Disclaimer - I do not own The Hunger Games. I am merely a visitor in the world of Panem created by Suzanne Collins.
The orchards were full of life, they always had been. The children picking summer apples laughed as they climbed to the tops of the trees, trying to reach the highest fruits. Birds chirped, sometimes encouraging them, other times crying out harsh warnings if a nest was nearby.
And every evening as the sun began to set, a sweet four-note song echoed all over, picked up by various mockingjays to signal the end of the day.
A young girl was hopping down from branch to branch, almost seeming to fly. It was the eve of her twelfth birthday, and she knew what that meant. Finally, she would be able to sign up for tesserae to feed her family. Finally.
There were six of them. Her father had died shortly before her youngest sister Willow had been born, and her mother had been left alone to care for five children. She did what she could, they all did, but there was never enough food on the table for all of them. She couldn't wait to get the grain. They would have a real feast.
The next day dawned bright and blue, with the sun shining in a perfectly cloudless sky. It would be very hot, but she didn't care. She was twelve years old now. It was time to take care of her family.
She got dressed in her torn blue overalls, being careful not to wake her siblings, who all slept in the same room as her, while their mother slept on a mattress in the kitchen.
Before the sun had fully risen, she was outside, walking quickly, the sandals on her feet making no noise on the dirt road that led to the town the served as the central hub of District Eleven.
She reached the Justice Building by ten o'clock, and people looked at her, wondering what she was doing there. She didn't really know where to go, so she walked up to a Peacekeeper who was standing guard there.
"Excuse me," she said politely, "My name is Rue Gardner, and it's my birthday today. Where could I go to sign up for tesserae, please?"
The Peacekeeper simply jerked her head towards the doors of the building. Rue took it to indicate that she just had to go inside, so she did, thanking the woman. She had always been a little afraid of the Peacekeepers, ever since that incident with the boy in the orchard, the one who had been shot for trying to keep a pair of night-vision glasses. But her mother had always told her to be as kind as possible to them and to obey their rules. Only then would she be safe.
She had been in the Justice Building once before, but she couldn't remember it. It was bigger than she thought, with the floors made out of polished golden wood, and fragrant with the smell of what she knew to be coffee.
A man came up to her, obviously knowing what she was there for and taking her to a room on the first floor. A plaque on the door simply read 'Tesserae Office', the seal of Panem embossed on it in silver.
There were three other children there. They looked dirty, and one of them had a sore on his left heel. She didn't look much better, although her mother always tried to make her and her siblings look as good as possible with whatever they had.
She waited her turn, paying attention to how many rations of grain and oil the other children were getting. One of them had four rations, while another one only had two.
"Next," said the woman at the counter. She wasn't a Peacekeeper, but was dressed in an elegant dark green suit made of a material Rue had never seen. It caught the light whenever she moved, and for a moment, the child was mesmerized. "Are you deaf?" cried the woman after a while.
Rue shook her head, "I'm sorry. Hello." She stated her name, and the woman took her hand pricking it with some kind of device to get her blood. Startled, but not daring to protest, Rue watched as a screen showed her name, face, and every member of her family.
"For everyone?" asked the woman.
"Yes, ma'am."
The woman tapped a few keys on the keyboard in front of her, and moments later, gave Rue a sheet of paper, "Take that downstairs. They'll give you the grain and oil for you to take home."
For her to take home? She was going to carry grain and oil by herself for the two-hour journey home?
She smiled weakly and thanked the woman, leaving through another door and walking down to a basement that smelled stale.
Sacks of grain were stacked up higher than she was, and bottles of oil were lined on dozens of shelves. The sacks looked heavy, as did the bottles. She had absolutely no idea how she was going to get everything home.
There was another clerk sitting at a desk. Unlike the woman upstairs, he was a local and was dressed in the clothes that were usual for her district: brown canvas pants and a checkered shirt, although his were neat.
"Six rations? Where do you live, girl?"
Rue told him.
The man whistled, "I'll give you something to help you, come on. But you'll have to bring it back tomorrow, all right?"
"Thank you," she said when he showed her a beat-up wooden wheelbarrow. "I promise I will."
"Did you think that they would deliver it to your house?"
Rue hung her head, "I really didn't think about it. I just wanted to get the food."
"Well, you need to think on your feet now that you're twelve, okay? And don't forget, the reaping is next month."
The reaping. A word that scared every child of District Eleven. The reaping for the Hunger Games. Because she had taken out tesserae for six people, she would have her name in seven times in the lottery to go to the Hunger Games.
Because there were so many children in the district, multiple selections were held over a one-week period before the official reaping that all of Panem saw. Rue would be attending her first reaping in three weeks' time.
