[Fic - Hunger Games] "A Fraction of the Light that Remains" (3/?)
It occurs to me I don't make my profession look too good in this...oh well.
Life continues to be crazy. How are all of you?
Spoilers through Mockingjay. This takes place after the epilogue.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games. I could be witty about not owning it, but that seems awfully clichéd by now.
Beta'd by the lovely yatsuka. :)
A Fraction of the Light that Remains
sciathan file
Part 3
It's school where she learns most about the Games. In the earlier years, though, she only learns superficial details: there were 75 Games in total, Gamemakers made cruel traps to murder people, and the Treaty of Treason begins "Because they did rise up against the Might of The Capitol in heinous Rebellion…". She reviews and memorizes that the Games began with a Reaping that selected one boy and one girl from each District, and, with the notable exception of the 74th and 75th Games, there could only be one winner.
She commits now famous pictures of her parents and the timelines of their actions to memory and tells herself that these are just things she has to know. (Berries terrify her after seeing a particular picture in her textbook. She can't touch them for a year afterwards. Anytime either of her parents eats them, she represses the urge to knock them from their hands.) When she goes home to the people whose younger selves she meets in her textbooks, she finds they are solid and real. It comforts her, a little. Sometimes, she can almost convince herself that what she has learned in school is some far off, scary story.
But she knows that it is not just a story. The evidence is everywhere in her family. And, as much as she would like to know what it was like, she knows silence is much safer than prodding at things left unsaid and unshared.
So she learns a half-story at school, patiently waiting to figure out a way that questions won't open long festering wounds. The narrative of her parents' lives unfolds in still pictures and excerpts from speeches.
The only video footage of the Games students are allowed to see before the age of twelve, however, is of the parades and interviews. At nine she sees her parents lit on fire and cries out in the middle of class, her heart in her throat. Before the projector even shuts off, she runs out of class and all the way to Uncle Haymitch's house to ask if that is why they have the lattice-work of faded scars that trail along their skin (He shakes his head sadly and says, "No. Those came later.").
When she is twelve, the school in District 12 decides to stage a mock Reaping as an "educational experience." People need to be reminded about the past, the thinking goes. They forget how it really was.
The teachers prepare by setting a plankboard stage in front of the scaffolding that will become the new government building. Then they send out permission slips to parents with the red seal of old Panem rather than the school's seal for effect. The one they send her family never gets to her parents. She just forges their signatures on her participation form and then steals the one from her brother that allows him to watch and does the same. She thinks her and her brother, of all people, should get to experience it, though. Just so that they understand. But her parents don't need to know about it from her.
The news of the event reaches her household anyways.
It ripples through their house and causes the rails to slip from well-ordered routines. For the first time in a long time, she sees her father grab the back of a chair with both hands as his eyes cloud over. It's bad enough that he doesn't even make an attempt to disguise what is happening. Her mother stands silent and shaking for a while, looking everywhere and nowhere all at once.
She and her brother exchange a helpless look before he says softly, "Mom, it's gonna be okay."
It's so much worse, she knows, because she is twelve.
Her mother kneels down and takes her by the shoulders, looking directly into her eyes. She holds her gaze steadily, because her mother needs it.
"I want you to know," she says, and begins a variation of her list-like recitation, "I want you to know that those days are gone. I want you to know that you are safe. I want you to know that nothing like that will ever, ever, ever happen to you."
She wants to tell her mother that she knows this; that this is only a school lesson. But she also understands that her mother isn't really saying this for the benefit of her children. So, the words stick in her throat and she moves in and wraps her arms around her mother's neck. They stand like this for several minutes, until each quivering breath her mother takes shivers down her back.
The night before the School Reaping is probably more like a real Reaping in her family than in any other household in all of District 12. She sits in her father's lap like she hasn't in years and her mother holds her brother and croons out the Valley Song in the darkness. Her father's fingers never cease moving through the long strands of her hair and, at the end, when they turn on the lights her mother's tears shine in her brother's hair. When her parents leave them to sleep, she whispers to her little brother in the darkness that there are no Games and that the Reaping is not real. Even if her name gets chosen tomorrow, she'll get to come back home tomorrow night and all the nights after. It's just that Mom and Dad need this.
