CORALENE ROSE |♥| DISTRICT TWO

CORALENE ROSE

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♕ DISTRICT TWO ♕

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On Wednesdays, we wear pink!

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APPEARANCE

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It's cold and I'm not wearing much. Just a short black dress and some shiny, sparkly bracelets. And mouse ears. I put them in my hair behind my ears when I was getting ready. I wasn't cold then, but now I am. It's Halloween tonight. Every year on Halloween we go out. I think my heels are too high because I wobble when I walk.[/i] Oslo called me a whore earlier, but she also said she liked my dress. Tiger came to Oslo's house before we left and she looked different. "Why are you dressed so scary?" I asked, and she answered. Usually people don't bother answering me, because I'm stupid. I don't really mind. Answers confuse me a lot. "It's Halloween," she said, but she has something weird in her mouth and her words came out all squished. And then we went to the party and it was all flashing lights and bitter drinks and dancing and music that makes my head hurt. And now it's kind of just cold, and the bitter drinks have made my head hurt and the world kind of move. I don't really like it that much. But I smile a lot because Kieran looks really, really cute even though he's my brother. And my lipgloss kind of tastes funny. It's raining outside. Oslo kisses me. She tastes much better than my lipstick and I'm starting to think this is fun. Fun kind of like shopping and training and when me and Oslo sneak out of school and kind of just talk. And eat ice-cream, I like ice-cream. But I like kissing Oslo, too, and she's kind of warm around me and in my mouth and on my lips. This is fun.

Her tongue is moving in my mouth and it feels like a caterpillar. A nice caterpillar. Kind of hungry and squirmy. I've kissed a lot of people before, but no girls. "What are you doing, Oslo?" I ask her, pulling away. She has a boyfriend. I think of her boyfriend and then I think that he is a boy. I am a girl. But this is fun. I kind of forget what I was worried about as Oslo kisses me again. Her lipstick is really really red. She smells a little bit like crayons. Once I had this box of crayons when I was six and it has all the colours of the rainbow inside it. I really wanted to draw a picture but I accidentally put them in the oven and they melted. But instead I used my mum's eyeliner to draw my picture and she wasn't very happy. The she bought me new shoes. I really really want a jumper right now because Oslo is pulling away and turning around and I'm cold again. I don't think she wants to kiss me anymore. She picks up a drink of the bitter stuff and although I am thirsty I shake my head and start looking around for my brother. "Boo, you whore!" she says, taking a swig herself and walking out. People were watching us and suddenly I realise they were clapping.[/i][/color] I shiver and then I run out after Oslo, because I want her to explain. Explain slowly with little words because big words make my head hurt without the burning liquid I have drunk. She's good at that; she's Oslo and I've known her ever since forever. I can't find her in the crowd with all the moving feet and yelling and the music shaking the walls. I go outside and I hookup with Zhane Smith behind his car but it's not fun. He tastes like smoke and his lips wear no lipstick. He doesn't smell like crayons, he smells like sweat. And then it gets really late and Oslo comes and gets me and we walk back to my house she whispers something to me. "Don't worry, Cora, it was just for show. It's what the boys like." I look at her and I try to pretend I understand what she is saying. I like her nail polish, it's kind of golden and shiny and it has these little glitter bits that look like love hearts. Then I start to think maybe I get what she's saying - that kissing me was like acting or dancing or singing. But then she kisses me again and nobody is watching so I don't really know what to think. Nobody is clapping this time because we're all alone. I go inside and inside it is warm and I take off my bracelets but don't take off my dress and I fall asleep. I don't really think about much at all. Just the crayons.

I'm at Oslo's house and I'm looking in the mirror. Nell and Oslo are looking, too. I get this feeling they look harder than me. I look at me and I see me, and then I see my eyeliner is kind of wobbly and I think back to putting it on this morning and then I'm thinking about toast and alarm clocks and avocado facials. Avocado doesn't taste very nice. Is it a mushroom or a potato? I don't know but it makes my skin soft. "God! My hips are huge!" I say because this is what we always say. Kind of like acting. And kind of like crayons in the way that we kind of just draw on the mirror with our words?It doesn't matter if I don't understand it because I like that it always happens the same. "Oh please! I hate my claves!" Nell says. I look at her arms and nod obediently. It's Oslo's turn now. "At least you guys can wear halters! I have man shoulders!" I nod and try to look sympathetic but I'm not actually thinking about her shoulders. I'm thinking about her lips and I'm wondering if she's wearing the cherry lip-balm from Elso. Then I look back in the mirror and try to look at myself. I see my hair and it's brown. Brown like the mud I got on my Jimmy Choo's that one time and then I threw them out. They were nice. My eyes are kind of blue like the sky on that day Oslo and me went to the park instead of training and we didn't take Nell and we made daisy chains in the grass and she talked about everyone and I listened. I did say something, but it was wrong and she said I was stupid. I think she likes me though. She's a nice friend - she tells me what to wear when I don't know which leg to put my shorts on. She tells me I'm special.

