Rowan Oak [D7] WIP

[go away]

[presto]

I'm not saying its our fault
Although you could have done more
Oh you're so naive yet so
How could this been done
By such a smiling sweetheart.[/presto]

Rowan Oak
district 7 | male | 7 | Daniel B

Hi. My name's Rowan, like the tree. It's a small green tree which is desidjoo... des-ij-oo-woods, Mother says. It also has some red pomes on them that make nice jam but you can't eat them raw 'cuz they poison you. I like jam, especially mother's jam sandwiches. She doesn't make them often but when she does they taste amazing. She hasn't made me any since last year, before the accident, but when I next get them, they will taste even better. That's my idea about life. Mother always says that absence makes the heart grow fonder and at first I didn't understand it, but like the jam sandwiches, anything that you have to wait for and you miss a lot makes you like it even more. I miss the way Willow used to be so when she sorts herself out we will be the best of friends! I want her to change soon. I really miss the old Willow.

The first thing people notice about me is my eye. I don't like it when they stare at my eye, it's really annoying. I mean, plenty of people have scars, don't they? It's just that mine's really noticeable. It's in the middle of my flipping face! People say that my eye got gouged out but it didn't. Although I have scratches on it my eyeball is still there isn't it? The problem is if I close my left eye I can only see cloudy stuff. And it hurts. I don't tell Mother because she'll freak out and go overboard with panic. She wasn't like that. Everything changed since her death. When they look at my eye, they don't look at the rest of me, like how I always sweep my hair to the left and not the right, the way my ears point up like the woodland elves of stories. Even if they are looking at my eyes, if I asked them the colour, they wouldn't remember. Taking an educated guess, they would probably figure I have brown eyes, because I have brown hair, and that's pretty typical. Apparently, I have redder lips than normal people. Is that true? And my teeth aren't very white either, but they aren't crooked! That's not so bad.

Others think funny, I think embarrassing. It's the tale of how I got my scar. I was out in the woods when I was 5, climbing a tree when I saw this beautiful brown tabby. I lept out the tree to go over to it. I love animals, you see. In any way, shape or form. Except from maybe eels. Well, I went over to pet this cute cat and as soon as I touched it's belly it struck out its paw as fast as a bullet, hot white pain seared across my eye. I ran home, feeling like a blind old man, stumbling and bumbling across the uneven forest floor. When I got home I had to wait because Mother wasn't back yet and only Father was home. He's not very nice. He stinks of alcohol all the time and is heartless and he never cares about anyone, not even Mother. All he said to me was "More fool you, now get to bed you.. [censored]" So I went to my bedroom and it got infected. When it was all healed back up, a scar was left behind. I don't really tell people about my dad bit... He's not really my father actually. My real father was a lovely man, or so Willow said, but he died when I was 1 or 2, so I can't remember him so well. People stay away from us because we are bad luck charms. We're all cursed, every single one of us. Willow's crippled, I'm half blind, Cousin Pine is missing an arm, Cousin Plum is like a vegetable. Willow is waiting for the others...

Now many people call me naive. I asked mother what it meant, but she wouldn't tell me. I asked Willow and she gladly gave me the answer, saying "It's when someone's an idiot, but they think they know best. Like you." I think she was joking when she said it because she was smiling when she said it and she never smiles anymore. And she also punched me and I don't know why. I also went to ask her one day why mother doesn't like me going to the woods anymore. She responded with "Mother's a [censored] who doesn't know anything -  if she did, she wouldn't have married that [censored] in our house." I didn't like the words she said but Willow always tells the truth and I always tell the truth so I said back to her "Does that mean I can do what I like? And don't call mother that word." So she said, "Sure you can, go high-five a [censored] bear if you bloody want to." So I went out to the woods looking for a bear but I couldn't find any. Bears are natural and aren't mutated by the capitol, but they are really strong anyways. In the end I decided that I didn't want to high five a bear so I went back home.

I like to climb trees too. My feet are very big so I am a good climber. I can climb to the top of any tree because I am small and lightweight. What I don't do is tell mother the countless times I've fallen out of a tree because of 'Rowan's Raw Deal' Willow calls it. She's very creative with that type of things. Once I've walked home with black legs, but went straight upstairs so Mother wouldn't see it and then just sat in bed until it died down and wore my longest trousers instead of the shorts I usually wear. Like most kids my age, I just wear vests in the summer and checkered shirts in the winter. And then we usually get them trashed by getting mud on them, water on them and even blood sometimes. Yeah, I don't think anyone would class us as rebels, just normal kids. I love the freedom of District 7, on some of the victor's tours they talk about the way District 7 is so free and open. I guess it's half true, we aren't allowed in the bits they corner off but we are allowed in the places where our family works. 

My best mate ain't a person. He's this hedgehog. I think he's the best pet ever but others say Jay is weird. I found him on the road as a little baby hedgehog and he was very strange looking cuz his spikes were soft and he was white. Ma said he was very ill so I took him home and now he is my pet. We keep him in a big box where I put fresh grass in every day and put half a boiled egg in there for him to eat which he likes a lot. Jay must be about a year old now so he's got a few more years to go. I once had a rat pet too. People said it was dirty but that's a lie because it spent all day licking itself



 






(c) Credit goes to the lovely Anzie