I must have heard wrong, I think. He didn't say that name. He couldn't have. But I continued to walk toward the podium. Toward my doom. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Jill Pailor staring resentfully at my opulent clothes as if she's blaming me and my wealth for the bleak end to her life that will inevitably happen. I stare resolutely ahead at Jewel as he shouts happily and the watching spectators applaud me as if they can't wait to see me led away. Evidently they are eager to get back to their cattle ranching and slaughtering.
As the applause dies down, the mayor marches forward to read the post-reaping speech. Having heard it five other times, it's old news to me. We should consider it an honor to participate in the Hunger Games and that honor will increase if we win, as if I have any chance. The Capitol, by only killing twenty-four children per year, is showing mercy to the districts, whose rebellion led to the deaths of thousands of innocent Capitol citizens. Or something like that; I've stopped listening. Mentally I take a trip down my memory lane, because I may never get a chance again.
I'd always been good with the cows. Maybe that was because all we ever had were the cows and bulls. My family had not been wealthy enough to afford an oxen team; oxen were rare and expensive, and were very hard to breed. So much of the prairie, which contained the tall grasses that foxes needed for sustenance, had been destroyed in that huge natural disaster that ravaged the entire world and left the Capitol and the districts as the only pillars of civilization standing. That's what we learned at school.
My family consisted of me, my older brother Proddo, and my parents, Hefra and Garbull. Proddo, a heavily muscled man like me, was sixteen when, while rounding up the vicious black and gray bulls that Garbull had bought, suddenly lost control and was knocked to the ground. Eager to get back to the barnyard where the food was, they trampled over him, and two thousand pounds of food-crazed, charging bull times half a dozen, was such a great show of force that Proddo was utterly unrecognizable when we found him.
Of course we called in the peacekeepers. I had just stepped outside the house to check on the status of the small hidden garden that my mother tended daily when I heard the stampede rumbling toward me. Half a dozen out-of-control bulls are no trivial matter. A dozen of heavily armed peacekeepers arrived on the scene, but not before the stampede leader charged into my left side as I watched them from the house. The collision was relatively minor, and the bull continued past me as I lay sprawled in the dirt, my left leg in excruciating pain. I blacked out for ten hours.
I remember waking up in the hospital facility. My leg was in a cast; I'd seen other people with similar injured limbs in casts before, and I realized just how major the damage had been. I was lucky that it was only a glancing blow. The doctor told me that I would have to stay in the hospital for a week before I would be fully recovered, and even then, I would always have a fairly heavy limp when walking around so I would never run as fast as I used to. I simply nodded, and he left. Then my parents came in. My father's face was sad but hopeful; my mother's smoldered with anger as though she was a human doppelganger of one of those angry bulls. I wished I could have gone invisible; I knew that she was going to shout a tirade at me. I mentally braced myself, but my father spoke first and I had to endure the growing tension of my mother's disapproving gaze as he says, in a detached, clinical voice, as if he's reading a report:
"Your brother Proddo is dead. He completely lost control of those bulls and they ran him over, before stampeding past the house and hitting you, before dying to the peacekeepers. They managed to kill four of the peacekeepers and now all peacekeepers will be armed with assault rifles at all times. The eight survivors had assault rifles. Your mother and I had to use almost all the family's savings on this hospital visit. Count yourself lucky that we are not moving to the smellchain; at least we get to keep the house."
Garbull stepped away from me; his eyes were dry and staring vacantly into space now that he was done looking at me. He was obviously trying to keep it together for me, because he knew that if he let the emotions take hold of him, he'd crumble. Hefra rushed forward to take his place. The accident has obviously had the opposite effect on her; her eyes bore into me as if it were my fault as she vented her incoherent, pent-up rage.
"Dallas what were you thinking standing there you heard the bulls right! Your leg's completely busted now and I had to sell off my diamond heirloom bracelet to that idiot Mister Dalton to pay half of the emergency room fees! That heirloom's been in my family since before the dark days and now it's GONE! And my son Proddo! Where is he now? Where, is, he! You told those bulls to kill him I know you did! his room still has the ophiataurus picture on his wall because that was his favorite mythological animal, and now he'll never get the chance to see one because you've killed him. I honestly don't know why I'm letting you live now and spending money on your surgery to boot! And we'll not be able to sell the potatoes from the garden now because we don't have money to buy food at the market. So if you don't like potatoes, like them or starve. I hate you!"
She then lunged toward me, and I was helpless to resist. I remember thinking that this would be my demise, at the hands of my mother. But then Garbull came to my aid, grabbing her and shunting her backward away from me. The doctor ushered them out quickly after that.
After being discharged, my parents never repaired their relationship with me, so I spent a lot of my days with the cattle, slowly learning to cope with my heavy limp. My favorite companion was an old spotted bull with a peculiar stripe of silver fur running down his back. When I was sad, he would be there to comfort me, and when I was happy he would be there to frolick. Some antique books I read mentioned that a dog was man's best friend, but Old Boone, the bull with the silver stripe, was more than a dog.
