Vandalism {Marr}

She was always wondering why it was like this. The Reaping, the hunger… There were days when she couldn’t stand it anymore. Her sister and father work all day long almost every day. She was feeling like their home was lonely island in an ocean and she was the only one who really lived there. Sometimes she spoke to her family so rarely that she was beginning to imply that Daniel and Poppy were just a product of her imagination.

Rita was alone. When she woke up that morning, it was still too early to go to school, but she did it anyway. She knew there would be no breakfast and her family would have to run out of the house immediately after waking up. Watching that every day was too painful, because it reminded her of the fact that she wasn’t going to see them until late evening.

She went out of the house and started walking towards the school building. It was still empty. Of course it was. Who would show up at school earlier than seven o’clock? The door was still closed, so she wandered around for a while until she saw a window that wasn’t closed.

Rita climbed inside and looked around. She was in the boys bathroom. Awkward. She grabbed her backpack and tried to get out of there as quickly as she could. Rita had no idea about where she could stay at this hour. Therefore, she went to her classroom. After a few minutes of sitting at her desk and staring unemotionally into the window she decided that she had to do something, because the boredom was starting to get on her nerves.

Rita looked around and noticed a crayon on the teacher’s table. A funny thought crossed her mind… Why not? She got up, took the crayon and came up to the blackboard. No one would see her drawing anyway. She drew a line, then another one… Finally a face of an old man started to appear on the board. He had white hair, a white beard and a pair of piercing eyes. And he looked very much like president Snow.

Rita stepped back a little, admiring her masterpiece, then began drawing again. In a matter of minutes a pipe appeared in the president’s mouth and white roses were growing from his ears. The girl added a couple of wrinkles and a clown’s nose. After doing this to the portrait she felt much better, like she was actually able to get her revenge for all the loneliness and poverty that were surrounding her. Finally she drew a funny hat on Snow's head with a monkey face on it.

Suddenly she heard footsteps behind the door. Is it a teacher? Rita was too startled to remember to wipe the drawing from the blackboard. She was just standing there, stunned and motionless, with a white crayon in her hand.