Meanwhile, in District Two:
"Happy, happy, Hunger Games!"
I look to my friend, Nia Nitzan, as she prances into my house as I lounge on the couch, watching the beginnings of Hunger Games celebrations in the Capitol. She grins at me, flopping onto the couch and swinging her legs over my lap. I give her an amused look. "You excited for the reaping?"
"How can you tell?" she says, swinging her legs down and sitting beside me properly. "Ugh. I am so getting tribute this year. I have to."
Last year, Nia was beaten out for volunteering by another girl, whose name I forget. She didn't win the Games, adding to Nia's further frustration ("If she was going to go volunteer, she ought to at least win!"). This year, however, is Nia's last year, and mine.
"So, Mr. Riegan, are you volunteering this year?" she asks.
A bit sarcastically, I say, "If you are? Surely not... I could never beat you..."
Nia rolls her eyes. "It's your last year, and you're not even going to try? Eternal glory! Think of the money! I bet your dad would appreciate it."
My father, originally from District Twelve and very much a rebel, would definitely not appreciate any money the Capitol gives my family. Nia thinks he would appreciate the cash because in comparison to the other families in Two, we aren't as rich. My parents work in the mines—although not as bad as in Twelve, they're still mines. Nia's parents help train Peacekeepers, which is much better than being a miner, at least in terms of the pay. The Nitzans are not like my family, though. My family is fighting a war from behind enemy lines. We don't need money. In fact, in their perspective, we are crazy rich.
"I doubt it," I say, instead. "And anyway, you wouldn't like going up against me. You wouldn't stand a chance."
"Gonna swing your nunchakus and beat me?" she asks tauntingly.
I smile. "You know it."
Just then, my mom comes in. "Nia! Hey. I didn't hear you come in."
"Hi, Lira," greets Nia cheerfully. My dad isn't as easy-going and prefers that Nia call him "Mr. Hawthorne". "Riegan tells me he's not volunteering this year!"
Mom looks at me. She is part of the reason I don't volunteer in the first place, but we have to keep up appearances, so she says, "He just doesn't have your Hunger Games spirit."
"No kidding!" She laughs. "Do you mind if I take him out today? He looks so depressing."
"Not at all," says Mom, smiling a bit tightly. "Just be home for dinner, okay? And you're free to join us, of course, Nia."
"Thanks." She pulls my arm and drags me up and then out of the house.
I sigh. "Where are we going now?"
"Play date," she says. "It's been too long."
I've been friends with Nia for years—we trained as "Careers" together from the very beginning—and although it probably seems like she's very flirtatious, she acts like that with everyone. There has never been anything romantic between us, and I hope there never will be. She's very insufferable, but it's hard to imagine life without her.
When she says "play date", she means to drag me around town and buy the strangest things, or find some of our older friends who already have jobs to bother them—I can't mention the number of times I've sat in the masonry, listen to Nia be a bother. Nobody ever seems to tell her to stop, and when I wonder why, I remember that I never tell her to stop, either.
"What do you want to do today?" I ask.
"I want to train."
I look at her, exasperated.
"What?!" She giggles. "It's been way, way, way, too long since I've come at you with a sword." Seeing that I'm hesitating, she sticks her lower lip out and says, "Please, Riegan? Come on."
I wrinkle my nose. "Race you there."
...
Later that night—thoroughly tired from both training with Nia and having her over for dinner—I am washing dishes with my dad. I don't look much like him. He has dark hair with grey eyes, which is a strange combination in District Two. It's very trademark District Twelve, for "the Seam", as he tells me it's called. I look more like my mother, who, despite being born in District Thirteen, fits in rather well. Aesthetically, anyway.
My dad doesn't like to tell me much about his past. I know the basics. He got to know one of the rebels in Twelve—a rebel as well as one of their few victors, Haymitch Abernathy—and became involved with the rebellion (and the underground war) that way. After working briefly in Thirteen, he was sent to Two. My mother was sent here at the same time. They fell in love, got married, accidentally had me. Of course, if you fear having your child in the Games and accidentally conceive, the best place to do it is in District Two, where there are enough volunteers to keep you out of the running.
"Your mom tells me Nia wants to volunteer again this year," says Dad.
"Yep."
He glances sideways at me. "Must be tough."
