I don't know how much time went by, but soon I hear my best friend, Arboren Darrow, calling from below.
"Ellery. Ellery! Come down or you'll be late for the reaping!" Oh! I completely forgot about that. The District Seven reapings are held in the Square, which is an area in the approximate middle of the district. Since Seven is so big (trees need a lot of room) it takes about an hour to get there. Plus, I need to make myself as pretty as possible, this just might be the year I step up on that stage and am selected as tribute.
"Ellery!" Arboren calls again, "Are you even listening?"
"Yes, yes. Sorry, Arboren, be down in a second! By the way, Happy Hunger Games!" I call back. I stick my knife into my belt and climb down the tree. My sack is almost filled to the top with willow branches—a good half a day's work. I look at Arboren. Again, she looks like she has grown a couple inches since I last saw her. Then again, it might be true. When she was my age, she grew so fast that she often fainted at random times. Now, three years later, she is seventeen, six feet tall, and very skilled with a slingshot. Everyone is surprised that we are best friends since we are so different. While she has dark brown hair, is extremely smart, loyal, and truthful, I have blond hair, can't do math for my life, have had more boyfriends than I can remember, and often tell my parents I am going to work, when I actually swim in the lake. I guess our differences balance us out perfectly because Arboren has always been my best friend.
We walk home together, our sacks of willow boughs slung over our shoulders—quickly, so we aren't late for the reaping. I have never actually watched the Hunger Games. I might have, when I was very little, but I don't remember anything. But every couple of years, there is a victor from Seven. It's very fun when we have the party at the end of the victory tour. The Capitol hosts it, so it's obviously wild, unlike the low-key parties we sometimes have here.
I say goodbye to Arboren at my door, since she lives about half a mile away. We will see each other again today—at the reaping—except we won't be allowed to stand next to each other. She will be herded to the seventeen-year-old section, while I will wait with the fourteens.
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