Nothing mentioned is mine. It belongs to the brilliant Suzanne Collins or Dan Schnieder (Who's last name I still cannot spell.)
OK...so this was originally going to be just Victorious characters...but it's ended up being both Victorious and iCarly...because there just isn't enough characters...there still isn't. But oh well. The Carly in this chapter is an OC, NOT Carly Shay. I didn't want to use Prim.
The first few chapters are going to be basically copied from the book because those contain the most important information, but as I get further into the story, they'll become my own. Sort of.
Part 1: The Tributes.
Chapter 1
When I wake, the other side of the bed is cold. I reach out, seeking Carly's warmth but finding only the rough matress. She must have had bad dreams and gone to sleep with our mother. Of course she did. This is the day of the reaping.
I prop myself on one elbow, there's enough light in the room to see then. My little sister, Carly, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mother's body, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, my mother looks younger, like she used to. Still worn but not so beaten-down. Carly's face is as fresh as a raindrop, she was beautiful. My mother was very beautiful once too, or so they tell me.
Sitting at Carly's knees, guarding her from the cruel world around, is the world's ugliest cat. Mashed-in nose, half an ear missing, eyes the colour of rotting squash. Carly named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy, ugly, yellow coat matched the bright, beautiful flower. He hates me. Even though it was years ago, I swear he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Carly brought him home. A scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed, much less a cat ugly as that. But Carly begged so hard, cried eve, I had to let him stay. I can't turn her down. It turned out OK. My mother got rid of the vermin and he's a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed him the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.
Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest thing we will ever come to love.
I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my hunting boots. Leather that has moulded to the to my feet. I pull on trousers, a shirt, tuck my long trademark braid up into a cap and grab my forage bag. On the table, under a wooden bowl to protect it from hungry rats and cats alike, sits a perfect goats cheese. Carly's gift to me on reaping day. I put the cheese in my pocket as I slip outside.
Our part of district 12, the seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour. Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many of which have long stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken names and the lines in their sunken, tired faces. But today the black streets are empty, completely deserted. Shutters on the squat grey houses are closed, locked tight. The reaping isn't until two. May as well sleep in. If you can; most wake early, worried.
Our house is right at the edge of the seam. I only have to pass a few gates before I reach the scruffy field called the Meadow. Separating the Meadow from the from the woods, enclosing all of District 12 is a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire loops. In theory, it's supposed to be electrified 24 hours a day to keep out the predators that live in the woods - packs of wild dogs, lone cougars, bears - that used to threaten our streets. But since we're lucky to get two or three hours of electricity in the evenings, it's usually safe to touch. Even though I know it will be safe, I listen for the faint hum which means the fence is live. Right now, it's silent as a stone, as usual. Concealed by a clump of bushes, I flatten out on my stomach and slide under a metre-long stretch that's been loose for years. There are several other loose spots dotted around on the fence that surrounds our district, but this one is so close to home that I almost always enter the wwods here.
As soon as I'm in the shelter of the trees, I retrieve a bow and sheath of arrows from a hollow log. Electrified or not, the fence does it's job successfully at keeping the flesh eaters out of our district. Inside the woods, they roam freely. There are also added concerns, like venomous snakes, rabid animals, no real paths to follow. But there's food if you know how to find it. My father knew and he taught me some ways before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing left of him to bury. I was eleven then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to run.
Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal and poaching carries the severest of penalties, most of us would risk it if they had the weapons. But most are not bold enough to venture out with just a knife, which is sensible of them. Most would not survive. My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father with a few others that I keep well hidden in the woods, carefully wrapped in waterproof covers. My father could have made good money selling them, but if the officials found out he would have been publicly executed for starting a rebellion. Most of the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the few of us who hunt because they're as hungry for fresh meat as anybody is. In fact, they're our best customers. But the idea that someone might be arming the Seam wold never have been allowed.
In the autumn, a few brave souls sneak into the woods to harvest apples. Bt always in sight of the Meadow. Always close enough to run back to the safety of the District if trouble arises. "District Twelve, where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, where it is pretty much a given that you are alone, you worry someone might overhear you.
