Whee, new chapter!

Okay. So I know the last one was kind of short. But if I had continued on with this chapter, it would have gotten... well, really long. XD Exciting things will happen soon, promise.

- Gira

It is a natural law of the universe, listed alongside the principles of gravity and momentum, that most (if not all) human teenagers will stubbornly refuse to wake up before ten o'clock in the morning, with the possible exception of being faced by an oncoming nuclear catastrophe.

I am not exempt from this law.

Nobody bothers to wake me. Even though both of my parents are now present and accounted for, there is a brief shining moment where I consider that they have actually come to understand that I need all the sleep I can get, thanks mostly to my unfortunate late-night schedule. Then I snap back to reality and decide that they just didn't care. Alenine, on the other hand, would of course not even have the notion pass her mind. She's probably too busy playing right now, or having some sort of parent-child bonding time.

Briefly I wonder if that's what I ought to be doing, but drop the idea very quickly afterward and attempt to fall back asleep. With this year's schedule, the District Three Reaping doesn't roll around until perhaps four in the afternoon, the order being randomized every year... but this year in an exact opposite of the District numbers, beginning with Twelve and ending with One. (They are performed every hour on the dot, for twelve consecutive hours, so that everyone joining us at home will have the opportunity to watch the full proceedings. It is generally agreed that only people from the Capitol and possibly Districts One and Two would even want to do this.)

Eventually, however, the promise of food drives me out of bed. I take my glasses from their official position on the floor (it is a rare day indeed that I can fit them on my nightstand) and put them on, blinking a couple of times as everything comes into focus. Granted, these are heavy, unbalanced, and practically scream 'nerd', but they're the only pair I've actually got.

We're not that wealthy.

Once I've made my way downstairs, I discover the second critical dissonance error of the day: everyone is eating breakfast. Together. I honestly cannot remember the last time this has happened. No time this year, certainly, or the year before. The food is unimpressive; as the primary cook of the house, even I can tell that this was a rush job by a couple of people who have no idea what they were doing, but I don't complain. The same goes for when I glance over at the stovetop and notice that everything has already been dumped into the kitchen sink.

Forgot about me again, I guess.

Silently, I walk over to the refrigerator and pull it open, checking to see if there's at least anything I can use to make something for myself. Mercifully, there is – it won't be impressive, but food is food. I resist the urge to turn around and watch the expression on everyone else's face, figuring that the first word that comes out of their mouth will convey everything perfectly.

"Beetee, brush your hair."

It does.

"I will after I eat breakfast," I respond with the tone of someone all too used to this treatment, taking out the carton of eggs. As I expected, this satisfies her for the moment and everyone falls silent again, the only sounds being Alenine's eating and my preparation of breakfast. Though my mother does have a point about my hair – it's very thick, so it tangles easily, and thanks to my own decision to ignore it, grows closer to a feminine length every day – I really don't care right now.

I wonder what convinced them to eat at this hour; was everyone just sleepy, and had banded together somewhere around this time in a three-way attempt to magick food out of thin air? Were they trying to prepare something earlier and failing at it? (For the record, the idea that they were perhaps waiting for me never even crosses my mind.) Finally, however, I decide that whatever their reasoning was, I have no reason nor interest to learn it. The awkward silence continues, and eventually Alenine gets up and floats over to me.

"Good morning!" she announces.

"Good morning," I respond, attention mostly on the eggs.

"Do you want to play with me?" she asks, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Come on come on pleeease? Mommy and Daddy have work to do!"

"Sure." I glance at the clock. "I'll be up there in maybe... fifteen minutes?" That's enough to throw this down and run a brush through my hair, I guess. Because Allie's probably not going to let me go until we absolutely have to leave for the Reaping. Only briefly does my mind flicker to the music box. But I'll have time to do that later tonight.

I know the other two are staring at me, probably my father more so than my mother. Assuming he managed to remember that I have that box to complete, he'll be wondering why I can't take the time to sit down there and eat, but I can use up the entirety of my day fooling around with Alenine. Mercifully, at this point I've finished making breakfast, and after collecting the proper utensils I head for the door.

"You're not eating in your room, are you?" asks my mother in a dangerous tone. She doesn't go for that sort of thing.

"No," I say in the same been-there-done-that drone. "Dining room."

"Why don't you eat in here?" my father adds. It isn't a question, but a command. "There's two empty seats at the table." No one has bothered to clean up after Alenine, which means there is in fact only one empty seat at the table, but I don't mention that. Instead I turn my head and shoot them both a look. Surely, between the two of them, they're smart enough to realize a stiflingly uncomfortable atmosphere when they see one? (Or perhaps it's just me, which is an equally likely explanation. It doesn't take much to make me want to duck out of the room and hide under something.)

"I'm sorry, but I'd really rather not." That's my only response as I grab up my plate of food and continue walking out of the room, proceeding into the hallway that serves as the main channel of transportation for our apartment.

"Now come back here, Beetee," spills the response from the kitchen. It doesn't sound like it's very happy, so after all of that fuss I simply stop in my tracks (classic Beetee behavior). It doesn't take very long for my father to appear in the doorway, and we stare at one another from across the hall. A very good opportunity to use one of my few talents: deadpan expressions. I've been told that something about doing them with these heavy face-obscuring glasses makes them more imposing or something.

A spark of surprise crosses his face (apparently he wasn't aware that I could make any facial expression past mild terror), but he's soon back on track.

"Look," he says. "I don't know if this is some teenager phase you're going through right now or something, but I speak for both your mother and I when I say that you're beginning to go too far. We are your parents..." (I resist the urge to pop in at this point and say, "Really? I hadn't noticed.") "...and we expect you to be showing us the proper respect, especially when it's absent for us but suddenly all there for a little girl..." I stop listening there.

