:| Counting Numbers |: {Minie}

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

14

This was not a number that I saw, but a number that was actually there, hanging on the beam of the door so all nine children knew which house was theirs. It really didn’t take a long time for all of us to have the house imprinted into our minds, but it definitely was useful and Ma was never one to leave room for mistakes. I had lived in that house for nineteen years, and my family still occupied it, though Wes and I had moved out recently to leave more space for everyone. And of course, there were two who were gone from their places forever.

I eyed the door—the one my cousin had broken down only two years ago—and tried to gather my strength to enter. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like going home; I loved that Ma would cook for me, but years of her pressuring me to do my homework was stifling and it made me claustrophobic. I still hated numbers even after I had moved out of the house, but I was also a little more welcoming of them, using them to help me understand what I was doing. It helped that my job didn’t require someone breathing down the back of my neck. Without the homework, I was able to use the numbers more freely, be more creative so to speak.

So coming back to the house reminded me of the years of pressure that made me avoid most of my family because I didn’t want to do my homework. The house also reminded me the loss of my cousin Jabber and my brother Storm. The loss of Jabber was sad—any loss within the family was bound to impact us all—but it had not affected me as much as the loss of Storm had. Storm was my little brother, the other smart one in the family, but he enjoyed absorbing the words, always reading to the younger ones. I had taken that loss hard and it was the only time I didn’t try to block out the numbers.

It was hard to talk to everyone, especially Mist, when we watched Storm fall to the ground and never come up. Everyone knew that the two were inseparable, right from birth, and it was like watching a unit split into two. We eventually moved on, though, or at least it felt that way, and I moved out. But Ma had contacted me and told me that my younger siblings needed help with their math homework. Of course I wanted to see my younger siblings; even though we lived near each other, I was busy with work now and helping around the house and taking care of my nephew. There was just the stipulation that I had to deal with numbers—poor kids. Ma was always particularly pressing when it came to homework and until they came of age, there was no way they would be able to avoid it. It was a miracle I was even able to stay sane for so long, but once I had moved out, Ma’s focus on studies were able to move on to my younger siblings and I’m sure they got more attention than they wanted.

I chuckled as I opened the door. “Hello? Is anyone home?”

STELLAR JAY | JAY FAMILY PLOT | PLAY BY: TOM HUGHES

[d11a tsiuri dermott ☕ minie]

M I S T J A Y A lot has happened since the games took away two of my family members, first Jabber and I watched as my sister Fawn fell to the ground with him. I never understood the sorrow she felt till Storm fell to the ground, bleeding and crying in pain. It made me want to drop to the ground as well and die right there with them, but slowly I was able to pick up the pieces and bury them deep, not forgotten, just stowed away so that I can continue to live in piece and be my old self, though I will never be the same it doesn't matter how much I try. At home, ma seems to have forgotten that my twin has died and that I became a mess and then she comes and tells me to pull myself together and start concentrating a bit more on school, before she never asked me that stuff and would bother Stellar with that, but since he moved out she bugs me much more about keeping my grades out and is constantly behind my back telling me to be better and better and better, not accepting anything but the best from me. I want Stellar here right now because he should be the one that ma bugs all the time not me, I was never the brains in the family but the ones with the brains all moved out or are in a better place. Now I am sitting on my desk tapping my pencil against the wood hearing it make a tapping sound that Storm would most lily tell me to stop, but I wouldn't. Instead I would probably act all snobby and tell him that I could do what I want with my pencil and he shouldn't question it. I miss him, and the way we would fight sometimes or the way we would cry together when something went wrong. I remember the night before the reaping, how I went to him and we cried together and talked about how scared we were that one of us will get reaped or worse the both. I want him back now, but there is nothing I could do. At that moment I heard the door open and a familiar voice rang Stellar's voice, he was here and visiting, I was so happy and mad at the same time, I wanted ma to bug him again, and I want to just run to my older brother and hug him. I walked out of my bedroom and ran to him, wrapping my arms around him. "Stay here you idiot Ma is contently behind my back with my homework and I can't take it anymore" I said not letting go. template by chelsey

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

As I stood in the doorway waiting for someone, I could hear the quick footsteps of someone running down the hallway. Well, at least someone’s excited to see me. I’m pretty sure no one else is at school—so where are they? Of course, we had those who were already in the workforce so they wouldn’t be coming home until later, but I had expected to at least see the youngest, Violet, sitting on the couch dutifully. As the baby of the family, she was basically given everything, but we never seemed to mind until the family got smaller and it was easier to give her more stern attention. But no, she wasn’t in the living room and I turned my head just when the footsteps sounded so close to me.

