Chapter Ten: Please Prove You're Not a Robot
The Day Where You Set Out Your Best Outfit
Sotia Vance, District Three Female
It's been two weeks since school let out, and I haven't been this happy since last summer.
Every day feels so much easier now. Frankly, I'm sick of endlessly being expected to be some sort of genius and be able to magically solve everyone's problems. Now, all I have to be is a fifteen-year-old girl.
It's nice to actually be treated like that and not like some walking, talking grade boost for once. In most of my classmates' eyes, that's all I am or ever will be. But in the summer, since we part ways and don't see each other again until school starts back up, that's no longer a concern.
For now, the only concern is making sure my two little sisters, Sailey and Tarin, don't do something stupid and get themselves killed while my father is at work. Because if that happens, I'm the one who's getting blamed.
"Sailey, Tarin, what did I tell you about sliding down the banister?"
Tarin's expression immediately morphs into a pout. "Sotia, please! We want to do this!"
"Well, you wanted to do it last time, too. And I wonder what happened then? I'll give you three guesses."
Her face screws up in concentration and turns an odd shade of pink. After a few seconds, though, a lightbulb of some kind appears to go off in her head. But, judging by her response, that lightbulb is broken.
"I made it all the way down and looked super awesome?"
I let out a groan. "Last time you tried, you fell over the banister halfway down and got a concussion. You were stuck in a hospital bed for a week, and of course I was the one who got blamed for letting it happen."
"It won't happen again! Pretty please?"
I hold firm, despite her pleading. "Sorry, but no."
Tarin begins crying a little, then stomps off to the room that the three of us share. Sailey quickly follows.
All I do is roll my eyes. I know my sisters are only ten and seven, respectively. But I don't remember being this impractical or stupid when I was their age.
Although, now that the two of them are in a secluded area, I can enjoy a little peace and quiet.
That much-coveted peace and quiet only lasts about ten minutes.
That's when Sailey and Tarin finally finish their pouting and come out of our room. Then, Sailey grabs the remote and turns on the battered TV to watch cartoons.
I'm fine with that. While they're occupied with the bright colors, I can go back to my room and maybe figure out why the electronic memory game Sailey got for her tenth birthday isn't working. (I'm not doing it out of the goodness of my heart or any of that crap. It would just be helpful to have something else to keep my sisters occupied if the cartoons stop being interesting.)
Quietly, I leave the living room and enter the small bedroom the three of us share. Picking up the rickety machine, I sit down on my bed's mismatched sheets, expose the insides of her game, and get to work.
It doesn't take long to figure out what the problem is, thankfully. One of the wires is loose, meaning that it's not sending any signals. This makes the game completely unplayable.
Grinning like a fiend, I quietly jam the loose wire back into the socket and test the game. Despite the screechy electronic voice grating on my ears, I manage to get a score of nine before I conclude that the game is functional again.
But I'm not showing Sailey yet. I plan to pull it out when the cartoons finally get boring- it'll make the time frame where they can hurt themselves doing something stupid smaller.
Eventually, I decide to just sit down on the couch and watch the cartoons with them- not because I enjoy them, but more because some of them are so mind-numbingly dull that watching them is the equivalent of sleeping: you get the same amount of sensory input from each activity.
Plopping down next to the two of them, I stare at the screen, hoping that the next episode will be of something so that I can easily zone out while watching.
After about an hour and a half of bright, flashing colors mixed in with deadpan voices, Dad finally makes it home.
He looks- and sounds- exhausted. He just manages to get out "Hey, guys, I'm home," and then he collapses in an easy chair.
I don't blame him, to be honest. He's already taken on a part-time job in addition to his full-time job to try and support all four of us so that the three of us don't have to drop out of school. The one time the three of us actually came to his factory's "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day," it became clear that Dad had to be pretty resilient in order to make it through those nightmarish eight-hour shifts. Mostly because he's expected to instinctively know exactly what needs to be done exactly as it happens like he's some sort of psychic. And if he doesn't get it perfectly right, the man who owns a chain of factories personally comes to the factory Dad works at to yell at him. (We saw that happen that day. I think Sailey and Tarin learned at least five new curse words during that exchange.)
Now that Dad's home, though, I decide to go for a walk. Not an especially long one- just one that'll allow me to do something semi-productive for ten minutes.
So, I quickly tell Dad, "I'm going to go for a quick walk, is that OK?"
"Sure thing, just be back before dinner," his tired voice responds.
At that, I quietly walk out our apartment door, close it behind me, and head down the stairs.
Five minutes in, I've covered a reasonable enough distance, so I turn back.
