CHAPTER THREE: Moxie Tyler

I didn't see the point of celebrating after the Reaping. I had made my promises to Miss Vetta and I meant to keep them, and most folks celebrate after their kids are saved. I think I get it why they do, but I couldn't shake the sight of the Mr. and Mrs. McKay saying their final farewells to not one kid but two. Bess was holding my hand so tight I thought it was about to fall off. After the Anthem, we got dismissed. I made up my mind to look and find Sissy and Elka, and then go straight to Miss Vetta's. Some folks were already celebrating after the Anthem. I heard one girl saying "Better two from the same family than one from two different families." I thought she was a cruel witch to say that, but I think it was because I felt like there was something really awful sending a brother and sister into the Games together. It's not like you plucked up and volunteered for one of them though, my conscience dropped on me a weight in my stomach like a pile o' stones. Each time I tried to swallow another little stone would fall down the insides of my throat and collect. Pretty soon I was just walking around with a collection of stones in my stomach. When we got to Miss Vetta's, I couldn't eat. I took a plate of lemon drop cookies like she offered and a nice glass of warm milk, but the milk was cool before I even thought about drinking any, and the cookies weren't going to e eaten, so I gave my portion over to Elka, who was very glad to have hers and mine.

I got myself stuck on watching Elka eating there as happy as if it was her birthday and chatting with Miss Vetta about whatever. They were talking small about things folks wore and the strangeness of the Capitol man's accent, his trousers and his strange made up face, and more things like that. I shouldn't have felt like hitting her, maybe – and good thing I didn't – but that kind of talk seemed not right for today, not after we'd all allowed two more of our kin go to certain death. When she came around to the Reaping I finally clamped a hand over her mouth, making her squeal and fuss, but I kept it up there till she went quiet again. Miss Vetta wasn't impressed and I think I shocked Bess and Sissy too, but I didn't want to hear about the Reaping all over again. It was bad enough we had to watch it later on the T.V.

"Moxie?" Miss Vetta was going to ask me something and I didn't want to answer much so I didn't look her in the eye like I usually do. "Moxie Tyler, what is the meaning of this?" She goes on to ask me anyway. I shrug my shoulders and tuck my feet in under the chair. "Moxie Tyler, I asked you a question." Miss Vetta keeps on pestering me.

Bess tries to come to my rescue. "It's alright Miss Vetta. Moxie wasn't watching half the time on account of being careful about me. This one was my first and all. Moxie was only trying to…" but I didn't let her finish before kicking her under the table. Bess yelped and shut her mouth. Miss Vetta was up in a flash, pulling my chair out from the table and looking me square in the face. I just pluck up the courage to look her straight back in the face.

"Moxie Tyler, you will not behave like this under my roof, you hear?" I clenched my jaw and gave her one nod. "Why did you jus' kick your sister?" I don't give her anything. "Moxie Tyler I asked you a question and I'm not going to ask you again." Good, I think. I wasn't going to answer it the first time. I swallow and another few stones fall down into the pit of my stomach. Miss Vetta keeps on staring at me all fierce-like, and I keep on staring back at her. Right then, Miss Vetta's is the last place in the world I want to be. I don't know where else I'm going to go, but I don't want to be here, not with my sisters around me. I keep swallowing stones and holding back something I can't really describe, but it's something that's welling up inside of me, and all of a sudden I get this urge to hit Miss Vetta. Really, I don't want to hit her, but something wicked in me wants me to. I clench my jaw harder, and she keeps on staring me down, but it's for no good. I can't say for how long this goes on but we finally get interrupted when the back door opens and little Striker comes bounding in. Miss Vetta's face changes, but her eyes are still hard-locked. She peels first, and I think like I won this one. What's there to win?

Dad's brought with 'm a boxed cake for Bess's birthday, and when I blink again, I see it's getting' darker outside. Striker and Lenox are boxing with each other in Miss Vetta's receiving room, in the storefront and we hear them right before we hear some tinkling of bottles and a small crash. Miss Vetta went off to figure out what's going on, and I can see I put her in a bad mood. Things were just happening in me I don't understand, and when I conclude I put her in that mood, I smile, even though it's not what I meant to do. Bess don't seem too comfortable and she squirms a bit in her chair, which calls my attention, and I make some pretty awful faces at her. I see she's got tears clinging to the corners of her eyes and that only makes me want to make worse faces at her, which I do. Why do I do that? I think as she starts to sniffle and one tear actually falls down her cheek. Dad doesn't notice, I guess, because it's Miss Vetta who comes in and sees Bess getting upset, and it's Miss Vetta who gets her up from the table and takes her upstairs.

