he shouts, pointing direct-
ly into a camera.
is he addressing the audience or is he so drunk he might ac-
tually be taunting the capitol? i’ll never know because just as
25
he’s opening his mouth to continue, haymitch plummets off
the stage and knocks himself unconscious.
he’s disgusting, but i’m grateful. with every camera gleeful-
ly trained on him, i have just enough time to release the small,
choked sound in my throat and compose myself. i put my
hands behind my back and stare into the distance.
i can see the hills i climbed this morning with gale. for a
moment, i yearn for something . . . the idea of us leaving the
district . . . making our way in the woods . . . but i know i was
right about not running off. because who else would have vo-
lunteered for prim?
haymitch is whisked away on a stretcher, and effie trinket
is trying to get the ball rolling again. “what an exciting day!”
she warbles as she attempts to straighten her wig, which has
listed severely to the right. “but more excitement to come! it’s
time to choose our boy tribute!” clearly hoping to contain her
tenuous hair situation, she plants one hand on her head as she
crosses to the ball that contains the boys’ names and grabs the
first slip she encounters. she zips back to the podium, and i
don’t even have time to wish for gale’s safety when she’s read-
ing the name. “peeta mellark.”
peeta mellark!
oh, no, i think. not him. because i recognize this name, al-
though i have never spoken directly to its owner. peeta mel-
lark.
no, the odds are not in my favor today. i watch him as he
makes his way toward the stage. medium height, stocky build,
ashy blond hair that falls in waves over
26
his forehead. the shock of the moment is registering on his
face, you can see his struggle to remain emotionless, but his
blue eyes show the alarm i’ve seen so often in prey. yet he
climbs steadily onto the stage and takes his place.
effie trinket asks for volunteers, but no one steps forward.
he has two older brothers, i know, i’ve seen them in the ba-
kery, but one is probably too old now to volunteer and the
other won’t. this is standard. family devotion only goes so far
for most people on reaping day. what i did was the radical
thing.
the mayor begins to read the long, dull treaty of treason
as he does every year at this point — it’s required — but i’m
not listening to a word.
why him? i think. then i try to convince myself it doesn’t
matter. peeta mellark and i are not friends. not even neigh-
bors. we don’t speak. our only real interaction happened
years ago. he’s probably forgotten it. but i haven’t and i know
i never will. . . .
it was during the worst time. my father had been killed in
the mine accident three months earlier in the bitterest janu-
ary anyone could remember. the numbness of his loss had
passed, and the pain would hit me out of nowhere, doubling
me over, racking my body with sobs. where are you? i would
cry out in my mind. where have you gone? of course, there
was never any answer.
the district had given us a small amount of money as com-
pensation for his death, enough to cover one month of griev-
ing at which time my mother would be expected to get a job.
27
only she didn’t. she didn’t do anything but sit propped up in a
chair or, more often, huddled under the blankets on her bed,
eyes fixed on some point in the distance. once in a while, she’d
stir, get up as if moved by some urgent purpose, only to then
collapse back into stillness. no amount of pleading from prim
seemed to affect her.
i was terrified. i suppose now that my mother was locked
in some dark world of sadness, but at the time, all i knew was
that i had lost not only a father, but a mother as well. at ele-
ven years old, with prim just seven, i took over as head of the
family. there was no choice. i bought our food at the market
and cooked it as best i could and tried to keep prim and my-
self looking presentable. because if it had become known that
my mother could no longer care for us, the district would have
taken us away from her and placed us in the community
home. i’d grown up seeing those home kids at school. the
sadness, the marks of angry hands on their faces, the hope-
lessness that curled their shoulders forward. i could never let
that happen to prim. sweet, tiny prim who cried when i cried
before she even knew the reason, who brushed and plaited my
mother’s hair before we left for school, who still polished my
father’s shaving mirror each night because he’d hated the
layer of coal dust that settled on everything in the seam. the
community home would crush her like a bug. so i kept our
predicament a secret.
but the money ran out and we were slowly starving to
death. there’s no other way to put it. i kept telling myself if i
could only hold out until may, just may 8th, i would turn
28
twelve and be able to sign up for the tesserae and get that
precious grain and oil to feed us. only there were still several
weeks to go. we could well be dead by then.
starvation’s not an uncommon fate in district 12. who
hasn’t seen the victims?
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