Disclaimer: Not mine nope not at all, it's the brainchild of Suzanne Collins.
Amara-Thanks, I'm glad someone likes it. As for the story, I hope this chapter clears some stuff up... I think it does, well more so anyway. Thanks for the review!
Brody and I part ways at the entrance of the school building. I head straight to the design shop, still trying to figure out my plan of action. The long tables march across the space, and this early in the day, they're clean. No scrapes of fabric, out of place rulers, or pieces of brown paper we use to construct patterns laying about.
I dump my bag on the first table and walk to the far side of the room. My dress is exactly where I left it on the mannequin. Small curls of smoke drift up the fabric of the dress, a product of using fabric laced with small fiber optics lines.
I pull it back to my work space and hop up onto the table. I sit there, swinging my legs still trying to figure out what to do. I turn the mannequin around and start undoing the complicated hooks and catches that hold the dress together. The battery pack is small and I pull it free. The dress flickers and dies, the fabric turning a shared of pale mud and dotted with clear lines of the fiber optics.
I can't show this either.
Tossing the battery pack on the table, I pull the dress off the mannequin. I drown in the fabric and manage to dump it on the table next to me. If not this dress then what? I jump down from the table and go to my hook on the wall. I flick through the brown paper patterns looking for something that will be enough to show.
My parents know to look for my design, so I have to show something at the open house.
The door opens and Mrs. T walks in. Her bright blue hair is hidden as usual beneath a scarf that 's been wrapped and knotted around her head. In the Capitol she worked for a designer as a cutter/draper but she refuses to tell us who. We've guessed but either we've never guessed correctly or Mrs. T just refuses to tell us. She also happens to be Kiernan's mother.
"Having problems?" she asks.
I pull out another pattern. It's something I did late last year, but it might work.
"Sort of, I don't think it's ready for the Open House," I say.
Mrs. T pulls the dress straight on the table and starts to sift through it. She reconnects the battery and the gown sparks back to life. Smoke rises up the fabric and Mrs. T gives it a quick shake. It's as if someone blew on the embers of a fire. Flames leap up the dress.
"It works. Is there problems with the fit?"
I go quickly back to my table and pull the dress off the table and bundle it up.
"It's just not fit for human consumption yet," I say, shoving the dress under the table. My hands freeze and I realize I pulled out a line Kiernan always gives when I ask to read his writings.
I peek up over the table. Mrs. T looks at me like she's trying to find a lost piece to a puzzle, but doesn't say anything about the phrase belonging to her son.
"What are you thinking about showing then?"
I head to a cabinet next to the mannequins and pull it open. Rows of projects from the past several years stare me down. I wedge my arms in between two garments and shove them aside, creating a space where I can start sorting. I push myself to the side and find the black dress.
My hands clasp around the hanger of my dress and yank.
"I was thinking about this." I hold out the dress. It's black with a high collar and small cap sleeves. The project was supposed to be about learning how to do princess seam lines.
"It's less of a wow factor, but if it's what you want to show that's fine with me."
I slide the garment off the hanger and pull it over the dress form.
There's a knock at the door and Mrs. T goes to answer it.
She disappears into the hallway and doesn't come back. The warning bell rings and I duck down and rip the battery pack from the dress. I don't want anyone getting any ideas.
I sit through a day of classes watching people react to the approaching games. The new Games, we can't exactly call them "hunger games" because it's not about reminding the Districts about their loss, it's about reminding the Capitol of their parents' transgressions. But we don't talk about these new games. They get a measly paragraph at the bottom of my history book.
Some people get excited, they are the ones who don't care if people know they watch the games on late night television. Then there are people who start at the slightest movement, they're ashamed, but like most people they just can't let go of the Games. Of their hate.
I walk out of school and head straight for my father's shop.
I sneak in the back door, my father stands at a table his hands buried in bread dough. The funny thing about my father is that you would never know he knew the Games were coming. His hands fold and shape the dough with the same pace he always has.
I wouldn't have guessed he even considered watching the Games until last year.
My mother was gone—visiting some friends—and I had a paper due the next day. Call me the constant procrastinator. I went down to the kitchen to get a drink of water and noticed light in the next room.
My father sat on the couch still as stone his eyes fixated on the screen. A landscape of crumbling buildings and over grown military equipment filled the screen. Panam's anthem played softly.
From what I know, no one watches the Games publically anymore. The highlights are played late at night, no more real-time, death condensed down to a reel maybe two hours long. While the people of Panem may not admit it publicly, the watch the Games privately, and it's the public that keep it alive. The government tried to get rid of it several years ago—budgetary reasons—and people refused. The next election showed politicians just where the Games were supposed to stay.
