#ezperanza wyetka

[hungergames-fanfic]

Our 9th Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday but because it was a Friday daddy said we’d celebrate it today. We’re going to the Reservoir lake for a family picnic and he said I could invite Efrain too. That’s cause my family ain’t that big. It’s just momma, momma Bilmin, daddy, momma’s momma Ester, momma’s daddy Alvaro, momma’s sister Lucia, Lucia’s husband Beriah and my only cousin Ignacio.

Momma didn’t wanna invite aunt Lucia cause she’s always mean to daddy. Likes to throw jabs at him and remind him that without momma or uncle Amos’ money we wouldn’t be anything. She thinks daddy married momma cause she was born rich but I’ve seen how daddy looks at momma. How he hugs her and always wanna be with her when she gets home from work. Momma Bilmin says “that’s called love, some Lucia has never heard about”. I overheard her talking to Mrs. Khan, Beriah only married her cause the lady he liked denied his marriage proposal. I should ask Ignacio about it but I doubt he’d know, he’s only six.

This is the first time Efrain is gonna meet my family. When his daddy drops him off he and daddy shake hands and talk for a long time before he leaves. I ain’t ever seen daddy smile at anyone who ain’t momma Bilmin, momma or me. I’m gonna say this a good thing.

“I pass by ya house every mornin’, never been inside though”, Efrain says taking off his backpack. It usually looks flat cause he only carries a notebook but it’s really fat today cause he has extra clothes in it.

“You know, my birthday in two days”, he says nodding his head, raising his eyebrows.

“Really? What y’all gon do?”, I ask. To have my birthday party and then his every year? And then with Christmas around the corner? So many gifts and so much food!

“We don’t really do none, momma likes to make grain cakes but since she got sick she kinda just sleeps a lot”, he says.

I can’t believe Efrain doesn’t celebrate his birthday. It’s always been one of the best days of the year for me. I take his hand and walk inside the house and into the kitchen where momma Bilmin is preparing today’s food.

“Wow!”, Efrain says staring all over the house.

“Momma!”, I say getting her attention. “We’re celebrating Efrain’s birthday today too”, I demand.

“We are?”, Efrain asks shocked.

“Yes. My birthday is my favorite day of the year and it should be yours too”, I say to him.

“So this is the famous Efrain?”, momma Bilmin says. She puts her hands on her hips and smiles at him with her lips and eyes. “Dora, bring me some icin’”, she says. The smile on Efrain’s face says it all.

While grandma adds his name on our cake I show him around back. Smiling wide, Efrain pets Brownie and feeds her some hay. We don’t get to play with the cows as much as we want cause we have to leave but still, Efrain tells me he had fun from just the little bit that we got to do. So much so, the entire ride to the lake he just talks about how big cows are and how funny their noses look. He admits he’s never seen one so up close before and always thought they were cute. I couldn’t agree more.

Cause it’s December the water is a little cold but after being in it for a minute, I get used to it. Efrain and Ignacio don’t get along so quick but after a while, when they see me struggling to swim they turn into good friends laughing at me.

“So ya momma been rich and ya daddy was poor but then got rich but cause he wasn’t born rich Ignacio’s momma don’t like him? That make no sense?”, Efrain says to me watching Ignacio swim in circles around us.

“Momma says uncle Polomir married aunt Esperanza for her money”, Ignacio says. This makes me mad.

“How could daddy have married momma for money when he was already rich?”, I say putting my hands on my hip.

“Y’all makin’ no sense to me”, Efrain says shaking his head. “Wouldn’t ya daddy have been richer than ya momma at some point?”, he asks.

“Momma Bilmin says as long as we aint strugglin’ for a meal and got enough to help others we shouldn’t be fightin’ over money”, I say mimicking Ignacio’s arm waving tryna swim too. “Quit movin’ boy, I’m tryna learn from ya”, I say making Ignacio cackle.

When he swims away Efrain says the only reason the boy can float is cause he’s shaped like a ball. This makes me laugh but I don’t tell him cause it sounds mean and if someone told me that I’d be hurt.

Cousin Ignacio is chubby, tanned and has eyes so black they look like there’s nothing behind them. He has big fat cheeks, bigger than mines and his hands and body look a little bloated. That’s cause everything he wants, he gets and all he wants is food. Aunt Lucia gives him everything, that makes him bratty sometimes.

“Hey, Efrain, where you from?”, Ignacio asks. I think this makes Efrain uncomfortable cause he doesn’t answer immediately. He looks at me instead and then at his hands, pretending to wipe the water off of them.

