After a while, I slide down the wall, cradling my swollen hands, panting. Pain stabs my chest, and I wonder if a person’s heart can really break. Probably. The word brokenhearted had to come from somewhere. I imagine my heart busted into a dozen glassy red pieces, their hard, jagged edges stabbing into my flesh at every beat. It may not be scientific, but it matches what I feel. Part of me thinks I will die right now, bleeding out on the inside. But it isn’t going to be that simple. Eventually, my breathing slows, and a general despair descends.
I will never see Lenore Dove again. Never hear her laugh coming from high above me in the branches. Never feel the warmth of her in my
arms as we lay on a bed of pine needles, my lips pressed into the hollow of her neck. Never pull a stray goose feather from her hair, or listen to her play
her tune box, or press my finger into the crease that forms between her
eyebrows when she’s puzzling out a thought. Never see her face brighten at a bag of gumdrops or a full moon or the sound of me whispering, “I love you like all-fire.”
It’s all been taken away. My love, my home, my ma, my sweet little brother . . . why did I tell him he’s the man of the house now? That wasn’t fair. It’s too much for someone so young and hopeful to shoulder. My
mamaw on Pa’s side used to say Sid was born looking on the sunny side. I think he’s missed a lot of trouble down here on earth, because he’s always studying the sky. He’s fascinated by the sun, the clouds, the bodies that
come out at night. Tam Amber taught Lenore Dove about the stars, as the Covey used to navigate by them long ago, and she taught Sid. On a clear night, he drags us all outside to see the pictures they make. “There’s the water dipper, just like ours in the bucket. That over there’s the bowhunter. He looks like Burdock, don’t you think? That one’s a swan, but Lenore
Dove says she calls it a goose. And that’s yours, Ma. See the W? That’s yours. W for your name, Willamae, and flipped around it’s an M for Ma!”
And Ma always looks pleased, because when does she get anything nice, let alone something so fine as her own set of stars? It’s all about her giving things to us. I pretended not to see her bring in a chicken last night that I’m sure she planned to fry for my birthday. Probably took on extra
wash to afford it. Will she be able to make ends meet without my wages from Hattie? She will, or she’ll die trying. Ma . . . oh, Ma . . .
Plutarch was right. I did mess up. Big-time. And I will pay for it with my death and with the broken hearts and lives of everyone who loves me.
I stare out at the trees flying by. I always thought if one of us shook free of 12, it would be Lenore Dove. Her people were great travelers once, going from district to district to perform their music. Tam Amber
remembers it, as he was about my age when the war ended and the
Peacekeepers rounded up the Covey, killing all the adults and confining the kids to our district. Nothing Lenore Dove loves better than those stories of the old days, with her kin rattling around in a broken-down pickup. When fuel got scarce, they resorted to hitching it up to a team of horses. By the
time they were herded into 12, the team was pulling an old wagon and most of them were on foot, but they were making it work. Cooking over open fires, rolling into towns, playing in warehouses like the Hob, or fields if
none were available, famous in their way to the locals. I’m sure their life had its trials, but she has such a romantic view of it, I never mention that. Returning to it is impossible, since no one can leave 12, and her uncles would never entertain the idea of hitting the road again. But Lenore Dove’s convinced there must be people outside of Panem, far to the north.
Sometimes she takes to disappearing deep in the woods, and I worry she’s not coming back. Not really, but a little. Guess I can let that go now.
Either we outrun the storm or it outruns 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 remember sitting by the stove, my tears splashing on the floor a few inches from a puddle under a miner’s shirt. In winter, clothes
have to be hung inside to dry. Something’s always dripping.
The train keeps rolling on, putting miles between me and everything I’ve ever known or loved or hoped for. Dreams of one day letting Ma quit the laundry business. Leaning on Sid about his schoolwork so he might get
a coveted aboveground mine job — like keeping books or loading trains — where he could always lay eyes on the sky. And a life with Lenore Dove, loving her, marrying her, raising up our kids, her teaching them music and me doing whatever, digging coal or making white liquor — it wouldn’t
have mattered if she was with me. All gone, all lost.
Woodbine no longer seems reckless since he got to die in 12 and not in some sadistic arena out west like I will. A few years ago, the arena would go darkish without warning, and these giant coal-black weasels would melt right out of the shadows and attack the tributes. I think of those pointy teeth ripping off the face of the girl from District 5 . . .
