The rays of the sun that just rose not very long ago strike my closed eyelids. Slowly, my eyes open as I scan my surroundings. The other side of my bed is empty, so I look across the room. My brothers and sister are all packed tight into the same bed as my mother. The bed next to mine, where Vick and Posy usually sleep, is empty, of course.
I don't blame my siblings for sleeping in my mother's bed. It's the day of the reaping, a scary event for almost everyone that has someone they love entered. It's the most frightening for Rory since it's his first reaping. He moves in closer to my mother but is still fast asleep.
Silently, I step out of bed, but cringe when the floors beneath me creak under my weight. I don't want to wake anyone up since it's probably pretty early in the morning. I make it a few steps before I hear light tapping behind me. Something pulls the back of my shirt, so I turn around and am met with the innocent eyes of my sister, Posy.
"Where're you going, Gale?" she asks. I press a finger to my mouth and point at the other sleeping members of our family.
"I'm going to get us dinner for tonight," I say in a low voice.
She nods and then looks around as if to make sure no one's listening. "It's reaping day," she whispers, as if it's a secret.
I ruffle her hair and smile. "Yes, it is, but you have nothing to worry about, Posy. You still have years before you'll even be in there once." She hugs me, her tiny arms wrapping around my legs because I'm so tall.
"But you're in there. And Rory," she mumbles, making a little sound like a whimper. I pick her up off the ground and hold her near my face so that I can look at her.
"I don't want you to worry about us. Got it?" I say. She nods, and I smile at her, trying to lighten her mood. She's just four years old and is already worried about one of her brothers dying. It's a sickening thing for me to deal with.
I carry her over to my mother's bed and place her on the ground. She climbs back in near my mother's legs and closes her eyes.
I change into my usual hunting gear and make my way out the door and through the complicated route I travel to get to the woods. I make sure that the fence isn't lit with electricity, which it isn't, of course. Silently, I walk to our usual hunting spot and retrieve the two knives I keep in a small opening of a tree.
Katniss isn't here yet. Maybe Prim's awake and Katniss has to calm her down, since it's Prim's first reaping. I'm lucky that Rory wasn't awake when I left. I'm not very good at comforting other people. Then again, Katniss might just be sleeping in. A lot of people do on reaping day.
A squirrel is on the ground near a tree not very far away from me. Silently, I pull one of my knives out from my back pocket and kneel on the grass. I just need it to look at me and…
The knife flies right into its eye.
I grin as I take the knife out of the squirrel's eye and skin it. After that, I trap a few more squirrels and other meat. I make sure to carefully take the skin off of each animal. I'd like to give my family a nice dinner, even if worse comes to worst, I won't be there to have it with them.
Katniss still doesn't arrive during this time, so I tuck my knives back into the spot in the tree, grab my game bag, and head out. Maybe the baker will give me something for a few squirrels. Bakery bread is something I can only afford on very rare occasions, and today might be one of them.
I have to check and see if the baker's wife is around. She's an impossible person to trade with, considering she hates what she calls "those Seam brats". I roll my eyes at the thought of her, but put on a pleasant expression when the baker opens the door. I offer him a few squirrels and even a turkey for a loaf of bread, but he dismisses them with a wave of his hand. He disappears inside the bakery for a few moment before tossing a loaf in my direction.
"I'll take a squirrel for it," he says.
I look down inside my game bag, then back up at him. "That's it?" I ask in disbelief. He nods, but I shake my head. "No. Take a couple of them. It doesn't matter to me."
"All I want is one," he says. "I refuse to take any more."
Shrugging, I give him the squirrel and he smiles slightly at me as he takes it from me. "Good luck today," he says.
"Thanks. Same for your sons," I respond. He nods and shuts the door.
I drop the loaf of bread into my bag. The rich smell of it is tempting, but I promise myself that I won't eat it without Katniss. Luckily, I don't need to wait long. A few minutes after I get back to the woods, she arrives. But beforehand, I stick an arrow from my bow through the bed. Might as well try to get a grin out of her today.
"Hey, Catnip," I greet her, and she smiles. I'd never dare to tell her this, but she looks so much…greater when she smiles. Younger. Like a weight's been lifted off of her shoulders.
I'm momentarily distracted by her presence. I blink a few times as I reach in my game bag and pull out the bakery bread. "Look what I shot," I say, glancing at the arrow I stuck through the loaf. She laughs and pulls it out of my hands, taking the arrow out of the middle of it. She lifts the bread to her nose, smelling the inside through the crack in the crust.
"Mm, still warm," she says. "What did it cost you?"
"Just a squirrel," I answer. "Think the old man was feeling sentimental this morning. Even wished me luck." She raises her eyebrows a little, examining the bread again.
"Well, we all feel a little closer today, don't we?" she says. I can't tell if she's being sarcastic or not. She doesn't roll her eyes like she usually does, so I'm guessing it's the latter. Either way, it's true. Reaping day has that effect on people.
