Becquerel "Becky" Heartmerry, District 5

"The future's looking colourful.

It's the colour of blood, chaos and

Corruption of a happy soul."

Belle and Sebastian, The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner


The Diary of Becky Heartmerry, aged 14 and 3/4

Dear Diary,

Today is reaping day. Normally, I don't get reaped but today was different. I got reaped.

I'm not scared, though. I'm excited. Mainly because Sotope Baymark is going to be my mentor!

Sotope Baymark is my favourite victor. She's so fast and cool. I am also fast, the fastest kid in my school, but I'm not cool at all.

The only thing I have for company in the Justice Building is my diary. Nobody else wants to see me. It's at times like this that I wish I still had parents. I don't miss my parents but I feel like they'd be there no matter how uncool I am because they're parents and they're not supposed to care about how cool their kids are. They just love them anyway.

It doesn't matter, though. Either I'm going to win the games and then I'll be a super cool, super awesome victor or I'll be dead and I'll get to see my parents again. It's a win-win situation! Hooray!

I think I could win the games, though. Lua Toyota was younger than me when she won. Beetee Latier was only four months older than me and he killed all the Careers. I don't think I'll be able to kill all the Careers. I don't think I'll be able to kill anyone.

But I don't think that anyone will be able to kill me. They'll have to catch me to kill me and they won't be able to catch me.

Victor's Village, here I come!

Becky

P.S. Also, if I win, I would very much like to go on a date with Arcas Starkwain. He is so dreamy!


Dear Diary,

I think Sotope Baymark likes me!

It's hard to tell because she's so angry and scary but also awesome, but she says she likes mentoring sporty kids.

I've got the beginnings of a strategy - run into the bloodbath, grab some stuff, run out and keep running. Sotope says that it's a good idea to have a basic plan but not to rely on it too much. Anything can happen in the arena.

I'm glad I can think on my feet. My feet aren't the only things that are super fast. I'm a quick thinker.

I'm probably ahead of most of the other tributes. Sotope has a long list of which mentors are stupid or lazy or both. I'm lucky that my mentor is an athlete like me. We can't afford to be lazy.

One thing that I am a little worried about is being lonely in the arena. Sotope says it's risky getting an ally, plus she has to deal with annoying mentors all the time. I'm not allowed to ally with my district partner because Sotope can't stand Tesoro - she says that his brain has "a short half life"! It's not that much of a problem because Sievert is big and scary and I don't really want to ally with him. There's a thirteen-year-old boy called Modus from District 6 and he seems pretty harmless. I want to make friends with him.

I've got a lot of hope that these games will go well. I can't wait until the bloodbath!

Becky


Dear Diary,

The parade was really fun. I was dressed as a nucleus, which looked awesome. Sievert was dressed as an electron, which meant that he didn't have many clothes. It made sense, since the electron is the smallest subatomic particle. I learned it at school.

Huh, weird. I miss school.

Sotope told me that my outfit was better than hers, which was just some hazard tape. I said that it was smart of her stylist to know that she was really dangerous and she laughed. Sotope laughed!

I made Sotope Baymark laugh!

The first day of training was okay. I made an alliance with Modus from Six and learned how to find water in the wilderness. Sotope told me that, if I had to make an alliance with Modus, I'd need to let the girl from Seven in as well, because Sotope can't deal with Taia on her own and Norah's the best mediator in the Control Centre. I was a little worried about talking to Olive, since she's so tall, but she doesn't seem to mind teaming up with two younger kids.

My favourite thing about being in the Capitol is that I can ask Sotope about the other victors. Apparently, the coolest mentors are Norah and Emerald. Mink is the worst, although Derrick is still incredibly annoying. I've also learned Sotope's favourite colour (grass green) and who her best friend is (Luka Starkwain).

I already feel like a victor. I hope that, one day, I'll be able to live in Victor's Village.