I should’ve run. Should’ve let the Peacekeepers blow off my head on the square. Plenty of things are worse than a quick, clean death. By now, I might be wrapped in white linen, sleeping with my kin under the Abernathy headstone. We don’t tend to let bodies ripen in the heat.
Several hours pass before a key’s turned in the lock and Plutarch sticks his head in my compartment.
“Feel up to joining the others?”
He says this like I’m recovering from a bellyache, not from being tased and torn from my life. 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.
Besides, I need to check on Louella. I’m all she’s got now. “Sure,” I say.
Plutarch orders the Peacekeepers to uncuff me, then leads me down the rocking hallway of the train to another compartment. Molded plastic seats in an array of neon colors line the sides of the car. I slide in next to Louella, across from Wyatt and Maysilee.
“Anybody hungry?” asks Plutarch. No one replies. “Let me see what’s cooking.” He withdraws, locking the car door.
I nudge Louella with my elbow. “Hey, girl.” I offer her my hand.
Hers slips into mine, icy cold. “Hey, Hay,” she whispers. “Wasn’t fair how they took you.”
For the first time, I consider this. Fair? It sure wasn’t. 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.
“For me or anybody else,” I tell Louella. Her little face is so pinched that before I really think it through, I ask, “So, are you going to be my ally or what, sweetheart?”
She actually smiles. It’s an old joke. When she was five and I was eight, she decided she was my sweetheart and trailed after me, telling
anyone who’d listen. It lasted about a week, then she transferred her
affections to a boy named Buster who gave her a bullfrog. I think her heart would’ve moved on anyway, as you’re probably not too stuck on someone
you have burping contests with, but we’re still good buddies. If I had a little sister her age, I’d want her to be just like Louella, and I’ve harbored the
hope that she’d wait for Sid to grow up before settling on a real sweetheart. Now, of course, her chances of growing up are nil. She’s frozen forever at thirteen.
“I’ll be your ally,” she says. “You and me, we can trust each other.”
You might think this would kick off a general District 12 alliance, but as I consider the other candidates, I’m not sure that’s desirable. I can’t get a read on Wyatt. On the one hand, that blank stare doesn’t suggest a lively mind. On the other, he’s fairly good-sized and I’ve never heard anything bad about him, which is more than I can say for Maysilee. I have no
shortage of information on her, most of it gathered firsthand, and none of it flattering.
Maysilee Donner — where to begin? Right from when we started school, she and Merrilee made an impression on me. Not just because of their town ways, but because my ma had recently lost a set of twins. Two
little girls, tiny things that came too early. She grieved them mightily in her way, scrubbing clothes against her washboard until they shredded, and
while Pa was never one to show his feelings, I heard him bawling when he thought I was asleep. The Donner twins have always held a certain fascination for me, as I wondered what my own sisters might’ve been like.
Not like the Donners, I hope. I guess Merrilee isn’t too bad, except she
tends to go along with everything Maysilee does. And Maysilee’s been too good for the rest of us from day one. Prissing around in her shiny shoes and nail polish, and never without some kind of ornament. How that girl loves jewelry.
I look at her now, staring out the train window, her fingers entwined in the strands of a half dozen necklaces. Some beaded, some braided cord,
some with trinkets hanging off of them, and at least one real gold. While Seam folk might have a treasured ornament or two, nobody has six necklaces. And if they did, they wouldn’t show off by wearing them all at once.
Plutarch slides open the door and steps back to admit a Capitol attendant bearing a tray heaped with sandwiches. Each one’s loaded with a day’s wages of meat — fresh ham or roast beef or chicken cut thin and piled high — and sports a small paper flag of Panem on top. My mouth starts watering and I realize I haven’t eaten since breakfast.
The attendant offers the tray to Louella, who hesitates, overwhelmed by the bounty before her. The McCoys can go weeks without meat, and what they do get generally comes from a tin. The attendant registers her discomfort and adopts a patronizing tone. “Is there a problem, miss?”
Louella reddens — the McCoys don’t lack pride — but before she can answer, Maysilee snaps, “Of course there’s a problem! Do you expect her to eat with her hands? Or don’t you have plates and silverware in the
Capitol?”
Now it’s the attendant’s turn to blush. He stammers out, “They’re just sandwiches. I mean . . . people pick them up.”
“Without even a napkin?” asks Maysilee. “I seriously doubt that.” The attendant turns to Plutarch, thrown. “Do they get napkins?”
“Certainly. They’re our guests, Tibby,” says Plutarch mildly. “I’ve got to check on something in the kitchen. Let’s see if we can scrounge up a few plates, too. Excuse us.”
