Chapter 1
I wake up early. Judging by the position of the moon through the open window, it's about three in the morning. It's a little over an hour before I'm due to get up, but I know I won't get back to sleep. Today is the day of the reaping. I can just make out the shape of my brothers in the beds next to me. Granthem is sprawled out, his long limbs hanging over the edge of the mattress. There's a faint smell of metal and wood dust from his clothes that lay crumpled on the floor. Tysin is snoring on a second bed beside him, his face looking as gruff and irritable as it does when he's awake. Being the youngest, and by far the smallest, I'm on the floor. I'm not exactly little. In fact, I'd probably be considered pretty average in height and even a bit stocky. But my oversized brothers have always dwarfed me.
I roll out of bed and feel my way across the room to the chair where I laid my clothes out the night before. I slip on the tattered trousers and discoloured shirt, and pull my shoes on quietly. The floorboards squeak as I make my way back to the other side of the room to where my dingy looking apron is hanging on the back of the door. I keep it clean but the years of wear have left stains that will never wash out. I tie it around my waist and head out the door. As I creep down the stairs, I carefully avoid treading on the spots that creek underneath my weight, silently leaping over two steps at a time and hopping from side to side. It's a path I know so well I could do it in my sleep. And sometimes I pretty much do. I need to be sure not to wake my parents. They're not due to get up for a few more hours and the extra sleep means the day may go by more peacefully. My parents don't argue much these days, but on a day like today, tensions are likely to be high.
When I was a boy, things were different. My mother would constantly scream at my father for not doing things exactly right in the bakery. It's dad's bakery really, but my mother took it upon herself to run things in a very particular way. Dad used to argue back, to defend himself, but over the years he's learnt that it's easier on everyone if he stays quiet. I sort of resent him a little for that. It's like he's being dishonest with himself when he doesn't stand up for what he knows to be true. But I don't blame him either. I might even do the same if I were in his position.
And mum, well her motivation is keeping the family going. If things are not running efficiently in the bakery, we could easily go under. One sack of infested flour, an oven of burnt bread, or a load of spoilt milk could be enough to shut us down. And then we'd be forced to sell the bakery and move out to the Seam, the area surrounding the town where the poorest people from our district live. And given District 12 is the poorest of all the districts, we'd be in a pretty bad way. Most people in the Seam live in tiny one or two room shacks that are half falling down. Many wouldn't have a working toilet. Out there, even the electricity is scarce, usually only coming on for a few hours or so in the evening. Candles and lanterns are used for light, and hot water can only be gained using coal fuelled fires. So even though mum isn't always kind or fair, I can at least understand what she's trying to do.
I flick the switch on the wall and shield my eyes as the bakery lights up. It's a large open room with just a few basic bits of equipment. There are two long wooden tables in the centre of the room, four towers of wire bread racks, three gas ovens, and an old cast iron furnace in the corner. One of the gas ovens no longer works, and there's another that only dad and me are able to fire up.
I go to the pantry room and pull out the trays of dough that were left to ferment from the night before. My job is to punch out the air, cut and shape the bread into portions, and get it baking in the ovens before my father gets up to join me.
Today is a little different though. I'll be focusing less on the regular breads and more on making some of the decadent goods we have to offer. Normally only the officials and the peacekeepers, our policing agents, are able to afford such items. But tonight, the districts are supposed to celebrate with a large feast. Not all families do, but some like to rejoice that it's over for another year and that their children have been spared. A few of the wealthier families will come into the bakery today with money for our tarts, flavoured rolls, and maybe even a cake. It's a good day for business, but I have to be careful to make just the right amount of everything so nothing goes to waste.
After I get everything in the oven, I still have an hour or so before dad gets up, so I move on to assembling the quiches and tarts. I don't expect to see Granthem until about mid-morning. Now that he's a bit older, he no longer works in the bakery. Last year he got a job working alongside the town's builder. Not that there's anything much to build. Most of the houses in District 12 are slowly falling apart, but people can't afford to hire someone to patch them up. My brother spends most of his time doing construction and repair work in the mines. It's a good job and his income is subsidised by the Capitol, the far off city that rules our country, Panem. The primary role of our district is to produce coal for the Capitol and, to a much lesser extent, the other 11 districts. So it is in the Capitol's interests to keep the mines in good repair. Today though, the mines will be shut. All citizens must attend the reaping. Granthem will take the rare opportunity to sleep in.
