IanG

I enjoyed this story, your characters are believable and your descriptions are evocative. Keep it up.

Its good that you're self-critical, if you want to be a writer that's a hopeful sign. I think you improved as the piece went on.

Overall a good introduction. You could've described the dogs in a little more detail: are they any particular breed? What kind of weapons does she see? Not everyone will have seen the Hunger Games, but I get the drift of your piece.

This is a concise and thoughtful piece. Its a good start for a very young author.

You're not being selfish, its not your fault if your parents are falling out. They're adults and need to accept some responsibility for their own actions. Yours is not the only family where arguments get out of hand, it happens more often than you may think. I get the impression that you havn't opened up to anyone about this before, perhaps other people have similar issues but they too keep quiet about them. You're not alone in having flawed parents.

I don't know all the answers, but laying all the blame on yourself alone is not one of them.

This is a good fusion of science and allegory. I see the parallel between seed an immigrant, but there is some botanical truth here as well. Plants many people think are native were introduced long ago by humans, and it has been said 'a weed is only a plant where you don't want it.' There is a risk, in this kind of allegory, of imposing too many human preconceptions on nature. You have avoided that here.

Try 'Father retires to the living room# rather than 'father resigns to the living room'. Resigning refers to quitting a job due to pressure or a crisis, retire can mean leaving a scene or a room voluntarily.
That said, I like your descriptions of nature and the twist at the end is a good one. Keep it up.