Katniss
I wake up around dawn. I realize something's not quite right, so I reach over to the side of the bed that Prim shares with me and that's what I realize was wrong. She's not there. The first rays of sun are shining through the window, not enough to wake up a normal person, and it would be hard for a person who has not had years of hunting experience to see as well as I do. I look to the other side of the room to see Prim curled up with our mother. She must have had bad dreams, because today is the day of the reaping. Though Prim is still not eligible, being only 11, but I am, and she worries for me. But for Prim I am thankful for the world's ugliest cat is sitting at my sister's knees guarding her. He is so ugly he probably could scare anything away. He has a mashed-in nose, half of one ear missing, and eyes the color of rotting squash. But Prim named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat matched the color of the bright flower. He hates me, or at the very least distrusts me. I think he remembers that when Prim brought him home I tried to drown him in a bucket. A scrawny kitten, with a swollen belly full of worms, and completely crawling with fleas. And the last thing I needed at the time was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, and even cried, so I had to let him stay. There's no saying 'no' to Prim. It's turned out okay, my mother got rid of the vermin and he's a born mouser. He even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill and he's around I feed him the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me. That's as far as our relationship goes. Entrails and no hissing. But Prim loves him so it's kind of worth having him around.
I decide now is as good a time as ever to get up for the day. I get up off the bed and pull on some pants and my hunting boots. They are soft and flexible after years of wear. I pull on a shirt, braid back my long black hair, and tuck it up into my cap, and grab my forage bag. Then I see on the table, under a wooden bowl to protect it from hungry rats and cats alike, a perfect little piece of goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves. It's Prim's gift to me on reaping day. Carefully, I put the cheese into my pocket before I head outside.
In the unpaved streets of our part of District 12, which is nicknamed the Seam, are usually full of coal miners heading to their morning shift at this hour. Men and women who have worked in the mines for years, with their hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, and many who have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails, and sometimes the lines in their sunken faces. But today the black cinder streets are empty. Shutters on the tiny gray houses of the Seam are closed. The reaping isn't until two. And you may as well sleep in if you can.
Our house is almost at the edge of the Seam. I only have to pass a couple gates to get to the scruffy field we call the Meadow. And separating the Meadow from the woods, and in fact enclosing all of District 12, is a high chain-link fence topped with barbed-wire loops. The fence is supposed to be electrified twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week as a deterrent to the predators that live in the woods. The packs of wild dogs, lone cougars, bears, that used to threaten out streets. But lucky for me, we're lucky to only get two or three hours of electricity in the evenings, so the fence is usually safe to touch. Even so, those of us who venture out into the woods know to be safe rather than sorry, we always take a minute to listen carefully for the hum that means the fence is alive with electricity. Right now it's about as loud as a rock. So I carefully go over to a clump of bushes that conceals a two-foot stretch that's been loose for years. I have to flatten out on my belly to slide under it, but it's the closest and easiest way to get from my house to the woods. There are several other weak spots in the fence, but I almost always enter here.
As soon as I'm through the first bit of trees, I retrieve my bow and sheath of arrows from a hollow log. Electrified or not, the fence has been successful at keeping flesh-eating predators out of District 12. Inside the woods, is a different story, here they roam freely, it is their right after all it's their woods, oh, no, wait, it's the Capitol's Land. Pathetic. But besides from the wild dogs, and bears, there's the added concerns like venomous snakes, rabid animals and no real paths to follow. But there's also food if you know how to find it, and my father taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There wasn't even anything left to bury. I was eleven then. Even now, four years later, I still have nightmares where I wake up screaming and telling him to run.
Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal and poaching carries the severest of penalties, I think more people would risk it if they had weapons. But most are not bold enough just to come out here with only a knife. My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others I keep well hidden in the woods, carefully wrapped in waterproof covers. My father would have made good money selling them, but if the officials found out he would have been publicly executed for inciting a rebellion, yeah, because trying to help people get fresh food is rebellious. But most of the Peacekeepers here turn a blind eye to the few of us who do hunt because they're as hungry for fresh meat as we all are. In fact, they're some of our best customers. But the idea that someone might be arming the Seam would never have been allowed.
In the fall, a few brave souls sneak into the woods to collect apples. But always, always, in the sight of the Meadow. Always close enough to run back to the safety of our District if trouble arises. "District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter. Then quickly glance over my shoulder to make sure nobody heard me. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you still worry that someone might overhear you.
When I was younger, I would scare my mother to death, with the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. I eventually learned that doing this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. I do my work quietly in school, make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat what I say and then where would we be?
