District 5 is a nice place to be, I guess. I've never taken the time to explore it much, nor do I really want to. I walk the same beaten path every day from school to home and back again.
It's five o'clock when I leave school. The tenth year of school has just started in mid-July. I've avoided being reaped for the Hunger Games again last month. I kick a rock off the sidewalk with my shoe. The girl that was reaped I didn't know. She was two grades older than me, eighteen years old, grade twelve. She won't win. Fives never do. My hands get sweaty thinking about it, plus the added height of the summer and the long walk across the district to home. I avoid the topic then. My hands can't be sweaty right now because I have five large textbooks that I'm bringing home with me today. They aren't for homework.
By the time most of the students get to the tenth grade, they have either dropped out of school entirely or rarely show up. Homework is never required and rarely assigned. The classroom remains half empty most days. I'm okay with that. It just means that I always get the front seat. I never used to push or argue for it though, just slunk in the background, unlike the fights the others used to get into. Back in the early days of my schooling, I used to hope they would get reaped for causing such a rift in the daily activities of the school room. Now, I've realized that no one should get that fate pushed onto them.
I'm not even halfway home and the books are starting to wear on my arm. The sign introducing the Victor's Village looms next to me. We have few victors in five. Four, to be exact, and most of them are old or middle aged. I can't remember a victor being brought home.
My aunt will surely be upset for not being at home in time. Or she will not even know I was gone. I have five younger brothers and sisters, not yet school age, meaning that my aunt's hair is turning gray. I'm supposed to be home before dinner, which is normally around six. My parents both have good jobs here in the district. My father is an equipment manager at the wind plant. He makes sure that the windmills are turning correctly, getting the right amount of air, harvesting. He's tried to teach me the ways it works. I don't really care for that though. My mother is the one who I want to follow. She's a system analyst at the solar plant. I've seen the glowing panels, the intensity of her job. This is what I yearn for, why I bring home geometry and chemistry books from school.
I'm passing the town square now. It's mostly gray, except the outside of the mayor's office that was once painted yellow, but is now chipping away. In the middle, a large radiant sun made of metal glows. The sun has a clock in the middle. The metal has rusted over on the tips of the sunburst. For some reason, I hate that sun. I walk a bit faster in order to get out of its sight.
Finally, I've reached the lines of townhouses. In the distance, the three plants loom; nuclear, solar, and wind power. Our houses are far away. This is where the rich live, the people that can afford to pay enough money to be distanced from the possibilities of an explosion. The houses closer to the plants are for the poor. Everyone lives close together, thanks to the small population of the district (it's actually the smallest.) We don't have to get tesserae most often, no one does really.
Instead of opting to continue along the sidewalk, I cut through the tall grasses in the backyards of the first row of townhouses. Mine is the fifth. I enter through the back door. It is the easiest way to sneak up to my room, drop my books off, change my clothing, and head back into the kitchen without being attacked by children. After shaking my black boots off, I head upstairs. The steps and the landing is scattered with toys, pacifiers, and books about a child with a toy rabbit. Thankfully, my small room is right next to the staircase. Actually my 'room' is more like a closet. The bed is lined up against the back wall, a few pieces of random wood are lined up next to it, and underneath that is a plain cardboard box where I drop all the books, both the ones I have to take back to school and the ones I have for myself. To keep, to reread. Exactly five is it, but those five I've determined to keep in pristine condition. All of my clothes, also kept in two cardboard boxes, are behind the door. That is my room, small and often cold, but it is mine. The one place where my younger siblings have not fully taken over. I change my polo shirt, the one that is required to wear at work and therefore school, and into another cheap one, made of thin orange cotton. I tie it in the back with a rubber band because it is almost two sizes too large. It's one of the problems of being thin and short. Nothing seems to fit.
I pull open the closet door and slip quietly through the children's playroom, what was once a regular living space, and into the kitchen. My aunt is manning the large pan over the stove, filled with a plethora of ingredients that vary from night to night. Sometimes it's vegetables, other times it's meat. We don't get much of that though. Animals don't come in this area because of all the heavy machinery, so we have nothing to hunt, and therefore no meat. We normally cook it in some type of broth and make soup out of it.
"Marissa, good to see you finally came home," Aunt Terry says, stirring the soup. Aunt Terry is a regular middle aged woman, without a job or children. She lives with us and my mother, her sister, doesn't make her pay, just take care of us kids. "Can you bring out some bowls, lay them on the table?" I don't respond, but I get out the bowls that we bought in the market. They are uneven and badly painted orange, a couple have chips in them. Aunt Terry sighs when all four of my siblings tumble into the room, each holding a stick they must've gotten from the tree in the backyard.
"Dinner isn't ready yet! Get out of the kitchen!" she shouts, brushing a few loose strands back into her bandanna. I set the table, the bowls and the spoons. Mother and father won't be home for a while, but I keep their place reserved.
My days are exhausting and long. After dinner, I will hole up in my room with my stack of books and terms to memorize. While others may consider me a nerd, I'm just working to my future. As long as the Hunger Games don't get to it first.
Thank you for reading my newest story! I'm so excited to get into Foxface (or Marissa's) head a little bit more and explore all that District 5 has to offer! Please let me know what you thought by reviewing.