youngin’ look just like’em”, he laughs. Momma Bilmin doesn’t look at him, she clears her throat and nods. I’ve seen this look on her before, she wants to cry. Mad at him, I scream “go away!”, he just laughs. “Same attitude too!”, he blurts outs in a laugh that turns into a gross cough.
“Come on, John, move along”, another old man says. A plate in one hand, pulling on the gross old man’s shirt with the other.
“Hey, I lost my Isabella to the games too, we’ve all lost family. You ain’t seen us cryin’ when they names be mentioned. Besides, all I said was the little girl look like Amos”, he goes on but the other man pulls him away. Too late, though. The damage has already been done and momma Bilmin has tears rolling down her face. Is that why momma Bilmin cries when she looks at me? Cause I look like her baby brother?
“When I get bigger I’m gonna beat him up”, I tell her whilst giving her a tight hug. I hate it when she cries. It’s not fair cause she doesn’t deserve to be sad.
She smiles at me, gives me a kiss on the forehead and stares for a little too long before her upper lip starts to quiver and more tears roll down her face. This happens a lot around this time, too. It just takes one look and I make her cry. I wish I could change my face. “Please don’t cry momma, I’m sorry”, I apologize wishing I could stop making her so sad. She rubs my back, wipes her tears and keeps on feeding everyone.
People come and go, they wish us blessings, some cry with thanks and others give us little gifts like handmade jewelry, pretty clothes or micellaneous items. None get my attention like this one though, it forms a big smile on my face the second I spot it. Like a trade, a woman hands momma Bilmin a black, fluffy puppy. “Issa boy, gon grow real big, Geller keepin’ the momma and she real good at guardin’ the house”, she informs. “Polomir need himself a guard dog, been hearin’ ’bout a lot of coyote attacks lately. If anythin’ it’ll eat it and not y’all’s cattle”, she chuckles. Momma Bilmin laughs and denies the pup but the lady wont take it back. She giggles when I beg to please keep it. “Listen to the baby, Bilmin, don’t deny me my gift to you”, “oh, alright, fine. Just don’t let’em near the pots of food”, momma Bilmin snaps a me.
By noon, through intercoms placed in every corner, poles, buildings and trees, we hear Mayor Sotto ask those eligible for the reapings that they have an hour to sign up. This makes a lot of teenagers scatter towards the Plaza, only a block away from where we’re stationed.
In the distance, on my skittish horse, Milk, I spot daddy galloping through the crowded road tryna get to us. Excited to show him the puppy, I hold it in the air and jump.
“Hey Isa!”, I hear an old familiar voice, “that your dog?”, Efrain asks. Seeing him walk towards me with his family makes me so happy I almost fall off the wagon but Jenae, his aunt gently pushes me back. “Careful, Isadora”, she warns helping Efrain and Abie up here with me. Compared to the last time I saw him, pale and near death, skinny and weak, he looks a lot better. “Been back outside playin’ with everyone on the block, Wendy was askin’ ‘bout you and Arielle. Says y’all ain’t go to school yesterday”, he says almost like he’s asking why. I wave my hand in the air, showing off my now dirty yellow cast, I don’t give him the same “it hurts” lie I give momma. I don’t wanna lie to him, so I let him assume on his own. Besides, I don’t wanna tell him about Ari and me not being friends no more. Instead I show him my new puppy, who I’ve named Bean cause he ate all the beans that spilled out the bean pot.
The name makes Efrain laugh. “I’d name him Edwin cause that boy’s hair just as shaggy”, he says. This makes me laugh cause it’s true.
Just like me, Efrain is dressed his very best. Although his clothes are too big for him and practically sun bleached, comapred to the rest of his hand-me-downs, he looks sharp. His curly hair has been bathed in oil making it look wet and shinny, his big gray buttoned long sleeve has been tucked into his brown pants held by red suspenders. His cousin Abie, who’s a year younger than us, wears a gray buttoned up long sleeve too, on her waist she wears a red belt that matches Efrain’s suspenders. Her curls, a lot finer than his, are also oily and shinny in the sun, slicked back with her baby hairs forming waves on her forehead. “Momma thought it be cute if we dressed the same”, Efrain says.
“I look cute”, she snaps, “you look like you need more sun”, she rolls her eyes. Her momma pinches her shoulder. Efrain chuckles.
Next to the wagon, on the street, Efrain’s daddy and momma, who came in her wheelchair cause people gotta be literally dying for them to be allowed to stay home, linger whilst talking to daddy who looks very uncomfortable. While her husband Otto helps momma Bilmin hand out plates of food, Jenae laughs and constantly puts her hand on daddy’s arm.
On top of the Mayoral Building sits a large television screen, it turns on to show a blue image. It slightly rocks back and forth but doesn’t fall. In patterns, all the other televisions around the area start to turn on too. The one above a one-floor shop turns on to show the same blue, another standing on a pole at the corner of the street turns on to show blurry images that turn clear. On the side of a big, wide complex building, a holographic image shows the same, from this one, I watch. On it, Mayor Sotto waddles up to the microphone. He’s short, balding and wears a suit too big for his own good. Behind him stands momma looking ever so pretty. Next to her is Tate Langdon, our only victor. He wears a black suit jacket and jeans with a black cowboy hat that matches. Next to him stands Jai Ngyuen. He’s from the Capitol and wears an all white suit that makes him shine bright. His hair and eyebrows are just as white along with his make up. “Goddamn clown”, I overhear Otto say under his voice.
Clearing his voice, Mayor Sotto begins. He dictates the same story from every year, I recognize it cause its one we read in our history books at school. He explains how Panem came to be, mentions the dark days, uprisings against the Capitol, District 13’s obliteration and the start of the Annual Hunger Games. The camera zooms in on Tate, who the mayor mentions as one of our victors along with “and may he rest in power, Amos Wyetka”, he reminds us of uncle Amos like he does every year. Through the crowd blinded by the sun, the camera goes on and on as if showing off our thousands of possible tributes. Once the mayor is done talking, he wipes the sweat off his shinny bald head with a hankerchief and stands next to momma. I glare at daddy who has a smirk on his face while watching the screen.
“Happy Hunger Games!”, Jai’s shrill voice makes the microphone screech. “And may the odds be ever in your favor”, he shakes his head and raises his arms excitedly. Giggling, fixing his tie, he smiles wide showing his perfect teeth. People in the crowded streets look at each other, some shake their head, others murmur to one another. Daddy turns to look at Efrain’s dad and both chuckle nodding their heads.
On stage, Jai walks over to a glass ball containing the male names. Like every year, he plays shuffling the papers, taking a lot longer than he should. Raising his hand in the air to show the folded piece of paper, two more fly out and fall to the ground. He picks them up, dances with and spreads them in his hands, choosing the middle note. Excitedly he practically skips back to the mic and opens it. Clearing his throat dramatically, he calls out the name of this year’s male tribute.
“Eduardo Oxoro”, Efrian’s oldest brother.
#the hunger games#hunger games#the hunger games imagine#hunger games imagine#isadora wyetka#polomir wyetka#esperanza wyetka#momma bilmin#mrs oxoro#efrain#jenae#vano#eduardo#tate langdon#jai nguyen#age 10
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Brownie, no!
I sit in the shade on the back door step poking a dead, black and orange fuzzy worm. There’s a breeze hitting every second, blowing my hair back and forth. Chickens cluck and buck in their pen, goats and cows bleat every now and then. It’s sunny with a couple of gray clouds in the sky. At the distance I can hear daddy hammer a fence. Meanwhile, Vano walks with Brownie into the farm house, Sasha hums to herself while playing with a chick near the chicken coop and in the kitchen, momma Bilmin talks to Eddy.
“That’ll be one sack of fifty pounds of flour”, momma Bilmin says. “One sack of ten pounds of beans, preferably the pintos. Lastly, it’ll be two sacks of fifty pounds of rice, now repeat it so i know you got it”, she tests him. There’s a silence before he starts stuttering.
“Here”, momma Bimin says after a minute. “I wrote it down, please don’t forget on your way back, behind the Bullseye, a mile into Littleburg is a blue vegetable tent, talk to Gerson and tell him I sent you for my order, he should believe you cause you gon take the carriage, if he don’t, tell him it's on him if he wanna let people starve.” Eddy chuckles.
“Okay girlies, come on”, she says coming out the back door and hands me a book about plants that I left on the table. “Thank you, momma.”
This morning, when momma woke me up for school I reminded myself that I have no friends. Efrain still ain’t back and i’m not on speaking terms with Ari no more. This made me sad and I started crying. Momma thought my thumb was hurting so she talked daddy into letting me stay. So far, even though i’m bored i’m having a lot more fun than I would at school.
Next to the house are four rows of sixteen garden plots. Beyond that is a bushy, flowery section growing on its own, surrounding an old broken down wagon. On it is the biggest beehive i’ve ever seen. Then again I’ve ain’t seen another anywhere else, but it’s still pretty big.
On the first row momma Bilmin grows potatoes, tomatoes and squash. “It says here that potatoes originate from an old country named Peru”, i say out loud only for momma Bilmin to shush me. She looks around for a moment and goes back to picking tomatoes. I forget it's punisheable to talk about the submerged countries, before world war three or anything that isn’t Panem. I keep the facts to myself.
While momma Bilming and Sasha harvest, I enjoy the perks of a broken thumb. At the side of the house, hiding from the hot sun, I flip through the pages reading about those we grow here on our very own garden. The pictures on the book show perfect fruit and vegetables compared to our discolored, dented and weirdly shaped ones. The fact that tomato’s a fruit cause its seeds grow inside of it makes me laugh. Fruit is supposed to be sweet and delicious, tomatoes are not.
It’s not long until I'm bored with facts of cabbages, watermelon, strawberries and peppers, so i flip page after age until the pretty color of yellows, greens and reds catch my attention. “Mangos were grown in India over five thousand years ago. It is believed that Buddha meditated under the cool shade of mango trees”, who’s Buddha? I fold the corner of the page so I don’t forget to look them up later. “Although the inside of this fruit is rich and delicious, the outer skin, bark and leaves contain the same toxic substance found in poison ivy, urushiol.” I’ve never tasted a mango before, but I have eaten berries and momma Bilmin says they can be toxic depending on their color. I wonder if anything growing in the garden near the beehive is toxic.
I’m deep in a paragraph reading on the toxicity of white sap in plants when Sasha calls my name. Excitedly, she jumps and takes something from momma Bilmin’s hands in order to show me. It’s a weirdly shaped tomato that looks like five morphing into one. On further inspection it looks like a butterfly. In awe, just like Sasha, I take the tomato and run towards the chicken coop. I can’t hear daddy hammering no more so i look around. He’s not in the goat pen, pig pen or horse stable.
In the barn house, he and Vano stand next to Brownie, a cow I’ve fed, milked, and brushed since a long time ago. I know its her cause she has an egg shaped white spot in between her eyes. I walk towards them excited to show off the butterfly shaped tomato momma Bilmin found. With a funny looking metal object in hand, daddy points it at Brownie’s head. A loud click and suddenly her legs give in, she folds both limp yet stiff, twitching really fast. She’s dead. Why?
“Why!?”, I scream at daddy. Vano jumps back, hand on his chest he yelps and walks backwards. His foot goes in a bucket of water and he trips, breaking it. Just as daddy turns to me with that look on his face that says he’s about to yell, without thinking it through, I fling the tomato. It lands square on his chest. I don’t wait for him to scream at me before I run back inside the house.
Throwing myself in bed I cry loudly into my pillow. I hate daddy so much right now! How could he do this? Why would he do this? So we can eat her? I’m never eating meat again! Never ever in my life! Brownie was mine and she was my favorite! She would sniff my ear and nibble on the palm of my hand, she would run after rubber wheels and always jumped so happy when I showed them to her!
Daddy walks in my room and sits next to me. He tries to rub my back but i'm so mad at him I sit up just so he won't touch me no more. I look at him wishing I could say how much I hate him without getting whooped. He takes off his cowboy hat and makes one of his braids dance while scratching his stupid head. He sighs. “That wasn’t Brownie, was it?”
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The Talk
Efrain still hasn’t gone back to school and i’m not talking to Ari no more. She cried when I told her during lunch that momma ain’t want us to be friends and ran off. Ain’t saw her after school. This made the ride home feel empty, a feeling that’s followed me up to this moment. It feels like I'm lost but not really.
I know daddy told momma about me kissing Ari so i’m not talking to him. At least not by choice. I think he noticed this on the way home from school cause he kept asking how my day was. I kept it short. Probably to find out if i was talking to Ari so he can go tell momma again. Speaking of, momma apologized for screaming at me, she made sure to repeat just how gross it is to like girls while at it too. I didn’t say anything, not even goodbye when she dropped me off at school.
I sit at the breakfast table in the kitchen doing homework while momma Bilmin cooks lunch. When she’s done she calls Vano and Eddy to come eat. They practically fight each other just to get in the house making a huge scandal when they get to the table. Daddy ain’t join us, he eats when he wanna.
“I forgot how rowdy boys can be”, momma Bilmin says placing my food on the side.
“Sorry miss Bilmin”, both boys say at the same time. This makes me chuckle into my english textbook.
Placing their plate of food in front of them, momma Bilmin clears her throat, tilts her head towards me and widens her eyes. Vano looks at her with his mouth full and is elbowed by Eddy. “Oh”, Vano says tryna breathe out the heat off the food in his mouth. Any other day i’d stare at them non stop wishing I could be their friend, today i just want to finish my homework in silence.
“Hey, uh, Eddy. Did you hear Beth has a new girlfriend”, Vano says. I feel my ears perk up and i glare at them while they talk. I have no comment but I'm curious. “Says all the girl wants to do is kiss all the time”, Vano continues, shifting his eyes between Eddy and I as if he were tryna add me into the conversation. I hide behind my textbook.