In the woods waits the only person with whom I can be myself. Gale. I can already feel the muscles in my face relaxing, my pace picks up as I climb the hills to our place, a rock ledge overlooking a valley. A thicket of blackberry bushes protect it and us from unwanted eyes. The sight of him waiting there brings on a smile. Gale says I never smile except in the woods.
"Hey, Catnip," Gale says. My real name is Katniss, but when I first told him, I was just twelve and had barely whispered it. So he thought I'd said Catnip. And then when this crazy lynx started following me around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official nickname for me. I finally had to kill the lynx because he scared off game. I almost regretted it, because he wasn't bad company. But I got a decent price for his pelt.
"Look what I shot." Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laugh. It's real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations. I take it in my hands, pull out the arrow, and hold the puncture in the crust to my nose, inhaling the fragrance that makes my mouth flood with saliva. Fine bread like this is for special occasions.
"Mm, still warm," I say. He must have been at the bakery at the crack of dawn to trade for it. "What did it cost you?"
"Just a squirrel. Think the old man was feeling sentimental this morning," says Gale. "Even wished me luck."
"Well, we all feel a little closer today, don't we?" I say, not even bothering to roll my eyes. "Prim left us cheese." I pull it out.
His expression brightens at the treat. "Thank you, Prim. We'll have a real feast." Suddenly he falls into a Capitol accent as he mimics Effie Trinket, the maniacally upbeat woman who arrives once a year to read out the names at the reaping. "I almost forgot! Happy Hunger Games!" He plucks a few blackberries from the bushes around us. "And may the odds-" He tosses a berry in a high arc toward me.
I catch it in my mouth and break the delicate skin with my teeth. The sweet tartness explodes across my tongue. "- be ever in your favor!" I finish with equal verve. We have to joke about it because the alternative is to be scared out of your wits. Besides the Capitol accent is so strange, almost anything sounds funny in it.
I watch as Gale pulls out his knife and slices the bread. He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes. But we're not related, at least not closely. Most of the families who work the mines resemble one another this way.
That's why my mother and Prim, with their light hair and blue eyes, always look out of place. They are. My mother's parents were part of the small merchant class that caters to officials, Peacekeepers, and the occasional Seam customer. They ran an apothecary shop in the nicer part of District 12. Since almost no one can afford doctors, apothecaries are our healers. My father got to know my mother because on his hunts he would sometimes collect medicinal herbs and sell them to her shop to be brewed into remedies. She must have really loved him to leave her home for the Seam. I try to remember that when all I can see is the woman who sat by, blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and bones. I try to forgive her for my father's sake. But to be honest, I'm not the forgiving type.
Gale
I spread the slices of with Prim's wonderfully soft goat cheese and put a basil leave on top for each of us, while Katniss strips the bushes of their berries. Then we settle back in a nook in the rocks. Katniss looks happy, she smiles, and I think I'm the only one who truly sees her smile. I know that she smiles at Prim, but I think that's mostly for Prim's sake. When we're out in the woods she can smile so brightly it can rival the sun. I look at her and can't stop myself from thinking how beautiful she is, and how clueless she is. Can't she see the way that so many of the boys look at her? Not even just the Seam boys, the Townies too. Not many people can cross that boundary, sure, I know a couple Town girls look at me like that too, but I ignore them. I know what they want, and that's the difference between Katniss and I, she doesn't know that the boys look at her like they want her, which makes me mad to no end. No, not at her, of course, at them. They don't know her.
I know for a fact she doesn't really talk to anyone in school. I do know she sits with the Mayor's daughter, Madge, and they talk sometimes. But not like other girls do, and I think that's why Katniss doesn't mind being friends with her. No mindless girl chatter. I'll admit that I've done my fair share of fooling around with girls, but I've stopped doing it. I thought that I had only thought of Katniss as my hunting partner and best friend, well up until about six months ago. We had brought our haul to the Hob for trading and got a decent bunch of stuff, but like most times we ended our visit to the Hob with a stop at Greasy Sae's. We trade with her well, because she's the only person you can count on in winter to have something hot, even though sometimes you don't want to know what the something in the broth is. This particular time Darius the Peacekeeper was there, and as far as Peacekeepers go, Darius is a good guy, but then he started flirting with Katniss, not that she knew that was what he was doing. Darius was teasing her about trading a rabbit for one of his kisses, and that's when I realized that I minded that he talked to her like that, talking about kissing her. Even if he was just joking.
