These are flying out! Right, now I've changed a bit... a lot... about Willow. And now Mitchel's father runs a butchers instead of working in a slaughter house. Sorry! =D Please don't kill me for making Willow an airhead and Mitchel a total utter squirt, but that's how it went. I don't control these things, it's my subconcious. It's really scary, once I had prepared an ending for this story, I sat down and wrote it, checked it out fifty miutes later and i had some weird totally different thing! =D I especially liked Willow, so give me a wave if you created her because I like it, well, the *ahem* 'slightly' modified version anyway! =D
Oh, and the escort's a bit, well, you'll see...
D10
Willow Grams
Why does my hair never keep straight? I pull it and prod it, I've probably been through every hair technique known to girl yet it just flops back into its useless blonde curls with the odd brown highlight. I mean, come on, this is reaping day for goodness sake! This is when you get squished up in a pen like the cattle we farm and then watch all the tributes come by. All I can say is I hope it's a hot guy this year. Me and my friends all crowd around them, blowing kisses and using every flirtatious technique under the sun to get one of them to volunteer. I only ever worked once when my best friend, Blossom, kissed this nerd who had had a crush on her for his whole entire life. He went crazy and volunteered like she asked him to. It was hilarious! You should have seen his face when he walked out of the visiting rooms and Blossom hadn't come! Of course he died in the bloodbath, but what does that matter? We got him into the games and we felt on top of the world.
Of course the whole airhead thing is just an act, I'm actually quite clever and I could probably fit in with the geeks if I wanted to, but who would? I mean, you can't be popular and clever at the same time. Those two traits just don't mix. OK, I've flunked school and now I'm being threatened with being held back a year, but I don't care. I mean, I'm sixteen. I can just drop out and go and marry some rich farmer or something, all the boys are clamouring all over us.
We're basically the five most unobtainable girls in the school. Blossom's just wild and is a real laugh, always joking and winding the guys around her little finger, her crazy red hair about as fiery as her temper. Then blonde-haired May drops boys like she does plates at her job as a waitress the pub, she's had so many boyfriends she's lost count. Sassy is drop dead gorgeous but you'll drop dead if you go anywhere near her because she's lethal and knows about a hundred ways to break your spine. Her hair's as black as all the belts she's got in karate, you name it, and she's done it. Then there's Coco, she has had one steady boyfriend for the last four years and they never get bored of each other, they just plod along happily. Then finally there's me, faking being thick so I can hang out with them, faking I'm someone I'm not.
They don't know I get up at five every morning to milk Misty, our cow, just to keep my family alive. They don't know I walk back from school every day via the outskirts of the woods because I need the firewood to keep our house lit, not to become 'well fit'. They don't know that I tuck my two younger brothers into bed each night because my mother has neglected them with her wild partying and frivolous activities. They don't know that I've had to apply for tesserae every year to hold my family up. They don't know that I, Willow Grams, keep my family alive.
I stand outside of Blossom's house, back straight and head held aloft. Then I see the door creak open and I slouch onto the fence and start playing with my hair. I know that Blossom has to greet me first; it's a subconscious dominant thing. I learnt that in psychology when I was pretending to be writing horrible notes about the teacher. Well, I actually did, but this girl can do more than one thing at a time, I'm not completly useless.
"Hi, Willow." Blossom calls to me as I slouch uncomfortably by the fence. Ouch! That's painful.
"Hi, Blo!" I call, deliberately shortening her name. I learnt that in psychology too. She grins at me and I wait for her to come down her garden path. She has a garden, I envy her. All we have is a small patch of turf where Misty grazes.
"Come on," She says to me, tugging my arm, "Let's see if we can get anyone to volunteer this year!"
Mitchel Rye
I wake up to the sound of meat cleavers being sharpened on the grinding stone. That will be my dad, up as early as ever, already opening the butchers with my two elder brothers at his side. But today the butchers won't open, today one of my brothers will stay at home and my seventeen year-old brother, Nico, who is only three years older than me will drag me to the reaping with him. Somehow my brothers convinced dad that I should take all the tesserae of the family, so I'm the one who is loaded with the death sentence just hanging above me. I'm scared, but I won't let that show, well, not to my brothers anyway, they'd just try and beat me up.