“Bloques”, he admits. That’s where the poor people live. Ignacio is from Littleburg, his house is so big a hundred people could live lavishly in it.

“I’ve never been there but a lot of kids from my class live there and they’re always talkin’ bout playin’ ball in the streets. It must be fun livin’ in Bloques. Littleburg is borin’”, Ignacio says. That’s a lie. Littleburg is fun. All the stores are there. Sometimes there’s parades in the streets held by the mayor and when we go visit I see a lot of kids riding their bikes down the street.

Still, this makes Efrain give him a half smile. I guess he thought Ignacio was gonna be a snobby bully like Kenneth. Nah, he doesn’t have that many friends either and I’ve met them, Timothy and Evangeline are really quiet. I don’t think they like me just like all the other rich kids but that doesn’t matter. Efrain likes me and he’s happy to be my friend. This makes me smile at him back.

The adults sit on a picnic table but no one is really talking to anyone but momma Bilmin, she’s always so friendly. She tries to get momma’s momma Ester to talk but she just acts like momma Bilmin smells bad. At least grandpa Alvaro talks back. Aunt Lucia looks sad and plays with her food listening to momma talk. Daddy and Beriah just stare at the grill tryna get the flame to grow.

After watching us desperately tryna swim, Ignacio tells Efrain and I that we ain’t supposed to kick our feet but our entire legs. Efrain starts swimming before I do but after trying for over an hour I finally get it. If it were up to me, I’d keep trying but momma Bilmin calls us out the water to eat.

Usually she makes me a plate of food before anyone else but today she makes it for Efrain first. She fills his plate up and tells him that if he wants more that he shouldn’t be afraid to ask. Momma Ester looks at Efrain like he stinks too, but he doesn’t. I smelled him.

“You should eat with your mouth closed”, momma Ester says to him.

“Yeah, that way food won’t fall out of your mouth and you can eat more”, Ignacio says spitting food on my arm.

“Oori!”, momma Ester snaps. This makes me laugh. Momma Ester and aunt Lucia only use Ignacio’s middle name when they’re mad.

“Francis!”, momma Ester snaps at me. This startles and steals my smile away.

“Now, really Ester? You that bitter?”, momma Bilmin says, “Alvaro why is filth talkin’ to me?”, momma Ester says to daddy Alvaro. “Count yourself blessed there’s children around”, momma Bilmin says to her smiling at me.

After we’re done eating, momma Bilmin brings out a cooler where she’s put the cake. She calls everyone to the table and sets Efrain and I next to each other. This makes momma Ester mad and she walks off talking to momma who’s smile goes away almost immediately. Aunt Lucia looks mad too but she stands behind Ignacio who’s laughing and pointing at the cake.

It’s round and tall, lathered in white icing and at the top, it has strawberries, blueberries and slices of peach in patterns that look like flower petals. On the side of the cake it says “Happy Birthday Isadora & ᴱᶠᴿᴬᴵᴺ”, where momma Bilmin managed to add his name in too. Efrain’s smile is bigger than mines. I put my hand around his shoulder and wave at momma Bilmin who takes out a plastic camera, winds it and flashes a picture.

In no time, momma Ester, still mad, joins us along with momma and they all begin to sing happy birthday to us.

“Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Dora.. and Efrain, happy birthday to you!”

[hungergames-fanfic]

Half Human, Half Squirrel pt.3

“Wow, its so beautiful miss Bilmin, just like you”, Ari says holding on to the necklace on momma Bilmin’s neck. Wrapped from its smoothed out jagged edges by a brown, stiff, braided leather necklace is a black shiny stone that glitters white like the midnight sky. She smiles and cups Ari’s hands in hers.

The girl is right, momma Bilmin really is beautiful. She has a long face but in a pretty way. Her jaw is perfectly squared and her nose is thin and long. Her upper lip looks like half a heart and her lower is thick. They make her have really pretty wide smiles. Unlike daddy and me, her skin isn’t so brown, it’s a light tan like greased wood. Her graying hair, usually down, straight and long is in a high ponytail today. For an old lady, she doesn’t really have that many wrinkles, just on her eyes which are small, light brown. Now that I think about it, daddy looks a lot like her. Maybe that’s why he’s pretty too. That makes me wonder, who do I look like? Momma? Daddy?

“Amos”, momma Bilmin says, “my little brother gave it to me. Said it brings luck”, she sighs with one of her sad smiles and grabs Ari’s head. With a thin hair comb she parts Ari’s hair and picks at it until she’s grabbed what she was looking for and wipes it on a towel sitting on her lap.

