We don’t do birthday cakes in my house. Seems wrong on reaping day, and Ma thinks it’s unfair for her and Sid to have a cake if I don’t.
Instead, she makes something nice for breakfast, like the corn bread and sauce, and saves all of her cake energy for New Year’s Day.
She starts setting things aside months in advance: the dried apples, the sorghum syrup, the white flour. The spices — ginger and cinnamon and whatnot — are so costly she buys them in little twists of paper from the Marches’ apothecary. A couple days before New Year’s, she makes the
apple filling and bakes the six layers of cake, and alternates them — cake, filling, cake, filling, until it’s in one big beautiful stack. She wraps it all up in a towel so it can rest, and that sweet apple filling soaks into the cake.
Then, on New Year’s Day at suppertime, she pours everybody a big glass of buttermilk and we eat all the stack cake that we can hold.
So the cake in front of me, with its fancy frosted flowers, is all wrong.
The candles smack of the Capitol. And the song Tibby leads the
Peacekeepers in, while common in 12, is never sung in my house because it would be as unsuitable as a birthday cake.
Happy birthday
To someone special!
And we wish you many more! Once a year
We give a cheer
To you, Hay-ay-ay-mitch! Happy birthday!
The cameraman from Plutarch’s crew, sneaking his lens over Tibby’s shoulder to film my reaction, is the cherry on the birthday cake fiasco.
Clearly, Plutarch wants to capture my delight so he can broadcast it all over Panem. Look how well the Capitol treats the tributes. How forgiving they
are to their enemies. How superior they are to those district piglets in their stinkholes.
I’ve seen similar clips before of the tributes being treated like pampered pets. Being brushed and fed and flattered, lapping it up. Playing into the Capitol propaganda. Maybe it gets them more sponsors, but if they do win, it’s not going to get them a parade back home.
“Don’t let them use you, Sarshee. Don’t let them paint their posters with your blood. Not if you can help it.”
That’s it. That’s what Pa told Sarshee in the Justice Building. That’s what Ma wanted me to remember. Even though — maybe especially
because — she had just let Plutarch use her and Sid like puppets. She had failed, but wanted me to be strong.
Plutarch had my family over a barrel when we were desperate for one last embrace, but now he’s got nothing I want. I rise as I weigh my options. I could knock the cake to the ground, hawk and spit on it, or just shove it into Tibby’s stupid face. Instead, I go all Maysilee Donner, turning my back and walking over to look out the window.
In the reflection, I see Tibby deflate. “It has pineapple filling?” he offers.
I give my head a slight shake.
“A miscalculation on my part,” Plutarch says. “Take it out, Tibby. I’m sorry, Haymitch.”
An apology? From a Capitol guy? Then I see it for what it is: another way to manipulate me by pretending I’m a human being, worthy of an apology. I don’t even acknowledge it.
It makes me feel pretty bad, though. That cake. The last thing I needed was a big Capitol reminder that this would be my final birthday. The same
goes for all of us. And while we’re not all allies, I appreciate that no one’s shouted out, “Well, hold on, I’ll take a piece!”
After my cake and Capitol well-wishers have withdrawn, Plutarch continues. “Back to business. Along with your mentors, District Twelve will be assigned its very own stylist.”
“And not a moment too soon.” Drusilla snorts and gives Louella’s gingham dress an appraising look. “Honestly, where do you people find these things?”
“My ma made it,” says Louella evenly. “Where did you find yours?”
Louella’s holding her own, but Maysilee lands the insult. “I was wondering the same. It’s like someone mated a Peacekeeper and a canary and . . . there you are.”
“What?” says Drusilla. She rises from her chair but wobbles a bit before she finds her balance on her spiked heels.
“Careful,” says Maysilee. She drips sugar as she goes for the jugular. “Might be time to rethink those boots. Wouldn’t something closer to the
ground be safer for a person your age?”
Drusilla hauls off and slaps Maysilee, who, without missing a beat,
slaps her right back. A real wallop. Drusilla’s knocked off her boots and into the chair I recently vacated. Everyone freezes and I wonder if we’re about to be executed on the spot.
“Don’t you ever touch me again,” says Maysilee. The color’s gone from her face except for the print of Drusilla’s hand. You got to hand it to Maysilee, nobody’s using footage of her for propaganda.
“Why don’t we all take a deep breath?” Plutarch suggests. “It’s been a tough day. Everybody’s emotions are running high and —!”
Drusilla flies up, rips the riding crop from its boot clip, and begins beating Maysilee, who cries out and raises her arms to protect her head. But the blows keep raining down, forcing her to the floor.
“Drusilla! Stop! Drusilla, we have to put her on camera tomorrow!” Plutarch warns. He has to summon two Peacekeepers from the hallway to pull her off.
“Nasty, disgusting creature,” Drusilla pants. “I will destroy you before you even make it to the arena.”
The welts have already risen on Maysilee’s arms and neck, but she ignores them. I doubt she’s ever been hit before, let alone whipped. I
haven’t much either. Mamaw used to cuff me on the head, but it was more
to get my attention than to hurt me. Maysilee slowly pushes herself up from the floor, using the wall for support, before she responds. “Really? How?