I shrug. "You know it isn't." I've seen so many of my friends volunteer throughout the years. I've seen some of them die on screen. I've also watched Nia mourn it briefly, and then get over it like it never happened. In that way, I'm desensitized and very District Two-like. I don't spend a lot of time crying over my friends. I always honour them for their efforts.
Dad shakes his head. "I can't imagine the way you think..."
"I know you can't." I smile. Sometimes I wish I had his mindset. A small part of me knows that what I believe about the Games and volunteering and tributes and victors... it's all very wrong, and very sick. But then the other part of me says that it is better this way...
"If my best friend volunteered..." he says, the sentence getting cut off. Gruffly, he says, "I don't know what I would do."
"If Nia were in the Games, she'd win. I'm not worried about her, Dad. And anyway, she knows what she wants. If I wanted to stop her... well, she wouldn't let me, I guess."
Dad nods, and then we continue on in silence for a few more seconds.
"Do you want to volunteer?" he asks.
I turn around to him in surprise. "No. Of course not. You know I don't."
"Just making sure," he says, quietly. Then, a bit annoyingly, he asks, "But if you didn't know the things you did, do you think you would want to volunteer?"
I swallow. The truth is... "I would." And the thought of it makes me guilty, but I still think—just a bit—that being a tribute is an honour, and joining the ranks of all of Two's victors would be... amazing. I still see the terrible side of it: that every year, I watch someone from our District die. Even if someone goes home, I have to watch one die, and the terrible part is, it's only excruciating for so little of a time.
"You would?" Dad asks, inhaling sharply.
"Yeah. I would volunteer... if I didn't know what I do." Then I add, "And maybe if I had to. Wouldn't you?"
He nods, not meeting my eyes. "I guess."
On the TV behind us, President Snow is talking to some interviewer. We listen to him as he hypes up the year before the Quarter Quell ("we're very excited for next year, and it's already in the planning stages, going right beside the Ninety-Ninth Games...") and that although Panem has that to look forward to, this year shouldn't be anything ordinary, either ("this year is going to be almost as amazing... we can all feel it; the Gamemakers even know that we're going to have some pretty exciting Games for this year").
My mom watches, standing there with one hand holding her elbow, the other brought up to her mouth. She looks thoughtful.
"What's on your mind, Mom?"
"Gale..." she murmurs, apparently ignoring me, "did you hear the news?"
"What news?" he asks.
Mom looks nervously at me, as if she's not sure she wants to say what she has to say with me in the room. "The president isn't joking when he says we're going to have pretty exciting Games this year."
My dad puts down the plate and sponge he's holding. "What do you mean?"
"Heavens heard a rumour that the reaping is going to be rigged so that the children of victors will have a higher chance of getting in," Mom says in a hushed voice, even though I can still hear. "Heavens" is Plutarch Heavensbee, the Head Gamemaker. We have to be careful with how we talk, considering we're in the districts. To any neighbor listening in, it just sounds like a gossiping housewife.
I think of the children of victors that I know. There are a handful of them here. A cousin of Nia's—but he's out of the age limit. I have several classmates. (Or had—they don't go to school anymore.) There's Finn Odair, from District Four. But he was already in the Games. Rysnna Mason, I believe, is in her last year this year. Then there are all those Mellarks in District Twelve. And a lot more... considering the number of them in each district, it's not too dangerous. Except maybe in Twelve, where there are only four... or two, of the right age.
"Why not just do that for the Quell?" Dad asks, confused.
I know the answer. "Well, nobody liked the idea of past victors being in the arena. And it sure united everybody. Maybe he doesn't want to give everyone a reason to be united."
"But that was worse. Everybody knew those victors and everybody liked them and all those people watching wanted all of them to win because they already had before," says Dad.
"Well, these kids have grown up with the camera stalking them, Dad. Panem knows them almost as well as their parents. Panem's seen them grow up."
Mom nods. "Riegan has a point."
My parents look at each other for a while. "We'll have to see what they want us to do," my dad decides. They being the rebels.
I think of all those children I've watched grow up with me, but from afar. I wonder how it feels, to be under constant scrutiny for no good reason, except for who your parents are. But from them in their adorable diapers to the hardened teens that many of them have become, the country knows them well. Panem wouldn't be able to stand losing them, either, I'm sure.
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