Leafling Brundetta | District 7

My wavy brown hair falls just past my shoulders, soft and smooth to the touch. My eyebrows are bushy, but I don’t let people touch my face. The skin is light and I have a few freckles dotting me here and there. The skin is soft and velvety, and very stretchy due to something I will mention later. You can see my veins in some places people don’t normally show veins. My big, cooking pot eyes are a lovely brown. I have a small nose, and small, thin pink lips stuck in a neutral expression. My roundish face is very childlike, and some won’t believe I am thirteen.

I have a short neck that leads down to a thin and frail body. My shoulders are small, and my arms are long and skinny. I am small around the main body, with not much breast nor stomach to speak of. Downwards, towards my legs, you see how long limbed I truly am. They are nice legs. Well, I tell myself they are. I am flat-footed.

Nearly every cut in my skin I have ever received is at least slightly noticeable as a scar. My wounds do not heal right, and I bruise a little easier than most. Nearly all of my joints are considerably hyper mobile, but I do not see this as a good thing, for I suffer from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. This has resulted in some vision problems for me, but only a little fuzz that I can deal with. I have chronic joint pain, but it comes and goes and I let myself fiddle around with my mobility and impress my mother over and over. I have the classical form of EDS, type two, and I am able to contort myself rather easily.

Who I am

If you care (You should)

My full name is Leafling Nessie Brundetta, but most who know me refer to me as Leaf, and when using my full name they shorten it to Leaf Brund because they are too lazy to appreciate the epicness of my name. I am generally a very optimistic person, and in fact I only cry when I’m in severe pain. I am eager to please, but also very easily impressed by others. I really don’t care if people like my appearance, which most seem to do, I only care if they like what I can do or who I am. I show off sometimes, and let people know I am very flexible. I hardly ever mention the down sides of my condition though – they might think I’m weird.

I have no trouble getting friends, and try to make myself friends with people who don’t have very many. I tend to be the one who introduces people to the others, and end up connecting them with a future best friend. The girls at school like me for this, I guess, but some call me a goody-two-shoes. I honestly just want to help. Hm, I live off getting compliments but I never expect them. I didn’t realize it until about a year ago, and when I did I felt terrible for being that way. I lose optimism the longer I go without a compliment. On the bright side, I’m friendly enough people mention them minorly in sentences as they talk about me.

I know I sound snobby, but all my life I’ve been trying to impress my mother. She hardly ever notices me, what having all those other kids to look after, but I really feel like I need her attention. It frustrates me sometimes, but then I just take a break and breath for a little while, trying to regain my happy attitude. There is little bedspace in my house, and due to my range of motion and, well, my general size, I usually end up sleeping in the hamper. It’s usually empty anyways, because we don’t have many clothes to change out of, but I’ve been known to have a pile of clothes dumped on me the morning of the Reaping.

Who I know

If you’ve heard of them (You haven’t)

My mother is Seed, her maiden name was Feveretti, and she is always busy with my many siblings. I’m the second youngest, and I’m not the troublemaker, so there is no room for attention to me. My father is Twig, and you can imagine he was the one who named me. Just between you and me – my grandfather was named Branch. The oldest of my nine siblings is Lake, he is 24 and doesn’t live with us anymore. Then there comes Flower, who is twenty, the twins Puddle and Tree who are eighteen and girls, Cloud who is seventeen, Nest is fifteen, Lily and Sun are fourteen, me, then Plant who is ten. My three best friends are Epitaph, Mefe, and Sailas.

Where I’ve been

If it’s interesting enough (It is)

I was born in District 6, thirteen merry years ago. I think the only ones who actually noticed I was born was my mother – because she had to - and my father, because he was there when it happened. The older half of my siblings thought me just another mouth to feed. They didn’t really think I was anything special until I was old enough to move myself around, when they realized “Hey! Another weird kid!” The greatness of what had happened lasted perhaps six months, then they got used to me. The attention stayed in my head though, and I found myself wanting more, so I went outside and twisted my body up for money. This my siblings did take some notice in.

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember wrought it’s ghost upon the floor. Eagerly we wished the morrow – okay that is about it, ignore my Edgar Allen Poe reference, if I lived in YOUR world I’d be obsessed with him. But really, it was in December, and we were sitting in front of the fire place eagerly wanting the next day to come because it was to be our birthday. (All of my siblings somehow were born on the same day, just different years.) Anyways, my brother Cloud proposed the idea of having people pay to come and see me. I liked the idea – it meant attention. Then my father protested, saying he wasn’t going to use me. I wanted to be used! Later, Cloud gathered some of my siblings (Lake, Flower, Puddle, and Tree) and they put me in a medium-sized outdoor closet and sat by advertising people to come see. No one came, they were asking too much as a price. We were so young back then!

When I was nine some of my friends and I were playing truth or dare. Eventually we had to make a rule we couldn’t say truth, and it became Dare or Double Dare, then it had to be Double Dare or Double Dare. I chose double dare, which might have been quite a mistake. I was double dared to kiss three boys on the field the next day, and being the person I was at the age of nine I couldn’t say no. Can you imagine how furious the teacher was?