Dear Diary,

The last few days have been really busy. I can hardly keep my eyes open. The Careers started teasing me and Modus in training but Olive told them to back off. She's really big and she can throw axes. I think the Careers are scared of her a little.

I ran for my entire private session. I got a five. Sotope told me that it's a really good score considering it'd be pretty hard for a girl of my size to run someone to death. I know that there have been victors who have scored much lower.

Meeting Caesar Flickerman was so awesome! It turns out that Sotope is his favourite victor as well. I was so happy, my stage fright just disappeared. I bet all the girls at school who have crushes on Tesoro Bullion are really mad that he's not Caesar's favourite victor.

It got even better afterwards. Sotope told me that Caesar Flickerman is her boyfriend!

Remember that time when I learned at school what alpha particles were?

Learning that my mentor is dating Caesar Flickerman is way, way cooler than that.

Sotope's the best mentor ever! She gave me the old pair of glasses that she wore to her reaping for my district token. I was going to take you with me but I don't think I'll get much of a chance to write when I'm in the arena. I'm not all bookish like Sean Aspen. I don't think you'll like it much in there, anyway, and Sotope says she'll look after you during the games. I hope you enjoy it.

See you on the other side, diary.

Becky


Dear Diary,

Well, I'm back.

I'm a victor now.

It's nothing like I expected.

My allies killed all the Careers. Olive sacrificed her life to kill the boy from Four in the bloodbath. The arena was an abandoned train yard. Modus had been training to be a mechanic so he got one of the trains working. When there were just seven of us left, I lured the five remaining Careers onto the tracks and he ran them over.

We didn't have a plan for what to do if our plan worked.

Modus was my last opponent. I didn't have a weapon. Neither did he. So I thought on my feet. I broke a piece of glass from a train's window and I stabbed him until he bled out.

It wasn't cool. It wasn't awesome. It was just me stabbing a thirteen-year-old to death with a piece of glass.

Hard to see a bright side there.

I'm still alive, there's one.

Sotope says that we can be friends, there's another.

I'm moving into Victor's Village. All the other victors are going to be my neighbours. It's a little less exciting now I'm a victor myself. I don't even feel like asking Arcas Starkwain on a date because he's three years older than me, I barely know him and I feel like I need some space. Technically, I'm not old enough to live alone yet so I'm moving in with Sotope.

Ha! I'm old enough to murder people but I'm not old enough to own a house.

Sotope tells me that it'll get easier. I'm the first victor from District 5 to have that kind of weight on my shoulders, the weight of killing innocents. Sotope's fine with all the people she killed because they were Careers and they'd asked for it. She told me that Luka copes with it all because he sees the Hunger Games as a punishment for some crime that was committed long ago, Tesoro's just selfish and Turbin... Nobody really knows what Turbin's deal is.

I'm hopeful for my victory tour. Sotope says that a lot of victors from other districts feel guilty like I do. Even some of the Careers feel guilty. Apparently, Emerald Kiesler made his district Career just because he felt guilty over killing his own district partner.

Mink doesn't feel guilty at all but that's because he's the worst.

I hope that nobody thinks that I'm the worst. I don't want to be remembered for being the worst.

I'm not sure what I want to be remembered for. Being Panem's second victor under the age of fifteen? That doesn't sound too bad. I hope that being younger than most of the other victors doesn't make me worse than them.

I feel a lot older than fourteen and three quarters. I feel ancient.

Yours sincerely,

Becquerel Heartmerry


Becky might not be the youngest ever victor but she's definitely one of the most immature at the time of reaping. She's incredibly optimistic and enthusiastic. Her first few diary entries are pretty funny, since she's just an excited kid, but the last one is one of the saddest things I've ever written. Becky doesn't die but her childhood innocence does. She's one of the victors most affected by guilt, partly because she's so young and partly because her victim was even younger.

On the bright side, at least she's welcomed into District 5's Victor's Village. And, after years of being overly competitive, Sotope finally mentors a victor. Now she has something to hold over Mink. Even now, their rivalry is still going strong.