The sights have remained the same as always, despite time passing by- ugly building after ugly building after ugly building. A single, skeletal tree in the vacant lot a few blocks away that always seems close to snapping under its own weight. Sparse flowers and grass occasionally dot the front yards of these buildings, but most of them are just made of cracking pavement and concrete. Even the sky is obscured by thick gray clouds and even thicker gray smoke.
The walk away from the house was uneventful. However, as I'm making my way back down along the pitted sidewalk, I pass by a group of girls who, unfortunately, I recognize from school. They're Veronica, Ashley, and Dayta- our school's three-person "snobby rich girls" clique.
In all honesty, I hope they make some stupid comment about me. Then, I can give them exactly what they deserve.
They do not disappoint.
Ashley, the self-appointed leader of the three of them, makes the first move. "If it isn't little miss baby-face! Do I need to make a bottle for you? Maybe change your diaper?"
All I keep thinking, despite the insults, is they'll never even know what hit them.
So instead, I fire back. "Why hello, Miss I-Needed-To-Bribe-The-Teacher-To-Pass-The-Easiest-English-Exam-In-Existence! How can I help you?"
Before you ask how I know that, it honestly was pretty common knowledge throughout the school. Everyone knew about it when it happened. I was probably the first to call her on it, though.
Ashley turns bright red, and I can practically see the steam coming out of her ears. Clearly, that insult hit close to home.
Dayta immediately takes her place, leaning down so her face is approximately one inch away from mine. "Oh, please. At least we aren't part of a group of the biggest nerds in existence, unlike someone."
Seriously? That's the best you could come up with?
"Well, also unlike someone, I'm not wearing about fifty pounds of makeup! Although, you could use it, considering you have so many pimples!"
She stops sneering, and her expression changes to a glare. "How do you know that?"
"Because you didn't even do a good job hiding them! You look like you're about to audition for the role of a drunk clown!"
She gasps and clenches her fists. What I've learned from my miserable school year of being around them is that the number-one way to get her and most of her friends riled up is insulting their makeup-applying abilities. They quickly resort to throwing punches (or at least they try, their punches are so weak it's only slightly more painful than being hit with a cottonball) whenever this is called into question.
However, for once, they seem to not resort to a fistfight. Maybe they don't want to ruin their makeup any further than they already have.
Instead, Veronica shoves me away, hard, hisses something unintelligible under her breath, and leads the other two back down the street where they came from.
Wow, that felt awesome, I think as I head back home.
When I finally get home, the cartoons are still on.
Dad's making dinner and both Sailey and Tarin are camped out in front of the TV and its bright, flashing colors. With nothing left to do for the next couple of minutes, I decide to just wait in the kitchen for dinner.
Soon enough, it's ready. However, it's not exactly the most fancy thing in existence- we just suffered the unfortunate event of Tarin discovering macaroni and cheese. She likes it so much that now we have it, like, every other night. (It being super inexpensive only compounds that problem.)
Just as expected, the pot of macaroni and cheese hits the table, rattling it so badly I'm afraid it's going to snap in half. A portion of leftover salad from yesterday that might be large enough to feed a mouse sits beside it.
Needless to say, Dad and I barely touch the stuff, having gotten sick of macaroni and cheese by now, but Sailey and Tarin each eat more that I think should be physically possible for them to hold down.
After that spectacle (accompanied by some monumental burping between the two of them) dinner is quickly cleaned up after, and we start doing all the normal things we usually do before bed.
All seems well until Tarin asks a fateful question: "Daddy, what should I put out to wear tomorrow for the big ceremony?"
All of a sudden, Dad stirs a little from his spot. "Crap. Tomorrow's Reaping Day. Do all of you have your formal outfits ready?"
"Yes, Dad," all three of us instantly respond. The last time we wore them was for… I guess last year at the Reapings. My memory seems to be blank from now until then.
Sure enough, as the three of us go to our room and fish through the closet we share, we all find or Reaping Day outfits, all of them impossibly clean, and put them down on a bench for tomorrow.
Then, my exhausted state gets the better of me, and I quietly head for the shower to clean off.
I crawl under the covers of the bed I've had since age four, preparing to sleep.
Sailey and Tarin are already asleep, less than five feet away from me. Sailey is mumbling nonsense, and while Tarin's chest is rising and falling, she doesn't seem to be doing anything else.
Everything has become so soothing. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out...
Finally, I give in to my tiredness and let the night envelop me.
Everything slides away peacefully, and the world fades to black.
Author's Notes:
-Thanks to Professor R. J. Lupin1 for sending in Sotia.
-Coming up next is IciclePower33's first (and only) tribute, the D8M.
-Sorry this took so long. I had midterms last week, and while they went fine for the most part, they didn't leave me with a ton of time to write. Hopefully, this next chapter will be out faster.
-Thanks for sticking with me for this long. See you next chapter!