Disclaimer: The Hunger Games isn't mine.
Posy prattles. It's to be expected. She is four, after all. She doesn't understand what is going on; she only knows that her brother is sad. Gale is her hero. He's the only concept of a father that she has. If things are not right in Gale's world, then things are not right in hers. And she sets out to fix it in the only way that her four year old self knows how to tackle the problem. When she is sad, someone hugs her. When she is sad, her family tells her stories to make her happy. So, she latches onto Gale whenever he is in the house. She sits in his lap when he sits. She clings to his leg when he walks. And she talks. She talks about Katniss.
It makes sense to her. Gale is sad. Gale likes Katniss. She will tell him about Katniss, and he will be happy. If only everything made as much sense as the mind of a four year old girl. She has seemingly forgotten that Gale was present when we all saw Katniss on the screen of the television, or maybe she has decided that it doesn't matter that he was there. It's all she says – variations on the theme of Katniss in the fire. Katniss had horses – she had forgotten that she had seen them before, but Vick had told her their name. Katniss's horses were black like the sky when it gets dark. They were pulling Katniss in a wagon (and maybe she could go for a ride in Prim's wagon later). Katniss had a fire, and it was pretty. But he shouldn't worry because Katniss didn't get burn–ed up because it wasn't the right kind of fire for that. It really was Katniss even though it didn't look like Katniss because Katniss on the television looked nicer than Katniss not on the television but it really was her. Rory said it was. And everybody on the television really liked Katniss. You could tell because they clapped their hands and yelled her name. But Gale shouldn't worry because they weren't yelling like when the lady next door yelled at her kids when they did something bad. Katniss didn't do anything bad. The people were just yelling 'cause they were excited that Katniss looked so pretty with the fire that you could touch on her clothes. And he didn't even have to worry about Katniss falling out of the wagon like she did that one time when Rory pulled her too fast and it tipped over because that boy with the yellow hair was holding her hand to make sure she didn't fall over just like Momma holds her hand when they go to town because sometimes the rocks make her trip.
If it had been Rory, he would have slapped him upside the head and told him to do his chores. If it had been Vick, he would have glared him into silence and told him to do his chores. It's Posy, so he endures it for as long as he can and finds an excuse to leave the house. I don't stop him. I'm actually amazed at his composure. The truth is that I can't get her to stop talking either. This is the first time that I've realized how much my oldest and youngest children share in their personalities. Posy is being so Gale in her determination that if it were under any other circumstances it would be amusing. Gale is hers, and something is wrong. She will be the one to fix it. Nothing distracts her. No one can reason with her. It's exhausting.
Other than Posy's sudden single minded determination, things are relatively calm. Gale is gone early in the morning. I know that he is leaving a portion of what he brings from the woods with the Everdeens. I suspect that Katniss would have done the same for us if the situations were reversed. I think they had some sort of a deal. I think I would have been okay with that. I know I wouldn't have stopped her even if I wasn't. I wouldn't have wanted to interfere with that last attempt on my son's part to take care of his siblings. I shudder just thinking the thought. It doesn't feel real sometimes that Gale is safe from the Reaping. Maybe I'll really feel it sink in after I see how he recovers from what the Reaping has taken from him anyway.
He's back in time to walk to school with his brothers even though it is very clear that he doesn't want to be. That is an argument that we have already had. He will finish out the school year. He doesn't have to. You are an adult in District 12 the minute your eighteenth year Reaping in over. You can quit school. You can start a job. Many children begin in the mines the minute that they can. Most don't see the reason to finish those last few weeks of school. Completion isn't necessary. It isn't required. The mines will take you just the same.
Gale won't talk to me about how he feels about the mines. He likely won't admit it to himself. I see all the same. They are the place where his father died. They are a place where he will be enclosed, trapped even more than he already is by the realities of 12. All he will admit to seeing is the paycheck. I won't lie and pretend that we don't need it. I won't act like I'm not counting on that paycheck just as much as he is. Rory is 12 soon. That paycheck is something that Gale sees as standing between his brother and tesserae. I know that, but Gale has sacrificed for us for years. School is one point where I stand firm that the sacrifice ends.
The mines will take you without finishing, but that isn't the only point to be considered. Working down in the mines doesn't have to be the end of the line. The coal doesn't just have to be picked out of the rock. There are other positions – there are those who direct the shifts of workers, those who keep the records, those who load the trains. Any promotion to such a position requires an impeccable record as an entry level mine worker, and it requires you to have a completion certificate from finishing your final year at school.
Gale will have that option. I won the battle over whether the few weeks of extra paychecks to be gained were worth it. They aren't. We'll be fine. We'll get by a little longer. The school year officially ends the day after the Games do. There is a two week break before classes resume (idleness isn't encouraged in 12). Gale wants to be in the mines now. He won't be until the Games end. I'm thinking about his future even if he is not. If it happens to give me the additional comfort of knowing that my son will get through this difficult time of having his friend in the Games being able to be up in the sunlight instead of shut up in the ground, I'll take it. This battle had already been fought between us, but it gives me one more reason to know I made the right decision.
He goes to the woods; he goes to school. It would almost be normal if it weren't so painfully not. Rory tails him home from school begging to be taken along to the woods the next morning. Gale always tells him no. Vick gets home later than they do. He walks with Prim and Madge. He has enough sense to not mention that in front of his brother. I'm not the only one Gale has ever lost a battle to. It has been over two years since he lost that one. Katniss had gotten rabbit fever. Gale had been sixteen, so she must have been fourteen at the time. He had drug his brothers off to pick Prim up on their way to school that morning and came home that afternoon muttering under his breath about meddling and people who didn't know their place. I don't know exactly what happened. Rory refused to say and Vick just burst into giggles when I asked. I didn't press much. It didn't matter to me if the mayor's daughter walked Prim back and forth to school.
We could almost pretend that Katniss is just sick again – Gale going off to the woods on his own and Prim getting walked by Madge. If only it were that, I would know that my son would get over his moodiness and recover. This is so much bigger than that, and I don't know when or even if he will. He wouldn't be the first to be broken by the Games. I don't know how to protect him from that.
Somewhere in the Capital, the children are in training to begin the Games. Here in 12, my child is waiting for what they will bring.