When I was younger, I scared my mother half 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. Eventually I understood that this would only lead us to more unneeded 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. Do my work quietly in school. Make only small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make the majority of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky, undesirable topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Carly might begin to repeat my words, and then where would we be?
In the woods waits the only person with whom I can be myself. Andre. I can feel the muscles in my face relaxing, my pace quickening as I climb the hills to our private place, a rock ledge overlooking a valley. A thicket of berry bushes protects it from unwanted eyes. The sight of him waiting there brings on a smile. Andre says I never smile except in the woods.
"Hey Jade," says Andre, "Look what I shot." He holds up a load of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laugh. It's real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make with our puny grain rations. I take it in my hands, pull out the arrow and hold the puncture in the crust up to my nose, inhaling the wonderful fragrance that makes my mouth floor with saliva. Fine bread like this is for special occasions only.
"Mm, still warm..." I say longingly. 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. Even wished me luck."
"Well, we all feel a little closer today, don't we?" I say, not even bothering to roll my eyes, though I badly want to. "Carly left us a cheese." I pull it out.
His expression brightens at the treat, fresh cheese. "Thank you, Carly. We'll have a real feast!" Suddenly he falls into a Capitol accent as he mimics Helen, 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 towards me.
I catch it in my mouth and break the delicate skin with my teeth. The sweet juicy tartness explodes across my tongue. "-be ever in your favour!" I finish with equal verve. We have to joke about it; the alternative is to be scared out of your wits. Besides, the Capitol accent is so affected, almost anything sounds funny in it.
I watch as Andre pulled out his knife and slices the bread. We're not related, at least not closely. We look somewhat alike though. Most of the families who work the mines resemble one another this way.
That's why my mother and Carly look so out of place with their different looks. 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 in remedies. She must have really loved him to leave her house for the Seam. I try to remember that when all I can see is the woman who sat by, blank and unreachable which her children turned to skin and bones. I do try to forgive her for my father's sake. But to be quite honest, I'm not the forgiving type. Not at all.
Andre spreads the bread slices with the soft cheese while I strip the bushes of their berries. We settle back in a nook in the rocks. From this place, we are invisible, but have a clear view of the valley, which is full to the brim 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, a few fluffy clouds scattered above our heads. The food's wonderful, with the cheese seeping into the warm bread and the berries bursting in our mouths. Everything would be amazing if this really was a holiday, if all the day off was meant for roaming in the mountains with Andre, hunting for tonight's supper. But instead we have to be standing in the square at two o'clock sharp waiting for the names to be called out.
"We could do it, you know." Andre says quietly.
"What?"
"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it." I don't know how to respond...the idea is so preposterous.
"If we didn't have so many kids," He adds quickly.
They're not our kids, of course. But they might as well be. Andre's two little brothers and a sister. Carly. And you may as well throw in our mothers, because how would they live without us? Who would fill those mouths that are always asking for more? With both of us hunting daily, there are still nights when game has to be swapped for lard or shoelaces or wool, still nights when we go to bed with our stomach growling.
"I never want to have kids," I say.
"I might. If I didn't live here," Andre says, a slightly bitter tone to his voice.
"But you do," I reply, irritated.
"Forget it," He snaps back.
The conversation feels all wrong. Leave? How could I leave Carly, the only person in the world I'm certain I love. And Andre is so devoted to his family. we ca't leave, so why bother talking about it. And even if we did...even if we did...where did all this stuff about having kids come from? There's never been anything romantic between Andre and me. When we met, I was a skinny twelve year old, and although he was only two years older, he already looked like a man. It took a long time for us even to become friends, to stop haggling over every trade and begin helping each other out.
Besides, if he wants kids, Andre would have any trouble finding a wife. He's good looking, he's strong enough to handle work in the mines, and he can hunt. You can tell by the way girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous, but not for the reason people would thing. Good hunting partners are hard to find.
