alaska argent { nine } fin

{ a l a s k a }

0.

She was never told where she came from.
She asked once, but they batted their eyes and said that they would tell her someday. She used to imagine that she fell from the stars, born out of the mouth oblivion — or that perhaps she just appeared one day in the Argents' house.

"Where did I come from?"

"I'll tell you someday."

"When is someday?"

"Not today."

And she guesses that day just hasn't come.

1.

The Argents did not have biological children of their own, since Mrs. Argent was infertile. They did, however, adopt. Isla, the daughter of Mrs. Argent's late sister, was the eldest, and then Halcyon, the only boy in the family, was Alaska's age. Later, the Argents adopted Willow and Misty, a pair of biological sisters. Most of the children looked drastically different from one another, save Misty and Willow, who were fair-haired and fair-eyed like Alaska. Only Isla, with fair skin and dark hair, slightly resembled her parents.

They were in the upper tier of the wealthy class of District Nine. It was nothing compared to how lavishly the people of Districts One through Four lived, but the Argents' wealth was something in Nine. People knew them for their nice house, blue with white trim and a white porch with columns that stretched all around. They had a big green yard and a garden, where they grew their own food. They'd say that walking into the house of the Argents was like walking into a dream.

In reality, they were nothing spectacular, but to someone who lived in a rickety shack, they were.

2.

Her first word was "snickerdoodle." It was likely the common word around her house, with Isla and Halcyon constantly begging Mrs. Argent to make "more, more, more snickerdoodles!" It was their favorite thing to eat in whole wide world, and this trend quickly caught onto the young, impressionable Alaska.

She doesn't remember the actual moment she spoke the word, but she does recall her mother telling the story over and over again to their relatives when they would visit for dinner. And she'd sink down in her seat with a beet-red face to try to hide herself, but it would only make her mother laugh and go on.

3.

Her first memory is flying.

She was out in the woodlands with Isla and her babysitter when a dog chased the three of them up a tree. Alaska was in the babysitter's arms as she inched down a thick branch, trying to move to the next tree. Isla, nimble and skilled at climbing, had already made it there, but it was a struggle for the babysitter, who had to carry Alaska.

They climbed from tree to tree until they had gone far enough to reach the roof of a house. Isla looked down and she could still see the dog, frothing at the mouth and snarling, its lips curled back to reveal a row of daggers. It was a risky jump, but they didn't have much of a choice. Isla made the leap without a problem, but it was not going to be so easy for the babysitter, who was struggling to hold onto both the branch and the baby Alaska.

"You're going to have to throw her to me," Isla told her. "You won't get across if you don't."

She paused for a moment, her gaze flickering between Alaska and the vast space between the branch and the roof, where below, the rabid dog was waiting. Reluctantly, she nodded, and sent Alaska soaring through the air.

She remembers the wind ripping through her tightly wound curls, roaring in her ears, whipping her face. But she kept her eyes open despite it, and all she was looking at was the sky. It was as if she had sprouted a pair of wings, and she could go until she reached the stars of empty space —

and then she landed in Isla's arms.

4.

She remembers watching her parents carry Willow and Misty inside. They had gone out that night to the orphanage to adopt the children they had looked at before, and Alaska had waited all night long to see her new siblings. She sat on the wicker rocking chair on the balcony, staring into the stars, until she heard her parents turning the corner.

Alaska, full of a surge of excitement, bolted back into the house and nearly threw herself down the stairs. She reached the door just as her parents did. Her mother let her hold Misty, and all she remembers are these giant blue eyes, like a clear sky, staring back at her.

"Mom, what's their names?"

"Misty and Willow."

"Do you think we'll get along?"

Her mother smiled. "Of course you will — you're sisters."

5.

They dragged her to school bawling.

"Moooooommm, please don't make me go! Halcyon said that the teachers make you cut grass with nail clippers and all the kids at school are ugly!" she cried, desperate for them to carry her back home and let her fall back into bed.

The night before her first day, her brother made up stories of how terrible and torturous school was — he loved to pull pranks on Alaska, and as he watched her scream and cry in her parents' arms, he was grinning beside them manically at his work.

However, once Alaska got to school, she found that it was quite alright. The other children knew her family very well — namely for their big blue house — so she had no trouble making friends. She'd skip home from school with her siblings, bragging, "I'm charismatic," utilizing new vocabulary she picked up from her teacher, "so school is easy for me. I don't have to suffer like you said, Halcyon."

6.