Katniss pulls out a piece of cheese. "Prim left us a cheese." I smile, since goat cheese is something we don't have often. Katniss thinks it's best to sell the cheese rather than keep it for ourselves.
"Thank you, Prim," I say, glancing at the sky. "We'll have a real feast." Then I put on a fake smile and fall into the idiotic Capitol accent. "I almost forgot! Happy Hunger Games!" I pluck some blackberries from the bushes near us. "And may the odds-" I toss the berry toward Katniss, making sure it's high in the air.
She catches it in her mouth, like always. "-be ever in your favor!" she finishes, mimicking the Capitol citizens with as much enthusiasm as I did. It's something that Katniss and I joke about a lot, since it's easier that way. I'd rather laugh about it than be scared out of my mind by it. Anyway, it's hard to say something serious in a Capitol accent and not laugh at it.
I pull out my knife that I retrieved from the usual tree earlier and slice the bread. I glance at Katniss, but she's not looking at me. She's looking at the sky, kind of like she's thinking about something. I follow her gaze, just to see if something's in the sky, but there isn't anything.
She goes to collect more blackberries from the bushes while I spread the goat cheese on the bread. We sit down in a spot where no one can see us, but we can look out toward the valley. It's nice this way. Almost comforting, but I can't get my mind off of the reaping.
It's silent for a few moments, so I swallow, mustering up the guts to say what I want to say. I look at her, but once again, she's not looking at me. I focus my attention a patch of grass that seems taller than the rest.
"We could do it, you know," I say. It comes out in a quiet voice, but it wasn't necessarily supposed to. I hold my breath.
"What?" Katniss asks.
"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," I answer, but as soon as I say it, I know she'll never agree to it. The look on her face makes me feel as if I've done something wrong. "If we didn't have so many kids, of course," I add quickly.
If we did live in the woods, we'd have to take all of our family members with us, since they probably wouldn't be able to live without us. Our mothers. Prim. Rory, Vick, and Posy. The idea seems like a stupid thing to bring up now.
"I never want to have kids," she says.
"I might. If I didn't live here," I respond. It's true. But living in District 12, especially in the Seam…having kids seems almost cruel to me.
"But you do," she says, sounding annoyed.
"Forget it," I snap.
It's silent for a few moments after that. I'm worried I ruined our conversation, maybe even our friendship after suggesting an outrageous idea like I did.
"What do you want to do?" Katniss asks. She doesn't sound mad anymore, which is a good thing. Katniss isn't the best person to pick a fight with. In fact, neither of us are. Maybe it balances out.
"Let's fish at the lake. We can leave our poles and gather in the woods. Get something for tonight," I answer. If one of us even comes back tonight. I'm not sure about how many times Katniss's name is in there, but I can definitely say that the odds aren't in my favor, nor are they in hers.
We do good today. The predators mostly ignore us and, eventually, we have a dozen fish, a bag of greens, and a gallon of strawberries by late morning. We stop by the Hob, as usual, and do some trading there. Then we walk to the back door of the mayor's house. He has a liking for strawberries and can afford to buy them from us. His daughter, Madge, opens the door, wearing an expensive white dress.
"Pretty dress," I say, since it's true. Madge looks at me, probably unsure of whether or not I'm being sarcastic. She takes a deep breath and smiles a little.
"Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?" Madge says. I look at her for a moment, hoping she's kidding. It takes all of my willpower not to scoff or even yell at her.
"You won't be going to the Capitol" is all I say, but I say it in a cold voice. She's lucky. She doesn't need to sign up for tesserae. She gets to live nicely while the rest of us nearly starve. I glance at the gold pin on her dress and roll my eyes. It's real gold, too. "What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old," I say.
"That's not her fault," Katniss says.
"No, it's no one's fault. Just the way it is," I say. It's just the way the Capitol runs this horrible country. We're all just puppets, willing to just go along with whatever the Capitol forces us to do.
Madge, surely uncomfortable in this situation, says, "Good luck, Katniss" in a dismissive voice.
"You too," Katniss says, and Madge shuts the door.
Katniss and I walk in silence. I keep my mouth closed since there are people around us, but on the inside, I'm fuming. I'm not really mad at Madge. Almost envious of her, actually. I wonder what it's like to live in a world where you don't have to worry about starving to death. But I'm mad at the Capitol. Then again, when am I not?
Katniss and I divide what we caught and shot today, and then it's time for both of us to go back to our homes and get ready for the reaping.
"See you in the square," she says.
"Wear something pretty," I say tonelessly, and with that, she leaves. Now I just have to focus on surviving this reaping. This is my last year. One last year, then my name will be out of that reaping ball. But in reality, I won't be safe for years. I still have my siblings to worry about. The burden of the possibility of one of them going into the Hunger Games is a hard one to bear.