Sorry Martin's is short. I had a hard time trying to be accurate but also bearing in mind that he's a faker and doesn't really have Tourettes. I was looking up common symptoms but at the same time Martin probably can't just look things up on Google so they might not match.

Martin Jackman- District Seven male, 15

I bounced my leg as I sat cramped behind my desk. Seven didn't get a lot of funding and we often had to reuse desks from whatever class had the least students. This year it was fourth grade that was empty, after an outbreak of measles. We were waiting for our tests to get handed back so a lot of us were nervous. I wasn't very nervous, since school had always been easy for me, but I still fidgeted a lot. It wasn't because I was scared, I just had a disorder. It made me move around or say things without meaning to. I hadn't always been that way. It just started a few years ago.

My shoulder jerked up against my ear. I looked around to see if anyone had seen but most people were looking at Miss Hannigan as she straightened the papers on her desk. Once more my shoulder jerked up without me intending it. It just happened whenever it wanted. It happened more if I was nervous or upset but sometimes it just happened. It always tended to act up more when there were a lot of people around.

"All right, class, most of you did very well." Miss Hannigan stood up with the pile of papers. She went down the front row of desks and started handing out papers.

"If anyone isn't satisfied with their grade they can see me after class and I prepared an extra credit assignment." She said. "It's just a few point bu-"

"Just a few points but." I blurted out. Miss Hannigan looked up at the noise but just gently smiled when she saw it was me. She was always very patient with my difficulties.

"It will help boost you a bit any-"

"Just a few points but. Just a few points but." I should have been embarrassed, but at this point I was pretty used to it. I was open about my condition and even got some friends after they saw I was cool about it.

"Just a few points but." I looked over and saw Rowan looking at me with a mocking expression. One of the girls next to him tittered.

"Rowan, that's not nice," Miss Hannigan scolded him.

"I can't help it! I have the Tourette's!" Rowan moaned.

"Do you think this is a joke?" I asked.

"SOME of us do." he said.

"Rowan," Miss Hannigan said, more firmly.

I sank down in my seat and felt my shoulder hit my ear again. A lot of people didn't understand what it was like to be me. It wasn't like I liked all the weird movements, and blurting things out. To make things worse, until that had happened, I hardly even got noticed by my family. Between my troublemaking oldest brother and my perfect golden child second brother, it was like I was a ghost. Being like this was often embarrassing and eye-catching but at least my parents looked at me sometimes.

"A joke. A joke." I said, louder than I expected. A couple of the other kids looked up and I was glad to see most of them seemed sympathetic. I still had a lot of friends despite being fidgety. I was glad people liked me for me.

"Next up we have-" Miss Hannigan started.

"Next up next up next up." I said.

"We'll be learning about the water cycle-"

"Cycle. Water cycle." I cleared my throat- another one of my tics. Miss Hannigan gave me a look that said she was trying to be loving and patient but sometimes it was hard to deal with me. I understood and wasn't really mad. I did take up a lot of space and make a lot of noise. People always noticed me. Sometimes I kind of liked it.

Desiree Redwood, District Seven female (17)

I'm a simple person. I have big strong arms and I like pulling big heavy things. It was really lucky I was born in Seven. If I'd been born in Three I'd be bored and I I'd been born in One I'd probably have made some Peacekeeper mad and gotten myself killed. Instead I got to live in Seven, where the air smelled like pine needles and the trees were even taller than I was.

It wasn't everyone who could match arms with Jack Little. As is so often the case with people named something like that, he wasn't. He was three inches taller than me and I was six foot five. He had arms like oak branches and he didn't even need to work out to be massive, it just came naturally from our work.

My arm, all tan from my outdoor job, was beaded with sweat and trembling as I pushed against his hand. He was definitely stronger than me. I was woman enough to admit that. I was strong but I wasn't the strongest person in the world. Neither was Jack, probably. I wasn't sure though.

"Come on Des!" Peony cheered from behind me. I had a lot of supporters in the crowd. Some people just want to see the littler guy win. Other people cheered for me because I had a lot of friends. I was a happy, friendly girl. Making friends is easy if you just ask people about their day and are ready to chip in when there's an especially heavy log.

Jack was sweating, too. Not as much as I was, but I could see he was struggling. I was lighter but he wasn't used to a challenge at all. That, and I'd been arm-wrestling for a long time. I had some tricks and strategies that could add to my raw strength. I knew about angles, and how to sit, and how to pace myself so I could eventually just wear my opponent out.

This match was no joke. Sometimes we played merely for the honor of the game, but sometimes we played for bets. Today, with such an important match between two of the crew's best arm-wrestlers, the stakes were high. Loser ate an entire stick of butter. The lunch pancakes were already on the griddle, lunch break being the only reason we had time for this match. Lumberjacks needed a lot of calories. Our employers may have been skimpy with the equipment, or with the hard hats, but they always gave us plenty of food. We even had butter for our pancakes.

I was weakening. Jack was too, but I knew outlasting him wouldn't work on its own. I couldn't let down all my adoring fans. There were cute girls watching! I doubled down and shifted my weight to try to force Jack's hand down. He did the same back to me.

"You can do it, Des!" someone yelled.

"He's on the ropes now!" Someone else offered. I kind of felt back for Jack. It wasn't that people didn't like him, he had plenty of friends. I just had more friends, or else it would be cooler to see me win.

That was what gave me the idea. Sometimes you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. You ALWAYS catch more flies with honey than vinegar, I guess. I just said it wrong in my head.

"Go get her, Jack!" I yelled.

Jack looked up in confusion. For an instant his eyes went over the crowd to see who had said it, before he realized the noise had come from right next to his face- had come from me.

I nodded in encouragement and flashed a smile. "Yeah, you can do it!"

Jack's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. He cocked his head just a little bit and he relaxed his hand just a little bit, out of sheer confused hesitation. I smacked his arm down on the table before he could recover. I leaped up from the table and raised my arms over my head.

"Winner!"