In the bathtub, wearing a shirt and our underwear, Ari and me sit patiently while the lice removing chemicals burn at our scalps. With itchy heads we take turns asking momma Bilmin to scratch with a comb. She tries to equally scratch our head for an amount of time but Ari tends to take her attention. Combing through the same section over and over she shows us what she finds. “Squeeze it with your nails”, momma Bilmin says to Ari who grabs one of the lice off the comb.

“I put your beddin’ to wash, baby”, momma says standing at the door. “Arielle, tell your momma to do the same, who knows how many are on 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴”, momma makes a face. It’s just like daddy’s at the pharmacy.

“I ain’t got any, just a pillow wrapped in a shirt”, Ari says

“Then wrap it in a new shirt”, momma shrugs making another weird face, kind of like she doesn’t care. I don’t like her tone. It’s like she’s tryna be rude on purpose.

“Anza”, momma Bilmin snaps at momma. Momma’s name is Esperanza but momma Bilmin has started calling her that.

“Momma”, I call for her. “How to read people’s minds, can you find books bout that subject?”, I ask. She smiles with her eyes and walks out the room, probably to write it down. She’s always so happy to bring me books. Says “knowledge is power”. President Snow must be extremely smart.

“Emotions and Behavior by Fenrir Berdeux”, momma reads the cover of a book when she comes back into the bathroom. “Dora, it’s impossible to read someone’s mind”, she says, I’m not happy to hear that. “𝘉𝘶𝘵, it’s not impossible to read someone’s body language and facial expressions. Understandin’ emotions and the behaviors they create is a great way to understand a person. I haven’t finished the book but”, she wiggles it in a dance with a smile that shows all her perfect teeth.

Momma Bilmin combs into another section of Ari’s hair. The girl stares at momma like she’s the prettiest woman in the world and watches her read.

“Behavior is different from emotion but is strongly affected by it, there is no simpler way to put it. For example, when we are happy we smile. This smile on one’s face is a behavior that can be read and interpreted with ease, but what of the effects of that happiness. Where will the behavior affected by the emotion take the person?”, momma reads us the entire first chapter.

By the time she’s done I’m left entranced while momma Bilmin washes the chemicals off my hair. Neither she, momma or Ari notice how deep in thought I am.

Momma Bilmin is always sad even when she smiles. The first sign of learning to read ”expelled behavior” is by understanding what causes the emotion in the first place. Well, she’s sad cause she’s lost a lot of her family. How would I approach her? How would I talk to her? How would I .. “momma whats that word to understand other people’s emotions?”, i ask.

“Empathy, to empathize”, momma answers.

I stare at momma Bilmin thinking of a question that could lead her to expressing emotion on her face but all I can think about is questions about the games. They’re coming up anyway. In just one week the 41st Annual Hunger Games are about to start. I could ask her how she feels about the games coming up, or if she’s cooking something new this year, or maybe if she’s done being sad. None I dare myself to ask. I hate to see her sad and purposely doing so just to see how emotions affect her is plain cruel. Instead I just stare at her the entire time hoping I can catch a glimpse of a facial expression. So far she just smiles at Ari and me while she towel dries us. Even chuckles when one of my old shirts from when I was little fits Ari perfectly. Her smile puts one on my face.

“Y’all ready now?”, momma Bilmin asks.

“Ready?”, I look at her with confusion.

She leads us out the house where daddy sits on a log he uses to kill chickens. He braids four pieces of rope into a stiff lazo he uses to catch runaways. Usually calf’s but I’ve seen him tackle and tie a pig with it. I’ve asked him a bunch of times when he’s gonna teach me to use one but he always says “later”. Maybe today is “later”.

“You gon teach me how to-“, “no”, daddy interrupts me with an blank look on his face. The way his eyebrows are shaped make him look mad but he stares at the ground thoughtfully. Knowing that he might be upset about his fight with momma gives me a sense of eureka. I understand where his emotions come from and the behavior is causes. Being upset has made him rude.

“You gon collect eggs”, he points at Ari who jumps with a smile on her face, “you gon clean a stable”, he points at me. I sigh. I know what’s happening, we’re in trouble for getting lost so daddy’s putting us to work.

I’d be mad that I’m stuck with the worst job but seeing how Ari dances with the bucket I know that this is the most daddy could of given her. She’s not strong enough to carry anything heavy and chances are she’s just gonna play with the chickens. Don’t chickens carry lice?

