Two days later, the Centre sends people to Madeline's school. Madeline chafes at sitting in assemblies but this time she doesn't move, just sits still and rapt while the tall, strong, beautiful people tell them about District Two's Athletics and Personal Growth Centre, a place where kids can go in the afternoon and get rewarded for being strong and fast and smart.
Madeline isn't stupid. She knows what the Hunger Games are. They haven't had the talk yet, not officially - she's heard that happens in school when kids are ten, and some parents do it earlier but hers haven't - but she knows what it is because one boy in his class, his parents made him watch last year and told him if he didn't behave they were going to send him there when he grew up. That's where bad kids go, his parents told him, except when he told the teacher the Peacekeepers came and took his parents away and now he lives in a Peacehome.
The Hunger Games is a TV program where kids get together and kill each other, and the Centre is the one who trains them to get there. Except that Madeline is also smart, and she can do math, and only two kids each year actually go into the Games. The Centre takes a lot more kids than that every year, and a lot of them come back early. There are big kids in the older grades, strong confident kids, who did the Program for a few years, and they come back just fine.
You learn how to fight if you stay long enough. Madeline curls her hands into fists, thinks of Pa and her door that doesn't lock.
After the assembly they're given free time, either to go back to their classrooms or up to the front to ask questions. She elbows other kids out of the way - it's everyone in her grade and the one above, all kids seven and eight years old - and shuffles to the front, trying to look strong and brave like the kids in the pictures.
She's not pretty, that's the only thing - the kids on the brochures look like they came out of a Capitol magazine, perfect teeth and hair and everything - but maybe that wouldn't matter. Pretty doesn't help you fight, right?
The woman at the table looks down at Madeline, and something in her eyes flickers as she looks her up and down. Madeline wants to shuffle - she knows what she must look like, wearing stolen boy's clothes with her hair hacked to pieces and her face all bashed up - but instead she straightens, pulling her shoulders back and raising her chin up.
"What do I have to do to get in?" Madeline asks. A boy tries to brush past her, takes one look at her face, and skitters away.
"First you need one of your parents or guardians to sign this form and bring it back," the woman says. She talks in a clear, professional voice, no 'sweetie' or 'honey', no sugar in her voice, and something inside Madeline aches out of need to hear that more. It's like they actually think she's a person, not a little doll that will soon disappoint them because she's not fun to play with. "We'll be here all week, so take your time."
Madeline takes the paper, and she actually folds it up before putting it in her pocket instead of crumpling it into a ball and stuffing it somewhere she'll forget in five minutes, like she does with her warning letters from teachers. "Then what?"
"Once the paperwork goes through, we'll send your school a letter with a map to the closest Centre testing facility," the lady says. She has gold thread woven into her black hair, and Madeline hates pretty things but on her it's almost mesmerizing, catching the light as she moves her head. "You can come to the one on the map or any of the others and have a talk with some of our people. If you pass, we'll let you know and you can start coming to the Centre once your parents sign the papers."
Madeline winces. That's a lot of parental permission for something that she's pretty sure her parents would hate. "I don't know if they'll let me," she says. "Can I do it anyway?"
The woman gives Madeline a long, thoughtful kind of look, then she reaches behind the table and gives her another pamphlet. "Give them this," she says. "This is about the stipend. It might help."
Madeline doesn't know what 'stipend' means, but she flips through the pages and sees information about money and food stamps and things. She narrows her eyes. "You'd pay my parents to take me?"
"Compensate," the woman corrects her, which just sounds like a nicer word for it, but grownups like to do that and they get upset if someone calls them on it. "Some parents hesitate about letting their kids go somewhere strange for a few hours a day, so this makes it easier."
Madeline chews on the inside of her lip, then nods and puts the pamphlet in her pocket, too. "Okay," she says. She looks up at the lady, and she's pretty in a way Madeline will never be but she's also hard, the line of muscles visible in her arms, and she carries herself in a way Madeline would love to learn how to do. Like nobody can mess with her and she knows it. It's how Madeline wishes she felt all the time, not just those few minutes before something proves her wrong.
"One thing," Madeline says. "Will you make me wear dresses?"
This time the lady smiles. "All the kids at the Centre wear uniforms," she says. "No skirts. How are you supposed to climb ropes in a dress?"