Of the few things she does remember from this time in her life, 'career day' at school stands out to her the most. The teachers went around the classroom and asked each child, one by one, what they wanted to be when they grew up.

("What do you want to be when you grow up?")

As each child answered and her turn grew nearer, Alaska began to search her mind for answers, as she didn't really know what people in District Nine did for a living. She thought back to her mother talking at the dinner table the night before, gossiping about the woman next door —

"She stresses like a stripper; probably because she is one."

Alaska asked, innocently, what that was, and her mother said after a long pause, "Someone whose job is to be very nice to men and women."

By the way her mother described it, it sounded like a wonderful profession to her.

When the question finally came around to Alaska, she answered promptly, "A stripper."

After school when her mother came to pick her up, the teacher pulled Mrs. Argent aside for a word about Alaska's behavior, and she was grounded for a week.

7.

For her seventh birthday, her grandfather built her a tree house. It was nestled between the branches of a great oak tree in the grove behind the Argents' house. He took lead her to the grove and made her keep her hands over her eyes, and when she opened them to see the tree house, he said, "This can be your special place."

And from that day on, it was. When she would come home crying or wanted to get away from her house full of siblings, she would run to the safety of her tree house. She was often punished in school for "ill behavior" — she would play so many pranks that the teachers would search her backpack before class and watch her like a hawk all day.

"This misbehaving at school needs to stop, Alaska."

"I'm not doing anything wrong, Mom, they're just ruining my fun. It isn't fair."

And Mrs. Argent sighed.

"I spoiled you way too much for your own good."

She was not wrong. Alaska was given everything she desired, always. If she wanted a cookie from the bakery, her father would go get if for her. If she wanted to wear her mother's favorite heels to school, she would be allowed to.

They couldn't say no to her — when the words were on the brink of their lips, Alaska would bat her big blue eyes, and it would die on their tongues — so it was a great shock to her when she didn't get her way every once in a blue moon.

Though she was one of the most popular girls in her class, with many friends who liked her for her goofball sense of humor and for her ridiculous pranks that would make the teacher's face turn scarlet, but she hated school. In her eyes, the teachers were idiots who didn't understand and existed primarily to ruin her day.

Every time the teachers would scold her, she would swear to herself that she would never go back to school. And every morning, her parents would drag her back.

8.

In the summer, she and her grandfather painted her tree house blue. It had been without color before, just plain wood from a pine tree. They went to the store together and picked it out — sky blue, the color of Alaska's eyes and the color of the Argents' house.

It was their project that summer. When she grandfather would get off of work, he would go to their house and work on the tree house with Alaska. He'd hold her high up on his shoulders so she could reach to paint certain parts of the wood. Sometimes, he would pretend that he was about to let her fall, but he would always catch her, and then the both of them would burst out laughing.

"You're my most favoritist person, Grandpa," she told him after they finished painting the entire tree house. He smiled his bright trademark smile that everyone knew him for. Some of her family said that when her grandfather smiled, even on dark and cold days, the sun would peek its head out just to shine for him. She decided that they were right.

9.

She had never hated the color black before the funeral.

It was associated with death, the night, and darkness, concepts that people seemed to think went hand in hand. But Alaska had never seen death, never felt the ice of night reach into her bones, never lost herself in fathomless shadows. Her parents taught her about death, that it was a part of the natural cycle of life, whatever that meant. But she never understood before the funeral.

Her grandfather died in his sleep. Alaska's parents told her that he passed peacefully, but she didn't know what that meant. Death was a mystery to great for the mind of such a naive child to fully comprehend.

"He's gone, darling. He isn't coming back."

Alaska's eyes filled with tears, but then her mother continued, "It's okay, Allie, it's okay. It didn't hurt for him. It's like falling into a sleep you never wake up from."

When she saw her grandfather in the casket, she did not believe it was him. His skin looked strange, as if he was made of wax rather than flesh. There was no smile bright on his face, the one she had always recognized him by. When he smiled, even on a dark day, the sun would come out from behind the clouds just to shine for him.

But there was no sun that day. Only white snow, a gray sky, and air that turned her tears to ice on her cheeks.

Despite the cold, she stood, shivering profusely, by his grave the entire time as they put him in the ground.

("It's okay, Allie, it's okay. It didn't hurt for him. It's like falling into a sleep you never wake up from."

But it didn't feel okay to her.)

10.

Alaska finally understood.

Grandpa never came to their house again; he never would, her father told her gently. There was no smile of his to bring the sun out in the winter. When it was dark and cold, it would stay that way.

Yes, she finally understood what it meant when someone died.

