The 74th Annual Hunger Games
Chapter 1 : The Reaping
District 12
When I wake up, I feel Prim besides me. I can judge by the sun that it is about nine o'clock in the morning. Good. I do not feel like hunting today anyway. Today is the day of the Reaping. I close my eyes and the next thing I'm conscious of is that the sun is brighter now. I fell asleep again. I hear my mother and Prim in the kitchen, apparently helping some ill client of theirs again… I can't ever fall asleep again on the day of the Reaping. I jump out of my bed and dress myself in my simple old pants and green T-shirt. As I walk outside, I can tell that it's around half past ten now. So I do still have some time to go to Gale. Gale is my most precious friend and hunting mate. No, we are not in love with each other, even though in some way we are. I guess just as friends. I walk to the end of the street to find Gale's mother, Hazelle, outside cleaning up the path. Hazelle is one of the people I really like. She's friendly, but like me, doesn't say or ask much. I greet her too and go into Gale's house, an old wreck like with two rooms, like mine. I go and sit next to Gale by the hearth. I see he is chopping some wood we got a few days ago in the woods and join him. After a while Gale stands up and walks to the dining table. He comes back with half a loaf of bread.
"Happy Hunger Games, Katniss." He says as he hands it over to me. Off course, the presents! I put my hand in my pocket and it comes back with a piece of goat's cheese.
"Happy Hunger Games." He takes the cheese and pulls his pocketknife from his hunting bag which was apparently besides the chair all the time. In slow motions he begins to spread some of the cheese over the bread and divides it into two. One half he hands to me and we both take tiny bites of the bread, because we both know we can't eat this delicious food at once.
"Mmm…" I hear Gale sigh. And right he is. The combination is so good that I almost forget that it's the day of the Reaping.
"You weren't here to hunt this morning," Gale says.
"I fell asleep again. We will go tomorrow." I answer. Gale shrugs.
"Yeah, if we're both here then…"
"How many times is your name in this year?" I have to ask. Each year we sign up for tesserae for both our families, which means that we get grain and oil each month, but our names will be put in an extra time per person each year. Gale has two little brothers and his mom, who's pregnant, and every year he signs up for tesserae. I only have Prim and my mom to feed.
"Forty-two." He says without bothering to think about it, "What about you?"
"Twenty." I guess he doesn't want to talk about it, and neither do I, so we just work further trough the pile of wood. Together it goes faster than alone, so we are finished very fast. Now I guess it is about eleven o'clock, which means I need to get going home. I finish my bread and move to the door while tell Gale to be on time at the square today. While I walk home, I think of the Reaping. Which kids will this year be chosen this year to go into the arena. Which twelve-to-eighteen year olds will be chosen to die. Every year ever since the Dark Days 74 years ago, two kids will be picked from each of the twelve districts in Panem to fight to the death in an outside arena. One girl and one boy of each district. The rules are very easy. You start at a big golden horn, called the Cornucopia with the other twenty-three tributes. After sixty seconds the gong sounds and you can grab one of the backpacks spread around the Cornucopia, or not. You have to survive in an arena, which is each year a different one. It goes from watery swamps to dry deserts, and a lot of times all you can eat is in the backpack. There is always a lot of poisonous fruit in the arena's. This is all because of the Capitol, who won the war in the Dark Days, who thought of the Hunger Games as entertainment for it's city. That's what the Hunger Games is about. That's what every child and it's family dread as the Reaping begins each year over and over again. That's what two children will know they go into this year.
As I walk inside, I find two dresses on the bed. One of which Prim will wear to the Reaping, and one I will wear. I see that Prim will wear the red dress that I wore in my first year as well, as she is twelve now, and that I will wear a long, pink dress that once was my mother's. Now I hate dresses, but as you have to come to the Reaping in 'style', you have to wear one.
Slowly I dress in my Reaping-clothes and braid my hair down my back.
I find Prim put on her too and looks at me with big eyes.
"I wish I was as pretty as you are." She says shyly.
"I wish I was as pretty as you are, little duck." Prim gives me a hug as we have to leave. I grab her hand and accept the luck my mother wishes me. Slowly we are nearing the square and I see that it, as it does every year, transformed again from a place where it's always calm, to a place where there is an over flood of people.
I hear Prim sniffing besides me and try to calm her down, because I don't want her crying at her first Reaping.
"Prim, there are thousands of names in that big glass ball, and yours is one. You will not get chosen." That doesn't seem to calm her down.
"I'm not worried I get chosen, I'm worried about you. I don't want you to get into that
arena." Prim says. Now I don't know what to say anymore. Off course, small chance that I get picked, but it is there. So all I say is, "It's going to be all right."
We enter our names in the system, so they know we're here, and get to the piece of the square where we have to say goodbye for now. I instruct Prim to go to the section where the twelve-year old girls have to stand during the Reaping.
I go myself to the section of the sixteen-year old girls and look for Gale in the section of eighteen-year old boys. Isn't he there? Off course he is. He must be. Then our eyes meet each other and I see the concerned look in his eyes which I must be having as well in mine. Both our heads turn to the podium in front of us at the same time, because we hear the patting on the microphone, which means Effie Trinket will start with the Reaping. Yes, there she is. This time she has green hair – who did think of the style in the Capitol – which must be a wig because it sits slightly to the left on her head. On one chair sits a man, Haymitch Abernathy, a big drunk who's always on time in some way, on another a man called Rins Greeners, who is very smart but individual, and on the final one sits another guy called Tommy Longgits, somebody who just doesn't let know much of himself. All middle-aged men who were the winners from District 12. The only winners from District 12. Women don't win often, because the men are stronger. At the edge of the podium is the district's mayor, mayor Undersee.