Inside the barn, shoveling horse poop into a big bucket, I take my mind somewhere else. Away from the smell.

I think about last night’s fight between mommy and daddy. They’re being quiet to each other. After Littleburg mommy ain’t even kiss daddy’s cheek. She always kisses his cheek to greet him. Today she just looked at him like he hurt her feelings by just being there. Daddy had a look on his face, like he was both sad and lonely but neither at the same time.

I can hear him trying to calm Milk out the side of the barn. This makes me think about how I always have to be cautious around Milk, I have to listen to her breathing, look at the way her eyes move and make sure she’s not fidgety. I may not know what she’s thinking, but I know it’s nothing good.

My eyebrows raise in surprise and my eyes widen. This was momma’s point! I can’t read minds but I can understand behavior!

Once I’m done, I drag the heavy bucket full of horse poop out the barn doors. Inside the chicken coop I can hear Ari counting and yelling at them to stop moving. Back at the house, through the back door, I can see momma Bilmin cleaning the table. Behind the barn I hear daddy still talking to Milk. I leave the bucket behind and walk over to him.

Here, daddy combs Milk’s hair and shushes her. Milk either likes me or she doesn’t, depending on the day. Usually, she won’t let me go near her, just daddy, she loves him.

When I get too close she neighs and huffs trying to take a step back while daddy assures her it’s okay. I get it, daddy’s the boss and she listens to him, I’m still a stranger in her eyes and she doesn’t trust me. Daddy says not to take it personal but it still hurts my feelings. This isn’t why I’m here though.

My feet flat on the ground, I keep my eyes on daddy. I’m tryna figure out the cause and effect his emotions do to his behavior. “To understand facial expressions and the emotions they represent one needs to comprehend that it’s like a varied puzzle that is never the same even after you’ve figured it out”. A line from the book.

“Daddy, is momma mad at you?”, I ask. No point in beating around the bush. Daddy pets Milk and turns to look at me. He stares for a second and then at the ground.

“No”, he lies. I ain’t need to 𝘵𝘳𝘺 to know that.

“Why ain’t she talkin’ to you?”, I ask tryna get more out of him.

“Go check on your friend”, daddy says. His tone of voice says he’s getting mad. Before leaving, I kill two birds with one stone.

“The bucket is too heavy”, I say asking for his help. Just dragging it out the barn made my hands hurt.

Daddy makes a face, he stares at me and half smiles only he doesn’t look too happy. He does this face a lot when I need help, it’s like he’s questioning my usefulness. Like it were nothing, daddy takes the bucket and walks towards the house with it. I’m in awe and can’t wait until the day that I can be as strong as him. I follow him back to the house.

“Dora!”, Ari screams inside the chicken coop. This scares a few chickens and they flutter around crashing into the chain link fence that makes up the wall of the coop. Ari runs out with her bucket and two eggs in her hand. She holds on to her stomach and giggles taking awkward strides towards me. She shows me the eggs in her hand. “I was gettin’ eggs and there was a fat one and I picked it up and it pooped an egg!”, she says between the giggles, “it fell and broke on the floor and then all the other chickens started eatin’ it!”.

“They do that”, I say. Not showing her same enthusiasm catches her attention. She pokes my face with the metal bucket in hand, hitting me with it. It doesn’t hurt but I still say “ouch” and push her hand away.

“What’s goin’ on?”, she asks hugging me tight. “You been real quiet lately, don’t you wanna be friends no more?”, she practically whispers. There’s a sad look on her face and her eyes are wide while she looks up at me. This how those puppies looked at us at the pet store earlier. To let her know I’m not mad I hug her back with a smile.

“I ain’t mad at you, Ari”, I say, “I’ve been focusin’. I’m tryna get a superpower”, I admit. Ari’s opens her mouth wide.

“Like breathin’ fire? Or killin’ bad people with your mind? Or changin’ the weather?”, she goes on and on dancing while the bucket swings from side to side. I take it off her hands or it’ll be me catching daddy’s belt.

“No”, I say with a hand on her shoulder tryna stop her from moving. “I’m tryna learn how to read people’s minds”, I admit in a hushed tone. Ari puts an index over her lips and looks back at the house. Momma Bilmin is nowhere to be seen anymore, daddy is at the side of the house dumping the bucket full of horse poop on a pile next to momma Bilmin’s small garden.

“Has it worked?”, Ari whispers at me. “Wait, ain’t your momma say you can’t?”, she asks. I shake my head with disappointment.