She tries to explain to him that even though the Games and the Reaping are on the dead pages of history books now, she knows (and knows better each year) that for their parents it will never ever stop being real.
The next morning the bang of the front door jolts her awake and she knows that, were she to look out the window, she'd see her mother disappear into the morning grey. When they head down the stairs, the smell of flour and baking bread is absent. The light is still out at the end of the hall signaling that their father has not come out of his room-she knows it will be a REALLY bad day then. Her mother must not have known, though. Otherwise she would not have left them here. She takes her brother's hand and they tip toe down the stairs because, when her father has one of his Bad Days, they both know that it is much wiser to leave him alone. She makes them a breakfast of day-old cheese buns and they get ready to walk to the government building.
She knocks on Uncle Haymitch's door to let him know about her father, but to her surprise, he doesn't appear to be in.
On the way to the square, she notices that many of the parents have joined them, their children wearing clothes from Before when no one had known if their trip to the square would go only one way. Some of the original residents of District 12 have their daughters' hair braided elaborately and secured with faded ribbons while their sons wear slightly yellowed button-down shirts and pinching shoes. The clothes, relics from when District 12 was still dependent on coal, are downright shabby by today's standards.
One mother, who is dressed in the same anachronistic way, walks with a daughter who is picking at an ill-fitting blouse and high-waisted skirt and complaining loudly.
"We would have been lucky to wear such clothes once a year on Reaping Day," the girl's mother lectures. Her daughter just rolls her eyes when her mother looks away.
Pushing through the crowds of adults and their school age children, she finds Greasy Sae, who looks almost surprised to see her. She hands her brother off to her and goes to check-in. Instead of Capitol Peacekeepers counting up names and tessarae, it is only Mr. Blevins and the four other teachers who handle the small population of students in District 12. He signs them in using school attendance sheets, politely asking their names and directing them to their proper places-boys on one side, girls on the other, each group sorted by age.
She joins the group of her fellow 12-year-old females on the front right of the stage. The groups around her are small, nothing like the crowds that would have been at a real Reaping in the days Before. Although District 12 is slowly coming to life again, its population is still one of the smaller ones in the Panem Republic.
Most of the students are talking to one another and laughing. The tension and electric anxiety of her house is nowhere to be found here: among the gathered students there is only an air of thrilling novelty. Indeed, the conversations only stop when a ridiculous voice rings out, "Happy Hunger Games everyone!"
The woman on the stage is probably the most ridiculous person anyone assembled has ever seen. The very fact that her hair is pink and her old suit is a shocking fuchsia is enough to send several of the students tittering. Her accent is high and affected and, in a day where Caeser Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith are no longer household names and the Capitol accent is now a badge of shame, Effie Trinket is a historical relic come to life. Although she has met Effie before once or twice, she still feels a little sorry that somehow they got her here. Effie, however, seems consummately professional and continues on unfazed.
"And may the odds be ever in your favor."
A film rolls behind them and she sees her first scenes from an actual Games-it's Johanna Mason with an axe…an axe that she has just buried it in the neck of a boy about two years older than her. A picture of the prickly, damaged woman, now much older, emerges in her mind and something horrible falls into place explaining her. Then, there's a boy about two years older than her, his trident flashing. His appearance elicits moments of scattered applause from the adults. Several more scenes roll by with people she doesn't recognize, accompanied by a deep voice intoning, "Only the strongest survive to gain the glory of victory."
Suddenly, coinciding with a knot forming in her stomach, her mother's voice begins to repeat in her head, "I want you to know that nothing like that will ever, ever, ever happen to you."
It occurs to her then that she probably shouldn't have brought her brother here. But, a quick glance over shows that Greasy Sae is covering his eyes. She, too, wants to shut her eyes, but doesn't because she wants to understand.