I was immediately met with Mist, Storm’s twin, with her arms around me and she gave me a scolding. I chuckled at her words as I wrapped my arms around her. Mist was always the spitfire of the two, the one I couldn’t control, and we had many fights when we were younger because I just didn’t know how to control her temper. She had broken down when Storm died, much like how Fawn fell into a deep hole of emptiness when Jabber died. They both loved the fallen tributes, but with Mist, she lost her other half. Even though Storm and Mist were night and day in terms of personality, they complemented each other and always stuck by each other no matter what. That was how the family—and most of District 9, really—saw them: Mist and Storm, Storm and Mist. And now it was just Mist.

It made me a little frustrated that Ma was now placing the pressure on my younger siblings; Mist wasn’t exactly dumb but she wasn’t a genius—and I say that in a bad way—nor did she care about her studies. If I hated the pressure from Ma, I could only imagine how much worse it was for my little sister. I gave her a small pat on the back, still chuckling, and said, “I guess you know how I felt for thirteen years.” We separated and I took a step back to look at her. “It’s only been a month or so since I last came by, but you’re already looking taller.” I placed my hand on her back and gently pushed her towards her room. “C’mon, Ma told me that you need help with your math homework. Let’s get that thing finished.”

STELLAR JAY | JAY FAMILY PLOT | PLAY BY: TOM HUGHES

[d11a tsiuri dermott ☕ minie]

M I S T J A Y There is not much to me, and at the moment there really isn't much at all. I have become a victim to a black hole, that is slowly sucking my personalty out of me. I've went from powerhouse to something else, almost like a human being without a soul. A soul that has been sucked out and tossed into emptiness. Slowly I am finding my way back to where I used to be, who I used to be. I am Mist Jay, Storm Jay's twin, but he is gone and now I am all alone, and everyone probably thinks I am spiraling into insanity for ever and always. "You must have felt terrible, as the rest got away with everything, Ma just pushed you off the edge" I told him with slight bit of pity in my voice, it wasn't his fault that he was one of the geniuses in the house. "Can't Ma just have an accident and maybe hit her head so hard that she forgets that she wanted to practice with me?" as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted saying them. Ma just wants the best for us, not to torture us for all eternity, even though in my eyes I see it like that. As we separated I couldn't help but smiling, it has been such a long time since I have seen my brother, and felt so good to finally see him again. I couldn't believe a month has gone bye already, I wonder if there will be a time where he will just never come back, a time where we loose another member of the family. This family can't take that, we are all at the breaking point, if another one leaves the nest forever the family might just split up and never come back together again. "I had my birthday y'know." I looked him in the eyes with my grey-blue eyes "We had are birthday" I whispered loud enough so that he can hear, but no one else. The fact that someone else but Ma was going to help, seemed like a good idea, maybe Stellar would even explain it better, I mean he was the math genius after all, a lazy one but still a genius. "Yeah I need help, I hate math, you know that, but I got to get it done." template by chelsey

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

I laughed uncomfortably when Mist said the words that had just been bouncing around in my head. “It’s alright, you just learn to tolerate it.” But then Mist continued by wishing Ma would be a victim of an accident and my posture hardened as I stared at my sister in the eyes, hoping she wasn’t serious. While I agreed that Ma could be a hardass most of the time, I never wanted Ma to suffer, especially after what happened to our family. I thought Mist, of all people, would understand that the most. At the same time though, I would have been a liar if that thought hadn’t passed my mind at some point in the thirteen years Ma had been breathing down the back of my neck. Still, I looked straight into her eyes. “Mist, you shouldn’t say things like that.”

Mist started smiling again, and I knew that she didn’t really want Ma to have an accident. It was just a moment of frustration—a moment I knew all too well. She mentioned her birthday and I gave her a big grin. The grin died a little as she spoke in the plural form. I knew what she meant by “we”—she remembered Storm just as well as I did. I in fact had not forgotten about her birthday, or their birthday for that matter, and I had visited Storm’s burial site but not Mist that day. “I remembered,” I whispered back, bringing her closer and kissing the top of her head. There was once a time when I had to lean forward to kiss the top of her head, but now she was getting older and taller and I barely had to lower my head to reach her. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to say happy birthday to you then. I had a lot of work that day and couldn’t take some time off.”

I laughed when Mist said she hated math. It wasn’t as if I liked math either, but since I could see numbers, math was easier for me. Maybe if the numbers weren’t haunting me, then I would have actually liked math, but the pressure of Ma and the constant presence of numbers made math doable but annoying. “I do know that. Alright, well, lead the way.” I nodded my head towards the hallway.

