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"I'm bored," Savannah complained to her older brother, Matt.
Matt ignored her, turning a page of his novel.
Savannah, frowning at his lack of an answer, ran down the hall and turned into the boys' bedroom.
"Paul! C'mon, Matt's gonna tell us a story!" She said.
Paul stood up from his game of legos, eyes lit up. "Really?"
"I NEVER SAID THAT!" Matt hollered from the other room.
Paul and Savannah rushed back into the living room and sat at Matt's feet. Their father, glancing in from the kitchen, smirked knowingly.
"Can you do the story about Fredrick?" Savannah asked hopefully.
Matt closed his book and looked down at their eager faces. "Okay, but we'll need Ramsey and Geo for it."
"You'll need us for what?" Ramsey and Geoffrey, the twins, appeared in the living room. "Oh-- are we doing stories? Can you do the Fredrick one?"
Matt grinned. "Alright, who wants to be Fredrick?"
Immediately the younger kids clamored into his face, each seeking special preference over the others. Savannah was the lucky one-- she, being the youngest, was best at incorporating the puppy dog eyes.
"Alright-- who wants to be the President-- Paul, can you do it? You're the only one who can do his voice..."
Paul nodded..
"Alright, Ramsey, can you be the the runaway avox? And Geo can be... the avox's twin?"
Geoffrey gave him the death glare.
"I'm just kidding! You should be the avox's master" --and at further protest from Geoffrey-- "Come on, Geo, the avox's master gets to fight Fredrik, remember?"
At this Geofrey agreed readily.
"Alright-- so once there was a knight called Fredrik--" Matt began.
Savannah stood up in the center of the living room. She tossed back her red curls and demanded that the knight should be named Fredrika.
"Alright-- there once was a knight called Fredrika. He-- she was brave and clever, and a very good swordswoman." (here Savannah brandished a broomstick to show off her wonderful fighting techniques) "One day, an avox escaped from the capital. He asked everyone he saw if they knew anyone who could help him regain freedom for all other avoxes. He was told to go to the bold Knight, Fredrika."
Ramsey approached Savannah and said, "Please, could you help me--"
He was cut off by an indignant Geoffrey. "An avox can't talk, Ramsey!"
And so Ramsey tried to mime his request.
Savannah, who took the whole thing very seriously, looked confused. "I don’t understand."
Geoffrey rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "You know what he's trying to say Savannah!" They'd done this story hundreds of times before.
Their father, who had crept into the room unnoticed by his children, suggested that the avox write it down, so Ramsey did.
"Fredrika agreed to help him-- she also wanted to bring down the capital," Matt said. Savannah put a hand on the avox's shoulder and smiled in a matronly sort of way.
"Of course, I'll help you. I hate that stinkin' capital too!" She said passionately.
For a reason only Matt understood, their father looked suddenly disturbed- like he wanted very much to say something but couldn't bring himself to ruin their fun just yet.
"And so Fredrika climbed onto her flying horse, Nimrod," Matt continued, and he got down on all fours and allowed the giggling Savannah to climb on top of him. "and they flew over all twelve districts, until they finally got to the Capital, where Nimrod left Fredrika."
After going around in a few circles, Matt dumped Savannah unceremoniously from his back.
"And then I come in!" Geoffrey said excitedly, and attacked Savannah with the mop, while she defended herself as best she could with the broom.
It was then that their father stepped in. "No roughhousing with Savannah, Geofrey!"
Savannah's mouth turned down slightly at the corners. "But then how are we gonna do it, Daddy?"
"Pretend. Just pretend, don't really hit each other," Matt answered for his father.
And so Savannah pretended to disarm Geoffrey, and then to stab him while he lay cursing her name and yelling "Long live the capital!"
"With no more enemies to fight, Fredrika made a bomb, and was about to throw it down into the city but suddenly she heard someone say--" Matt paused dramatically and looked at Paul, who had been waiting excitedly for this moment.
"What do you think you're doing?" Paul asked, in his 'president' voice, which was simply a well practiced capital accent.
Savannah, ever the dreamy child, became lost in her role of Fredrika.
She narrowed her eyes in determination and all but screamed her next lines "I'm going to bomb the capitol-- and you can't stop me!" and with that she threw a bomb down into the imaginary city below.
And then, with eyes shining, she turned to Ramsey. "We did it, Ramsey! I bombed the capital! You're free!" and she hugged him as if she actually were a knight, and he an avox in need.
That night, Savannah took out a notebook and wrote out the story, adding details of her own, and a background story for Nimrod the horse.
It was then that she decided what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her father thought she should be a writer after he read her stories, and Matt thought she should be an actor from her performance of Fredrika.
But Samantha knew that she was going to be a knight when she grew up-- she could see herself perched in a hovercraft flying over the capitol, bomb in hand. The last rays of the sun would ignite her red hair so that it looked as if she were on fire.
And she /was/ on fire-- not with the rebellious fire of frustration and anger which would be the end of the Hunger Games, but with the fire of childhood imaginings and far fetched-ambitions.
It wasn't until after Paul's early death that the fire would become dangerous.