The film ends with a full reading of the Treaty of Treason and the attention turns back to Effie Trinket who is now speaking about the "honor" and "glory" that await a Victor in the Hunger Games. The more Effie talks, the more laughter she generates, but she continues smiling. Watching her parent's friend, she idly wonders if she's doing a kind of penance. But her father told her that Effie Trinket was "imprisoned by the Capitol as a rebel" during the war and because she's seen what that phrase means for her father, no one has to explain to her what they are really trying to say by that. Effie's speech gives way to a fanfare in which the symbol of such honor and glory-one of the few remaining living Victors-is unveiled.
And there is her Uncle Haymitch, weaving to the front of the stage.
Her first thought is that he is far, far drunker than she has ever seen him in her entire life (and this is saying something, because her Uncle has taught her the meaning of "drunk" since she was four. And, as a byproduct of the drunkenness, she's known to dodge the knife he waves when she goes to wake him up on the Bad Days since she was six).
But, knowing Uncle Haymitch like she does, (and even allowing for the fact that Effie might have something to do with it) she knows without a doubt he is probably so drunk that he doesn't even realize where he is. It's one of the only explanations she can think of as to how they got him up on that stage again.
Suddenly, he looks at Effie Trinket as if she is a fuchsia-spattered figure from a nightmare. Only then does he finally notice that he is standing on a stage in front of most of District 12.
Just by looking at his expression, she can hear all of her mother's cries at night and see all of the clouds that cover her father's eyes at times.
It doesn't help that at that moment, Uncle Haymitch begins bellowing. None of the sounds he makes form anything close to words, but there is a sense of anger and terror in every incoherent syllable. Most don't laugh, because Haymitch is something of a legend and hero here and, although she and her brother are familiar with his drunken moods, even they have not seen him like this. Now Effie is trying to shush him and she distinctly hears her trill "Now where are your manners!" but this sets him flailing. Her wig becomes a casualty of the encounter.
Through the din she hears a small voice calling her name. She looks back to see that her brother has wriggled out of Greasy Sae's grasp and is barreling towards the stage. Thom and a couple of others are behind him, but it will take them some time to weave through the crowd. All the while, Uncle Haymitch continues to bellow.
She takes a breath and steels herself.
Suddenly, she's breaking out from the space where the twelve-year-olds are and mounting the stairs. Mr. Blevins is right there hissing at her to get back down.
"This is wrong," she says loudly. "Do whatever you want, but I'm taking Uncle Haymitch home."
The hissing has become authoritarian orders. She's interfering with the educational process. She's spoiling the mood. He'll tell her teacher, the mayor, her parents.
"Fine!" she yells. She notices that Thom and her brother have been joined by several of the old District 12ers and they're all milling towards the stage, shouting to let Haymitch go. Mr. Blevins's large form is still blocking her way.
She honestly doesn't know what possesses her to shout what she does next. She just somehow knows that they are the magic words for the occasion.
"I volunteer to take his place or do whatever! I just want him to go home. He's been through enough!" She gets right up into Mr. Blevins' face.
"Do you hear me? You don't even understand what he's been through! Enough!"
No one moves to help the teacher now because they know who she is and today she has braided her hair back into one plait in honor of her parents. Moreover, they all know that she is the child of two Victors from the same Games and there is still the smack of the impossible about her. And her words work like magic on those who have seen a real Reaping. Even Uncle Haymitch stops yelling and flailing at the phrase "I volunteer." He mutters something, his jaw going slack, but the words don't make sense and the only one she catches anyways is "sweetheart."
"Sweetheart" is a name that he has never applied to her. It is one of those things that belongs only to her mother. Mostly, it belongs to arguments with her mother. Dimly, she becomes aware that every other conversation has ceased and she feels the weight of everyone's gaze upon her.
Mostly she finds that she doesn't care.
Uncle Haymitch's cloudy and unfocused eyes are still looking up at her like he's seen a ghost. Like she is the second coming of Katniss Everdeen, volunteering for the aunt she has never ever known.
But if she's a ghost of her mother, she's a rather pale one. She has no bow or hunting skill, for one, and she's never been hungry the way her mother was when she was her age. The only sacrifice she has made is a bit of sleep now and again when her parents' nightmares wake her up. And Uncle Haymitch knows all this, she thinks. Just not now.
