Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games)

by Suzanne Collins

The upside of being born on reaping day is that you can sleep late on your birthday. It’s pretty much downhill from there.

I’m hoping to finish my work before the ceremony so I can devote the afternoon to the two things I love best — wasting time and being with my girl, Lenore Dove.

“Haymitch!” wails Sid. “The sun’s coming up!” “All right, all right. I’m up, too.” I roll straight off the mattress onto the floor and pull on a pair of shorts made from a government-issued flour sack. The words courtesy of the capitol end up stamped across my butt. My ma wastes nothing.

Out back, my ma’s already stirring a steaming kettle of clothes with a stick, her muscles straining as she flips a pair of miner’s overalls. She’s only thirty-five, but life’s sorrows have already cut lines into her face, like they do.

Fiftieth Hunger Games

The second Quarter Quell. Twice as many kids. No point in worrying, I tell myself, there’s nothing you can do about it. Like two Hunger Games in one. No way to control the outcome of the reaping or what follows it. So don’t feed the nightmares.

Don’t let yourself panic. Don’t give the Capitol that. They’ve taken enough already.

“Happy birthday, Haymitch. I figure if you’re old enough to make it, you’re old enough to drink it.” I have to agree and, though I’m not a drinker myself, I’m glad to get the bottle.

her voice as soft and haunting as moonlight. They hang the man and flog the woman Who steals the goose from off the common, Yet let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose.

A few of the geese hiss to announce my arrival. Lenore Dove’s was the first face they saw when they hatched, and they don’t love anyone but her. But since I’ve got corn, they’ll tolerate me today.

Lenore Dove frowns. “Well, there’s no proof that will happen. You can’t count on things happening tomorrow just because they happened in the past. It’s faulty logic.” “Is it?” I say. “Because it’s kind of how people plan out their lives.” “And that’s part of our trouble. Thinking things are inevitable. Not believing change is possible.”

“Can you imagine it rising on a world without a reaping?” “Not on my birthday. I’ve never had one that came without a reaping.”

shaped like a C. My fingers naturally grip the curved back as I examine the colorful animals facing off at the opening. The head of a snake hisses at the beak of a long-necked bird.

flatten out my hand and see that their enameled scales and feathers travel around the piece until they merge and become indistinguishable.

I run my finger over the fine metalwork of the feathered neck. “I wouldn’t want to ruin it.” “You won’t. That’s what it’s made for.” She touches the snake’s head, then the bird’s, in turn. “It takes a lot to break these two. They’re survivors.”

He never paid me much mind until Lenore Dove and I got serious. Since then, nothing I do seems right. I once told Lenore Dove I thought he just hated love. That’s when she revealed that he’d been together some thirty years with the fellow in town who replaces busted windows. They have to keep it quiet because loving differently can get you harassed by the Peacekeepers, fired from jobs, arrested even. Given his own challenges, you’d think Clerk Carmine would be a champion of our love — I’m certainly supportive of his — but I guess he thinks Lenore Dove could do better.

Fifty-some years ago, the districts rose up against our Capitol’s oppression, kicking off a bloody civil war in Panem. We lost, and in punishment every July 4th, each of the districts routinely has to send two tributes, one girl and one boy between the ages of twelve and eighteen, to fight to the death in an arena. The last kid standing gets crowned as the victor.

The mayor tries for a neutral tone, but her voice leaks disapproval in a way that guarantees she’ll be replaced soon. The decent mayors always are.

For the first time, I understand that when they show the reaping live, it isn’t really live. There must be a five-minute hold on the broadcast in case something like this happens.

Everything’s all wrong. Minutes ago, I dodged this bullet. I was headed home, then to the woods, safe for another year.

“Take this.” I empty the contents of my pockets into their hands, money and peanuts into Ma’s, knife and the white sack of gumdrops into Sid’s. Bequeathing them the remains of my life in 12.