“The book momma read us today was really good, it said if I learn how to read people’s faces and understand their emotions maybe I can understand how they think”, I say.

“I wasn’t payin’ that much attention but if I could read your face i’d say you sad cause you can’t read minds”, Ari says. She giggles at the look on my face. I stare at her baffled at how right she is. I don’t like the idea of my mind being read.

For dinner momma Bilmin has us all sit at the dining table, today she’s made rice and egg with homemade goat cheese and a loaf of bread. I don’t talk, I only listen. Momma and daddy aren’t talking to each other and I make sure to stare at both of them in hopes to catch anything that lets me know what they’re thinking or at least how they feel. Ari is the main one that talks at the table and momma Bilmin is completely invested in what the girl says.

“Pink because it’s the color of sunsets!”, Ari states her favorite color.

“They’re orange”, I say unable to keep it to myself.

“All the time, but sometimes they look pink and it’s so pretty maybe one day I can show you”, Ari smiles at me. I’d smile back but I’m scared that she’ll be able to read my mind.

“This is nothin’ like what I eat back home miss Bilmin, I just love bein’ here with y’all, with Dora, I feel so lucky!”, Ari practically screams. Momma Bilmin, who’s sitting at the edge of the table smiles at the girl with her eyes. Momma smiles too, daddy doesn’t look up from his plate. He looks like he just wants to finish his food.

“Well, you’re welcome here any time Arielle”, momma Bilmin says still smiling. Ari turns to me and shows off her missing teeth. She truly is having a great time and her wide smiles radiate how she feels. So much so that it makes me forget I’m supposed to be reading emotions off faces, not making them. I smile back.

After dinner, in momma’s shiny car, daddy takes Ari home. “Why we always go in this car mister Polomir?”, Ari asks. She’s expressed how much she loves the horses every day after school. Daddy sighs and looks at us from the rear view mirror.

“Horses can only go so fast”, he says bluntly.

The half hour drive aint that different from every other. We play a game that involves having to guess what we see by the description given. “I see some yellow”, Ari sings and smiles. She knows that’s my favorite color so she always makes sure to point it out. Be it a flower or the way the sun shines brightly on the sand, she’ll always find a way to remind me how pretty it is.

By the time we reach the lonely dirt road that leads us to her house we see her momma run out. She trips and falls feet away from the porch steps. Daddy stops the car in front of their house and runs out to help her.

“Uh-oh”, Ari says and makes a weird face. She raises her eyebrows and shows her lower teeth. “Forgot to tell momma I was runnin’ away las’night”, she shrugs. Outside, daddy consoles the crying woman. She hugs him and holds on to his arms, fanning her face tryna dry up her tears.

“I had so much fun today, Dora”, Ari says to me unaffected by her momma’s crying. “Already can’t wait ‘till next time”, she says giggling. She hugs me, when she pulls away she has her index in her mouth, biting it with wonder. Suddenly she leans in and kisses my cheek.

My face feels warm like it’s gotten really hot all of a sudden. My chest tickles and my heart races. I wish for another wondering why I liked it so much but I’m frozen in place. Eyes and mouth wide. Why did she kiss me?

Giggling, she jumps out the car and runs up to her momma who hugs her with happiness but yells at her like she’s angry. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, you hear me!”, her momma screams hugging and kissing Ari’s face.

The drive home is really quiet, I stare out the window in a trance, looking at our dark surroundings. It turned night while dropping Ari off and I watch how we pass the run down buildings, noticing the moon. How it follows us all the way home. “Did you see that?”, I think to myself, asking the moon if it saw Ari kiss me. My face is warm to the touch. A smile almost creeps up on me but daddy speaks up.

“You knew that girl ran away?”, daddy asks. He’s mad and I can see it in his eyes. He clenches his jaw and looks back at me. I only stare at him. I don’t wanna admit I knew. With no response, daddy turns back to me and swats my leg leaving a sting that I just know is gonna turn into a bruise later. “Did you know?”, he asks again. If I lie or tell the truth he’s gonna hit me anyway. I nod and fold my leg so he won’t reach me if he tries to hit me again.

“Tomorrow mornin’, soon as I wake up you gon get up too. I’m gon have you workin’ like a damn mule”, he yells back at me. “That woman was worried sick, you knew that little girl ran away from home and ain’t tell us none, and what if y’all would of gotten stolen this afternoon?”, he turns back to me and sizes me up. “Wipe that mug off your face right now”, he says through his teeth. I’m mad. The night was going good until he decided to open his mouth.