Chapter 3

The room I find myself following Fesh into is big. It's a lot of other things too, but that's the first word that comes into my head. And it is big: like the mayors banqueting hall – no, bigger – like something from the Capitol. Then I remind myself that this is the Capitol – or as close as I've ever been before.

The room is decorated grandly and the carpet is so soft and dense that I feel myself sigh as I sink my bare toes into it. Apart from my shoes, which I took off as soon as I could, I'm still in my reaping clothes. There was a large wardrobe in my room, I remember now, but it never even crossed my mind to open it. In the centre of the room is a long, rectangular table surrounded by ten tall, velvet-padded chairs. The table is covered in a heavy, red cloth that looks like heaven to wear. To me, the whole thing looks a little ridiculous.

At home, we eat around a small, clay table on wooden stools, in a room so low down that you have to stoop your head to get through the doorway. We eat by candlelight, usually, or some sort of fire. There are seven of us, including my mother, and all of us but her have to share a stool. It's family time, and it's reassuring feeling how close we all are. We eat Terrasse bread, berries, nuts and old vegetables: the ones not good enough to send off to the Capitol. And the occasional dairy product from our goat and chickens. Good, simple food. An egg for breakfast, perhaps, or a little milk. Terrasse and nuts or berries for lunch. And perhaps a turnip for supper. That's on a good day. We barely ever get meat of course, and we usually have one or two meals a day, if that. Several days I've gone with nothing.

The food at this table, however, looks so luxurious and rich; I can hardly stop myself from dribbling and running to grab everything I can. Plates and dishes steaming everywhere – hot food! – and they smell so good. I take a deep breath in and the heavenly fumes shoot up my nostrils. I think my eyes are watering now – perhaps I've run out of space in my mouth.

I dash over to the table and sit in the only empty seat, opposite Thresh, whist Fesh takes her place at the head of the table, opposite a man whom I assume to be Reed. I have never seen anybody else there, but they are all evidently from the Capitol (how can you mistake such people for anyone else?) I suppose they must be our prep teams or whatever. Hu. When I am done taking in my company, I take a closer look at the food. Some of it looks like the vegetables we have at home, but cleaner, riper, and in every way better - I wonder how many of them I've been forced to grow? – but most of the food is unrecognisable. I can't wait to try everything.

I lift up my elbows to slam them contentedly down on the table, but they don't hit the table; they knock against something china. I look down, and see a large, yet dainty plate under my brown elbows. (Another thing we seldom use at home.) Around the plate are several metal tools. One looks like a tiny pitch fork, another has a round, jagged blade. Only one I recognise: a spoon. But it's not chunky and wooden like the ones we have at home; it's silver and slender. Odd.

But these tools are the last thing I want to think about. I grab the nearest dish and pile some of its substances onto my plate. Then I find another dish and do the

same. I repeat this until my plate is towering with various eatables and cannot possibly hold anymore. Then I dig in my fist and bring the food up to my mouth. I close my eyes in satisfaction as I chew vigorously and the food runs down into my empty stomach. I immediately feel better than I have done in days; I have just eaten the equivalent to a whole meal in District 11 and there are still piles and piles left…

I soon entirely forget where I am or who I am with. All I can think of is eating as much as I possibly can. I need to eat before I go to the arena, that's for sure. So I gorge myself in everything I can reach, sometimes lapping up the last scraps with my tongue before reaching out and grabbing more. I'm stuffed, I know I am, but I can't stop. I really feel as if I could eat forever. Until Fesh lets out a loud scream and I start with surprise, and then a little fright. Fesh is screaming at – me?

I open my sticky hands and a gooey, lumpy substance I recognised as apple sauce drips out of my hand and onto a cake. Fesh looks as if she's going to explode.

'Have you never eaten before, you animal?' she asks me. I shake my head.

'Not really,' I tell her. It was evidently the wrong answer because she goes red and carries on.

'Well, I don't care if you eat like an animal in that hole of yours, girly, but here you eat properly, with your knife and fork, you got it?'

I wave the mini pitch fork at her, and the other thing which I now recognise as, like she said, a knife. 'These?' I ask. She nods curtly. 'There much better as weapons don't you think? And by the way, that "hole" is what you gave me to live in so don't mock it.' And I throw the fork in her direction. Not at her, but in her direction. It hits the table with a thud. Then I realise what I've done. 'Oh,' I say. I feel the colour drain out of my face. I shouldn't have lost my temper.