Madeline is glad she put the papers away, because the rattling as her hands shook would give away just how hard the relief slams into her. "Okay," she says again. She touches her fist to her chest. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"I'll look forward to it."
"Sign this," Madeline says to Mama when she gets home, before she heads over to Pa's shop to start working. She slides the permission form across the table. "It's a thing for school. Medical stuff."
Mama takes the pen from Madeline and signs on the lines where Madeline shows her, not paying attention to the writing at all, just like Madeline thought she wouldn't. She hands the paper back, and Madeline quickly folds it up and slides it into her pocket before Mama can change her mind and decide she wants to see it again.
"Wait," Mama says when Madeline turns, and for a second Madeline's heart kicks into overdrive. "I'm glad you're putting effort into getting along with your father," she says. Madeline's first reaction is to stifle an explosive sigh of relief; her second is to hold her face steady so she doesn't raise her eyebrow. Is that what she's doing. "He's a good man. We just have to learn to know what he wants and anticipate that, and then everything's fine."
"I'm trying," Madeline says, because she has no idea how to answer that. Mama smiles.
She slaps the permission form down on the table in a triumphant gesture. The same lady from yesterday is back today, and she gives Madeline a small smile as she puts the form into a file. Madeline smiles back, the expression strange on her face. It's been a long time.
"How's your breathing?" the lady asks. Madeline frowns, then the woman touches the bridge of her nose and Madeline gets it. "Do you feel stuffy? Any trouble getting air in through your nose?"
"At first," Madeline says cautiously. It's still purple and the bruising has spread to below her eyes, but she doesn't actually notice anymore unless she tries to touch it. "Not now, though."
"Good," the woman says with a nod. "Means it's not broken." She tilts her head. "Put lots of pillows under your head when you sleep, that'll help the swelling go down faster. If you want you can soak a washcloth in warm water and keep it on your face for about twenty minutes, that'll help too."
Madeline's eyes go wide. "Will I learn that sort of stuff if I go?" she asks.
"The Centre has the best medical facilities in the district, so you won't need to," the lady says. "But you tend to pick up on things."
Even better. The sooner the bruises fade, the faster Pa will forget he was mad. Madeline glances over her shoulder, but all the teachers are at the far side of the room, like they're intimidated by the Centre people - afraid, even. She leans in. "You only talked about stuff like sports and running and athletic things, but I'll learn how to fight, right? If I stay long enough."
The woman looks at her, her eyes narrowing a fraction like she's trying to decide whether to say something. Madeline's hands tighten on the tabletop. "I want to learn to fight," she says, trying to hold the desperation back, but she can't, not entirely. "I need to."
Finally the woman gives Madeline a private sort of look, the corner of her mouth tilting up. "I think you'll be a natural," she says.
Madeline lets her breath out in a whoosh. "Good," she says. "I'll see you at the testing place, then."
Over a week passes without anything happening, and Madeline nearly goes crazy from the wait. She pays attention to lessons in school - really pays attention, like the kids who sit at the front and think that if they're smart that will somehow help them get out of here - just because it gives her something else to think about, and after school she goes to work with Pa cutting the rocks down into cubes and after that she eats and after that she makes herself sleep just so it all goes away.
She dreams about the Centre. In her dreams it's a big white building, huge and shiny, and everyone inside is beautiful but sharp around the edges and there are no dresses anywhere and nobody tells Madeline she's not behaving like a good little girl.
The one thing she learns is that she hates rocks. A lot. Rocks are stupid and boring, and maybe in nature they're pretty or something - Madeline likes the mountains, tall and strong and distant - but when she has to sit in the heat and do nothing but carve and pound slabs of limestone and granite and marble into blocks it gets boring really fast.
This isn't a life. It's not a future. Pa is proud of it - he scoffs at the artisans, the people closer into town that take the blocks he carves and put birds or trees and stuff in them before selling them to furniture makers - and he tells Madeline that one day if she doesn't screw up she could take over the shop.
"It's good honest living," Pa tells her. "No putting on airs like your granddaddy -" he turns and spits, and Madeline used to but now she just rolls her eyes inside her head. The older she gets the more she thinks her granddaddy is probably pretty sane if he was mad at Pa for what he did to Mama. "Just us and the rocks and our tools, making useful things for people to use. Nothing better than that."