When the door clicks shut, I can’t help laughing.
“Shut up,” says Maysilee. “Listen, Louella, if you let them treat you like an animal, they will. So don’t let them.”
It’s a little too much for Louella. Her eyes narrow and she retorts, “I wasn’t planning to. Somebody cut me off.”
“Fine,” says Maysilee. “You don’t need my help.”
“I don’t need help from anybody who said my sister uses coal dust for powder,” Louella tells her.
Maysilee smiles a little, remembering. “She got a lot cleaner after
that.”
This reminds me of when I was six and got chiggers and Maysilee nicknamed me “Itchy Itchy Haymitchy.” Nobody would come near me for two weeks, even though I told them it wasn’t contagious. That name still makes me cringe ten years later.
Any inclination I had to team up with Maysilee disappears. “She’s making this ally thing easy for us,” I say to Louella.
“She sure is.” Louella crosses her arms. Then something catches her eye and she frowns.
I follow her gaze to Wyatt, who looks as remote as ever, his eyes fixed on a sign on the door that reads WATCH YOUR STEP. There’s a glint in the evening sunlight; he’s knuckle rolling a scrip coin in a smooth, practiced fashion. At the click of the key in the latch, the coin vanishes.
Tibby wheels in a cart laden with the dinner stuff. Everything seems to be made of plastic in this train: cart, seats, utensils, cups, plates. Easy to spray down and sanitize after we’re out, I guess.
“I checked. And there’s a surprise for dessert,” Plutarch teases from the door.
Like we need any more surprises today.
Tibby hovers over Louella. “What can I get you? We have chicken, ham, and roast beef.”
“Ham,” says Louella.
“Sure you won’t try a roast beef as well? The chef uses a marinade that makes it rather special,” says Tibby.
“Why not?” Louella accepts her plate, napkin, utensils, and a bottle of lemonade.
When Tibby turns to Maysilee, his solicitousness vanishes. “And you?”
Maysilee takes her time considering the platter. “The roast beef, as rare as you have it.” She spreads her napkin out to protect her skirt, then
arranges her utensils on it. “Trays wouldn’t be unheard of, but never mind.”
When Wyatt and I have received loaded plates — I order all three sandwiches — the attendant and Plutarch withdraw. I look at Maysilee,
who’s daintily cutting hers into tiny bites and spearing them with her fork. Believe me, no one else in Panem — not Capitol or district — eats a sandwich like that. I decide to start with the ham and take a big bite. Boy, it’s good. Smoky, salty, and drizzled with something that tastes like Ma’s chow-chow. I notice Louella peeking under the top layer of bread.
“Go on, eat up,” I tell her. My ally could use some meat on her bones.
She digs in.
It doesn’t take long for me to polish off my sandwiches and drain my lemonade bottle. The food lifts my spirits a bit. Maybe there’s a way out of this. Like we make a break for it and jump from the train. As I puzzle over
how we might achieve this, Plutarch reappears and invites us to move to the lounge car with him. In the hall, I check for possible escape routes, but
Peacekeepers block every potential exit.
We relocate to the back of the train where an area’s done up like a sitting room. The plastic-upholstered furniture is softer and stickier than our compartment seats. Capitol News plays on a screen built into the wall, and
the recap of today’s reaping begins by the time we’ve settled in.
“I’ve been working on the District Twelve segment all afternoon,” says Plutarch. “Gave it the old Heavensbee spin. You four come off beautifully.”
Drusilla totters in the door, a tall red drink garnished with vegetables in her hand. The front of her yellow military jacket, now unbuttoned, keeps flapping open to reveal her undergarments.
Plutarch offers her a chair. “Saved you the best seat.”
She collapses into it, pulls a stalk of celery from her drink, and chomps on it. “How old did I look today, Plutarch?”
“Not a day over thirty,” Plutarch promises. “Everybody commented on it.”
“Well, you get what you pay for,” she slurs, gingerly probing her cheekbone with the celery. She points at the screen and laughs. “Ha!
There’s Juvenia! Little Miss Perfect didn’t get any cloud cover. She looks ghastly, don’t you think?”
Juvenia, a pint-sized lady in six-inch heels and pink polka dots, begins calling names in District 1. The program moves on, and they air every district’s drawing. Besides us, forty-four tributes were reaped today, half girls, half boys, of every shape and size. As usual, the kids from Districts 1, 2, and 4 live up to their nickname as the Careers, which means they seem to have been training for the Hunger Games since birth. Here and there,
chance has thrown in some additional brawny kids, but plenty of scrawny ones balance them out. On the brawny-to-scrawny scale, I do okay, largely because of all those bags of grain I haul for Hattie. But some of those
Careers could crush me like a bug. And Louella’s yet to get her growth.
