That night around seven o' clock Clove and her mother finished eating dinner which just happened to be Cloves least favorite meal that her mother cooks. Green salad, lasagna, and garlic bread. Not that she hated italian food but for SOME reason her mother always failed making that recipe by over cooking it or having it under cooked. "What's wrong Clove? Is the lasagna too burnt?" Said her mother who swallowed a big bite of her bread.
"No mom it's fine, I'm just not that hungry." In truth the food was burnt quite a bit that night but like always she hated to be the burdened so she tried shuffling the food in her mouth slowly.
"I heard from your father today." Said Grace who started to cut up her lasagna in small pieces. Clove by now tried washing down her food with a glass of milk. That was until she heard her mother talk about her dad. Clove hadn't heard anything about her dad since the letter she received from him a couple of weeks ago.
Slowly she puts her glass down on her green place mat that her grandmother had made years ago. "Really, what did he say?" Clove said in cautious yet curious voice.
Her mother looks up away from a fork full of salad. "Not much just wanted to see how you were doing in school and how we were both doing."
Clove puts her head down trying to make eye contact with her mother. "Is that it, he didn't say anything else?"
Grace nods as she takes another bite of food. "Yep pretty much. He sounded good though maybe he's changing his ways and making a better life for himself." Clove grumbles to herself: I doubt that! Clove looks up at her mom and starts to raise her fork and knife onto her plate.
"I'm done can I be excused?" Clove says a bit quietly.
Her mother looks at her surprised. "Really, you hardly ate."
Clove holds onto her pate as she stands. "I'm not that hungry, besides I have to call Cato and talk about our project for leadership." Grace settles her fork down and turns to face Clove who slowly enters into the kitchen.
"Ok well do you mind helping me do the dishes with me?" Without responding Clove places her plate into the sink and shakes her head.
After washing the dishes Clove heads to her room while her mother goes onto the couch and watches her favorite soap channel. Quietly she closes her door behind her and gazes her room to try remember where she left her phone. Her room was anything but ordinary. Clove loved things that was frilly and comfortable, such things were rugs, to chairs even down to her fancy pens that she loved collecting since she was little. Slowly she moves to the center of the room gazing around spinning around continuously. It took a couple of turns when she remembered she left it in her front pocket in her bag pack. Grabbing her phone she dials Cato's number and awaits for his answer.
Cato answers by the third ring. "Hello?"
Clove slowly sits on the carpeted floor legs criss crossed. "Hey Cato, it's me Clove." Cato who was at the time on his bed working on his homework. "Oh hey how's it going?"
Clove eyes swirl trying to think really on how she's feeling. "Oh pretty good I guess just finished having dinner with my mom....gosh it was awful though, I hardly ate." Cato laughs from the other end.
"You should have come over here, my mom made her famous chicken fried steak with potatoes and corn." Just the sound of that Clove falls backwards in awe.
"Ugh did you have to say that? You know how much I love that recipe that your mom makes."
Cato places his pencil down who had been working on one of the worst math problems in history at least that's how Cato saw it. "You know the first time you had dinner with us my mom had made that for us and you loved it so much that every time she makes it she thinks of you."
Smiling at the thoughtful comment about his mom she makes a small smile and takes her left hand and rubs the side of her face. "Oh so hey the reason I called was I wanted to talk to you about our symbol you and I are going to use for our project."
Cato hadn't really thought about the project at all for he just was so caught up with his math homework and the up coming practice for basketball.
"Oh yeah that's right, I'm sorry I totally forgot."
Clove pulls herself up from the floor and finds herself sitting up again. "How could you forget? We only talked about this early this afternoon." Cato gets up from his bed to try to get away from his math for the moment. Cato's room unlike Clove's was more of a serious type of guy. He had posters from wall to wall on basketball players, NFL players to his most recent obsession soccer.
Cato walks to his dresser and puts a pair of socks in the first drawer. "I don't know I guess my mind has been else where. But what are your thoughts about it?"
Clove shrugged her shoulders up as if Cato could see. "I haven't really thought about it either, I mean maybe we could do something like a flower but everyone knows flowers and what they mean."
Cato nods on the other line. "Yeah we need to think of something different something that spreads a message of value."