Wishing I could say something without getting in trouble, I stuff my mouth with fried potatoes and flip pages pretending not to listen. Setting a glass of water in front of me, momma Bilmin smiles. “I told you it was normal to like girls Dora, you’re not the only one”, she says. All eyes are on me. Sad about no longer being friends with Ari, i push my plate away and close my book.
“Likin’ girls is disgustin’”, I say repeating what momma said last night. I prepare to leave the table but its hard when all I got is one good hand and another begging me to stop moving so fast.
“Dora, you ain’t gonna eat?”, momma Bilmin asks. Vano and Eddy’s eyes are still on me.
“I’m not hungry”, I say. My voice sounds angry but i’m not. I’m not sure how I feel. Her assurment lifts a weight off my chest, but momma’s words still repeat in my head.
“Dora, you like girls?”, Eddy speaks up with a smirk on his face. “You know, it’s okay for girls to like other girls, boys to like other boys or to like both boys and girls”, he goes. This makes my chest feel light and tight at the same time. Eddy smiling at me forms a smile on my face too. I never thought liking Ari would be a big deal and for Eddy to say it's okay, I feel almost lightheaded.
“Sometimes people don’t even like either”, Vano adds, shrugs and shoves a potato in his mouth.
“See, Dora?”, momma Bilmin says smiling at me with both her eyes and lips. Hearing all of this puts a smile on my face but momma’s attitude last night takes it away. Quietly, I put my books back on the table and give everyone a dying smile. They all smile too and momma Bilmin rubs my back. Pushing the plate back in front of me, she gives me a kiss on the forehead and encourages me to eat. Although everyone goes back to minding their business, i’m still left with a thought in mind. What point is there for it to be okay to like girls when momma is never gonna allow it?
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Sleep My Little Dora
To make sure no one steals our horses or carriage daddy pays a local man to keep watch. Cause the stew pot is hot and momma Bilmin carries the basket of bread up the flights of stairs, it's my job to run up before them to open the exit door. Down the hallway, sounds of children crying and faint yelling can be heard through the walls. When we get to the Oxoro's door, I can hear the sounds of gunshots. They're watching television, most likely an illegal film. Movies of any kind aren't allowed unless they’re filmed from home or shown on one of the government approved channels.
Eddy opens the door by just a crack. He peeks out and I'm the first he focuses his eyes on. My cheeks feel warm. Spotting daddy he opens the door wide and steps aside. In here, normally empty, it's full of people who turn away from the television to see who it is. On the sofa sit Mr Oxoro, a woman and another man. On the floor is Vano, outside the window is Omarion talking to someone out of view, i assume it’s Felix. Next to him, with her foot inside is a girl that catches my eye.
At first she looks like a boy. Fluffy short hair sticks out the front of her backwards hat, she wears a big green shirt and black shorts. Her socks too big for her skinny ankles, they fall loosely off her foot.
Mr Oxoro stands up once he sees daddy and helps momma Bilmin with the basket. He welcomes us in the house and introduces us to everyone. When he says my name everyone turns to look at my arm. Including Felix who peeks in. I'm guessing they know about what happened.
"That's my sister Jenae, her husband Otto", Mr Oxoro points, "eldest you've met Vano, that at the window is Jocabeth and", he chuckles, "the little one is Abie". From the small hallway a girl sticks her head out the Oxoro sons room. "You go on Isadora", Mr Oxoro says to me, "boy been excited to see you". This brings out a big smile on my face.
In the room, across from the door, Efrain lays in his bed. He smiles wide and calls me to go closer. "It's okay, Eddy made sure to clean everythin' up and i got my shots", regardless of what he says, I still run and give him the biggest hug. "Oof", he goes and chuckles.
"Efrain!" I yelp, "so much has happened, so much i wanna tell you", I chant happily. He chuckles and looks at my cast. "I bet", he says.
I spill the second I sit on the middle bed, Felix's. I tell Efrain about being so alone during lunch and after school. How I tried to be better friends with Wendy and the other kids we play with when I come over, but none were as fun to be around. I tell him how one day I had an extra piece of bread and spotted Ari sitting all alone. "Ari?", he asks. "Yeah, Arielle", "Arielle!?", Efrain exclaims with his eyes wide. Excitedly I tell him about all the fun that I've had with her. How every day in lunch and after school we spend time together. How at home we always play games or play outside with the animals. I don’t admit we play dolls the most. I laugh when I tell him about getting lost in the shopping center in Littleburg, taking a bath with her and then working in the farm as punishment. I tell him about being in trouble for lying, having to work in the farm as punishment and getting injured riding Milk. I also mention taking Ari home before coming here but I never tell him about the kisses.The one she gave me the other night and the one I gave her this afternoon. Secrets I plan to keep forever.
With a big smile on his face Efrain talks about how glad he is that Ari and me are friends, how excited he is to talk with her when he goes back to school and playing around in my house. I've also decided not to mention how much she doesn't like him.
"Ya'll sound like Vano and Bethy. Girls, girls, girls, i'm tired of it, so can we please finish watchin’ Lizard Sphere A", Abie snaps and rolls her eyes at us. Efrain and I laugh but neither pays attention to the animated show, instead he shows me all the drawings he's drawn while in bed rest.
While he shows me some really cool ones of me and him being space men and Abie choking in the background, I can't help but to stare at him the same way I did to Ari earlier. Last I saw him, Efrain's wasn’t this skinny. He practically resembles Ari, whom he used to be a little bigger-than. He's also a lot more pale and sickly like his momma. His eyes are sunken and his cheekbones stick out. He looks like he's at the verge of death with only a smile keeping him alive.
"Y'all come eat", Jocabeth says at the door. She leans in with a bored look on her face, like nothing is cool enough for her. For a split second, I wish I was her. I stare at my light orange dress, my frilly, itchy socks and white, shiny belted shoes. I pull on a curl that already rests on my hand, how I wish I were as comfortable as her. In the living room, I stare at her nonstop taking in her personality. Everyone laughs at everything she says, eating a piece of cooked lettuce from her soup with her hands, burping as loud as she wants, joking and laughing so care free. If I ever ate with my hands and burped that loud i'd be in trouble. I wish I was funny too.
While we all enjoy momma Bilmin’s cooking, the adults talk amongst themselves, they mention the cost of living and how the president doesn't care about us. This catches my attention.
"Some bloke started a union a few months ago, found'em dead in a ditch and a lot of folk got fired. They ain't waste a second though, next day the factory was full of new workers", Eddy says. He looks irritated and waves his arms with annoyance.
"It's like we brought bad luck or some", Jenae ways touching her forehead. She looks upset.
"Naw auntie, there was rumors 'bout this from the start. I'm just worried 'bout findin' another job", Eddy says thoughtful.
"I'm in need of some hands", daddy speaks up with a shrug, "c'mon Asmel, I've told you this", daddy turns to Mr Oxoro.
The conversation goes on and on until everyone agrees that Eddy and Vano start working for daddy from now on. Apparently Mr Oxoro's sister and family were kicked out of their home from a shark? Now they live here and will be staying until they get the money to move out. Daddy invites Mr Otto to work in our ranch too but he jokes that he's one of the new workers in the meat factory. Mrs Jenae claims she cares for Mrs Oxoro and the kids. In a way, it makes me happy to hear someone is here to care for my best friend.
After dinner we all sit in front of the television. Blowing a bubble with her gum, Jocabeth puts a movie in the VCR. "A classic", Mr Oxoro says hugging his wife who's wheelchair has been rolled right next to him. On her lap sits Efrain snuggling with her arm and next to momma Bilmin, I hold her hand and watch, occasionally turning my gaze out the window. There Felix, Eddy, Omarion, Vano and Jocabeth joke about. I wish I was old enough to hang out with them.
The movie starts off in a dessert, how humanity has decayed and withered except for a couple of people living like ferals. They fight for food and water, some even fight for money. Those wanting to be rich steal from those already poor and hungry, "not far from the truth", Mr Oxoro says. Just as I fully invest myself into the movie my thumb reminds me of all the times I bumped my hand on to something. I try to keep the pain to myself but its not until I can't ignore it that I speak up. Daddy uses this as an excuse to go home, says my pain medication has worn off and he forgot it. Jenae, who's been eyeing daddy all night is the first to hug us goodbye. She bumps into my hand. I'd shriek, drop and die but I don't want the older kids to think i'm a wuss. Instead I hold on to the tears in until we leave the apartment.
On the way home I silently cry so much I fall asleep only to wake up when I feel my hand hit the bed. Daddy's carried me inside, taken off my socks and gives me kiss before he leaves. I don't know for how long I sleep until I'm woken up again.
The lights in my room are turned on, I shut my eyes tight and cover my face with my arm. Someone slaps my hand off my face, forcing me to look at them.
"What is this I hear bout you kissin' girls?", momma snaps at me. "That. Is. Disgusting. You hear me? Where have you seen women kissin' other women?" She raises her voice angrily. Momma Bilmin, woken up, comes out her room and into mines. Momma explains to her how I kissed Ari on the lips just this afternoon. She says it grossed out as if I had stepped on poop and got in bed.
"She ain't hurtin' nobody!", momma Bilmin snaps at momma. Daddy walks in my room too, he stands in between them just as momma Bilmin tries to get in momma’s face. My warm tears quietly roll down my face just like they did on the way home, only now the pain is in my chest. I've never made momma this mad before. She ain't ever yell at me this loud either.
"No, no, no!", momma yells pushing daddy’s arm away and turns to me. "I don't wanna see that little red head in my house ever again, you hear me?" She connects her thumbs with her index fingers, making her point. "I don't wanna see or hear bout you kissin' girls, Dora! When? Where has she seen any of this? Sure as hell not from me!", she screams and walks out the room still scolding me from the hallway. Daddy shoots me a look of worry and goes after momma. The rest of the night I sleep in momma Bilmin's room. She combs my hair with her fingers, sings a lullaby and assures me there's nothing wrong with liking who I like. Still, I cry until I've fallen back asleep with only one thought in mind. Liking girls is not normal, it's gross. Momma said so.
#isadora wyetka#efrain#mr Oxoro#mrs oxoro#Jocabeth#Abie#Vano#Eduardo#Felix#Omarion#Otto#Jenae#age 10#the hunger games imagine#lgbtq#esperanza wyetka
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What Else Can I Do To Help?
Rather than take Ari with us to Efrain’s, daddy is taking her home. That’s cause she lives really far and he says that by the time we leave Efrain’s it’ll be too late to make the trip. Oddly enough, Ari is okay with this. Says she doesn’t like Efrain anyway. I understand why though, everyone in class bullies her and he never helps, says sometimes she sees him laughing at her along with everyone else. It doesn’t sound like something he’d do cause he never laughs at me in a malicious way and he also happens to like her.
She and I sit at the back of the wagon while momma Bilmin joins daddy at the front. They’re talking to each other really low so I can’t hear what they’re saying but every once in a while either momma Bilmin or daddy turn around to look at us. I don’t pay them any mind but I keep noticing them looking at us.
The trip to Ari’s lasts about an hour, twice as long compared between the wagon and momma’s fancy car. This gives us enough time to hold hands. Laying on the wagon floor, we stare at the sky and point at clouds that vaguely resemble what our imagination tells us. Every now and then a breeze sends us the delicious scent of beef stew and honey walnut bread, food coming from a large hot pot and basket momma Bilmin has tied up in place to take to Efrain’s. Ari doesn’t think I notice but every now and then, she grabs on to her bloated tummy.
While she smiles and continues to stare at the sky, I stare at her. I look at myself and compare. Her hands are bony, arms just skin and bone. I can see her skeleton but even then she’s all smiles. Compared, I can’t see my knuckles, my arms are fatter than her legs and if I were to fight her, I could possibly kill her. By the time we arrive at her house I’m full of questions. Why is Ari so skinny? Why is everyone around us so skinny too? Why is everyone so poor? Why is this normal? Why does president Snow allow people to live like this? Why does he hate us so much? Why won’t he help us? Does he even know we exist?
I hug Ari goodbye but before she leaves I ask momma Bilmin for a favor. “Can we share some of our food, momma?”. Momma Bilmin smiles at me and kisses my forehead. I feel the love with how tight she holds on to me.
“Ari, go ask your momma for a pot, let me give y’all some of this beef stew”, she says. Ari’s face lights up and she dashes back inside only to come back out with her mom and grandma.
Ari looks just like her momma, she’s pretty too, really skinny and very tall. Her grandma looks like them too, orange curly hair, freckles all over their face and arms but unlike them, Ari’s grandma is a sour puss so she doesn’t smile. She just glares from the porch.
“Thank you so much”, Ari’s momma says. She smiles at daddy. He smiles too, clears his throat and looks away. That was weird.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, baby”, momma Bilmin says as we ride away. Ari waves goodbye eating a fat slice of bread, we don’t stop waving at each other until we’re too far to tell one another’s features. Seeing how happy we’ve left her and her family rises a new question out of me. What else can I do to help?
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He Likes Her
I ain’t go to school today, that’s cause I had to go to the doctor. He said daddy did a great job handling my dislocated thumb and that if he hadn’t, it would of been permanently damaged.
Heading back home momma Bilmin stopped at the pharmacy to get my medication, some that the doctor prescribed for the pain. There she bought Sasha, Ari and me dolls for us to play. Ari’s at school though, so I’ve been playing with Sasha meanwhile.
Sasha is a four year old girl momma Bilmin babysits everyday except for weekends, her momma doesn’t work on those days. Sasha ain’t like the other kids from Bloques, she’s chubby like me, dark skinned like Efrain and has really curly hair like Olive. Who I just realize I haven’t seen much of since Efrain got sick. She usually approaches us to talk to him but she’s always really nice and talks to me too. For some reason, thinking about her doesn’t feel the same anymore. I used to smile at the thought and even daydream of holding her hand like the time Kenneth and his friends jumped Efrain. Instead, somebody else makes me smile when I think about them. It’s Ari but not just her, it’s the thought of her kissing my cheek before she left the other night. It makes my face feel really warm, kind of like when I see Efrain’s big brother Eddy.
