PART ONE | THE TRIBUTES
CHAPTER ONE
When I wake up, the house smells faintly of sweet bread. My arms stretch out, shaking the remnants sleep off my muscles but finding them stiffening with my nervous energy. I wasn't sure how my body already knew before my brain, but now I remembered. This is the day of the reaping.
I prop myself up on one elbow. There's enough light filtering through the patchy curtains to see that I'd slept too long into the morning. My brothers must've already woken up; I could hear their muffled voices clattering in the kitchens below my room.
As I shift my body upright, I noticed that my father had left a small pastry beside my bed. It sat on a rose chipped plate, one of the few in a set that my mother didn't smash when she was in an angry fit. Mother hates me. Or at least wishes I was more like my brothers. Even though it was years ago, I think she still remembers how I deliberately burnt pieces of bread to feed, in her words, a "rat searching for food". I still remember how hard she hit me that day. The bruises on the side of my head, the stars I kept seeing for a few days afterwards. Father begged her to stop, but nothing can stop mother in a rage. Despite all of it, I still cook for her everyday, and she let's me eat a hearty meal at dinnertime.
Cooking. Eating. This is the closest we will ever come to love.
I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my black leather boots. They're old, stained with flour and burnt in some places. I tie the laces tightly and slip on some loose khaki trousers, shoving my blonde mess of hair into a mesh cap and rush down the stairs. On the table is the remains of the breakfast I had missed. My stomach growls angrily, wishing it had woken me up in time for food. But I couldn't dwell - I had to get to work. It was a few more hours until the reaping, and my mother expected the bread to be baked and cakes to be decorated.
My part of District 12, nicknamed the Merchant section, is usually crawling with shopkeepers trying to get businesses set up and drag customers in. Men and women who all seem so much more well-fed than those who live in the Seam, yet struggle internally, never knowing when their marginal luck will run out. Business is difficult in these times. But today, many businesses are closed. Shutters down, lights out. The reaping isn't until two. Barely anybody wants to buy anything on reaping day.
We still open up the bakery, though, which is located just on the edge of the Merchant section. You only have to pass a few other shops before you get into the Seam, the coal miners part of District 12. In theory, we don't get a lot of customers on reaping day, but mother doesn't take any chances. We're lucky to get two or three people buying anything, really. Sometimes we do get traders, but I'm never able to deal with them. Especially if it's... her. Katniss.
As soon as my mind reaches back to her, I'm flashed with the images that haunt me ever since I threw her the bread I burnt. It was raining, I was young. She was huddled beside a tree, covered in wet mud, looking as if she was wasting away. I could barely see her; the rain was so thick and coming down in sheets of ice. I didn't have to linger on her hunched over body... I knew what was happening. She was starving. She didn't have long. I knew what I had to do.
Even though I knew my mother would kill me, I took two of our largest loaves that were cooking in the amber glow of the oven and let them touch the fire. It licked the bread, burning it instantly. The smell of burning bread flew through the room, reaching my mothers nostrils in seconds. She screamed. "You stupid, stupid little boy!" She slapped me round the face, making my cheek glow as red as the fire in the ovens. "It's ruined, it's ruined you worthless boy! Feed it to the pigs!" she demanded, grabbing my shirt and pushing me out the door.
I stepped out down the stairs and more into the wet, rainy garden, my legs shaking. I knew the worst wasn't over with my mother. What she'd already done was nothing. When I had given this bread to the pigs, it would be much worse than a hand shaped slap on my cheek.
She was still as ever. I wasn't even sure she had noticed anything that gone on. I wasn't sure she was alive still. What if I was too late? I tore a small burnt chunk off, throwing it toward the pig pen. My mother seemed slightly satisfied and slipped into the bakery for a moment, rather than watch me chuck all of the bread to the pigs. As soon as she'd gone, I threw the now slightly soggy bread right toward Katniss. One of them hit her slightly, rousing her starving stupor. She looked at me full of confusion, trying to foggily place the puzzle pieces together.
I didn't get to see what happened after. I had to take myself back to my mother for the punishment that was waiting for me. By the morning, she wasn't there and I knew she'd taken the bread and was okay. I had never felt so much relief.
"Peeta!" my father called for me. I look up, feeling the muscles in my face tightening in confusing as I wiped my flour covered hands on my apron. I walk into the main bakery to see Madge Undersee, the mayors daughter. The sight of her waiting there brings a smile to my face.
"Hey Peeta," says Madge. She is dressed expensively, in a crisp white dress and pink ribbons. Reaping clothes.
"Why don't you guys go back into the kitchens? There's a few pastries here you can have," my father offers. Madge smiles at him and begins to walk past me into the back room. I look questioningly to my father before following her. "Mothers gone out." he whispers. I nod with understanding. If she was here, there was no way Madge would be allowed back or I would be allowed to take a break. This was a slice of luxury for both of us.
"Look what I got." she says once I join her. She is already sitting down on a wooden stool, nibbling on a pastry. I see a basket of fresh strawberries on the table that look so decadent I reach for one straight away.
"Where'd you get these?" I ask as the fruity explosion burst on my mouth. My mouth floods with saliva. I've forgotten how long it's been I'd had such fresh, beautiful fruit.
She gives me a look that immediately tells me the strawberries were from Katniss. I swallow down the strawberry, hard. "Careful, you don't want to choke." she joked, before softening her blue eyes. "You really need to tell her how you feel, you know."
"No, I don't." I say, taking another strawberry.
She huffs. "So what're you gonna do? Just... love her distantly, and kind of creepily, forever and ever?"
I smile. She jokes with me about my crush on Katniss often, but I try not to be too mindful of it. There's not a whole lot Madge and I have in common, but that doesn't stop us from being good friends. One thing that we do have in common is Katniss. They stick together at school in lunches, assemblies, sports. It didn't take her very long to notice how much I stare sometimes and work out that I was kind of, sort of, in love with her friend.
