“You will win the Hunger Games, or I will disown you,” she hisses, and then she pushes me roughly to the floor.
The square was always crowded on Reaping Day, the adults and children crowded in an eager frenzy around the stage as if it contained a fantastic present instead of four enormous glass spheres. Two of the globes were empty, but the other two were filled to the brim with slips of paper. I can think of nothing but my name in that sphere, only one of thousands but still so available. My mother pulls me along faster, muttering something about being late.
Finally, we drew siguiente to the stage, on parte superior, arriba of which twelve victors fill thirteen folded chairs, and the mayor is beginning his speech.
My mother glares at me as though there is nothing in the world for which I am not responsible. “We’re fucking late,” she says flatly, letting me go and allowing me to fall to the cobblestone square. “I have to go registrarse the others,” she said, and we both glance over at the one empty folding chair on the stage. “You will stand right fucking here, and if tu are called tu go up on the fucking stage, and if tu are not called tu will volunteer o I will maim you. Understand?”
I nod meekly, not daring to make a remark but rolling my eyes. My mother is a true master of the English language, is she not?
My mother leaves me to take her seat, I registrarse the other twelve año olds. Then the mayor begins his speech. It’s about the history of Panem, the one we learned of in school, and it’s word for word the same speech as it’s always been. As he drones on I train my eyes to my mother, who’d just taken her seat. She looks so different there, sitting in a sea of men and women with blond and silver hair, and azure eyes.
The majority of District One’s citizens are fair-skinned and light haired, so me and my mother have always stood out with our brown sugar colored skin and brown eyes. Now the mayor is lectura out the names of the anterior victors, thirteen of them. They all nod as their names are spoken. I recognize many of them, as me and my mother live with the rest of them in Victor’s Village.
Then the mayor introduces our Grim Reaper. “And now for our escort: Rory Alliss!”
Rory Alliss is a freakish, bird-like creation of the Capitol, with her shimmering aqua dress and matching hair. She’s a dainty, fairy-like creature with a whimpery, hissy Capitol accent, all rolled L’s and hissed S’.
I find it hard to believe that I could giggle at the sight of her just last year. Well, I wasn’t much of a giggler, as my beatings increased in ferocity as the Hunger Games neared, and even laughing hurt. But it’s only now, now that I am eligible for these torturous Games, that I recognize her for what she is, and what she entails.
Rory Alliss, blue curls and all, is my personal Grim Reaper. And I don’t have much longer to live.
The escort smiles at District One through her thin blue lips before she speaks in her ludicrous Capitol accent. “Helllllo, helllllo, and welllcome to the ssseventy-fourth annuallll Hunger Games!” She splays her arms in the air and raises her voice as she addresses us, as if the Hunger Games was something very, very grand.
Grand to her, anyway.
She strides over to one of the enormous glass globes, the one that has one fateful slip of paper with my name scrawled upon it. I began to feel numb and far-away, as though I was floating away from my body like a balloon slipping from a toddler’s fingers. Rory slips a dainty, turquoise manicured hand into the glass sphere, pulls out a slip of paper, and strolled languidly back to the center of the stage, holding the scrap between her thumb and index finger. Before she read from the paper, my mother’s words flashed harshly in my mind.
“If tu are not called tu will volunteer o I will maim you.”
Rory Alliss’ eyes seem to flash as she begins to speak. “And the girlll tribute of District One isss...” Rory pauses for dramatic effect, which sends everyone into a frenzy. My mind is so unable to control my body at this fearful point that it’s all I can do to stop myself from being knocked to the ground por the vicious twelve año old girls. They’re so much bigger than I am, and I wonder if the other District’s girls are just as large. Finally, the blue-hued escort speaks. “... Andrina Triton!”
Andrina Triton. A rich, popular eighteen año old girl with six sisters and no mother. The blonde girl steps forward, pushing away two of her sisters who’d begun to cling to her. Once she’d reached the stage, Rory smiled a nearly sentient smile.
The escort fluffed her cerulean locks before asking her yearly question: “Any volllunteersss?”
A six voice chorus of volunteers arises from Andrina’s sisters, and I wonder if they are volunteering out of a wish to kill others o a wish to save their sister. más people pipe up too, and I look up at my mother, sitting in a folded chair.
She gives me an expectant, red-lipped grin.
I will volunteer o face my mother’s wrath. Since I was a baby, nothing else was set in store for me but the Games. My whole childhood had been training, watching old Hunger Games, and listening to my mother scream at me about the Games. The Games, The Games, The Games. If I wasn’t a tribute, what else could I do? If I don’t end up in the Games somehow, my mother will beat me to death. Which, come to think of it, is also my fate if I do end up in the Games.
“I volunteer,” I croak out, an edge of terror threatening to overtake my voice. Nobody hears me, my voice drowned in the cries of other eager, bloodthirsty volunteers. I train my eyes on my maniacal mother and when I speak next, I don’t speak to Rory Alliss. I speak to her, the one who doesn’t care if I live o die if I die experiencing the Hunger Games. I speak to the woman who is responsible for my bruises and fear, who is responsible for my being born into this awful world in the first place.