As a strapping boy mounts the stage in District 11, Drusilla states the obvious. “You lot better be able to run.” She doesn’t even say this in a mean way, which makes it scarier.
“Other factors besides size come into play. Brains, skills, strategy.
And never rule out luck,” says Plutarch. “Your mentors will talk you through everything.”
Our mentors. Our guides, our masterminds, our protectors in the Hunger Games. Except the District 12 tributes don’t have automatic
mentors, not even one, because we’re the only district without living victors, and that’s who the job traditionally falls to.
In fifty years, we’ve only had one victor, and that was a long time ago. A girl who no one seems to know anything about. Back then, barely anyone in 12 had a television, so the Games were mostly hearsay. I’ve
never seen her in the clips of the old shows, but then those early efforts are rarely featured, as they are said to be badly filmed and lacking in spectacle. My parents weren’t born yet, and even Mamaw couldn’t tell me much about the girl. I brought our victor up with Lenore Dove a few times, but she never wanted to discuss her.
“Who are our mentors anyway?” I ask.
“They’re in the process of selecting them from the pool of victors not tapped to oversee their own district tributes,” says Plutarch. “Don’t worry, some very talented candidates are in the running.”
Yeah. Candidates who would be pariahs if they led a District 12
tribute to victory while their own district’s tributes died. Most years, I don’t even hear about who ends up mentoring the kids from 12. Let’s face it,
we’re on our own.
Drusilla lets out a gasp. “Daylight is murder!”
They’ve cut to District 12, where our fates were sealed. “And yet, you’re luminous,” Plutarch assures her.
I watch, both fascinated and sickened by the flawless transition from Maysilee’s drawing to Wyatt’s and mine. Not even a hint of Woodbine’s shooting or the turmoil that followed. And there’s my name, and there’s me, and there’s Ma gasping, Sid crying, Lenore Dove with her hand clasped over her mouth.
“That’s not what happened,” I say.
“None of the footage has been tampered with — not really time to do that properly,” says Plutarch. “I just did a little card- stacking to help you
out.”
“You did what?” asks Louella.
Before he can answer, Wyatt, who hasn’t opened his mouth except to eat since 12, weighs in. “He stacked the deck in our favor. He shuffled the shots around to give us an advantage.”
Plutarch beams at him. “Exactly!”
A corner of Louella’s mouth twists down. “You mean, like in card games. When people gamble. Isn’t that cheating?”
“It is and it isn’t,” says Plutarch. “Look, we need to sell you to the sponsors. If I showed the audience what really happened — the Chance boy’s head being blown off, the crowd control, Haymitch attacking the Peacekeepers —”
in.”
I object. “I didn’t attack anyone. They attacked my girl and I stepped
“Same thing,” says Drusilla. “You’re not allowed to interfere with our
Peacekeepers.”
“I’m trying to show you in the best possible light,” says Plutarch.
Maysilee rolls her eyes. “Like when our shop calls stale
marshmallows ‘chewy.’ And then charges an extra penny for them.”
I scowl at her. I’ve fallen for that “chewy” marshmallow scam more than once.
“Stress the positive, ignore the negative,” says Plutarch. “Instead of four violent district piglets who hate the Capitol —”
Drusilla begins.
“You’re a quartet of attractive kids who hop right up there on that stage to the cheers of your district, raring to go!” finishes Plutarch.
“You should be down on your knees kissing this man’s feet. Maybe you won’t get any sponsors, but at least you haven’t repelled them. He’s given you a total makeover,” says Drusilla.
“You mean, he’s given the Capitol a total makeover,” scoffs Maysilee. “Made you look competent when you couldn’t even pull off the reaping.”
“I like to think it was mutually beneficial,” says Plutarch. “And the audience is none the wiser. I saw to that.”
I’m entirely the Capitol’s plaything. They will use me for their entertainment and then kill me, and the truth will have no say in it. Plutarch acts friendly, but his indulgences — my family’s good-byes, his fancy
sandwiches — are just a method to manage me, because happy playthings are easier to handle than raging ones. To get his footage, he’ll indulge me right into the arena.
As if to confirm this, the door to the sitting room bursts open to reveal Tibby, his face aglow with the sixteen candles on a giant birthday cake.