Now Effie Trinket's voice sounds all over the place.
"Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favour! We will show first a little movie from the Capitol itself!" She says proudly as she corrects the wig. A small movie gets projected onto the Justice Building, and after it finishes mayor Undersee does his boring, long talk about how the Hunger Games have to be played each year to show that the Capitol still is the ruling city which no-one can defeat. Off course, mayor Undersee doesn't say this himself, but every decent person in each district knows they mean it like that. As the mayor leaves the podium again, Effie Trinket comes to the middle and starts the Reaping. As usual, the ladies are first.
"Wasn't that wonderful? Now let's start. Ladies first!" Death silence. You could hear a pin drop now. All you hear is the ruffling of the papers inside the big, glass ball as Effie Trinket grabs one. My heart-beating's fastening.
"Here we are. Primrose Everdeen!" Effie calls.
No. Not Prim. Now I have the feeling my heart stops at once. I just can think of how the odds aren't in our favour. As I see Prim walking to the podium, I can't stand it anymore.
"Prim, stop!" I have no idea what I'm doing, "No! I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute."
I jerk myself free from the arms of the Peacekeepers and hug Prim. What did just happen? This can't be real. Prim's name was only in there once. My mom collects Prim and I hear Gale's voice as well behind me. I watch how Gale grabs Prim on the screens as I walk to the podium. Effie seems in a good mood.
"Well then. What's your name, honey?"
"Katniss Everdeen."
"Then you must be her sister! How wonderful that is." Effie pulls me to the podium and sets me on one side of her. Then she walks to the second big glass ball and grabs a boy's name.
"Peeta Mellark." I know that name. I don't know him directly, but the owner is somebody familiar. I see his face and I remember. He is the boy with the bread.
When I was twelve years old, my father died in a mine explosion. I was desperate and so was my mom. She did nothing but staying in bed, so I had to keep the household. My father explained how to use the bow and arrow some time to me, but I remembered just a small amount of the information. He told me how to shoot and I practised. When he wasn't there anymore we couldn't get enough food. One day I walked along the bakery of Peeta Mellark's parents. He looked out of the window and saw me while I sat at an old tree, not knowing what to do. He came outside a few minutes later with a piece of burned bread and a blue eye.
His mother hit him, because he burned the bread. Did he do it for me or was it just an accident, because after checking if his mother looked he didn't throw the bread to his pig, but to me. He ran back inside and as I picked up the bread and ran home, I got hope again that I could do it, that I could survive. And I did. I remembered how to use the bow and arrows and went in the forbidden woods of District 12 to hunt ever since. That's where I met Gale. In the woods, when he was hunting to feed his family as well. So we got hunting partners and learned each other all kinds of things. But that's not the point. Peeta Mellark saved my family's life's, so how can I ever stop owing him, let stand kill him?
He doesn't look at me, though. I guess he has forgotten. But didn't I catch his eye focused on me every time I looked his way? Weird.
Effie Trinket says a few last words and guides us inside the Justice Building. Here we can say our final goodbye's to our loved one's.
First my mother comes. I tell her not to let Prim starve, that I love her and she leaves again.
Then Prim walks in crying. I give her a hug. Probably the last one, so I make it count.
"Will you try to win?" She asks.
"Off course I will." And now I have to, for her. She won't let me go. Finally a Peacekeeper has her leaving and I tell her I love her.
The next person coming is Gale.
"Hey Catnip." My real name is Katniss but the first time I said it to him, he understood Catnip.
"Don't let Prim or my mother starve." Is all I can say.
"I won't. Look Katniss, I know you can win, we both know that. You will, too." No. I can't win. Off course not. Everybody in the arena is a killing machine, except maybe Peeta. I can't ever win. But I can't tell him that, can I? That sounds as if I've already given up. Although, I have…
"Well? Katniss, I know you. I know you too good to tell that you believe you can win. But you at least have to try. Because I also know that you can win if you do." He does know me too good.
"I will try." I tell him.
"Now seriously, please." Gale is getting impatient.
"I will try." I say as convincing as I can.
Finally a Peacekeeper collects Gale and I am left alone. Nobody else will come. Good. Alone. Now he should understand that I am in shock as Peeta Mellark walks in. Peeta Mellark! Does he come to say goodbye to me as well? I don't get it.
"Hi, Katniss. I asked the Peacekeepers if I could talk to you for a moment as well."
"Okay. What's wrong?" I really don't get it.
"Look. I know you will try to ignore me, but I know you're a good person. I saw you in school a few times and I know you don't hate everyone you see." I do. I hate people. But I let him finish. "I can't do this, Katniss. I can't lie." He stares at me with those big, blue eyes.
"My father told me once he was in love with your mother when he was little. She didn't know him well. Ever since I watched you come and go from school and I fell in love with you." He gives me time to let it sink in, but it doesn't. It's too much. It doesn't even make sense. We never spoke! I guess he's waiting for an answer of me now, that doesn't come. Finally I say it.
"I don't know what to say." Is all I can get out of my mouth. It's true. I can't.
"You don't have to say anything. Just think about it. Maybe we can become friends…" Before I can say something, he's left again. What! I don't get it! Off course, it would be nice if I had a friend, or even an ally, but this is too much at once. I have to kill him finally!
I'm still thinking of this as I enter the big, long, Capitol-marked train. The train that will bring me to the Capitol for my preparation for the Hunger Games.
