I think most people have their votes in but I'll keep accepting votes all the way until the tubes!
Vietnam
Chinese hills
Ancient Egypt
Wild West
Deciduous Stowercraft- District Seven male (17)
Debate had always been my passion. When I pleaded with my parents, though, it wasn't just about a hobby. It was literally life-or-death.
"Mom? Dad? There's someone who needs our help," I started as we sat around the dinner table.
"Oh? Who is it?" Mom asked. She and Dad were always ready to help someone in need. We were one of the richer families in Seven and we knew it was important to give back to the less fortunate.
"It's Jude," I started. I ignored the obvious distaste that crossed my parents' faces. They'd never liked my boyfriend. They were always cordial when he was over but I could tell it was the fake polite they did when they either needed to impress someone or wanted some business goal accomplished. In the short few months I'd been dating Jude I'd never even called him my boyfriend. They knew I liked boys but some part of them still hoped Jude wasn't the boy.
"There's a new treatment his parents can't pay for," I pressed on without stopping. My chest went tight as I remembered just yesterday when I heard Jude had been found in the woods pinned under a tree branch. I'd thought he was dead and the news that he was in a coma was almost worse. I couldn't imagine Jude hooked up to a machine until his body died of old age. It was too horrible to think about.
"We're very sorry about Jude, too," Dad said gently. "I know it's hard. Sometimes things happen and there doesn't seem to be any reason. You'll always carry Jude with you but right now you need to focus on yourself. Would you like to talk to someone, like a counselor?"
"No, you should spend the counselor money on helping Jude," I said. My old debate training fired up as I tried right away to establish terms and spin statements into arguments. Dad had just established it wasn't a money problem. That meant it was only a willingness problem and that was a lot easier to change.
"We don't even know if it will work, honey," Mom said. Her voice was sympathetic and lacked the note of finality that would signal she'd made up her mind.
"We have to try. We can't just let him die," I said.
"There are things here you don't know about," Dad said. I wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. Mom and Dad didn't like Jude because he was poor but sometimes I got the feeling they just didn't like him personally. Sometimes they seemed afraid for me to be with him.
In the end it wasn't my debate skills that convinced them. I felt all that fall away and spoke for once entirely from emotion.
"I love him," I said, my voice faltering. "I love Jude and I want to spend my life with him. I'll wait as long as it takes."
Mom and Dad looked at each other and their resolve broke.
"We'll see what we can do," Mom said.
I pretended to finish my food, too overwhelmed with relief and fragile hope to eat and too near tears to try anyway. I loved debate but all the wins and all the accomplishments of my juvenile career couldn't compare to what I'd just accomplished.
Petra Ridley- District Seven female (15)
Daisy and I sat on my bed, me on my stomach with my legs kicking lazily and her flopped halfway over the edge of the bed and about to fall off. On the way home from school we'd talked about painting our nails or maybe drawing some pictures but so far we'd just sat around and talked.
"He winked at me in math class," Daisy said, running a hand through her hair at the happy memory.
"He winked at everyone in math class," I said of her beau. Daisy had eyes for Roger- in my opinion, a pretty average-looking guy at our school. Unfortunately Roger had eyes for everyone. He thought he was God's gift to women and he was apparently attractive enough that many of the girls thought so as well. He'd go out with Daisy, sure- as long as he could go out with everyone else as well.
"You just don't get it because you don't want romance," Daisy said. "Some of us do."
"It's just you can do better," I said. Daisy was too cool to settle for a guy who wouldn't treat her right. I didn't anyone to be with someone who didn't treat them right but it was even harder when the person was your best friend.
Daisy leaned a little too far over and slid off the bed in a heap. She climbed back on and flopped next to me.
"You wanna make some cookies or something?" she asked. It was one of those boring days where you have to make your own fun. "I just read that you can use condensed milk instead of eggs. Then we can eat the dough."
"We would have anyway," I pointed out as I launched myself off the bed to follow her to the kitchen.
"Do you even have condensed milk?" Daisy asked.
"What's the difference between that and evaporated milk?" I wondered aloud.
"I wonder what happens when you put them together," Daisy said as we reached the kitchen.
"They're both like three-quarters of milk so if you put them together you'd get like 1.5 milk," I said.
"They're both really goopy though so it would be really soupy milk," Daisy said, echoing my thoughts.
"Wonder what happens if you put 1.5 milk in cookies," I said.
"Let's make one test sheet with like five cookies so if they're runny or flat or something we can just eat the dough and not waste all the ingredients," Daisy said.
"And we should make butter cookies since that's the most forgiving recipe," I said. The day was looking better already. Sometimes life isn't a grand adventure. For everyone who has an exciting and noteworthy life there are dozens of people living normal, mundane lives. But even those lives weren't really mundane. Everyone had their own memories and their own funny stories to share. There were millions of people in the world and every second of every day they were all living original lives like no one else ever had or ever will.
Petra: A small girl with a mediocre appearance. Brown eyes that goes along with her braided brown hair. Some liver spots on her arms, and her face has acne. Petra is also thin as a stick.
Deciduous: Kind of like a less attractive, teenage version of Colin Meloy.