Cecil Grant ~ District 7

We're aging this boy up! He's 33 now! and also Daniel Bruhl!

What is there to be said about the perfect being that is called Cecil Jay Grant? The boy would have a lot to say about himself such as the way the light reflects across the lens of his glasses makes his grey eyes shine like silver. Or that his small stature will soon sprout into a figure as tall as his eldest brother's. Of course Cecil is one for exaggeration and with a name like "Cecil" he feels the need to overcompensate a lot more than a boy his age with a nice... normal sounding name.

The truth is that Cecil Grant is a 4'11" stump that is too smart for his good. With all the reading the kid does he has acquired horrible vision. Naturally, the last thing a mother wants to do is spend money to get their child glasses but eventually they saved up enough money and purchased the large circular wire frames he wears. Of course they make him look like a scheming little insect, not that he wasn't one already but now it is more obvious. His thin, dirty blonde eyebrows are nearly hidden behind the monstrosity of metal and glass.

He's always been babied, ever since he was little and it shows. Still stuck in the awkward stage between childhood and adulthood, his face is still trimmed with baby fat filling in every hollow and softening his jaw. Some of the neighborhood kids call him Pudding Face. He does not appreciate the gesture.

Besides it isn't his fault he ended up looking like a wiener dog. It's simply genetics and he has studied many books about the subject trying to find a way to beat DNA. So far the only information he has found is exercise and Cecil isn't motivated enough to try that. There are little things about the Grant boy that can be found charming. His narrow chin for instance. Some of the boys in Seven look like they could chop a tree down with nothing but their jawline, but Cecil's is much softer. Smooth and free of dimples and creases. His face is completely void of anything that could be called a beard much to his chagrin.

While he may not have the smoldering glare of a man, Cecil has the gentle features of a boy. A straight, narrow nose that pugs at the end making it seem chubby and bulbous. His glasses do little to help the problem making his nostrils seem even wider. The only good those lenses do is make the world visible, and what good is that when they make his eyes look almost non existent. Little gray eyes peeking through his face. His brother (well, technically speaking half brother) had the same smaller eyes. While Curtis could pull them off, Cecil is left with something to be desired. Tiny, thin eyelashes make it even worse! Once, when he was younger, Cecil sneaked into his mother's room while she was out and put on some of her precious mascara. He ended up poking himself in the eye many times and when he was done there was more of the stuff on his eyelid. Yet he was proud that, for once, someone could see his lashes. That they did- Curtis and Colin and Cindy and Cassidy all saw it. They laughed at him and were trying to scrub it off his face when their mother walked in on them. Only Cecil told her that Cindy had put the make up on him and she got in trouble while he got coddled.

Good times.

Anyway back to his face. Cecil also put some of his mother's lipstick on in an attempt to make his lips look bigger. They were thin things, smooth and nicely shaped but terribly thin. Red lipstick helps that, or so he thought. Moving on! His teeth aren't white but they are as close as he can get them. His two front teeth stick out a little farther making an appearance every time he opens his mouth. Kids have threatened to knock the "rabbit teeth" out before but they were just rude. Not the kind of people any child would like to associate with.

***

Cecil is perfect in every way possible. Intelligent, confident, and overall good guy. Or so he'd like to think. Truthfully he's a snotty little brat who runs away from any kind of physical conflict. Although all those conflicts are his fault to begin with. Maybe if he did not act so high and mighty all the time people would not feel the need to take him down a peg. People in the Grant's neighborhood do not enjoy being told they are stupid, even if it happens to be true.

He isn't the most hospitable Grant on the block- oh well, let's face it no one likes him. With his childish looks and superior brains he has made plenty of enemies in his time. Not one for venturing outside, Cecil spent most of his time inside curled up with a book. Books can be found in the district, although the ones available to the boy were not exactly the most interesting things in the world. Still he read them. He reads about lumber processing, how to fix drills, ways to sharpen saws- anything he could get his chubby little fingers on. However, most of the time he can't put it into practice. He's not the most coordinated boy you have ever met and prefers to sitting to any kind of physical activity. Even walking is a threat because he has a bad habit of tripping, falling on his face and then blaming a sibling.

Oh, that's another thing: Cecil Grant is a little shit. If you looked up "tattletale" in a dictionary there would be a picture of his smug face swallowed by those awful glasses. Even things that are accidents, such as falling on the sidewalk, he blames others for. Seeing as he doesn't have the warmest personality Cecil hardly has any one he can truly call a friend. People are not his area of expertise and he doesn't really care for them. The only human who seems to like the brat is his mother so if he wants attention he comes running up to her crying and holding his arm "Curtis hit me, mom!" and for a few minutes he can have the satisfaction of being noticed. Only once the moment passes does the lonely feeling creep back in and he retreats to his books.

Genes. It all comes back to genes with him. His father must have been some anti social outcast that his mother had corned in a bar one night. Mother- she's the only one that'll put up with him. He's worth something, a perfect child. Doesn't stay out late, stays in his room most of the time being quiet and makes very high marks in school. Might even be able to get a good job when he's grown and supply her with good funds to live off of.

Perfect and lonely.

***

Born in the dead of winter, Cecil was an awful baby. Always crying and wailing unless someone was holding him. A chubby thing that yanked at hair with strong, little fingers. Even before he could walk Cecil was an annoyance. Always crying, always hungry, always wanting someone to be near- he was a terror. The Grant house was always awake at night, trying too soothe the child. As he grew up he became more quiet but not any less needy. Always the child to hang onto his mother's hand as the other brothers and sisters explored the world. Always the one hiding behind the skirts or tucked away with a book. The one who would stay late at school and the one who no one actually could say they liked.

At school he got the reputation of a rat and was barred from certain children's social groups. Tim pushed Rick? Cecil had told the teacher before the boy had even hit the ground. The outdoors never have appealed to him, only the secluded nest made of blankets by the makeshift bookcase was every nice to him.

One day, when he was young, he was curled up in his spot by the books, his nose buried in the pages when he heard voices down the hall. Mother's and Curtis' discussing something. He eavesdropped of them on to wish he hadn't. Curtis had asked their mother why she had so many kids and she replied with the cruelest answer any mother could ever come up with. Tessera. She used them to get extra food and didn't care at all if they were reaped after all if they were she could just pump out another one. It's unknown how long the boy sat there, curled up in his blankets with the book held tightly to his chest. Curtis had vanished from the house and eventually his mother stepped outside too- to a bar no doubt.

After that night he no longer hid in his mother's shadow. Of course, always hungry for attention, he turned to his brothers and sisters. Curtis, most of all, since he was the eldest. Cecil found that most people didn't like him and he in turn didn't like any of them. So books and brothers were his calling.

Of course that ended pretty quickly too when his brother was reaped for the Sixty-Second Hunger Games. When his name had been called Cecil's first thought was not on his brother's well being or even how Curtis could die within the next two weeks. Cecil's first thought was will the next sibling by a boy or a girl?

Odair
For Rade's Grant Sibling Ploy