Wiping my sweating hands off on my hand-me-down faded skirt was no use since it kept building back up again. Sitting in the living room/dining room/kitchen of our small rickety house that could possibly collapse at any moment now, I twiddle my thumbs, soaking up the time. We'd be leaving for the reaping in less than ten minutes. Less than ten minutes of serenity in my home if I was doomed to never see its chipped paint and rotting wooden floors again. My home and I have a love-hate relationship.
"You look nice,"Lilian says, walking down the stairs in her also hand-me-down reaping clothes: a green button up shirt with elbow length sleeves, a ruffled purple skirt, and worn down high heels, all from my mother. Her auburn hair was pulled into a severely tight ponytail, making her eyebrows look more arched than they really are. "Thank you. You too,"I say back, trying to hide the fear in my voice. She half smiles then walks to the cupboard in search of food. We probably have none. Lilian being seventeen and having been eligible for the reaping for five years, she wasn't as scared as I was, this being my third year. We only waited on Brim, my twin brother who has the worst humor about everything and always sneaks small pets into the house without my mother knowing. Lilian glanced over at me and frowned. "You have absolutely zero reasons to be scared. Out of all the girls in this God forsaken district, you and I will not be chosen, alright?" She gave me a reassuring nod followed by a smile. How can she be so cool about this entire system? The Capitol abuses its power by having a drawing-or reaping-then sending innocent kids between the ages twelve and eighteen into a specially designed arena to kill each other. It gets better, though. They put it on live television for everyone to see! Isn't that neat?
Brim bounds down the stairs almost tripping more than once, tucking in his grey button up shirt into his pants messily. "We're gonna be late beause of you,"Lilian says without even looking up from her quick cup of used teabag tea. He ignores her and starts trying to pat his feather-like blonde hair down. His black slacks are way too big for him, belonging to my father, so they have to stay rolled up three times. Then my mother walks in, an uncovincing smile on her face. "My goodness. You three look amazing! Too amazing for a reaping,"she adds blandly. "Gerimy, come look at the children!" My father could never bear to look at us in our reaping outifts or even bear to watch the reaping itself ever since his brother was reaped at fifteen. I think you can guess what happened to Uncle Biv. Of course, he never listened to my mother when she tells him to look at us. It makes me wonder why he would even have children if he knew we'd have to go through this. "We need to go,"Lilian says after taking one last sip of her cold tea.
Each of us give our mother a tight hug, she pats us on the back for good luck and promises to give a hug to our father for us. Brim holds the door open for my sister and I. It feels like he's beckoning us through a door to certain doom, but Lilian is right; out of all the girls here in District 12, what chances do I have of being reaped? Taking tessera for oil and grain for my mother to cook with in trade for my name to be put in extra times made me have eight slips of paper with my name written on them tossed into the large reaping bowl. I have eight out of over a thousand chances of being reaped, Brim's being the same as mine, and Lilian's being fifteen slips of paper for taking tessera for two years for each of my family members until Brim and I were old enough to do it too. I had to fight Brim on it, saying that he was more useful alive than dead to the family and I wouldn't be able to contribute as much and taking tessera would be my sharing the load. He didn't talk to me for days after that.
The sky is clouded over again today with the pale fluffy things and making it chilly without sunshine. I pull my black knit sweater tighter around myself and lower my head. Lilian walks without a recognizable hint of being afraid, but we all are. Brim walks closer to me, his head low. I can definitely tell he's as scared as I am even with the smallest chances of being reaped. The ground is dusty and gravelly; my short heels are not suitable for walking over boulders in the name of looking nice for a bloody holiday. The entire thing still burns me up inside. Every eligible teenager is supposed to meet in the town square at 2 o'clock and already the roped in areas are filling up with anxious children all dressed in similar reaping clothes as opposed to Lilian who sticks out like a spring flower amongst dead grass.
