Chapter 2: Prologue 2 - The little girl in the park

[Oct. - Dec. 2370 AD – POV Timotheus Mellark – Appacolia, District Twelve, Panem]

A few days before my final semester at the local university was going to start, I walked home from one of the afternoon lectures; dusk was already close when I strolled through one of the nice city parks we had in Appacolia. This was my home city, and I still lived here with my parents and siblings in one big house; we got along quite well, and there was no need to move out just for the sake of being independent and on my own, although some other students claimed that this was a step which was overdue. Appacolia had been founded as the new capital city of District Twelve shortly after the final rebellion, and thanks to lots of immigrants from other districts and also from Europe it had been growing and developing nicely since the days of its official foundation more than one century ago, in the year 2260, one year after the last Hunger Games had been staged.

Peeta Mellark, co-winner of the 74th Hunger Games, was one of my ancestors, and the Mellark family line had always had at least one gifted baker in each generation. Peeta՚s oldest brother Ryan, the one who had married Katniss' younger sister, Primrose Everdeen, had actually assisted in early city planning, and according to what I had learned, he had been part of the scouting party selecting the site, while traveling around in a zeppelin in the year prior to the official dedication celebration. The site had been well selected, and they could not have done much better. The summers were on the hot side in our sub-tropical climate, but the ground was very fertile, which was good for growing food. Every few years a hurricane brought excess humidity and some flooding, but since the first few such events the infrastructure had been improved and adapted, and everybody knew that certain low areas close to rivers and creeks were not suitable for habitation. Still in the years of Mayor Undersee, precise maps with contour lines had been drawn to show those areas.

There was no comparison to the mega cities we had had before the Great War and the climatic cataclysm, of course, but that was a good thing, as most of us preferred the lower population density, smaller buildings and more diverse city layout to the earlier condensed big cities with lots of skyscrapers and little nature, specifically in the former major metropolitan areas of this continent like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and so on; most of those areas were flooded and below sea level nowadays anyway, since the ocean had risen more than 150 meters in total before and during the climatic apocalypse.

I was attending lectures to study 'ecological engineering' at the local university, just like my cousin did in Erlangen, and I was about to get my degree soon. The university here in Appacolia had only been founded a few decades ago, and although my father had suggested to attend one of the more prestigious and established universities, like the one in the Capitol or the big university in District Sixteen, I had insisted to stay here. I had attended a few semesters elsewhere, though, too, but the environment here was exactly what I liked. This was home, after all, and I enjoyed being home very much.

Just when I was deep in my thoughts pondering one of the few open issues in my final thesis, I heard a child crying, and I saw a little girl, maybe three or four years old, sitting on a park bench all on her own. I recognized that particular bench right away, as it was my favorite one. Whenever I could and the weather was nice enough, I went to the park and sat here or somewhere close, watching birds and insects on and around the nearby lake and the many plants and flowers around; this was a very nice environment for learning or, lately, adding some content and making corrections to my thesis.

When I saw the little girl on 'my' bench, my first thought was to walk away, as this was not my business, and surely her parents would arrive at any moment, sit next to her and comfort her. Alas, no parents arrived, and the girl's sobbing continued. As the sun was already going down, I was getting worried about her, and when I looked at her again and she raised her head to look at me, I thought about my baby sister – this could have been her! Besides, the little girl on the bench was one of the prettiest girls I had ever seen; she had long dark hair, tanned or bronze skin, and the most endearing gray eyes I had ever seen. Her looks were right like the typical 'Seam' people of the former coal mining community in the original district. I just knew that I had to ask what her problem was, and thus I stepped closer to her and asked:

"Hello beautiful, can I help you with something?"

She did not respond, but the tears ebbed down while she looked at me.

"What is your name? My name is Timotheus, but you can call me Tim, if you want."

I normally insisted on my full name to be used, but I made exceptions for close family and children. Pronunciation was a little tricky, as I knew, at least for those who did not speak the German language.

Eventually I got a reply:

"I am Posy."

Well, that was at least something.

"So, what are you doing here all on your own, Posy? Are your parents around?"

She shook her head.

"Is there somebody else who is with you?"

"Vick and Rory are somewhere, but they are lost."