STELLAR JAY | JAY FAMILY PLOT | PLAY BY: TOM HUGHES

[d11a tsiuri dermott ☕ minie]

M I S T J A Y How could someone even learn to live a life like that, with someone always behind your back, telling you what to do, when you have to do it. I hated it, I always felt like a free spirit, I say, do and think the way I want to. Now I have someone telling me what I have to do when I have to. "I hate it and I can't get used to it" I stomped my foot on the ground and pulled on a face that made me look like a child that just got it's toy taken away. "I know I shouldn't have said it, I didn't mean it. Honestly I didn't I just got a little fustrated and needed to let it out, you know how I am" I said, my expresion changed to an ashamed one, Stellar knows that I would never hurt anyone out of the family, especialy not after what happend to Storm. I really hoped he got my mesage that I was trieng to say. The kiss he planted on my forehead, reminded me of when I was a little kid and still innocent, he would lean down and tell me to calm down. I didn't know what to say and I looked him in the eyes trying to find the words that were lost, but instead I turned around and headed towards the bedroom that I share with my two other sisters, or at the moment one. Fawn was gone and she left me alone with violet. I took a breath and sat down on the bed running my hands through my black sheets. I took them from Storms bedroom and put them on my bed, these were the ones he had on the bead when I came to his room the night before the reaping. template by chelsey

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

I knew Mist didn’t mean it when she wished an accident on Ma, but it wasn’t until she finally said the words that my body relaxed. I really did know how she was and I wasn’t surprised she got hotheaded at all—that was just who Mist was. A part of me was pleased to see that she hadn’t changed so much since we lost Storm, but I also didn’t know what she was thinking and it was hard for me to interpret her. I read numbers, understood what they stood for, but when it came to emotions, I was at a complete loss.

I followed her down the hallway to her room, the one she shared with my two sisters. Now that so many people had left the house—Mocking and Red had their own rooms based on my calculations—I wasn’t sure why there was still three girls in one room, but it also made sense. It was much harder to divide the rooms with an uneven number and different ratios of gender—not to mention that we all grew up in a specific room. It would have been difficult for me to move to a different room in the house, even though there were three big boys crammed into one room.

Mist had made some changes to the room, though, as I spotted the black sheets on her bed. We didn’t have many bed sheets in the house, so like most parts about the house, some certain items would “belong” to a certain person. We didn’t even have to bring it up; it was more or less an unspoken rule that we all grew up with. So I knew those sheets were not Mist’s, but rather they had been Storm’s. I remembered holding my little brother as I placed him in the middle of those dark sheets, reading him a bedtime story so I wouldn’t have to go back to my own room to work on my homework. Soon, he began to read for himself and he would read to me as I rested on the bed next to him and watched the numbers float above my head.

That had been years ago, years before Jabber had moved in, years before we realized what the Games would do to our family. Mist and Storm were just small numbers back then, curled up against me as I sometimes helped Ma tuck them into bed. Always, Storm first though, as Mist was always stubborn and refused to sleep before her twin closed his eyes and his chest moved slowly up and down. Now, she would never have to wait for him. I shook my head, trying to shake away all the numbers that reminded me of the past and sat down beside Mist.

“Alright, is this homework from Ma or from your teacher?” I didn’t think Ma would be so cruel to pile more homework on Mist, especially math homework, but I thought to ask to prepare myself for what I was about to see.

STELLAR JAY | JAY FAMILY PLOT | PLAY BY: TOM HUGHES

[d11a tsiuri dermott ☕ minie]

M I S T J A Y The feeling of having something of Storm felt good, it felt as if he was still here with me right now. I could almost here him scolding me for taking his stuff, but he wouldn't take it away from me. He would just get another set and let me be, it was always like that with us. If I wanted something that he had I would take it and never give it back. I loved having everything I ever wanted it was the way I had my own little fortune in such a poor district where no one had anything. Stellar comes a few minutis after me in the small room, he looks like this is a whole new orld for him, as if everything has changed. Though nothing has changed. It is still the smae small claustrophobic room I grew up in. The smell of the dust that never went away because no one really wanted to clean up or we had way to much to do. the dark green shutters on the wall that let a little light enter the room, just enough so that you can see and write. The smae old white desk was in the middle, the one I shared with my sisters to do our homework. I dug in the blackbag that I take to school everyday. I've had it since I can remember and I used it since my first day in school. I rememberd how I came home jumping with joy because I got homework just like my older siblings. The very next day when I got homework again, my face was hung low and I was mad. I hated homework, I tried to get Storm to do it for me but he turned his back to me and let me do it alone. I begged everybody to do it for me and in the end I didn't do it and got in big trouble with my teacher. I took out a run down book that I use in math class, I'm guessing the book is pretty old and has been used by quite a lot of people. Some pages were ripped on the edges and others had drawings in them. In class I never really pay attention and just flip through the book doing drawings and stuff, but at home I would stare at the book for hours trying to figure otu what we were doing in class that day. I turned to a page, the one that we spoke about in class the other day. On the page there were some numbers and some letters, the one that were in every problem were x]. X was the number we had to find out, it could be anything. "Just from school, ma barley gives me work, I guess she thinks I'm too lazy for that. Right now were doing algebra, I ahte these long formulas and stuff, besides I can never figure out what x is" template by chelsey