"Happy hunger games," I mock, clambering up towards my friends. Moller and Seamus grin devilishly at me. I can hear little Gilda crashing through the brush behind me.
"And may the odds be ever in your favor, darlings," they chime back at me, Seamus offering a hand to me. We snort at their crude imitations of Dibby Millighan's thick Capitol accent. She's been District Seven's escort for a mere three years, but her lilting voice has been the target of mockery since she first opened her mouth on that stage. Her lines are the same as that uttered by every escort across Panem, though the 'darlings' is her own sickening enclitic.
That and her ridiculous costumes. Kizee and Parchuck had asked me if it was Halloween the first time they set eyes on her. Understandably; she'd stalked onto stage in a cherry-red catsuit and a towering wig of the same color, the entire outfit studded with gleaming neon orange dots and her eyes painted neon blue.
"Hey, Gil!" Seamus waves. Gilda's big, dark eyes shoot up towards me traitorously. She's panting from exertion and she holds up a huge loaf of bread and a basket of berries.
"Thanks for leaving me, Zaylie," she mutters. "I could have been eaten by a bear and you'd have never known it!"
"Stop worrying," I wave her ridiculous worries away and offer her a hand. Moller removes the berries from her twiglike arm. I take the bread from her. "Do you know if Ellsa is on her way?"
"I left with you, didn't I?" Gilda raises one arched eyebrow at me. "How would I know?" She giggles, then, to make sure nobody thinks she is being purely rude.
"Well, we can't start our feast without her." Seamus climbs up one branch higher. The pre-reaping feast is a tradition of ours and has been since Moller (the oldest of us) turned twelve.
"She said she was bringing cheese, I think," Moller adds, eyes lighting in the thrill of competition as he struggles to find a higher branch than Seamus.
"Yes! I did!" Ellsa appears so quietly (so unlike Gilda) that it nearly gives everyone a heart attack. She waves a fine-sized chunk in the air above her head. Gilda and I hoist the sprightly blonde into the tree. Seamus is quick to snatch the cheese away from her hands.
"Well, now that we're all here," I start, but Seamus interrupts:
"To Freya!" He lobs one of the blackberries high into the air and out into the woods. We each take a small portion of food and hurl it into the woods after him.
"That's not how it's done, Seamus," Ellsa quips, annoyed. "She'd be pissed at your lack of respect."
"She did die for us," Gilda adds.
"All in vain," I continue pessimistically, swinging down from the tree with Gilda and Ellsa. "There's still a reaping tomorrow, isn't there?" It takes Moller and Seamus a while longer to climb down and we make our way along the overgrown trail to Freya's grave.
As we reach our destination, Seamus utters a chipper greeting, "Hi, Freya," and lays a handful of blackberries on the grave. I brush my fingers against the cold glass plate covering the picture of her face. She was a beaming woman of about thirty with bright brown eyes and curling red hair. But she's dead now and has been since the rebellion, well before our time, buried here in a grave marked only with her first name.
Freya.
"Hi there, Freya," I follow Seamus's lead, placing a hunk of bread at her grave. "It would be really nice if none of us got reaped this year." The five of us sit down, Gilda and I leaning our backs against the cool stone.
The sun warms our faces and we eat in near-silence. It's how it has always been. We don't need to talk because we all understand. We all feel loss. We all feel the impending sense that the odds are not in any of our favors, that we could so easily be shipped off to the capitol. All of us have our names in there multiple times, all for the sakes of others.
Seamus smiles and squints as the bitterly delectable sweetness of one of the unripe berries hits his tongue. "How many times is your name in there, Gilda?"
Gil looks up, startled, and smiles solemnly. "Fifty-four." They whistle long and low, but I nod.
"Fifty-six." I say. "For Kizee."
"We did need that oil and grain," Gilda explains. The two of us meet gazes. Together, our names are in there one hundred and ten times. That is enough oil and grain to keep Kizee, Raphael, and Salla's family in a warm, lit house and well-fed for a few months, and hopefully enough to offset the chances of Kizee's name getting drawn.
"Mine's only in there thirty-five times," Seamus focuses his eyes on one of the berries. "Couldn't afford much more than that. Makes me feel bad, though. You two are..." His voice fades away, replaced by Ellsa's.
