Moonman, Starman
/
It's one of those days, Arron thinks, when everything is boring—even the ocean. He's been swimming and building sand castles for over two hours now, since early morning, and now the sun is high and he is starting to get bored, even at the ocean.
He pulls himself onto the sand and reaches for the worn blue towel with frayed edges to dry himself off. He tucks his knees into his chest and stares out into the expanse of blue, and his mother swimming alone, staring at the sky. She's strangely quiet and thoughtful today, not wanting to splash or race with him. She's been so ever since Auntie Johanna left to go to a wedding in Seven, her home district. She won't be back for at least another week. His thumbs twiddle with a piece of rope.
"Mom?" he asks. When the bobbing brown head in the distance does not answer, he sighs and joins his mother in the water, his short but skilled limbs splashing through the water until he is close enough to tap his mother on the shoulder.
She jumps—if possible in the water—and then turns around, her pretty green eyes looking blue next to the water (Arron's always been told his look just like his mother's). "Oh, it's just you, Arron. What is it? Are you tired? Do you want to go home?"
He shakes his head. "You can stay here. I know how much you love swimming." It's true. His mother enjoys swimming even more than him—which is saying something. "I just want to see the stand over there." He points at a stand where a fisherman is selling fish and nets, not too far away.
After a nod from his mother and a don't go too far warning, he gives a small salty kiss onto her cheek and rushes towards the stand. He knows the fisherman at the stand; it's Jason, and Jason is very nice, always sneaking him fish and teaching him how to tie knots if he isn't too busy. Jason's only problem, Arron thinks with a giggle, is that he is too old. (In truth Jason is not old at all, Jason only thirty or so but to seven-year-old Arron, thirty seems ancient.)
He runs to the stand, as fast as his legs can carry him, when all of a sudden, he's on the sand and his knees feel raw. He looks up and finds two faces leering at him and feels a pit of dread developing in his stomach, because it's Helmer and Oran Kyler, who are twins in sixth grade and for some reason, always very mean to everyone. Just his luck that he would run into them today.
"Where are you going, squirt?" asks one of them. Arron can't tell if it's Helmer or Oran. They are identical except one has a bump on his nose and the other doesn't. Arron flicks back and forth the two ugly, mean faces and thinks, Maybe if I ignore them, they'll stop bothering me. So he pretends he didn't hear them and stands up.
But when Arron doesn't answer, one of the boys pushes him back to the ground and repeats through a sneer, "I asked where you were going."
"To the fisherman's stand!" He points at Jason and tries to get back up, but the moment he does, he is just pushed back down again.
"I-if you don't stop bothering me, my d-daddy will come and b-beat you up!" he threatens, although his stammering makes him sound not very threatening.
"You don't have a father!" Helmer shoots back.
"I do too have a father!" he shouts. "His name is Finnick, and he has my eyes, and he was really famous!"
"Liar!" Oran exclaims. "Your father isn't Finnick Odair! Where is he then, huh?"
"I-I don't know!"
"You mean you don't know what happened to him?" Oran asks, and just for a moment, a look of pity fleets across his face, but it is replaced by the signature ugly sneer so quickly that Arron wonders if he just imagined it.
"He must have abandoned you because you were so ugly!" Helmer screeches. The two twins hoot with laughter again, and one of them throws sand into his eyes. For some reason, the comment about his father hurts him more than his knees and the sand in his eyes. He tucks his knees in and tries very hard not to cry, wondering how he will get out of this mess.
"Leave him alone!" says an angry but soothingly familiar voice. He looks up and see his mother, looking so angry that her wet hair may just begin smoking.
"Leave my son alone!" she repeats.
"Okay, okay," say the boys at the sight of Annie's glare. But before they leave, Oran whispers, "You're lucky your mommy was here to save you this time, squirt. Next time, answer us if we ask you a question."
Arron whimpers.
"Are you okay?" Annie asks, stroking his hair and fussing over his skinned knees.
"I'm fine, Mom," he answers, slightly embarrassed but mostly relieved.
"Come on, Arron, I'll take you home."
Arron nods and bites his lip. "Mom—what-what happened to Daddy?"
And there is no answer. His mother simply looks up at the sky.
\
"They're jerks," his best friend, Elidia, says when he later tells her the tale of the bullies. "It's like they need to pick on someone else to be happy."
