Chapter 1: The Reaping

My youngest sisters laugh and play outside. I can see them from the tree I'm in. Of course they do, since today is the last day they're allowed to. Tomorrow is the worst day of every year. Tomorrow is everyone's nightmare. Tomorrow is the reaping, and this is the first year that I'm not safe from the Hunger Games.

The Games are a cruel thing; each year the Capitol randomly sends someone to draw two names from glass balls. One boy and one girl from each district, between ages 12 (like me) and 18 are sent to the Capitol before a fight to the death on live TV. Mostly Districts 1, 2, or 4 win, meaning they had the last living tribute. But that's only when their food supply doesn't run out...

It's been a tiring day in District 11. I've just begun the four-note song that means the end of the workday in the orchard. The mockingjays, some of my best friends, pick up the tune and echo it to everyone so they can go home.

Tonight, my family of eight will not eat dinner. We are saving our food and money for the meals tomorrow. At least two, hopefully all three, will include me. Only if I'm reaped will I not eat dinner with them.

I wake up the next morning and all 5 of my younger sisters are curled up around me in bed. The oldest, Lilac, looks at me with concern. She is afraid of the reaping. Not for herself, because she isn't eligible for about 3 more years. But Lilac is scared for me...that I will be sent to my death today. I want to reach over, tell her it's okay, that there is no chance I will be picked, but we both know better. There's always a chance.

Since no one could sleep in if they wanted to, I carry one of my youngest sisters, Aspen, to the large meadow not far away from our house. She is only 4, but she toddles around picking strawberries anyway.

At home, we slowly pick at our breakfast of strawberries and groosling leg. And I don't mean we each got one. Everyone shared. When we can't eat more, I take 6-year-old Rosie's hand and lead her to the orchard. Next year, she will begin her work there during harvest.

My first day in the orchard was horrible. That was 5 years ago, when Rosie was a baby, now-2-year-old Lavender, Aspen and her twin, Willow, weren't alive yet, and Lilac was very young. I'd left early in the morning. The workers there had handed me an outfit at least two sizes too big, and sent me up to the highest branches I could reach. All day, I'd picked fruit and leaves and had been rewarded with nothing but being able to remove my stiff boots.

The mockingjays sing my tune to us, but I respond with a different song that my mother taught me a long time ago. They cannot sing words, but the mockingjays will flap their wings and chirp any tune back. If they like your voice. When they don't, you have to stop singing, and fast. Rosie twirls around, gently echoing my song with a sweet voice. Her footsteps are so light, she could have stalked anyone in full daylight and they wouldn't have noticed for a long time. I pick up a slow, lazy buzzing sound.

"Rosie, let's turn around." I say cautiously. If the buzzing is what I think it is, then I need to get her out of here.

"Okay, Rue." My little sisters trust me completely, and Rosie responds to my sentence earnestly.

We walk quickly, a safe distance away from the sound. Towards the far end of the orchard, my friend Poppy waves and grins.

"Rue! I can't believe the reaping is today! I mean, it's scary but, you know, we won't get picked...right?" Poppy gushes. I nod mutely, remembering why she is excited. It's her way of showing fear. Because exactly 5 years ago, Poppy had an older brother. His name was Ash, and he was chosen to be in the 69th Hunger Games. Since then, Poppy refuses to believe that anyone else she knows will be picked in the reapings.

"Yeah, Rue won't get picked." Rosie says confidently. "I know she won't." What Rosie doesn't know is that I am signed up for tesserae. Six times. So this year, my name will be written carefully on 9 slips of paper. Next year, it will be 18 slips. And so on until I'm eighteen and my name will be on exactly 63 pieces of paper. Rosie thinks I have one entry. She thinks there is no chance of me going to fight to my death in an arena. But I probably have the most entries in my age group, and more than a lot of the richer kids that are older than me. Only my parents know this.

Poppy listens thoughtfully. Then she babbles on.

"Do you think it will be younger kids or older or both? I think an older boy and a younger girl..." She finishes quickly and is now out of breath.

Her deep brown eyes light up as she smiles. I know what she is thinking; that the tributes this year will be kids we don't know, like the last 4 sets. Poppy looks a lot like me and my sisters. Dark brown hair and eyes, satiny brown skin. Everyone here looks like this, except the well-to-do, who have lighter skin, a pale brown hair color and sparkling green eyes.

Rosie looks up at me hopefully. "Do you think it will be people we don't know? 'Cause that wouldn't be as sad. Only for the people that did know them...not us though...not us." A small sadness creeps into her innocent face, and tears glisten in her eyes. Poor Rosie. Until this year, she never really understood the process of the Games, just knew that the kids who went did not return. We told her they all stayed in the Capitol afterwards. Only recently did I tell her the truth, the real reason 23 tributes never came home to their families.

"Yes, Rosie. It'll be okay." I try to keep a comforting tone, but even my voice breaks at the end of my sentence. My little sister presses into my legs and I place my hands on her shoulders. If she has trouble with the Games now, the next few hours will be horrible. Of course, they will be horrible for me, too. The first year that I'm vulnerable to the point where I have no idea what to do besides cross my fingers and hope it's not me. For Rosie, and Lavender, who is too young to be frightened by this day, and Aspen and Willow, who still don't know the truth behind the Games, and Lilac, who seems the most concerned, because she remembers the past years, has watched children die before I could lead her out of the room, who knows that there is still a chance of me going away for good, I must act like I know what I'm doing.