"Thirty-eight," Ellsa sulks.
"Forty-two," finishes Moller. We stuff our faces in an effort to drown the awkward topic in food. The conversation, thankfully, shifts to predictions as to Dibby Millighan's getup this year.
"I bet you anything she'll wear purple," Seamus says. "Anything at all."
"I doubt it," I retort. "Haven't you heard, green is all the rage in the Captiol?" They giggle at my imitation of her silly accent. "Yes, yes, the designers have decided that macabre is certainly fashionable these days, and green is the perfect color for that!"
Gilda dissolves into giggles before clearing her throat. We all await her speech eagerly; she has the best Dibby Millighan imitation any of us had ever heard. She has the whole act perfected, down to the little hand flicks, placement of giggles, and timbre of voice. In a sailing falsetto, Gilda begins:
"Oh, certainly, darling. Macabre is all the rage, especially with the approach of the Games! I certainly could do with a dash more orange in my outfit, don't you think? Oh, of course you do!" She giggles. "Darling, could you pass me the bread? I know, I know, I'd die to be caught eating such low-brow food, but sometimes one cannot help themselves. I can only hope you would be so kind not to impose judgements." We pass her the loaf of bread. She picks at the soft inner part, not touching the crust. "Back in the Capitol, our bread is more fashionable. Though, might I say, this certainly represents your darling district well enough! I feel I'm the luckiest woman to experience your bread!"
"Why thank you," we laugh.
"Oh, oh, darling," Moller interrupts.
"No, Moller!" Ellsa blushes furiously. "You can not get away with that!"
"It is kind of Gilda's thing," Seamus defends. Gil beams.
"And don't you forget it!" She winks at Moller, tossing the loaf of bread at him. He deftly catches it and rips off the crusts which now contain no actual bread. He crunches down and scowls at Gilda, whose attention is now focused on Ellsa. She doesn't notice.
As Moller and Ellsa depart to return to their families and spend the night caring for younger siblings, Seamus, Gilda, and I remain at Freya's grave.
"Freya," I mumble to the picture, "Please just make sure that nothing happens to Kizee or Parchuck or Salla. If I get picked, I mean. Or, just... in general. That's sort of your job as guardian angel, right?" Gilda has wandered off and now returns with a bouquet of flowers in her fist. She places the wildflowers at the base of Freya's grave and kisses the picture's cheek.
Our faith in Freya started as children. It is now almost instinctual. None of us had mothers, save for Ellsa, but Ellsa's mother hardly counts. We'd become fast friends in our school days. Ellsa's mother was crippled and bed-ridden, condemned to wither away a bit more each year, leaving Ellsa in charge of three younger siblings. We always used to sneak out and meet at the grave, but after the accident with Seamus and his miraculous recovery, we all started believing that the spirit of Freya had come to care for us and was watching over us. She replaced our mothers, all but lost to the five of us, and we became brothers and sisters under her maternal protection.
"I'm going to stay here a bit longer," Seamus tells us. "You two should go home. I bet Raph and Kizee want to see you." I bite my lip before touching Seamus' arm comfortingly.
"I'll see you tomorrow morning at the Reaping, then."
"See you then, I guess," he murmurs, staring at the grave. Gilda and I wander off together. Since her parents died within months of one another when she was three, she had become my surrogate sister. My own parents and Salla had taken her and her brother in, only for Dad to die and Mom to follow slowly, gruelling. Mom had finally gone days before our first Reaping. We've lived with Salla and her husband ever since.
I push back memories of Mom and Dad. I don't want to think of them.
To say I wouldn't volunteer for Gilda as readily as I would for Kizee would be a lie, but the difference is that Gil would never let me. This thought seems to lodge itself in my brain. I mull it over as we wander side-by-side in the amber light of the sunset.
Salla is waiting at the door, Parchuck clinging to her legs. She looks tired.
"I think Kizee needs you right now, Zaylie," she tells me quietly. "She's a real mess." This year is my baby sister's first year with her name in there. It's only natural for her to be frightened. The possibility that looms is now so imminent for her. I remember my own first year. I'd tried to remain strong, but I think it took a year's worth of Salla's patience and probably even a dose or two of morphling to calm me down the morning of the Reaping. Kizee had only been eight. "Gilda, Parchuck wanted you to tell him a bedtime story."
