Child Velazquez (District 9) (Done)

My name says it all. I look awfully childish even though I am already 10 years old. Unlike most of the others I live with I am not tall, standing at only 127 centimetres, even if I have grown a lot since last year. There isn't really much to eat around here so I am thin for my small height with a weight of just 66 pounds. I really am small and it is so not fair. At least with looking like a child my skin is soft and smooth unlike some of the older ones have. Unfortunately I completely lack muscles in my slim frame which can make me look weak.

My eyes are blue. Baby blues the others usually call them. It annoys me that they view them in that way. My face is complete with slightly chubby cheeks which give me a misjudged look of innocence. I don't like my teeth as they are all crooked. I think they must have grown like it. However one thing I do like is my hair. I have short blonde hair with a short fringe that lightly places itself on my forehead with a hint of a curl near the bottom. At least there is one good thing about my appearance.

On to clothes, well there isn't really much money in the house so I don't have many choices of outfit. Most of the time I wear a simple, comfortable t-shirt that is light blue with dark purple stripes. The collar is a v-neck and a slightly darker purple than the stripes. With it I will put on a pair of dark blue jeans. They are slightly long in the leg but otherwise they fit me perfectly which is great when I wear them so often. I wear these with a plain pair of white trainers. They are nothing stylish like those in the Capitol or career districts would wear but they are comfortable so it doesn't bother me.

The first word that I hear people say when they are describing me is the word feisty. I guess it is because I stand up to people who annoy me, especially when the older ones always treat me like a little kid. I'm 10 now and grown up enough to be treated like an adult. Ok, I admit that I do look a bit like a child but that doesn't mean I am one. Also it comes up that I get angry quite easy when people tease me or annoy me. I think they just don't realise who they are dealing with because they underestimate me. Because of this I often have Year or Christmas telling me to watch my tongue. Because they are older they like to keep me in check.

However when I have nothing there to make me snappy or angry I like to talk to the others around the house. Even though the older ones are bossy sometimes, they can be fun to talk to when they are not busy doing other things. I suppose sometimes it is good to hear from a voice with more experience of life. It can be fun listening in when Halloween is letting April in on a prank. Thinking of April brings me to the three in our house who are younger than me. Being older than them I feel it is my duty to care for them and if they are down I will always try my best to cheer them up. They always have such nice smiles when they are happy

I know it seems childish, which I certainly am not, but I can actually act slightly dependant on the older ones in the house when I am having a hard time. Especially when I remember my parents, how I didn't get that much chance to be with them and have a happy family. The older ones, especially Christmas, always seem to know what to say when I am down. However I want to be more independant to show them that I am not a child and I can deal with life without them watching over me every single hour of the day. When one of them asks me if I need a hand with something simple I will simply snap back that I can do it perfectly well by myself.

Ok. I don't know everything about my early life but here is what I have managed to piece together. I was born on November 20th to my parents Lenore and Sergio. They gave me the name Child, though I have no idea how that idea came into their heads. I believe my mum would have stayed home to look after me as if I remember rightly my dad worked long hours in a plastics factory creating different kinds of packaging. It must have been a simple life for our fairly average family back then, apart from the fact that we lived in district 9 and there wasn't much to eat. I think my mum would have tried her best to raise me in the best way possible. From what dad always said about her she was an amazing woman.

However when I was 3, my mother passed away from illness. I didn't understand at the time when Dad told me that mum was going on a journey that would last forever. I though she was going to another district or something. How naive I was back then. I vaguely remember looking out the window often, waiting for her to return but never seeing her figure approach our home. However, soon I didn't have time to look out of that window as I turned 5 and dad told me I had to start going to school.

At first the school in district 9 seemed a nice and happy place to be. There were lots of people my age to play with and the teachers were friendly and wanted to help you learn new things. In the first years it was mostly playing with toys and them teaching us how to read books. I did as well as most of my class by the look of the school reports that I still had until a couple of years ago. It wasn't the most interesting or happiest existence but I would smile a lot at school as we all played and read together.

However as everyone grew older they started to notice things about people and some of the others started saying mean things to me. Mostly tnhey were about my name or my height, sometimes even both. I would always fight back as good as I got though and after a while they seemed to get the message that I didn't want them around and slowly backed off. This was good and I focused on what I was learning. When we were taught anything about factories I was always very interested in it given that my dad worked in one. It all seemed perfect but in fact it was too perfect.

I wasn't long before my 8th birthday when there was a knock on my door by two scary looking peacekeepers. They said that something had gone badly wrong at the factory where my dad worked. They said that he wouldn't be coming home. I heard the word dead and for the first time I truly understood what it meant. Like mum he was never going to come back to me. I was all alone in the house where my family used to live. There were talks, big talks, about where I was going to stay and I remember the orphanage being mentioned. That scared me as I heard bad things about the orphanage in the district. However one day I was saved. There came a knock on the door from somebody I didn't recognise. That person was Year, who took me to the house I live in now.

When I first came there were fewer of us there. I can't remember if I was the youngest or not but I was definitely one of the youngest. More quickly followed and we have lived together since that time two years ago. Together we have found a way to survive the trials and tribulations of district 9. I t is not perfect. Sometimes we can go days without food but I hope I speak for all of us when I say it is the best option we could have taken. We may fall out with each other once in a while but in the end we all depend on one another to survive and that is a bond that keeps making us closer and closer together. It has come to pass that the group I live with have become almost like a family, even if they can never replace my true parents.

Playby- Matty B

Part of Sarella's Holidays plot