I kneel in front of my little brother and hold out my sleeve like I did when he was tiny, so he can wipe his nose on it. “You’re the man of the house now. If you were some other kid, I’d be worried, but I know you can handle it.” Sid starts to shake his head. “You’re twice as smart as me and ten times as brave. You can do this. Okay?

That’s when I see Lenore Dove. She’s up on a ridge, her red dress plastered to her body, one hand clutching the bag of gumdrops. As the train passes, she tilts her head back and wails her loss and rage into the wind. And even though it guts me, even though I smash my fists into the glass until they bruise, I’m grateful for her final gift. That she’s denied Plutarch the chance to broadcast our farewell. The moment our hearts shattered? It belongs to us.

The lingering raindrops on the window make me think about the cistern, and how I ran off to see Lenore Dove instead of going home to fill it. I don’t regret that precious final rendezvous with my love, but I wish I could’ve left Sid and Ma with a full tank, not just the few gallons the rain barrel might provide. Not that I think Ma will be able to do laundry this week. Or, I don’t know, maybe she will. She didn’t miss a beat when Pa died. Just made a giant pot of bean and ham hock soup, the way we do in the Seam when someone dies, and got back to work.

I don’t know what to make of this Plutarch. I hate him for forcing Ma and Sid to playact for the cameras. But he did let me hug them when Drusilla said I couldn’t. And he probably saved Lenore Dove’s life by asking to keep her for the tearful good-bye. He’s as unpredictable as lightning. Might be worth staying on his good side.

My reaping was irregular, maybe even illegal. But the number of people in the Capitol to whom I could plead my case is exactly zero. I’m nothing but an amusing tale for Drusilla to tell between the caviar and the cream puffs.

NO PEACE, NO PROSPERITY! NO HUNGER GAMES, NO PEACE! It’s the same campaign they used on our square back in District 12, but with slogans geared to the Capitol residents. Seems the Capitol has to convince its own citizens, too.

Clerk Carmine said a job’s a job, and music can be a bridge to better understanding between people because most everybody loves a good tune. Lenore Dove said most everybody loves breathing, too, and where did that get us? Some loves don’t signify.

I’m not sure what I’d have done yesterday if the roles had been reversed. I’d have wanted to follow Lenore Dove, maybe stowed away on the train and helped her escape or died trying. Or at least burned the Peacekeepers’ base to the ground. But in reality, whatever plans I might have concocted would’ve been kept in check by the thought of Ma and Sid trying to get by without me. I’d probably just have gone quietly insane. It’s different for her. No one depends on Lenore Dove for their livelihood. She can run as wild as the wind.

I see the sparks, feel the axles shredding, and lunge for Louella, hoping to brace her. She’s reaching for me just as the wheel collapses and we’re catapulted into the air. Next thing I know, I’m lying on the ground, my hand in a puddle of blood as the lights of the Capitol flash like fireflies above me. This is better, I tell myself. Better than dying in the arena. Better than weasels and starvation and swords. I’m embracing that when I realize the blood isn’t mine. That fate isn’t mine. And the tribute who’s escaped the arena is Louella.

Louella looks so tiny, so still in the chaos around us. A fine job I did protecting her. Dead before we even made it to the arena. Who will sing your songs now, Louella?

“Louella?” I say as I kneel over her. Knowing it’s useless, I attempt to rouse her, try to find her pulse, but she has flown her body. Her vacant eyes confirm this as I slide the lids closed.

Maysilee pulls off one of her necklaces, a heavy strand of beads woven into purple and yellow flowers. “I was going to give her this. For her token. So she’d have something from home.” She kneels down, and I lift Louella’s crushed skull while she places the beads around her neck. Fresh blood seeps into my hand. “Thanks,” I say. “She likes flowers.” I can’t speak of her in the past, not while she’s warm and close.