Tysin on the other hand usually gets up to help out in the hour before school. Our parents often let him get away with skipping this though, preferring him to focus his efforts on his trade. Tysin's obsession with trains began when I was too young to remember. When he was just six, he would sneak off down to the station on export days and hide there to watch the trains come in. On his eighth birthday, my mother managed to get the money together to a buy an enormous book on train mechanics. He read it over and over until he could practically recite the thing. As he grew older, the school began to help him to develop skills in mechanical engineering. He's getting really good, and the mayor of District 12 has even employed him on occasion to do basic repairs on the railroads. His hope is that one day he'll be good enough to work across the other districts for the Capitol. It would be a steady and reliable source of income, a complete rarity out here.
The first batch of bread is nearly ready by the time dad comes downstairs. He gives me a tight squeeze, something that only happens about once a year, before he crosses over to inspect the loaves. "Good job, Peeta," he says, and gets straight to work on the next batch while I continue the assembly. We work well together. We've been doing it for so long that there's no real need to communicate. He has his jobs and I have mine. The father and son baking team. We even look alike with our pale skin, blue eyes, and ash blond hair. I think I was born to follow in his footsteps.
Dad is just about to unlock the shop doors when there's a loud knock. It's Gale. He's holding out a large squirrel in the hope of exchanging it for a loaf of bread. You're going to have to do better than that, I think to myself. But dad surprises me and fetches a fresh loaf right out of the oven. I guess he's feeling a little sentimental today and is prepared to be a little more generous than usual. Fortunately for both of them, mum isn't around. Dad wishes him luck, shakes his hand, and closes the door again.
I don't particularly like Gale. It's not so much about him personally though. From what I know about him, he's a nice enough guy. Being from the Seam and about two years older than me, I've never had much to do with him except on the rare occasion when he comes in with some fresh meat to trade. It's more that I envy him. After he leaves the bakery, he will be headed out to the woods beyond our borders for his daily hunt. It's illegal to go outside District 12 without authorisation, and poaching carries the severest of penalties. But his family depends on him to bring home meat for food and for use in trading. Of course, I wouldn't want to exchange my lifestyle for his. But I would happily risk it all to be with the person who he'll be meeting in the woods.
Katniss Everdeen. Katniss, with her straight black hair, olive skin, and deep grey eyes. I've been in love with her since the first day I saw her. We were just five years old then. I had no idea what love was, but when she got up to sing for us on the first day of school, she completely took my breath away and I've not been able to get her out of my mind since.
Over the years, I tried to build up the courage to talk to her. I would often watch her around the yard and in the hallway at school, hoping to get her attention, but she never seemed to notice. I was far too intimidated to just walk up to her and strike up a conversation. She generally keeps to herself and does not have any close friends. It's not as if she couldn't make friends though. Most of the girls at school really like her. They talk about how confident she is and how, unlike the other girls, she never tries to be anything other than herself. I even see some of the younger girls deliberately copying her unmistakable hairstyle – a single braid that she wears straight down her back.
In fact, Katniss is very well-regarded by most people who live in District 12. The townspeople appreciate her reliable supply of fresh meat that would otherwise be unattainable. And those that live in the Seam, where she's from, deeply respect her remarkable hunting skills and her ability to make a fair but uncompromising trade in the gritty black market known as the hob.
In any case, kids from the Seam don't usually mix with the town kids. And why would she want to talk to me anyway? I'm just a baker's son. What would I have to offer her that the other guys didn't? There's a stack of boys who like her at school. They trip over each other trying to impress her, but she doesn't seem particularly interested. She goes to school because it's the law. But she has an obvious lack of regard for academic classes and is even less interested in the social aspect of school. Her main concern is providing for the basic needs of her family. After a while, I think I'd built it up in my head so much that talking to her just became an impossibility.
The most I'd ever had to do with her was when we were 11. It was just a few months after Katniss's father been killed in a mining accident. Her mother went into some kind of depression and was not even seen for nearly a year. Katniss had no choice be to take on the responsibility to care for her mother and younger sister, Prim. But at such a young age, she had few options to gain an income or source food. Next to mining accidents, starvation is probably the most common way for people to die in District 12. And even though she never told anyone, I could see that Katniss and her family were slowly heading down this road. I wanted to sneak her some bread, but with my mother watching our family's every move, there was no way I could. I needed to find a way help but I didn't know how.