Sometimes people ask to train with us, but mostly they don't. Maybe it's because the last girl who asked to train with us found all of her swords bent the next day. You know, I think Oslo might have done it. I don't really like the training center, it smells kind of funny. Like socks. And sometimes hot chocolate, when Nell makes some. On Wednesdays, we train with bows. I like bows, but I miss the targets a lot. Sometimes my arrows hit other people but Oslo said it's okay as long as they die. We're not allowed to kill people, not unless we get reaped. Oslo said. Oslo tells me what to do a lot, and Nell, but I think it's because she cares. She doesn't let other people be part of our group because then we wouldn't be the same. Sparkly nail polish and earrings and bangles and bows and knives and cherry lip-balm. This at least made sense to me, until Tiger came. And then Oslo said she was pretty and told her to sit down with us and then she invited her to train with us. And then I think she kissed her but I'm not sure.

PERSONALITY

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"Oh my god! I love your dagger! Where did you get it?" Oslo is smiling. I wonder if she is happy. It's hard to tell with Oslo, because sometimes she smiles when she's angry, too. She smiled after she kissed me. "It was my grandma's before the war," the girl says, not smiling back. The dagger is brown with spots on it like the jumper I had the summer after sixth grade. I like her hair. It kind of flicks around at the ends and it's a nice colour. "Vintage, cute!" Oslo nods and I smile, too, with my teeth, because I'm glad we are being nice to her. I think we are, anyway. She walks away from us down the hallway and her shoes make a loud sound on the ground. The floor looks kind of dirty today. "That is the ugliest effing dagger I have ever seen." Sometimes I wish Oslo would smile when she is happy and cry when she is sad, like me. Because a lot of the time I don't know if I am agreeing with her or arguing with her. I'm too stupid to win a fight with anyone Oslo, so mostly I just nod. So I nod and look at Oslo and think about the colour of her hair and how there are parts that are kind of like honey. I really like it when I have honey on toast. Nell said that it's bad for me, but I think it takes kind of like bees. A bee flew up my dress last week and then it went in my mouth and I swallowed it. I only coughed for a few minutes before Oslo threw a glass of water at me. I didn't catch it. But at least she tried. I kind of wish I didn't get so wet, though. Cold and wet like that time in middle school when we stuck out in the middle of winter in the rain and got the training center all ready for Janis' birthday in the morning. I really liked the pink streamers, they were the same colour as my favourite top. The one I wear on Wednesdays a lot. But then something happened later that year and Janice didn't sit with us anymore. Nell came and sat with us instead, and now Tiger does, too. I like Tiger, but she's a lot like Oslo and she likes Oslo a lot. I like Oslo a lot. Oslo makes me think of summer and summer is the time I can wear tops without sleeves. I don't like sleeves because sometimes they are itchy. Like this one time, Oslo bought me a cardigan with these really itchy sleeves and I had to wear it four times before she said it wasn't cool anymore. I gave it away because not everyone is as lucky as me. Not everyone has Oslo there to tell them the best colour to paint their nails and which button goes in which hole.

Some people say I'm stupid, and they're actually right. But other people say I'm not good at anything and they're wrong.I can actually do two things. I can fit the entire handle of a sword into my mouth but I've only ever shown Nell and Oslo this. Also I can tell when it's going to rain. Usually when I look outside and there's water on the window kind of just dripping then I can just feel it inside of me. Like that time I accidentally swallowed a coin. It was kind of in my mouth and then it was gone and I could feel it kind of wedged behind my boob. I like to think of it as my fifth sense. Like the one spiders have with the webs. This one time, me and Nell were training in the snow because Oslo was with her boyfriend. And then she slipped and her lipstick fell out of her pocket and the lid came off and it stained the snow. Kind of pink. But not sparkly like Oslo's. Sometimes I kind of wish I was a bird.