Madeline can think of a lot better. So much lots better, and most of it sits in a giant building located at the base of the mountains up north and to the west. She doesn't say anything, just grunts - Pa likes that better anyway, less girly chatter - and drives the chisel into the fissure again.
The letter comes ten days in. Mrs. Sullivan hands it to Madeline at the end of the day. Madeline tears it open while the other kids stream through - nobody else in her class has a letter, they all filter out of the room without looking at her - and sees the words ACCEPTED FOR INTERVIEW in big block letters at the top of the page.
Madeline's stomach turns into frogs and she skims the rest of the paper. It has a lot of fancy words, and Madeline is smart but she's never seen most of these before. "Do you want me to read it for you?" Mrs. Sullivan asks. Normally Madeline would say no and tell her to mind her own business, but this is important and she needs to know, so she hands the paper over.
Mrs. Sullivan's eyes flicker over the page. "It says the closest testing facility is in Columbia," she says, and Madeline swallows. There's no train station there. "The next one on the train line is in Burbank."
That's almost an hour away, and Madeline sucks in a breath. No way could she make it there in time. Mrs. Sullivan glances at her, and her face does that think again - tight around the eyes, her mouth pinching - that means she's thinking about Madeline's Pa and how much she wishes she could say something. "I could drive you."
"You have a car?" Madeline blurts out without thinking, impressed in spite of herself.
"It's very old," Mrs. Sullivan says with a smile. "It's been in my family a long time. We won't be able to go very fast, but I should be able to get you there easily enough."
Madeline hesitates. Grownups don't just give kids things, she's learned that well enough. "Why?" she asks, leaning back and angling herself away.
Mrs. Sullivan bites her lip. "Because you should have the chance to do something more with your life," she says, and Madeline's eyes pop. "The Centre is a place of opportunity. A few years there will change your life."
Just like the time Pa got a new TV for the house and suddenly all the colours on the screen looked that much brighter - she never knew the field at the beginning of the mandatory Capitol broadcasts had blue flowers in it until then - Madeline looks at Mrs. Sullivan like the whole world just changed. She looks the same, she sounds the same, but now her words dig a fishhook into Madeline's chest and pull.
And so, Madeline admits what she couldn't to the woman from the Centre in case they changed their minds. "I don't know if Pa will let me go. Once they take me and I can give him the stuff about the stipend I think it'll be okay, but." She clenches her hands. "He likes to say no to stuff."
Mrs. Sullivan wets her lips for a minute, her gaze sliding to the door before she answers. "I can give you a note that says there's an after-school assembly tomorrow. We can go when class finishes."
Madeline doesn't say thank you often - Pa says if you say thanks for everything then the world will think it doesn't owe you anything, and she doesn't agree with him much but she does think he's right on that one - but she comes close to it now. She can't keep it from her face, anyway, and she nearly snatches the note out of Mrs. Sullivan's hands when she finishes.
"See you tomorrow," Madeline says, and darts out the door.
"All these assemblies." Pa rolls his eyes and hands the note back. "You'd think they realized kids have better things to do."
"I tried to get out of it," Madeline says, lying casually.
"I believe it," Pa says, shaking his head. "Well, whatever. Come home as soon as they let you out."
It's hard not to grin for the rest of the night. Madeline keeps poking her nose to make herself grimace instead and even then she still almost gets caught.
The Centre testing facility is a square grey building that, really, doesn't look all that exciting. Madeline would be disappointed except she's almost vibrating in her seat, her stomach churning with nerves and from being in a car for the first time. She takes the train every year to the nearest Reaping point so she's used to that, but the rollicking motion of the cars over the tracks is nothing like the rumbling, bouncing mess that is riding in a car over rough, rocky roads.
By the time they get there she's a little green, and she hopes they won't make her try to spin around in circles or anything right away.
Turns out they don't make her do anything right away. They take her inside and sit her down in a big room with grey walls, and a lady sits down across from her at a wooden table. "It's nice to meet you, Madeline," she says. "My name's Blair. You'll be talking with me today."