Oh no. Oh no he didn't.

I begin to zone out from his little ultimatum, my mind flitting off in new and utterly furious directions, and by the time he stops I realize he's staring straight at me. I then realize that I have a really nasty expression on my face. By the time I've returned to my previous expression, he's started up again, but as it turns out he only has a few words for me this time. "I don't know why you seem so intent on making us miserable, but just know: we sure as hell did not raise our son that way!"

"You're quite right," I respond. "You didn't raise him at all."

And I walk up to my room. I think I'm going to eat up there today.

xx

Somewhere during the next couple of hours, I drop in on Alenine to make sure that she's doing alright. (Sometimes, I find, she needs help and doesn't seem to tell anyone. Seems kind of counterproductive to me, but oh well.) When I come in, the television is muttering in the background and she is more interested in the dolls she's now playing with.

"Hi there," I say, sitting down next to her. "Doing okay in here?"

"Uh-huh." She nods. "Lili is almost at the part where she tells Phoebe that her best friend is secretly a big purple alien!"

I decide not to ask. "Sounds interesting." I watch her play for a little while longer (she soon seems to forget I'm even here and makes the formal premiere of Lili's big purple alien friend interrupted by a talking lion), and so instead my attention turns to the television. Just like every other station in Panem, they're right now talking about the Reaping tomorrow, with assorted topics such as possible arena designs, Gamemaker selections, and the classic Career pack. All broadcast live from the Capitol.

How... exciting.

"What are they talking about?"

"Huh?"

The sudden intervention of Alenine into my thoughts causes me to deliver one of my classic catchphrases (right up there with "Um" and "Well..."). Fortunately, Alenine repeats her question for me.

"What are they talking about?"

"Oh." I blink. They're discussing the Hunger Games, obviously, but I don't know how much she knows about that topic. It's been a long time since I was five years old, and I can't exactly remember the exact breadth of my knowledge of the Games back then. "Um, they're talking about the Games..." I listen for a moment – ah, yes. I remember hearing about this last year. But Alenine is talking again.

"What about them?"

"Well... you know how one boy and one girl from each District is supposed to be picked?"

"Yeah..."

"Um," I say to buy time, wondering how to proceed. "Well. In some other Districts, well, they're treated differently than here. Because, you know, in District Three no one wants to be picked. But in other Districts, like One and Two, people actually offer themselves to be put up, in place of someone else."

"Oh. Well... that's nice!" She smiles. "If it's bad, then people doing it to save the others are nice people."

No, actually they're trained killers, I think before I can stop myself. But of course I don't say this to her. "...Right. Well, um... those people are called volunteers. And last year in one of the Districts, Two, a very big fight broke out between a lot of people who wanted to volunteer." Her face was solemn now, so I continue on before she can repeat it. I hate having to tell her these things. "...So, um, this year, they've put in a rule that says that people from that District can't volunteer. Whoever is chosen is chosen, no exceptions."

There's a long pause. And then:

"So... no one can save other people anymore?"

...E-erk. That's not a good expression on her face. "Well, um, yes, but... you see, they only stopped it when people started getting hurt. So it did more good than it did bad. Stopped the fights."

This seems to mollify her, and she begins to calm down. Slightly. "...Oh," she says weakly, scooting closer to me. "That doesn't sound good for anybody..."

"No," I respond, putting an arm around her. "It's really not."

xx

After that brief interlude, the rest of the day was spent mostly in my room, with semi-consistent checkups on Alenine. No one had bothered to come into my room, and I have a feeling that the plate and fork are going to become a permanent fixture, at least until I bother to clean this place up. In the meantime, I've managed to recover a few scraps of the song on the box, but it's still malfunctioning, and most of what I fixed is probably more from blindly poking at things than any real understanding of what was going on.

Someone must have opened my door without my notice, because a couple of hours in to my investigation there's Alenine, hovering right next to me.

I swear my heart stopped for a second there. Fortunately, I wasn't actively playing the song at the time (or at least, I think I wasn't), but what if she had heard it before? Then everything I've been working at would be ruined...

"Big brother!" she chimes. "Mommy says to get dressed for the Reaping!"

"I am dressed," I mutter to no one in particular. Because, well, I am. It may not be terribly impressive, with a random button-down shirt and black pants. But it isn't as if I'm still hanging around in my pajamas or something. Of course it wouldn't be good enough for them (I can never figure out what is), and of course they wouldn't bother to come up here and check. The only thing I can do is hope the day will end soon, and be glad that it's only one day of the year that they have to stay here with us. One day of the year. One day of the year...

Alenine is tugging at my arm now. "C'mon!" she says. I can hear my father calling us from down the hallway, and figuring it's time to give it up, I do finally stand up and put away the music box. I can do more work on it tomorrow – it's anyone's guess whether I'll get an opportunity later tonight. Once standing, I make a movement to pick up Alenine, briefly reconsider it, and do it anyway. Let them say what they like.

Am I just bitter with teenage angst? Almost certainly. But everyone is at one point in their lives – and having those two here for even a single day is now enough to send me reeling. (I realize at that moment that I refer to my parents more as 'those two' than 'Mom and Dad', which I suppose is mildly interesting.)

Of course, Allie sees no problem with them. She wouldn't. She can't see the problems in anyone; she has so much... I don't know. Faith? Faith in everyone. Something like that. I guess it's just one of those skills one has as a child and loses as they grow older.

But still, I couldn't tell her any of that. With any luck she'll actually grow up thinking her parents cared about her at all. Better than I got, anyway. Who marries someone with a job that eats up just as many hours as yours, have both of you be promoted to jobs which eat up even more time, and then take in the possibility of children?

I couldn't leave it now, obviously. I couldn't leave Alenine. I just wish those two would have just taken a moment to think.