Posy had a doll.
Posy used to have a doll.
It was a bit ugly: with dusty, pinkish woolen hair, a head bigger than its body and faded eyes.
Hazelle sewed it with her own hands, using part of her earnings to buy a ball some wall at the market.
Posy really like that doll, because its hair was of her favourite color.
She lost it during the bombings: it fell from her hand when Gale brusquely picked her up whilst shouting to run to the rest of the family.
The little girl yelled in protest, but her screams stayed unheard: the explosion roars were too loud and people were screaming, running blindly through the smoke, trying to reach the fence.
Later, safe in the woods, Posy asked Vick if her doll was dead.
"She's not dead, Pos" the boy tried to reassure her, whilst protectively holding her to him. "She's gone to the sky, like daddy. She's with him, now."
Posy buried her face in Vick's sleeve and close her eyes to hide from what was going on around her. She did not want to see the injured, nor the desperate people asking for help.
However, she did not cry.
Because Seam children never threw tantrums.
Posy used to have a friend.
Her names was Prim and she always smiled at her, even when her stomach was grumbling or if they were both shivering for the cold.
Posy really liked Prim: she was kind and often did her braids and closed them with pink bands, because it was Posy's favourite color.
Posy lost Prim too because of the bombs, the day her friend left for Capitol City: she found out a week later, when Gale came back from District 13.
At first, the little girl reckoned that her brother was ill, because he was eating very little and he did not sleep well at night. He got angry when Posy begged him to play with her and, when his sister tried her best to catch his attention, he never looked her in the eyes. He didn't even speak with Rory anymore.
That situation tired Posy out.
One evening, while Gale was resting in the unit, the little girl approached him and started crying, angrily throwing his sheets and pillow on the floor.
She felt sad: she missed her doll, she missed Prim and, to her, Gale really looked ill. She was scared that the sky took him from her, such as it did with her father.
Whilst crying, she felt Gale's stroke on her head. Posy stopped pulling his sheets and curled up on the bed beside him.
Gale kept avoiding her gaze: he was staring at his uniform, which was leaning untidily on a chair. Posy noticed that he looked sad, more than ill. Slowly, she started to calm down.
"Maybe Prim is playing with my doll in the sky" she murmured to comfort herself, whilst drying her cheeks with the back of her hand.
She smiled at her brother, but he did not return the smile.
Despite this, Posy soon stopped crying and curled up to her brother.
Because Seam children never threw tantrums.
I'm sorry for the grammar/spelling/syntactic mistakes: I'm Italian and I tried to translate this flash fiction in order to improve my written English. Hopefully, I'll get better in time.
Thank you for reading. I hope to hear from you!
Laura