Madeline's feet don't touch the floor, and she hooks her feet around the chair legs so she doesn't swing them. It seems like a baby thing to do, and it doesn't look like the Centre wants babies. "Hi," she says, but they do want people who look good on camera, so she sits up straight. "I'm honoured to be here," she says, trying to sound poised and confident like the woman who came to the school.
'Honoured' seems like a good way of putting it. The Centre brochure talked a lot about that.
"I'm glad," Blair says. "Let's start out slow, I know you had a long drive and my legs are always shaky after." She takes out a book and slides it across the table. "Here, why don't you look at these and tell me if you can see the pattern?"
The patterns are easy to find, either in the different-shaped blocks or the strings of numbers and letters, and after that they move on. There's some math, some reading, and some questions where Madeline has to answer what she thinks the person in the picture is thinking. That's hard at first, but then she pretends she's the person and it gets easier after that.
The lady makes marks on her paper sometimes. Madeline doesn't pay attention to that too much - of course they will, this is a test, even if they try to pretend it's just a conversation, Madeline isn't three and everything with grownups is a test anyway - except once, when she looks at a picture of a boy looking out the window.
"He's thinking he wants to get away," Madeline says. "He's thinking nobody understands and if he just found somebody who understands maybe it wouldn't be so bad."
"Do his parents understand?" Blair asks.
Madeline scoffs. "What? No. His parents are stupid. They don't know anything."
And then whoa, that's a lot of writing, and Madeline sits up straight, scowling. "Hey!" she snaps before she can stop herself. "I'm not talking about my parents! Is that what this is?"
Blair stops writing and looks up, surprised, but then her expression turns impressed, a small smile and eyes that focus on Madeline and not the paper. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"
"Well, aren't you?" Madeline doesn't like being tricked. She doesn't like being lied to.
Blair smiles like a knife. "Well, do your parents understand?"
Madeline's mouth snaps shut, and her shoulders slump. "No," she mumbles. "But if you wanna know, just ask me."
Blair laughs and slides the papers away. "Okay. Let's just talk, then. Tell me about your parents."
They talk about her parents and if she gets into fights and what makes her mad, and what she would do if other kids didn't do what she wanted them to do or didn't listen. They talk about what she does when she's angry. They talk about why she's here. It's a lot of talking, and by the end Madeline almost wishes she'd let Blair do it secretly with pictures because she's all twitchy and angry and needs to get some energy out.
"Why don't we go outside and you can show me how you can run and climb," Blair says, and Madeline nods because yes please. "I just have to do some paperwork first so I'll need you to sit here, but here." She walks to a cupboard, takes out a plate and a bag of puffy white things. "This is a marshmallow," Blair says. "It's like a dessert. You can have one now, or if you wait until I get back you can have two."
She puts it on a plate and sets it in front of Madeline, who narrows her eyes. "How long?" she asks.
"I'm not sure how long it will take, but not too long," Blair says, and she raises an eyebrow. "If you're trying to decide whether I want you to eat it or wait, you don't have to. It's entirely up to you."
Madeline drums her fingers against the tabletop. It's another test, but she can't decide what it is. Still, she doesn't like sitting - she can, she's not like the boys in class who complain about having to be good during tests or anything, she's not five - but she will if she has to. But this is the Centre. They may as well make it worth her while.
"If I wait longer can I have three?" she asks, and Blair tries to hide a grin but doesn't quite make it. "If you were going to be gone for five minutes, can I have another one if you leave for eight?"
Blair makes a note. "Why don't you wait and we'll see."
In the end, Madeline gets her three marshmallows after all, but it turns out she doesn't actually like the taste of them. They're too sweet and chalky, and they make her mouth feel funny. Blair takes her out past a line of kids waiting for their turns, and Madeline darts out and snags a boy by the sleeve. "Whatcha give me if I give you these?" she asks.
The boy tilts his head and studies the final two marshmallows. He's skinny, even though he's built big, large bones but not enough to cover them, and she recognizes the hunger in his eyes. "I'll let you hit me," he says. "Don't got nothin' else."
Madeline still has bugs under her skin from talking too much about Pa and what he does to Mama and how Mama just lets him because he's her husband and she has to, and so she grins. "Deal," she says. She runs back to Blair minus the marshmallows and with stinging knuckles; the boy has a bruise on his cheek, snacks in his hand and a smile on his face.
