I want to thank Hawkmaid for encouraging me to write this story. Reviews are appreciated, because I am new. Also I will try to update at least once a month. Enjoy!

I wake to find two skinny arms wrapped around me like a vise. Carefully I sit up trying not to wake my sleeping sister curled next to me. As I detach her arms from my waist, I remember, it's Reaping Day, my first of seven. No wonder Orchid decided to sleep so close, my chances of being Reaped are slim, but still possible.

In District 11, we have so many people, especially kids, and almost all of them take tesserae for themselves and their families. I have a mere nine slips, but that doesn't mean that my family isn't worried that the inevitable might happen, and I will go into the Hunger Games.

I quickly get dressed in a pair of light brown shorts and a cotton shirt. It is always warm here in eleven, even during the winter, and now in the peak of summer the heat unbearable.I move toward the kitchen, being careful not to step on the pile of brush where my other two sisters are sleeping.

Our house, not that you can really call it a house, it's more like a big shack, has three tiny rooms. One where my parents and my baby sister, Daisy, sleep, a living room and kitchen in one, and the last is where I sleep with my remaining four sisters.

I am the eldest of six girls, below me is Violet who is nine, the twins at age seven Lily and Poppy, Orchid who is five, and my baby sister Daisy is one and a half. My parents sometimes joke that they wanted to have a boy, but instead got six girls. I know they wouldn't trade us for the world though.

I start the fire and begin making breakfast using the meager rations of grain we get from the tesserae, and the plants I got from the meadow before the extra Peacekeepers came in for the "holiday." A soft, sleepy yawn comes from the other side of the room, and I look up to see Poppy rubbing her eyes halfheartedly, clearly still half asleep.

"Sorry did I wake you?" I mummer, "No it's okay," she replies. "About time to get up anyway right?"

I dart over to her and just hold Poppy in my arms for a few seconds, placing a quick kiss on her forehead before going back to the stove. My whole family has had high nerves lately, with the Reaping today it will be bad for them. Right now I just want to get it over with, and go back to normal life. I heard from the older girls at school that it gets easier after the first one, not that anyone ever gets used to it.

"When will breakfast be ready?" Poppy asks snapping me out of my daze. "Come help me sleepy, we should finish before everyone else gets up," I tease. We should cook though, let Mom and Dad sleep in for one day, they deserve it.