I woke up and thought "This is it, Prim, the day of your first reaping". Oh joy. My mother was still lying next to me, asleep. I look over to the other side and see that Katniss is gone. "Doesn't really take much thought to figure out where she went," I muttered under my breath so that Mother wouldn't wake up.
See, every Sunday, Katniss goes hunting with her friend, Gale Hawthorne, in the outskirts of District 12. I think she likes him. She thinks I like his little brother, Vick. I don't. I look to our little kitchen table and see that the goats cheese I made from Lady's milk is gone.
" Wow, now what am I going to eat" I think, just as Mother walks out of the bedroom door. " Go wash up, Primrose. You don't want to look like a slob on your first reaping day." Mother said, without excitement.
I walk to the well outside the house and I wash my face and rinse my teeth with the little water I could pump out. When I finished, my hairline was caked with water, so i decided to rinse my hair, too. I went back in and saw that Mother had already gotten dressed in her best formal clothes for the reaping, and had laid out Katniss' first reaping dress and shoes on my bed, for me to wear.
I took off my pyjamas and pulled on the tights (which were a tight fit),the shimmery blue shoes, and the dress. It was obvious that I had put it on in a real rush, but at the moment, my main goal is: FOOD. I ran out of my room and Katniss ( who, until now, I didn't even know was home), was standing next to the table in my mother's reaping dress, from when she was Katniss' age. It was a simple, sky blue dressnthat was slightly wavy at the bottom, but still very pretty."You look beautiful," I whispered before I could stop myself.
"And so do you!"Katniss smiled and tapped my nose. I giggled softly.
I looked at the table, where there was some game, two loaves of bread, and a small pile of money. We all sat down and ate a few slices of bread and some tomatoes, carrots, or any other vegetables that Mother grew in our yard. Mother looked at the clock. "It's almost ten to one, we should go to the square now." she said anxiously. I hopped out the door, Katniss closely behind me. "Tuck in your tail, you little duck," Katniss teased, as she straightened out my dress from the back.
People were still piling into the square as we got there. Though we're the smallest District out of all 12, we still are a large group. The whole square was packed with people, and the stage was surrounded by cameras. In the middle of the stage stood Effie Trinket, the Human Barbie Doll from the Capitol. I heard she wishes she was in charge of the reaping for other districts, because we haven't won since that old drunk, Haymitch Abernathy, won the Quarter Quell twenty four years ago. We have only two victors, and the other guy is dead.
"Welcome, welcome, to the reaping of the 74th Hunger Games." said Effie, with the word 'sarcastic' plastered all over her face. "Well, someone wears too much makeup," I thought with a grin. There were 2 big glass balls with thousands of papers with people's names on them in each one, each of them on either side of Effie. In the girls ball, I have 1 little piece of paper with the name 'Primrose Everdeen' on it. Katniss has 20, because she wouldn't let me take any of the tessarae. The mayor then came on and did his yearly boring speech about how Panem came to be, the rebellion against the Capitol, the obliteration of District 13, and finally, the reason for the Hunger Games. Same old boring stuff.
Effie trotted over to the girls' ball in her 6 inch stilettos. "Ladies first!" said Effie with a giggle. She reached her hand into the large glass ball for the girls. There was so much pressure in the air that it felt heavy on my shoulders. I hear Katniss whisper from somewhere behind me " Don't worry, Prim, your name is only in there once, they aren't going to pick you." But she was wrong. Because when Effie Trinket finally finished dramatically clawing at the air and overturning the names in there, she grabbed the name I least expected. " Our new District 12 female tribute is… Primrose Everdeen!"