"Feel better?" Blair asks her.
"Yeah." Madeline runs a hand through her hair. Short, short, short like freedom. "Do you have a rock wall? I'm good at climbing rocks."
"Sure," Blair says, and turns a corner. "It's over past the dodgeball court."
By the end of the day, Madeline needs to go home now because she's going to start doing something embarrassing like gush all over the place. The Centre is full of kids like her, big and mean and tough, and there are walls to scale and ropes to climb and balls to throw at each other, and the food is better than she's ever tasted and all she has to do is be good at stuff. And not stupid stuff like sitting still with her ankles crossed and letting Mama brush her hair, but stuff that matters, stuff like beating all the boys in a race and knowing the best ways to punch without hurting her hand and being the only one brave enough to cross the ropes course on the ceiling.
They give Madeline a whole piece of cake to herself, and they don't even tell her she shouldn't finish it because that's not ladylike. She eats it with her fingers and Blair doesn't say a word.
If they don't accept her, Madeline thinks she might die.
Madeline is not a baby. She hasn't been a baby for a long time. And yet when Blair tells her it's time to go, they'll let her school know if she's been accepted, Madeline has to stop herself from throwing her arms around Blair's waist and begging her to let her stay. The impulse shocks Madeline right down to her core, freezing her to the spot long enough that Blair can smile at her and walk away.
Madeline hasn't cried in a long time either, but now something chokes in her throat. If they asked her to burn her house down in exchange for being able to come here tomorrow she's not sure she wouldn't.
"Let's get you back," Mrs. Sullivan says, coming up beside Madeline, her hand near her shoulder but not touching. Mrs. Sullivan never touches Madeline without permission, not without making sure Madeline can see her. Some of the others do; Madeline once got sent to the headmaster for punching one of the male teachers who put his hand on her shoulder from behind. "Did you have fun?"
Madeline can't say anything. She doesn't trust herself. She just nods, and twists around in her seat to watch the Centre building get smaller and smaller in the tiny back window until it disappears.
She's excited enough, impatient enough, that she talks back to Pa three days in a row. The third time he grabs her by the arm, yanks it behind her back, and tells her he'll let go when she says she'll shut her mouth.
Later she couldn't tell anyone why she did it. Maybe it's the thought of the rope beneath her hands as she climbed to the ceiling, or the warm, moist cake they gave her, or the boy grinning at her after she hit him in the face and gave him the marshmallows.
Madeline doesn't apologize. All she means to say is 'no', which is bad enough, but what comes out is 'fuck you'.
For years after, Madeline can't hear someone bite through a stalk of celery without wincing.
The doctor sets down his clipboard and looks up at Pa. Pa's hand is hard on Madeline's shoulder, his fingers digging into the bone. "If you'd wait outside for a minute, I'd just like to talk to Madeline about some exercises she can do to make sure her shoulder doesn't freeze. It won't take long."
"No sir," says Pa, like a thundercloud, like a rockslide. "Anything you can say to my daughter you can say to me."
It's a spiral fracture, the doctor said earlier, fixing Madeline with a long, level look. Caused by pulling and twisting. He'd asked her how she got it.
"I fell out of a tree," Madeline told him, the marks from Pa's fingers still imprinted as bruises upon her skin. "My arm got stuck."
Now, the doctor lets out a long breath. "All right." He takes out a piece of paper covered in drawings of people doing a bunch of different stretches. "You'll want to do shoulder rolls when you wake up in the morning -"
Once the doctor finishes, Pa gives him a broad smile that hides a million beatings behind it. "See?" he says, his voice as friendly as a bear. "No need to send me out, and now I can help her remember when she forgets. She forgets a lot," he adds, ruffling Madeline's hair. Madeline doesn't pull away, but she sneers before she can stop herself.
Mrs. Sullivan pulls Madeline outside of class again. "Madeline," she says, and her voice is tight and stretched like a rubber band pulled almost to the snapping point. "Madeline, you have to let me tell someone."
Madeline shifts back, biting back the wince as the movement jars her arm. She's not used to the sling, and the cast itches against her skin. "Nothing to tell," she says. The words rasp like a dull file across the jagged edge of a marble block, destroying the grain of the stone.