Dad takes Bess's seat but not for long. There's a single knock on the door, then some quiet, then three more quick little knocks, and in a flash Dad is up and opening the door just a crack. Someone's pushing a few paper bags in through the door, whispering low so that I can't hear what they're saying but Dad is saying things back to them. It's all over in a minute and Dad carries the four paper bags to Miss Vetta's countertop and starts doing something with them. I can smell meat as he pulls things out of the first bag, and then some vegetables as he pulls things out of the second bag. Now he's pulling down a pot from Miss Vetta's wall, fishing for a knife and a board to cut on, and then he unwraps the meat. "Moxie, come on over here and help me pluck this bird, will you." I kick the floor and get up to go over to him. Daddy isn't Miss Vetta in this moment, so I'm going to listen to him and do what he's asking. Who does Miss Vetta think she is to me anyway? She's jus' a midwife! She isn't Momma. She doesn't a stand in for Momma either! If it was me and Striker, or if it was me and Lenox up there on the steps of the town hall getting called into the Games, Miss Vetta wouldn't be there like the Mr. and Mrs. McKay were. But Dad… he'd be there to say goodbye to us for the last time.

Lenox comes bounding through the kitchen and runs into the back of my legs just as I'm pulling the first feather out of the grouse. He banged my knees up against the rough cabinet so hard, I yelp. It startles Sissy and Elka, and maybe Dad is startled a bit too because he stops plucking for a second. It all comes boiling up out of me, then, and I grab a handful of Lenox's hair and yank him back a step as hard as I can. "Lenox! That really hurt you stupid!" Miss Vetta coaxes him away from me, but the damage is done and I throw down the grouse and make for the door. Someone's hands try to catch me, but they can't, and soon I'm through the door and out in the Town in the falling dark.

I know exactly where I'm going. But it feels like I'm trying to run from something I can't run from. The stone pile in my stomach keeps on weighing me down and making things harder for me. I've got to work twice as hard to move anywhere, but I'm a fighter, and I fight the heaviness with everything I got.

The way the Town is all laid out, you can't really get yourself lost unless you are trying. I only know it from having to come to Reapings and coming to school, and coming to see Miss Vetta when we need something. The road from the Compound leads to the main road into the Town, and it goes right on up to the Mayor's House, which is a shabby building if you look at it too long. It's painted all grey and the shingles on the windows are a grey-blue, so there's nothing much to look at. Just after the Mayor's House, the road opens up into the town square and rolls right on up to the foot of the steps to the town hall. The town hall was repaired a few times when I was a little girl, and it looks fancy tonight because it has to; the Capitol might only care about us once a year, but their type of caring is better than ours. The square looks like it ought to be made out of the same dirt as the rest of the road from the Compound, but actually it's the dust we all track in from our other places that makes it look that way. Really, the square is made of red bricks that are hard under foot and blazing hot in the summer when it isn't raining for weeks on end. Some of the shops around the square are dusty too because the wind doesn't stay too still around here, especially when we've all been kicking up the dust to help it. There are a couple of shops around, but Miss Vetta's isn't one of them. Nah, Miss Vetta's shop is on the other side of the ring around the square. These shops are blocking hers from view. So the outer ring around the square consists of some of the shops that border the schoolyard. That's where Miss Vetta's shop comes in. Hers is right on the schoolyard. The school is fenced in, not with that awful electric fence around the District, but it's got the same twisted prickly wire around on the top. We know it's prickly because Okie Bulmer, a kid from my grade, was dared to climb the fence and touch it, and he did, and it wasn't good for him. Sliced his finger so that the blood was coming down and he had to rip some of his shirt to cinch it so that it would stop bleeding. I remember taking him over to Miss Vetta's after school to get it better looked at, but that's not something Miss Vetta usually does because it's a minor thing. She does the major things, like birthing. So when I leave Miss Vetta's, I run right into the schoolyard and have to find my way out. I used her back door because the front one is locked. Nobody's open to business on Reaping Day.

The school is a kind of hateful-looking building. It is red brick, like the square underneath the dirt. Some of the sides look eaten away like stale bread after the mice give up on it, and that's because of the poison rain that falls around here. Least it's a building made of brick and not wood. Those wood buildings are on the other side of the schoolyard and the poison rain did worse on them: they look all chewed up. Folks have died in those houses and shacks. What they need is a turf roof to absorb the bad acid in the rain and filter the good things… at least I think that's how it goes. Trouble with them over there is that they've got a real pock-marked piece of land to be living on: Okie Bulmer lived over there and he says they used to use it like an oil field, so sometimes they see fire come up out of the holes left in the ground, and it's like those scary stories older folks try to tell you at night about wicked spirits that want to come up from the underground and do horrible things to children. I seen the holes once, and I'm like to believe them older folks' stories now, once I seen for myself. Can't be anything but wickedness coming up from that underground I reckon.

