My family an I are very poor. We live in an old shack with barely enoough to eat. I work extra hours in the orchards for extra pay and money, if the Capital allows it. The Capitol is so cruel and harsh, I never am never able to get extra food that the Orchard Keeper would let me have if the Capitol allowed it. The Orchard Keeper's name is Lilly, and she like a second mother to me.
Elm and I share a HUGE garden in her backyard, because it is chalk-full of fertile land.
We grow all kinds of crops and sell them for extra profit. In my freetime, I work in these gardens. Elm and I make a great gardening team, having so much practice in the orchard. I, am responsible for keeping my family alive, and that is what I shall do.
One day, Elm and I were working in the gardens the day before the reaping. The reaping is where the mayor draws the people who are going to participate in the Games. We both just turned twelve, meaning we had a chance to go into the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are TERRIBLE. The Capitol made up the Hunger Games to keep all the districts in line. They force each of the 12 districts to send 2 tributes, a boy and a girl, ages 12 to 18 to fight to the death on live T.V. I am disgusted by these games but we are forced to watch them.
"Reaping's tomorrow" Elm said barely audible to hear.
"I'm so nervous, but what are the chances of us getting picked anyway?" I said as I tried to hide the fear in my voice.
"But, there is a chance that we may be picked still." Elm said.
Elm was right. One of us still had the chance to be picked. Each year, you had to add more entries to the Games. But, since we're only 12, we were only entered once. If you were 13 you would be entered 2 times, and so forth until you reached 18. But, if you were poor, like me, you could enter more times for Tessera, a small amount of grain and oil. I ended up entering 7 times, so my family and I could actually eat something besides old fruit.
"Well, we can always hope we don't get picked," I said.
But I had a bad feeling I was going to be picked.
That night, I couldn't sleep. My eyes couldn't close. After a restless night, the sun finally rose. "This might be the day of my fate" I thought to myself.
I got the children fed and dressed and then we headed down to the square, the place where the reaping took place. The square is in the center of our district. It's a worn down square with trash almost everywhere, except for some spots. To add to that, there was benches, broken benches. Luckily I brought an old quilt for Elm, my siblings and I to sit on. We cleared out some trash and gently spread out the blanket. Soon enough, the crowd flooded in. I pointed out many other frightened 12 year-olds clinging to their parents. It was good we got there early. In 5 minutes time, there was barely enough room for anyone else.
"Good day to the people of District 11!" the Mayor said quite enthusiastically.
Then he continued.
"As many of you know, we are gathered here today to choose our tribute for the 74th Hunger Games! First we're going to draw girls then boys."
A lady came out with a huge basket of papers.
"There's no way we could be chosen with that many entries" I whispered to Elm The mayor dug his hand into the vast basket.
I held my breath.
Everything went still.
"And the girl who shall represent the wonderful District 11 will be...The one. The only.
RUE!"
This couldn't be happening.