Iris Angelou (The Ghost of Lake Lupin)--D12

My name is Iris Angelou and I am the Ghost of Lake Lupin. I suppose that’s a pretty good name for me because I do look really ghostly. You see, I'm albino which means my skin, eyes, and hair are all completely devoid of pigments. The result is that I'm papery white all over. My hair is long and thin and it blows around me in the wind when I walk. When the moon is bright, it will look like my hair is glowing, further enhancing my spectral appearance. My condition also means that he sun is really dangerous for me. And I mean really. If I go out in the day, my snow white skin starts to burn in minutes. I suppose realistically, it's no wonder that parents tell their misbehaving kids that ill snatch them if they don’t behave. When I'm walking around at night in my white dresses that I almost always wear, I am pretty spooky.

My mother describe me as a wisp of a person because I am so tall and thin. She says I look so delicate that I may shatter like a porcelain doll if she’s not careful with me. I've always been skinny, but it's a different kind of skinny than most people in my district. Since my dad is a shopkeeper instead of a miner, I've never been without food, so I'm not thin because I'm starving. I'm thin because I just am. Anyway, it isn't difficult to see my ribs and my elbows and knees look rather knobby since the skin is tightly wrapped around them. I'm not muscular at all. Not like my brother. When we get new shipments of books in the store, Nathan can help the delivery boy carry stuff in. I would break my back if I even tried to pick up one of those packages.

My facial features are soft. I have a heart shaped face and round cheeks. My lips are full, but I'm careful not to show my teeth off too much. You see, when your skin is a pale as mine, no matter what, your teeth always look yellow, so I have mastered the art of smiling with my mouth closed. My eyes are small and a watery light grey color. My white (surprise!) eyebrows hang low on my face, so I look like I'm sad even when I'm not.

My family would be the first to tell you that I'm shy. And how could I not be? Any time I meet anyone, I get stared at as though I am some kind of a freak. Everyone expects me to be timid and week and I am, so I figure I'm not disappointing to anybody. I spend a large portion of my days sleeping in my bedroom in the flat above dad’s bookstore. During the rest of the daylight time, I read or write. I absolutely love books. My family couldn’t have a better store for me. When I can't go outside, I find company in my stories or I write some of my own. Nobody knows, but I've written two stories already. I don’t think I could ever show them to anyone because they're really more of a way for me to get my feelings out than a way to get attention.

But there isn't anything interesting about a girl who just reads in her bedroom. She is not the thing of local legends. I am. And that’s because of what I do at night. I love to be outside. I adore the smell of grass and how mud feels between my toes. And don’t get me started on how great it feels to have my hair blown around by wind. If I could, I’d be outside all of the time. But I can't, so each night, I sneak out of my bedroom window, shimmy down the gutter and make my way to my favorite place in District Twelve—Lake Lupin. Some nights I swim in the waters, others I walk on the shore and let myself become part of the night. And other times, I just walk the streets and smell the outdoors.

Nobody knows I leave home. They know someone pale runs around the district at night, but only a few denizens of the district know I exist because I'm in my room all day long. That’s how stories got started about me being a ghost. I’ll tell you about that later.

Even though I am pretty much doomed to never have a normal life because I'm afraid of burning in the sun, my mother insisted upon teaching me to behave like a proper lady. After years of that being drilled into my skull, I now sit up straight and talk formally on my own accord. I don’t necessarily expect others to do the same, but it does make me feel more comfortable to be around people who understand the importance of proper English and manners.

I suppose I'm a nice enough person. I haven't had the chance to interact with a lot of other people though. But when I do, I am on my best behavior. My mom says I'm naïve and I trust people too easily, but I think I just want to see the best in people. Sometimes I feel guilty because my late night escapades scare some people, but that is really where I draw the line. I only get to be outside when it is dark and I really love it, so as long as I can, I’ll sneak out and have my nocturnal fun.

My parents always said that they have three babies: Me, my younger brother Nathan, and Angelou Books. As long as I can remember, it has been my parents’ job to run the store, Nathan’s to deal with any heavy lifting, and mine to make sure that the bookstore is always tidy and looks nice. We grew up on books. Any family entertainment when I was a kid came in the form of family reading time. The common interest of the shop kept our family tight knit and more successful than most of our neighbors.

When I got old enough for school, my mother made an arrangement with the district twelve mayor to allow me to receive my education at home due to my skin condition. At first it was cool that I didn’t have to go to school like the other kids and it was even better when Nathan started leaving for school. There was a pretty major downside to my educational arrangement though. Since I never had to leave the house, I never received news of events happening around me. So when Melody Morris drowned in the lake in my second grade year, nobody ever felt the need to tell me about it. I went on about my life as though nothing had happened.

It doesn’t sound like that should matter much especially since I didn’t even know Melody, but for a week or so, she was the talk of the town. Now by an awkward coincidence, just a few nights after Melody’s death, I was looking out my window into the dark abyss of the coal district and wondering what must lay beyond Angelou Books. That was the first night I climbed down the gutter. The first night I found my way to Lake Lupin. I walked along the shore, played in the mud, swam, danced in the moonlight and had the best night of my life. That was when I decided to sneak out every night.

After a few weeks, people started acting funny. They purchased an unusual amount of books about ghosts and demons. Store patrons would mutter things to each other about the “dead girl.” Eventually I got curious and asked my mother what was going on. She told me about Molly and about how everyone thinks her ghost is still haunting the lake. As my mom described the “ghost that people had seen, I could barely keep from laughing at the fact that the ghost was me. I chose to keep that a secret too, because that seemed like the kind of thing that would be more fun if I was the only one who knew.

During the next ten years, being the ghost of Lake Lupin gave my life more excitement and more meaning than I would have ever dreamed. Every few months, I would construct an elaborate sighting of myself just to give the poor people of my district something to get excited about. It felt like no time before Lake Lupin was considered one of the most haunted places in Panem. We even had ghost hunters from the Capitol visit us once. I love to hear the stories about myself and see how parents warn their children that I will take them away if they are not good or hobby fishermen talking about how I was the guardian of the lake and I would protect them while they fished. To this day, nobody knows that the most interesting character in the Lake Lupin area of District Twelve is the boring hermit author girl who lives above her parents’ shop. And I’d like to see how long I can keep it that way.