Mrs. Sullivan's face collapses into a frown, and her eyes flicker like she's trying to think of something, anything to say. "What are you going to do if the Centre takes you but you have to climb a rope first thing?" she asks finally. Madeline jerks upright, suddenly terrified. "If you can't tell me, tell the Centre," Mrs. Sullivan insists. "They'll teach you how to fight back."
Madeline flinches. "They'll think I'm weak."
Mrs. Sullivan's jaw clenches hard enough it sticks out. "No," she says, her voice dark. "They won't."
The letter comes a few days later. Mrs. Sullivan offers to open it and read it first, but Madeline snatches it out of her hand. It's hard to open - she braces it against her chest with her cast and tears at the envelope with her good fingers - but finally Madeline fishes out the paper inside and flicks it open. She scans the words until she finds the one she wants: ACCEPTED.
Madeline shrieks and pumps the letter in the air. "I got in!" she yells. She waves the letter in Mrs. Sullivan's face. "They let me in, I got in!"
"Of course you did," Mrs. Sullivan says. "I never doubted you would. You're everything they want."
Madeline stops then, thinking of the beautiful, striking Volunteers who stand on the stage every year. "I'm not pretty, though."
This time Mrs. Sullivan narrows her eyes. "Look at that letter again," she says. "Does it look like they care? Lots of little girls are pretty but none of them are like you. That's what they want."
Madeline presses the paper to her chest again, like if she holds it tight enough it will absorb into her and go into her blood and the ink will twist itself round through her veins, like a secret, invisible tattoo only she can read. A tattoo that tells her she's good enough, that the person she wants to be isn't a bad thing after all.
She waits until she and Pa come home from the shop - Madeline can only use one hand, but the blocks are big enough it doesn't matter - to tell them. After supper she pulls the paper out of her pocket and slaps it down on the table. "Here," she says. "I joined the Program."
Mama sucks in her breath and leans back in her chair so fast it tips backward on two legs. Pa just stares at her. "What?" he says. He's using his dangerous voice, the one that means 'say that again I dare you', but what is she going to tell the doctor this time, that she fell out of a tree again? The sense of power floods her in a dizzying rush, and Madeline grips the edge of the tabletop in an attempt to ground herself.
"They came to the school and tested us," Madeline lies without even blinking. "I got a letter today saying they want me. I guess I'm strong and stuff." She squares her shoulders. "I'm going."
"Like hell you're going!" Pa bursts out. "You think I'm stupid enough to believe they just came to your school and tested you and that's it? You're lying to me."
Madeline knows what lying means, and she knows the punishment for it. Her arms ache already, but she doesn't move, just keeps the paper with its Centre letterhead in the corner of her eye and lets it give her strength. "It doesn't matter how it happened. They want me." Pa's face turns purple, and that's when she remembers the lady at the information drive. "They're going to pay you."
Pa stops. He lets out a breath, and all the angry colour drains away like someone poked a hole in him. "What are we talking here?" he asks.
"Hank!" Mama explodes, whirling on him. "You're going to let them take her for money?"
"Well, you heard her, it's the Centre!" Pa snaps. "You want to walk in there and tell them no, because I don't! At least we can get something out of it."
Madeline pulls the crumpled papers with the stipend information and slides it over. Pa picks it up and leafs through the pages, eyes narrowed. He didn't finish school - no need, he got himself his own business at sixteen and that's done him just fine - and so sometimes the harder words make him mad, but he gets the gist of it soon enough. "Huh," he says, setting down the pamphlet, and he gives Madeline the kind of sharp-edged look he usually gives a slab of marble before he decides where to start cutting. "Well, that's something."
"It's in the afternoon," Madeline says. She knows an advantage when she sees one, no matter how white-faced and horrified Mama looks, sitting there with her hands twisted in her skirt. "I would go to school in the morning, take the train to the Centre in the afternoon, and be back to help out at the shop before dinner. You said girls don't need an education anyway, and even a real man's better off to learn a trade."
"That's true," Pa says absently. He's looking over the figures again. "All right, well, looks like we don't have a choice, but they're making it up to us, at least."