"Sure thing, kiddo," Gil stoops to look the six-year-old in the eye. "What about?"
"Pirates!" His eyes gleam dangerously.
"Right then- let's get you ready for bed, first, kid!" Gilda chases Parchuck up the stairs and he giggles wildly. Salla smiles.
"She has such a way with him... I can't imagine what life would've been like without her." Salla sighs deeply. "For her sake, and Raphael's, I wish their parents had lived. But, and I feel selfish saying this, for our family's sake, I'm glad Mom took them in when I was younger." I frown at her. She purses her lips, knowing she's said the wrong thing. A wail from upstairs interrupts us. "That would be Kizee. She needs you."
I race up the stairs and into the room I share with Gilda and Kizee. My sister lies in the bed, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling while tears run down either side of her face and land in her pretty hair. Her whole torso shakes with sobs.
"Hey, Kizee," I sit down on the bed next to her and she sniffles, looking at me fearfully.
"I just know they're going to pick me, Zaylie!" She says pitifully. "I just know it! And then I'll be shipped off and dressed up and then some older kid will come kill me and-" she chokes on her words and flops backwards onto the mattress again, covering her face with her arms.
"That won't happen, Kizee," I assure her.
"You don't know that."
"I do," I pull her arms away from her face so she'll look me in the eye. "Because if they call your name, I know I'll volunteer in your place." This clearly is not the right thing to say, because her sobs become much heavier and she shakes her head.
"No no no no! You can't, Zaylie, we need you!"
"I said if they call your name. Which they won't. You want to know why?" She nods, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. "Because the odds are ever in your favor." I mimic Dibby Millighan's voice and she giggles a little. "Your name is only in there once, Kiz."
"Three times," she corrects guiltily. I stare, a little shocked. "I wanted to help Salla, so I put my name in there a couple more times to get some grain so she could make bread." I sigh and shake my head before continuing:
"Mine's in there fifty-six times, and Gilda's fifty-four. I'm sure there are girls with even more than us, too." I wipe her tears off with my thumbs and she clutches me carefully. "Think of how many girls there are in this district, Kizee. What are the chances it'll be you?"
"That's a selfish way to think," she ducks her head down and tucks her face into her knees.
"It's the only way we can afford to think," I rub her back slowly as the door creaks open. Gilda carefully wraps her arms around Kizee and kisses the top of her head. "It has to be someone, sweetie. If it's not you or me or Gil, then it has to be somebody else." Kizee chokes a little at the thought.
"I just don't want anybody to die."
"Shh," Gil strokes Kizee's hair. "Maybe we'll have a victor this year."
"Even then," Kizee sniffles and wipes her nose on her sleeve.
"You've got too big a heart, hon," Gil whispers. We quietly hold one another, Gil and I rocking Kizee between the two of us. She's the first to fall asleep, so we carefully tuck her beneath the comforter and lie on either side of her.
"What if one of us did get reaped?" Gilda asks suddenly. I shrug, staring at the darkened ceiling.
"It's really unlikely."
"Not for us," Gilda continues. "Our names are in there, Zaylie. More times than anybody else I've spoken to. Anybody."
"We needed food," I shrug again. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, because the ratio of our names to the whole rest of the bowl is small." She sighs quietly.
"I always get nervous the night before. I can't help it."
"I can't let myself get nervous," I admit. "I break when I do."
"We should get some sleep," she whispers, and I can feel her shuffling further down under the comforter.
"Night, Gilda."
"Goodnight, Zaylie."
So I have wondered for a while what the year before Katniss might have been like. I think there had to be some kind of buildup to the full-scale rebellion that came with Katniss and Peeta's victory. Something that at least got people thinking.
I've always had this strange fascination with District Seven, so I decided to tell the story of the 73rd Annual Hunger Games from one of the tributes of District Seven's point of view. Yeah, I guess it should come as no surprise to you all, so I don't think I'm giving that much away. Sorry if I've ruined the story for you already. Whoopsie daisy.
I hope you like Zaylie and I hope you like the story. Please review! And then tell other people to read it and have them review.