She would pick flowers — lavender more than anything, because she remembered how much he loved the color purple — from her mother's garden and tie them into wreaths, and then bike all the way to the cemetery to hang it on her grandpa's grave. Alaska would replace the wreath every week so he always had fresh flowers.

Something changed in her that first year without her favorite person in the whole wide world. There was this tear in her chest and a new apathy to going out and playing with her siblings like she once did.

She was spoiled — spoiled rotten, her mother would joke — before. There was never much worry, nor was there ever fear that they wouldn't have food on the table.

In that first year without her favorite person in the whole wide world, pain was redefined. It was more than just a cut on her arm from a tree branch — it was something that left a scar, that stayed trapped within you, deep down but always there and never leaving. She would forget about it sometimes, but it would always come back to her, like an unwanted guest.

And she noticed, really noticed, that she was not the only one suffering.

11.

She would walk to school with her siblings in the morning, and her eyes couldn't help but wander. In her younger years, her gaze would find the birds and the trees and the flowers. She had never paid much mind to the small houses in the background, where a mother argued with her son over what they should spend their last bit of money on.

But something changed in her that last year without her grandfather, and she could see pain as stark as a black splotch of ink against white canvas.

Out of curiosity, she wandered to the poorer neighborhoods of Nine, which she had never seen before. Because her family was wealthier than most, she never had a reason to go anywhere else but her street, her school, and the Square.

What she saw made her stomach turn — run down houses that resembled shacks, people who wore rags for clothes and had grime on their faces, children whose ribs showed beneath their shirts, beggars lining the streets, unattended sickness, hungry animals who followed her to beg for scraps of food she did not have.

She ran home crying that day.

It isn't fair, she thought. It isn't fair that people have to live like that.

It was that night, after she had cried out all of her tears into her pillow, that she decided to do something about it.

She would stay up late into the night, making all kinds of foods, biscuits and sandwiches and salads and more. She used most of the food in her house, but that was okay — her family would always have the money to buy more. Alaska even took the leftover chicken and other meats, preserving some in a plastic bag with ice and drying out others into jerky.

At dawn, she would pile all of the food she made into the basket behind her seat and ride off to the poor neighborhood, delivering as much food as she could to each house. She remembered the dogs, too, of course, and left jerky for them to eat.

Alaska took it upon herself to never let anyone else starve.

12.

Her siblings caught onto her idea, as did her parents. They didn't mind sharing their food much, as it was something their family never ran out of, especially because Mrs. Argent grew an abundant source of it. Alaska and her siblings would cook together in the evening and split up at dawn to deliver to the run-down neighborhoods.

Her favorite parts were one, making sure that people weren't starving of course, and two, the cats and dogs. At her young age, she felt the most sympathy for the animals — they didn't understand the pain they felt in their stomachs, why they were forced to become frail and weak and fall over from fatigue. Humans could.

On one particularly cold winter day, Alaska found a stray dog and her pair of young puppies. There was something terribly wrong, she could see from where she stood. The mother was folded on the ground and whimpering in pain. But as she approached, the mother, weakened by hunger and possibly disease, drew her final breaths. She remembers breaking into a run to reach her faster, but her feet sunk into the thick sea of snow as she did — Alaska was too late. With a heaviness in her heart, Alaska knelt down to the puppies, who began to poke their mother with their snouts and cry. She removed her thick coat, leaving her with only a sweater, and wrapped it around the two dogs. She carried them to her bike in her arms, shivering from the icy wind that bit into her flesh. After she put them in her bike's basket, she pedaled home as fast as she could — by the time she reached home, her muscles were burning and screaming in exhaustion.

She begged her parents to keep the two puppies, and they agreed, begrudgingly — Mrs. Argent didn't like dogs much — but only because they had nowhere else to go.

After cleaning them up and feeding them, Alaska decided to name her new companions Snowbelle and Owl for their fluffy white fur.

13.

The Argent family became known for not just their wealth any longer, but also for their kindness and generosity. When people saw them, they smiled and waved — and not just the other wealthy one percent of Nine.

Years of tending to the needs of others had aged Alaska beyond her years. She was no longer a selfish, spoiled little girl — though she did still get the occasional note home about her rebellious behavior and mischievous spirit at school. She had friends spread throughout every social group at school, for many of the kids were part of the neighborhoods she and her family would feed.