Hm, more likely she got lost, but still.

"Who are Vick and Rory? Are they somewhere around, you think?"

"Vick and Rory are my brothers."

"Well, what about that? Shall we go and look for them together?"

Posy beamed at me and nodded. Thus, I lifted her on my shoulders and we went off to search. After about ten minutes we saw a group of boys playing football on a meadow, at the other end of the park, in semi-darkness. When I stepped closer, Posy suddenly started to squirm and shouted out: "Rory!"

One of the boys, maybe 14 or 15 years old, looked at us, and when he saw Posy on my shoulders, he ran over:

"Posy, what are you doing here?"

"Young man," I explained, "I found this little beauty at the other end of the park, crying and all lost and on her own."

"Oh, thank you so much. Vick was supposed to be with her today, but I guess that he forgot again. By the way, I am Rory Hawthorne."

"Nice to meet you; I am Timotheus Mellark."

While I handed over Posy to him, he looked at me and asked: "Are you Primrose's big brother?"

"Yes, I am" I replied. "How do you know Primrose?"

"We are in the same class at school, and she has mentioned her family."

Rory and Posy had to leave to find Vick and go home, and I turned around, too, after I had delivered Posy to her brother. Why was it, I pondered while walking home, that almost all of the pretty girls I met where totally out of my age range? It was easy to talk to a little girl for sure, but whenever I encountered a nice girl close to my own age, I did not know what to say and what to do.

A few days later I wrote a letter to my cousin and mentioned my recent encounter. We were very close and had a habit to write real handwritten letters from time to time, like a few times a year, rather than doing all communication via electronic means. Encountering disappointments in our love life – or, more precisely, our lack of it – was something my cousin and I had in common.

Timotheus Sinterguth, my cousin and best friend, had had one meager attempt to have a girlfriend a few years ago, but this had not worked as expected and ended very badly. According to what he had written and had also told me on the phone, they had been together for a short time, but it had turned out that the young lady was more interested in getting his help with something than anything else; she had attempted to lure him into some very dubious and shady activities. He had managed to get out just in time, but he was clearly better off without her. A few girls had learned about his family and pedigree and had tried to get close to him to extract money, too.

That was something rich people had to go through from time to time, and I had also had my share of 'friends' trying to milk me for money. I was very fortunate to have a great family, and I dearly loved my parents and my siblings. Since my youngest sister Ruth, fifteen years my junior, had been born, she had been my unofficial favorite already as a baby, and sometimes she slept in my bed with me more frequently than in her own, specifically whenever she was sick or worried about something.

Ruth, or Ruthie, as she liked to be called by family and friends, was a very social and charming person, and she had a way with people to make practically everybody like and love her. She could walk into a candy store on her own, have staff looking at her and calling out "look at that cute little girl!", and get candies for free. She could sometimes even wrap teachers around her little finger and get away with things, like not doing her homework, where others were admonished for. Fortunately, she did not normally abuse her powers, but she was always ready to help and advise others to the extent possible to her.

When it was just her and me, she liked to talk about lots of things, like who liked whom at kindergarten and later school, who had which kinds of problems, and things like that. My parents were not really patient enough to listen to all of that, but I did not mind at all. On the weekends, we sometimes went to bed early; we were usually side by side in my bed, facing each other, and she talked for an hour or two before sleep overcame her. I do not claim that I really paid attention to all of the details, but that was not actually required – she just needed somebody to listen and to hug her when needed and to tell her that it was really great to think about all of that.

On the other side, Ruth was also willing to listen when I had issues to talk about. Specifically, my efforts to find a girlfriend were very frustrating for me, and when one of those had failed yet again, I sometimes had a few tears coming, and my little baby sister was the one to comfort and soothe me. Such a wonderful family could compensate for a lot, and I really felt blessed to have them.

For homework, Ruth had a desk in my study room as well as in the study room she shared with her older sister Primrose. When Primrose was out and I was in, she used to come to me, and frequently we studied together – she for elementary school, and I for university.

Ruthie also shared a bedroom with her sister Primrose, but Primrose was a more quiet person and more dedicated to learning and studying. She loved her sister, but was not willing to listen for hours at a time, so that Ruthie coming to me for that was always a relieve for her. Primrose and Ruth were best friends when it came to select clothes and such, though; girl's clothes and fashion was a topic I definitely could not cover.