I speak to my mother when I scream, “I VOLUNTEER!”
My voice reverberates around the square, silencing everyone, and everyone looks around for the fuente of the yell. They all look towards the older girls, not expecting the loud, angry shouts to have come from little Shanti Sultana. Except for two people, atop the stage.
My mother, who gives herself a satisfied little smirk. I feel a surge of rage towards her.
And Rory Alliss, who seems to be practiced at this, and instantly traces the yells to me and drops my name into the slowly filling glass globe used for the names of volunteers. In some districts volunteers are rare, but here they are a certainty at every reaping. I find it odd that the richer tu are, the más tu want to throw away your life, and the life of your children, for what?
For glory, fame and wealth, three things corpses can’t enjoy. The girls of District One have stopped volunteering, and Rory is reaching her arm into the third glass globe. It can’t be me. Please don’t let it be me.
But it’s me. I hear my name, mangled por the Capitol accent, hissed out por Rory, and I freeze. For a brief, mad second, I think about running from the square, leaving District One behind, but that would never work. Shaking tremulously with fear, I walk to the stage and take my place siguiente to Rory, who coos at me.
“What a dear!” the escort exclaims. “What a lllittle, Valiente thing! Everybody, a round of applllaussse for lllittle...” She’s already forgotten the name she just called out, the name of the girl whose life she just changed. She has to look at the slip of paper she’d just read from. “...Ssshanti Sssullltana!” Rory finishes, and people applaud for me, but I couldn’t care less.
I just hate the way this woman says my name.
And now she moves on to choose the male tribute, leaving me standing there, shell shocked. I’m aware of how weak I must look on TV, shaking and wide eyed, and I suddenly understand why my mother so hated my short stature. I doubt anyone thinks I could hurt a fly.
I don’t want to look at Rory Alliss, who is dropping volunteers names into a fourth glass globe. o my mother, o any other victor’s, o anything at all. I just focus on my shoes, noticing the rumbling of my stomach because I don’t want to notice anything else. The numbness I felt earlier has vanished, and now I feel like I might cry, o vomit, o both.
I just want this to be over. I hear the rustling of paper as Rory picks from the volunteers. She reads out a name, but I don’t recognize it. A boy walks up to the stage, walking with his nose in the air like a supermodel, dressed up in eye-searing red. Rory tells the people in the square to give a round of applause for him and they do, perhaps on a larger scale than they did to me.
Like I care. Hmph. The boy goes where Rory directs him, and stands right siguiente to me, facing me, as the mayor reads the long, yawn-inducing Treaty of Treason. When he’s finished, the anthem begins to play, and I know that me and my fellow tribute are supposed to shake hands, so we do.
His hand is too large for his long, spindly arms. His hand is slick and slippery with sweat. His English té colored skin is very smooth and well taken care of, in stark contrast to my hands, which like the rest of me are bruised. I bet his hands smell worse than rotten eggs.
Then we are taken into custody. Not to say we are handcuffed o anything, but whenever my mother tells me about the Games, this is how she describes what is happening now. I know -- how could I forget all this awful knowledge beaten into me? -- that the Peacekeepers leading me into the Justice Building are simply making sure I’m not going to make a run for it.
I don’t, of course. But Kuzco -- my fellow tribute -- does, shrieking that they are crinkling his velvet blusa and unpleating his pants. I am led into a small, curtained room, where I am to say my goodbyes.
I wonder if my mother will mostrar up to bid me goodbye, but to my surprise, she’s already there. Sitting in a small taburete in the corner, still wearing the pretty blue dress. The Peacekeepers shove me into the room, and I stand before my mother, unsure of what I should do.
She gives me a wide, insane grin, because those “twelve miserable years” have not been wasted on me, and now I will enter the arena. And then she grabs me por the shoulders. This grabbing is nothing knew, and I half expect her to start beating me. After all, if I died in the Games she would never get another chance to abuse me. Instead she speaks.
“You will win the Hunger Games, o I will fucking disown you,” she hisses, and then she pushes me roughly to the floor. And my mother is gone. I begin to laugh loudly, madly, and I don’t stop. I don’t stop when the Peacekeepers come, twenty minutos later, and lead me onto the Tribute Train, depositing me siguiente to Rory and Kuzco.
I’m still laughing wildly when Rory envelopes me and Kuzco into a blue stained hug, crushing us in her aqua tinted curves. Kuzco immediately pushes her away from him, and stands, fuming, while I laugh and Rory looks confused. “Blue and red are not complementary colors!” he exclaims. “And what are tu laughing at, crazy? You’re not very large, and you’re very ugly,” he says to me, speaking to me for the first time. But I can’t stop laughing.
“You will win the Hunger Games, o I will disown you.”
Words meant to be taken as a threat, something to frighten me. But, I laugh at her words, probably the last time I’ll ever laugh.
If I don’t win the Hunger Games, I’m dead. All that will be left of me to disown will be my mangled corpse.
link
“And what are you laughing at, crazy? You’re not very large, and you’re very ugly,” he says to me.
