Hornet McConnell, D8 [FISISHED]

I’m a bitch, I’m a loser, baby, maybe I should quit
I’m a jerk, wish I had the money but I can’t find work
I’m a brat, I’m a selfish punk, I really should be smacked
My parents tried until they got divorced
Because I ruined their lives

( N A M E ) Deidre Vanessa Burton Hornet McConnell
( G E N D E R ) Female
( A G E ) Seventeen
( D I S T R I C T / A R E A ) District Eight

I’m a bad kid and I will survive
Oh I’m a bad kid, don’t know wrong from right
I’m a bad kid and this is my life
One of the bad kids, don’t know wrong from right
This is my life

( A P P E A R A N C E )

Batty always tells me I'm a diamond in the rough, but I ain't never seen a diamond that had this much dirt on it. We call her Batty for a reason. The streets have rubbed their way into every part of me that you can see, ratty curls the color of dirt and dirt-dark shadows under eyes the color of that slush that lays in the gutter come wintertime and picks up the filth until it turns all gray and mushy. Freckles splash over my cheeks like I've gone and been in a mud-fight with the boys (maybe I've just been in too many of 'em and the dirt won't wash off anymore), little sprinkles of dark on top of skin that's milk white and as smooth as the satin they make in the factory down the street. They always pay extra, the ones that say I got soft skin. Maybe the rest of the girls are too rough all over for them. Me, I'm just rough around the edges and on the inside where no one can feel it.

Everything about me's too sharp to be rough, anyways, a face that's all angles and a pointed chin that could probably cut right through glass if I put my mind to it. Maybe I'd have curves like the other girls do if I didn't give all my food to the little ones, but at this point I'm all bones and lines, tall for my age at 5'10" last time Batty marked me against the ruler on the wall but too skinny for anyone to look at me and say I'm healthy. Can't no one be healthy when it feels like your belly's gnawing on your backbone just to keep itself alive. Me and Skid, we do our best to keep the rest of 'em going to bed without their stomachs growling, him with his smarts and me with... well, with the only thing I got to make money with, Ripred knows I ain't got the brains like he does, but in return we end up lying awake sometimes and letting the sounds of our own hunger be our lullabies.

I can clean up real nice, though, if I put my mind to it. I got one nice outfit that I wear for business purposes even though the rest are threadbare fruits of thievery charity, and sometimes when I'm feeling patient I'll sit and let Kit brush the knots out of my hair until it shines like a new penny, soft and smooth and only a little grimy feeling if the plumbing's been working right and we all got our showers. I'm pretty for a child of the streets, I guess, and thank dear Ripred for that, 'cause my looks and Skid's brains and both our clever hands are all we got in this world to keep us alive.

Don’t be insecure if your heart is pure
You’re still good to me if you’re a bad kid, baby
Don’t be insecure if your heart is pure
You’re still good to me if you’re a bad kid, baby
A bad kid, baby

( P E R S O N A L I T Y )

So maybe I am a diamond in the rough. They say that a diamond's the hardest thing on Earth, can cut through anything, and it ain't no secret that I'll cut you before you can think twice if you decide to mess with me. Hornet McConnell, diamond of the gutter. Sometimes Batty's got a little more wisdom in that rattled old brain of hers than I thought. Everyone 'round this part of the District knows better than to tangle with me and the ones who don't learn quick enough; just 'cause I got a pretty face and a little body don't mean that my big brother never taught me how to throw a punch or move my hands so quick and clever that I could steal the shirt off your back and sell it back to you for twice the price before you even realized you'd been robbed. Street smarts, someone told me once upon a time when I was nothing more than another grimy child duking it out with a heap of other grimy children for the bakery's day-old bread. You got street smarts, girl, and that ain't something everyone's got.

And maybe that's true, and I guess my street smarts are the only thing I got going for me, since I ain't got any other smarts to speak of. I never did have much patience for reading or writing or 'rithmetic; Birdie's handwriting is better than mine even though she's just a tiny thing, and all them numbers that Skid tumbles around in his brain and all the books that Wheels bugs us to bring back for him just make my head hurt when I try to think about 'em. That's all right though, I know my book-smarts ain't up to par, but it seems the only person around here who ever got anywhere using book-smarts is Skid. I would pick knowing the secrets of the streets like the veins on the back of my hand above knowing how to do his fancy card tricks any day, and that's probably why we're such a good team. We fill in each other's gaps and make up for the things that the other ain't good at. Together we can play this district like a drum, and even though there ain't a lot to be beaten out of it, it's enough to get by.

I hate it sometimes, though, hate how people look down on me like something smaller than them just because I talk kinda funny or 'cause I ain't a "lady" with all this dirt on me or that I don't really remember how the times tables are supposed to go (two times ten is... thirty? Eight times eight is twenty-three? Hell, I don't know, but I do know that my fist plus your face equals pain, you highfalutin' little twat). I know things, really, I do. How to take someone's wallet from their back pocket without 'em feeling a thing, ten ways to bring a man to his knees in two seconds, how to make a day's worth of food last a week. All of those are things I've learned from time and necessity, but there are others that have been in my head from the start, all safe and sound and just ready for an opportunity to shine. How to be witty enough to either charm someone or cut 'em down to size with a sense of sarcasm keener than the edge of a switchblade, how to talk people into getting what I want or need out of them, how to draw just about anything all picture-perfect and pretty with a pencil stub and the last scraps of a notebook that someone threw away.

Birdie likes to sit beside me while I draw sometimes, big brown eyes all wide and curious as I turn a bunch of lines and curves into faces and trees and worlds we've never seen before. They line the walls of the apartment, my sketches do, everything from flowers to clouds to a drawing in place of a family portrait that took me hours to finish plastered onto coffee-stained paper and too-thin walls. I know I ain't got time to waste scrounging around the dumpsters for paper and broken pencils, but it makes the place feel a little brighter, a little more like home. Like maybe one day I can draw us a whole new world where everything ain't so hard all the time.