Abruptly though, the spell is broken as Uncle Haymitch turns the side of his head and vomits all over her shoes. As the pungent spell of the semi-digested white liquor overwhelms her, she adds her shoes to the list of her inferior sacrifices for the day. Then, without comment, she reaches over and takes his arm over her shoulder so that she can help him shuffle on home. Thom, who lives two houses down from her, has finally made his way up onto the stage and helps her escort Haymitch down through the crowd. On the way down, they gain a small honor guard of adults.
She keeps walking as Mr. Blevins rushes to salvage the "educational opportunity" and gives a deeply awkward thank you to Haymitch for offering his "services" over the loudspeakers. She looks back to see Effie, whose wig is now askew on her head, continue on with the whole farce. Greasy Sae leads her brother behind her and Thom as they make a grim funereal procession back to the Village for what remained of Uncle Haymitch's dignity.
Later on she hears what happens and is glad she wasn't there: Sarah Perkins, a sunny 16-year-old and Trevor Martindale, a 14-year-old known troublemaker, are those who are called to the stage. The way the people in Town tell it, Trevor laughs as his name is read and bounces his way up to the stage as some misguided students break out into scattered bursts of applause. The two "tributes" disappear for only two hours and then are released. In the Town the next morning, she hears that Trevor's father, who is a gentle and soft-spoken man who acts as the District tailor, meets his son at the door with a thin switch in his hand.
As he hits the back of Trevor's bare legs, his father only says a few names. Mr. Martindale begins with "Haymitch Abernathy" and "Maysilee Donner" and continues down the list, giving him a snapping thwack! that sharply cuts through the air at each utterance. Her parents' names, the story goes, are the last ones to leave the tailor's mouth.
The tale of Trevor's punishment spreads throughout the district like wild fire and the tailor accomplishes what the reenactment of history does not. Once, one of the people old enough to participate in a Reaping from Before catches Trevor complaining. The way Greasy Sae tells it, he had looked at him and then said simply, "Boy, that was nothing compared to the Games. You would be thanking your lucky stars and Haymitch Abernathy if you managed to get past three days in an actual arena."
Every time she sees Trevor Martindale, she wants to tell him that he only has to look at her family to confirm the wisdom of those words.
Woot.
Life continues to be crazy. How are all of you?
Spoilers through Mockingjay. This takes place after the epilogue.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games. I could be witty about not owning it, but that seems awfully clichéd by now.
Beta'd by the lovely yatsuka. :)
A Fraction of the Light that Remains
sciathan file
Part 3
It's school where she learns most about the Games. In the earlier years, though, she only learns superficial details: there were 75 Games in total, Gamemakers made cruel traps to murder people, and the Treaty of Treason begins "Because they did rise up against the Might of The Capitol in heinous Rebellion…". She reviews and memorizes that the Games began with a Reaping that selected one boy and one girl from each District, and, with the notable exception of the 74th and 75th Games, there could only be one winner.
She commits now famous pictures of her parents and the timelines of their actions to memory and tells herself that these are just things she has to know. (Berries terrify her after seeing a particular picture in her textbook. She can't touch them for a year afterwards. Anytime either of her parents eats them, she represses the urge to knock them from their hands.) When she goes home to the people whose younger selves she meets in her textbooks, she finds they are solid and real. It comforts her, a little. Sometimes, she can almost convince herself that what she has learned in school is some far off, scary story.
But she knows that it is not just a story. The evidence is everywhere in her family. And, as much as she would like to know what it was like, she knows silence is much safer than prodding at things left unsaid and unshared.
So she learns a half-story at school, patiently waiting to figure out a way that questions won't open long festering wounds. The narrative of her parents' lives unfolds in still pictures and excerpts from speeches.
The only video footage of the Games students are allowed to see before the age of twelve, however, is of the parades and interviews. At nine she sees her parents lit on fire and cries out in the middle of class, her heart in her throat. Before the projector even shuts off, she runs out of class and all the way to Uncle Haymitch's house to ask if that is why they have the lattice-work of faded scars that trail along their skin (He shakes his head sadly and says, "No. Those came later.").
When she is twelve, the school in District 12 decides to stage a mock Reaping as an "educational experience." People need to be reminded about the past, the thinking goes. They forget how it really was.
