Makari feels stupid for hoping that school would be an escape from the topic of the Hunger Games, but it's all anyone is talking about. The teachers have tried to ban the topic, but there are no grounds to inflict punishment. You can't put kids in detention for talking about something.
The library has been filled by students the past couple of months, combing through magazines and watching old tapes of past Hunger Games. Apparently, the sponsor system didn't exist in the first decade. After that, only two people won without help from sponsors. The second person won forty years ago. People don't have a lot of hope. It's wise to be prepared in case your name is picked, but it seems to be teetering on the edge of mass hysteria.
As Makari shoves his way through the student body, all he can hear in their conversations is the Hunger Games.
"I wish they'd give it a rest. There are only so many times I can hear about how the sponsor system started."
He gives a death glare to a girl who accidentally elbows him in the chest. Most of these kids are oblivious to their surroundings and move slowly like big fish in a gentle stream.
Patten shrugs. "To be honest, I get it. They want to feel like they're on top of things and have a fighting chance. They don't want to be scared."
"You don't think we have a fighting chance?"
"I didn't say that, but having the information probably makes them feel better."
Makari shrugs. He blows the loose hair out of his eyes. The sound of everyone buzzing about the Hunger Games is sending his brain into overdrive, and he can't think clearly.
"Yeah, that's probably true."
Patten smirks.
"It is true."
They reach the entrance door and spill out into the open space of the front courtyard. Dozens of people split off in every direction, reminding Makari of ants when they leave their little hill. A few parents are standing around in bunches, probably with kids in the first year. He remembers his father doing that when he was younger. It only takes a few months for them to get sick of the journey to the school.
He and Patten are halfway to the paved path when someone shouts Patten's name. Eila Groves jogs up from behind them, bag slapping against her back. Her group of friends keeps to themselves, though Yulli Park got some attention for his role as MacBeth in the school play last year. She's pretty well known at school because of her genetic disorder, giving her white streaks through her brown hair. He can't remember what it's called. Maybe Vitiligo? That and because her sister got reaped and died in the seventy-second Hunger Games.
That's the extent of knowledge Makari has of her, and they've never spoken a single word to each other. Patten apparently has.
"Eila! How are ya."
"Yeah, I'm good. Listen, there's a meeting being held in the auditorium tomorrow. Thea Sutton told me to invite you before you left. You're friends?"
Patten lightly blushes. "Um, yeah, we get along well. What's the meeting about?"
"You'll have to come to find out; it's dangerous to talk about in public. But it's really important." She looks at Makari. "You should come too! The more, the merrier."
"I would, but I have to fix my roof."
She frowns slightly and puts her hands on her hips. She does this in class too, when someone debates her answer.
"If you manage to get that roof fixed by tomorrow, please come. It won't hurt to get about outside of your circle."
She turns and leaves.
Makari looks at Patten. "You're going?"
"Yeah, why not?" He says. "Eila barely speaks to us, so it's probably important."
Makari rolls his eyes. "You just want to see Thea Sutton because you have a thing for her."
Patten elbows Makari. "Let's just see what the meeting is about, alright? Come with me."
Makari begrudgingly agrees to attend the meeting. It might be a waste of time, but at least he'll get out for socializing. His parents will be happy to hear that. They leave the schoolyard and begin their journey to the settlements. Patten goes on about the Geography teacher, Mr. Murphy, and the unfair workload he sends his students home with.
"There's not much land to learn about when most of it is wilderness. We're the only civilization left." He says.
"That's what they tell us." Makari retorts. Patten ignores him and keeps complaining.
His sisters are standing at their school gates, waiting for Makari when he and Patten arrive.
"Makari!" They shout. He holds out his arms as they come running to him, and they hug him tightly. It looks like the plait his mother spent ten minutes doing in Ada's hair this morning has come undone, and an attempt has been made to redo it. He suppresses a smile when he sees the loose and stringy braid but keeps his mouth shut. The effort was there.
"How was school, girls?" Patten asks.
"It was boring!" Rotem says. "They made us learn about all the different types of trees."
"That will come in handy one day when you start working at the camps." Makari says.
"We got to draw different trees on the ground with chalk, though. That was fun."
She launches into a spiel about all the different colors she used and how much better trees would look if they were pink. He debates on whether or not he should make her aware of the existence of cherry blossoms. He decides not to. That would be mean.
Patten keeps a conversation with her going all the way until he splits off to go into his settlement, a very engaging discussion about trees somehow turning into one about horses and the moon. Makari notices how quiet Ada is, but he doesn't bring attention to it. That would be the last thing she'd want. He does let her hold his hand when she reaches out for it. She must've had a bad day.
When they get home, the house is quiet except for his father's hammering from the roof and the old television droning on from the wall. He puts his finger to his lips and leads the girls into the house quietly.
Since the announcement of the Quarter Quell, coverage has been non-stop about the history of the Hunger Games. Why they started, how they evolved, and a million other things that offer nothing of use to those in the districts. Knowledge of how some Victor from District 2 massacred his way through half the field decades ago doesn't put food on the table or buy new shoes for his sisters. All it does is make everyone more terrified.