Yesterday night, while my heart pounded inside my thumb and made it hard to sleep all I could think about was that kiss. It helped a lot ignoring the discomfort. Also, no one has ever kissed me before, well except for momma Bilmin, momma, daddy and Mr Trent but they don’t count. At least compared to Ari they don’t.
“Dora”, Sasha calls for me, “you doin’ it again”, she points out that I’ve stopped playing just to think.
We play with our dolls, pretty girls with long hair, cute dresses and shoes. All which in a way look like us. Sasha’s is a black with puffy hair and an elegant dress like momma usually wears to work. Ari’s has long red hair and is white with a long frilly dress like a princess, mines is black too, except her hair is wavy and she wears a black and yellow pantsuit like aunt Lucia’s. We pretend that they have super powers. Sasha’s doll can sing so pretty whoever is listening is put in a trance. Ari’s doll, cause she ain’t here, is the bad girl tryna steal all of our blocks to build herself a big castle. My doll is super strong, just like daddy. It’s my job to destroy the evil doll’s castle and apprehend her while Sasha sings.
“Well, you can’t go around singin’ and expect me to not to go in a trance”, I say. It was meant to be a lie but it makes a lot of sense. Sasha opens her eyes wide and nods her head slowly. I’m guessing she’s just realizing the true nature of her abilities. We keep playing for some time, laughing here and there, having fun with our new toys.
Meanwhile, momma Bilmin sits out front handing out slices of bread like every day in the afternoon. She used to hand bread out in the mornings too but then stopped cause she’d have to wake up at 3 A.M just to bake. Now she only does so on Wednesday mornings cause a lot more people pass down the road on that day. I often think to myself, what if they only show up cause they know she hands out bread on that day?
While Sasha and I play, the front door opens and I hear momma Bilmin yell my name from outside. I put the dolls down and go to her. Down the hallway, walking towards me is Ari crying. She’s pink and sweaty, sobbing and twitching. I run up and hug her, feeling how warm see is from being outside.
“Ari, what’s wrong?”, I ask holding on to her shoulders.
“I thought”, she starts, sobbing and pausing, “you ain’t wanna be my friend no more”, she starts to cry more. “Everyone said that”, she gasps, “you ain’t go to school cause”, she pauses again sniffing her boogers back in her nose, “you ain’t tryna be friends with a freak”, she exhales into another cry. This makes me mad and I hug her again.
“Ari, you’re my best friend, I don’t think you’re a freak”, I tell her in her ear and let go. She rubs her eyes and twitches with ever sniff.
I know how she feels about being called that word. She hates it cause it makes her feel different, and she is, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing and I’ve told her this but it still upsets her. I grab her hand and shake her tryna distract. I’ve seen her sad before but never enough for her to cry, this leaves me desperate to cheer her up.
“Ari look, this is why I ain’t go to school, I broke my thumb ridin’ Milk”, I say. She pauses to look at my yellow cast, one I got today at the doctor’s. She grabs my arm and feels on it, looks at me and gives me a teary eyed look.
“So..”, she starts, “you don’t think I’m a freak?”
“You’re none of what they said”, I say. The look on her face says she doesn’t believe me. Suddenly, I can’t control myself. I’ve been thinking about it all day and for some reason it feels like this is the best way to show I’m being truthful. My heart starts beating really fast and for a second I feel like I can’t control my own body. I lean closer to her and give her a quick kiss.
The back door slams open and my body turns stiff. Standing there, looking right at us, daddy has a look on his face. He looks mad but he’s not. Poking the inside of his cheek with his tongue he takes a few steps forward looking a me and then at Ari. He raises his eyebrow, sighs and walks into the kitchen, out of view. Frozen in place I stare at Ari. She covers her mouth, smiling at me with her eyes. She’s bright pink. This makes me smile at her back.
My smile doesn’t really leave and I catch myself smiling at her almost every time. She smiles back too but is having so much fun playing dolls with Sasha and me that it leaves me staring at her even when she’s looked away. My cheeks are warm and even start to hurt from all the smiling after a while, but I can’t stop. At least I don’t until I spot daddy looking at me from the hallway. He squints his eyes thoughtfully but doesn’t say anything. Not at first.
“Sasha ya momma’s here”, he says, “Dora put your shoes on, we goin’ out”, “can Ari come too?”, I ask. Daddy looks like he wants to smile but doesn’t, he just nods and steps out the front door.
“Where we goin’?”, Ari asks and returns to make a “shhhh” noise, meant to be the noise fire makes coming out of her dolls hands. Her superpower is fire. A gasp out of me catches her attention. My eyes wide, I smile at her with excitement.
I’ve remembered what momma Bilmin said this morning. “We gon see him soon, I promise”, she said.
“We’re gonna go visit Efrain!”, I say hands in the air. I’ve been so excited to tell him about Ari being my new friend cause he... he likes her.
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Grounded
Having to wake up before the sun is horrible. It’s cold but not really, my eyes are itchy and dry, daddy’s in a mood. I’m not having any fun. I guess that’s the point. I’m not supposed to have fun, this a punishment.
“First things first”, daddy says.
He makes me light an oil lantern on my own, at first the task makes me nervous. Last time he taught me I ain’t pay any attention, luckily all I had to really do was light it. “Easy, see”, daddy says when I smile at the flame.
In a way, he wasn’t kidding, that was the easiest task. For the entirety of the morning I’m put to collect chicken eggs. This takes me about an hour. Ari left so many behind that I fill up two buckets. Then, we have so many chickens it’s hard to walk in the coop without having to kick some. They flap around erratically and smack me with their wings. For a second there, I’m jumped by over twenty chickens.
Usually daddy only makes me do one thing and calls it a day, but not today. He’s still mad about yesterday. Ari and me getting lost, then finding out she ran away and we ain’t tell nobody. Has me shoveling up pig poop, carrying buckets of feed, tossing hay into the goat pen and spoils at the pigs. Has me working so hard I ain’t notice how hungry I am until my stomach starts to roar. Even then I ignore the noises and emptiness so daddy won’t have a reason to yell at me some more.
By the time the sun is high in the sky, hot with no light breezes, daddy calls me to the farm house. In a pen he has one of our bulls, he’s big and brown with the longest horns I’ve ever seen. The other one is just a calf. He hands me a brush and tells me “Billiard” needs to be brushed, then leaves me to this and goes out in the horse pen where I can hear him calling Spice, one of our three horses.
“Milk!”, I hear daddy a couple of minutes later, “Milk, down girl, down!”, followed by a loud distinct crash. It sounded like a wooden wall being torn down. “Goddamn it, Milk!”, daddy yells. Footsteps approach.
“Polomir!”, momma Bilmin yells at him, “now I know you ain’t talkin’ like that in front of Dora”, behind her are three men.
“Lookin’ like you need help”, Mr Oxoro says with a big smile. Usually his clothes look dirty like daddy’s after a long day but today he’s well dressed. Has cowboy hat on, in a bright red, long sleeve button up and navy blue jeans with the cleanest boots I’ve ever seen, he stunts with his attire. I say he can try all he want but he’s still funny looking. Short, with a big belly and the funniest waddled walk, he walks besides Eduardo and some other boy I’ve never seen before.
Eduardo looks nothing like his dad. Mr Oxoro is dark skinned. Eduardo looks like his momma. Tall, light skinned with pretty colored eyes. “Milk man’s kid”, Omarion said once. Whatever that means. The second I see Eddy my cheeks feel warm and I hide behind Billiard.
With them is another kid just as tall, he’s skinnier and tanned, his clothes are sun bleached and if there were a strong gust of wind it looks like he’d fly away with it. He looks amazed. His mouth open, looking all over the place like he ain’t ever seen so many animals before.
“This right here is Vano, one of my sister’s kids, they visitin’ for ah, y’know”, Mr Oxoro says tryna keep himself from saying “the reaping”. “Seen them a lil bored so I thought I’d bring’em down here to work”, he says holding on to his belt. Daddy swings his arm for a firm, friendly hand shake.
“Need help? Naw”, daddy says turning around to look at something. All the men chuckle.
“Since y’all here”, momma Bilmin says, “you ain’t gon need Dora no more. Dora!”, she calls for me.
I’ve been out here sweating all morning, I’m dirty and stink. I ain’t tryna have none of them see me, specially Eddy. My cheeks feel hot. “Dora?”, momma Bilmin calls for me just out the pen. Not having heard her creep up startles me into a shriek that makes me giggle out of sheer nervousness. Momma Bilmin laughs and pokes fun at me. “Girl look at you, almost feral, you been playin’ with the pigs?”, she chuckles.
Daddy puts Eddy and Vano work on the broken fence, who both stare at me walk out the barn. I wish momma Bilmin wasn’t holding my hand, they probably wanna laugh at me cause I’m dirty. This makes my cheeks warm again and I try my best not to look at them.
While daddy and Mr Oxoro go and catch Milk, who happens to be distracted by a patch of grass behind the pen where we keep our lactating cows, momma Bilmin talks about us spending the rest of the day together. She sounds excited and tells me about the book I read to her on Friday, how she wants to know more about corals. I’d be excited to read to her again but after working all morning, hungry and tired, all I want is a good nap.
Blessed with nice cold shower all I can do is laugh and play with momma Bilmin who despite finding all of them dead, won’t stop looking for live lice. Says she “ain’t stoppin’ until all those pests leave my baby’s head alone” and kisses my cheek. Afterwards, I’m made to wear a frilly dress and she ties my hair into half a braid, half a pony tail. It gives me the sense that we’re going out but she tells me we aren’t. Says momma is gonna love the way I look when she gets back from work.
For lunch she makes me a cheese sandwich with juice that has bits of fruit floating around. She sits with me at the table and talks about paying Efrain a visit tomorrow.
“You mean that, momma?”, I jump out of my seat so excited I almost fall off. Momma Bilmin smiles at me and nods. Says he’s better now and we can finally go visit. It’s been almost two whole months since I last seen him. I’m so excited to tell him about Ari being my new friend, I can’t wait to see his face. I also miss playing outside with him and the other kids. Wendy says they miss us too.
When we’re done eating, momma Bilmin and me go to her room and lay down on the bed. She has the ceiling fan at high velocity so it’s not as hot as it is in the kitchen. In no time, she’s fallen asleep and snores really low and quiet. It’s cute. I’m not sleepy though. Instead I quietly leave her room and go to mines. For a long second I stand in front of my bookshelf and stare at all the books that I have. Two shelves filled with them, none I wanna read.
Bored, I stare outside from the back kitchen door and watch Eddy and Vano still tryna fix the fence. Vano holds a plank, Eddy nails it in place making the whole fence wobble. Meanwhile daddy and Mr Oxoro walk around the open field pointing and talking amongst themselves. Looking around my eyes catch a glimpse of some of daddy’s mecate. Thin ropes he’s braided with horse hair. This gives me an idea. Daddy won’t teach me how to use a lasso cause I don’t have my own. What if I made one myself? I seen how he makes the ones he sells. It’s just four ropes braided into one that’s thick and slightly stiff. If he sees that I made one he won’t have any other choice but to teach me!
First rope over third rope, second rope over fourth rope, fourth rope over first rope. I go on and on and the ropes never seem to finish, but i am determined. Some duct tape where the braid is loose, a haircut where there are too many hairs poking out and lastly I put the lasso inside a water bucket to make it look wet and pretty. Daddy and Mr Oxoro joke and laugh while they inspect one of the cows. I’m not sure how long it takes for me to finish but by the time I do, daddy’s walking back to the barn, probably to check on Vano and Eddy.
It takes me maybe an hour to finish the world’s shortest lasso, still proud of myself, I go to them around with it in hand. “The roll of hay comes out to four-hundred, five-hundred, the O’doyles are flexible with the price”, daddy says to Mr Oxoro when I pull on the back of his shirt.
“Daddy look what I made!”, I interrupt with a big smile on my face.
“Girl you made a whip?”, Mr Oxoro asks. This makes daddy laugh but the second he sees it his smile fades away.
“That my mecate? Who gave you permission, Isadora?”, he sucks on his teeth, smacks me hard on the shoulder and takes it out of my hands. “Isadora”? Oh, he’s mad. “It took me a week to make these damn braids! I got Samsonite waitin’ and this girl..”, he pauses and pinches the brindge of his nose, “..when I open my eyes you best be on your way back inside”.
Stomping back to the house, holding in my angry tears, I notice Milk is out on the horse pen. She’s staring right at me and wags her nubby hairless tail. For some reason it feels like she’s calling me. Behind her, at the other side of the pen, Eddy climbs the new fence only to break it. Vano laughs and disappears behind the barn house. I crawl under the fence and make kissy noises to Milk. My dress is covered in dirt now. I don’t care, I making noises for her to come. After a few long seconds she finally starts walking over to me. This makes me happy. When she’s close enough I extend my arm and slowly try to touch her face. She lets me and even sniffs the palm of my hand. I remember daddy saying this is a good thing.
Eddy and Vano make me a little nervous cause I ain’t tryna embarrass myself in front of them but having broken the fence again they’re busy tryna look for more wood in the barn. With no possibility of judgment I get up close to Milk and give her a hug. Her letting me get this close for the first time makes me so happy I can’t stop giggling. Maybe this is why Ari is all giggles too. I feel Milk’s buzz cut mane and caress her face, when I stop she sniffs my hand and nibbles on my palm as if asking for more. With my yellow saddle already on, I dare myself to ride her. Part of me wants to, the other talks me out of it. I’ve only ridden her once and daddy was there to calm her down. “She already looks calm though”, I tell myself.