The teachers prepare by setting a plankboard stage in front of the scaffolding that will become the new government building. Then they send out permission slips to parents with the red seal of old Panem rather than the school's seal for effect. The one they send her family never gets to her parents. She just forges their signatures on her participation form and then steals the one from her brother that allows him to watch and does the same. She thinks her and her brother, of all people, should get to experience it, though. Just so that they understand. But her parents don't need to know about it from her.
The news of the event reaches her household anyways.
It ripples through their house and causes the rails to slip from well-ordered routines. For the first time in a long time, she sees her father grab the back of a chair with both hands as his eyes cloud over. It's bad enough that he doesn't even make an attempt to disguise what is happening. Her mother stands silent and shaking for a while, looking everywhere and nowhere all at once.
She and her brother exchange a helpless look before he says softly, "Mom, it's gonna be okay."
It's so much worse, she knows, because she is twelve.
Her mother kneels down and takes her by the shoulders, looking directly into her eyes. She holds her gaze steadily, because her mother needs it.
"I want you to know," she says, and begins a variation of her list-like recitation, "I want you to know that those days are gone. I want you to know that you are safe. I want you to know that nothing like that will ever, ever, ever happen to you."
She wants to tell her mother that she knows this; that this is only a school lesson. But she also understands that her mother isn't really saying this for the benefit of her children. So, the words stick in her throat and she moves in and wraps her arms around her mother's neck. They stand like this for several minutes, until each quivering breath her mother takes shivers down her back.
The night before the School Reaping is probably more like a real Reaping in her family than in any other household in all of District 12. She sits in her father's lap like she hasn't in years and her mother holds her brother and croons out the Valley Song in the darkness. Her father's fingers never cease moving through the long strands of her hair and, at the end, when they turn on the lights her mother's tears shine in her brother's hair. When her parents leave them to sleep, she whispers to her little brother in the darkness that there are no Games and that the Reaping is not real. Even if her name gets chosen tomorrow, she'll get to come back home tomorrow night and all the nights after. It's just that Mom and Dad need this.
She tries to explain to him that even though the Games and the Reaping are on the dead pages of history books now, she knows (and knows better each year) that for their parents it will never ever stop being real.
The next morning the bang of the front door jolts her awake and she knows that, were she to look out the window, she'd see her mother disappear into the morning grey. When they head down the stairs, the smell of flour and baking bread is absent. The light is still out at the end of the hall signaling that their father has not come out of his room-she knows it will be a REALLY bad day then. Her mother must not have known, though. Otherwise she would not have left them here. She takes her brother's hand and they tip toe down the stairs because, when her father has one of his Bad Days, they both know that it is much wiser to leave him alone. She makes them a breakfast of day-old cheese buns and they get ready to walk to the government building.
She knocks on Uncle Haymitch's door to let him know about her father, but to her surprise, he doesn't appear to be in.
On the way to the square, she notices that many of the parents have joined them, their children wearing clothes from Before when no one had known if their trip to the square would go only one way. Some of the original residents of District 12 have their daughters' hair braided elaborately and secured with faded ribbons while their sons wear slightly yellowed button-down shirts and pinching shoes. The clothes, relics from when District 12 was still dependent on coal, are downright shabby by today's standards.
One mother, who is dressed in the same anachronistic way, walks with a daughter who is picking at an ill-fitting blouse and high-waisted skirt and complaining loudly.
"We would have been lucky to wear such clothes once a year on Reaping Day," the girl's mother lectures. Her daughter just rolls her eyes when her mother looks away.
Pushing through the crowds of adults and their school age children, she finds Greasy Sae, who looks almost surprised to see her. She hands her brother off to her and goes to check-in. Instead of Capitol Peacekeepers counting up names and tessarae, it is only Mr. Blevins and the four other teachers who handle the small population of students in District 12. He signs them in using school attendance sheets, politely asking their names and directing them to their proper places-boys on one side, girls on the other, each group sorted by age.
She joins the group of her fellow 12-year-old females on the front right of the stage. The groups around her are small, nothing like the crowds that would have been at a real Reaping in the days Before. Although District 12 is slowly coming to life again, its population is still one of the smaller ones in the Panem Republic.
