I do not own the hunger games they belong to Suzanne Collins

I'm huddled up against the back wall of the bakery as a couple of years living on the street has taught me it's the warmest place I can be in the evenings. I'm still cold though. I'm resolved to get up and move around when someone calls my name. I turn round to see Zinnia standing at the end of the street. When she sees she's got my attention she turns round and walks off, I'm to follow her words are not wasted between us. After a few minutes I can see she's leading me to the justice building and when she picks up another boy and girl I know she's rounding us up to earn a few more coins, I can't blame her though: an orphan like me with three younger siblings two of which aren't old enough to work in the fields she doesn't have much of a choice. I guess in some ways I'm lucky I've only got me. Being an only child isn't a common occurrence in district 11 unless your siblings have died of starvation. Most parents have lots of children because it means more people who can work to bring in enough money to feed the family, I guess my parents didn't think like that or maybe they just didn't get around to it before my father died. He died when I was 4 years old so my memories of him are very fuzzy, I'm not sure how he died my mother didn't talk about him much.

When we get to the justice building I can see zinnia's done a good job of rounding us all up as the square is pretty full. I see Ceres with his sisters and brother near the back so I shuffle in next to him. He has a roll of bread in his hands and tears off a bit and gives it to me. 'thanks' I say 'how did you afford it?' in reply he starts a conversation about why we're all gathered here and relays some of the rumours to me, I don't press him further. I can see a screen has been put up on the veranda of the justice building. Apparently our justice building was beautiful before the rebellion but now it's starting to fall into disrepair, ivy is starting to grow up the marble pillars and some of the tiles on the roof have fallen off but I don't really think this makes it that less beautiful, it makes it look kind of peaceful. The screen looks quite out of place.

All of a sudden the screen flickers into life and Emi Cett's familiar face appears. She must be at least seventy but it's hard to tell with all her makeup and operations, she's been presenting the hunger games for the full 24 yrs and apparently she was a presenter before the rebellion. She stands up and the camera zooms out to reveal her glittery purplish blue Suit. 'Well aren't you wondering what I'm doing presenting? It isn't another couple of months till the hunger games.' She pauses as if giving us time to answer before continuing in her silly capitol accent ' This year will be the 25th hunger games so it will be the first ever quarter Quell and I bet you are just as excited as I am! We are here today for the very special reading of the card…' Emi steps to the side and the anthem begins to play President Onach walks onto the stage followed by Coriolanus Snow, who seemed to be shadowing the President these days, and a girl holding a wooden box. The anthem ends and the President starts with the speech that usually begins every reaping. The speech talks about the creation of panem, the dark days of the rebellion and then the concept of the hunger games then he says 'when the laws of the hunger games were laid out they dictated that every 25 years the anniversary would be marked by a glorified version of the games to be known as a quarter quell.' On this the girl steps forward and opens the box to reveal rows of envelopes Onach takes out the first which is labelled 25 and opens it. 'on the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district will be made to hold an election to vote on the tributes to represent it' a murmur runs through the crowd. I look at Ceres and he seems just as confused as I am then he says 'does this mean we won't be able to sign up for a tesserae?' then suddenly that's what everyone else is saying because isn't the tesserae what all these homeless children rely on most…