Amily Chestnut [wip]

"Hurry up!" Mother screams, and my cousins tumble down the rickety staircase, each rushing to get out the door behind her. I am pulling my socks on, but in my imagination I am putting on ballet shoes. The girls crashing over my head are birds, and my mother is the director. Our narrow staircase is a regal flight, the cracked, dry dirt floors are polished marble, and my last name is most certainly NOT Chestnut. It is an ugly name, I would rather be Whitcomb or Winkempleck, or Gamblin, but not Chestnut. My cousins seem to love my name, but I am anything but proud of it. They don't realize all the history behind a name like chestnut.

It started, for the most part, the day I was born. My father completely missed it, and my mother was left to give birth completely alone in our living room, as he was in town receiving a whipping for a neighbor's claim he killed two of their cows. (In reality, the cows had died because our neighbor sprayed his grass with some icky stuff) My aunt brought him home just as my mother passed out on the floor, and my family's angst flew like wildfire. Within the month, my two aunts and three uncles had all been arrested for attacks on the peacekeepers and the neighbor who had caused the mishap. So my four cousins moved in. They didn't mind that I was part of the reason, they were all so young I don't know if they really thought about blaming me. The oldest was only five at the time, and I was still a newborn. Five years later, my father finally murdered the lying neighbor, and so he was carted off to the Capitol.