I stare back at daddy who’s not that far away. Him and Mr Oxoro stare and point a the hills past our land. I figure if anything happens, he’s right there. Picking up the courage, struggling to do so, I manage to climb the saddle and sit on her. All she does is huff and move a few feet. Nervous but thrilled I giggle. So happy to have climbed Milk all on my own I try to make her move forward so I can get the hang of riding a horse. Poking Milk’s neck I whisper for her to “go”, but all she does is huff and sniff the ground slowly walking towards the broken fence. I keep poking her and even dance back and forth tryna make her move to another direction but she doesn’t.
”This way”, I say wiggling my feet. She doesn’t budge. Disappointed, I give her a hug tryna hop off but suddenly Eddy speaks up. “Ain’t know you knew how to ride a horse”, he says popping out the barn. This spooks Milk. She neighs and stands up on her hind legs. Suddenly she leaps and takes off in a run, thrashing and kicking her hind legs tryna hit Eddy and fling me off. My scream is so loud that for a second I wonder who it is. My feet no longer on the stirrups, along with her trashing, makes me hit my face on the saddle horn. Unable to hold on, scared out of my mind, I let go.
Hard, dry mud rocks poke at my shoulder and my fall knocks the wind out of me. Having landed on top of my hand hurts so much I can’t move, I was screaming but not anymore, I can’t breathe and hot tears are rolling down my cheeks.
Milk thrashes and neighs running away. Eddy and Vano run up and help me sit up. Eddy takes one look at me and covers his eyes, rubbing his face and head. Vano sucks air through his teeth, he has a pained look on his face.
On their way back, daddy doesn’t run to me, he goes after Milk who kicks anything in her way. For a second I wish she was dead. Daddy should be here helping me, not her. She hurt 𝘮𝘦! Instead, Mr Oxoro comes to my aid. He helps me stand up but my knee hurts too much to stick out and the sight of my hand makes me scream only to go silent again. It feels hard to swallow. Nothing I could say or do can describe how much my hand hurts. The warm tears fall dawn my chin.
Behind me I hear momma Bilmin running up to us asking what happened. She approaches and takes a look at Mr Oxoro holding out my arm. My right thumb is bent backwards. There’s a bump where it used to be. This makes her scream too. Daddy is too busy tryna calm the stupid horse to come help.
“Why wasn’t you watchin’ her, Polomir!”, momma Bilmin screams at him. I’ve never seen her so mad before. She points at him and scolds him for having let me get on the horse. Daddy doesn’t say anything, he just walks back forcing Milk back to her pen.
“She was just with us, Miss Bilmin, she was just with us!”, Mr Oxoro says taking off his hat, scratching his sweaty balding head.
Daddy looks worried when he approaches. Momma Bilmin stands behind me, holding me so I won’t fall while I stand on one foot, she shushes and wipes my tears, caressing my face tryna stop me from crying. “You’re okay baby, you’re okay”, she says.
Without a word, daddy grabs my thumb and pulls on it fast and hard. It pops so loud Eddy flinches and looks away, Vano and Mr Oxoro wince, momma Bilmin whimpers and I scream so loud I feel lightheaded. I jump and kick tryna get daddy away from me but momma Bilmin ain’t strong enough to hold on. Back on the ground I cry so loud I feel like Sasha when was a baby.
Like a sack of potatoes, daddy puts me over his shoulders and walks off. Behind him momma Bilmin tells me “it’s alright, Dora” on the verge of tears while Mr Oxoro tells her “I swear to you on my youngest that little girl was just with us”. “Dad!”, Eddy snaps at him. All of them following us look like momma running after the mayor when he does something silly like leave out the wrong door. It makes me wanna laugh but it feels like I have my heart inside my hand and every time it beats, it hurts.
Inside the house, I sit and watch daddy wrap a white long bandage over my hand and thumb with what looks like a broken popsicle stick holding it straight. Says he’s fixed it already and I don’t need to see a doctor. For a second there, I begged him to take me to the hospital, I thought I was dying. This made momma Bilmin laugh but her hands shake and she rubs them together.
“What I tell you bout that horse, Dora”, daddy scolds me while tying my bandage, “always some with you, no but you don’t stop and think, you just go ahead”, “Polomir!”, momma Bilmin snaps at daddy. “Naw, aint nobody tell’er to go climb that dang horse”, he points out the door. He stares at me really mad and leaves. Already sobbing, I keep crying knowing daddy’s so mad he doesn’t wanna look at me no more.
Momma Bilmin touches her cheeks, her eyes are glassy and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, momma”, I say.
“It’s okay, baby”, she assures me, “now come on, we need to figure out what we gon tell ya momma”. Oh, she’s gonna kill daddy. This makes me wail, mourning daddy’s eminent death.
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Half Human, Half Squirrel pt.3
“Wow, its so beautiful miss Bilmin, just like you”, Ari says holding on to the necklace on momma Bilmin’s neck. Wrapped from its smoothed out jagged edges by a brown, stiff, braided leather necklace is a black shiny stone that glitters white like the midnight sky. She smiles and cups Ari’s hands in hers.
The girl is right, momma Bilmin really is beautiful. She has a long face but in a pretty way. Her jaw is perfectly squared and her nose is thin and long. Her upper lip looks like half a heart and her lower is thick. They make her have really pretty wide smiles. Unlike daddy and me, her skin isn’t so brown, it’s a light tan like greased wood. Her graying hair, usually down, straight and long is in a high ponytail today. For an old lady, she doesn’t really have that many wrinkles, just on her eyes which are small, light brown. Now that I think about it, daddy looks a lot like her. Maybe that’s why he’s pretty too. That makes me wonder, who do I look like? Momma? Daddy?
“Amos”, momma Bilmin says, “my little brother gave it to me. Said it brings luck”, she sighs with one of her sad smiles and grabs Ari’s head. With a thin hair comb she parts Ari’s hair and picks at it until she’s grabbed what she was looking for and wipes it on a towel sitting on her lap.
In the bathtub, wearing a shirt and our underwear, Ari and me sit patiently while the lice removing chemicals burn at our scalps. With itchy heads we take turns asking momma Bilmin to scratch with a comb. She tries to equally scratch our head for an amount of time but Ari tends to take her attention. Combing through the same section over and over she shows us what she finds. “Squeeze it with your nails”, momma Bilmin says to Ari who grabs one of the lice off the comb.
“I put your beddin’ to wash, baby”, momma says standing at the door. “Arielle, tell your momma to do the same, who knows how many are on 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴”, momma makes a face. It’s just like daddy’s at the pharmacy.
“I ain’t got any, just a pillow wrapped in a shirt”, Ari says
“Then wrap it in a new shirt”, momma shrugs making another weird face, kind of like she doesn’t care. I don’t like her tone. It’s like she’s tryna be rude on purpose.
“Anza”, momma Bilmin snaps at momma. Momma’s name is Esperanza but momma Bilmin has started calling her that.
“Momma”, I call for her. “How to read people’s minds, can you find books bout that subject?”, I ask. She smiles with her eyes and walks out the room, probably to write it down. She’s always so happy to bring me books. Says “knowledge is power”. President Snow must be extremely smart.
“Emotions and Behavior by Fenrir Berdeux”, momma reads the cover of a book when she comes back into the bathroom. “Dora, it’s impossible to read someone’s mind”, she says, I’m not happy to hear that. “𝘉𝘶𝘵, it’s not impossible to read someone’s body language and facial expressions. Understandin’ emotions and the behaviors they create is a great way to understand a person. I haven’t finished the book but”, she wiggles it in a dance with a smile that shows all her perfect teeth.
Momma Bilmin combs into another section of Ari’s hair. The girl stares at momma like she’s the prettiest woman in the world and watches her read.
“Behavior is different from emotion but is strongly affected by it, there is no simpler way to put it. For example, when we are happy we smile. This smile on one’s face is a behavior that can be read and interpreted with ease, but what of the effects of that happiness. Where will the behavior affected by the emotion take the person?”, momma reads us the entire first chapter.
By the time she’s done I’m left entranced while momma Bilmin washes the chemicals off my hair. Neither she, momma or Ari notice how deep in thought I am.
Momma Bilmin is always sad even when she smiles. The first sign of learning to read ”expelled behavior” is by understanding what causes the emotion in the first place. Well, she’s sad cause she’s lost a lot of her family. How would I approach her? How would I talk to her? How would I .. “momma whats that word to understand other people’s emotions?”, i ask.
“Empathy, to empathize”, momma answers.
I stare at momma Bilmin thinking of a question that could lead her to expressing emotion on her face but all I can think about is questions about the games. They’re coming up anyway. In just one week the 41st Annual Hunger Games are about to start. I could ask her how she feels about the games coming up, or if she’s cooking something new this year, or maybe if she’s done being sad. None I dare myself to ask. I hate to see her sad and purposely doing so just to see how emotions affect her is plain cruel. Instead I just stare at her the entire time hoping I can catch a glimpse of a facial expression. So far she just smiles at Ari and me while she towel dries us. Even chuckles when one of my old shirts from when I was little fits Ari perfectly. Her smile puts one on my face.
“Y’all ready now?”, momma Bilmin asks.
“Ready?”, I look at her with confusion.
She leads us out the house where daddy sits on a log he uses to kill chickens. He braids four pieces of rope into a stiff lazo he uses to catch runaways. Usually calf’s but I’ve seen him tackle and tie a pig with it. I’ve asked him a bunch of times when he’s gonna teach me to use one but he always says “later”. Maybe today is “later”.
“You gon teach me how to-“, “no”, daddy interrupts me with an blank look on his face. The way his eyebrows are shaped make him look mad but he stares at the ground thoughtfully. Knowing that he might be upset about his fight with momma gives me a sense of eureka. I understand where his emotions come from and the behavior is causes. Being upset has made him rude.
“You gon collect eggs”, he points at Ari who jumps with a smile on her face, “you gon clean a stable”, he points at me. I sigh. I know what’s happening, we’re in trouble for getting lost so daddy’s putting us to work.
I’d be mad that I’m stuck with the worst job but seeing how Ari dances with the bucket I know that this is the most daddy could of given her. She’s not strong enough to carry anything heavy and chances are she’s just gonna play with the chickens. Don’t chickens carry lice?
Inside the barn, shoveling horse poop into a big bucket, I take my mind somewhere else. Away from the smell.
I think about last night’s fight between mommy and daddy. They’re being quiet to each other. After Littleburg mommy ain’t even kiss daddy’s cheek. She always kisses his cheek to greet him. Today she just looked at him like he hurt her feelings by just being there. Daddy had a look on his face, like he was both sad and lonely but neither at the same time.
I can hear him trying to calm Milk out the side of the barn. This makes me think about how I always have to be cautious around Milk, I have to listen to her breathing, look at the way her eyes move and make sure she’s not fidgety. I may not know what she’s thinking, but I know it’s nothing good.
My eyebrows raise in surprise and my eyes widen. This was momma’s point! I can’t read minds but I can understand behavior!
Once I’m done, I drag the heavy bucket full of horse poop out the barn doors. Inside the chicken coop I can hear Ari counting and yelling at them to stop moving. Back at the house, through the back door, I can see momma Bilmin cleaning the table. Behind the barn I hear daddy still talking to Milk. I leave the bucket behind and walk over to him.
Here, daddy combs Milk’s hair and shushes her. Milk either likes me or she doesn’t, depending on the day. Usually, she won’t let me go near her, just daddy, she loves him.
When I get too close she neighs and huffs trying to take a step back while daddy assures her it’s okay. I get it, daddy’s the boss and she listens to him, I’m still a stranger in her eyes and she doesn’t trust me. Daddy says not to take it personal but it still hurts my feelings. This isn’t why I’m here though.
My feet flat on the ground, I keep my eyes on daddy. I’m tryna figure out the cause and effect his emotions do to his behavior. “To understand facial expressions and the emotions they represent one needs to comprehend that it’s like a varied puzzle that is never the same even after you’ve figured it out”. A line from the book.
“Daddy, is momma mad at you?”, I ask. No point in beating around the bush. Daddy pets Milk and turns to look at me. He stares for a second and then at the ground.
“No”, he lies. I ain’t need to 𝘵𝘳𝘺 to know that.
“Why ain’t she talkin’ to you?”, I ask tryna get more out of him.
“Go check on your friend”, daddy says. His tone of voice says he’s getting mad. Before leaving, I kill two birds with one stone.
“The bucket is too heavy”, I say asking for his help. Just dragging it out the barn made my hands hurt.
Daddy makes a face, he stares at me and half smiles only he doesn’t look too happy. He does this face a lot when I need help, it’s like he’s questioning my usefulness. Like it were nothing, daddy takes the bucket and walks towards the house with it. I’m in awe and can’t wait until the day that I can be as strong as him. I follow him back to the house.
“Dora!”, Ari screams inside the chicken coop. This scares a few chickens and they flutter around crashing into the chain link fence that makes up the wall of the coop. Ari runs out with her bucket and two eggs in her hand. She holds on to her stomach and giggles taking awkward strides towards me. She shows me the eggs in her hand. “I was gettin’ eggs and there was a fat one and I picked it up and it pooped an egg!”, she says between the giggles, “it fell and broke on the floor and then all the other chickens started eatin’ it!”.
“They do that”, I say. Not showing her same enthusiasm catches her attention. She pokes my face with the metal bucket in hand, hitting me with it. It doesn’t hurt but I still say “ouch” and push her hand away.
“What’s goin’ on?”, she asks hugging me tight. “You been real quiet lately, don’t you wanna be friends no more?”, she practically whispers. There’s a sad look on her face and her eyes are wide while she looks up at me. This how those puppies looked at us at the pet store earlier. To let her know I’m not mad I hug her back with a smile.
“I ain’t mad at you, Ari”, I say, “I’ve been focusin’. I’m tryna get a superpower”, I admit. Ari’s opens her mouth wide.
