District Ten
Maverick "Rickie" Holmewood, 17.
Reaping Day is one of the only days of the year that Rickie is exempt from his morning chores but of course he wakes up in time to do them anyway. There's no use in him staying put in his bed for most of the morning so he gets up and dressed and is out of the house heading towards the chicken coop before anyone else in the house is even awake. It makes him feel good, that he's up and doing his chores when he doesn't need to be, and he's sure that his parents will at least appreciate it. His brothers won't really care, it makes no difference to them whether or not they have fresh eggs and milk in the morning.
The visit to the chicken coop doesn't yield anything, though. Rickie frowns as he hunches over, searching for the eggs that should have been laid by now. He's aware that chickens skip days, and his did quite often, but there was always at least one. Still, it isn't the end of the world. They have a surplus of eggs anyway and there'll probably be more tomorrow.
So he heads straight to the barn and spends the next hour milking the cows and filtering the milk into glass bottles. When he's done he slowly carries them inside, placing them into the icebox in the kitchen. Except for one that he places out in the kitchen for breakfast.
"Morning, kid," his papa smiles as he enters, wrapped in his dressing gown. "Couldn't sleep?"
"Just used to waking up early," Rickie shrugs, moving to a cabinet to grab a few eggs. Whilst he was on his productive streak he may as well start on breakfast. His mama could take over when she came down if she wanted to, but he was hungry and his brothers would be down soon with their ever-growing appetites. "There were no eggs this morning by the way."
"That's strange," his papa muses. "It was pretty cold last night, though, so maybe that's why. Did you check everywhere?"
"Uh-huh," Rickie nods, cracking a few eggs into the frying pan. "You can check later if you want but I promise I did."
"Maybe they'll lay them later," Rickie's brother, Otis, chimes in, leaning against the doorframe. "They don't always lay in the morning."
"Yeah, maybe," Rickie nods.
It's another fifteen minutes before breakfast is ready and all of the family is gathered. Rickie dishes up the food, taking his place at the table between two of his older brothers. The conversation stays on the chickens for a while but it inevitably turns to Reaping Day which then turns to him as the only one still eligible to be reaped. But none of them are worried; his parents and his five older brothers had gone through the reaping unscathed, and so would he. They've never had to take tesserae, living comfortably on the income they earned from the farm, and there are only two more years left until they don't have to worry.
Well, until they start having kids and those kids turn old enough to attend the reapings. But that's a long, long way away and Rickie isn't even sure if he wants kids. He's not sure how his parents handled having six kids. Boys at that. But they'd done a good job raising them, at least in Rickie's opinion.
He helps to clean up the kitchen and heads outside once more to help his brother Judd muck out the stables. But as soon as he's done with that it's time to get ready for the reaping.
Rickie showers and gets dressed in record speed, bidding goodbye to his parents and brothers before he leaves to go and meet his friends and walk down to the square. It's a good forty-minute walk to his friend's family farm but it's where they had all decided to meet so he tries not to complain too much. It was a lot closer to the square than Rickie's house was, and Rupert's mom makes the best French toast that Rickie has ever tasted.
Rupert telling them that his mom will make them French toast before the reaping had only sweetened the deal of meeting at his house.
Frankie Croft, 12.
Frankie doesn't stop running until her legs give out under her. She falls forward, hands outstretched and manages to cushion the blow a little bit. She lays there for a while, sprawled out on the side of the dirt road, and catches her breath before she clambers to her feet and brushes herself off, slinging her backpack carefully off of her shoulder to check that the eggs she'd just pilfered were alright.
Because if they weren't then all of that running had been for nothing and she'll be super pissed.
No one was supposed to almost catch her rooting through their chicken coop for eggs. It was Reaping Day; they were supposed to be sleeping in. But no. Not the boy who lived on that farm. Frankie doesn't think that he caught her, but it was close. He deserved to not have eggs for the stress that he'd caused her.
They're fine, wrapped in an abundance of newspaper, and she lets out a small sigh of relief before bending down to pick her cap up from the mud. She straightens up, puts her backpack back on, and starts walking. She wants to hit the marketplace before she gets ready for the reaping and considering the amount she needs to do, time could be tight.
But at least there was no one waiting for her anywhere. Frankie can do what she wants when she wants and often does. There's no one expecting her to stick to a schedule or relying on her to complete tasks. And she likes that. Most orphans in Ten hang around the farms, hoping that if they're persistent enough then they'll be hired as a farm hand. All they want in ways of payment is a bed and food.
And it's a good idea, Frankie doesn't deny that, but she can't do it. She's tried and all was good for about a week and then she took off in the middle of the second week because she couldn't take it anymore. She knows that she's not less than anyone—her momma had made sure that Frankie knew that—and the way that she was treated as a farm hand... well. It was clear that she wasn't on an equal level.
But Frankie was doing just fine alone and without work. She gets by on what she can; foraged goods, stolen goods, it doesn't matter to her. She'll sell them at the market place anyway. She tends to stay close by the river on the outskirts in the day and at night she's often hiding out in someone's barn. The rich kids might turn their noses up at kids like her but Frankie doesn't care.
The market place is pretty quiet when Frankie gets there. She sells six of the eight eggs and splits the money, adding half of it to her coin purse. The other half she spends on a single bread roll at the baker's stall, and a cheap collared shirt from the tailors. It's cheap and it looks itchy to all hells, but Frankie pays for it anyway. Her breeches only need a quick rinse in the river, but her shirt is done for.
She'll keep wearing it of course, but it won't do for the reaping. She detests spending extra money for such a rotten cause, but there's not too much that she can do. It's just a new shirt, anyway, one that she can keep wearing even though the reaping is over.
