I don't sleep much the night before the reaping. I don't think anyone in the whole district does, or even maybe all of Panem. Even if you haven't signed up for tesserae, your name only in there the minimum number of times, you're still nervous. There's always a chance that you'll get picked.
Being the mayor's daughter, I've never had to sign up for tesserae. We're privileged compared to most of District 10, many of whom haven't had full bellies in years or maybe even their entire lives. I wouldn't say our live is quite so luxurious, but my mother's job does have it perks every now and then.
I wake up early in the morning and pass my mother's office, where usually she receives updates from the Capitol in the morning and then handles the problems we have in the district. She's not in there today, though. She has ought to be in the City Square, overseeing the reaping that will take place today, at two PM sharp.
I decide to spend my morning by visiting our family farm. Since my mother was appointed mayor by President Snow five years ago, we've hired some workers to keep the place running, but we hardly need it. My mother's salary as mayor is sizable enough that we can buy food from the butcher. Mostly the food and products that's made by the animals we still have there is shipped off to the Capitol, and the small amounts of it that we're permitted to keep my mother orders to be sold in the local markets. But even if the farm has little purpose until my mother chooses to retire as mayor, I still visit it every once and a while and work with the animals. It soothes me. Ever since I was little, I've always loved animals. My teachers at school said I'm almost certain to be a fantastic cattle rancher when I grow up.
Today I visit Lucy, a female horse who's exactly the same age as I am, 15. Today, as if she knows that it's the reaping, she sits on the ground not looking very excited about anything, and I join her, stroking her mane.
"I'm scared, Lucy," I say to her, as if she can hear me. "My name's only in there four times. I know I'm lucky, but still, I'm scared."
I stay at the farm and tend to a few more of the animals, including our pregnant cow, before it's so close to the reaping that I'm certain my mother will be fretting if I'm not home soon. I leave the farm and walk down the dirt road into town, past all the shops that are closed today to my house.
By relative comparison to the rest of the houses in District 10, which are mostly small, run-down wooden barn houses. Nobody spends much time in them anyway, except to eat and to sleep, for most work in the fields herding animals day and night. Some, like the butchers and the genetic testers who work in the labs, live on the northern edge of the district in more upscale homes. But since my mother is the mayor, we get to live in the official residence, which is dead in the middle of the Town Square, adjacent to the Justice Building and only about thirty feet from where two children will be sentenced to their deaths today.
"Aurelia!" My mother screams from upstairs almost immediately after I close the door behind me when I enter the home. She thunders down the stairs, dressed in a lavender, frivolous dress that she wears to most special occasions. Why the reaping is a special occasion, I don't know. But since she is the mayor, she's front and center at all of them and the camera almost always pans to her at one point during the recap later in the day.
"The reaping is in thirty minutes!" She says. "The sirens are going to call for your summons any minute! Go get dressed, now!"
I walk upstairs to my room to find a simple but pretty outfit of a white shirt and a floral skirt laid out for me on my bed, but I'm in no rush to put it on. This may be my fourth reaping, but it's no less nerve-wrecking than the first time. There may be nearly 10,000 names in that crystal ball that our escort, in her flambouyant Capitol get-up, will read from, but only two will matter. And one of them may be mine.
My mother is waiting by the door by the time I finally suck it up and walk downstairs. She's not giving me a look of disapproval now, but instead one of sadness and sympathy. Before we go outside, she brushes my hair before a mirror, looking into it.
"You look so much like your father," she says, and tears well up in your eyes. "He would know what to say to you today. I just-you're going to be fine, Aurelia. I love you."
She kisses me on the head, and I can't help but thinking how much she must have loved my father. I was only four when he died after being accidentally injected with a medicine that was intended to be fatal to unruly animals, so I don't remember him much. But after 11 years without him, after becoming mayor and now having an entire district to worry about, she still tears up every time she speaks of him. I wish I could have known him better.
We wait on the verandah until the siren rings to summon all children ages 12-18 to the Town Square for the reaping. Most are already here, though, and the Peacekeepers immediately begin signing everybody in. I walk across the square, which is empty but slowly filling up, to join the line to officially have my attendance confirmed. I spot one of my friends, Ella, in line, and join her. She clings to me desperately.
"I'm terrified," she says. "My name is in there nineteen times."
I just hold her hand, not wanting to tell her what's obvious: my name is only in there four times. Ella's parents are breeders, and although she probably eats better than most of the district because her parents get to keep some of their meat from the animals they breed, they don't make much money. Ella has, like most of the children here today, been given no other option but to apply for tesserae. Apparently, fifteen times over, just for a meager supply of grain and oil.
"Next, please," I hear the Peacekeeper sitting at the table say. I walk forward hesitantly, and she grabs my finger, taking a scan of it. AURELIA REDMOND shows up on the screen, and she nods, allowing me to go past the rope barrier. I wait for Ella and then we follow the signs to stand where all the other 15-year olds stand.
After nearly a half an hour of nervous chatter among the crowd, our district escort, Chellne, shows up on stage. This year, she's wearing a sparkling emerald skirt that flows from the loose, flowing bottom into the tight, spandex-like material on the top that's layered on top of each other in hideous patterns. Her skin is a pale violet color, and I can see that she's added some new gems that are implanted into various areas of her body. "Welcome, welcome everyone!" She chirps in her ridiculous Capitol accent. "Let me begin by saying that it is an honor to escort the tributes of District 10 in the 68th annual Hunger Games!"
"But first, let's begin with the film."
The television behind her illuminates and begins showing the video that's played every year at the reaping, that tells of Panem's story. After a global war, our country emerged, and was divided into thirteen districts and the Capitol. They lived peacefully, until rebels in the district unhappy with the Capitol's 'graceful' ruling over them, and then began the Dark Days. After the districts were all defeated and the thirteenth obliterated entirely, as a punishment for the rebellion and a reminder that the districts could not overcome the power of the Capitol, each was required to send two teenagers, one male, one female, between the age of 12 and 18, known as tributes, to fight to the death yearly on live television. The winner of this competition, called the Hunger Games, would be crowned the victor, and would live in happiness and riches at the grace of the Capitol for the rest of their lives.
My mother calls it 'propaganda'. Every year after the reaping she goes home and tells me how most people are oblivious as to just how much the Capitol deprives the districts of.
Chellne looks like she's about to cry of nostalgia and everybody else just looks unhappy by the time the video ends. She claps her hands together, and walks towards the two crystal bowls, which sit upon to Capitol-crafted tables. "Alright, now let's get on to the reaping! As always, ladies first."
I can visibly see all of us potential tributes in the crowd tense up as Chellne elegantly reaches her hand, laden with her absurdly long maroon fingernails into the bowl. She grabs a single slip of paper, and I bite my lip in anticipation of who will be sent to their death this year.
Chellne clears her throat and reads the tribute's name.
"Aurelia Redmond."