“Like breathin’ fire? Or killin’ bad people with your mind? Or changin’ the weather?”, she goes on and on dancing while the bucket swings from side to side. I take it off her hands or it’ll be me catching daddy’s belt.
“No”, I say with a hand on her shoulder tryna stop her from moving. “I’m tryna learn how to read people’s minds”, I admit in a hushed tone. Ari puts an index over her lips and looks back at the house. Momma Bilmin is nowhere to be seen anymore, daddy is at the side of the house dumping the bucket full of horse poop on a pile next to momma Bilmin’s small garden.
“Has it worked?”, Ari whispers at me. “Wait, ain’t your momma say you can’t?”, she asks. I shake my head with disappointment.
“The book momma read us today was really good, it said if I learn how to read people’s faces and understand their emotions maybe I can understand how they think”, I say.
“I wasn’t payin’ that much attention but if I could read your face i’d say you sad cause you can’t read minds”, Ari says. She giggles at the look on my face. I stare at her baffled at how right she is. I don’t like the idea of my mind being read.
For dinner momma Bilmin has us all sit at the dining table, today she’s made rice and egg with homemade goat cheese and a loaf of bread. I don’t talk, I only listen. Momma and daddy aren’t talking to each other and I make sure to stare at both of them in hopes to catch anything that lets me know what they’re thinking or at least how they feel. Ari is the main one that talks at the table and momma Bilmin is completely invested in what the girl says.
“Pink because it’s the color of sunsets!”, Ari states her favorite color.
“They’re orange”, I say unable to keep it to myself.
“All the time, but sometimes they look pink and it’s so pretty maybe one day I can show you”, Ari smiles at me. I’d smile back but I’m scared that she’ll be able to read my mind.
“This is nothin’ like what I eat back home miss Bilmin, I just love bein’ here with y’all, with Dora, I feel so lucky!”, Ari practically screams. Momma Bilmin, who’s sitting at the edge of the table smiles at the girl with her eyes. Momma smiles too, daddy doesn’t look up from his plate. He looks like he just wants to finish his food.
“Well, you’re welcome here any time Arielle”, momma Bilmin says still smiling. Ari turns to me and shows off her missing teeth. She truly is having a great time and her wide smiles radiate how she feels. So much so that it makes me forget I’m supposed to be reading emotions off faces, not making them. I smile back.
After dinner, in momma’s shiny car, daddy takes Ari home. “Why we always go in this car mister Polomir?”, Ari asks. She’s expressed how much she loves the horses every day after school. Daddy sighs and looks at us from the rear view mirror.
“Horses can only go so fast”, he says bluntly.
The half hour drive aint that different from every other. We play a game that involves having to guess what we see by the description given. “I see some yellow”, Ari sings and smiles. She knows that’s my favorite color so she always makes sure to point it out. Be it a flower or the way the sun shines brightly on the sand, she’ll always find a way to remind me how pretty it is.
By the time we reach the lonely dirt road that leads us to her house we see her momma run out. She trips and falls feet away from the porch steps. Daddy stops the car in front of their house and runs out to help her.
“Uh-oh”, Ari says and makes a weird face. She raises her eyebrows and shows her lower teeth. “Forgot to tell momma I was runnin’ away las’night”, she shrugs. Outside, daddy consoles the crying woman. She hugs him and holds on to his arms, fanning her face tryna dry up her tears.
“I had so much fun today, Dora”, Ari says to me unaffected by her momma’s crying. “Already can’t wait ‘till next time”, she says giggling. She hugs me, when she pulls away she has her index in her mouth, biting it with wonder. Suddenly she leans in and kisses my cheek.
My face feels warm like it’s gotten really hot all of a sudden. My chest tickles and my heart races. I wish for another wondering why I liked it so much but I’m frozen in place. Eyes and mouth wide. Why did she kiss me?
Giggling, she jumps out the car and runs up to her momma who hugs her with happiness but yells at her like she’s angry. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, you hear me!”, her momma screams hugging and kissing Ari’s face.
The drive home is really quiet, I stare out the window in a trance, looking at our dark surroundings. It turned night while dropping Ari off and I watch how we pass the run down buildings, noticing the moon. How it follows us all the way home. “Did you see that?”, I think to myself, asking the moon if it saw Ari kiss me. My face is warm to the touch. A smile almost creeps up on me but daddy speaks up.
“You knew that girl ran away?”, daddy asks. He’s mad and I can see it in his eyes. He clenches his jaw and looks back at me. I only stare at him. I don’t wanna admit I knew. With no response, daddy turns back to me and swats my leg leaving a sting that I just know is gonna turn into a bruise later. “Did you know?”, he asks again. If I lie or tell the truth he’s gonna hit me anyway. I nod and fold my leg so he won’t reach me if he tries to hit me again.
“Tomorrow mornin’, soon as I wake up you gon get up too. I’m gon have you workin’ like a damn mule”, he yells back at me. “That woman was worried sick, you knew that little girl ran away from home and ain’t tell us none, and what if y’all would of gotten stolen this afternoon?”, he turns back to me and sizes me up. “Wipe that mug off your face right now”, he says through his teeth. I’m mad. The night was going good until he decided to open his mouth.
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Half Human, Half Squirrel pt.2
“Littleburg used to have another name before the games. Ms. Gullard told us last year. She says it used to be the Capitol of Texas, one of the previous states formin’ the United States of America, which we now call Panem”, I say. Ari stares at me with her mouth open.
“You ever been to actual Littleburg?”, I ask. She shakes her head. I’m not surprised, this is where all the rich folk live and everything is too expensive. “Our school is right outside of Littleburg. This is the only elementary in all of District 10”, I add. Daddy says that’s how the government keeps track of us but I don’t tell Ari this, I aint tryna explain 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵.
“that’s why it’s so big?”, Ari jumps off her seat with her hands in the air. Daddy asks her to sit down. That’s cause peacekeepers are really mean here and will stop anybody. Momma Bilmin calls it abuse of power and to never ask them for help.
Cause the peacekeepers usually pick on people who look poor, to go to Littleburg we have to dress nice. Momma Bilmin combed our hair really tight into a braid and put a cowboy hat on Ari. I think it’s to hide how skinny she really looks with her hair tamed. Momma Bilmin then turned one of my yellow dresses inside out, sew it in a couple of places and made it fit Ari. She looks so pretty and hasn’t stopped smiling since. She says I look pretty in my dress too.
Driving past our school, daddy keeps going until we reach local stores. These are old, small and a lot cheaper than those deeper in Littleburg. Passing these we start to see forests and pretty green trees down the long road. He makes a lot of sharp turns I don’t pay attention to the way Ari does. She sits on her knees, looking out the window in awe. I don’t blame her. Bloques is nothing like this, aunt Lucia calls it “one big shantytown” cause the houses are so close together there aren’t that many trees.
“Look Dora”, daddy points at some ruins.
Behind a chain link fence is a completely destroyed building scattered all over a long road. The engines and wings remind me of a plane I once saw in a book about traveling. There were so many versions of planes that I spent a whole week reading just about them. “Airport?”, I gasp excitedly. I jump off my seat and join Ari at the window. “That one!”, I point at a blue and yellow plane underneath a run down hangar. “That’s a Boeing 757, that was the first largest single isle passenger plane for a very long time. Oh!”, I point at a lost wing with a jet engine holding it off the ground, “that must of been an Airbus, those were made in a country named France” I continue.
“Dora”, daddy interrupts. He says I’m not to talk about what I’ve learned beyond Panem. “Won’t do you any good to get smart, these fields are yours, this’s what you need to focus on”, he said once.
Soon, there’s not that many trees surrounding the road, it’s stores all over the area. “Pocco’s Footwear”, “Family Donuts”, “Brie’s Electronics”, and “DDDD Insurance” are some of the names on them. Behind these are neighborhoods of houses like mine. These are made of red brick with backyards. “They’re connected to the poles, they carry electricity throughout the neighborhood”, I point at the power lines.
In no time, the roads get bigger and everyone is driving faster. “These are highways and they take us to different sections of Littleburg”, I continue. Up on one of the ramps we’re able to see a big pretty building out in the distance. “That’s Spring Hills, middle and high school but you gotta be accepted to it. Momma wants me to go there next year”, I whisper to Ari. She doesn’t say anything back but looks sad. I wish I could read her mind. Maybe I could. Maybe there’s a book on reading minds.
“Daddy will there be a book store where we’re goin’?”, I ask.
“No more books, you got enough at home”, he says.
“Momma Bilmin says there can never be enough books”, I say but nothing more when I catch his eyes on me in the rear view mirror.
Off the highway he drives into a big parking lot, surrounding it are stores scattered all around. A gas station at the entrance corner, an ice cream shop in the middle of the lot, stores connected together but with signs that say what they sell. “PBS Pharmacy”, “Make U Smile Dental”, “Petstore”, a huge one named “Bullseye” and more that are too far away to read.
“Wow, can we go there”, Ari asks pointing at the pet store. We look at daddy, he says “no”, and heads for the pharmacy. He looks tired.
“Why does he sleep on the sofa?”, Ari whispers in my ear so he won’t hear. I look at her confused. Daddy doesn’t sleep on the sofa, he sleeps with momma. If he did, was it cause of what happened last night?
I don’t notice how hot it is outside until we walk into the pharmacy. A blast of cold air hits us when the door opens making Ari scream and laugh. Even though her scream scared me a little, it’s still funny and I laugh with her. Daddy looks back at us with a smile on his face. I don’t have to read his mind to know he found it funny too.
Not wanting to lose daddy I take Ari’s hand and pull her along with me. She holds on tighter. He walks a lot faster than us so we practically jog to him. We pass a couple of isles before Ari stops running and pulls on my arm. Not wanting to lose daddy, “go, I’m gonna see where he goes and come back”, I inform.
Daddy stands in the middle of an isle, on the shelves are a lot of plain gray boxes. “Earwax Remover”, “Eye Drops”, “Antiseptic Cream”.
“Lice Remover?”, I ask scratching my head.
Daddy looks down at me with a weird look on his face. He looks mad, confused, I can’t tell and I really wish I could. In his hand are two rectangular boxes that say just that. Without a word, he pushes me and we walk out the isle in search for Ari. We find her on the floor playing with a rubber chicken, making it scream when she presses on it. She giggles every time.
“Stay here, I’m gonna go talk to the pharmacist”, daddy says just before he walks off like he remembered something he’d forgot.
The chicken continues to squeal and Ari screams in giggles. Can’t forget how loud she is when she’s having fun. To keep her company I look around the toy isle until one catches my eye. It’s not really a toy but a board game, to play you need about three people, that could be Efrain, Ari and me. The instructions say that you are given a word and then you have to act it out. Who ever guesses it wins a point. Or something along those lines. I want it and I’m too excited to wait for daddy to come back to tell him. I tell Ari to wait and run around the store looking for daddy, whom I find at the back talking to an old man.
“Good news, the vaccines you ordered will be here in a couple of days”, says the old man looking at his computer screen.
“That ain’t what I’m here for”, daddy chuckles like he’s nervous. Momma says it’s rude to interrupt people when they’re talking so I run back to Ari to see if there’s a toy she’d want too. I’m sure if we beg him just enough he’d get it for us.
When I return to the isle she’s no longer there. I run to the opposite end and spot her jumping in and out the store, playing with the automatic doors. “I leave for one second”, that’s what I wanna say when I catch her and run after her who takes it like a challenge. She spots me and screams, then proceeds to giggle away. If daddy finds out we left the store he’s not gonna let me see tonight.
Outside she runs giggling her heart out past the store fronts until she suddenly stops. I know what she’s looking at, it’s the pet store. That’s where she wanted to go when we got here. She walks inside with a look of awe in her face. I follow her in and take her hand pulling her closer to me. That’s the last time I let her out of my sight.
“Ari, you can’t do that”, I say out of breath.
“Ari? Ari-elle. It’s like you wanna say my name but some stop you”, she swings our hands. I never noticed how short she is. With the hat she looks a little taller but is still obviously short. I put my hand close to her forehead and measure her. She reaches my chin in height. She giggles to this but says nothing.
“You don’t like it? Been callin’ you that in my head for a minute. Not sure when I started”, I admit.
She giggles and gives me a hug, “no one’s ever given me a nickname before. Well momma calls me chipmunk”, “I knew it!”, I scream in her face. She jumps and opens her eyes wide. I ain’t tryna admit I thought of her as a squirrel, “I knew they called you some cute, it suits you cause you’re... cute too” my lie suddenly feels like it turns true and I freeze hoping she doesn’t say anything.
“You think I’m cute?”, Ari asks. She bats her eyes and smiles but it looks made up, like she’s happy and sad at the same time. She’s turning pink. Still holding on to my hand, she barely pulls on me but I still follow.
The isle she walks to is like a bookshelf for fish tanks. Colorful fish swim around in groups with pretty rocks and castles in their tanks. In one there are about a hundred swimming the same direction until Ari knocks the tank making them swim away. The fun is back on her face. In no time we’ve roamed around the entire pet store. From looking at individual colorful fish swim around in a small container to puppies play fighting with each other in a big glass case. We even get to pet a bunny when Ari opens up a cage that hasn’t been locked. The bunny falls asleep while I pet it. I want it, I want all of the animals in here. Daddy would say we’ve got enough animals at home though. Daddy? I gasp catching Ari’s attention.
“Ari, we gotta go”, I say pulling on her hand. By now I’m sure daddy’s stopped talking to the old man and is waiting for us with an unpleased look on his face. To be in trouble scares me and I’m almost too scared to go back.
Hiding my feelings we return to the pharmacy and walk to the back but daddy ain’t there. Quickly I call out for him and run around the entire place. Ari’s close behind still holding on to my hand really tight. I go back to the toy isle, he’s not here. I go back to the isle he got the lice remover from, he’s not here. I walk up to the counter and ask the cashier, she doesn’t look older than Eduardo, she pops her pink bubble gum and leans closer to us, looking at us back and forth.
