Chapter Text
Katniss POV
When Tris is loud it means she is having a bad day and right now everyone present in the Everdeen household is struggling to maintain concentration with her gibberish yelling and screeching. The house is in Absolute chaos. Gale and his siblings are over because it is easier on a bad day to have some extra help parenting as a sibling. Today nothing they try is helping.
Gale, My best friend has three younger siblings, Rory, Vick and Posy. Rory is 12, Vick is 10 and Posy is 5. They are a fairly normal kind of family except for Gale does most of the parenting. Gale’s father died just before Posy was born and his mother works long hours at a dry cleaning business to provide for the family. Gale at just 17 tends to do most of the cooking, cleaning and child minding. For him it is not too hard, his siblings are well behaved, for me, it is a bit different
I am the eldest child of a woman I can only say had it a bit hard in life. She had me at 17 and her parents, although providing her with a small sum of money monthly, kind of left her on her own. This leads my mother into several abusive relationships with boyfriends that weren't too happy about a pretty young lady having a child. When I was four the twins were born. Tris and Caleb. I love them, my half siblings. but mum felt they were not what she needed in life, especially after Tris was diagnosed with autism and Celeb with Aspergers. I have spent most of my life looking after the twins and learning to communicate and care for them with their disability. Six years after the twins Primrose was born. Prim was my full sister because after all those years my father tried to come back into our lives. My parent had an engagement, broke up, got engaged, got married and then divorced. The last I heard from him was a year ago.
Currently, mum is out, probably drinking, and so Gale has joined me for the afternoon. I have work in 20 minutes and Tris is on the edge of a meltdown. Gale knows how to help Tris and Caleb but six children is a lot for one person.
“Tris come here,” I instruct. She does better with simple direct instructions, one at a time rather than a long list because they confuse her.
“Tris hands on your head,” I say when she gets to me. This stops her from waving her hands about and means all her attention is on me.
“Pick the pillows off the ground and put them on the couch please.”
While she does that I turn to Caleb. He is reading a copy of Harry Potter and he has his defenders on. I walk over to him and tap his hand. This is my way of getting his attention. Caleb, because of his sensory processing issues does not like being touched, his hand is a safe spot which means that if he can’t hear me I am able to touch it to get his attention. “Caleb, I am leaving soon would you like to go with Rory to your room.?”
He nods and moves away. I am glad he does not put up a fight today.
I go to Gale who is playing a board game with Vick, Posy and Prim. “Gale could you distract Tris, I’ve really got to go?”
He nods and I give him a kiss on the cheek.
“Love you all, bye!” I call as I grab my work back and head out the door.