We munch on the pastries and fruit in silence. My mind keeps wandering back and forth to the reaping. How unfair it is. Poor people similar to Katniss bare the worst of the system, having to enter their names in the pool more times in exchange for food. Whereas people like Madge, a mayors daughter, doesn't have to enter her name in for food. Even though I know it's more likely someone who had to exchange their name for tesserae, I still fear for people like Madge. The odds aren't in anyone's favour.
Madge and I make small chit chat, keeping each others nerves at bay with simple company, we finish off our spoils. "I guess I should let you get ready for the reaping, then." she says quietly.
My fingers shake. "I guess so."
She nods. "See you in the square... Wear something pretty." she says, winking. I can't help but give a grin, despite my nerves.
I watch as she leaves, listening to the bell of the door ring as she presumably makes her way to the square. My brothers are now dressed and ready where Madge and I were sitting, alongside my father. Attendance is mandatory for the reaping; unless you're about to die. Even then the officials will knock on your door to check on you. If you don't go, you're imprisoned.
Upstairs, I draw a small tub of hot water for me to bathe in. I scrub the flour and icing off my skin and from under my fingernails. I pour a bucket of water over my head, rubbing my fingers in my hair to wash it. To my surprise, my mother had come back during the time I was washing. She had steamed and folded the clothes I was supposed to wear for the reaping. A soft white shirt and pinstripe trousers.
I dry my body off to dress, and slick my hair back to look more formal. Once I'm dressed, I thank my mother for pressing my clothes. "You look good." she compliments. It seems small, but for my mother, it's one of the nicest things she's said to me in months. Reaping days make even her ice cool interior melt slightly.
The clock strikes one, letting us all know it's time to head to the square. We head out the door, my mother locking the bakery tightly. We will back in an hour or so.
Once we reach the main part of the District, I can begin to see the pens they hold the children in; I can begin to see the cameras perched like birds on the rooftops and I can begin to see the babbles of Peacekeepers take blood samples to sign people in.
I find myself standing with a bunch of other sixteen year old boys, all as nervous as me, shaking against each other as they shove more and more of us into the barriers. The attention is focused on the stage before us, looming and dark despite the colourful banners that read: 'Welcome to the 74th Hunger Games'. On the stage are three chairs and a podium, but I don't look at them or what they symbolise. Instead, I look at the two large glass bowls, full to the brink with tiny folded envelopes with names on. Five of them have Peeta Mellark written on them in careful handwriting.
Madge's father, Mayor Undersee, finds his seat. He is a tall, balding man who has never been the same since his wife's illness took over his life. Effie Trinket, the escort for District 12, joins the seat next to him. They wait patiently, as they do every year, for Haymitch Abernathy, the only mentor who still lives. He won his Games almost 25 years ago and uses alcohol to make his concious moments bearable. Family members crowd the perimeter, their pale faces in the clutches of anxiety. There are a handle of people who have little care for the reaping. Everyone who they once loved or cared for has gone, so instead they take bets on what names are going to be pulled out the glass bowls.
By 2 o'clock, the reaping is meant to start despite Haymitch not being there. The mayor clears his throat and steps up to the podium, beginning to read the same tale told every year at every reaping. The one of how Panem came to be, how it fell into ashes and so came the Dark Days. He lists the disasters, the wars, the storms. The Treaty of Treasons was created, giving us the Hunger Games, to remind us of the death and pain that the Dark Days created, and to stop the Districts from ever rebelling again.
The Games are simple. Each district enters a boy and a girl at random, giving 24 tributes in total. They've shoved into an arena that holds anything from freezing wastelands to burning deserts. The last person standing is the winner. This is the way the Capitol shows us that they're in charge. Shows us that we are just pieces in a game where nobody really wins apart from them.
"It is bot a time for repentance and a time for thanks," the mayors monotone voice through the speakers concludes, pulling me out of my thoughts. At this moment, Haymitch chooses to finally arrive on stage. He is a middle-aged man with a blonde, raggedy beard and uncut hair. He staggers to his seat. He is drunk. Very drunk. He tries to give Effie Trinket, the District 12 escort sent from the Capitol, a sloppy hug but she's repulsed by the motion. She's too surprised to fend him off properly, but she manages to wrangle him to his seat with a fuss. Her pale face reddens, knowing that she's representing the laughing stock of Panem right now.
The mayor tries to diffuse the situation by introducing Effie to the stage to start the actual reaping itself. She pulls up a bubbly and bright front to her expression before trotting over to the podium. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" she says, trying to readjust her pink curls slightly after her encounter with Haymitch. "It is an honour and a privileged to be here in District 12 today..." she babbles, clearing lying through her perfectly bleached teeth. Everyone knows she's dying to get moved to a more successful District where they actually give out some victors, not drunk losers who topple you over on live television.
My mind wanders slightly as she dabbles on about the Games and how exciting this year will be. Through the crowd, I see a brown-haired braid. Katniss. I can barely take my eyes from her. She stares so viciously at Effie, so much concentration in her brow. Suddenly, I am thinking of how many names of hers are in that big glass bowl and how the odds are not in her favour. Not compared to girls like Madge, anyway. My heart palpitates in my chest harshly.
"Ladies first!" Effie announces. She crosses over, walking daintily in her spiky heels, to the bowl; dipping her manicured nail deep into the ball and shuffling the paper around. She pulls out a piece, and the crowd draws in a breath. The mood is grizzly. The name she reads out may as well be dead already. I'm feeling so nauseous and desperately hoping that it's not her, it's not her, it's not her.
In a clear voice, she reads out the name. And it's not Katniss.
It's her sister.