i ask.
“leave the district. run off. live in the woods. you and i, we
could make it,” says gale.
i don’t know how to respond. the idea is so preposterous.
“if we didn’t have so many kids,” he adds quickly.
they’re not our kids, of course. but they might as well be.
gale’s two little brothers and a sister. prim. and you may as
well throw in our mothers, too, because how would they live
without us? who would fill those mouths that are always ask-
ing for more? with both of us hunting daily, there are still
nights when game has to be swapped for lard or shoelaces or
wool, still nights when we go to bed with our stomachs growl-
ing.
“i never want to have kids,” i say.
“i might. if i didn’t live here,” says gale.
“but you do,” i say, irritated.
“forget it,” he snaps back.
10
the conversation feels all wrong. leave? how could i leave
prim, who is the only person in the world i’m certain i love?
and gale is devoted to his family. we can’t leave, so why both-
er talking about it? and even if we did . . . even if we did . . .
where did this stuff about having kids come from? there’s
never been anything romantic between gale and me. when we
met, i was a skinny twelve-year-old, and although he was only
two years older, he already looked like a man. it took a long
time for us to even become friends, to stop haggling over
every trade and begin helping each other out.
besides, if he wants kids, gale won’t have any trouble find-
ing a wife. he’s good-looking, he’s strong enough to handle the
work in the mines, and he can hunt. you can tell by the way
the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that
they want him. it makes me jealous but not for the reason
people would think. good hunting partners are hard to find.
“what do you want to do?” i ask. we can hunt, fish, or gath-
er.
“let’s fish at the lake. we can leave our poles and gather in
the woods. get something nice for tonight,” he says.
tonight. after the reaping, everyone is supposed to cele-
brate. and a lot of people do, out of relief that their children
have been spared for another year. but at least two families
will pull their shutters, lock their doors, and try to figure out
how they will survive the painful weeks to come.
we make out well. the predators ignore us on a day when
easier, tastier prey abounds. by late morning, we have a dozen
fish, a bag of greens and, best of all, a gallon of strawberries. i
11
found the patch a few years ago, but gale had the idea to
string mesh nets around it to keep out the animals.
on the way home, we swing by the hob, the black market
that operates in an abandoned warehouse that once held coal.
when they came up with a more efficient system that trans-
ported the coal directly from the mines to the trains, the hob
gradually took over the space. most businesses are closed by
this time on reaping day, but the black market’s still fairly
busy. we easily trade six of the fish for good bread, the other
two for salt. greasy sae, the bony old woman who sells bowls
of hot soup from a large kettle, takes half the greens off our
hands in exchange for a couple of chunks of paraffin. we
might do a tad better elsewhere, but we make an effort to
keep on good terms with greasy sae. she’s the only one who
can consistently be counted on to buy wild dog. we don’t hunt
them on purpose, but if you’re attacked and you take out a dog
or two, well, meat is meat. “once it’s in the soup, i’ll call it
beef,” greasy sae says with a wink. no one in the seam would
turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog, but the peacekee-
pers who come to the hob can afford to be a little choosier.
when we finish our business at the market, we go to the
back door of the mayor’s house to sell half the strawberries,
knowing he has a particular fondness for them and can afford
our price. the mayor’s daughter, madge, opens the door. she’s
in my year at school. being the mayor’s daughter, you’d expect
her to be a snob, but she’s all right. she just keeps to herself.
like me. since neither of us really has a group of friends, we
seem to end up together a lot at school. eating lunch, sitting
12
next to each other at assemblies, partnering for sports activi-
ties. we rarely talk, which suits us both just fine.
today her drab school outfit has been replaced by an ex-
pensive white dress, and her blonde hair is done up with a
pink ribbon. reaping clothes.
“pretty dress,” says gale.
madge shoots him a look, trying to see if it’s a genuine
compliment or if he’s just being ironic. it is a pretty dress, but
she would never be wearing it ordinarily. she presses her lips
together and then smiles. “well, if i end up going to the capi-
tol, i want to look nice, don’t i?”
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