Just then Cato's mom knocks at the door. "Hey Cato honey, sorry to bother you but do you mind taking out the recycling bins and the trash out before you head to bed? I have to make some urgent calls, do you mind?"
Cato lowers the mouth piece of his phone but jerks it right up. "Um Clove hang on a second. Yeah sure mom I'll do it in a sec!" His mother smiles and thanks her son as she quietly closes his door. "Hey Clove I got to go but lets get together tomorrow after school and figure this out ok?"
Clove felt disappointment but respected what he had to do. "Okay talk to you tomorrow." Cato reassured her that tomorrow would be better and that he was sorry he to go.
"Thanks Clove, see you tomorrow." Suddenly all she got next was the dial tone. Clove looks down at the floor releasing her phone onto the ground. She sits there quietly trying hard to think, thinking of what could be the perfect symbol for her and Cato to use. She thought from everything to jewelry, special word phrases up to even to food. But then as she turns to the right side of her she notices her bag pack resting on her chair. And their she finds her Mockingjay pin still pinned on from when she put it on the first day of school. Slowly she reaches to gently touch the metal. Smooth and yet quite cold between her finger tips. Her eyes gazed at it longly as she rubs the rim of the pin she begins to thinks to herself. Looking away from the pin but who still has her fingers on it she glances at a picture from across her room that held a photo of her and her friends at the beach house. She thought long and hard thinking that maybe there was a symbol her and Cato could use.
The next day after school Clove and Cato meet at the schools football field. Clove arrived first and waited for Cato at the bleachers holding the mockingjay pin in hand. Within 10 minutes that Clove had arrived she saw Cato walking towards her on the football field. From just the looks of it Clove could see Cato looked to be sweating and exhausted from the day but still had the strength in smiling at her. "Hey how's it going?" Clove says as she jumps off the bleachers that were starting to burn the back of her legs from the suns exposer.
"Pretty good how are you?"
Clove is by now standing in front of Cato. "I'm good just hot from sitting here."
Cato takes off his back pack and places it onto the floor. "Where you waiting long?"
She shakes her head and starts to pull open her hand that held the pin. "So hey I came up with a symbol but you can totally say no ok?"
Cato nods and places his hands on his hips . "Sure what do you got in mind?"
Slowly she looks down at her right hand and opened up the mockingjay pin.
Cato looks up and looks back down again sorta giving a confused look. "Wait is that what I think it is?" She smiles at her friend and pushes her hand closer to his so he can get a better look. "What do you think it is?"
"Well if i remember correctly that's the pin you got years ago when we went to the carnival where you won it in a balloon toss." Nodding at his bright memory she places the pin now into his hand.
"Exactly and I think it would be a great symbol for us to do."
Cato holds onto the pin and looks at it. "But all it means is that it mocks people when you sing to them. Plus I'm not sure even if that crock kind of guy who told us this knew exactly if that was true."
Clove sways in a annoying way. "Oh Cato, don't be such a butt and believe that maybe there is something more to it then you think." They both start walking down the field together talking about what the pin could bring to people.
"Well what do you think it could mean?" Cato says as he hands her back the pin.
"Me?!" She looks at her friend very genuinely. "You mean you want my opinion?"
"Sure why not?" I mean you must have a idea on it right?!" Clove looks away from her friend and draws her attention to the ground. "I just don't think you see that it's something more? I mean sure yeah it's a bird that mocks other people but why, what's the real secret? And if you ask me I think there is a sense of hope, passion in connection of the two sides. Or maybe the things that are lost inside you that this bird can help you find it's way."
Cato surprisingly looks at his friend in awe in what her amazing depth of belief was. "You truly believe that?" He said as he tried to get eye contact with her.
"Well why not, don't you?" Without saying anything Cato moves further up away from Clove but turns around and walks backward.
"I'm not sure, I think that it's some old legend and myth. But if you believe it then I guess we could make others believe it too. Maybe that could be apart of our assignment: Can a myth become reality if others believe it's true?" Cato says drastically who put his hands out squarely pretending to frame Clove's face. S
he just half smiled at him. "You'll see Cato, just give it a chance." The two of them together walk further down onto the field letting just the end of the days sunshine and breeze finish the twos conversation.