Ten seconds later, Reed (I guessed right) has me pinned up against the wall in the corridor. He's fuming. 'What were you thinking'? He hisses. I say nothing, so he shakes me. 'You stupid girl, your lucky if they don't kill you for that!' I can't tell if he's worried for me or angry. Maybe a mixture. No, he's not worried for me. 'Why did you do it? You didn't think you'd get away with it, surely?'

No, I suppose I didn't. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I suppose I was mad at her for blaming me for what I've learned in my filthy home. The one she made me live in. I just got mad. Sadly, I shake my head. Now I'm starting to wonder what they'll do to me. Kill me? No, they can't find another tribute now. Anyway, would they kill someone for throwing a fork and standing up to the Capitol? Well, yes they would.

I hope they just do something like home. I don't want them to hurt my family, however much we pretend to hate each other. Maybe they won't give me any more food? What if they think something up to make sure I'm killed first in the arena? I hope they just punish me how they might at home. The Mayor's very strict about all the laws and condemns people to one fate or another every hour. Several times he's ordered me to be or locked up for stealing crops. I can handle being locked in the stocks or whatever. (Any person can be punished brutally: children, adults and the like). Maybe that's all they'll do. Maybe they won't do anything at all. I doubt it somehow.

'Well?' demands Reed, but when I fail to answer, he just throws me down and marches off, but not before he's given me a sharp blow on my cheek. Then he slams the door to the dinner hall and I know that that's all I'll be eating for some time.

I head back to my room and collapse on the bed. I realise I'm crying; why did I have to screw up so early on. I miss my family, suddenly, so much. I wish I was back there. Even with my mother shouting at me or threatening to report me to the mayor for some non-existent crime, just so she can get rid of me, or watch me suffer. It's happened before: one time, she had a head ache and I was playing with our dog, Scruffy. (His name suits him.) He's mine, really; he was a stray when I found him, starving. But I loved him and felt sorry for him, so she let me keep him.

Anyway, I was playing with him and he accidently jumped on my mother, who wasn't very well. Usually, she would have just beaten me like she usually does, but she was in a dreadful mood and marched me straight up to the mayor. (Actually, she dragged me; I was hardly enthusiastic about going.) I wasn't too worried, though; telling the mayor that her daughter's dog landed on her and grazed her knee was hardly going to get her anywhere. But she didn't tell him that. When he opened the door, she literally threw me at him:

'I caught her,' she told him, 'I caught her stealing crops. Yours, sir, your own form your garden. Eating them like a pig, she was. I thought I'd best leave her with you.' And she marched off, just like that, leaving me in the large arms of our vicious mayor. I started to weep, protest, cry for mercy. I was only ten, and I was naturally terrified.

The mayor sat my down and gave me a long "talk." He was very angry and spat each word at me as if I was some sort of rat and he was catching me with poison words. Every time I protested, he would only shout louder or threaten me, or slam down his walking cane on the floor, or my sweating hands. Eventually, he told me that the usual penalty would be death. I let out a scream, wondering how much trouble my mother really wanted me in. Then he told me that, as I was only ten, he would spare my life. But he gave me my first ever public whipping in the town square.

My mother came to watch me and, when I was released (probably unconscious) she carried me back to the house and locked me in our cellar for the rest of the day. She did not take me to the doctor, nor did she treat me in any way. I was only given twenty lashes, and I was never going to die, but I spent the rest of that day, and many more, stuck on my bed in unbearable agony, trying to move, trying not to stain my blanket too much, trying to ignore the deep cuts that had torn into my flesh. I recovered a few days later enough to hobble up the stairs and beg her for something to eat, for some sympathy. She gave me a cabbage and walked out of the room. We didn't speak for weeks.

I try to push the painful memory out of my head, but I can't help but place my hand on my back and finger the long, red scars across it. Then I put my fingers to my face and feel the swollen patch under my eye. Life for me seems to be constructed by nothing but hatred, work and beatings. Why do these Capitol people think they can make our lives hell by killing us, when life itself is worse? At least for those of us in the poorest districts. It makes me wonder what the tributes form District 12 must live like. Could they possibly have a worse life than us? I wish I could ask one of them, but I don't want to become to friendly with people I may have to kill.

But you won't kill anyone, Rue, remember? No, I won't. I mustn't. I'm not going to win and it doesn't look like Reed is going to be much help either. I may as well die here and now, but I don't want to miss out on anymore food.