CHAPTER TWO: Velvetta Cordwip

Every Reaping Day is a reminder of that first Reaping Day. The one when it began. After the Rebellion was ended, they – the Capitol – said they were going to reward us with our lives, but that we'd be paying a price for the rebellion some time real soon. When and how were details they weren't willing to give us, but all they said was it would be really soon. So we all went back to our lives like they were before the rebellion... those of us that could, ofcourse, and I know'd some that couldn't. Some of those that just couldn't accept their defeat – our defeat – well, they just rose up in arms again. That's when the Capitol thought it'd be a good idea to have officials in the Districts, and along came the Peacekeepers. A lot happened in those times, and not much of it is worth remembering. It's been 19 years now since that first Reaping Day, but I remember it like it was a day ago. Especially when I see those Tyler girls all dressed up and holding onto their courage. I'm not a young woman these days, but I was a young one on that first Reaping Day. I remember the announcement: we have to meet out in the town square and be dressed like how we want the whole of Panem to see us. Of course not everyone took that to mean dressed up, but I fussed over my hair and my dress something shameful, not that it amounted to anything, not in the end.

Iffy helped me fuss but she didn't do too much fussing herself. She was my sister, and she was one of them gals given natural prettiness. She was gold-skinned like me and had pretty sapphire eyes – a mighty fine work of art - and had all those cowboys and some of those cow-men too fussing over her when they got the chance – and she could put on just about anything and look just fine. She was a bit of what we folks might call a Cassandra; in her head she'd see things sort of how they might happen in the future. She caused all sorts of trouble when she'd say something in warning, so people with some sense would stay distant from her. Some folks made her out to be a witch and I don't know but that was about the worst for her. Anyways, she didn't do much fussing for herself that first day, and she tried to tell me it was something not worth fussing over. But I only heard that we were going to be on television for all of Panem, and I wanted to look mighty sweet for those funny Capitol folks. I think back on it now, so soon after them Tyler girls left from here, and I got the feeling for being all ashamed of myself. But the thing is we didn't know what was going to happen. Iffy's real name was Iffigenia, but I'd go around lying and saying momma was planning on us all being called after fabrics so I was after velvet and Iffy was after chiffon. I know dear Iffy's someplace better now.

Those folks who couldn't accept our defeat, well the Peacekeepers got orders to round them up in each District and to keep them watched over until the day. Then the announcement went out and it went to them too. I remember walking into the Town and the town square for the first time and seeing the T.V. screens all set up around the Town Hall. Some Capitol folks came too, and their train was in the old station. It got bombed when the Capitol was declaring its victory, but overnight – I guess I mean that literally – it was rebuilt and there was that shiny train in at the station. It made you feel like something really great was going to happen. Then we saw the rebels from District 10 standing out in front of the town hall, black bags over their heads and all, and suddenly that shiny new station and its Capitol-sent train, they got all scary. The announcement got made for us that we needed to go through a procedure: we were going to have our fingerprints taken, but not in ink. They were going to be in blood. They come 'round and prick our index finger, squeeze out a drop of blood onto a paper, then roll our finger on it to take the print. It was called the registration, and now, every time there was a meeting like this one we'd be registered again. Iffy sighed, but I shivered.

Why'd we do it? Why'd we listen to the Capitol and go to that town square? I wasn't the type to fight, so I didn't, but looking back – and I still am not the fighting type… at least not against the Capitol – I see why some of them did. There we were in the town square, and suddenly the screens go on and start playing a video made by the Capitol about our history of violence and the grace of the Capitol to preserve our lives, but of course it was at a price, and then we heard what that price was going to be. Because each District had gone up in rebellion and been defeated, each District was going to pay the same price – in blood. Each year, beginning with this one, there was going to be a ceremony called the Reaping Day, and it was going to be about Reaping from among us two children from ages 11-17 to be what they were calling Tributes for a spectacle to honor the rebellion and salvation by the Capitol. One girl and one boy from each District would be selected as Tribute. The rules went on to say that if a Tribute was selected and for whatever reason someone else wanted to stand in their place, they could volunteer to be a Tribute once they were invited to do so. What was the spectacle to commemorate our past? Well, in a manufactured arena in a secret place, the twenty-four Tributes would be placed against each other to fight until only one was left. The single remaining Tribute would be called the Victor and he or she would win immunity from any further spectacle, as well as a lifetime of comfort provided by the Capitol and monthly allowance of food for his or her family. This spectacle would be called, henceforth, the Hunger Games.

