I pull back the old curtains, letting all the sunshine in, feeling my pulse in my freshly beaten back. There's no moaning, no complaining. All the girls sit up immediately, looking at each other sadly. The day of the reaping is looming over the room as heavily as the silence it causes.
I am the oldest in this family home so I do feel a bit of responsibility, even though I don't really know any of the girls all too well. one might think that this is strange since we live together so closely. But between school and work and chores and sleep there's little to no time for conversation. Not that conversation is something the housemothers encourage here anyways. There's one thing we all have in common though, which might tie us together a little bit despite the heavy silence that surround us almost constantly: all of us have lost our parents, all of us are alone in this world.
We start changing into our dirty clothes that we wear to do the chores around the house until one girl silently says "Maeve had an accident", followed by the little sobs of the toddler.
I walk up to Maeve's bed and now that the blanket is pushed back I can smell the urine. Girls are covering their noses but nobody says a word. I kneel down next to Maeve who hasn't been here for long but already knows that this will get her into serious trouble. The stick swings just as hard for the little ones. Unsure of what to do but heartbroken at the sight I carefully wipe away the big tears that are rolling down her chubby little cheeks, my dark hands against her alabaster skin, and brush through her messy white hair. She's hiccupping a l little and I whisper "It's okay, she won't know, I promise".
Maeve is a little too young to understand what I'm trying to tell her but she seems to feel comforted by the touch which causes a sting in my heart. This toddler doesn't know me well at all but she's so touch deprived after only a few weeks here that she'd probably cling onto anything that has a heartbeat. I quickly pull back my hand and start stripping her bed. The other girls are quietly watching me throw the dirty sheets on the floor. We don't have a very strong connection here but I do try to help out as much as I can. After seventeen years in this home I have the most experience and maturity so whenever I see one of the young ones struggle I do try to give them a hand. I don't need to know their names for that. It may cause a beating or a day or two without food but if I can prevent an innocent little soul from being harmed then I can take a few hits and some hunger. The way we are being treated here isn't fair and everybody knows that. But who would risk speaking up when there's Peacekeepers everywhere? We're left to fight for ourselves.
I turn the mattress over so the stains and the moisture of the urine are not visible and fetch a fresh pair of sheets from the cupboard at the other end of the room. With quick hands I change the sheets and make the bed all nice and neat. Then I strip Maeve and wash her down in the basin full of cold water we used to wash ourselves last night. She doesn't make a sound throughout the entire process but she keeps her pale eyes firmly on me. I help her get dressed and then I motion for the other girls to leave the room and go down to the dining hall. One of them takes Maeve with them. Meanwhile I grab the dirty sheets and hurry down the hallway to the old door, open it and quickly throw the sheets on the stairs. I'll carry them up and hide them later. But now I have to run down to be on time for breakfast if I want to avoid yet another beating.
We have our porridge in silence as we do every morning. Then we get right to work. Scrubbing the floors, the stairs, the banisters, polishing the kitchen table, cleaning the counters and shelves, tapping the carpets, watering the plants, weeding the garden, sweeping the chimneys, doing the laundry and cleaning the bathrooms. All of it under the strict supervision of our two housemothers. The occasional beating can be heard if one of us steps out of line but other than that we work in complete and utter silence.
When all the chores are completed, we gather at the table to have a small cup of broth that is supposed to get us through the day. While we sip our lunch, I notice a pair of eyes glued on me. I ignore it at first but I finally turn around and look into the same eyes that starred me down this morning in the hallway. Faiz and his black eye. I give him a small nod to thank him for his discretion. If he would have sold me out, which is a pretty common thing a bunch of the kids tend to do to get on the housemothers' good side, my beating would have consisted of more than just a few strikes with the stick. I've seen them do unspeakable things to some of the kids that left them with physical and emotional scars.
I've lived in this house all my life and I managed to not get into big trouble for most of that time. But I do remember one winter day when I was around eight and we were supposed to work out in the garden. It was freezing and the ground was covered in ice and snow and I was supposed to clean out a path with a shovel that was almost twice my size. I slipped and stumbled, trying to stay on my feet but I couldn't. I fell and wacked the head of another kid with the back of the shovel. She started crying immediately and the housemother grabbed me by the collar of my coat, dragged me to the well, stripped me down and pushed me into the icy water. I don't remember much of the sensation, I must have been in a state of shock but I do remember pleading for her to get me out. She didn't. Some other kid helped me out of the well. His name was Deon. He was a little older than I was but he was very kind. After he pulled me out he went inside with me and collected a bunch of blankets to help me warm up again. I think I cried the entire time until he started telling me old stories. About his parents, his brothers and the dog they used to have. After that day we would spend a lot of our time together. Walking to school, walking home, doing our chores next to one another. The closest thing to a friend I ever had. But Deon vanished. Some kids say he was stolen away by a monster in the middle of the night. But I think he died, probably of pneumonia. It happens quite a lot. I've seen a handful of kids die in this house.
I snap out of my thoughts and turn away from Faiz.
After we're all done with our broth it's time to get ready for the reaping. We walk upstairs and form a line in front of the tub. One after the other gets to wash off the dirt and sweat of this morning's work. Then we're all sitting on our beds quietly in our undergarments until Mrs Acosta, the housemother who gave me a beating this morning, walks in with the special dresses for the reaping. They are hand-me-downs. Dresses that have been worn to 46 reapings before this one. Mrs Acosta quietly hands out dresses that are approximately our size. The one she hands me is a button up and has a faded dark green colour, short sleeves and a collar that I know just by looking at it will bother me quite a bit. But there's no such thing as complaining in this house so we all get dressed quickly and then we comb our hair and put it up in a strict bun. I brush my frizzy black curls back and try with all my might to get them in a proper bun and still, at the sight of me Mrs Acosta sighs heavily but at this point we're in a hurry so she just shoos us out of the dormitory, down the stairs and out into the streets.
On our way to the main square, where the Justice Building is located and the reaping will take place, we walk beside a hundred or so other children who are awaiting the atonement that are the Hunger Games. The sun is merciless on this day and I can feel pearls of sweat running down my skin already. And as we walk together in a silence that feels unbearably loud there it is again, that dark thought that has lived in the back of my mind for the past month or two. I haven't let it get to me but in the heat that is reflected in my face by the concrete jungle that is District 8 and in the pulse on my wounded back and in the chokehold of my collar and in this painful and silent loneliness that is my life, for the first time, I let this thought come to me.
You could die and nobody would mind. Least of all yourself.