You’re not a Gamemaker. You’re not even a stylist. You’re nothing but a low-rent escort hanging on by your fingernails to the trashiest district in Panem.”
This hits a nerve. Fear flickers across Drusilla’s face before she recovers. “And you’re headed for a bloody and agonizing death.”
Maysilee gives a bitter laugh. “That’s right. I am. So why should I care what you say? Unless I win, of course. But even then, who do you think will be more popular? The victor of the Quarter Quell . . . or you?”
Drusilla’s expression twists into a leer. “I hope you do win. You have no idea what’s in store for you then. You know nothing.” She limps to the door.
“I know my grandmother had a jacket like yours, but we wouldn’t let her wear it out of the house,” says Maysilee.
Drusilla tenses, but tries to make a dignified exit.
There’s a long pause, then Plutarch says, “You may find Drusilla ridiculous, but be smart. You four don’t have your own district mentor. Your stylist’s job begins and ends with your appearance. It might not be fair, but Drusilla may be the best advocate you have in the Capitol. Think about it
before you burn that bridge entirely.” He leaves, quietly closing the door behind him.
“You okay?” I ask Maysilee.
“Never better.” She gingerly touches the welts, bringing tears to her
eyes.
I can’t help feeling sorry for her and a little impressed by how she
stood up to Drusilla. Even though she’s rich, she’s not trying to cozy up to
the Capitol people. We’re all equally beneath her. “There I was, trying to be so high-and-mighty about the cake, and then you go all wildcat on us.”
Maysilee gives a small smile. “Well, I have strong opinions on fashion.”
“I guess you do,” says Louella.
“It’s high time someone told Miss Matchy-Matchy she looks
hideous,” says Maysilee. “But you look fine, Louella. Your mother did a nice job trimming your dress.”
The girls eye each other. I can feel a slight thaw, but all Louella says is “I think so, too.”
A Peacekeeper beckons us from the door and we follow her back through the train to a compartment with two sets of bunk beds built into the walls. A door leads to a small bathroom with a toilet and sink.
“Toothbrushes and towels in the bathroom, and you each get your own bed.”
She waits, as if we’re supposed to be grateful, but the only person who responds is Maysilee. “It smells like cooked cabbage in here.”
“In the old days, we used to put you in cattle cars,” the Peacekeeper replies, then locks us in.
On the pillows are pajamas, which we sort out based on our sizes. We take turns in the bathroom and retreat to our bunks. Shades automatically
slide down over the windows and the bulbs above the door dim, leaving us in twilight. Wyatt falls asleep almost immediately, judging by his snores, and Louella follows suit. Maysilee sits on the top bunk across from me, holding a wet washrag to her welts. I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the day.
My fingers wrap around the flint striker hanging from my neck. The picture of Lenore Dove, drenched and wailing in the storm, overtakes me, and my heart begins to splinter again. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and reach for her across the miles, knowing she is reaching for me, too. I hear her voice singing a piece of her poem, her name song.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
I know every word of the song, since I learned it for Lenore Dove’s birthday last December. It wasn’t that hard, it being what she calls an earworm, meaning it sticks in your head whether you want it to or not. It’s true, the thing’s addictive, rhyming and repeating in a way that dares you to stop, all while telling you a haunting story. I sang it to her in an old house by the lake in front of a fire. We were toasting stale marshmallows and we’d skipped school, which we both caught hell for later. She said it was her
favorite gift ever. . . .
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”
“What is that?”
I try to ignore Maysilee.
Merely this and nothing more.
“The thing around your neck?”
The connection has broken. Lenore Dove’s gone. I look over to find Maysilee staring at me, her eyes wide in the dark.
“Birthday present. From my girl.” “Can I see it? I collect jewelry.”
You don’t hear that much in District 12, but Mr. Donner spoils his
girls rotten. Lenore Dove told me that, on their thirteenth birthday, he gave them pure gold pins that had belonged to his mother. They’d been fashioned by Tam Amber over thirty years ago. I never saw them, but Merrilee’s featured a hummingbird and Maysilee’s a mockingjay, birds being one of
the Covey’s great loves. Apparently, Merrilee wore hers all of five minutes before she lost it down a well. Maysilee threw a fit over hers, saying a mockingjay was an ugly old thing and why couldn’t Tam Amber melt it down and make her something pretty like a butterfly? When he declined,
she stuffed the pin in the back of a drawer and never wore it once.
Lenore Dove saw red when she heard about the twins, feeling they neither appreciated nor deserved Tam Amber’s craftsmanship, and for a time, she spoke about breaking into the Donners’ and stealing that mockingjay pin back. Burdock and I talked her out of it. What with two recent arrests, it seemed unwise. But it still eats at her. I know she would not want Maysilee’s manicured paws on my necklace.
“It’s kind of personal,” I say. “I mean, I’m not planning on taking it off ever again. It’s not really jewelry anyway.”