“Y’all lookin’ for the tall cowboy with the pretty braids?”, she asks twirling her hair with her finger.
“That’s my daddy, you seen him?”, I ask practically screaming at her. She sneers.
“Yeah, I seen him”, she says. I open my eyes wide and extend my arms in confusion. Is she gonna tell me where he went or not?
“He left lookin’ for y’all, almost walked out of here without payin’”, she smiles smacking her gum. “Too fine to pass the opportunity though, called him back“, she giggles still playing with her hair, “went headed to Bullseye”, she says pointing to said direction with her pinky finger.
“We need to make sure he hasn’t left”, I say to Ari running back to momma’s car. Here it looks like he came back and put his bags on the front seat before going out to find us. This makes me nervous. If daddy is actively searching then that means he’s gonna kill me when he finds us. I ain’t tryna look like a wuss though, so I keep my worries to myself.
“Look”, Ari says pointing at the ice cream shop in the middle of the parking lot. Next to it is a white peacekeeper vehicle. “Wanna ask’em?”, she pulls on my arm.
“No”, I say thinking about what momma Bilmin would do. “We should ask inside”, I add.
We actively ignore the peacekeepers, like they aren’t there but a big boring rock in their place. They notice us though and maybe there’s a look of worry in my face, that would explain why Ari hasn’t acted up in a minute. That or she’s just as scared of daddy.
“Aye kid, what’s up?”, one says. They’re both old but not too old, maybe younger than daddy. They wear their peacekeeper uniforms but have taken their helmets off to enjoy their ice cream.
“Y’all seen Mr. Wyetka? Got a cowboy hat on, really tall, really 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 tall, like this”, Ari says on her tip toes tryna draw a line way above her head. The peacekeepers laugh.
“Even the children?”, one says. “Y’all seen Mr. Doodah”, the other one mocks in a silly version of our accent. “Hey kid, look around, everyone’s got a damn cowboy hat on”, this makes the other one laugh and point at Ari and then his head, “It’s like everyone here is born with one”, he says making themselves laugh even harder. I hope they drop their ice cream.
“C’mon”, Ari says pulling me into the ice cream shop. “Hey mister, you seen-“, she’s interrupted by the man behind the counter.
“Hey kid ya daddy was just in here lookin’ for y’all”, he says.
“You seen where he went?”, Ari asks with excitement. The man shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head. This scares me more. What if daddy gives up and goes home without us? What if he finds us and is super angry? How mad is he gonna be at me?
Back outside I can’t hold it anymore and start to cry so much my body moves like I got hiccups every time I gasp. Ari holds my hand the entire time. She hugs, says she’s sorry and begs me to stop crying. I want to but I can’t stop. I’ve lost daddy and he’s out here looking for me too. He’s gonna be so mad when he finds us. “If he ever does”, I think making myself feel worse.
“Maybe we should try Bullseye”, Ari says.
“That’s a really big store, we’d have better luck waitin’ for him outside”, I say through the sobs. Ari agrees and hugs me again, tells me that we’ll find him and when we do she’ll take the blame. I don’t want her to, even if it was her fault I wouldn’t want daddy to be mad at her.
Holding hands, we walk past store fronts asking for daddy but so far no one’s seen him. Back in the petstore the man behind the counter points to the Bullseye store direction. We automatically head there and plan to wait for him outside. Ari calls the plan a smart one.
“Excuse me mister”, Ari approaches a man sitting outside the store. He’s short, bald, and greasy. He sits in front of a table and looks to be selling watches. He doesn’t look too happy to be talked to.
“Go away!”, he snaps, “If you aint buyin’ get the fuck outta here, scarin’ away my customers”, he waves us off like flies.
Ari looks around, inside the store where people are walking in and out ignoring us and him. She turns to the parking lot where cars drive past not noticing us either. She looks at me and then at him, “what customers?”.
“I said get the fuck outta here you freaky little shit before I drop kick you to the moo-, hey-llo there, you tryna buy a nice watch? One for the wife? Present for momma? Friend?”, he goes from screaming his head off to suddenly being really nice.
Ari and me look at each other wide eyed. Slowly we turn around to see the tall man staring at the short bald man selling watches. Daddy stands outside the doors giving him a cold look. His arms folded. There’s no emotion on his face and he doesn’t say anything. Not to him, not to me. My heart beats fast and for a second I think he’s gonna hit me. He puts his hand on my back and pushes Ari and me towards the direction of the car. None of us says anything on our way and I’m trying my best not to cry anymore.
I look at Ari who looks very sad too. She stares at the floor and barely holds my hand. I know why she’s upset. That man back there called her a freak, she says everyone at school calls her that and she doesn’t like it. I tighten my grip on hers and it catches her attention. “You’re not a freak, Ari you’re just different”, I say leaving myself thoughtful, “in a way.. I’m different too”, I say. She gives me a thin lipped smile that look sadder than before. She wants to cry but doesn’t, instead she hugs me while we walk.
“Hey, y’all want some ice cream?”, daddy asks.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”, Ari screams jumping up and down. She smiles wide and dances in place. This makes me laugh and I look at daddy. He looks worn out but he’s not mad. He gives me a smile and pulls me close giving me a tight hug. I hope this means I’m not in trouble.
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Half human, half squirrel
Cause Arielle lives so far away instead of letting her walk from our house to hers, daddy takes her home every day. Usually she stays over for lunch but today daddy said no. He told Arielle that I have to do my chores and she can’t stay unless she wanna help. Of course she said she wanted to but daddy took her home.
When we got back, I cleaned my room, the living room and fed the chickens in the coop. Daddy also wanted me to milk the cows but momma Bilmin told him that was enough for me to do in one day. So he wouldn’t make me do anything else I spent all afternoon with momma Bilmin.
On the living room sofa, laying next t her, I read her an entire chapter from a book about nature. We learned about corals and how they’re living creatures even though they look like pretty colorful rocks. Momma Bilmin really liked the jellyfish in one of the pictures and I told her how they’re so pretty but sting to the touch.
“They don’t even have brains, momma!”, I shout excitedly.
“Sound like ya grandma Ester”, she snorts, “don’t you tell her I said that”, she points in my face. This makes me laugh and I tell her that her secret is safe with me. She smiles and tickles me for a minute until laughing starts to hurt. Then she tells me it’s time for bed, hugs and kisses me before she stands up.
She helps me take a bath cause she says I be doing a horrible job at it. While I scrub my toes, she scrubs my back. Jokingly she pinches my nipple. Says they’re starting to grow, laughs, and then goes to scrub my neck and wash my head. When I get out, she covers me in a towel and walks me to my room. Passing by momma and daddy’s room, I see daddy sitting at the edge of the bed rubbing his face. Momma wipes her cheeks and walks away. I think she’s crying.
“What’s wrong daddy?”, I ask but he waves me off, stands up and closes the door.
“That’s disrespectful, Polomir!”, momma Bilmin yells at him.
“Not now, momma!”, daddy yells back.
In my room, she helps me put on a big red shirt and pink shorts. I ask about momma but she says everything is alright, they’re just tired. She kisses my forehead, tucks me and closes the door. The silent darkness is scary. Momma Bilmin never closes my door. Scared, I quietly creep up to my door and twist the knob. Slowly, I open it and peak out.
Momma Bilmin knocks softly on their door and daddy opens it and steps out a second later. “What happened?”, momma Bilmin asks but daddy doesn’t say none, he just squeezes the bridge of his nose, exhales and walks down the hall waving his arms in the air. I close my door quietly just in time. I hear them walk past.
For a minute I listen in but can’t hear anything I can understand. Quietly, I open the door and crawl out. In all fours, I head towards momma and listen for her but she’s just sniffing a lot. In the kitchen I hear momma Bilmin yell at daddy.
“You said 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 to her? You should be happy, Polomir”, she snaps tryna whisper but fails.
“Momma”, daddy snaps back, “she’s always workin’ and when she’s home she’s on that goddamn phone talkin’ to that cretin”, daddy says. He says the last word through his teeth. Is daddy mad at momma cause she works a lot? “We haven’t had a chance in months and she’s tellin’ me she’s..”, a loud noise interrupts. It sounds like someone hit the table really hard.
“I ain’t find out bout you until I was bout six months, Polomir”, momma Bilmin says.
Because none of it makes sense I try to open the door but it’s locked, when I knock, nobody answers. Maybe I ain’t knock loud enough. I ain’t tryna get caught out of bed though, daddy’s mad already. I go back to my room. Maybe momma Bilmin is right, momma must be real tired if she locked the door for some sleep.
I lay in bed for a very long time staring at the moonlight shinning into my room. I think about what momma Bilmin said, “six months before she found out about daddy?”, it just confuses me more. What does cretin mean anyway?
Just as I’m falling asleep a tapping at my window scares me wide awake. I look at the floor where the moonlight still shines except a shadow waves as it taps. Scared out of my mind, feeling my heart in my throat, I look at the window and see a more terrifying figure. It’s Arielle and her hair looks scarier at night.
“How?”, I whisper at her wanting to scream. I’m mad cause she scared me. When I open the window, she giggles and climbs inside. She hugs me breathing really hard in my ear. She’s sweaty too. It’s hard to stay mad when you wanna ask a lot of questions.
“I wanted to see you”, she says. I shush her and put my hand over her mouth listening for any noise other than her breathing, hoping no one heard. She wanted to see me? Why? She lives so far away, though.
“Did you walk here?”, I ask the first question I can latch on.
“I ran”, she smiles wide and bites her lip. She looks goofy missing her two front teeth and it makes me wanna smile back but I don’t. Daddy would be mad at her, so I pretend to be mad and put my hands on my hips.
“Why?”, I ask tryna look like I’m not impressed.
“Grandma was bein’ mean to me. She said no one likes me and I’m annoyin’, I told her you like me, that’s why you’re my friend so I ran away and came here”, she says waving her hands in the air. She smiles and turns around to close my window. I’ve never called her my friend before. I thought I had to like the person.
“Arielle, you can’t stay here”, I say. I ain’t tryna get in trouble cause she’s wild.
“Oh. I guess I’ll go home then”, her smile goes away really fast. She looks at the floor, scratches her head and slowly turns around.
“Wait”, I grab her arm just as she does. I’ve never seen her look so sad before. She’s always so happy. Her smile comes back and she hugs me really tight.
“I knew you wasn’t gon let me go back home”, she giggles and runs to my bed, “you care bout me”.
“You want some water?”, I ask. She’s sweaty and when people are sweaty, momma Bilmin says you need to give them water. She nods and smiles. I put my index finger on my lips and tell her to stay here.
“Dora, why you up?”, momma Bilmin asks. She’s sitting at the table thinking so hard she’s chewing on her thumb nail. She always scolds me when I bite my nails. I don’t say anything about it.
“I’m thirsty”, I answer. She just nods and points at the sink. I wonder what she’s thinking about. I don’t ask though, I don’t want her to follow me to my room and find Arielle. I ain’t tryna get in trouble.
Back, Arielle has already made herself at home. She’s taken off her shoes and her clothes are on the floor. She’s under the covers and kicks her feet and giggles.
“My bed ain’t this comfy”, she says.
“Are you naked?”, I ask feeling nervous.
“What?”, she asks a little too loud. I shush her. She giggles. “No, silly, I’m wearin’ one of your shirts. It’s smells nice, just like you”, she says and hides under the covers.
“Here’s some water”, I say drinking some. She thanks me and drinks almost all of it, when she’s done, she gives it back and gives me another hug.
“You hug a lot”, I complain.
“I know, but what’s wrong with huggin’?”, she asks. I shake my head. There’s nothing wrong with it. No one’s ever hugged me this much though.
My bed is small, this means that if we are going to sleep together, we’re gonna have to touch. At first, I lay on my side and try to go back to sleep but Arielle puts her arm around me. I ask her why and she says that’s how her daddy used to sleep with her momma when she was little. This makes me smile, that’s how daddy sleeps with momma too.
“You ever seen a dead frog?”, she asks me just as I’m falling asleep again. I turn around and look at her. Why won’t she go to sleep?
“You gonna sleep any time soon?”, I ask. She giggles and hops out of bed, walks around to my side and looks through her pant pockets. In her hand, she pulls out a crumpled up leaf. Except, it’s not a leaf and when she turns on the lamp by my bedside, I see it’s a dead frog.
“Why are you like this?”, I ask her. I’ve never met anyone as weird as her. Not even Efrain is this weird and he’s a boy.
She giggles with a snort, puts it back in her pocket and gets in bed. Crawling over me, pulling the covers off and back on, she gets so close her leg is on top of mines. Laying on my back, I’m stuck frozen in place not knowing if I should push her away or if I should just ignore her and try to go back to sleep.
“I wish I was you”, she says hugging my whole arm. I don’t say none, I’m confused, why would she wanna be me? No one even likes me. “You got a lot of folk that love you”, she says.
“Huh?”, no one likes me. She nods and smiles but it looks sad not happy.
She tells me that her daddy used to hit her and her momma a lot when she was little but then he lost his legs in a meat factory accident. Now he just yells from the bedroom. Says her momma always crying, too and daddy being crippled is the only thing that makes her grandma laugh. “She’s crazy”, she chuckles, “always bein’ mean to everyone”.
Says that her grandma is always making fun of the way she looks cause she looks just like her momma. No one else in ten has bright orange hair like them. She also tells me that her family used to have money, never rich but enough to have food on the table but grandpa stole it and disappeared. “Momma got too old for tessera so she had to start working at the meat factory, that’s where she met daddy”.
She tells me about how much she hates school and everyone in her class, too. That they call her a freak and sometimes Kenneth draws her like a scary monster with angry red eyes, spiky hair and sharp teeth. One time a girl pulled her hair and started hitting her when the teacher left the class.
