I woke up to the horrible screeching of my siblings.
They chop and chop at the trees directly outside my window until there's only a fifth of what was originally there left, just like Father tells them to.
While doing this, they yell their heads off, trying to distract themselves.
Sometimes, I just want to wake up in a better than usual mood, you know?
Sliding out of bed, I shrugged on my beat up leather jacket and slipped on my wooden shoes that I had gotten for my 9th birthday.
Sometimes I wonder why I'm never forced to chop the trees in the morning.
Maybe it's because I'm the youngest and Father pities me?
I don't know.
I just consider myself as fortunate.
After I've gotten ready, I head outside to be assigned things by Father.
I kick him in the butt as his wake up call, just as usual.
"Johanna!" He exclaims, standing up straighter. "Take today off and go get ready, today's The Reaping, remember?"
I roll my eyes and do as he says.
I go back inside the house and make my way over to Mother.
"Father said I have today off to get ready." I state in a bored voice.
Where Father completely favors me, Mother cuts me no slack.
"Good. It will take a while to get rid of all of... that." She looks me up and down, her mouth pulled into a tight grimace.
I sigh.
It's the same every year.
Mother spends hours getting me ready for The Reaping, only for me to throw it all off and scrub my face until it's raw when we get home.
Mother is the complete opposite of me, looks-wise.
She looks elegant and sophisticated, her hair is always up ("Johanna, a real lady never wears their hair down. It is disrespectful to all of the people who you see going about your day."), and she always has a dress or at least a blouse and a skirt on.
As you can probably guess, she does NOTHING at all, whatsoever, about the mini forest behind our house.
She thinks that I'm the dirtiest girl she's ever seen.
I mean, come one! We live in District 7, the District of LUMBER. Not the District of Perfume and Cosmetics, LUMBER.
Maybe she just really loves me.
Being the only girl out of 4 children, and the youngest at that, I suppose she has no one else to complain to.
"Well, let's see. We did green last year, brown the year before that, how about orange?" She frowns thoughtfully and doesn't wait for my response.
Even if she did, she probably wouldn't even consider it.
Mother has the largest wardrobe that I've ever seen.
It's full of dresses, coats, skirts, you name it.
And they're in every color possible.
So, I wasn't too surprised when she pulled out a variety of orange dresses and skirts.
"Let's see, skirt or dress, Johanna?" Mother asked crisply.
"Um... Skir-"
"Dress! Alright then. Do you like this one?" She held up an orange dress with very ruched material.
I wrinkled my nose.
"Wonderful! I think we'll do this one." I groaned.
"Johanna Mason, that is no way to be a lady! Now be quiet and let me fit it on you." Mother scolded.
She helped me into the dress, then made several comments about how beautiful I looked, and how wonderfully it shaped my waist, but then she frowned.
"What ever will we do with your hair?" She cried.
It was the yearly problem.
My hair is a little shorter than shoulder length, but it's wild.
Not wild as in curly, it's as straight as a pin, but it's badly cut.
From all the work I do outside on the trees, to the annoyance of it being cut too short to put up but long enough get swiped by the ax, I get annoyed and cut it.
It's very uneven, and I have bangs, which makes my hair look even more uneven in my opinion, but Mother wanted it.
To balance out my unwanted bangs, Father let me get streaks of red in my hair when I was 15, so then there's that.
In short, my hair is very un-cared for.
Usually, I just put on a wig.
But I guess Mother is getting tired of that because she doesn't want to do it.
"I suppose I'll just put it up." Mother sighed.
She grabbed a comb and some spray.
Another thing Mother thinks I'm wasted on, I don't care for cosmetics or the way I look.
Mother is the complete opposite, she spends HOURS in front of her mirror, doing her makeup and hair.
She grabbed me and pushed me into a chair, yanking my hair over to her.
"Ow!" I screamed.
Mother paid no attention.
It was as if my hair was a painting, she sprayed and combed and then started twisting something, and when I looked at the finished product an hour later, I didn't recognize myself.
Mother had gathered all of my hair at the base of my neck and woven it into some sort of twist thing with a lot of shiny things.
She parted my bangs and they reminded me of curtains, my face being the window.
Mother explained that she did a low hairstyle because my dress has an open back, and something too high would make my face and body look stubby.
I nodded, her words going in one ear and out the other.
She grabbed a pair of nude heels and forced my toes into them, spending the next hour teaching me how to walk in them.
What's the point of wearing shoes that look like flesh?
"Mother, I doubt anyone will be dressed this fancy for The Reaping." I told her.
Our district wasn't the wealthiest, but it wasn't the poorest. Still, nobody dressed this way.
Mother just likes to buy a lot of different dresses and accessories through her friends in other major towns in 7. I guess you could say we had more money than other families, but we still did a lot of the work, which is why we're always so busy.
"Non-sense! You will be the prettiest, or at least your clothes will, but that doesn't mean no one else will dress nicely!" Mother insisted.
She herself selected a bright purple dress that reminded me of the color of grapes when they're squished.
A few hours later, our family of 6 walked to the area with the stage, waiting for The Reaping to start.
Eventually, Trill Hawklock steps up to the microphone, and starts us off.
"Hello. Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor." He shouts into the microphone gruffly.
"Ladies first." He reaches into the large bowl with over 2,000 names.
He grabs a slip of paper and puts it in his breast pocket.
I groan under my breath.
Trill does this every year.
He grabs each, then puts them in the breast pocket of his newest crazy tux, and then he reads them after glaring at us for about a minute.
He does exactly that this year, and after drawing the male tribute, he glares at us.
Except this year, people aren't having it.
My friend Allium's dad starts yelling, "Read them names!"
People around him start chanting it as well.
Mother looks offended, as if it's rude and out-of-line to do this. For once, she may be right. Something about disobeying rules feels different this year, though.
Trill stops glaring, and he reaches into his pocket sooner than usual.
Allium's dad quietens, and the rest of the crowd follows.
"Let's read the female first. The female tribute is Johanna Mason."
Allium turns around and stares at me, her eyes full of relief and sadness.
I stare right back at her, willing myself not to get angry as I walk up to the podium and stand beside Trill. He reeks of some terrible aftershave.
"The male tribute is Syca Gallohair. And these are our tributes for District 7."
Syca Gallohair joins me.
I take him in.
Medium build, tall, looks maybe, my age? Around 17, or 18.
He looks strong.
How will I ever win?