She nods and doesn’t pursue it. Just hangs her washrag over the bedrail, gets under her covers, and rolls over to face the wall. I’m chilly in the refrigerated train air, so I pull up the Capitol blanket, which is stiff and
has a chemical odor. Nothing like my soft patchwork quilt that Ma dries in
the sunshine on Sundays, when the mine’s quiet and the soot’s minimal so it smells like fresh air. Ma . . . Sid . . .
I don’t expect to sleep, but the day’s been so draining that the movement of the train lulls me into a semiconscious state. A few hours later, I wake with a start and feel someone shaking my leg.
“Hay. Hay!” Louella whispers over Wyatt’s snores.
I prop myself up on my elbow and squint at her through the dim light. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t want Wyatt. I don’t want him for an ally, okay?”
“Wyatt? Okay, but can I know why? He looks pretty strong and —” She breaks in. “He’s a Booker Boy. At least, his pa is.”
The Booker Boys are miners who cater to those who like to gamble in
12. They take bets on any number of goings-on — dogfights, mayor appointments, boxing matches — and organize gambling events. On Saturday nights, you can usually find them in an old garage behind the Hob, running dice and card games for a cut. If things get tense with the Peacekeepers, like the time someone set fire to a jeep, then they lay low, popping up in back alleys and condemned houses.
Personally, I never gamble. If Ma heard I’d been spending money on cards, she’d kill me, and beyond that, I just don’t get the thrill of it. Life in
general seems risky enough to me. But if people want to throw away their money, it’s not my business.
“Well, I make white liquor, so I’m not one to point fingers,” I tell Louella. “We’re both operating outside the law. And doesn’t Cayson like his dice?”
Cayson’s her older brother and, when he’s not in the mines, he’s chasing some kind of pleasure.
Louella gives her head an impatient shake. “Not just dice. I mean now. I mean us.”
Then I get it. Around this time every year, a couple of Booker Boys take bets on the Hunger Games tributes. Like how old will the kids be, Seam or town, the number of tesserae they carry. The betting continues through the Games, with odds on deaths and districts and the ultimate
victor. It should be illegal, but the Peacekeepers don’t care. It’s modeled on their own system of betting in the Capitol. Most of the Booker Boys shun this, it being too blackhearted, but a few make a nice profit. Those are sick and twisted people, and not the kind you can trust in the Hunger Games.
“You sure, Louella?” I ask.
“Near as I can be. I didn’t put it together until I saw Wyatt messing with that coin,” she said. “Cayson told me all the gamblers learn that stuff, to signal people there’s a game on when they can’t say so out loud.”
“He seemed to know all about stacking the deck. ”
“And one time, someone brought up Mr. Callow, and Cayson spit and said he didn’t have no truck with people who made money on dead kids.”
Well, Wyatt being reaped is the final word in irony. I think of the
Callows frantically trying to reach him on the square. Never getting to say good-bye. Hard to feel much pity for them now. “Do you think he took bets on our reaping with his pa?”
“That’d be my guess,” she says.
“Mine, too. Booker Boys keep their business in the family. I don’t want Wyatt either, Louella. It’s just you and me. Try and get some more sleep, okay?”
I don’t, though. Around dawn, the shades retract and I stare out into unfamiliar mountains, adding insult to injury. What’s happening in my
mountains? Is Hattie brewing another batch of forgetfulness? Is Ma scrubbing away her grief on the washboard, while Sid fills the cistern under a cloudless sky? Are the geese standing guard over Lenore Dove’s heart? As much pain as my loved ones feel now, how long will it be until I am just a memory?
Plutarch sticks his head in to announce breakfast in a cheerful voice that suggests yesterday never happened. We dress and go back to the sitting room car for egg and bacon sandwiches and more lemonade. Maysilee asks
for coffee, a rich person drink in 12, and Tibby brings us each a cup. I don’t care for the bitter stuff.
The train climbs and climbs and suddenly we’re in a pitch-black tunnel and Plutarch says it won’t be long now, but it seems like an eternity.
When we finally pull into the station, the sunlight streaming through the glass panels dazzles my eyes before I make out another train across the platform.
I recognize Juvenia, the District 1 escort who Drusilla sneered at, tentatively descending the train steps in snakeskin boots. Behind her come her four tributes, cuffed and chained together, towering over their Peacekeepers. When the car door shuts behind them, the boy bringing up
the rear suddenly turns and kicks the window. The glass shatters like an eggshell.
A quiet voice behind me says, “Panache Barker, District One tribute, trained Career, roughly three hundred pounds. His last name suggests he’s related to Palladium Barker, who took the crown four years ago. He’ll currently have odds of about five to two, which in the arena would translate into an average of two meals a day from sponsors. He looks to be a lefty, which can be a plus or a minus, but he’s also a hothead, and that could cost him. Based on the reaping stats — training, weight, lineage — he’s a current crowd favorite, whereas we’re strictly long-shot material.”
We all stare at Wyatt, who keeps his eyes on the competition as he muses, “You might not want me, but it’s a sure bet you need me.”