Then, late one afternoon, the opportunity presented itself right in my backyard. It was the middle of winter and the rain was pouring down in icy buckets. Dad was partway through teaching me how to prepare the sourdough loaves when my mother began screaming at the back door. She was telling someone to go away and threatening to call the peacekeepers. Curious, I crept up behind her and took a peek over her shoulder.
Katniss was standing hunched over in the rain, the lid of our rubbish bin gripped tightly in her trembling hand. She gazed back at my mother like a helpless and desperate animal. I still remember the acute sense of shame I felt as mother ranted about having brats from the Seam pawing through her trash. Katniss said nothing. She simply put the lid back over the can and backed away.
After my mother returned to work, I snuck a look out our back window and found Katniss staggering along behind our pig pen. When she reached our old apple tree, she slumped to the ground behind it without any attempt to shelter herself from the rain. She had given up. With her body already stick thin and wasting away, the cold could easily take her.
I had to do something. I desperately wanted to go to her, to give her some dry clothes and to invite her into the house. But my mother would sooner throw me out for good than allow that to happen. So I came up with the only thing I could think of. I knew that it would get me into a lot of trouble, but I could at least make it look like an accident to avoid the worst of the punishment.
My father had left me in charge of baking the breads in the cast iron stove. When I went to check on them to see if they were done, I gave two of them a little nudge to make them fall into the hot coals below. They caught fire within seconds. Dad shrieked as he rushed over to retrieve them. But with the fire bellowing out the opening, he couldn't get to the loves before the flames had severely charred them.
The moment my mother saw the damage done to the bread, she picked up the rolling pin beside her and charged at me. I held my arms up and tried to cover my head but she yanked my hands away and belted me several times across the head. With a giant blow to the cheek, I fell to the ground. My dad stood by, saying nothing.
"You stupid, useless boy!" She yelled as she continued to lay into me on the floor. "How can we run this bakery if you can't even make a simple loaf without burning it!" She pulled me to my feet and dragged me to the back of the bakery. "Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!" She shoved the loaves into my hands and pushed me out the door.
I limped out into the pouring rain and began to tear off small chunks from the worst of the burned areas, tossing them into the pig pen while my mother stood by. Then I heard the ring of the bakery shop bell and my mother's footsteps as she disappeared inside.
What I was about to do was extremely risky. If accidently burning the bread resulted in a beating like that, I couldn't imagine what would happen if she found out that I did it intentionally to help one of those 'Seam brats.' So, after making sure she was gone, I continued to fix my attention on the pig while I threw each of loaves in the direction of the apple tree where I had seen Katniss through the window. Then, without checking if she had seen the loaves or if she was even still there, I quickly turned and darted back inside. When I snuck another look outside sometime later, I was relieved to find both Katniss and the loaves of bread gone.
I wanted to mention something to her the next day at school, but I didn't know what to say. If I went up to her with my swollen cheek and black eye, it would be like saying, 'hey, check out the beating I took for you last night.' So when she caught me staring at her across the school yard, I simply turned my head away. She never said anything and neither did I. I'm not even sure she knew that I had knowingly thrown the loaves in her direction, let alone burned them on purpose.
It was in the following year that she began to hunt in the woods. My dad told me that her father had left her a hand crafted a bow and arrows to use for catching game. Like all weapons, you cannot buy them anywhere in District 12. If the officials found you with one, you could be publicly executed for inciting a rebellion. But, like Gale, Katniss has a family to take care of. I wonder if that's why she partnered up with him. They both act as the head of their household and are depended on for food and an income.
Apart from her sister, Gale is the only person who Katniss really has any time for. At first, I thought they were cousins, with their matching dark features and grey eyes. Although unlike her, Gale is very tall. I've heard the girls at school grumble that they are not related though. I'm not sure if they are actually a couple or if they just like each other's company. What I do know that is that Katniss is not interested in anyone else. There is a whole tribe of boys who are after her at school and I doubt she would even have any idea.
"Breakfast!" My mother calls from upstairs. I've been up for a long while now and my stomach has been growling away at me. I help dad get the last of the rolls into the oven and follow him up. Beams of sunlight stream in through the windows, lighting up our otherwise dreary kitchen. The space we use for cooking, eating, and general living is barley large enough for our family of five to use at once. But it's pretty rare that we are all together anyway, except at dinner time. My mother makes a point of squashing us all in around the dinner table each night.