"Yup! It's gonna be okay this year, because...the worst year has already happened." Poppy says, starting off cheerful, but even her eternal happiness is put aside by her then solemn tone. She swallows hard.

"Rue? Is that you?" a shy voice whispers.

"Yes," I reply. A small figure come into view. It's Lilac, holding Lavender. I reach out and take Lavender from her arms. Lilac relaxes and smiles at Poppy. Lilac's smile is the most stunning I have ever seen. Her pure white teeth stand out against her coffee-brown face, and her eyes shine like the dewdrops we find on the leaves in the orchard on the spring days after it rains.

Lavender reaches up in my arms, and I know what she wants.

The smooth pink fruits hang about 10 feet above our heads. I brought these home a while ago. I always make sure not to eat a bite of a meal before all my sisters are satisfied. This scares my mother half to death, but I make sure she sees me eat my smaller portion of the meal. But that day was an exception. I had eaten half the fruit by the time I arrived home that day. All the other girls had been out playing, so I'd given the rest to Lavender. Whenever she came to the orchard, which was not often, she'd reach up and expect the fruit.

"No, sweetie. We can't climb up there." I tell her.

Lavender frowns. "Why, Wue, why?" She can't say my name yet, although I've been working with her since she learned to speak.

"Because we can't climb up there. I can, if you want a fruit, but you have to share," I compromise. Lavender reaches to the fruit again, so I take it as a yes.

Poppy takes the toddler from my arms; I begin to climb. Focusing hard on climbing, I grab a large fruit and drop it to Lilac. She catches it, and I make my way back down the tree.

Using a sharp rock, I split the treat into five pieces and hand one to everyone. I keep the last for myself. Rosie finishes first, looking the happiest she's been all day. Even Lavender knows this is a rare thing.

Actually, it's illegal to take the fruit and I could be killed, but on the day of the reaping, even the Peacekeepers are busy elsewhere. Probably helping set up the stage for today's event, or dragging in the glass orbs that will be filled with possible tributes' names.

Lilac tells us that she is going to get ready at home. At the Reaping, everyone dresses up. It's an old tradition in the districts. I nod and say that I will be there soon. Lilac scoops up Lavender and walks off.

"Okay, well I have to change too, so I'll see you at the square." Poppy says. Then she jogs off towards her home.

Rosie and I finish by gathering her favorite berries, called Moonbeam here, and when our basket is full, we bring them home for lunch.

Still no one has much appetite. Only Lavender, who is too small to understand any of this, chews a tiny handful of berries. I'm pretty sure even she can sense something's wrong, though.

After "lunch", I help Aspen and Willow get dressed in matching purple dresses. I put their dark brown hair into two shoulder-length braids each, and slip little black shoes onto their feet. Lilac can dress herself and Rosie, and my mother is helping Lavender.

We all meet in the cramped living room of our house. My father is in a deep blue suit that I didn't know he owned. Usually we can't afford things like suits and new dresses, or even the materials to make them. All my sisters' outfits are my old ones, only worn a few times each, except for Aspen's. Hers is a duplicate of Willow's hand-me-down. My mother saves up each year to make one twin a new dress, and every year they alternate. When that reaping is over, the second dress is sold to buy a new one the following year.

Rosie is in a pale pink skirt and a cream-colored blouse. Lavender is wearing a baby blue dress and has a matching ribbon to hold her hair back. Lilac is wearing my clothes from two years ago, a ruffled black skirt and deep green hand-knit sweater. My dress is new this year, and I am very excited to wear it.

It is lime green, with wooden beads along the stitches. My shoes are some of my mother's old boots, cut open on top to create sandals.

At about 1 o'clock, we slowly begin our walk to the main square. Rosie and Willow grip my hands tightly, and the others are connected to them. Before the Peacekeepers can separate us, I hug each little girl tightly, then my mother, then my father.

I'm herded with some other 12-year-olds to the very back of a roped off area. The older kids are in the front, because they have better chances of being picked. Their names are, whether they sign up for tesserae or not, put into the glass spheres seven times. A child my age without tesserae would have only one entry.

A Capitol woman with electric blue hair climbs up the steps to the stage and begins the very boring speech about the Hunger Games and the wars and floods and earthquakes and fires that led to them. It is the same one every year, and I effectively tune most of it out.

"Ladies first!" a voice calls. This must mean the speech is over.

Now I stand alert, fingering the beads on the skirt of my dress. All I can do is desperately hope the name called is not mine, or Poppy's, or any of the other teenagers I know.

"And may the odds be ever in your favor!" The woman takes a deep breath before reaching into the ball with the girls' names. Her fingers pinch the first slip of paper they touch, and she pulls it out. Meticulously, she smooths out the paper, as though she wants to make it last as long as possible.

Then she reads out the name.

I feel a hard grip on my arm, and a boy I don't recognize looks concerned.

"Hey, you need to go up there." He tells me, sounding apologetic. My thoughts are blurry. Was it my name they called? No...it couldn't have been me. But a voice that sounds like the Capitol woman's floats through my thoughts.

And the voice is saying, "Rue Vera!"