And when I think of Katniss I smile. A real smile. I might smile a little bit easier than Katniss does but the ones I give my family can sometimes be forced or faked. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, and I'd do anything for them, but in the woods with Katniss I really get to be myself. She is so patient with me when I go off on my Capitol rants, even though both she and I know I'm scaring away the game. But I know she doesn't want me to say those things in town, if the wrong person heard I could get in huge trouble. She is truly the only person I can be 100 percent myself around, well right now maybe only 80 percent because I haven't told her how I truly feel about her yet. I plan on doing it tonight, after the reaping, after our families have dinner together, it has been a tradition of sorts for a few years now. I hope that she feels the same way about me.
Katniss
From the nook in the rocks we're invisible but we have a clear view of the valley, which is teeming with summer life, greens to gather, roots to dig, fish iridescent in the sunlight. The day is glorious, with a blue sky and soft breeze. The food's wonderful, with the cheese seeping into the warm bread and the berries bursting in our mouths. Everything would be perfect if this really was a holiday, if all the day off meant was roaming the mountains with Gale, hunting for tonight's supper. But instead we have to be standing in the square at two o'clock waiting for the names to be called out.
"So, what do you want to do first?" I ask. "Hunt, fish, or gather?"
"Let's fish at the lake. We can leave our poles and rather in the woods. Get something nice for tonight," he says.
Tonight. After the reaping, everyone is supposed to celebrate. And a lot of people do, out of relief that their children have been spared for another year. But at least two families will pull their shutters, lock their doors, and try to figure out how they will survive the painful weeks to come.
Gale and I make out well. The predators ignore us on a day when easier, tastier prey abounds. By late morning, we have a dozen fish, a bag of greens and, best of all, a gallon of strawberries. I found the patch a few years ago, but Gale had the idea to string mesh nets around it to keep out the animals.
On the way home, we swing by the Hob, the black market that operates in an abandoned warehouse that once held coal. When they came up with a more efficient system that transported the coal directly from the mines to the trains, the Hob gradually took over the space. Most businesses are closed by this time on reaping day, but the black market's still fairly busy. We easily trade six of the fish for good bread, the other two for salt. Greasy Sae, the bony old woman who sells bowls of hot soup from a large kettle, takes half the greens off our hands in exchange for a couple chunks of paraffin. We might do a tad better elsewhere, but we make an effort to keep on good terms with Greasy Sae. She's the only one who can consistently be counted on to buy wild dog. We don't hunt them on purpose, but if you're attacked and you take out a dog or two, well, meat is meat. "Once it's in the soup, I'll call it beef," Greasy Sae says with a wink. No one in the Seam would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog, but the Peacekeepers who come to the Hob can afford to be a little choosier.
When we finish our business at the market, we go to the back door of the mayor's house to sell half the strawberries, knowing he has a particular fondness for them and can afford our price. The mayor's daughter, Madge, opens the door. She's in my year at school. Being the mayor's daughter, you'd expect her to be a snob, but she's all right. She just keeps to herself. Like me. Since neither of us really has a group or friends, we seem to end up together a lot at school. Eating lunch, sitting next to each other at assemblies, partnering for sports activities. We rarely talk, which suits both us just fine.
Gale
Madge opens the door, and I know she's Katniss' friend, so for Katniss' sake I try to be nice. I know what she normally wears to school because she is usually with Katniss, and, well, I'm normally looking at Katniss.
But for today her drab school outfit is replaced by an expensive white dress, and he blonde hair is done up with a pink ribbon. Reaping clothes. "Pretty dress," I say.
Madge shoots me a look, trying to see if it's a genuine compliment or if I'm just being ironic. It is a pretty dress, but she would never be wearing it ordinarily. She presses her lips together and then smiles. "Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?"
Now it's my turn to be confused. Does she mean it? Or is she messing with me? I'm guessing the second, and I'm not amused. "You won't be going to the Capitol," I say. Then I notice a small circular pin that's pinned onto her dress, it's real gold. Really well crafted. It could keep a family in bread for months. "What do you have? Ten entries? We all know you don't need any tessera. I had six entries when I was just twelve years old."
"That's not her fault," Katniss says.
"No," I agree. "It's no one's fault. It's just the way it is."
Madge's face has become closed off. She put the money for the strawberries in Katniss' hand. "Good luck, Katniss."
"You, too," Katniss says, as Madge closes the door.
I know that Katniss isn't happy with what I said, but it's not like it isn't true. The reaping system is unfair, with the poor getting the worst of it. You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn twelve. That year, your name is entered once. At thirteen, twice. And so on and so on until you reach the age of eighteen, the final year of eligibility, when your name goes in seven times. And that's true for every citizen in all twelve districts in the entire country of Panem.