My father and brothers are huge, and terrify me. If they went in the hunger games then they'd have a fair chance of survival, be me? Well, look at me. I look like a ten year old with my height, even though I'm actually fourteen, my bright blue eyes, freckles and really short dark brown hair so dark it almost looks black, why so short? Well, my father insisted, which wasn't too great for me since I now look almost bald. My friends had a great laugh at me when they saw it. I don't own my friends or anything; I'm just part of them. I'm the person who just likes to sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
Apparently I look like my mother, but I wouldn't know, she died in childbirth having me. And guess who father and my brothers blame? You got it, not the nurses, not themselves, not even mother, no, they blame me! It's not my fault that these things happen I was in no power or control whatsoever about the situation. I don't even remember it! They're just stupid. I shake my head in disgust and trample over the room to find some clothes to wear.
I shove on some baggy camouflage trousers, a black polo shirt and slip into some trainers. Who needs to dress up for the reaping? I know some of the girls from school will be dolling up, putting on ridiculously short dresses and even using makeup. It's ridiculous how much girls pay to look nice, it's just stupid, especially since they don't end up looking nice at the end of it I get to the top of the stairs and slide down the banister, almost crashing into my Nico on the way down. He shoves me away from it.
"Watch it, creep!" My brother says, "Now, father says I have to take you to the reaping, because you're such a tiny baby that you need someone to guide you to stop you walking into walls." Nico pinches my cheek but I just thump his arm and storm off in front of him.
"Be careful crossing the road!" He yells sarcastically after me.
A strange woman, almost a teenager, with bright orange skin and green spiky hair comes on stage chewing some sort of gum. Before the mayor has even finished his speech, she almost shoves him out of the way.
"Alright. Thanks mayor, yada yada yada, onto the interesting bit! Now, let's see whose life is going to suck... I mean be generally amazing as they fight to the death!" She says, muttering the bit about whose life is going to suck.
"Right, the victim, sorry, victor, is... ooh, look! That's an interesting name! It's the name of a tree, any guessers?" The crowd goes deathly silent as the stroppy orange teenager spits out the gum and sticks it on the microphone, causing it to crackle."Come on, well, no wonder they say the people in the districts have a low IQ." There is a shocked silence and then a bit of murmuring whispers through the crowd.
"'K, 'K, it's Willow Grams!" the escort has somehow managed to make the Capitol accent sound even more ridiculous than it already is, by adding extra syllables and cutting bits off. It sounds like the Capitol equivalent of slang.
"Come up, sugar!" calls the escort, beckoning a slightly frightened looking sixteen year-old up onto the stage, "Don't worry, the worst thing that could happen is you could die!" She calls. Somehow the district has a feeling that this is the first and last time they'll be seeing this escort.
"Go Willow!" Shouts a chorus of girls' voices and the camera zooms in on them. They look like your typical rich airheads and they wave excitedly at the camera. There is a wolf-whistle coming from the boy section and the blonde-haired one blushes.
"'K, keep your hair straightened!" Calls the escort to the girls and she grabs the top name in the reaping ball, "So, come up here, Mitchel Rye or you'll get shot!"
A boy who looks about ten creeps up to the stage, his almost black hair cut so he's almost bald.
"Ah! A twelve year-old!" Sighs the escort.
"I'm fourteen." Points out Mitchel angrily, more than a bit frustrated at that.
"Whatever luvvie, shake hands and get it over with!" Snarls the escort and then winks at the cameras.
Willow Grams
I wish they'd stop cheering, don't they know it's my death that all of my friends are celebrating? The only one who isn't is Sassy, but I don't know if that's for her image or she actually understands. Either way, I'm no longer friends with them anymore. If I die then so be it, but if I live then I'm certainly not hanging around with them anymore. I'll tell them when they visit me, they'll be sure to. But I have to get back, because if I don't I have no idea how my brothers will survive.
Mitchel Rye
Where was my brother? Nico was in age, he could have saved me. He has a chance in there, whereas me, well, I don't think I have even the slightest glimpse of hope of getting out of there alive. I'll yell at him when he visits me and I'll finally put my foot down, and if he doesn't visit I'll yell at him on national TV on Panem, and then he'll be sorry he didn't volunteer. Then he'll be sorry.
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