reaping (noun) – to cut or gather a harvest; to harvest the crop from a piece of land.
She can feel her heart hammering almost painfully in her small chest. The mass of twelve-year-olds around her makes the air hot and humid with their fast, panicked breaths. A girl to her right is crying silently, the tears making streaks on her scrubbed-clean face; she acts as though she has already been chosen, but the ceremony has not even started yet.
She feels her own breaths becoming quick and shallow, just as desperate as the children around her. Her sister's words echo in her head: Your name is only in there once. They're not going to pick you. But no matter how much she wants to believe that the odds are in her favor, she is still terrified. Even more terrified than the last four years when she cried beside her mother as her big sister moved into the crowd of children eligible for reaping.
Only once, the tiny voice in her head whispers constantly, trying to reassure her.
But it only has to be once, another voice argues. Only once to be chosen.
She shakes her head and tries to focus on what Effie Trinket is saying as she smiles widely. How that woman can grin like a frog and speak clearly at the same time is beyond understanding. Effie goes on and on about the honor of being chosen, but the twelve-year-old girl in the back cannot hear her. The woman's full-lipped mouth moves, but the words do not reach the girl, do not penetrate the bubble of false safety she puts around herself.
It won't be me, she keeps repeating to herself. It won't be me.
Effie Trinket crosses the stage to the glass globe holding the names of all the girls between the ages of twelve and eighteen in District 12. She disappears behind a group of tall boys' heads, and the little girl waits in mortified patience for her to return to the microphone with one girl's name on one slip of paper. When Effie comes back into view, she smoothes out the paper and reads the name out loud to the world.
For a moment, the girl in the very back cannot hear whose name it is. The words float heavily through the air, over the heads of the other boys and girls. When they cross over the girl's head, they pop and drop onto her, soaking her with all the meaning they possess.
"Primrose Everdeen!"
It is her name.
The next seven seconds - in which Primrose Everdeen's face drains of color, her eyes open and close as if that could banish this waking nightmare, and her feet start moving – last forever. Everyone is watching her as she slips out of the roped-off section for twelve-year-olds and makes her way steadily up the middle aisle to the stage, where Effie Trinket waits with her horrid smile. Primrose feels her hands shaking in terror, but she clenches her fists tightly and keeps going.
As she passes the section for sixteen-year-olds, she hears a strangled cry in a voice she almost recognizes.
"Prim!"
The word echoes in the silent square. It assaults every single person present, rattling around in their heads like a stray thought they cannot grasp. The citizens of District 12 begin to murmur amongst themselves; a twelve-year-old has been chosen and everyone knows that they never make it long. Primrose knows this too, yet she is like her sister in that she does not let her fear show on her face. Not yet, at least.
"Prim!"
The cry comes again, from directly behind Primrose. She is about to mount the first step to Effie Trinket's waiting, pale hand when someone sweeps past and pushes her behind his or her body.
"I volunteer!" the body shouts desperately. "I volunteer as tribute!"
That is when Primrose realizes who stands between her and her imminent death: her big sister.
"Katniss…" she whispers, relieved for the moment. Everything will be all right. Her sister is here with her. Nothing bad can possibly happen.
Her child-like innocence and her naïve hopes are allowed to live on in this hostile world for a moment longer.
"Lovely!" Effie Trinket trills happily. "But I believe there's a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um…" Her words stop as if she cannot remember exactly what she is to do.
The mayor of District 12 intervenes. "What does it matter?" he asks sadly, the exact opposite of Effie's initial pleasure. He looks broken, as if this – the reaping – pains him. He repeats himself: "What does it matter? Let her come forward."
Primrose's realization that she will be all right is completely drowned when she realizes what her sister being in front of her means. She screams hysterically, launching herself forward and suctioning herself to her sister's back, her skinny, bony arms locked tightly around her sister's waist. She refuses to let go. She vows that she will not let go, no matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, what anyone does. She will. Not. Let. Go.
"No, Katniss!" Primrose shrieks wildly. "No! You can't go!"
"Prim, let go," her sister grinds out, her voice hard and calloused as her hands, which begin trying to pry Primrose's hands away from her stomach.
But Primrose will not. She latches her fingernails into the front of her sister's dress, willing to tear the fabric to pieces if it means she can keep her sister. Her sister is really all she has, and if something happens to her…
"Let go!" Katniss hisses again.
Someone grabs hold of Primrose from the back and she kicks at the someone, screaming and shouting for Katniss. Finally, the strong hands manage to pluck her off Katniss, the same way one would pick a stubborn fruit from the vine. As she is lifted, thrashing and shrieking, over this person's shoulder, she sees a glimpse of Gale's face. She begs him to let her go, screams for Katniss, shouts at the hundreds of people in the square who stand idly, simply watching the show, as her sister is taken away from her, probably forever. She calls them cowards, vowing that she will never be like them, that she will never let injustice like this stand. She is already fighting it the only way she knows how: by insubordination and uproar.
"Up you go, Catnip," Gale says to Katniss over Primrose's screams, and then he moves away, carrying Primrose's writhing body towards the crowd, where her mother waits.
The last thing Primrose sees as she and Gale disappear into the crowd is her sister climbing the steps to Effie Trinket and telling the world her name. Primrose sees her sister become the tribute for District 12 in exchange for her. Primrose sees her sister saving her life.