"Dal, it's time to load up this month's shipment of cows for slaughtering," said Garbull over breakfast, as if he were discussing the weather. "Go and check the breeding records and bring 'em to the truck for loading."
Consulting the breeding records, I realize that Old Boone is due to be shipped off to the slaughterhouses today. Not him, not him! We had done so much together-walking around the pasture as he cropped the grass, laughing as I tried to immitate his mooing to try to converse with him, or sleeping near him on a hay pallet in the barn. And he would soon be taken away as if he were already nothing more than a thick, succulent slab of beef. I shut the breeding records book with a decisive thump and ran out to the garden, where Garbull was planting potatoes. "Please, father, I don't want Old Boone to die, please! He's the only friend I have here!" Mindlessly I continued babbling, until he cut me off.
"Nope," he said indifferently. "He's gotta die."
Suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I start slightly as my revery comes to an end. An assault rifle-toating peacekeeper steers me toward the justice building, while the applause dies down and people begin to trickle back to their homes. I notice Hefra chatting animatedly to one of her lady-friends, probably in elation at having one fewer mouth to feed. She probably doesn't realize that she and Garbull will have to take up all the farm work I used to do, but she is oddly shortsighted like that. At least that's what I imagine, as I stop looking back and face the justice building.
Inside, the peacekeepers let Jill and me know that they will give ten minutes for family and friends to say goodbye before we board the train. The train, which will take me to the Capitol, and the games. I begin to analyze myself through the lens of the games because I have nothing better to do. I'm very fit and fairly well-fed. I can handle a whip, but whips are not a typical arena weapon so I will probably have to learn to use something else. Tributes get a few days to train and learn some new skills before entering the arena, so I'll have to learn how to use a different weapon like a sword or spear. I'm not so bad at wilderness survival, having read books about edible plants and hunting in my free time, but reading cannot compare to having to do it for real.
No one will visit me though; the only friends I have are the cows, and they are all locked up in the barn. Some Smellchain girls are escorted in by the peacekeepers, and rush over to Jill's side, blubbering idiotically. Don't they realize they're wasting their precious time crying instead of giving her advice on how to stay alive in the arena? They finally get over the initial sobs to say a few parting words, then leave, escorting a man and a woman who Jill seems to have had inherited her looks from. Another round of sobbing ensues, and her mother actually asks her to try to win. I turn away, in the guise of giving them some privacy, but really it's only so that I can glare at the wall.
A few more people come to see Jill, but I zone out the noise and think resentfully that the whole situation, the hunger games, the Capitol lording over us, is messed up. And then a noise cuts across the indistinct humming in my ears that is Jill's reverse reception committee. It's the sound of a cow bellowing, with that tell-tale quaver. I look up, as my neighbor Jonah escorts Trilla into the justice building. It must look strange, but there she is, towering above the rest of us. I turn to see her looking at me with those innocent eyes. They used to be, anyway, but now they are full of fear. Her mind projects anguish, and though I try to assure her that everything will be all right, she senses that I don't put any conviction behind it. She nuzzles my shirt for several minutes until the peacekeepers come back to let us know that time is up.
I tell Trilla that it's time to leave, but she refuses to stray from my side. Her fear of being left alone in the world with no one who understands her is strong enough to counteract her obedient nature, and there's nothing I can do. The peacekeepers pull out their bullwhips and start shouting at her to go away; a few of them rush at her and try to head her off, but she stands unmoving as the whips come down. Angrily the peacekeepers continue to whip her as I look on, still mentally pleading with her to leave before she incurs a serious injury. I try to shut out the sounds of her pained bellows and the sobs of fear from Jill and the heavy cracks of the whips and the grunts of the peacekeepers, and focus all my willpower on getting her to leave. She turns around and sidles away slowly, eyes downcast. I hear the sound of an assault rifle being cocked, and before I can stop him, a nearby peacekeeper begins to fire on Trilla, who breaks into a shambling run. It's too little, too late, and she eventually falls in a widening circle of red, ironically right outside the entrance to one of the slaughterhouses.
Balling my fists in anger and trying not to let the peacekeepers see my tears, I trudge off to the train that will take me to my unceremonious death. It's like seeing Trilla's end has opened the door to my own. I step onto the train, a polished vehicle designed for comfortable transport. It's far superior to any of our own trains that transport freight to districts 11 and 12. The door swings open and our district mentors, Bessie and Tyson, smile falsely at us as we board. Jewel Thaddeus is also there.
I decide to forgo conversation for the moment and explore the facilities on the train, to help clear my thoughts. There are sleeping rooms, a large dining room with a large round table, bathrooms, and even a viewing balcony so that we can see the countryside and the other districts race by. Servants are a button-press away from any room. All of these are luxuries I have never experienced before or dreamed of. I head off to a bedroom, locking the door and allowing my eyes to close. After the intense morning workout, the shock at being reaped and Trilla's death, I need to let myself relax, and I do. The bed-it's just a pallet of hay in the barn, and I'll wake up to see Trilla standing over me waiting for her food.
Instead, I wake up to Jewel Thaddeus's voice calling me to dinner, so that I can meet my mentors.