Part 1- "The Tributes"
Chapter 1
I wake up to an unusually silent morning. Usually I hear my mother carefully sweeping the floor and smell fresh bread being baked, but today… nothing. Confused for a moment I get up and get dressed and head to the bathroom to freshen up. I walk toward the bakery, as I do every morning. Our family owns District 12's bakery. As I walk up to the front door and notice it is locked and the sign says closed. That's when I remember… how could I of forgotten? Today is the reaping…
I feel panic as I rush home and find my mother and two older brothers, Rye and Fintan, getting ready. Rye is too old to be in the reaping, but this will be Fintan's last year. I, unfortunately still have 2 more reaping's after the one today.
"Where have you been?" my mother asks.
"I forgot the reaping was today, so I was at the bakery." I say.
"Well go get ready." My mother says frowning at me.
I want to say something to her, but I don't knowing today is hard enough for her.
After I put on my nice pant and button up shirt, my mother wets down my hair and carefully slicks it back. I don't know why we have to dress up, after all the capitol is doing to us why should we look all nice for them?
When my father comes back from checking on things at the bakery we finally leave. We start to walk down towards the town square when I notice that there are Peacekeepers everywhere. It seems like more and more show up every year. As we get closer they order my parents and my older brother to head toward the stands where all the family members sit.
I start shaking nervously as I get in line to get my finger pricked. Then all of the sudden someone taps my shoulder. I turn around and see its Dally, one of my best friends.
"Hey Dally." I say trying to let out a smile.
"You ok?" She asks worriedly.
"I'm alright, what about you?"
"Just trying to not think about it..." she says looking down at her shoes.
I turn back around just in time. A Peacekeeper pricks my finger and squeezes a drop of blood onto a sheet of paper. He scans the drop and tells me I'm clear.
"Good luck." I say to Dally. And walk away to the stands by all the boys in my year.
It takes another hour for everyone to slowly trickle in the town square. I feel myself slowly drifting off… I'm exhausted. I'm about to fall asleep when I hear the giant clock strike two. The mayor gets up and walks up to the microphone and begins to read. It is the same story every year. He tells 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 encroaching 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 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 repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.
The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one boy and one girl, 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 wasteland. 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 reminding us how we totally are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand at 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 we as torturous, the Capitol requires os 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 and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.
"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks." Intones the mayor.
The he reads a list of the past of 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, staggers onto the stage, and falls into a chair. He's drunk. Very. The crowd responds with its token of applause, but he's confused and tries to give Effie Trinket, District twelve's escort, a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off.
The mayor looks distressed. Since all of this is being televised, right now District twelve 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! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" Her pink hair must be a wig because her curls have shifted slightly off center since her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she's just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation.
It's time for the drawing. Effie Trinket says as she always does, "Ladies First!" and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a collective breath and then you can hear a pin drop.
Effie Trinket comes back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice.
"Primrose Everdeen."
A small girl with blonde braids in her hair rises from the twelve year old section and walks out of the stands. She looks terrified. Poor thing, she won't stand a chance. She's so young.
Somewhere far away, I can hear the crowd murmuring unhappily as they always do when a twelve-year-old gets chosen because no one thinks this is fair.
Then all of the sudden I hear someone shout "Prim!" in a strangled cry. "Prim!". I see a girl shove through the crowd and reach the little girl and say, "I volunteer!". She gasp's for air, "I volunteer as tribute!"
There is some confusion on the stage. District twelve hasn't had a volunteer in decades and the protocol has become rusty. The rule is that once a tribute's name has been pulled from the ball, another eligible boy, if a boy's name has been read, or girl, if a girl's name has been read, can step forward to take his or her place. In some districts, in which winning the reaping is such a great honor, people are eager to risk their lives, the volunteering is complicated. But in District Twelve, where the word tribute is pretty much synonymous with the word corpse, volunteers are all but extinct.
"Lovely!" says Effie Trinket. "But I believe there's a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um…" she trails off, unsure herself.
"What does it matter?" says the mayor. "What does it matter?" he repeats gruffly. "Let her come forward."
The little girl, Prim is her name if I remember correctly, begins screaming hysterically. She wraps her arms around the girl who volunteered for her. "No Katniss! No! You can't go!" she yells.
"Prim let go," the girl says harshly. "Let go."
Then one of the boys a few rows ahead of me, who I recognize, lifts Prim off of the girl. She begins thrashing in his arms. "Up you go, Catnip," he says, in a voice he's fighting to keep steady, and then he carries Prim off to a women whom I'm guessing is her mother.
"Well bravo!" gushes Effie Trinket. "That's the spirit of the Games!" She's pleased to finally have a district with a little action going on in it. "What's your name?"
"Katniss Everdeen." she says, holding back tears.
That's when I really look at the girl for the first time and now I know who she is. She is the girl that was starving to death, the girl I threw burnt bread to, the girl who I never could get out of my mind… Katniss. Now I finally know her name.
"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!" trills Effie Trinket.
To the everlasting credit of District Twelve, not one person claps. Not even the ones holding betting slips, the ones who are usually beyond caring. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.
Then all of the suddenme and the entire crowd touch the three middle fingers of our left hand to our lips and hold it out toward the girl… Katniss. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love.
Then Haymitch comes staggering over to the stage to congradulate her. "Look at her. Look at this one!" he hollers, throwing an arm around her shoulder. "I like her!" he says. "Lots of…" He can't think of a word for a while. "Spunk!" he says triumphantly. "More than you!" he says releasing Katniss and heading for the front of the stage. "More than you!" he shouts, pointing directly into a camera.
Is he addressing the audience or is he so drunk he might be actually taunting the Capitol? I'll never know because just as he's opening jis mouth to continue, Haymitch plummets off the stage and knocks himself unconscious.
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 now 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. I take a deep breath as she zips back to the podium.
"Peeta Mellark."
My heart nearly stops… me? No, this isn't happening. I just stare looking around with my mouth open. I have just been chosen to be one of the tributes for the Seventy-Fourth annual Hunger Games.