She thought about it the entire way home, wondering what it would be like for her. She had attended the official reapings, of course, never standing in the main Justice Square, but instead finding a spot in the neighboring squares where everyone else was assembled, watching on big screens.
Her mother was waiting for her outside the small wooden shack that served as their home.
"Rue! Where in the world have you been? What is all that?"
"Tesserae grain and oil, Mom. I signed up for them."
Silence. Her mother simply stared at her for a full minute before she found the ability to speak again, "You signed up for tesserae?"
"We need the food. You're too tired. This will help us, look, there's enough for all of us." Even as she said the words, Rue was aware that it wasn't entirely true. She had seen tesserae bread before. It didn't look appetizing, and she figured that it didn't really fill one's stomach, but it was much better than what they had been getting until then.
Mrs. Gardner looked at her daughter, then hugged her tightly, "My big girl. My brave little girl."
They took the grain and oil inside.
"Surprise!" cried her brother and sisters, jumping out from under the table, where a small cake stood. No bigger than the palm of Rue's hand, it was about an inch tall, and covered in what appeared to be seeds.
"You baked me a cake?" she asked, her brown eyes widening. She could feel tears threatening to run down her cheeks.
"Happy birthday, Rue!" cried Willow, running to her and wrapping her arms around her waist. "The cake is all for you!"
"Thank you…" she whispered.
She had never had a whole cake to herself before. Slowly, she took a knife and began to cut the cake in equal parts, to share with her family.
"Rue, what are you doing? It's all for you!"
Rue smiled, "I won't be able to eat all of that by myself," she said gently, beginning to pass out slices of cake to everyone. Her brother and sisters took them gingerly. Only her mother hesitated.
"Honey, we made it for you."
"I know. But I want all of us to share it."
Finally, Mrs. Gardner took the small slice. As one, they all took a bite of cake. Rue grinned. It was more bread than cake, but they had added nuts and seeds to it, as well as what appeared to be dried apricots. How they had managed to get that little delicacy was beyond her. It was delicious, and she was happy she had shared it with everyone, or she would have eaten the whole thing by herself.
They had a good day. The last good day they would ever have together, as it turned out. Soon after that, preparations for the reapings began, and Rue found herself wanting to spend as much time as possible with her family, although she couldn't do that because she had to work in the fields or in the orchards, away from them.
All of them were working longer hours now that school was over. Rue often didn't get hone until past eight in the evening, and her mother got home even later. They were too tired to exchange more than a few sentences before going to bed, but Mrs. Gardner always made sure to kiss all of her children as they went to sleep.
Then, all of a sudden, it was time for the first reaping. Rue, more nervous than she appeared, put on the cleanest overalls she had, over a tidy button-down shirt. She completed the outfit with her working boots, which had been polished, and soon, she and her family were walking together to the small square away from the main town, where half of the six-hundred children in the area would be told to go to the main reaping in a week's time.
Willow held her hand tightly, her thumb in her mouth. She only did that when she was scared.
Three dozen Peacekeepers, their uniforms glaringly white in the sun, were standing in the square, directing families to an area close by, while the children of reaping age went to register.
It wasn't too bad. Someone pricked Rue's finger, identifying her by blood, the way the clerk had done when she had signed up for tesserae. Once that was done, she went to stand at the back with the other twelve-year olds, and waited.
There was no district representative. They weren't segregated by gender. A computer generated the names eligible for the main reaping, calling them out one by one, in alphabetical order.
"Starting with the letter G now," said the computer in its slow mechanical voice. Every child who had been anxiously awaiting for the letter F to be done breathed a sigh of relief, running out of the square and into the arms of their parents.
Rue waited, her breath catching in her throat.
Her name was called. She had expected it to be, as she already had a lot of entries for a twelve-year-old. Slowly, she moved towards the area that had been cordoned off for potential tributes. A Peacekeeper attached a black plastic bracelet to her arm, securing it with staples. The bracelet would be removed during the official reaping for District Eleven.
So that was she was now: a potential tribute.
The thought made her insides grow cold with fear.
"It doesn't mean that I'm going to be going to the Capitol," she said as Willow hung on to her hand when they went home later. "It just means that I'll be in the main reaping, that's all. There will be thousands of other names in the reaping balls besides mine."
Her mother didn't say anything. Her skin looked gray. Rue had a feeling that she wouldn't be sleeping that night, tossing and turning. On a whim, she decided to sleep with her in the kitchen, beside the slowly dying fire.
Sometime in the night, her siblings came over one by one, curling up with the two of them, sometimes holding onto their clothes or their hands, or simply sleeping as close to them as they could.
Reaping Day came. Because they had to walk for two hours to get there, they got ready early, putting on their best clothes, with Rue wearing a light pink dress that their mother had picked up third hand at a local store. It had originally been an odd white color, but with the help of a little pink dye, the dress had been transformed into something almost nice.