This morning, the old wooden table is set with a loaf of bread, three rolls, and a pot of last night's soup. No one else is up, so the three of us sit at the table and begin to eat. I break a roll in half. It's so stale that it crumbles in my hand. This is typical. We only eat the leftovers from the bakery that haven't sold after three days. And because my mother is careful not to have us make more than we need, this means that is not uncommon to simply have a clear broth for dinner or to even miss meals or altogether.
The only thing on anyone's mind today is too unpleasant to talk about. So we eat in silence, pretending it's just another day. Tysin doesn't share the same feeling when he comes in to join us. "Last one for me today," he says, pulling back a chair and plonking himself down beside mum. He tears apart a bit of the bread with his teeth and dips straight into the pot in the middle of the table.
Mum scoffs and shoves a bowl in his direction. "Just because this is your final day in the reaping doesn't mean you get to eat like a pig."
Tysin gives a huff as he pours some of the soup into the bowl. By this time next year, he will be 19 and will no longer be eligible to have his name drawn out at the reaping. He's already looking confident though, like he feels invincible already. He's doesn't share in the tension of the rest of us at the table, nor does he even seem to notice it.
"What are you looking at squirt?" Tysin snorts when he catches me watching him.
"Nothing," I reply. You might think that today of all days would be cause for us all to be a little kinder to each other. But my brothers haven't been especially friendly to me for years. It's not that anything bad happened between us, we've just drifted apart over time. When we were kids, the three of us used to spend hours playing together in the afternoons. Acting out war games or kicking a ball around. Sometimes it would get a little rough, but we shared a bond that always brought us back together.
These days, about the only thing Tysin and I do together is train for wrestling competitions, and that's pretty much just an opportunity for him to practice on me. With the size difference, I have little chance of actually winning. Granthem used to wrestle with us too, but he gave it up when he left school. Adults don't have much time for meaningless competitions.
After breakfast, I head back down to get started on my favourite part of working in the bakery. Cake decorating. There's little opportunity in District 12 for creativity. People who are constantly starved half to death and working 18 hour days just to keep their families alive don't have much interest in art. Not even the wealthy seem to have time for it. But with cake decorating, I have an excuse to be creative. They're too expensive and unnecessary for most people to buy. But on occasion, for birthdays, New Year's Day, and reaping day, a few people will splash out and get one. Knowing what to paint in the frosting on reaping day is tricky business. If the peacekeepers are buying them, they would delight in an image of some gruesome scene with the Capitol seal painted across the bottom. But this would turn any potential district customers away, and frankly, I couldn't think of anything worse.
This year, I decide to focus on the season. It's early summer and the woods are teeming with life. After getting approval from my mother, I embellish three cakes with images of blue skies, flowers, and green leaves. I then carefully paint in representations of the wild deer, eagles, mockingjays, and squirrels that live in the woods around District 12. It's a little after midday when I finally complete them. I take just a second to admire my work before placing them out in the display windows.
I don't have long now before we need to leave, so I run upstairs to have my turn in the wooden tub. Granthem's already been here, but it looks like I beat Tysin. At least the water won't be completely filthy. I scrub myself down as best I can and hurry out of the lukewarm water. Lying on the bed when I return to my room is a sky-blue button-up shirt, a pair of long black trousers, and some black boots. My mother must have put them out for me. They are the nicest clothes I own. Despite previously belonging to both my brothers, they are still in pretty good shape. We don't often have a reason to dress up. But everyone is expected to look nice for the reaping. Something that I resent but can't avoid. I part my hair and comb it to one side, trying to flatten out the wavy locks.
Dad is waiting for me when I get downstairs. "Here, I got this for you," he says, slipping me a cinnamon roll. It's still warm, fresh from today's bake.
"Are you sure?" I ask. He nods, keeping his eyes fixed on the bottom of the stairs. I scoff it down as quickly as I can, knowing that it would not have been worth it for either of us if we were caught. But I make sure to finish the last bite slowly enough to take in the sweet, delicate flavours, to feel the softness of the bread on my tongue, letting it dissolve in my mouth. I thank dad for his generosity and wait for the others to join us.
At half past one, we make the short journey to the town square. Attendance at the reaping is mandatory for all citizens. Even the sick and the dying are expected to be there. The Capitol wants everyone to witnesses the fear on the kids' faces, the weeping of the families whose children are chosen. Our suffering must be emphasised and evident to all. But we are also expected to celebrate it in the same way that the Capitol people do. As if it's nothing more than a grand sporting festivity.
