i ask. i’m trying to get past rejecting offers
of help from her. for a while, i was so angry, i wouldn’t allow
her to do anything for me. and this is something special. her
clothes from her past are very precious to her.
“of course. let’s put your hair up, too,” she says. i let her
towel-dry it and braid it up on my head. i can hardly recognize
myself in the cracked mirror that leans against the wall.
“you look beautiful,” says prim in a hushed voice.
“and nothing like myself,” i say. i hug her, because i know
these next few hours will be terrible for her. her first reaping.
she’s about as safe as you can get, since she’s only entered
once. i wouldn’t let her take out any tesserae. but she’s wor-
ried about me. that the unthinkable might happen.
i protect prim in every way i can, but i’m powerless against
the reaping. the anguish i always feel when she’s in pain wells
up in my chest and threatens to register on my (ace. i notice
her blouse has pulled out of her skirt in the back again and
force myself to stay calm. “tuck your tail in, little duck,” i say,
smoothing the blouse back in place.
prim giggles and gives me a small “quack.”
“quack yourself,” i say with a light laugh. the kind only
prim can draw out of me. “come on, let’s eat,” i say and plant a
quick kiss on the top of her head.
the fish and greens are already cooking in a stew, but that
will be for supper. we decide to save the strawberries and ba-
kery bread for this evening’s meal, to make it special we say.
instead we drink milk from prim’s goat, lady, and eat the
16
rough bread made from the tessera grain, although no one has
much appetite anyway.
at one o’clock, we head for the square. attendance is man-
datory unless you are on death’s door. this evening, officials
will come around and check to see if this is the case. if not,
you’ll be imprisoned.
it’s too bad, really, that they hold the reaping in the square
— one of the few places in district 12 that can be pleasant.
the square’s surrounded by shops, and on public market days,
especially if there’s good weather, it has a holiday feel to it.
but today, despite the bright banners hanging on the build-
ings, there’s an air of grimness. the camera crews, perched
like buzzards on rooftops, only add to the effect.
people file in silently and sign in. the reaping is a good op-
portunity for the capitol to keep tabs on the population as
well. twelve- through eighteen-year-olds are herded into
roped areas marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, the
young ones, like prim, toward the back. family members line
up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another’s
hands. but there are others, too, who have no one they love at
stake, or who no longer care, who slip among the crowd, tak-
ing bets on the two kids whose names will be drawn. odds are
given on their ages, whether they’re seam or merchant, if they
will break down and weep. most refuse dealing with the rack-
eteers but carefully, carefully. these same people tend to be
informers, and who hasn’t broken the law? i could be shot on
a daily basis for hunting, but the appetites of those in charge
protect me. not everyone can claim the same.
17
anyway, gale and i agree that if we have to choose between
dying of hunger and a bullet in the head, the bullet would be
much quicker.
the space gets tighter, more claustrophobic as people ar-
rive. the square’s quite large, but not enough to hold district
12’s population of about eight thousand. latecomers are di-
rected to the adjacent streets, where they can watch the event
on screens as it’s televised live by the state.
i find myself standing in a clump of sixteens from the seam.
we all exchange terse nods then focus our attention on the
temporary stage that is set up before the justice building. it
holds three chairs, a podium, and two large glass balls, one for
the boys and one for the girls. i stare at the paper slips in the
girls’ ball. twenty of them have katniss everdeen written on
them in careful handwriting.
two of the three chairs fill with madge’s father, mayor un-
dersee, who’s a tall, balding man, and effie trinket, district
12’s escort, fresh from the capitol with her scary white grin,
pinkish hair, and spring green suit. they murmur to each oth-
er and then look with concern at the empty seat.
just as the town clock strikes two, the mayor steps up to
the podium and begins to read. it’s the same story every year.
he tells of the history of panem, the country that rose up out
of the ashes of a place that was once called north america. he
lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the en-
croaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the
brutal war for what little sustenance remained. the result was
panem, a shining capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which
18
brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. then came the
dark days, the uprising of the districts against the capitol.
twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. the treaty
of treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as
our yearly reminder that the dark days must never be re-
peated, it gave us the hunger games.
the rules of the hunger games are simple. in punishment
for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one
girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. the twenty-
four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that
could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wastel-
and. over a period of several weeks, the competitors must
fight to the death. the last tribute standing wins.
taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one
another while we watch — this is the capitol’s way of remind-
ing us how totally we are at their mercy. how little chance we
would stand of surviving another rebellion.
whatever words they use, the real message is clear. “look
how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s
nothing you can do. if you lift a finger, we will destroy every
last one of you. just as we did in district thirteen.”
to make it humiliating as well as torturous, the capitol re-
quires us to treat the hunger games as a festivity, a sporting
event pitting every district against the others. the last tribute
alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will
be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. all year,
the capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil
19
and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle star-
vation.
“it is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks,” in-
tones the mayor.
then he reads the list of past district 12 victors. in seventy-
four years, we have had exactly two. only one is still alive.
haymitch abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at
this moment appears hollering something unintelligible, stag-
gers onto the stage, and falls into the third chair. he’s drunk.
very. the crowd responds with its token applause, but he’s
confused and tries to give effie trinket a big hug, which she
barely manages to fend off.
the mayor looks distressed. since all of this is being tele-
vised, right now district 12 is the laughingstock of panem, and
he knows it. he quickly tries to pull the attention back to the
reaping by introducing effie trinket.
bright and bubbly as ever, effie trinket trots to the podium
and gives her signature, “happy hunger games!
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