"Boo, you whore!" I still can't work out if whore is a good thing or a bad thing. It's probably really simple, but I find a lot of simple things difficult. Like buttons and bows and eyeliner and cantaloupes. The last cantaloup I had was really soft and fluffy with pink stripes and little bobbles on the hood. It matched my purple gloves really well until Nell told me that Tiger said that Oslo told her that they were ugly. Then I stopped wearing them because I don't want it to go back like it was in middle school when Oslo liked Janis better than she liked me. Because I try really hard. Even when I don't understand her jokes, I still laugh. Sometimes I just laugh to make sure. I'm a good friend, I always train with Oslo when she wants to practise with her knives. And it's kind of a secret but I don't really like shopping that much but I do it anyway. And whenever Oslo is sad because her boyfriend breaks up with her or she can't find the right colour wedges to wear with her platinum necklace, I ask if she wants to go to the bakery. We used to go to the bakery a lot but now she's on a no-carb diet and she doesn't want to anymore. It's okay though because we still train a lot and I really like training because of all the shiny weapons. I really like shiny things but I like sparkly things more.

Like stars and glitter and the stuff that goes in the icing of very expensive cakes and the handles of Tiger's blue bag. And did I already say Oslo's lipgloss because that sparkles, too?

HISTORY

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Oslo was always my friend, ever since forever. And in middle school Janice was my friend too and we were the best in the training center and nobody wanted to fight us. At the end of year show every year we did jingle rock. I stood on the left. Or maybe the right. But Oslo stood on the middle and Janice stood on the other side and we wore red dresses. Red kind of like blood but also kind of like berry smoothies. No sparkles. And I would turn on the music and we would dance and everyone would clap and whistle and sing along. And every single year we would win. Then Janis left and Nell came and we still did it and it was okay. And now I don't know if Tiger is going to do it too this Christmas but I'm worried because with four people there are two middles and sometimes I forget how many two is. Left and right confuses me like the reaping and how crayons melt in the sun but not in the snow and how lipgloss comes in pink but not blue even though I like blue. "We know a lot of secrets," Nell said once, and I nodded. I was sitting on the floor in Oslo's room and sipping a drink her mum brought me, wondering what was in it. And then I was kind of just looking at the carpet and wondering what kind of sheep it comes from and then while I wasn't watching they got out this book and they were sitting there and starting to say all the secrets they knew. And then I was looking in the mirror and I had the best idea I ever had. The yearbook was sitting there and the scissors where in the drawer like they always were. So I started cutting out the pictures and I only chopped my hand once. And there's still blood on the carpet from then, just a little bit. We stuck all of the pictures in the book, me and Gretchen and Oslo. Then Oslo got a pen and she wrote something about everyone and most things didn't make sense and some things were mean. Once, Amira Vellow trained with paints instead of weapons. Aelyss DiRista - she made out with a tracker jacker. Fawn Ellis. Mutt.

When I was very, very little I had a big sister. I know because in the living room there is a picture on top of the fire and it has us in it. I was looking at it one day and thinking how small I was and looking at my green wellington boots with the fairies on the side and wishing I had kept them. And then I started thinking about the girl and remembered that when I was young I had a sister. And then one day, my very first day of school, I went into the room holding hands with Oslo and wondering what exactly numbers were. When I came out, I went home and she wasn't there and she never came back. I never asked what happened because most of my questions are stupid. But Mummy and Daddy were quiet that night and I got to go shopping the next day and I bought myself some running shoes with rainbow laces. When I wore them to school that day everyone looked and said they looked pretty and then Oslo asked if she could have them so I gave them to her for keeps. I didn't really mind because there were no sparkles on them and I only really really like sparkles. So I kind of just forgot about my big sister and only that time when I looked at the photo of us hugging, two bonde heads and blue eyes really really alike. I don't remember her, much. The only thing I can really think about is the day she and I walked right to the back of the district and she showed me the rings in the trees. Something about how every little circle means another baby tree the tree made. Or something. I was kind of just looking at the blue sky and the little white flowers and the little droplets of water on the grass. And thinking about how maybe I should have worn socks inside my shoes instead of no socks at all because my feet were wet.

I have a brother, too. I don't like him much but sometimes at parties he looks quite nice. Nell says it's a bad thing to think my brother is hot. I don't really care, though. Sometimes he's nice to me but he doesn't like Oslo so I don't like him. He calls her names. Mean names. Lot's of things I don't really know what they mean but I don't tell Oslo anyway because I like it when she comes to my house. A lot of the time she lies on my bed and talks and I just kind of smell her crayon smell and sometimes I draw little hearts on my knees. I like heart shapes - how one part of them is round and soft and the other part is pointy and sharp and not so nice. Exactly like Oslo. Soft like her lips on mine and pointy like the words in the burn book and just kind of Oslo. Like cherry lip balm and sparkles.

"Oslo Birbeck is flawless."







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