Like every year, the square is adorned with bright banners to promote the reaping and the Capitol. The pristine colourful decorations look absurd against a backdrop cracked buildings covered in a thick layer of coal dust. The high tech cameras look similarly ridiculous stationed on rooftops and across the temporary stage, ready to capture the moment from every angle.
We line up in hoards to sign in. The Capitol uses the reaping to conduct a population census. Even though we are one of the smaller districts, it's a rushed process to get through roughly 8,000 residents. As we file in, the children aged 12 through 18 are herded into roped off areas sorted by age, the oldest at the front. Family members pool around the perimeter, anxiously gripping one another's hands. Then the rest of the population squeeze in behind them. The last ones to arrive assemble in the surrounding streets where they will watch the event on large outdoor screens provided by the Capitol.
I find some of my friends in amongst the other 16 year-olds. We wish each other luck but otherwise remain silent. Katniss arrives shortly after me, selecting a spot amongst the crowd with no attempt to find a familiar face. She looks beautiful in a pale blue dress, her hair up in two braids. The reaping is the only time I see her wearing something other than her father's old leather jacket. This year, the dress she is wearing is so feminine that her usual ferocity is almost completely eliminated.
To avoid staring at her, I turn my attention to the temporary stage that stands in front of the Justice Building. Next to the podium are three chairs. In one of them is Mayor Undersee, a tall, balding man who looks just about as uncomfortable to be here as the rest of us. His daughter, Madge is in the crowd with the other children, just a few metres away. Perched on the second chair is District 12's escort, Effie Trinket. Being from the Capitol, she looks completely out of place in our drab, grimy district. She wears a tight green suit and matching heels that are outrageously high. Her pale pink wig is fluffed up around her head, and she has an enormous fake smile plastered across her face. The third chair is empty.
On the other side of the podium sits two large glass balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. In the boys bowl, five slips of paper out of about one thousand will have my name written on them. The system is set up so that odds of your name being called out increases with age. When you turn twelve, your name is entered just once, at thirteen, it will be in twice, and so on until you reach 18.
But the odds are worse for some. If your family is starving and has no other way to get food, you can opt to put your name in more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth just one year's supply of grain and oil for one person. So someone with a whole family to feed can put their name in multiple times for each person. Someone like Katniss. I've seen her at the collection point getting her monthly supply of goods every year since she was 12. And the entries are cumulative, so by now, she will probably have her name in the reaping bowl 20 times.
The town clock strikes two and the Mayor steps up to the podium to read the same story that we are given every year. He tells of Panem's history, 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 the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide two tributes, one girl and one boy, to participate. The 24 tributes will be taken to 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. The victor receives wealth and fame, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. While the other districts battle starvation, the winning district receives gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar.
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 totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion.
"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," the mayor finishes. He then goes on to read the names of District 12's previous victors, which is just two. One of them died some time ago. The other is Haymitch Abernathy, who staggers onto the stage, babbling incoherently. The plump middle-aged man is clearly very drunk. The crowd gives a token applause, but this seems to confuse him and he responds by trying to give Effie Trinket a hug.
The mayor is looks extremely uncomfortable. The event is being televised and Haymitch is making District 12 look like a joke to the rest of Panem. He quickly tries to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing the next guest.
Effie Trinket prances over to the podium and greets us with her ridiculous fake smile. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" Like almost everyone from the Capitol, she speaks in a high pitched, over-the-top accent. They use odd vowels and each sentence ends in a sharp rise in pitch as if everything they say is a question. Effie prattles on about what an honour it is to be here, although everyone knows she'd rather be the escort for any district other than ours. Who wouldn't be? We have by far the lowest number of victors and our only living one is a complete embarrassment.
Then it's time for the drawing. As always, Effie Trinket announces proudly, "Ladies first!" and trots over to the glass ball with the girls' names. She reaches in, digging her hand deep into the ball, and draws out a slip of paper. The crowd falls completely silent, everyone holding their breath. I glance over at Katniss, whose eyes are firmly planted on the stage. Effie Trinket crosses back to the podium, and I'm desperately hoping that it's not Katniss, that it's not Katniss, that it's not Katniss. Effie smoothes the slip of paper and reads out the name in a clear voice. And it's not Katniss. It's her sister.