"What do you want to do?" I ask. We can hunt, fish, or gather.
"Lets fish at the lake. We can leave our poles and gather 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.
We do well. The predators ignore us on a day when easier, tastier prey is around. By late morning we have a dozen fish, a bag of greens and, best of all, a large quantity of strawberries. I found the patch a few years ago, but Andre 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 coal directly from the mines to the trains, the Hob gradually took over the abandoned 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 old woman who sells bowls of hot soup, takes half the greens off our hands in exchange for a couple of chunks of paraffin. We might do a tad better elsewhere, but we make an effort to keep on good terms with Greasy Sae.
When we finish our business at the market, we go to the back door of the mayors 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 right snob, but she's all right. She just keeps to herself. Like me. Since neither of us really has a group of friends, we end up sitting together a lot at school. Eating lunch, sitting next to each other at assemblies, partnering for sports activities. We rarely talk, which suits us fine.
Today her drab school outfit has been replaced by an expensive white dress and her blonde hair is done up with a pink ribbon. Reaping Clothes.
"Pretty dress," Says Andre.
Madge shoots him a look, trying to see if it's a genuine compliment or if he's just being ironic. It is a pretty dress, but she wouldn't be caught wearing it ordinarily. She presses her lips together then smiles. "Well, if I end up going to the Capitol I want to look nice, don't I?"
Now it's Andre's turn to be confused. Does she mean it? Or is she messing with him? I'm guessing the second.
"You won't be going to the capitol," Andre says coolly. His eyes land on a circular pin that adorns her dress. Real gold. Beautifully crafted. It could keep a family in bread for months. "What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old."
"That's not her fault." I say.
"No, it's no ones fault. It's just the way it is."
Madge's face has become closed off. She puts the money for the berries in my hand. "Good luck, Jade."
"You, too," I say and the door closes.
We walk towards the Seam in silence. I don't like that Andre took a dig at Madge, but he's right, of course. Andre is always right. The reaping system is so 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 into the pool seven times. 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 in more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meagre year's supply of grain and oil for one person. You may do this for each of your family members as well. So, at the age of twelve, I had my name entered four times. Once because I had to, and three times for tessarae for myself, Carly and my mother. In fact, every year I have needed to do this. And the entries are cumulative. So now, at the age of sixteen, my name will be in the reaping twenty times. Gale, who is eighteen and has been either helping or single-handedly feeding a family of five for seven years, will have his name in forty-two times.
You can see why someone like Madge, who has never been at risk of needing a tessera, can set him 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, certainly not Madge's family, it's hard not to resent those who don't have to sign up for tesserae.
Andre knows his anger at Madge is misdirected. On other days, deep in the woods, I've listened to him rant for hours about how the tesserae are just another tool to cause misery and depression in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers of the Seam and those who can generally count on supper; and therefore ensure we will never trust one another.
"it's 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 tessarae had not made what I'm sure she thought was a harmless comment.
As we walk, I glance over at Andre's face, still burning under his stony expression. His rage seems pointless to me, although I never say so. It's not that I don't agree. 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 and equal. It doesn't fill our stomachs. In fact, it only scares off the nearby game. I let him yell though. Better he does it in the woods than in the district.
Andre and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good read, greens and a few handfuls of strawberries, salt, paraffin and a bit of money for each of us.
"See you in the square," I mumble.
"Wear something pretty," He replies flatly.
At home, I find my mother and sister are ready to go. My mother wears a fine dress from her apothecary days. Carly is in my first reaping outfit, a shirt and ruffled blouse. It's a bit big on her, but my mother has made it stay with pins. Even so, she's having trouble keeping the blouse tucked in at the back.
A tub of lukewarm 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 lovely dresses for me. A soft blue floaty dress 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 dusty wall.
"You look beautiful," Carly comments in a hushed voice.
"And nothing like myself," I say. I hug her, because I know these next few hours will be terrible for her. Her first reaping. She's about as safe as you can get, since she's only entered once. I wouldn't let her take out any tesserae. But she's worried about me. That the unthinkable might happen.
