All of us potential tributes have to go and stand in a cordoned-off area, away from our parents. As the Peacekeepers usher us away from our family, I can't help wondering; will this be the last I'll see of District Seven?
Once they've taken a blood sample to say that we're here, the Peacekeepers shuffle us into reverse age order; the youngest at the back and the oldest at the front. This means I'm slap-bang in the middle.
Apart from the mockingjays' calls from the nearby woods and the tap-tap-tapping of the Peacekeepers' pearly-white boots, all is silent. I find myself looking through the crowd trying to see if anyone's on the stage, but the older, taller teens are blocking the way. The throng looks like a sea; we're all in are forget-me-not blue reaping day outfits, which are our finest.
Suddenly, the tall clock tower, that usually tells us when it's time to go home when we're at work, chimes for fourteen-hundred hours, and the district escort Maja Möller, fresh from the Capitol, walks onstage, closely followed by the mayor, Charles Knowles.
Maja is eccentric, even by the Capitol's standards. On her hat is a giant revolving hologram of a tree, with the words "DISTRICT SEVEN -LUMBER" on it. I can only imagine the cost of such technology; it's something that District Three would make. It could probably put clothes on the back of a family for a few years. Although we're no considered the poorest of the twelve districts. Oh no. That's District Twelve. Coal. Not that we know much about it; it's against the law for the districts to have contact with each other. In President Snow's eyes, this could incite rebellion.
And her hat isn't the only weird thing. Her dress is tree-themed too, the hue of fresh spring onions. And floaty like silk. It smells of peppers, too. I can smell it from all the way over here, in the eighth, ninth row or so. Great. I'm slightly allergic to spicy foods. It doesn't really matter, considering we don't have as many luxuries as District Two. They're the Capitol's lapdogs. Supplying them with fresh Peacekeepers each year, so they get more to eat and stuff, whilst the rest of Panem struggle to survive with meagre rations.
She steps up to the mike.
"Welcome, welcome! The time has come for us to select one more courageous young man and woman for the honour of representing District Seven in the Sixty-Third Annual Hunger Games," she says in her stupid Capitol accent.
Although we don't say it aloud, we must all be thinking, "An honour? If it's so great, then go and fight in the arena against twenty-three other bloodthirsty kids yourself, you stupid moo." Well. I am, at any rate.
"But before we get on with the reapings, first a speech from the kindly mayor of our district, Mr. Knowles."
Now Maja steps down from the microphone with the Capitol seal engraved on it, and the mayor takes her place.
He drones on in a long-winded speech about the reason behind the Hunger Games. About how the districts rebelled. And how the Capitol subdued them. And about the destruction of District Thirteen.
At last, he steps down from the mike and Maja returns. Oh God. My heart's hammering against my ribcage so hard, it actually hurts. As it has every year for the past three years.
Now she's introducing the mentors. Juliya Pesca, a twenty-nine year old victor, and Jacen Cruik, who's twenty-two. As they go on the stage, Maja starts clapping for them, but she stops presently once she realises that no-one else is; they all want to find out the results of the reaping.
Hurriedly, she brings over the two glass bowls filled with about a thousand slips of paper each. Twenty of those have my name on. Twenty in thousands.
"I thought we'd mix things up, this year," begins Maja. "Gentlemen first..." And she slowly dips her hand into the left bowl.
My entire body starts to shiver. I'm praying to all the gods simultaneously. I close my eyes as she reads out the name.