I stood frozen in the doorway, unable to look away from the horror story on the screen. A boy raced across the screen, running for his life, pursued by a girl with death in her eye.
The glass slipped out of my hand when the girl tackled the boy smashing his head over and over into the cement. Blood sprayed the camera and made my stomach threaten its own version of rebellion. This was something out of a history book.
Dad flicked the television off instantly. I knew my father had been a player in the Hunger Games—twice—that he was tortured and brain washed, but why remind himself of it?
"Ivy?" I heard his voice from far away. This was my inheritance: covert blood baths.
"What is that?" I asked still horrified by what I saw. This complete lack of caring couldn't persist.
"Those are the Hunger Games."
I understood the concept, the history of it. But it had always remained on the page. Never before had I seen a complete lack of humanity.
I shook my head, trying to shake the images out. "That's what they look like?"
There were no pictures in books, nothing to suggest what the horror was really like. Videos had been classified. The government said they wanted a fresh start, but the violence somehow still persisted. The only explanation was a few words. Just words about how they stopped and started again.
Dad stood up, and stretched the late night taking its toll on his aging body. "Come on."
But I can't move, what I saw has permanently seared itself into my brain.
Having heard about it all my life, I thought I had been prepared for it. But the shock of seeing a girl beat another child's head against the sidewalk did not make sense to me. The Hunger Games, my parents played, were at least well equipped—bows, arrows, knives. The girl on screen had nothing but her bare hands and teeth to kill her victim. Any innocence she might have held washed away in the horror put before her.
"Ivy." He pulls me away back into the kitchen.
He sat me down at the counter and pulled out ingredients. He mixed and scrambled and drizzled until I finally broke out of my horror coma.
I shook myself and looked up at him.
"What's on your mind?" he asked dumping the last of his fixings into a bowl and slid it into the oven.
"I don't get it," I said, my voice sounding strange even to me. "How do you watch that?"
Dad stood his arms braced on the counter. "Sometimes you can't escape the past, if you can't escape you can't forget."
I nodded slowly trying to wrap my head around what he said.
"Any other questions?" He asks, just like he has for years. My parents didn't want to keep secrets from Brody or I. So every year when we get to the Hunger Games, they'd sit us down and ask that question.
"Will it ever stop?"
Ever since that night, I haven't asked my father about the Games. Here they are again, and like usual, I can't tell if he even notices.
"Anything left-over?" I ask, looking over what's left on the counters.
"Grab something fresh," Dad says motioning with his head toward the door to the main part of the bakery.
"Are you sure?" I ask already heading for the front.
"Absolutely, besides with your brother's new found hollow leg who knows when you'll get something fresh ever again?"
I laugh and duck into the front, going straight for my favorite spice cookies.
It doesn't take me long to grab the snack and get out of town. But the meadow is empty when I get there. I walk to my favorite spot, assuming that Kiernan is just late. Sometimes, even when he said he'd be here, it took him awhile to get free. With two younger siblings, he often had to play babysitter.
Waiting for me in the shade of the trees was a book. It was covered in pale blue leather, I had purchased it for Kiernan for his birthday. He'd been buying cheap notebooks barely filled with paper. I had seen the book in a shop, filled with at least a two hundred sheets of fine quality paper and knew it would be perfect.
Under the straps, wrapped around the book to hold it together, rests a letter. What I thought was one letter is actually two. The first simply reads: Just for Ivy's consumption.
I hesitantly unfold the second and am greeted by possibly the worst sentence I have ever read: It is my duty, to inform you, Mr. Kiernan R. Trilall, that you have been selected as a player in this year's Games...
I wait in line. I'm not sure how I got back to town, or what happened to my bag. Evening gathers, people leave work stopping at the bakery on their way home. Perhaps, they want bread for dinner, or perhaps cookies for dessert. Either way, the line is long and slow at my father's shop. A few friends from school wave at me, and it feels so strange to wave back. I force my hand to perform the motion.
I know I could cut, use the back entrance and have this conversation in the warmth of the kitchen. Escape my friends who expect me to talk and smile like nothing is wrong. Perhaps if I wasn't so worried about what my friends thought or what my parents would think I would have told them about Kiernan. It's not exactly proper to bring home a boy born from Capital parents when your parents were revolutionaries. And not just revolutionaries, but the revolutionaries.
