My brother watches me enter our apartment, pressing his lips into a thin, look-what-the-cat-dragged-in sort of line. He knows that our mother will have wanted to spend the morning with me. It’s not just the reaping, but the fact that I’m old enough in a month or so to strike out on my own. Not that there’s a lot to strike on in District Six.
I head to the room that Marten and I share, and hurry to get dressed so that I can be out at the table when Mother comes home. She’s probably used the time I was gone to go to the market. We try to have some kind of commemoration every year. Something that says, I’m glad it wasn’t me.
Clothes that are untarnished by smog or smelting burns are hard to come by—most of the time I wear denim pants or coveralls that can take the abuse. A shirt light enough to breathe in the heat of the factory after school. Today though, we’ll be expected to be in respectable condition.
So when I’m ready in a cotton dress, I return to Marten. Or I think I am. There’s a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom, and right away I can tell he’s in none of them. I wonder where he’s gone before my mind registers something from a few minutes ago. His expression, the pallor of his skin. I suppose it was around time for his next hit. He confirms my suspicions by bounding into the room from the landing outside our door. His sleeves are pulled down, unusual for him.
He shakes off my intent gaze by flattening his collar, straightening his cuffs. “I don’t know where Mother is, but you’d better get to the center.” At the center of town is the square, where the Reaping will take place. “It’s almost two o’clock, now.”
I nod, knowing it’s stiffer than usual, and make for the door. “Hey,” he says, catching ahold of my shoulder. “Good luck.” Glassy but sincere, his eyes follow as I close the door behind me.
Seven reapings. That’s how many I’ll have been through by the end of today. I’ve only taken tesserae three times. The odds are in my favor.
Lined up with the rest of the Eighteens, I try to bob my head between necks to see the stage that’s been set up at the Justice Building. You can always watch the screens they put up for the audience, but it really takes away from the immediacy of the event. I make myself live it. I live it as much as I can because someone won’t be living at all pretty soon.
I owe it to them.
Someone nudges me on my left, and I see Titania step into formation beside me. On my right, Streak falls in as well. This will be it it for us. We smack our hands back and forth with one another like in a children’s game. Both of mine with one of theirs, each.
Next to me, Streak closes her eyes. Without looking, I can tell she’s smiling, taking pleasure in the simple movement. Titania adds her left hand to the mix, enclosing mine with gentle slaps, bottom top bottom top bottom…it begins to synchronize with my heart as we stand still, waiting for the show to begin. She’s worried.
Then, with a metallic screach, the microphone comes to life and the speakers in the square reverberate the sound through the crowd. Taps come next, as our district escourt, Pallas Palantine, tests the mic yet again. His voice booms over us: “Welcome to the 73rd Annual Reaping of District Six and Panem!”
He must be in his thirties, but the current fashion of the Capitol makes him look like he’s been alive for every Hunger Games. Hair powdered white, with matching eyebrows and lashes, he reads his yearly welcome speech, dressed to the nines in an ocean of malnourished steel workers. I give up my useless stretching at this point, and lift my eyes to the enourmous screens.
Our Mentors sit to the side of the podium, dressed in what must be their best, but looks like something thrown from a malfunctioning kiln. The woman, Singe, wears a bright orange dress that spirals up around her neck and wrists, an odd sight for someone over fifty. Her counterpart, Torch, is practically aflame in a blue outfit as bright as Singe’s. Neither look fully present, despite (or maybe as a consequence of) their dress. All the makeup in the world couldn’t hide their yellowed skin that seems to be melting as we speak.
They look alarmingly like my brother. This makes sense, when you know they’re both morphling addicts. Where is Marten now, I wonder.
The Mayor steps up, reads his part, and resumes his seat. He’s a puffy man. Not particularly plump, just tipping middle age and showing it.
We’re silent. Pallas steps back to his podium to wish us luck, May the odds be ever in your favor, only to stride over to the glass orbs containing the name of every child between twelve and eighteen.
“Ladies first,” he states. No flourish. No smile. He might even look a tad reluctant today.
I’m suddenly aware that my friends hands and mine are no longer touching. We’ve hesitated between claps, and instead our palms hover next to one another.
So when he reads out my name, they’re right there to catch me.