Most of the students are talking to one another and laughing. The tension and electric anxiety of her house is nowhere to be found here: among the gathered students there is only an air of thrilling novelty. Indeed, the conversations only stop when a ridiculous voice rings out, "Happy Hunger Games everyone!"
The woman on the stage is probably the most ridiculous person anyone assembled has ever seen. The very fact that her hair is pink and her old suit is a shocking fuchsia is enough to send several of the students tittering. Her accent is high and affected and, in a day where Caeser Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith are no longer household names and the Capitol accent is now a badge of shame, Effie Trinket is a historical relic come to life. Although she has met Effie before once or twice, she still feels a little sorry that somehow they got her here. Effie, however, seems consummately professional and continues on unfazed.
"And may the odds be ever in your favor."
A film rolls behind them and she sees her first scenes from an actual Games-it's Johanna Mason with an axe…an axe that she has just buried it in the neck of a boy about two years older than her. A picture of the prickly, damaged woman, now much older, emerges in her mind and something horrible falls into place explaining her. Then, there's a boy about two years older than her, his trident flashing. His appearance elicits moments of scattered applause from the adults. Several more scenes roll by with people she doesn't recognize, accompanied by a deep voice intoning, "Only the strongest survive to gain the glory of victory."
Suddenly, coinciding with a knot forming in her stomach, her mother's voice begins to repeat in her head, "I want you to know that nothing like that will ever, ever, ever happen to you."
It occurs to her then that she probably shouldn't have brought her brother here. But, a quick glance over shows that Greasy Sae is covering his eyes. She, too, wants to shut her eyes, but doesn't because she wants to understand.
The film ends with a full reading of the Treaty of Treason and the attention turns back to Effie Trinket who is now speaking about the "honor" and "glory" that await a Victor in the Hunger Games. The more Effie talks, the more laughter she generates, but she continues smiling. Watching her parent's friend, she idly wonders if she's doing a kind of penance. But her father told her that Effie Trinket was "imprisoned by the Capitol as a rebel" during the war and because she's seen what that phrase means for her father, no one has to explain to her what they are really trying to say by that. Effie's speech gives way to a fanfare in which the symbol of such honor and glory-one of the few remaining living Victors-is unveiled.
And there is her Uncle Haymitch, weaving to the front of the stage.
Her first thought is that he is far, far drunker than she has ever seen him in her entire life (and this is saying something, because her Uncle has taught her the meaning of "drunk" since she was four. And, as a byproduct of the drunkenness, she's known to dodge the knife he waves when she goes to wake him up on the Bad Days since she was six).
But, knowing Uncle Haymitch like she does, (and even allowing for the fact that Effie might have something to do with it) she knows without a doubt he is probably so drunk that he doesn't even realize where he is. It's one of the only explanations she can think of as to how they got him up on that stage again.
Suddenly, he looks at Effie Trinket as if she is a fuchsia-spattered figure from a nightmare. Only then does he finally notice that he is standing on a stage in front of most of District 12.
Just by looking at his expression, she can hear all of her mother's cries at night and see all of the clouds that cover her father's eyes at times.
It doesn't help that at that moment, Uncle Haymitch begins bellowing. None of the sounds he makes form anything close to words, but there is a sense of anger and terror in every incoherent syllable. Most don't laugh, because Haymitch is something of a legend and hero here and, although she and her brother are familiar with his drunken moods, even they have not seen him like this. Now Effie is trying to shush him and she distinctly hears her trill "Now where are your manners!" but this sets him flailing. Her wig becomes a casualty of the encounter.
Through the din she hears a small voice calling her name. She looks back to see that her brother has wriggled out of Greasy Sae's grasp and is barreling towards the stage. Thom and a couple of others are behind him, but it will take them some time to weave through the crowd. All the while, Uncle Haymitch continues to bellow.
She takes a breath and steels herself.
Suddenly, she's breaking out from the space where the twelve-year-olds are and mounting the stairs. Mr. Blevins is right there hissing at her to get back down.