A few times Ruth had been very helpful to get rid of girls who obviously chased me for my money. It was public knowledge that our family – the Mellark clan – was very wealthy, and there was always a girl who wanted to tap that. When I suspected that to happen, I had a plan to find out: I asked the girl for a date in the park on a nice day and talked to her for some time. My little sister Ruth was on a playground close by, and some time later she came running, with face and clothes dirty, jumped into my arms, gave me a wet kiss on the cheek and called out:

"Daddy, can you play with me now, please?"

When that happened, I tried to observe the girl's face, and inevitably I saw disappointment, and in every situation so far, the girl had left very quickly. I was still waiting for a girl my age responding with joy, like 'You have such a cute daughter? Wow!", but that had not happened yet. I was honest enough to myself to know that this was very unlikely to ever happen. Come on, which girl would really want to date a young man who apparently had a daughter from a romance in his teenage years?

In early December I learned that my sister Primrose had a boy being sweet on her. That was not really a surprise; she was quite pretty with her blond hair, pale skin and blue eyes. Ruth told me that the boy was Rory Hawthorne. Ruth always knew almost everything what was going on, and none of us really managed to have secrets from her. Rory Hawthorne? The boy from the park who had lost his little sister Posy? I had told my family about that encounter from weeks ago, and now I needed to ask Primrose again:

"Primrose, tell, what about Rory Hawthorne?"

"What about him, brother? He is in my class."

"I heard some rumors about him and you..."

"Come on, he's just one of those boys who seem to like me. You know quite well that I don't have time for boys."

"Well, just wanted to check. You may recall that I found this little girl in the park, Posy, and her brothers had abandoned her."

"Oh, yes, he told me about that one. Tim, Rory has many siblings, and his mother frequently expects him to babysit the youngest ones, so that he has little time for his friends. Normally they behave quite well in the park and know their way around, but on that day Vick, the little brother, stayed with Rory rather than with his little sister, and things went wrong. Rory really has a hard time, you see, and usually he is quite good with his siblings."

"And how do you know all of that, while not having time for boys?"

"Well, contrary to some other people, we actually talk to each other about various topics, not like some young men I happen to know who just keep their mouths closed and turn away when they encounter young ladies around their own age."

Ouch, that was a clear hint, and directed right at my cousin and me. But there was something else I wanted to ask, thinking about the familiar names; after all, the names of the former Hunger Games participants and their friends in our district was part of history lessons at school:

"Point taken, my dear sister. So, there is Rory, Vick, and Posy; is there also a Gale? Oh, wait, they are the Hawthornes, so of course there is a Gale – Gale senior and Gale junior are with the Rangers!"

"Yes, they are, and there are more of them; there are also Joe, Betty, Lucy, and a few more."

"What, they have so many children?"

"They do have at least a dozen, I think, but it's really three families instead of one. The Hawthorne brothers, Rory's father and his two brothers, all live together on a big farm, and they consider themselves as one big family rather than three. They are good people, and Rory certainly is not one of the worst. Sometimes we study together, actually, but there's nothing more. Although, he'd probably not mind at all to get a little more from me."

"And you are still not into having a boyfriend, right?"

"No, I am certainly not. Having a boyfriend is a waste of time, and I do not see the point."

Primrose was only fourteen years old, so this was an understandable point of view. Besides, who was I to tell her different?

I had met Posy, the little girl who had been on the park bench all alone, a few more times, and usually one of her brothers or cousins – mostly Vick or Rory – were with her. The Hawthornes lived on a farm further out, but they also had a small city house, and sometimes the school kids stayed there during the week, or at least when they had long days, to save the long commute out to the family farm.

On one particular afternoon in early December, when the temperature level was much higher than typical for this time of the year, I met Posy in the same park when I was there together with Ruthie, and the two girls bonded immediately. While they talked and played, I read a letter from my twin cousin which I had just received, and when I was about half way done, Posy came over and asked:

"What you doing?"

"I am reading a letter from my twin cousin."

"What is twin cousin?"

Ruth smiled and explained:

"He and his cousin are almost like twins, you see."