I’m a twit, degenerate young rebel and I’m proud of it
Pump your fist if you would rather mess up than put up with this
I’m a nerd, I chew gum and smoke in your face, I’m absurd
I’m so bad and I don’t give a damn, I love it when you’re mad
When you’re mad, when you’re mad

( H I S T O R Y )

My name used to be Deidre Vanessa Burton. Stuffy, ugly name f'you ask me. Sounds like something you'd name a kitten. But that old name is really all I got left of the past, most of it lost to foggy almost-memories the further I grow away from my childhood. From what Batty remembers, which really ain't too reliable a source, I was a scandal. My mama went and slept with someone she shouldn't have, someone important, and nine months later I came along as the living proof. Well, it wouldn't do to have some illegitimate lovechild laying around waiting to be discovered, so my daddy, some important official or another, paid her off to send me to live like I never had any parents at all. Really, I guess I didn't. I was less than a year old when they brought me to Batty's, so she's really the only mama I've ever known.

I grew up with a zillion brothers and sisters, although I could always be spotted tumbling in the mud with the boys. I didn't like none of them tea parties or rag dolls, it was all too fluffy for me. I wanted dirt, I wanted grit, I wanted adventure and thrills and climbing trees even though I knew I'd get stuck and Skid would have to climb up after me. He was Virgil back then, just like I was Deidre, but somewhere deep own I think we knew that we were Skid and Hornet even back then. Even so, our transformation didn't take too long.

I don't remember too much about the orphanage shutting down. I remember it being dark, remember Batty's hushed whispers and me, six-years-old and so confused following her blindly into the streets, bare feet slapping against the cold pavement. And I remember the hunger, like my body trying to eat itself from the inside-out. Remember cold floors as beds and Birdie crying like if she could wail loud enough that food would appear in front of her. Remember being told that my name couldn't be Deidre Burton anymore. I smiled at that. Hornet McConnell had a nice ring to it, something tough and edgy and far more like me than my stupid fluffy-kitten-name had ever been. So even though we were all still starving, at least there was a small spark of contentment. Batty had always been my mama. Now I just had fewer brothers and sisters and a new name to go with it.

It was never easy, though, the constant struggle to stay alive even though Batty was trying her best to keep us going. There was never enough, never enough food or clothes or anything, and slowly but surely, we were all dying. It changed though, changed when Skid started bringing home money for food out of the blue and all of a sudden there was a little pinprick of hope in the distance. Took me ages of pestering him to make him 'fess up to what he'd been doing, though: pick-pocketing. Thieving. Dumpster diving.

Well, I'd never been one to turn down an adventure. I wanted in.

I picked it all up as fast as Skid could teach me; I was a natural thief, sneaky and cunning and fast enough that no one could ever hope to catch me. Between the two of us, we pulled in enough to keep the family afloat. Our bellies weren't quite full and our clothes weren't quite patched, but we could survive. And that was more than we'd had hope of in years. There were lean times, though. Times when the pickings weren't good and no one stupid enough to carry money on them came to our part of the slums, and that was when times got desperate.

I was fifteen the first time I did it. Birdie had been crying again, her stomach rumbling so loud that all of us could hear it, and I didn't really think about it, just knew that I had to get her some food before she got sick. I'd seen the girls on the corners at night, knew what they did and how they did it and what they got for it, and at the time, it was the only thing that made sense. He was older than me, way older, probably somewhere in his thirties with eyes that made my skin crawl. But he paid extra because I hadn't ever done it before and apparently that was something special. I closed my eyes and tried to get lost inside my own head, but my brain has a way of being stubborn and making me face things as they come at me. So when I stumbled home, cold and crying and in so much pain but still clutching that precious money, I was only in the door for about five seconds before I collapsed to the floor and vomited.

I was disgusted with myself.

I never told anyone, especially not Skid, who I was sure would call me every kind of nasty thing under the sun if he found out. Because Skid has a way of being straight with me about things even if he lies to everything else. If he knew what I'd done, what I was, well... I didn't want to have to face it any more than I already had. But when times got lean again a few months later, I went back to the corner with my head held a little higher and a little more determination in my step. I ain't never been afraid of getting down and dirty to get what I need. This one was a bit better, younger and with real pretty eyes, and he told me I was pretty and called me sweetheart afterwards. All in all more bearable, and it was still the same money no matter how I got it. Still my insides would squirm whenever I thought about it, and I still never told anybody where the money was coming from, not even when I went back the next time, or the time after that, or the time after that or until I lost count of how many times the corner had felt the click of my only pair of high-heeled shoes.

But it feels like it's the only thing I can do anymore, what with Skid disappearing off to the bars to hustle folks at pool and telling me that I can't come along because he doesn't want me in a room with all them men - if only he knew. Odds are I've been on friendly terms with about half of 'em already. But in a sick way there's a sense of satisfaction in it, a solid knowledge that I'm at least doing something to keep the little ones safe and healthy and a little happy even if sometimes I feel like I'm getting emptier inside with each press of a crisp bill into my hand. Another crown jewel in a tiara of diamonds in the rough.

I’m not that typical baby
I’m a bad kid like my mom and dad made me
I’m not that cool and you hate me
I'm a bad kid
That's the way that they made me

( C O D E W O R D ) Odair

I’m a bad kid, I’m disastrous
Give me your money or I’ll hold my breath
I’m a bad kid and I will survive
One of the bad kids
Don't know wrong from right

( C O M M E N T S / O T H E R )

Template ripped off from Lalia

FC is Grace Phipps

Bad Kids - Lady Gaga