Wyn sat on her front porch whittling down a stick to roast sausage with over the open hearth fire inside. Rain was falling in a steady stream around her porch and she put her hand out, letting it run through her fingers. She liked the rain. It was like a protective barrier between her home and the rest of District 7.
Squinting through the rain, Wyn could just make out the house that sat across the street from her own. It was like looking in a mirror. The same dilapidated, plain wooden house with a small porch stared back at her, its two front windows ablaze with the candles within. There was no teenage girl brooding on the porch there though. The couple that lived there was lucky. They weren't able to have kids so they didn't have to watch their children face the reaping every year. They did however foster any number of kids whose parents had died during logging accidents or production accidents.
District 7 was the lumber district. The people that lived in District 7 either helped to log the enormous trees throughout their district or worked in paper product production and distribution. Wyn's family was one of the wealthier families in District 7, if you could call anyone here wealthy. Her father was a truck driver and her mother worked alongside him helping to fall trees in the woods. Wyn had been working with her parents since she was eight, when she'd accompany her parents into the woods on the weekend and help strip the logs of their branches. Now she was being trained to drive the huge logging trucks herself and was an expert logger. When she had turned eleven, her parents had pulled her from school to work in the field. Most families who lived in the wealthier part of District 7 never pulled their kids from school, they let them finish their education, unlike the more poor families who needed the extra money and food rations. Wyn never could understand why her parents had insisted she work but she was thankful for it. She was a dunce in school but in the woods she felt alive. The girl could read and write and that's all that really mattered in District 7.
The pitter patter of the light rain fall was speeding up and the rain was coming down in sheets now more than dribbles. This didn't really worry Wyn, rain was a common occurrence in District 7. It rained most of the year here and it kept everyone in fresh drinking water. The girl had heard rumors that there were places in Panem where fresh water was a luxury or that cool water was almost unheard of because it was always so hot. She was intensely thankful that she was living in one of the cooler, wetter districts.
Over the pounding rain, Wyn heard another sound, the shuffling of feet along the packed dirt road. The girl looked up and smiled as her mother came into view, out of the gloom. She was clutching her pauncho under her chin, trying to keep the rain out, her other hand tucked protectively against her chest, out of the rain. Wyn sprang up and tucked the sharpened rock into her pocket. If the Peacekeepers knew she had a sharpened rock in her possession, she'd get beaten for sure. Luckily the Peacekeepers didn't make it a habit of patrolling the streets in her part of town often. They tended to stay close to the Slum, where the poorest families in her area lived.
Wyn leaned forward off the porch into the rain, towards her mother, and raised her eyebrows as if to say, "did you get it?" The older woman just nodded and rushed past her curious daughter. Wyn heard the door open and she turned on her heals and rushed into the house behind her mother, closing it tight and latching it three times over. The girl was giddy with excitement to see what surprise her mother had come home with this time.
Bou, Wyn's little sister, was excitedly going around and closing the curtains to keep out any prying eyes as their father chuckled from his position perched in front of the fire. Will, Wyn's youngest sibling, was sitting in his lap looking expectant. When the house was locked up tight, the family gathered around the fire as Wyn's mom brought a loaf of bread and some coveted honey over. Wyn grabbed the bread and started to tear it apart with her fingers. Her mother made a disapproving noise and rapped Wyn across the knuckles lightly with the handle of her butter knife.
"Use a knife, young lady, where are your manners?" she asks her oldest daughter.
Wyn blushed and said, "Sorry Momma, I'm just so excited! I can't wait to see what you've brought us!"
The woman smiled knowingly as she watched her daughter properly cut up the bread and place each slice on a plate with some honey. Each of the children grabbed a slice and Wyn's dad refused his portion, which his wife took willingly.
"Alright Momma, let's see what you've got!" Bou cries as she bites into the bread and savors the sweet honey.
Slowly, their mother pulls off her poncho and lays it out on the floor to dry and then slowly pulls a brown package out from under her shirt. She lays the mysterious package out in front of the children. William leans out over the thing and his father wraps his arms around the little boy's waist, keeping him in place and out of reach of the parcel. Slowly Wyn's mother pulls the brown paper off the package and lays it out flat. Wrapped within is a small, ruddy looking book. The cover has all but wasted away. The name written across it is incomprehensible and the picture on the front simply doesn't exist anymore. Will claps his hands and his mother smiles.
She gently picks up the book and reads the name off the spine: The Book Thief.
Bou perks up at this name. "Like us!" she cries, crawling up onto her knees and leaning forward to see the book.
Their mother laughs. "Yes little duck, just like us."
"Have you read this one, Momma?" Will asks quietly.
She nods as she gingerly picks up the book and opens the cover, revealing the first printed page. Wyn's mother knows that the book originally contained a title page, a dedication page, a page with all the printing information and a table of contents but now it simply opens up to the first chapter. The previous pages had been ripped out and used as scrap paper or bartered with in the Strip.
Will sighs and says, "You've read everything." The boy then settles back against his father's chest to listen to a few chapters of their new treasure before bed.