I hug her. “I ain’t ever gonna hurt you Arielle, I promise”. She smiles and hugs me back even tighter. The kids at school make fun of me too, but no one hits me. Cassidy poked me with a sharp pencil once but I told on her and she got sent home with a note. This makes Arielle mad and she tells me she’ll hit Cassidy when she sees her, I tell her it’s ok. I don’t want her to get in trouble.
I’m falling asleep again when I feel her poke my cheek. “I think that was very brave, Dora”, she says.
“Huh?”
“You jumpin’ in for Efrain when he was gettin’ beat up. That was brave”, she says hugging me, putting her head on my shoulder. Daddy is very brave and I wanna be just like him. Arielle calling me that makes me feel tingly and happy. I don’t say anything back though. This time I make sure she falls asleep before I do.
I dream about navigating my own boat, I’m at sea and Efrain is my first mate. He and I fish and look at corals and jellyfish until we find a mermaid. It’s Arielle and she looks crazy. She has a dead crab in her hands and keeps asking Efrain to eat it. He’s so stupid he does and lies about it being delicious.
I feel someone poke me awake. When I notice it’s momma Bilmin I immediately think about Arielle, who‘s supposed to be at my side. I jump up and touch the empty space next to me. I look all over the room but she ain’t anywhere to be found. Sitting up, I look under the bed and then at momma Bilmin who’s holding her chest.
“Amos, I’m here baby, I’m here”, momma Bilmin says tryna grab me by my shoulders. She grabs my face and hugs giving me lots of kisses.
“I’m alright momma”, I say pushing her away. I don’t want any kisses, I wanna know where my friend is.
“You ok?”, momma Bilmin asks still tryna hug me. I shake my head. I don’t say anything. She looks worried and like she wants to cry but doesn’t. Instead she puts her hand on her forehead and stands up. “What..”, she clears her throat and closes her eyes, “..you want for breakfast?”. I think for a moment and bite my lip. Where did that silly girl go?
“Waffles?” I say. It’s the first thing that pops in my mind. Momma Bilmin clears her throat again and walks out my room but not before staring back at me for a long second. I stare at her back and scratch my head.
“What are waffles?”, Arielle asks popping out of my closet. I look at her surprised and wide eyed. For a moment I thought last night was just a dream. She giggles and runs up on the bed to hug me. Now in her underwear, she hides under my bed, makes a lot of noise, which I refuse to check on, and comes back out with her hands in the air. “Ta-da!”, she says with her shirt on backwards, dressed back in her fitting clothes.
At the table in the kitchen, i think about Arielle. She just put her clothes back on and jumped out my window. Ain’t say bye or anything, she just left. Why is she so weird? How can she be that weird too? Could she really be half squirrel? All of this thinking is making my head so itchy.
“What’s goin’ on?”, momma Bilmin asks putting a plate in front of me. I cross my arms and shake my head. There’s a knock at the front door. Momma Bilmin leaves to go open it. I stare at the perfect waffle on my plate, wondering how someone can be so strange.
“Dora, guess who came to visit?”, momma Bilmin says in the hallway. Those giggles I recognize so well run up into the kitchen and she hugs me. Arielle sits in the chair next to mine and doesn’t stop giggling. Maybe she’s laughing at my face. I’m pretty sure there’s a stupid look there.
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Milk, I love you
I rub my eyes and yawn, it’s the middle of the afternoon but yesterday daddy told me he was gonna finally let me ride Milk and I ain’t catch any sleep. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I got her for my birthday. I still can’t believe I have my very own pony. Even Efrain couldn’t close his mouth when he met her.
I haven’t been able to ride her because she’s wild, meaning daddy found her out on a field and brought her home. For months he’s been tryna tame her and get her to stop kicking. Now he’s finally gotten her to trust him. Tells me she only trusts him and I should be cautious. I figured maybe I look just like daddy and she won’t know the difference.
She does. Almost immediately, when I try to pet her she jumps at me and bites my hair pulling me down. It doesn’t hurt much but the embarrassment makes me cry. Daddy scolds me and tells me that’s what I get for not listening. He makes me try again and says that if I want her to like me, I need to let her know I ain’t tryna harm her.
“Let her sniff ya hand”, he says petting her between her ears. Milk has grown a lot since we got her. She’s a little dirty but that’s cause she likes to jump around in mud. Daddy says horses like to play too. With my arm extended, I let her smell me.
“Now pet her on the back of her head”, daddy says pulling her closer with a leash. I touch her thick hair and comb it with my fingers. She shakes her head and it scares me. Daddy says it’s alright so I smile up at him and let the breeze dry up my tears.
After Milk let’s me pet her face without once snapping her teeth at me, daddy hands me the leash and lets me walk with her around the horse pen. I tell her about Efrain and how excited I am to show him that we’re getting along. I explain why I think Arielle is a squirrel disguised as a human and talk about all the apples I will be feeding her in the future. When daddy comes back, in his hands he carries a yellow saddle with a pretty garden of sunflowers on it. This makes me smile wide and I run to him with Milk alongside me.
He puts the saddle on Milk and pets her letting her know she’s ok and that she can trust us. Daddy is so strong, he’s the only person that can still pick me up like I weigh nothing. He helps me on the saddle, and tells me to hold on while he walks us around the pen. He tells me that today this is all I’ll be doing, but tomorrow or whenever he has free time, he’ll teach me to ride a horse all on my own.
I can imagine myself already. On Milk galloping all over our land scaring the cows into a run or even going to school with her. I’d be the coolest and everyone would want to be my friend because they’d wanna pet her and I’d let them.
Daddy brings me back to earth when he says I’m not allowed to take her anywhere without his permission. Says she’s not accustomed to people yet and if I take her out I could lose control. She could hurt me, herself, someone else and even run away. I wouldn’t want that in a million years. When daddy helps me off, I give her a great big hug and tell her how much I love her. I can’t wait to tell Efrain how fun this was.
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A new friend?
District 10 so big it takes a whole day to drive around it, daddy says. He also says that in north of 10 is an old black market where people can buy just about anything for half the price. That’s why it’s rare to see those from Bloques in the stores at Littleburg. Usually it’s kids leaving school or Reaping day that has them walking about the area.
He tells me this cause Mr. Oxoro came over and they talked for a bit. Apparently he took Efrain and his brothers there but when they came back Efrain wasn’t feeling well. This morning he woke up with chicken pox and can’t go to school, leave the house or be visited by anyone until he gets better. This makes me sad, that means I’ll be all alone during lunch and after school. I already miss him on the weekends.
It’s easy to forget he ain’t here during class, but when it’s lunch time I’m stuck remembering what it was like before we met. Lucas and the other kids we usually play with out on the streets wave hello from their tables and even ask me to join them. On the first day I join him and Edwin who complained the entire time. He gave me looks and sometimes said things that only made sense to him. “We was good before”, he said, “she ruined it”.
Not wanting to feel unwanted again, the next day I joined Wendy and her friends. Of course, Cassidy and Orchid ain’t know about us being friends now.
“Why is 𝘴𝘩𝘦 sittin’ with us?”, Cassidy snarked. Orchid rolled her eyes. Wendy told them “she’s my friend”, but they just gave her a look with a lot of attitude. I ain’t talk to Wendy after lunch, not even during class when she sent me a note asking if I was gonna go to Efrain’s. She knows he’s sick and knows Ms. Weston is gonna kick me out of class if I get caught with a note. It made me mad so I just put the note in my notebook and pretended to forget about it.
Yesterday I ate by myself and it made me sad. I asked daddy if I could go see Efrain but he said I can’t cause he’s contagious. Says there’s a vaccine but it’s expensive. This made me cry cause if it’s too expensive for us, it’s definitely too expensive for Efrain’s family. Daddy assured me that he’s helping in every way that he can and that it’s best if I just wait until Efrain is better.
Today during lunch, while unpacking mines I spot momma Bilmin added an extra piece of bread inside a handkerchief. On top of it is a note that says “ʂԋαɾҽ ιƚ ɯιƚԋ α ɳҽɯ ϝɾιҽɳԃ”. Not wanting a new friend, wishing Efrain was here, I put it back in my yellow, metal lunchbox and unfold my food. It’s a croissant bread sandwich with eggs, ham and bacon, my favorite.
Just as I take a bite, my eyes wonder and I spot that same redhead I see every day. She’s writing on a notebook. I ain’t ever seen her eating before and she’s really skinny. What if she doesn’t eat cause she ain’t got any food to bring?
I stare at my lunchbox for a minute, wondering if I should approach her. After all, she screams and hits anybody that gets too close. I ain’t tryna fight her or even be her friend, but I do wanna share the extra piece of bread.
“Save it unless you wanna knuckle sandwich”, she says. Her fists up ready to box. She has really bright orange hair and freckles that match. It’s curly and untamed, wild and frizzy like she never combs it. Her skin is really white like a sheet of paper and her cheeks are pink. She has pink lips and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s so skinny I can see her bones and her clothes look like they were chosen for someone a lot younger than her. She’s also missing two front teeth.
“How bout an actual sandwich? You wanna share my lunch with me?”, I say lifting my arm holding my lunchbox. She puts her fists down and sits up. She shakes her head and taps her hand on the table inviting me to sit in front of her.
Seeing how happy she is to eat with me, I rip my sandwich in half and give it to her along with the honey walnut bread. She smiles with every bite and laughs spitting bits of food out her mouth.
“I’m Arielle, I know who you are”, she says before I can introduce myself. “I love this bread so much!”, she says rolling her eyes, waving it in the air. “Every day after school I run all the way to ya house just so I can’t miss me a piece. Ya grandma really nice, mine’s mean”, she says.
“You know where I live”, I ask surprised.
“Duh! Everyone knows where you live, everyone knows who you are too. Isadora Wyetka, daughter of the Wyetka’s! Y’all the nicest rich folk in ten”, she smiles and takes another bite. “I ain’t ever ate any like this before, what’s this?”, she points at the ham and bacon. I explain it’s pork. She smiles and laughs. “I know what this is, it’s egg. Sometimes on my way home I steal some from chicken nests. They real mean if they catch you but I’m good at sneakin’ so it’s alright”.
“You steal from the feral chickens?”, I ask surprised again. They really are mean. Sometimes they peck me for no reason. They think I’m tryna bother them but I ain’t even know they‘re there until they start to attack. She laughs showing off her missing teeth and nods. She’s funny looking. This makes me laugh with her.
“Hey! You aint missin’ any teeth!”, she points.
“Daddy pulls‘em out the second they get loose. Says it helps’em come out straight”, I nod with my eyes wide open. I believe him. No teeth of mine are crooked. “Last time I lost one was two years ago. I was eight. I’m ten now”.
“Hey, I’m ten too!”, she says with a wide smile. “My birthday was last week, on April first”, she nods and takes the last bite to her sandwich.
“Really? What did ya’ll do?”, I ask remembering how fun my birthday was.
“Huh?”, she tilts her head.
“What did you do for ya birthday?”
“Oh, momma made me some mint tea and I got to eat a chocolate chip cookie, it was good”, she smiles wide with her eyes closed and rubs her stomach. I wanna ask if that’s it but she changes the subject. “That was real brave of you the other day”, she says. I’m confused. “When Efrain was gettin’ beat up by Kenneth and his friends. I’ve been beat up before, wouldn’t go askin’ for another one”, she shakes her head.
“Me neither”, I admit scratching an itch on my neck. “So you saw the whole thing?”.
“Uh-hu, seen how it started all the way until it ended. I waved at you afterwards, ain’t you seen me?”, she asks tilting her head.
“I saw you, just ain’t think you was wavin’ at me”, I admit.
“Why not?”
“You not the friendly type”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah”, she giggles.
The bell rings for us to return to class. While the class is quiet, doing our nouns, Wendy slides me a note. In it she’s written:
YOᑌᖇ ᖴᖇIEᑎᗪᔕ ᗯITᕼ ᗩᖇIEᒪᒪE ?
YEᔕ Oᖇ ᑎO
I don’t circle anything, instead I look at her and shrug. Arielle ain’t call me her friend once, we just shared our lunch together. She was really happy to talk to me though.
After school, walking to the front where daddy usually parks his wagon and reads his newspaper, someone yells my name. I recognize her voice immediately. It’s really shrill. When I turn around, Arielle runs up to me with a big smile. Her backpack, a lot bigger than her, bounces all over her back. She waves in my face and holds her own hands, rocking back and forth.
“Can I pet one ya horses?”, she asks. I shrug.
“Thanks for the ride Mr. Wyetka!”, Arielle yells jumping off the wagon. She waits for me to climb down before she talks again. “Wow, by the time I get here ya grandma always has two or three slices left!”, she says running towards momma Bilmin.
I stare at her talking to momma Bilmin for a moment. It looks like they already know each other. Daddy pats my shoulder when he walks by and smiles at me.
“New friend?”, he asks and stares at Arielle jumping and dancing in front of momma Bilmin, who claps and dances with her. I shrug. She looks wild and acts the part. I’m not sure how I feel about having her as a friend. I walk up to the front door in hopes to change out of my school uniform when I hear Arielle call my name. She runs up to me so fast I stumble back.
“You wanna do homework together?”, she screams in my face taking a bite out of her bread. I look at daddy, he smiles and opens the door wide for us to walk in the house.
“Wow!”, she screams running all over my room, looking and touching my stuff. She pokes the books for no reason and takes them out one by one, reads the front page and puts them back on top of the others instead of where she found them. I try to put them back but just as I do she runs up to my dresser and picks up my perfumes. She sprays my entire room, sniffing the air, smiling wide.
“Your closet is half the size of my room!”, she says looking through it and kneels at my tub of toys. “Wow! That’s a lot of toys!”, she says taking out a doll with red hair cut all silly. “She looks like me!”, Arielle laughs and climbs my bed to jump on it. “I sleep on a mattress on the floor, I can’t jump on it”, she giggles and tries to touch the ceiling.