I lost my cheesy imitation coal miner hat in the accident and, rid of the headgear, our outfits become merely neutral, black and forgettable. Our tokens catch the eye — Louella’s bright beaded necklace, my exquisite flint striker. For the first time, in the gorgeous rig, with our fine ornaments, we look like tributes of consequence. Not long shots. Or at least long shots you might consider sponsoring. A shame one of us is dead.

I look up and freeze, too intimidated to breathe. President Snow. Not on a screen, but in the flesh. The most powerful and, therefore, the most brutal person in Panem.

You are on a high horse, mister. And someday someone will knock you off it straight into your grave.

I dismount the chariot and lay Louella down, taking a step back so Snow can’t pretend he doesn’t see her broken little bird body. Then I gesture to him and begin to applaud, giving credit where credit is due.

“Boy, that was mean, even by my standards,” Maysilee says to me. “You can’t choose your parents.” “You could reject their business,” I point out. “I couldn’t,” says Maysilee. “I was going to spend the rest of my life behind that candy counter, no matter how much I hated it. And I’m guessing you’d have been wearing miner’s overalls to your grave. We never, none of us, had any choices.”

How can a girl who left the arena without a scratch teach me how to protect myself? How can a girl who has fought no one, killed no one, mentored no one, mentor me? She can’t, that’s all.

I don’t cry much in general. Only when people die, and then I cry hard and fast and ugly, which is what I do now.

“I want all that, too. What you just said. But if I could, I’d also like to . . .” I glance at the camera in the corner. How do I say it when the Capitol might be watching? That I want to make the Capitol own what they’re doing to us? “I want to remind people I’m here because the Capitol won the war and thinks that, fifty years later, this is a fair way to punish the districts. But I’d like them to consider that fifty years is enough.”

“What’s most important?” asks Wyatt. Wiress breaks into a strange little song: First avoid the slaughter, Get weapons, look for water. Find food and where to sleep, Fire and friends can keep. “I made that up for myself. Most important to least. So I would have a plan in the arena.

“We could’ve taken them.” The more I think it over, the more my dismay grows. Every year we let them herd us into their killing machine. Every year they pay no price for the slaughter. They just throw a big party and box up our bodies like presents for our families to open back home. “We could’ve at least done some damage,” I tell Ringina. “At least a little. Possibly a considerable amount,” someone says behind me. I turn to see Plutarch. He waves his camera crew over to record the knife training, but his attention stays on me. “The question is, why didn’t you?”

A cold dread washes over me as the puzzle pieces come together. Ampert is neither a lunatic nor a liar. His father has accompanied him to the Capitol because he’s a victor. And therefore a mentor, assigned to coach his own child to his death in the Fiftieth Hunger Games.

“I wish you were my sister,” he says simply. A funny look crosses her face. Bet she’s never heard those words before. I wait for a cutting remark, but she only says, “I’ll be your sister.”

Her brow wrinkles. “His father?” “It really is his pa,” I tell her. “Remember Beetee, the victor from District Three? Got out of line. They’re punishing him by making him mentor Ampert.” “That’s a special kind of vicious. Would you want your family to be here?” “I can’t think of anything worse.”

A fragile collection of muscles and bones, a few quarts of blood, wrapped up in a paper-thin package of skin. That’s all I am. As I pass through the doors of this marble fortress, I have never felt more breakable.

A servant in a starched apron runs a feather duster over a naked statue. She catches my eye, her lips parting in pity. Her tongue’s missing. She’s an Avox, one of the mutilated prisoners forced to wordlessly serve the Capitol for life.

I’m left alone with a retching Snow. It’s scary watching him possibly die. It’s even scarier that I can resist helping him. Before the reaping, I bet I would have been right in there. Louella’s death changed me. Maybe I’ll end up being victor material after all.

The arrival of Lou Lou has steamrolled the boost we got from joining the Newcomers. A couple of hours ago we had a clear direction, but Snow’s gift has reminded us of our frailty and the futility of opposing him.