He realizes that's sort of the point.
His mother is not sleeping. She's in the armchair, whittling away at a piece of wood with a pocket knife. He squints to make out what she's carving, but it looks like a lump of nothing. She insists on watching the recent coverage, though he can't understand why.
"Why is Dad hammering the roof?"
She puffs smoke out of the cigar in her mouth.
"Windy Nosek gave your Pa a sheet of tin. Thought he may as well get it done now."
Makari rolls his eyes, "Is he stupid? He'll hurt back even more."
Ma shrugs. "Go help him then."
"It was my job." He throws his backpack down beside the wall and goes outside. The sky is gradually getting darker, and his father needs to get off the roof before he won't be able to see the way down. He's stayed the night on that roof before.
Makari walks outside and pulls himself onto the elm tree beside the house. He clambers to a branch high enough where he can lower himself onto the roof. His father is kneeling over, grunting from exertion and the pain in his back, but he hammers nails into the sheet of tin.
"Give me the hammer, you'll kill yourself working like this."
Pa straightens up painfully, his free hand on his back, and shakes his head.
"I work long hours at the logging camps, I think I can handle a tin sheet." He hands the hammer to Makari.
They both know the camps got him into this predicament in the first place. Half the district grows up swinging axes daily, but it takes a toll. Pa is one of the unlucky ones. The lumberjacks who begin to break under the strenuous physical work are moved to the main bases, where they pull a lever and turn logs into wood chips. It's why you don't see anyone past forty hacking away at tree trunks.
Pa constantly complains about how boring the wood chippers are, and Makari agrees that they must be. He and Ma still work in the camps (though the ones they're assigned to are close to the villages. Only teenagers out of school or adults without children to worry about are sent across the district).
Ma is still physically strong despite being middle-aged and worn down from labor. You can see it in her shoulders. He's sure if she had the choice, she'd still be a lumberjack. She always seemed to enjoy it back when Makari was a kid. The only reason she isn't on the roof helping Pa is that her knee would give out and send her tumbling off the top of the house.
Makari isn't a traditional lumberjack like his parents. He's wirier than the average 16-year-old, even the girls, and he climbs to the top of the trees to clear nests and the like. He doesn't mind it. It gives him something to fill his weekends. He won't have to worry about deteriorating like his parents' generation.
Makari hammers the tin onto the roof easily. It's a big sheet and sort of heavy, but it doesn't slide off the roof once he gets the first nail in. Getting his father down is the hardest task of the evening, but he manages to ease him to the ground with a lot of caution and strength.
"Let me do things like that from now on, okay?" Makari says to him. Hee pulls him onto the rickety wooden chair that's sat outside since the girls were babies. "You're not gonna be of any use if you can't walk. You can't do stuff like that anymore."
His father puts his head in his hand. "I'm not of any use now."
Makari turns away to hide any anxiety on his face. "Let's get you inside."
Once his father has enough strength, he helps him into the house. If he lays down on the mattress, he won't be able to get up until morning, so Makari puts him on the chair next to the common area window with the pillows. He doesn't say anything, but Makari knows the gratitude is there. If he wasn't grateful, he would've slept on the roof. He looks at his father, resting. He doesn't look much like him; they only share green eyes. People say he's the spitting image of his mother; Long brown hair and brown skin. Apparently, their ancestors inhabited the United States long before the Europeans landed on the shores. That's what the school says, anyway. A lot of people in Seven are descended from the people who lived in the Americas before colonization.
Makari's leaving the common room when she grabs his arm as he passes.
"So, how was school today?"
He rolls his eyes, "They showed us the tapes from the past District 7 victors."
"And what do you think?"
"I think that they think it will help us."
"Surely you learned something."
"I learned you can do all the right things and still die."
Ma sighs and leans back in her chair. "Why can't you be optimistic?"
"I'm realistic."
"That Johanna Mason girl won just a few years ago, and that handsome boy won a few years before her. We're not as helpless as other districts."
"Yeah, after we had a twenty-year losing streak."
"But those other tributes fell for it. I think you overestimate the other districts."
"I think it's dangerous to underestimate them."
She scrunches her nose. "I'm not winning this, am I?"
Makari smirks, "No. You're not."
She goes back to whittling away at the chunk of wood and whistling to herself. In the background, the television plays a program about the history of the sponsorship system. Makari isn't sure why she even has it on, but he doesn't ask; his mother's mind isn't one to be questioned.
"Before I leave, I think Ada had a bad day at school today. Also, I'm going out tomorrow."
"Mhm. I'll talk to her."
He wanders off to bed with a dozen thoughts running through his mind; shoelaces for the girls, dad's back, the roof, that meeting in the school auditorium tomorrow, Ada potentially being bullied. Eila's face keeps swimming in and out of his thoughts. The meeting will probably be a complete waste of his time.
Still, he thinks. It's weird she's reaching outside of her circle, maybe it'll be worth going.