I don’t know what to do. I try to ask her to stop but she runs around the entire room ignoring me. I can’t keep up. I don’t wanna be her friend. I want her to go away. I wanna tell her to leave but before I can say anything daddy opens the door and tells us momma Bilmin made us lunch.
“How’s Irene?”, daddy asks Arielle while we eat.
“You know my momma, mister?”, she asks wide eyed.
“Yeah, I know ya momma”, daddy chuckles. Momma Bilmin takes his hat and smacks him with it. This makes me laugh. Arielle joins and it takes my smile away. She’s annoying.
“I don’t like her”, I say to momma after she’s dropped Arielle off back home. Arielle lives all the way in the back of Bloques, in the old houses. It’s a two story rundown house, the white paint chips off the panels and she doesn’t have any neighbors. The nearest house looks a mile away. Momma says it’s a generation house and that her family has probably lived in it since before annexations. I ask her what that means but she doesn’t answer, she just complains about the dirty roads.
“Oh, you’re probably her only friend, Dora”, momma Bilmin says while she tucks me in bed.
“I think so”
“She’s just excited to have met you”, she kisses my forehead, turns off the light and leaves the door slightly open. Momma Bilmin always leaves my door open, says that if I ever have a nightmare she’ll be able to hear me call her name. My nightmares ain’t ever scared me enough to call her, but it makes me feel better knowing she’ll be there when I do.
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Happy 10th Birthday
It’s been a whole year and this time Efrain and me are celebrating our birthday at his apartment. A lot of people have been invited and it’s feels like the best birthday ever because this amount of people have never been at any of my birthdays.
It’s my parents, momma Bilmin and Ignacio, who was just dropped off at my house this morning. Efrain’s family is here too, even his big brother Eduardo who I just met. Wigma, Wendy, Lucas and Dallas, the boy from next door, are here too. Edwin wasn’t invited because Efrain is mad at him for not doing none when he got beat up by Kenneth. Edwin said he wasn’t tryna get jumped but Efrain said “Isa wasn’t there for a picnic either, you just a phony”. Edwin got so mad he pushed Efrain but Wigma hit him upside the head and he cried home.
When we first got here, my friends and me played outside for about an hour before momma Bilmin called us back inside to come eat. She brought everything from home and cooked it here. She brought rice, beans and beef steaks but that’s for the adults. Says for the kids she brought something different so right now we’re eating hardened tortilla chips with cheese and beef.
“They’re called nachos”, I tell Eduardo. He’s the oldest, Efrain is the youngest. He’s seventeen years old and he smells better than Felix and Omarion who always smell like burnt grass.
“So, who’s this”, Omarion points at Ignacio who has cheese all over his chin and shirt. Omarion is a tanned, green eyed, blonde haired, skinny boy who’s always here smoking with Felix out in the fire escape. Ignacio wipes the cheese off his shirt with a chip and eats it. This makes Omarion cackle loudly. He closes his eyes, tilts his head back and laughs with his mouth wide open. He’s always laughing at every little thing. It makes anybody feel funny.
“This is Ignacio, he’s my little cousin”, I chuckle and put my hand over his shoulder. Ignacio sticks out his tongue and licks his chin, smiling at Omarion. We sit in the living room. Ignacio and me are on the floor eating on a coffee table, Omarion and Eduardo, who’s quietly eating his food, sit on the two seater sofa.
Eduardo is really intimidating to me. He’s tall, slim, has light brown wavy hair, light skinned with a wide nose and thick lips. His eyes are a pretty gray just like Mrs. Oxoro and his arms are big with muscle. Efrain says he works in one of the meat factories hauling pounds of meat on a daily basis. “Bad pay but at least it makes you look good”, Efrain says Eduardo says.
In the kitchen, momma Bilmin teaches Felix how to make brownies, Omarion says he’s excited to make them special.
“Brownies are already special though”, Ignacio says. This makes Omarion go into another laughing fit. He elbows Eduardo who chuckles but doesn’t look up, he just smiles, shakes his head and eats his food.
At the dinning table, Wigma, Wendy, Lucas, Dallas and Efrain sit eating their food. Only reason Ignacio and me are so far away is cause there wasn’t anywhere else to sit. I’m okay with this, Ignacio already feels out of place so I’m keeping him close so he doesn’t feel left out. At the table with them sits Mrs. Oxoro enjoying nachos too. Next to her, standing behind her chair is Mr. Oxoro talking and eating steak with daddy who leans on the wall. Momma is out on the hallway making a phone call. She has one of those fancy cellular phones cause the Mayor constantly needs help. Daddy says he’s a useless idgit.
“Hey, you were there when Efrain got jumped right?”, Omarion whispers at me. This makes Eduardo look up at me, he wipes the corner of his lips with his thumb and sucks on it. My cheeks feel warm. I nod at Omarion.
“Dora got beat up too”, Ignacio says smiling and pointing at me with a beef covered finger. I push his hand out of my face. Omarion makes a funny grin, cringes and makes a weird noise.
“Well, I ain’t gon let people beat up on my friend”, I say. Omarion touches his chest and elbows Eduardo who looks at him and smiles.
“Damn. That shit touched my heart, I already know Felix punk ass would‘ve probably joined them”, Omarion jokes.
“Oh, word! He ain’t had any business fuckin’ with y’all in the first place, that’s his fault”, Eduardo says pretending to punch Omarion in the stomach and they both laugh so hard Omarion goes silent. I want to laugh too but I’m confused.
“Y’all talkin’ shit? I heard my name”, Felix walks up to us.
“Naw, baby we wasn’t talkin’ bout you, c’mon, c’mere sit on my lap”, Omarion pats his leg. Felix waves him off, gives him the finger and leaves. This makes Omarion laugh again. Eduardo stands up and leaves with an empty plate, he’s grinning and nodding his head again.
“So what happened?”, Omarion asks.
“Efrain says they was botherin’ him and they told him that they was gonna beat him up after class. I ain’t know until Olive came to get me”, I say.
“What did you do when you saw‘em on top?”, Eduardo asks coming back with Felix. His voice is really deep. My cheeks feel warm again. They sit down on the sofa and all three look at me. I turn to look back at Efrain who’s black eye is still a shade of purple. He’s laughing with Lucas and Wigma.
“I defended my friend”, I say, “I ain’t care bout the beatin’, I just wanted them off of him. My back still hurts too, Kenneth called me a fatty and said he was gonna break my back but then a lady showed up and stopped them”, I say taking a bite off a soggy chip.
“Bro”, Omarion laughs. “Called you a fatty and said he was gon break ya back?”, he laughs even harder. This time Felix joins and they jump on the sofa like idiots. Eduardo just shakes his head.
“That shit so cute though”, Omarion says and smacks Felix on the shoulder, “you ain’t ever fight for me bro, what’s up with that?”.
“Aye man, I’m not gettin’ my ass beat cause you wanna test my loyalty”, Felix snarks. Omarion sucks on his teeth and rolls his eyes.
“I ain’t ever been beat up before!”, Ignacio boasts.
“You wanna?”, Omarion asks with a fist in the air. Ignacio just stares wide eyed, mouth open, breathing loudly. This makes Omarion crack up again. “Yo, some bout his boy” he laughs and points. Mrs. Oxoro calls us all to the table.
This year, our cake is square and a lot bigger than usual. On it, momma Bilmin has written “Hαρρყ Bιɾƚԋԃαყ Iʂαԃσɾα & Eϝɾαιɳ” with ten candles all over. The cake icing is baby blue with yellow birds flying across it. Momma Bilmin really outdid herself with the cake this year. Everyone loves it and tells her how pretty it is.
After they’ve sung us a very loud and silly happy birthday, they tell us to blow the candles but I let Efrain do it. Just as he does, Eduardo slams his face on the cake. This makes me and almost everyone laugh. Efrain wipes his face and slaps the icing on Eduardo’s arm, who tries to run away. Wigma sneaks a taste of icing by dabbing her finger on Efrain’s cheek. Even Wendy is smiling just as big as everyone else.
When we get home, Ignacio and me are so energized we run around the house playing hide and seek until aunt Lucia comes for him. Excited and happy, Ignacio jumps all over the place and tells her about all the fun we had. Playing out in the street, eating nachos and cake. Aunt Lucia doesn’t look happy.
“You went to Bloques?”, she screams back at momma who has her arms folded. She looks tired and bored.
“They had fun, Lucia”, momma says.
“My baby could have been kidnapped!”, she screams and grabs his hand, pulls him close and hugs his face.
“How momma? I’m too fat”, Ignacio says pulling away tryna look up at her. This makes me laugh. Aunt Lucia shoots me a stare, then at momma and walks out the house holding Ignacio tight by the arm. He waves goodbye from the back window as they drive off.
“Dora”, daddy calls me inside the house. He’s not mad. Has his arm out so I can take it. “I got you some”, he says and smiles at me. I smile back and tighten my grip. His hands are rough and strong. We walk out back towards the farm house, inside, in one of the stables is an all white pony. Her eyes are blue and nose is pink.
“You got me a pony?”, I scream at him. He laughs and pushes me closer to it. I’m so happy I can’t stop jumping and screaming while I pet her. I’ve never asked for a pony before but that doesn’t mean I ain’t want one!
“Thank you, daddy, thank you!”, I hug him, jumping up and down. He picks me up with a tight hug, kisses my cheek and whispers “happy birthday, baby”.
Best birthday ever.
#isadora wyetka#age 10#polomir wyetka#momma bilmin#efrain#wendy#wigma#edwin#felix#ignacio#eduardo#omarion#mrs. oxoro#mr. oxoro#lucas#dallas#aunt Lucia#esperanza wyetka
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What are friends for?
Ms. Weston, my fifth grade teacher, writes multiplications on the chalk board. Tryna be a good student, I write everything down after her. On the first day of class, Efrain and I were running down the hall and bumped into her. She spilled her morning hot coffee all over herself and has hated me ever since. Anything I do is enough for her to scream or kick me out of class. It’s hard tryna be good when you trying to.
After Ms. Weston sits down at her desk, the quiet class solves the math problems, myself included. Suddenly Wendy’s hand slides onto my desk and she pushes a folded paper under my hand. In it she’s written:
EᖴᖇᗩIᑎ TOᗪᗩY?
YEᔕ Oᖇ ᑎO
I circle my answer and fold my paper back. Just as I do, Ms. Weston snatches it out of my hand and reads it out loud.
“Efrain today? Yes or no, and you circled both. It’s supposed to be just one”, she raises her eyebrow and looks down on me like I’m some sort of stupid. Kids laugh. This makes me feel embarrassed.
“Maybe, when the answer is neither yes or no, a possibility or probability”, I say repeating the definition of the word tryna let her know that by circling both, I meant maybe. We learned the definition in yesterday’s spelling. Now, I ain’t mean no disrespect but that’s just the way Ms. Weston sees it and she picks me up by my arm and kicks me out of class. Kids laugh just before she closes the door. I stay out here until lunch.
Efrain points and laughs at me for being kicked out. “You made her feel dumb, that’s why”, he stuffs his face with momma Bilmin’s bread, laughing and spitting crumbs out of his mouth. Tryna ignore him, I look around and spot the red headed girl three tables away all by herself. She’s writing on a notebook.
“Eat a roach for fifty bucks or eat one of your boogers for ten”, he asks.
“I’ll eat my boogers for free”, I admit. He laughs spilling milk all over himself.
Lunch is just like any other day, that’s why after class, when I don’t see him waiting for me outside of his, I’m confused. I lean by my locker spying on everyone that comes out but he never does. Curiously, I walk up to the door and spot his teacher erasing everything on the board. No one else in class.
“Isadora!”, I hear some one running down the hall. It’s Olive and another girl. “Isadora! Come on! Come on!”, she takes my hand and we run pushing other kids out of our way. My cheeks feel warm and I feel tickles on my chest. She’s holding my hand and that’s all I can focus on until we exit through the back door in the cafeteria.
“Look!”, she points and waves her hands, scared.
Between a dumpster and a fence, Kenneth and his goons beat Efrain, who’s curled up hiding his face under his arms. Kenneth kicks him on the head, a tall skinny boy stomps his legs and a chubby short one punches him on the stomach. All while a group of kids stand and watch, looking around for help but not bothering to get it. In the crowd I spot Edwin watching too.
Last night I had a dream that it was Efrain and me in the games. We were running away from the careers and hid up on a tree until I told him we couldn’t just hide. I told him that if we wanted to win we’d have to fight back so we hopped down the tree and fought every person and animal that came at us. If these were the games the bullies would be careers and Efrain would be another nobody everyone’s gonna forget. Well that’s my best friend!
“He’s not a nobody!”, I scream and run towards them.
The first to spot me is the tall skinny boy, who I grab by the collar and spin around. He practically flies and falls far away. Swinging my fists all over the place, the short chubby boy doesn’t see them coming and flails back like inflatable dummy. I redirect the hits on Kenneth but he takes them like a stubborn mule and swings at me so hard I stumble and trip on Efrain. In no time, we’re both getting beat up by all three bullies. I try to fight back but Kenneth punches me on the back making me fall back down.
I know it’s him cause he’s screaming “I’m gon break ya back, fatty”, the entire time.
It takes someone’s momma to come stop them. “What is wrong with y’all! A girl and a little boy?Pick on someone that can fight back!”, she says making us sound like a pair of wussies.
After we tell her that we’re okay, I help Efrain walk to the front of the school where daddy is waiting for us. His eyebrow is swollen and he’s bleeding from it. He’s also crying. I don’t blame him. That beating hurt. Right by the front of the gates I see the redhead again. Her hair looks bright orange in the sun along with the freckles all over her face and hands. She chews on her index and waves at me without lifting her arm. I look back to see who she waves at but when I turn around she’s walking away.
I’m secretly glad we lost, this means daddy can’t whoop me. Kenneth and his goons already did that for him.
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