I protect Carly in every way I can, but I'm powerless against the reaping. The anguish I always feel when she's in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face. I notice her blouse had pulled out of her skirt in the back again and I force myself to stay calm. "Tuck your tail in, little duck," I say, smoothing the blouse back in place.
Carly giggles and gives me a small "Quack!".
"Quack yourself," I say with a light laugh. The kind only Carly can draw out of me. "Come on, lets eat," I 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 decide to save the strawberries and bakery bread for this evening's meal, to make it special, we say. Instead, we drink milk from Carly's goat, Lady, and eat the rough bread from tessera grain, although no one has much appetite anyway.
At one o'clock, we head for the square. Attendance is mandatory unless you're at deaths door. This evening, officials will come around and see if this is the case. If not, you'll be imprisoned.
It's too bad really, that they told the reaping in the square - one of the few places in the district that can be pleasant. The square's surrounded by shops, and on public market days, especially if there's good weather, it has a holiday feel to it. But today, despite the bright banners hanging on the buildings, there's an air of grimness. The camera crews, perched on the rooftops, only add to the effect.
People file in silently and sign in. The reaping is a good opportunity for the Capitol to keep tabs on the population of the districts as well. Twelve to Eighteen year olds are herded into roped ares marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, the young ones like Carly towards the back. Family members line up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another's hands. But there are others too, who have no one they love at stake, who no longer care, who slip among the crowds taking bets on the two kids who's names will be drawn. Odds are given on their ages, whether they're Seam or merchant, if they will break down and weep. Most refuse dealing with the racketeers but carefully, carefully. 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. Not everyone can claim the same.
Anyway, Andre and I agree that if we have to choose between dying of hunger and a bullet through the skull, the bullet will be much quicker.
The space gets tighter, more closed off and claustrophobic, as more 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 sixteens from the Seam. We all exchange tense nods, then focus our attention on the temporary stage that is set up before the Justice Building. It holds three chairs, a podium and two large glass balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. I stare at the slips in the girls' ball. Twenty of them have Jadelyn West written on them in careful handwriting.
Two of the chairs fill with Madge's father, Mayor Undersee, who's a tall, balding man, and Helen, District 12's escort, fresh from the Capitol with her scary grin, pinkish hair and spring green suit. They murmur to each other then look with concern at the empty seat.
As the clock strikes two, the mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It's the same story every year. He tells the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the aches 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 to it's citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days may never be repeated, it gave us The Hunger Games.
The rules are simple. 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 old 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, simple.
This is the Capitol's way of showing us how totally and completely we are at their mercy. Whatever words they use, the 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 destory each and every last one of you. Just as we did to 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 grain 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 winners. In seventy four years, we have had exactly two. Only one is still alive, Erwin Sikowitz, a paunchy middle aged man who's currently appreaing to be hollering something completely intolerable. He staggers onto the stage, and falls into the chair. He's drunk. Very. As usual. The crowd responds with it's token applause, but he's confused and tries to give Helen a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off.
The mayor looks distressed. Since all this is being televised, district 12 is the laughing stock of Panem, and he knows it. He quickly tries to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing Helen.
Bright and bubbly as ever, Helen trots to the podium and gives her signature "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" Her pink hair must have been a wig because the curls have shifted slightly off-centre since her encounter with Sikowitz. She goes on for a while about what an honour it is to be here, although everyone knows she's aching to be bumped up to a district with proper winners.
Through the crowd I spot Andre looking back at me with the ghost of a smile. As reapings go, at least this one has a slight entertainment factor. But suddenly I'm thinking of Andre and his forty-two names in that big glass ball and how the odds are not in his favour. Not at all. And maybe he's thinking the same 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, Helen says as she always does "Ladies first!" and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names. She reaches in, digs her hand in 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.
Helen crosses back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper and reads out the name in a clear voice.
And it's not me.
It's Carly West.
My sister.
hope you enjoyed :) more to come soon.
xox.