Her thirteenth year was very still. She remained on a static schedule — deliver at dawn with her siblings, ride back, feed the dogs, get dressed, go to school, come home, walk Snowbelle and Owl, study, prepare the next day of deliveries. She would still visit her grandpa's grave every week and leave him a new wreath of lavender, and never forgot how much he loved the color purple.

It didn't hurt anymore, and it was okay.

14.

For her fourteenth birthday, her parents bought her a goat. They knew how much she loved animals, as she was very close to Owl and Snowbelle. It was a female goat and had sleek fur that looked as if someone had splattered brown and white paint all over it. Her parents had tied a little purple ribbon around its neck, which had a silver bell attached to its end.

Upon receiving her gift, she named her new goat Bonnet. Her father later built Bonnet her own little house in the backyard, which she would sleep in on cold nights. Alaska enjoyed decorating it and painting the walls — it reminded her of the summers with her grandpa and painting her tree house.

She would take Bonnet on walks around the neighborhood, which got her strange looks from the neighbors. She never cared much about what others thought about her, though, and went on her way with her goat on a leash despite their narrowed eyes.

Despite her many friends at school, she considered Snowbelle, Owl, and Bonnet to be her best friends. She didn't need to tell them when something was wrong — they could sense it in her — and when they did, they wouldn't try to talk her through it the way people do. (She hates talking about her feelings; it makes her feel all sick and vulnerable and twisted up inside.) All her pets ever had to do was snuggle up to her and let her pet them, and she would be okay.

15.

Her uncle came to visit once.

He was her mother's much younger brother, only in his mid-twenties, and was a Peacekeeper, which was why the Argents didn't see much of him. His name was Caleb, and he would come around from time to time, just to see them once at dinner or to bring the children presents on their birthdays.

Mrs. Argent had invited him over for dinner in the spring of Alaska's fifteenth year. But their conversation at the table dragged on late into the night, so Mrs. Argent insisted that he stay in the guest bedroom and leave in the morning, to which he reluctantly agreed to after her fussing didn't let up.

Alaska had woken up late that morning, and when she and her siblings began to pile food into their bikes' baskets, their uncle walked downstairs and caught them in the act.

"What could you possibly be doing with all that food? Going on a long journey across the district?" he joked.

"We deliver food to the poor neighborhoods," Alaska explained, "so they won't all starve."

"Hunger is a big problem in District Nine, you know," Misty chimed in.

At this, Uncle Caleb's mouth turned down in a frown of disapproval. "You shouldn't meddle in other people's business," he chided. "Let the poor be poor and the rich be rich."

This immediately sealed her siblings' lips, as they wouldn't dare argue with their uncle, let alone a Peacekeeper, but Alaska had always been more outspoken than them.

"That's a horrible mindset," she argued. "I wouldn't let people starve and die in the streets if I could do something about it — and I can."

Mr. and Mrs. Argent came down the stairs for breakfast, and Uncle Caleb informed them of their children's 'entanglements' in matters that weren't their concern. But when they showed that they agreed with their children, Uncle Caleb was in shock. He left later on, and when he did, he gave Alaska one last disapproving look as he walked out the door.

16.

The question of, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" has come back to haunt her. They asked this in school long ago when she eight, and they asked it again at sixteen. She could tell that it was a bigger deal the more recent instance, because they were walking the students through every profession available in Nine in greater detail than before.

She would look at the paper in front of her with an empty stare; and empty was exactly how she felt inside when considering her options. Alaska would have to grow up and work someday, something that had never really resonated with her before.

It made her feel empty.

She did not want to grow up and work in a factory, and she knew she couldn't opt for the profession she suggested when she was eight —

("What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"A stripper.")

Alaska would rather spend the rest of her life where she is now — in school with all her friends, getting the occasional, typically bi-monthly, letter home about her behavior, snuggling with her pets at night and taking Bonnet for walks, and volunteering to help the poor of her district.

But it wouldn't stay that way, she knew.

And something about that fact made her feel utterly empty.

"You're going to have to grow up at some point, Alaska," her teacher, who had noticed her apathy for the careers they were discussing, said to her.

"I don't want to grow up," Alaska confessed. "I like where I am right now."

"I know of your work in the poorer neighborhoods in our district — you don't lack responsibility, Alaska. I think you're quite capable of great things; you've shown that you are for years."

"There aren't many great things one can accomplish in District Nine," Alaska pointed out. "If you haven't noticed, our district sucks. That's why our people are often starving and we always lose the Games."

"You shouldn't say such things," her teacher scolded gently. "But really, Alaska, you should consider your options. You won't be a kid forever."

"No, but I can sure as hell try to ignore my future."