The line moves forward, I've come back into town, still trying to put everything straight. The answer still burns in mind and is possibly the reason I'm here waiting in line and not going to my mother who is home. Because my mother thought it was best, these stupid this continue, that the horrible mixture of death and destruction was just what the world needed. I've read the politics on the new Games. How the Districts can't let go, can't move on. How what was supposed to be one has turned into almost thirty Games.
I need this to be fixed.
I step up to the counter and lay the white letter on the smooth surface, pulling my hands away as if it might burn me. Dad looks from the letter to me not understanding what I want.
"Ivs?" Dad asks looking at me, I can feel his concern. I look down focused on the letter, not meeting his eyes. The boy I met in the field that day, who writes down his thoughts cannot become like that girl on the television.
"You have to fix this," I say quietly. I didn't think of how to ask my father to do this. Dad has always been the one to fix things, to put things to right and if anyone can stop the Games from taking Kiernan, it's Dad. "Please I won't ask you for anything else, but please fix this."
Dad picks up the letter and unfolds it. He motions for one of his workers to take over and steps to the side. I can feel people looking at me. It's not that unusual when your parents are famous. Actually then it's quite a normal occurrence, people starring, taking photos, wanting to be just a smidge closer to something they think matters.
This time though they stare because I'm out of character. I feel like I've fallen down a hole and the only part of the sky I can see is clouded with ash. There's nothing but me, the tight walls, and the small polluted patch of sky.
My father could pull me out all he has to do is fix this.
"Ivy, I can't." He holds out the letter.
"But you have to know someone in politics get his name off the list, stop it. You won't have to do anything for me for the rest—I won't ask for anything else ever, but please, Dad."
He walks out from behind the counter, flour staining his clothing. He leaves the letter on the counter and hugs me close. When he speaks his voice is quiet almost a whisper. "Ivy I am sorry but I can't change this, trust me I have tried, and your mother—"
But I walk out, because I can't hear it anymore. I don't want to hear how my parents can't fix this mess. I turn to go home, but the thought of facing my mother stops me in my tracks. I take the road left to school.
It's lit up for the Open House. When I get inside, teachers walk to and fro prepping for the night's festivities. I walk to the shop without even thinking.
Ursa is already there putting the finishing touches on her dress. She gives me a wide smile. We've been "friends" since grade school, but I stopped confiding in her when we still in grade school. She's nice enough, just a little too much for me.
"I'm so happy Mrs. T wont' be in tonight," she says, pinning the rendering of her dress to the form. "Her son was selected one less Capitol person. The world feels better already."
I look at her and she backs up. There's a part of me that wants to beat her head into the cement—I guess I know where the Game players get it now.
"I'll just—" she backs towards the door and then flees.
I'm still numb. The phone on Mrs. T's desk catches my eye. I glance around and quickly snatch it up and dial the only person I can think of to call.
"Hawthorne mortuary, you stab 'em we slab 'em," Sarran's voice trickles down the line. "What's your body count?"
"Sarran?" I ask.
"Sorry, Ivy—one too many phone calls from the higher ups this week. Call it small victories. And what have I told you about secure lines woman? What if my parental units picked up, what would you say then? Please the next time, ask and I'll give you all the codes and proper channels so we don't get traced back."
"I'm sorry," I say.
The line is quiet for a few minutes.
"Okay what's up?" Sarran asks. "This is about that Capitol boy isn't it?"
"Sarran—"
"I told you to be up front with your parents about it. I know you said it's not anything but really Ivy they were going to find out you were doing a lot more in that meadow than painting pretty pictures—"
"He was reaped," I blurt out.
Sarran's end of the phone goes quiet. She's been all about talking me out of seeing Kiernan, because we both knew this could happen. Once I used a code Sarran gave me to look up the odds of a Capitol child being killed in the Games: one in four. Kiernan has three younger siblings. He wasn't wrong when he said he didn't have much of a future.
"No, no no no no no," Sarran says as if she is anticipating my question. "If I do that I'm dead as in, I will be six feet under for acts of treason. My father has made it clear, nothing is off limits but that. The one thing I can't do is touch the list."
"I can't sit and do nothing."
"That's exactly what you can do. He's just a boy Ivy. Do you even know him that well? Besides you can't exactly do anything for him, you can't volunteer, you can't change a law, and you can't make people care."
I look across the room at my dress. The rendering attached to it catches my eye. I've learned enough about design that people follow what they see as flashy. If you can get their attention you can change their perception. "Yes, I can."
"Yes what? You're going to lay off this?"
"I want you to enter my name in the design pool."