She is wearing a dress that is as blue as the clear summer sky, and her grey eyes are sparkling like the stars. Her long, dark, and wavy hair is down instead of in her traditional braid. I love her hair when it is like this, it frames her face perfectly. She helps me to my feet and leads me to a picnic she has laid out for us. And just as I bite into one of the blackberries, and the bitterly sweet taste explodes across my tongue, is when I wake up.
I can t help but notice that I am smiling, and that is when reality sets in. I am overcome by a sadness that I am used to by now, it s a special sadness that I only feel when I realize that I will probably never be able to call her mine. As I wipe the sleep from my eyes, I look around the room that I share with my two older brothers, Balep and Rye, I see that they are still fast asleep. Balep is 20 years old. He is tall and muscular with dark brown hair and almond brown eyes, he favors my father. He is engaged to his soon to be wife, Puri, whose family own the sweet shop in town. Rye is 19 years old. He is medium height and slender with black hair and green eyes, he favors my mother. And then there is me, I am 16 years old, I am medium height and muscular. I have wavy blonde hair that basically does whatever it wants to do and blue eyes, I favor both of my parents; but nobody knows where I got my blonde hair and blue eyes. My mother has always made it a point to drill into my brain that I was an accident, and she never wanted three sons.
I decide that I should get up and start my day, today is especially dreadful, today is the one day out of the year that the capitol of our country, Panem, sets aside to come into the 12 districts that surround it and choose one boy and one girl, called tributes, to go to the Capitol. They go to the capitol to be prepared to fight to the death in a vast outdoor arena. The last tribute standing out of the initial 24 is crowned the victor. When they return to their district they are showered in gifts, so is their district. They are then promoted to the status of a mentor, they then mentor the tributes from their district in all of the hunger games after that.
The Reaping will take place in our district s square at two o clock, I live in District 12. So until then I take up my usual daily routine, I easily move the three, 100 pound sacks of flour to the back of the bakery, that my parents own. Our house is right above the bakery and I work in it every day after schools and any days I have off. Then I decide to get started on the bread, and while I leave the dough to rise I start frosting and decorating the cupcakes. After what I guess is about two hours my father walks in, he pats me on the back and tells me I did a good job on the cupcakes, but he s trying not to laugh. Then I see what he is seeing, I frosted 32 cupcakes, with a perfect Katniss flower on each one. He just smiles and laughs as I try not to blush.
My dad is the only person that knows how I feel about Katniss. He understands how I feel, because he was once in love with her mother, and if you ask me he still is. We are just about to put the second round of bread in the oven when there is a knock at the door. My stomach is just starting to fill with butterflies, because I know it is Katniss, but then I am disappointed when gale is standing in the doorway. He has two squirrels that have arrow holes in their stomach s, definitely not shot by Katniss. She always shoots her kills in the eyes so as not to damage the meat. As Gale leaves with the loaf of bread that he traded the squirrels for I am saddened because I know that he is off to meet Katniss in the woods that surrounds our district. They have been hunting together for the past four years, ever since both of their fathers were killed in a mining explosion. They both hunt out there illegally, but nobody sells them out because we are all starving here in District 12 and their game is good food.
My father begins skinning the squirrels and preparing them in a stew for breakfast, my brothers come down and join us, we are all laughing and having a good time, which is a rarity here. Then my mother walks in and yells at us to all shut up. We all continue to eat our breakfast in silence and wait until noon when we all head to the town square.
As I wait in the area roped off for boys the age of 16, ahead of me I see Gale in the 18 year old area, I can t help but feel bad for him; after all his name is entered in 42 times. Then I see Katniss and I make a promise to myself that no matter what, after the Reaping I will talk to her, for the first time, ever, In my life. This is when the mayor takes his place at the podium, on the temporary stage set up in front of the Justice Building. He begins his speech about the Hunger Games, and how the country of Panem rose up out of the ashes of the place once called North America. Then he starts in about how the, then 13 districts, surrounding the Capitol, rebelled against the Capitol. Sadly the districts were defeated and the Capitol obliterated the thirteenth. As a result we got the Hunger Games, a reminder that we can never let that happen again.
The mayor introduces our district s escort, Effie Trinket, who is wearing a intensely pink wig and a spring green suit. She give us her usual signature, Happy hunger games! And may the odds be ever in your favor! in her usual starchy Capitol accent. Then she taunts Ladies first! and trots over to the glass bowl containing all the girls names. I find that all I can think about is how Katniss has her name on 20 of those slips of paper. As Effie grabs the piece of paper and trots back to the podium, I secretly wish that it s not Katniss. And then she calls out the name on the slip of paper, Primrose Everdeen! and it hits me who that is, Katniss s little sister.
What happens next really shouldn t have surprised me as much as it did, as prim passes her sister, with her hands clenched into a fist, Katniss grabs her and stands in front of her. She then screams out I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute! she then makes her way across the stage. Everything after this is a blur to me as I try to control my emotions. But before I know it Effie is digging around in the boy tributes glass bowl. She crosses back to the podium with the slip of paper, and calls out the name on it, Peeta Mellark!