But here's the catch. Say you are poor and starving as we were. You can opt to add your name more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meager year's supply of grain and oil for one person. You may do this for each member of your family as well. So, at the age of twelve, I had my name entered six times. Once, because I had to, then tessera for my father (when he was still alive), my mother, myself, Rory, and Vick. And every year I have needed to do this. Even after my father died I still had to apply for the same amount because Posy was born. And the entries are cumulative. So now, at the age of seventeen, my name will be entered into the reaping ball fifty-one times. And Katniss, who has had to do the same, although with a smaller family, at the age of fifteen, her name will be entered into the reaping ball twenty-two times. I'm as much worried for her as I am myself.
Katniss
You can see why someone like Madge, who has never been at risk of needing a tessera, can set Gale off. The chance of her name being drawn is very slim compared to those of us who live in the Seam. Not impossible, but slim. And even though the rules were set up by the Capitol, not the districts, and certainly not Madge's family, it's hard not to resent those who don't have to sign up for tesserae.
I know that Gale knows his anger at Madge is misdirected. On other days, deep in the woods, I've listened to him rant about how the tesserae are just another tool to cause misery in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers of the Seam and those who can generally count on supper and thereby ensure we will never trust one another. "It's to the Capitol's advantage to have us divided among ourselves," he might say if there were no ears to hear but mine. If it wasn't reaping day. If a girl with a gold pin and no tesserae had not made what I'm sure she thought was a harmless comment.
As we walk, I glance over at Gale's face, still smoldering underneath his stony expression. His rages seem pointless to me, although I never say so. It's not that I don't agree with him. I do. But what good is yelling about the Capitol in the middle of the woods? It doesn't change anything. It doesn't make things fair. It doesn't fill our stomachs. In fact, it scares off the nearby game. I let him yell though. Better he does it in the woods than in the district. If Gale was heard in the district then he could be whipped or worse.
Gale and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each.
"See you in the square," I say.
"Wear something pretty," he says flatly.
At home, I find my mother and sister ready to go. My mother wears a fine dress from her apothecary days. And Prim is wearing a pink cotton dress, with her hair in two braids.
A tub of warm water waits for me. I scrub off the dirt and sweat from the woods and even wash my hair. To my surprise, my mother has laid out one of her own lovely dresses for me. A soft blue thing with matching shoes.
"Are you sure?" I ask. I'm trying to get past rejecting offers of help from her. For a while, I was so angry, I wouldn't allow her to do anything for me. And this is something special. Her clothes from her past are very precious to her.
"Of course. Let's put your hair up, too," she says. I let her towel-dry it and braid it up on my head. I can hardly recognize myself in the cracked mirror that leans against the wall.
"You look beautiful," Prim says in a hushed voice.
"And nothing like myself," I say. And I hug her because I know the next few hours will be terrible for her. She worries for me as I worry for her. At least she has one more year to go before she has her name entered into the reaping. "Come on, let's eat," I say and plant a quick kiss on the top of her head.
The fish and greens are already cooking in a stew, but that will be for supper. We decided to save the strawberries and bakery bread for this evening's meal, to make it special we say. Instead we drink milk from Prim's goat, Lady, and eat the rough bread made from the tessera grain, although no one has much of an appetite anyway.
Gale
By quarter to one the whole family's dressed in it's finest. I really don't understand why we have to dress up for this. It's disgusting. It's a death lottery and we have to dress fancy, wonderful. I think maybe I should keep this on when I talk to Katniss later but then think better of it, I know she likes fancy clothes just as much as I do, which isn't a lot at all. The least I can say is that my mother looks pretty, not happy, because who would look happy if there was a chance that your oldest son could be reaped? Rory is really starting to look grown up, at least that's what Katniss says. I was fourteen when I met her, and she was twelve, and she said that Rory's really starting to look like I did when we met. Vick just looks uncomfortable in his dress clothes, not that I blame him. Posy seems to be the only one actually enjoying everything. Since she's only three and a half, she doesn't really have any idea what's going on, and she says she feels like a princess.
Before my father died in the same mining explosion that Katniss' father died in, my father collected really old books. Books from before the Dark Days. I don't know where he got most of them, I think my mother said that most of them were passed down through his family. And I know sometimes, if you're lucky you can find some at the Hob. But books aren't really something a lot of people are interested in. But my dad was, and he read me stories, and then read stories to me and Rory, and then me and Rory and little Vick. Unfortunately he never got to read stories to Posy, so I took up that torch. That's how she knows about princesses. I wish everyone could be as happy as her. But I did hear that ignorance was bliss. Not knowing about everyone starving, not understanding what the Hunger Games are, not knowing why everyone seems scared out of their minds right now. And now it's one o'clock.