"Are you nervous?" Willow asked her.
"A little," she admitted, fingering the woven grass necklace around her neck. "But there will be hundreds of names entered today, so the chances of them picking me are very low. You don't have to worry, okay?"
She truly believed what she was saying. Of course, she had seen twelve-year-old kids being picked as tributes before, but that had just been bad luck. Still, a disquieting feeling persisted in lingering in the back of her mind.
They began to walk towards town, joining dozens of families who were doing the same thing. None of them had wagons and horses that would be able to bring them there. Such luxuries were completely unheard of in her part of District Eleven, although a few of the richer folk came around to pick up any stragglers and bring them to the Justice Building for a fee.
By the time they arrived, Rue could no longer say that she was just a little nervous. Her hands were shaking, and she'd had to ball them into fists to keep anybody from seeing it. She was humming her song quietly, and her siblings joined in, trying to sound upbeat, as though it was natural for them walk to a reaping.
"Okay, I have to go now," she said quietly. The square was only half-filled, but the warning horn sounded to indicate to the families living nearby that there wasn't much time for them to arrive.
She hugged her family and tried to smile as she followed the line of kids waiting to sign in. The wind picked up and clouds covered the sun, dimming the whole atmosphere. She saw a couple of kids she knew. One of them, a boy nicknamed Red because his nose was always of that color, was wiping at his cheeks.
Rue swallowed. She couldn't show that she was afraid. She had to appear happy. But there wasn't one happy face in the crowd of children signing in. Everyone was grim, angry and scared.
Her turn came, and once again, they took her blood to identify her before they directed her to the cordoned-off areas where the boys and girls were separated. She ended up standing next to Red, and felt him looking at her, his blue eyes wide with fear.
"Is your name in many times today?" she asked him. She'd never spoken to him before, but she had seen him around in the orchards. His clothes were new and he looked as though he'd had a decent meal that morning. Rue had only had some tessera bread.
He shook his head, "Just once. What about you?"
"Seven."
Red swallowed, "We'll be okay though, right? Other people have their names in more often than we do."
"That's right," said Rue.
But a naked fear was beginning to crash down upon her. She started to shake.
Don't show your fear!
She shook her head and began listening to the whispered conversation going on in front of her. They were discussing the reapings in the other districts, having apparently caught the first two. Volunteers.
"I wonder how people can volunteer for something like this," she whispered to herself. She couldn't imagine it. Not many people from her district had won the Hunger Games. Only four of them, from what she could remember, and not one of them had been a volunteer. Two of the victors, Chaff and Seeder, were sitting on the stage, waiting for the reaping to begin.
Nobody had long to wait: it was time.
Their district representative was a man named Atellus. His skin had originally been brown like hers, Rue thought, but he had altered it so that it now looked gray. He wore a suit that was the same color as his skin, with dozens of black zippers for decoration. His hair was an unnatural shade of golden brown.
"Welcome everybody!" he said, sounding far too enthusiastic in Rue's opinion. "Welcome to the reaping for the 74th annual Hunger Games!"
If he expected anybody to clap, he was sadly mistaken. The only answer was the wind whistling across the town, carrying dust and the smell of the fields. But he took it in stride.
"I will invite the mayor of your district over now to read the Treaty of Treason to you, so that you might be reminded of why you're all here!"
The Treaty of Treason was a simple thing. During the Dark Days, the thirteen districts of Panem had rebelled against the Capitol, because of the harsh living conditions everyone had been subjected to. Only twelve districts had come out of the rebellion, with District Thirteen being wiped off the map.
As punishment for the rebellion, each district was forced to send one boy and one girl to an event called the Hunger Games, where only one person would survive, and be showered with riches.
Rue felt like going back in time and bringing the leaders of the rebellion to the present. Surely, if they could have anticipated what would have been done to the districts afterwards, they would have left well enough alone.
But part of her knew that they had been right to rebel. If the Capitol could do something like this, locking up twenty-four children in an arena to watch them killing each other for entertainment, they deserved to be stopped.
She looked up when Atellus spoke again, "Well, there you have it! You're here to represent your district and show everyone how brave you all are!"
Nobody answered, and he walked to one of the reaping balls, where thousands of names were fluttering. Rue couldn't tell whether it was the one for the boys, or for the girls.
It happened so suddenly that she couldn't breathe.
"Rue Gardner," he said clearly.
She blinked. The wind sounded in her ears, and she thought she could hear her song between the gusts.
One step, then another. Her legs felt like they did in a dream, as though they had been coated with glue, making it impossible for her to walk. But she was getting closer to the stage. She could hear murmurs now. She was only twelve years old. Most people thought it was unfair. Others looked too relieved to say anything.
She was only twelve.