That was not good enough for the curious little girl, and I tried to explain more:

"My mother and my aunt are identical twins. They look exactly like each other, and they also behave in a similar way. They are both married, and they managed to give birth to a son on the same day. Not only that, but they decided on the same name, too – Timotheus."

Little Posy tried to pronounce the name, but failed, and she asked:

"Why not name I can speak?"

I smiled and told her:

"The name 'Timotheus' is taken from the Holy Bible, and that book is very important for my family and me. But, as I said before, you can always call me 'Tim'."

Indeed, Timotheus had been a companion to Paulus in the book of 'Acts' in the Holy Bible. Some people tried to write and pronounce my name 'Timothy' rather than 'Timotheus', but both my cousin and I always insisted on the original version, and only closest family and very good friends – and little children – were allowed to call us 'Tim'. When we were together, family called us 'Tim M' and 'Tim S', or just 'Tim and Tim'.

Our mothers, born and raised in Nürnberg in Bayern, had married into two very different families. My own father and his brother ran the Mellark bakery chain in Appacolia, main city of District Twelve, whereas Uncle Eric and Aunt Claudia worked in the Sinterguth research branch, mostly in our site in Rainbow Valley in Panem. The valley had been owned by family for many centuries, and during the dark times the people in there had survived even though being cut off from the rest of civilization. Fortunately, the area had never been hit by nuclear bombs, and President Snow and his predecessors had not known about the valley. The valley and in particular the family research site was clouded in secrecy, and I knew that something was going on – or rather had been going on since decades or maybe centuries ago – which was not supposed to be known to anybody except closest family. I knew that my twin cousin, being part of that closest family, knew more about that, but this was one of the very few topics he did not share with me, and I fully accepted that.

While my uncle and aunt, parents to my twin cousin, were very ardent workers and had decided that one child was enough, my mother had found a way to combine work, though this was part time only, with family, which included having a maid in the house a few days a week. My cousin sometimes envied me for my siblings, but they loved him almost as much as they loved me, even though we met only once or twice a year.

In the letter I got to the part where my cousin told me about the family he had met, and I told the girls about that. Ruth commented right away:

"Oh, this Rue seems to be so cute. I so hope that I can meet her some time! Does he write how she looks like?"

"He does, by saying that she looks like a younger version of the Rue who had been a tribute in the 74th Hunger Games. And, look here, he added a few photos as well!"

Ruth had heard about the Hunger Games, but was too young to know any details, and Posy did not know anything about our past yet. The dark times with the yearly games had been very cruel and bloody, and most parents preferred to not get their children introduced to the full background until their teenage years at least. A detailed historical review was on the curriculum at school, though, as it was part of our heritage if we liked it or not, and my sister Primrose had recently gone through that, as she had told me.

However, the photos spoke for themselves, and both girls at my side watched them for some time.

When we were at home in the evening, Ruth asked to see the photos again, and when I also explained a little about the Rue from the 74th Hunger Games, Ruth sighed:

"I like her, and they really look similar. What a pity that this Rue in the Games is no longer around!"

"Yes, indeed, but even if she had survived, that would have been more than one hundred years ago, Ruth. Now, if that Rue our cousin found looks so similar to that one, she's going to be a real beauty when she grows up, I guess. Of course, it is really typical that when he finally meets a nice girl she is way too young to be a girlfriend."

"Sure is, same as you and Posy – your cousin and you really make a mess with finding a girlfriend!"

We both laughed, and I replied:

"Yes, unfortunately you are so right. But at least I have a wonderful family and a real great cute baby sister whom I love dearly!"

I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tightly, and she hugged me back, being happy about her big brother as well.

[Author's Notes: With Tim S & Tim M being twin cousins, some events also show some parallel characteristics, like the girl in the park. There will be more similar events coming up in future, too.

In this story, Primrose Mellark has 'inherited' the attitude to not want a boyfriend from Katniss Everdeenwho lived a century ago. More details on pedigree will be mentioned later on in the story.

Appacolia is the fictional capital city of District Twelve in Panem, and if you would like to read about the city's founding and early years about a century prior to the events in this story, I suggest that you read my story 'Forward looking plans with the baker's son'.]