Chapter 2- Nothing can ever change.
"Clove!" I can hear Brackens bouce, somewhere in the distance, "Wake up already!" I can feel myself falling, falling down, and not slowly.
I hit the floor with a tremendous thud and roll over onto my side. "Bracken?" I say, and I open my eyes. Surprisingly, I'm not on the floor of the justice building in a crumped heap, with my brother crying beside me because of a fate that has fallen upon us. I'm only in the dorm of the home. I obviously fell asleep after all. But now, I'm on the floor, with Bracken laughing at me. "Clove? are you okay?" says Bracken, his voice is frantic as he waves his arms around in a useless attempt to help me in some way. In any way. I squint at the light barging through the open window and haul myself to my feet.
"Yes, I'm fine, I'm totally fine." I say, smiling down at him. Not that I have to look down very much; I'm tall for my age. He grabs onto my arm, "good! I thought you were having a panic attack or something, I was going to get someone but I didn't want to leave you!"
"I was just dreaming, Bracken," I assure him, "I'm fine now, see.". He smiles a relieved smile. How he can smile on reaping day is beyond me.
I take out a pair of blue jeans from my closter, along with a white vest top and my usual brown zip-up hooded sweater that I usually wear everuwhere, then I shove my feet into my boots; leather ones, that can take me anywhere, and walk downstairs, Bracken following me.
Everyone is already at the kitchen table, eating away at a stack of pancakes. It must be a reaping day treat. We never get things like this on a normal day.
strolling in through the kitchen door, I announce "Morning!,". No one looks up, no one wishes me luck on reaping day. Silence. I take a mug from the cupboard and prepare myself and the head a cup of black coffee, adding an extra sugar to mine, even though I know we're not supposed to use too much because it is expensive. It isn't myt fault, I find coffee too bitter without sugar in it. The head has no sugar in hers. I don't know how she can drink it.
I leave the head's cup of coffee on the worktop and take my own into the garden, by the tree, sneaking a few knives on my way out.
Once out of the way of everyone, I set my coffee down on the mid-summer grass and slump at the bottom of my tree, facing the other one that serves as my target. I hurl a few knives into the wood. Hurling them and listening to the satisfying sound that tells me it hit it's target, as always. I stand up and retrieve them and repeat, like always. Even on this fateful day, my routine never changes.
I spend around about twenty minutes outside, until I am called back in. I hide the knives under a big rock and sprint back to the door. The head tells me to go into town to get the foor for the "after-reaping feast", where we celebrate the fact that we have been spared for another year.
I head back upstairs to the dorm to fetch my bad, and then head out of the front door, picking up some money on the way out. Then I'm on the street. The dark, lonesome street. Empty. the Capitol and peacekeepers are the only ones present, already beginning to set up the stage for the reaping. The square is quite nice on market days, with it's huge stone archway entrance and the walls with juttin bricks that the little kids like to climb over. Today, though, there are no children playing: every spot is occupied by the watchful eye of the peacekeepers.
I head past the square and into the shop streets. We go and get all of the food we're going to need and, finally, when I am happy with my haul, and trudge past the square and back up the hill to get home.
I am thanked and then told to go and prepare for the reaping. It's ten O'clock. The reaping is at eleven, giving me an hour to get my self and my brother ready.
"Clove?" Asks Bracken, "What do I wear for the reaping."
"Well," I begin "you're meant to wear something smart. Your best clothes. Don't worry, just wear something you think is nice."
"Oh, okay," he says, rushing down the hallway to get dressed. Two kids stare at me with equally dull, hazel eyes, thenm when they think I am out of earshot, they collapse into giggles that drift down the hall from their retreating backs. If only I could use them as targets rather than my tree, then I might get a kick out of training at the home. Kill two birds with one stone.
I walk over to my closet for the second time today, and select an outfit for myself. I find my own dress. It's the same one as last years: an emerald green, strappy one with gold buttons on the chest and a skirt that just reaches my knees. I find some shoes, too, and shove them on quickly.
I dress without acknowledging anything. The fright is hitting everyone now: everyone is completely different to this morning.
I go back to the nightstand, and open the second drawer, taking out my mothers golden, emerald-jewelled hair slide. It's the one of the only things I own of my mother's, the other is a locket, which I take from the drawer too. I put the locked round my neck. Then I notice them. Dog-eared and crumpled, looking like they have beenhaphazardly shoved into the drawer- which they have. But I still recognise them.
When it came into my first reaping, and father said my dress didn't suit me, I ran upstairs and angry strokes flew onto the page. I didn't even realise I had finished. I had drawn myself, throwing a knife, and a dummy with my fathers face. I was disgusted with myself, I screwed up the drawing and tore it to shreds, and I distranced myself from pen and paper. When father left, I came back to it. My last drawing was ages ago. One of a small figure, cutching half a dozen knives in her hand, arm poised to throw one of them into the heart of a cougar, while a boy with golden hair and bright blue eyes cowered before it.
Why does he have to come back to me again? It's reaping day, why do I have to be mentally stalked by a boy that I will never know the name of? Unless, of course, if he thanks me one day. I doubt it. He's a popular, future-victor type careerm and they don't know what the mening of thanks is.
I reach into my drawer and pull out the drawing. I fold it up into a small square and tuck it into my pocket, concealing it from view. I then find Bracken and take his hand, abandoning my last remaining piece of my mother on the bed.
Everyone runs downstairs to the head standing at the front, addressing us with solemnity, "Good luck today everyone. May the odds be ever in your favour and, hopefully, I will se you all for the feast.
Then the siren sounds, and we're all headed out of the door towards the square. Where the fate of our lives lies in the hands of the Capitol.