"You can't be serious." Mama never stands up to Pa like this; Madeline would be impressed except go figure it's the one time she doesn't need it. Her arm itches again. "We're not talking about an after-school sports team, you know what the Centre is. What kind of monster will we get back?"
If Madeline plays right, they won't get her back at all, but she knows better than to open her mouth. Sure enough, Pa flicks his gaze her way. "Madeline, go outside. Don't come back in until I go get you."
Madeline keeps it together until the door shuts and the voice behind it burst out like someone fired a gun, and then she runs. She runs all the way to the bluffs out past the house, where she picks up a big, thick stick almost the width of her wrist and wields it like a sword against a bunch of invisible enemies. She fights them off, yelling and shouting challenges, until she kills the last one and is left, triumphant and sweat-drenched in the late afternoon sun.
"We now present," Madeline says, cupping her hands around her mouth, and she hastily does the math, twitching her fingers as she counts, "the winner of the 55th Annual Hunger Games!"
There the game stutters to a stop, because she can't make herself boom out 'Madeline' in the announcer's voice. Madeline is not a victor's name. It's not a Career name at all. It's a stupid girl name, a weak name. Madeline is the name of the girl who doesn't make it past the first thirty seconds. If Madeline is going to join the Program, she needs to change her name now.
Their last female victor was a woman named Callista. Madeline has seen her in interviews; she's beautiful in the way that fire and lightning and shining swords are beautiful, the kind you want to look at but shouldn't ever touch. When she smiles people flinch. The last time Madeline saw her in an interview, the man asked her why someone like her is still single when she could have any man in Panem.
"Oh, I have, and I do," she said, crossing her legs in a smooth motion and showing off the sharp muscle of her calf. "I guess I'm not very careful with my toys, because I just keep breaking them. But I'm always looking for more volunteers."
Madeline will never be beautiful and doesn't want to be, but she could be strong, and fearless, and make people shudder away from her. She could make herself so that no boy would ever dare to touch her unless she says so. But she can't do that as Madeline.
She stands there on the rocks, staring at her callused, dusty hands, for a long time. The sun is spewing blood red over the horizon by the time Pa comes to get her. "Let's go," he says, looking up at her. "I persuaded your mother."
Madeline keeps her expression steady. She knows what 'persuaded' means. The only good thing is that since he already had to take Madeline to the hospital, he won't have done anything that will need help. Not that that doesn't leave a whole bunch of things, especially since Mama stays home all day and they never have visitors.
"I want you to understand something," Pa says as they walk home. He lets his hand fall to the back of Madeline's neck, gripping her hard enough to hurt, and the only reason she doesn't tense is because she knows he wants her to. "You think you're smart, getting into the Program all on your own, but this is how it's going to go. You're going to make your mother and me a deal."
Madeline doesn't say anything until Pa's hand tightens, a warning, and finally she says, "What deal?"
"You can go to the Centre, that's fine. While you're there you do whatever you want, whatever they tell you. But from now on, when you're home, no more of this." He gestures with his other hand at her clothes. "We're buying you new dresses, and if I catch you touching scissors again without permission I'll make you so sorry you'll feel it at next year's Reaping, do you understand me?"
She didn't cry when Pa broke her arm, but now the urge sits in her throat, heavy and thick, and it makes the breath she sucks in wet and shaky. "Yes sir," Madeline chokes out. It's not worth it to fight, not right now. Not when she hasn't turned in the paperwork yet. Once it's official, once the Centre can promise Pa can't take her away, then she'll try again. "I really hate it," Madeline says in a small voice. "Pa, please don't make me. I'll do anything else."
Pa lets out a sigh. "Little girl, I hate to tell you, but you are a girl, and that's not gonna go away. It's just gonna get worse the older you get. You'd better get used to it now."
Madeline thinks of letting Mama braid her hair again, of walking to school with her knees brushing under the loose skirt, of having to be careful when the wind blows, of not being able to ride the swings because of the boys who stand under them, looking up and grinning and not caring who knows. Her stomach squeezes tight until she's afraid she's going to throw up all over the place.
"It's just a phase," Pa says, raising his voice over the rock crickets. There's still enough light left that Madeline doesn't risk giving him a look, but she does tighten her mouth. "You'll get over it and you'll be happier. Trust me."