The next morning is sunny but temperate, and the walk back to the school isn't a difficult journey. It's actually sort of lovely with the breeze that wafts through the air. He hopes there aren't many people at the meeting; he doesn't have the patience to deal with his classmates on a Saturday.
He's only set foot inside the school auditorium for assemblies. It's a shoddy building with peeling paint and old wood, though attempts to rejuvenate it have been made. It's large enough that the entire student populace fits inside, albeit tightly, when the annual announcements are made at the beginning of each month.
Aside from then, it's generally empty unless the drama students are practicing for something. Eila's group sits up on the stage in a circle, though there are a few other kids who don't generally hang around them that are part of the circle as well. It isn't a very large group, but there are a good few people sprinkled around.
Eila and Gwatgo Novak are deep in conversation when Makari climbs the steps, but when she sees him, she waves over to him.
"Makari! You came!"
"Guess I fixed the roof in time, hey."
He goes and sits next to Patten and Thea Sutton. Thea smiles at him.
Eila claps her hand. "Okay! So, everyone is here."
She walks a little further into the circle of kids. She looks awkward, and her shoulders are sort of tense. Everyone looks up at her expectedly, waiting for her to start. She waits a moment, something Makari feels she does on purpose for dramatic effect, but eventually begins talking.
"I cut through the station on my way home from the camps, it's quicker that way, and this train pulls into the station. I didn't think much of it, but I hid anyway, just in case a Peacekeeper felt like arresting me for sneaking around. This ramp slams down, and some worker comes down it with a crate.
Suddenly there were these two men there. They were-"
"Did you catch their names?" Vivian Barker asks.
"One's name was Chiron? The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't figure out where I knew him from, does anyone know?"
Everyone shakes their heads vaguely.
"Doesn't matter. Anyway, they were talking about rebellion in other districts. Rebellion."
Eila slowly looks around the circle like she's waiting for a big reaction, but she doesn't get one. No one looks like they know how to react.
"How do we know you're telling the truth?" Gwatgo asks. He crosses his arms in front of him.
"I suppose you can't," she shrugs. "But why would I lie?"
She explains how four districts are in different stages of active rebellion against the Capitol. Districts 3 and 6 are doing minimal damage, Eight has commandeered control of Peacekeeper headquarters, and Eleven supposedly hasn't been heard from in weeks.
Some of the people in the circle start talking about what the districts could be doing to cripple the Capitol, and this snowballs into talking about what District 7 can do to start their own pushback. Kennet Dobrev, whose mother works at the logging factories, begins explaining to everyone in great detail how breaking the machines would work. Makari watches them discuss the details, and the more he hears, the more his patience wears thin. It only lasts a small amount of time before the plans become borderline whimsical and unrealistic. He stands up.
"You're all idiots."
Everyone's heads snap to him. Most of them look shocked, and Kennet starts to say something, but Makari doesn't give him the chance.
"You think it's a coincidence that when the districts start cutting the Capitol from supplies, the Quarter Quell has a rule change exactly within that theme? We cut them off from food and clothes, so they cut off the outer districts, the 'unloyal' ones, from supplies in the arena? They're basically guaranteeing our death."
The others look around uncomfortably, but no one says anything. He takes the opportunity and keeps going.
"One of the careers will win this year. They always get control of the Cornucopia at the start of the games. This twist is the Capitol reminding us of how powerless we are and how we will be murdered by one of their lapdogs. Whoever gets sent into the arena this year will die, and the one to blame isn't even the Capitol. It's us. This twist was chosen to punish us."
Eila stands and shakes her head at him,
"This is exactly the problem! It's not our fault because those bastards do shit like this! It's all a huge game to make sure none of the districts trust each other! That's why the districts are rebelling! Because it's not fair that we get killed for fighting for basic rights!"
Makari breaks out of the circle and starts to walk towards the stairs. He doesn't turn around.
"Well. Now that you've figured that out, I suppose it'll really put whatever plans you have into action. You've really got one on Snow!"
"Come on, Makari. People have to do something. They can't keep sticking us into arenas."
Makari walks down the staircase. "Okay, you do something. But don't involve me again. I have two younger sisters I need to look after."
The door slams shut when he leaves the hall, making him look angrier than he actually is, but he can't bring himself to care.
"What a waste of time." He murmurs.
He spends the rest of the walk home fuming. He can't believe so many people could be so idiotic and optimistic about something like rebellion. The Capitol has had seventy-five years to build systems working against the possibility of something like that, and this group of teenagers thinks they have a chance at overthrowing it. That's the last time he'll be listening to Patten.
The girls are playing outside when he gets home. They ask him to play with them, and he tells them he's had a long day.
"How was the hangout?" His mother asks when he comes through the front door.
"People my age are stupid."
She wears a small, knowing grin on her face. He's not sure why.
"Yes, your generation is foolish. So was mine, and my parents', and their parents', and so and so forth. Try to be more patient; not everyone can be an old man like you."
He gives a small smile.
"Why don't you come and sit next to me and watch the telly."
He looks at the screen, at the replays of last year's Hunger Games.
"I'm alright. I need a nap."