"This is wrong," she says loudly. "Do whatever you want, but I'm taking Uncle Haymitch home."
The hissing has become authoritarian orders. She's interfering with the educational process. She's spoiling the mood. He'll tell her teacher, the mayor, her parents.
"Fine!" she yells. She notices that Thom and her brother have been joined by several of the old District 12ers and they're all milling towards the stage, shouting to let Haymitch go. Mr. Blevins's large form is still blocking her way.
She honestly doesn't know what possesses her to shout what she does next. She just somehow knows that they are the magic words for the occasion.
"I volunteer to take his place or do whatever! I just want him to go home. He's been through enough!" She gets right up into Mr. Blevins' face.
"Do you hear me? You don't even understand what he's been through! Enough!"
No one moves to help the teacher now because they know who she is and today she has braided her hair back into one plait in honor of her parents. Moreover, they all know that she is the child of two Victors from the same Games and there is still the smack of the impossible about her. And her words work like magic on those who have seen a real Reaping. Even Uncle Haymitch stops yelling and flailing at the phrase "I volunteer." He mutters something, his jaw going slack, but the words don't make sense and the only one she catches anyways is "sweetheart."
"Sweetheart" is a name that he has never applied to her. It is one of those things that belongs only to her mother. Mostly, it belongs to arguments with her mother. Dimly, she becomes aware that every other conversation has ceased and she feels the weight of everyone's gaze upon her.
Mostly she finds that she doesn't care.
Uncle Haymitch's cloudy and unfocused eyes are still looking up at her like he's seen a ghost. Like she is the second coming of Katniss Everdeen, volunteering for the aunt she has never ever known.
But if she's a ghost of her mother, she's a rather pale one. She has no bow or hunting skill, for one, and she's never been hungry the way her mother was when she was her age. The only sacrifice she has made is a bit of sleep now and again when her parents' nightmares wake her up. And Uncle Haymitch knows all this, she thinks. Just not now.
Abruptly though, the spell is broken as Uncle Haymitch turns the side of his head and vomits all over her shoes. As the pungent spell of the semi-digested white liquor overwhelms her, she adds her shoes to the list of her inferior sacrifices for the day. Then, without comment, she reaches over and takes his arm over her shoulder so that she can help him shuffle on home. Thom, who lives two houses down from her, has finally made his way up onto the stage and helps her escort Haymitch down through the crowd. On the way down, they gain a small honor guard of adults.
She keeps walking as Mr. Blevins rushes to salvage the "educational opportunity" and gives a deeply awkward thank you to Haymitch for offering his "services" over the loudspeakers. She looks back to see Effie, whose wig is now askew on her head, continue on with the whole farce. Greasy Sae leads her brother behind her and Thom as they make a grim funereal procession back to the Village for what remained of Uncle Haymitch's dignity.
Later on she hears what happens and is glad she wasn't there: Sarah Perkins, a sunny 16-year-old and Trevor Martindale, a 14-year-old known troublemaker, are those who are called to the stage. The way the people in Town tell it, Trevor laughs as his name is read and bounces his way up to the stage as some misguided students break out into scattered bursts of applause. The two "tributes" disappear for only two hours and then are released. In the Town the next morning, she hears that Trevor's father, who is a gentle and soft-spoken man who acts as the District tailor, meets his son at the door with a thin switch in his hand.
As he hits the back of Trevor's bare legs, his father only says a few names. Mr. Martindale begins with "Haymitch Abernathy" and "Maysilee Donner" and continues down the list, giving him a snapping thwack! that sharply cuts through the air at each utterance. Her parents' names, the story goes, are the last ones to leave the tailor's mouth.
The tale of Trevor's punishment spreads throughout the district like wild fire and the tailor accomplishes what the reenactment of history does not. Once, one of the people old enough to participate in a Reaping from Before catches Trevor complaining. The way Greasy Sae tells it, he had looked at him and then said simply, "Boy, that was nothing compared to the Games. You would be thanking your lucky stars and Haymitch Abernathy if you managed to get past three days in an actual arena."
Every time she sees Trevor Martindale, she wants to tell him that he only has to look at her family to confirm the wisdom of those words.
Woot.