Autumn Strekker ()()() District 11

The deep, almost unrealistically red hair flutters in the wind as she runs, spinning and skipping and dancing in all the beauty of the world. Her eyes, bright and unrealistically blue, dart around wildly, taking in all they could see. The vision is sharp, all pictures are perfectly clear. The wide eyes are circular and large, spaced slightly too far apart though it is still pretty. Between is her thin, small nose, almost like that of a kitten. They whiff the magnificent scent of roses and daffodils. Her slightly larger than average mouth forms songs, poems, and stories as she dances, coming up with the words as she goes and not caring who saw her and what they thought. Any passerby would see a butterfly, drifting through the meadow in a dance of the daylight. Her little oval face smiling, eyes closing every few minutes to absorb the perpetual happiness. The butterflies brush against her full cheeks, her long eyelashes fluttering like the wings as they barely surprise her. Her thin eyebrows knit together as the weather changes.

The rain makes her scream. Her scrawny little legs run for cover, thin, weak arms covering her head. The little knobby elbows stick in both directions. She is no longer a butterfly of beauty, but with the weather change she is now a rat. Her light, 4'11" body ducks under a porch, small feet curled to fit her in the doorway. Her colorful, pea green, pink, and white dress slowly soaks as she cries. Her high, wispy voice carries through the street though it might have sounded like a whisper from close by. When the rain ends, two shaking, soft clean hands wring out her hair and he trudges home, mood dampened.

"Look who finally got home!" her brother shouts when she runs into the safety of her small little house. Carlisle laughs, playing with the two children on the floor, Autumn's newborn neices, Summer and Spring, twins. His wife, her sister-in-law, and terribly stuck up woman, was gone for the moment. In the kitchen, her sister Fairytale is being taught to write by her mother. Autumn had a good relationship with them all, though her parents were strict.

She had friends, unlike some of her family. Though most of them stared at her like she was a talking rabbit, they cared enough to listen to her rants. Or, more often, to laugh at her silly ideas. Charshose in particular, but Autumn would never notice they were not laughing with her.

Autumn giggled, her mood changing once again. That happened often, though she was rarely angry or annoyed. She has a habbpy-go-lucky attitude, losing herself in her imagination. Her friends are the animals, and she will speak to them for hours. As her sister swats at a fly, Autumn stops her and says goodbye to it as it flies out the window.

"Your dress is lovely," Autumn gushes to her little sister, kneeling down and stroking the clean white dress. She was always wishing for pretty things, losing herself coming up the with splendid fashions she would one day wear. But as her mother tosses her the sky blue garment meant for her, she only marvels at the cleanliness and gushes again as she begs her mother to put her hair up nicely. She loved nice things, and anything pretty was meant for her. As Carlisle rushes them out the door, she scoops up a few flowers from the side and begins to twine them into her hair. How lovely! When she is fully decorated, she begins to work them into Fairytale's hair.

"You're pretty too," Fairytale says. Autumn denies it, knowing she would never be like her little sister. Her modesty meant nothing though, for no one could deny her beauty. She would be dead honest though, and say what she thought of herself. If she weren't so simple-minded, she might understand what was going on every now and then, instead of greeting the butterflies as they flutter by. If only she could be a butterfly.

Autumn signs her name on the woman's paper and follows the crowd to a place to stand. As she walks, she tries to remember herself. She was a forgetful young girl, and had to recall her memories sometimes. Born of Salem and Aryetta, the middle child. She was always close to her little sister, taking her places and joking with her. The girls were seven years apart, but their minds were in the same place. Games such as tag, hide and seek, and what am I thinking were common among the two.

At thirteen, Autumn had become a thing of amusement among her classmates. People would go to her and ask for a story, and she would claim it true and begin on a remarkable journey she'd taken, though in reality she had merely been spinning around in the fields again. Sometimes, while she was lying there, dreaming, people would come and surprise her. This would scare her, causing her to run straight home and cry to the spider that resided in her room.

A few weeks after her fifteenth birthday, Autumn became good friends with Marlene, a tall, springy girl a year older than her. Marlene was very smart, and explained things to Aumtumn when she didn't understand, but soon the two realized they had very different ideas. Autumn wanted to frolic about in the meadow while Marlene preferred to sit in a corner and read. A year later they broke the friendship. Autumn was sad to see it go, but knew she had her butterflies to play with.