The river is her next stop after the market place. She heads to her usual spot. She washes her breeches and her old shirt, hanging them from a tree to dry, before she heads into the river herself. She bathes quickly before returning to the shore, dressing in her new shirt and a pair of trousers stuffed in the bottom of her backpack.
She's definitely tight on time as she gets a fire going, boiling the two eggs that she didn't sell. Frankie leaves her spot in a pair of damp breeches, her new shirt, a bread roll that she didn't have time to eat with the eggs between her teeth as she pulls her hair into two braids and puts her cap back on. Joining the crowd of people solemnly making their way towards the square she finished her breakfast and tries not to stand out.
It's quite hard when she's one of few girls not wearing a dress or skirt.
She gets her finger pricked and moves to the twelve-year-old section. It feels weird to be on this side of the rope after years of standing on the other side, but she's not scared. The girl next to her is visibly trembling and Frankie rolls her eyes. By the look of the dress the girl has on she belongs to one of the richer families. Her name is probably in there once. Granted, Frankie is only in there twice—she's the only person she can claim tesserae for—but it's still double the number of entries the other girl has. Some of the other girls around them have way more, and Frankie doesn't envy them.
The escort is a creepy looking man dressed in a hot pink suit, hair the same colour. He changes it up every year. Frankie doesn't listen as he drones on and on, and she stares blankly at the screen that the video plays from, at least pretending to be interested.
At some point, the girl beside her has seized Frankie's arm and although Frankie knows that she's looking for comfort, she doesn't give it. She just stares straight ahead, watching as the escort moves towards the girls' bowl.
The tension in the air rises to almost unbearable levels as the man fishes out a slip of paper, but it almost all melts away when the name on it is read out.
"Frankie Croft," the man smiles. Frankie feels as if the air has been knocked out of her lungs. "Where are you, Frankie, dear?" Comes the appeal after a few seconds of silence.
And then she's moving, anger boiling deep in the pit of her stomach. She shakes the other girl off her arm who lets out a quiet gasp, and the other girls start to move to let Frankie through. Her hands curl into fists as she joins the peacekeepers in the aisle and is marched to the stage, nails digging into her palms.
"Oh aren't you just the cutest little thing," the escort coos as she joins him. He reaches out to hook a finger under her chin, but it never makes it. Frankie bites it before it can even touch her.
The escort yelps, but he quickly waves off the peacekeepers. "You're feisty," he says. "I like that."
There's a dull chuckle from the crowd and Frankie turns to them, still seething.
She's still seething when she's sat alone in the visiting room, and when she and Maverick are herded towards the train. She focuses on it. Lets it burn.
Maverick "Rickie" Holmewood, 17.
Rupert's mom's French toast is all that Rickie has dreamed of and more.
Despite having had breakfast he still manages to find room for three slices before they're shooed from the house. Rupert grabs another one just before they leave, splitting it into quarters and handing it to the others as they start to walk.
"Those who eat the magical French toast will not be reaped," he jokes. "And it has a two-year warranty. We won't be reaped next year either."
"God, I hope so," Stephanie sighs from Rupert's right. As the poorest of all of them, Stephanie has her name in a lot more than either Rickie, Rupert or Grant. They all exchange solemn looks.
"You're not gonna be reaped, Steph," Rickie says, moving to her side. He wraps an arm around her shoulder. "Rupert's right. Those who ate the French toast are protected. Besides, you've come this far. You'll be fine."
And he tries his best but he knows that without having tesserae, his words don't really carry the weight that he wants them to. Stephanie just nods, letting out another sigh. Rickie can feel a small swell of anger building up inside of him; he wants the Capitol citizens to take their place. He's sure that they wouldn't like it if they were entered into a lottery every year and put to death for the entertainment of others.
He sees the effects of the reaping every year. On his friends, on his family, on the families of those unfortunate souls that are picked.
But he quickly swallows the anger down. The Hunger Games are just something that has to happen, as unfortunate as it is. And he feels bad for all those that are reaped, even for the kids in the career district that train their whole lives and willingly enter the games, but he and his friends aren't going to join them. They're going to be fine. They're going to be fine.
The phrase circles around Rickie's head from the time that they reach the square to the time that the girl is reaped.
He watches with bated breath as the name is picked, letting out a sigh of relief as he doesn't recognise the name. But the silence that comes after it is a little unsettling. There's usually some sort of commotion either from the bystanders' section or the tribute themselves, but the district is so silent that you could hear a pin drop until the escort opens his stupid mouth again.
And when the girl does come forward she's tiny. A wisp of a thing. But Rickie finds it strange that there's no commotion from the bystanders. He turns to look at them and there are tears being shed—nobody likes a twelve-year-old being chosen—but there's nobody calling Frankie's name or trying to fight their way to her. That unsettles Rickie a little. He meets Stephanie's eyes from across the aisle and she looks horrified. She won't volunteer, though. There's no point.
It's clear that Frankie isn't having any of it anyway. Rickie has to stifle a laugh when she bites the escort and although everyone else will be quick to write her off, Rickie thinks that she stands a chance. Not of winning, but at least making it out of the bloodbath alive.
Things move on rather quickly. Things move really quickly.
Soon Rickie's name is echoing around the district.
They're not going to be fine.
Rickie's ears start to ring when it fully sets in. He hears the pained cries of his mama and his brothers. The booming shout of his papa calling his name. Stephanie's being held back by the other girls, Rupert and Grant stood next to him stare at him with their mouths open. He doesn't expect them to volunteer for him but he wishes that they would.
He's found by the peacekeepers and dragged up to the stage. They place him on the other side of the escort, and he's almost ashamed when he thinks that little Frankie is handling this entire thing a lot better than him. A damn twelve-year-old.
The visits are too much of a blur for him to really remember. He remembers hugs. He remembers empty promises.
God, he thinks when he's finally left alone, District Ten really are doomed this year.