On the far side o' the schoolyard there's a gate. We kids kicked that gate in so much that it's come unhinged and there's nobody who is going to fix it anytime soon, so it's a good place for me to get out of here. I think it puts me in the part of the Town where they sell meats and things from the Ranches… not that anybody from the Ranches comes to the Town for anything. Folks go from the Town to the Ranches to give things to them ranching folk, and it's only on invitation too. I went once with Miss Vetta and I don't ever want to go back to those Ranches. They're hateful places too. I guess I don't entirely mean that. The buildings are the nicest in 10, but the Ranch-hands looked at us so reproachfully, and the cowboys stayed a good distance from us like we were something untouchable... in a bad way. Mostly, I think they're hateful because they're all wealthy folks who've got the money to make themselves look like they're better than us. If that's their aim, they've hit the bullseye. I want to spit every time we have to pass the Ranches. They got mean dogs there too, one's likely more to kill you dead than lick your hand. Ranching kids go to the Reaping Day just like everyone else's kids do, so in the end I guess we're all the same to the Capitol. The biggest difference is that Ranch kids are never picked. I reach the weak link in the fence and kick through the unhinged gate to get out. It feels good kicking something. I do it again, then again, then again and again and again. I'm upsetting those stones inside my stomach. I can feel them clashing together and pinching me from the insides. I keep on kicking that gate though, mostly because it feels good to beat something up, but also because I'm not sure what I'm going to do if I stop. I feel a bit like the gate, I guess, pinched, tired and maybe also somewhat unhinged. When my toe starts to hurt, I kick the gate harder until it doesn't hurt anymore. The pinching inside me keeps on growing, though, and I must've kicked the fence hard enough to make those stones jumpy. One or two gets all lodged up in my throat, and suddenly I'm choking. I double over and land on my knees as I'm trying to clear the stones out of my throat. Only I know now that they aren't really stones; they're something else. I can't get them to go down, and they're pinching my throat awfully. I can't scream either, I've just got to feel them pinching my insides until my eyes well up and I start crying hot, poisonous tears. Someone grips me from behind, but I'm too weak to fight 'm so I let 'm wrap great strong arms 'round me and pull me into their generous chest. It's someone soft and warm. Someone whose heart is pounding against their body like a prisoner trying to get out. I listen and it calms me down, I guess. The stones settle back into the pit o' my stomach, and I sniffle just a little.

Miss Vetta still has me wrapped in her arms when we get back into her kitchen. Sissy and Elka have been plucking the grouse after I stormed out, and when we come back in, Lenox and Striker start staring at me. Miss Vetta sits me down and wipes my face dry. When she looks into my eyes now, we aren't fighting. I remember her saying to me once, she who forgives first ends the war. I guess I lost. I blink in her gaze and she wipes away the rogue tear that tries to fall when I done it. It's Bess who breaks our silence though. "Moxie! You're bleeding." I look down and see she done got it right. There's a little trail of blood from wherever my kicking foot has been on that floor. Lenox is looking at it with some kind of look in his eyes, and I can't tell if it's something he's scared of or something else. I'm like to think it's the something else, and I don't know why but it chills me. When he looks up at me looking at him, a little smile ripples across his face. It's gone pretty quick, but I guess he's amused at blood.

Bess and Miss Vetta get my shoe off and then Miss Vetta tears my sock into strips, pours boiling water on them and cleans them up while Bess asks me if it hurts. I didn't think about it hurting until now when I see the unnatural angle of my is so tied up in carin' about me, I feel downright awful now that I kicked her before. Another rogue tear comes to my eye and I brush it away. "Hey Bess," I say, interrupting her. "Bess. Stop, fussing. Stop it now!" I say more firmly. She listens, looking up into my eyes. "Come 'ere." She comes to my side. I take her hand in mine, just how we were at the Reaping, and I give it a gentle squeeze. She squeezes back and I think I see her twinkle in the eye a little. Maybe I'm a wicked spirit. Maybe she's jus' downright good all over. Whatever it is between us, we got on well, and this was the one time today when I've ever done anything that I can recall that might have hurt her. I mean, I can be wicked in telling her stories that she doesn't like to hear, yes, and I have been wicked in other ways with her, but I think she always forgives me for being myself. But today, kicking her was about the meanest thing I can think of that I've ever done to her. I can't tell her I love her even though that's what I want to say. Nobody 'round this place knows how to say something like that. I don't know. Does anybody?

"Moxie?" Bess asks. "Does it hurt?" Now as I think about it, I guess it does. I nod to her, and she does something I wasn't expecting. She kisses me on the cheek jus' like that, and squeezes my hand. "There. Better." I'm fighting to get those words out of me.

"Bess," I begin, but then the T.V. whirrs and flickers on. It's time for the replay of the Reaping Day. I feel like the Capitol is butting into my life at all the important moments, like this one, trying to remind me that I am not the owner of my own life. I'm not the owner of my life. I'm not the owner.

While we're lying in the bed together, I try again with Bess. I nudge her lightly. "Bess?" I think I hear her groan, so I fight to get the words out. "Bess, I love you." There's nothing from her. "Bess, you hear me?" Still nothing. I lean up and over her, and then heave a sigh. Of course, my sweet sister is asleep.