We check in by letting the man or woman sitting behind metal tables prick our fingers and scan our blood— weird, right? I now stand in the roped in corral of fifteen year old possible tribute girls, listening to the whispers about who they think will be reaped or who would stand the smallest chance in the arena. My name didn't come up in the tidbits of conversations that my ears picked up. Good. Then, taking the stage, is the District 12 escort, Effie Trinket;-an unbearable Capitol woman whom nobody has ever seen her real face underneath the clown makeup, but today, she's sporting an ocean blue wig decorated with golden streamers hanging loosely around it, and a blindingly white suit that showed off her surgically created curves-Mayor Undersea, Madge Undersea's father and the mayor of District 12; the drunken mentor, Haymitch Abernathy; and several Peacekeepers keeping them guarded from what? I don't know.
Mayor Undersea begins his speech about the great history of our beautiful country of Panem,per the norm,and about how numerous natural disasters destroyed most of the earth, only leaving this one run down country by the name of North America. Everything was fine for a while until the districts rose up against the Capitol resulting in this terrible television show and the reason I'm in this roped in area now. It resulted in The Hunger Games. It's a reminder of the Dark Days and how we're under the thumb of the Capitol. It's basically power control freaks running everything. To make it even worse and yet more humiliating than dying a rather terrible and unneccesary death on live television, we have to celebrate it like we would if we could afford Christmas celebrations. If you do so happen to survive the games and come back home, you get money, food, a new house in the Victor's Village, but all while your friends sit idly by licking their lips and staring in awe. The mayor finishes his rehearsed and vain vocalization to us below the stage, he grants the mic to the escort.
Her Capitol accent fills everyone's ears obnoxiously. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" I look through the crowd of girls biting their lips or pulling on their hair nervously and finally fix my eyes on Lilian's straight face only showing cracks of anger. Or fear. What if she's reaped? I didn't think about that until just now! What will I do if my only sister is reaped and sent into the merciless games against bloodthirsty Careers? Nothing— I can't do anything against the Capitol. Fearfully, I turn my attention back to a beaming and bubbly Effie. "Ladies first!" she says almost tauntingly. She trots to the enormous glass bowl filled with mine and my sister's names along with several others, but still, our names are in there. Effie always tries to make things suspensful by taking her precious time choosing the names, but in reality, it gets boring. Nobody dares to breathe. Not even me. She yanks a slip of sealed paper out of the bowl, smiling at it as if it were a diamond ring, then trotting back over to the mic and unfolding it. Please, oh please don't be me or Lilian! Please! The escort takes a breath after reading the name in her head, then she says it aloud for everyone watching the reaping through live television and everyone actually participating.
"Chrissyna Hadley."
It's not Lilian, not my friend Berain, not anyone else I can think of except one girl: me. The world starts spinning all around me as soon as the name leaves her lips. No. I heard her wrong, I must have. Out of all those slips and only eight belonging to me, my name was drawn. Put it back and redo it! "Dearie? Don't be shy, now, come on up and let everyone see you!" Effie squeaks. I feel a hand on my shoulder and someone's lips almost pressed to my ear. "You gotta go up there. Go!" I don't even turn to look at the girl who said it before my feet begin to my involuntarily toward the steps of the stage. Oh, God! As much as I wanted someone to volunteer for me, I didn't want Lilian to; I'd rather die than let her go in my place. I step out into the clearing that separated the boys and the girls, feeling all eyes on me. My loose, blonde hair swayed in the breeze a bit. "There she is!" the woman onstage says excitedly, clasping her hands together. Whatever I last ate was about to make an appearance all over her shiny pink gogo boots. Next thing I know, her manicured hands are gripping my shoulders and making me move faster across the stage and I'm facing the crowd of relieved girls and anxious boys with a green face. "Oh, look folks, she's crying tears of pure joy!" I put my hand to my cheek and sure enough, it's wet.
"Now then, moving on to the boy tribute! Can't get too caught up in beautiful emotions on this glorious reaping day!" She skitters over to the boys' reaping bowl. Trying to make the reaping dramatic, she digs her hand around in the sea of paper slips then pulls one out slowly. Whoever's name is on that slip of paper is who I'll be trying to kill in a matter of days unless they kill me first. There's no way I'd go down without a fight, though. I scan the crowd for Lilian's face and only see the top of her bent head. She must feel ashamed for not taking my place but I'm almost happy it's me and not her. The word happy was mentioned way too soon because it was ripped away painfully like someone punching my stomach and knocking the wind out of me. The name on the slip of paper was impossible just like mine.
"Brim Hadley."