He nods, agreeing with her. "But that's not what I've been thinking of lately. I mean, the Kyler twins are always like that. I was just thinking of Dad." He lies down on the beach sand, staring at the sky. "Whenever Mom talks about him, she stares at the sky. I wonder why?"
"Maybe he's the man on the moon!" Elidia exclaims. Arron rolls his eyes. Elidia Robenson is Jason's cousin, one year younger than him, and usually very rational and fun to be with, but honestly, sometimes she says the oddest things.
"I don't think so," he says slowly. "Maybe he really did abandon me. Maybe he went to another District. Like Doctor Everdeen, she's really from District Twelve, you know? Or maybe he was on a fishing trip and he got stuck on an island but he's coming back and looking for me. Or maybe he's off on a tour because he's a famous celebrity. Or maybe—"
"Maybe he's the man on the moon!"
They are silent for a while. And Arron thinks of his father, the one his mother never talks about, Finnick Odair. Everyone in District Four knows who Finnick Odair is: a famous, good-looking Victor, a winner, a celebrity, a warrior, a hero. But for some reason, no one ever tells him what happened to Finnick, why he isn't around anymore or never comes to visit him. Whenever he asks, grown-ups will change the subject and start to whisper amongst themselves. Sometimes he thinks he is the only one who does not know what happened to Finnick Odair.
"I wish I knew where he was," he mutters. "I really want a Dad."
"I still think he's the man on the moon," Elidia says stubbornly.
\
A week passes. Auntie Johanna comes back, surly as ever.
"How was the wedding?" Annie asks.
"Like all weddings are, I guess," she answers. "Love, blahblahblah. Yuck!"
"You never like weddings, Auntie Johanna," Arron says with a giggle. He himself has only gone to one wedding around a year ago, and personally found it a little boring. There was just so much talking! He's never getting married, he thinks.
"That's not true," Johanna says defensively. "I liked your mother and Finnick's—" Then she cuts off all of a sudden, like all adults do whenever Finnick is mentioned around him.
"Auntie Johanna, what happened to him?"
Auntie Johanna says nothing, simply looks up, as always.
\
He comes down with a cold the next day and takes a day off from school. It's boring and stuffy inside the blankets, and all he wants to do is get out of the bed and to the ocean. Instead, he sleeps and eats soup and stares at the ceiling, hoping that he'll be able to read what the adults read in it.
Elidia comes to visit him, with the day's schoolwork, some small flowers from the schoolyard, and a whisper.
"I still think he's the man on the moon."
\
Night comes. His mother reads him a bedtime story and checks his fever.
"Going down," she announces. "In a few days, you'll be up and running in no time." She kisses his forehead. "Good night, Arron. I love you."
"Love you too, Mom," he mumbles.
His mother leaves and closes the door, and Arron closes his eyes and tries to go to sleep.
Except he can't. It's too stuffy, and he's been sleeping all day. He tosses and turns and wonders about his father and what Elidia says, and why no one every tells him anything, and oh goodness it's too stuffy here and he can't sleep.
So he gives up. He picks up his pillow and decides to go look for Mom, because she always helps him go to sleep. He sneaks over to the bedroom, and finds no one there except Auntie Johanna, snoring loudly. He giggles and goes to look for his mother elsewhere. Maybe she couldn't sleep either and is eating a midnight snack. He goes towards the kitchen, but then he hears a voice, coming from the balcony window.
It's his mother, talking to the moon.
He gasps.
"Arron?" his mother asks, having heard his gasp.
"Mom? Why are you talking to the moon?" And then suddenly a realization strikes him. "It's because Elidia was right! Dad is the man on the moon! That's why you're always looking up!"
"No, no," she answers soothingly. She pulls him closer and looks out the balcony. "Not on the moon, Arron. The star. The star right there."
He looks at the star his mother is pointing to, a bright, beautiful thing. "I know that star! It's the North Star! Jason says it leads fishermen home."
"It leads me home too," Annie whispers.
Arron stares at his mother. "So if Dad is up there… that means…" And then it strikes him, and he begins crying because now he understands, not all of it but a little bit of it, and he knows why no one ever tells him and that his father is never coming back.
"Shh, shh," says Annie, holding her son closer. "It means he's watching over us. Always."
\
The next night, he wishes on that star.
For Sylvia, aka glowing neon. This is my February I gift in the Gift Giving Extravaganza.
This is a companion fic to Head Over Water. (This one doesn't really directly relate to Head Over Water but it's in the same universe.) I apologise for the utter clicheness of this fic. Review?