That's probably one of the funniest things Pa has ever said, but Madeline can't laugh, and the not-laughter sits in her gut like a pile of dead butterflies.
Mama is already in bed when they get home, and Madeline knows she'll have makeup on her face when Madeline comes down for breakfast even if it's early and no one will be there to see it. Pa sends her up to bed, and Madeline takes the signed permission form and holds it to her chest as she falls asleep.
She takes the train by herself the next day after lunch. Mama offered to go with her, but Madeline recoiled so fast she hit her head against the back of her chair. She does not want to show up at the Centre with her mother and her housewife dress, her eye swollen shut even if she's covered up the worst of it. What would they think? No. There's a map and directions in the information packet the Centre sent her, and Pa backed her up because the Centre said they would pay for Madeline's fare there and back every day but not for anyone who accompanied her and they can't afford it.
Madeline wants to stand in front of the Centre building and stare - it's big, and white, and she reads the words on the front with a flutter in her heart - but she doesn't want to look like a rube, and the other kids going in, the bigger kids in their crisp white uniforms, they don't even stop. And so Madeline just marches in and follows the signs to the main office.
"Do you have any guardians with you?" asks the man behind the desk. Madeline shakes her head no, and he doesn't ask where they are or why not. "Go through that door and wait, someone will come get you soon."
It's a woman who comes to get her, tall and proud like the others, and for a second Madeline almost wishes Pa had come with her just so he could see how wrong he is about what women can and can't do. But at the same time she likes this as her secret, even though she cringes in the new dress Mama bought her in the morning and made her change into before leaving. They're probably judging her right now.
The lady doesn't say anything about Madeline's dress, just gives her a paper to sign to make it all official. At the bottom Madeline has to print her name in big block letters, and here she stops.
"Everything okay?" the woman asks.
Madeline's fingers tighten on the pen. There's a uniform on the table, neatly folded, and it's a t-shirt and pants and no skirts anywhere, not a single skirt in the whole building. "I don't like my name," Madeline says. "Can I change it? It's not a good name."
"Not legally," the woman says, but she does check the paperwork again to make sure she has Madeline's name right, and she wrinkles her nose. "You have to sign with the name your parents gave you. But under that you can write something else if you want us to call you that instead. When you're older, if you want, you might be able to get it changed."
Thunder roars in Madeline's ears. "I want to change it," she says. "Even if I have to keep Madeline at home, here I can be somebody else." There's a ribbon in her hair, even though it took Mama five minutes to tie it because everything is so short.
"Sure," the woman says. "Take your time."
With all the names in the universe in front of her, Madeline suddenly freezes, frozen by choice. She wants something strong, something fierce, something that won't sound stupid when people say it on TV. Maybe the Centre has books of names? Madeline hasn't heard that many, and she doesn't want one that's common like the ones she hears in school. They're all dumb girl names anyway.
She's about to ask if the lady has any suggestions when it hits her. Madeline swallows, and she signs her birth name on the line, then underneath takes the pen and very, very carefully prints out four letters: LYME.
"It's a rock, right?" Madeline asks, looking up. It's not quite the same as her name, but she remembers from school that spelled with an 'i' it's a fruit, and that just seems kind of dumb. "My Pa carves those."
"And a disease, spelled that way," the lady says, raising an eyebrow, and Madeline brightens. Even better. "It's a good name. If you want that's how I'll introduce you to the other kids and trainers."
"Yes please," Madeline says, and the lady nods and tells her to take the uniform to a little room to the side and change.
When she steps out, she doesn't feel like a little girl whose parents tell her what to do and make her wear dresses and hair ribbons. She doesn't feel like a girl who will one day turn into a woman who wants to get married and have babies and let her husband smack her around because it's his right as a married man. But she doesn't feel like she's pretending to be a boy, either; she still feels like a girl, but a girl who gets to decide what that means. A girl who will be able to beat up anyone who tries to tell her different.
For the first time, she thinks being a girl might not be terrible. It's a dumb think to think just because of a uniform and a new name, but she can't shake the feeling.
She leaves Madeline behind in the change room, with the dress and the ribbon and the shoes that pinch her feet. When the lady nods and tells her to follow, it's Lyme who bounces after her.