Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
“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.
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