Oh! It chills me even to think the name! All these nineteen years there's been nineteen Victors from nineteen Games. Nineteen Reaping Days to remind me of that first one. It never ceases to be a chilling affair. We all was going to have a part in these Hunger Games, the announcement went on. Each of us was going to have to watch the recaps of the Hunger Games from their beginning to their end on each day of the Hunger Games. These Games were going to be filmed in the arena and some folks – Capitol folks, in other words – would get to watch them as they were happening, but we folk would watch them at night when they were going to be recapped. No one really understood what that meant… none of us really understood what any of this malarkey meant. It sounded all pretty bad, but we wasn't sure what it was going to feel like – except, I suspect, for Iffy. She was all sighs that first day. Then we was made to listen to the Anthem, and when that got done, the announcer said a little more about how our debt was one we'd keep on paying each year, our freedom was not bought cheaply and our transgressions against humanity and the Capitol, well they were going to be atoned for by blood. And soon as he shut up, those Peacekeepers pulled out their guns and shot to death all the hooded rebels on the steps of the town hall. It was just silent after that. The Peacekeepers took their time piling up the dead corpses off to the side, then roughly hosing down the steps till they were clean again. Nobody moved as they brought out two enormous glass bowls with paper slips in them and put them on two matching pedestals on either side of the steps of the town hall. The announcer stepped forward and waved his hand around the first bowl. "This one contains the names of all the girls of District 10 who are between 11 and 17 years old," he said. Then he goes over to the other bowl and says it again, only 'bout the boys. Then he goes to the center again and says in his Capitol accent, "Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

He put his hand in the first bowl and pulled out a slip of paper, which he then read and it was not someone I recognized, but a girl proudly – maybe – stepped forward to the steps when he told her to. All we see is a child heading for the heavily armed Peacekeepers. The announcer asks for volunteers, but no one knows what to do. Iffy just sighs. She and me, we were too old for the Games but that didn't stop her from sighing like she knew something about them. Then he repeats for the boys and asks for volunteers, but no one goes, so we have two children now made into these things called Tributes. And once the Anthem plays and the doors to the town hall open and swallow them children up, we never see them again in the flesh.

I am not a faith woman, but I'm praying I see those Tyler girls again, and that's the truth. I don't go to the Reapings anymore. We're all going to have to watch them tonight anyway, so what's the use? I can't stop thinking about how Iffy's sighs had some sort of meaning behind them that I didn't know then and I reckon I still don't know today.

I remember the time the Tyler family split in two. It was Mason Tyler who done it. His twelfth year saw him into the Games, and I remember that because he was going in just after Atoka Menzies won. We'd never had a Tyler into the Games before that. Mason was a young one for sure. He didn't think so though. There were two Masons in the Town back then: one a Tyler, one a Chisholm, born in the same year. I pulled them out myself. Now as I think 'bout it, twelve is as old as Moxie Tyler is. I'm chilled to the bone marrow now thinking about her. I want to go to the window and see if I can see them out there, but it's no use. If they're still there, I'll be happy, but if they aren't….

Yes, I pretty much remember all them Reaping Days right up to and not past the Ninth Hunger Games, which was ten years ago today. The Ninth was hard to forget: they pulled out Oliver and Aspen Munro for District 10. Oliver was 16, and his sister Aspen was only just 11. Far as I could tell, they didn't get along very well. But we were all soft-hearted after Atoka Menzies and Denton took care of each other. We weren't ready for the Munros. I don't want to think about the Reapings anymore. I'm just going to keep my thoughts to myself now and wait on all four of those Tyler girls to come on back here to Miss Velvetta Cordwip.