At one o'clock most Seam residents have to start heading for the square, people who live closer can afford to wait just a little longer, but not by much. Attendance is mandatory, unless you're about to die, you have to go to the square. This evening officials will go around knocking on doors to make sure everyone went, if not, you're imprisoned.
It's really too bad that they have to hold the reaping in the square. It's one of the nicer places in District 12. The square's surrounded by shops, and on public market days, especially when the weather's good, it has a happy feel to it. I know Prim drags Katniss around on public market days, but Katniss says that the holidays are Prim's favorite time to drag her around because of the decorated cakes in the bakery window. But today, despite the bright banners hanging on the buildings, there's an air of grimness. The camera crews are perched like buzzards on rooftops only add to the overall effect.
People file in silently and sign in. The reaping is a good opportunity for the Capitol to keep tabs on the population as well. Sick bastards. Twelve - through eighteen-year-olds are herded into roped areas marked off by ages. Oldest in front, youngest in the back. Family members line up around the perimeter, holding each other's hands tightly. But there are others, too, more sick bastards, who don't have anyone they love at stake, or people who just don't care anymore, who slip in among the crowd, taking bets on the two kids whose names will be drawn. There are odds, of course, odds on ages, whether they're Seam or Merchant, if they'll break down and weep. Most refuse dealing with the racketeers but carefully, very carefully. Because these same people tend to be informers, and who hasn't broken the law? I could be shot on a daily basis for hunting, but the appetites of those in charge protect me and protect Katniss. Not everyone can claim the same.
Anyway, Katniss and I agree that if we have to choose between dying of hunger and a bullet in the head, the bullet would be much quicker.
Katniss
The space gets tighter, more claustrophobic as people arrive. The square's quite large, but not enough to hold District 12's population of about eight thousand. Latecomers are directed to the adjacent streets, where they can watch the event on screens as it's televised live by the state. I find myself standing in a clump of fifteen-year-olds mostly from the Seam, but Madge is standing next to me, which I'm grateful for. If I can't stand next to my best friend, who's with all of the seventeen-year-olds, I'm glad I'm standing next to my only other friend. Everyone seems to be exchanging terse nods then we all focus our attention on to the temporary stage that is set up before the Justice Building. It hold three chairs, a podium, and two large glass balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. I stare at the paper slips in the girls' ball. Twenty-two of them have Katniss Everdeen written on them in careful handwriting.
Two of the three chairs fill with Madge's father, Mayor Undersee, who's a tall, balding man, and Effie Trinket, District 12's escort, fresh from the Capitol with her scary white grin, purple-ish hair, and teal colored suit. They murmur to each other and then look with concern at the empty seat. Haymitch's seat.
Just as the town clock strikes two, the mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It's the same story every year. He tells of the history of Panem, 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 it's citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, and the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as out 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 one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in 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.
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 and completely we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. "Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there's nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen."
To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grains and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.
"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," intones the mayor.
Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors. In seventy-three years, we have had exactly two. Only one is still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at this moment appears hollering something unintelligible, staggers onto the stage, and falls into the third chair. He's drunk. Very. Like every year. Like all the time. The crowd responds with its token applause, but he's confused and tried to give Effie Trinket a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off. I smirk.
The mayor looks distressed. Since all of this is being televised, right now District 12 is the laughingstock of Panem, and he knows it. He quickly tried to pull attention back to the reaping by introducing Effie Trinket.
Bright and bubbly as ever, Effie Trinket trots to the podium and gives her signature, "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odd be ever in your favor!" Her purple hair must be a wig because he curls have shifted slightly off-center since her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on a bit about what a honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she's just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation.
Through the crowd, I spot Gale looking back at me with a ghost of a smile. As reapings go, this one at least has a slight entertainment factor. But suddenly I am thinking of Gale and his fifty-one names in that big glass ball and how the odds are not in his favor. Not compared to a lot of the boys. And maybe he's thinking the same thing about me because his face darkens and he turns away. "But there are still thousands of slips," I wish I could whisper to him.
It's time for the drawing. Effie Trinket says as she always does, "Ladies first!" and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a collective breath and then you can hear a pin drop, and I'm feeling nauseous and so desperately hoping that it's not me, that it's not me, that it's not me. And I'm holding on tightly to Madge's hand, thankfully she holds back just as tight, she really is a good friend.
Effie Trinket crosses back to the podium smooths the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice. And it's not me.
It's Beth Bailey.