Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
“Egghead’s not so bad.”
“It’s not a compliment. Anyway, I couldn’t get anywhere with them. They’re not big talkers.”
Like my pa, I think. He was plenty smart, just didn’t feel the need to share every thought that traipsed through his brain. Nor did he much trust people who did. A lot of the miners are like that.
“I’ll give it a shot,” I tell Ampert. “Why don’t you have another go at Eleven?”
Halfway to the booth, Maysilee intercepts me. “What’s going on?”
This could mean one of several things, especially if she was eavesdropping last night. I decide to play it straightforward. “Just going in for Nine.”
“Do they need help with their tokens?”
We turn to assess their token situation. They each wear a necklace of braided grass with a fist-sized sunflower hanging from it.
Maysilee answers her own question. “Oh, my word, yes. Those are hideous. But you have to give them credit for trying, poor things. I guess salt dough clay’s all they could get their hands on.”
I know the stuff. Once, over at Burdock’s, his ma mixed up some white flour, salt, and water into dough, and all us kids made little animals and stars and things. Too wasteful for my family, but the Everdeens could afford it on account of being hunters and having a little more disposable income. Nothing like the Donners, though.
“Yeah,” I say, “I guess they ran out of gold.”
Maysilee starts for 9, but I step in front of her. “Stop. We need them, Maysilee. And I can’t risk you insulting them when you think you’re being helpful. Anyway, their tokens aren’t so bad. Just kind of . . .” I struggle to describe the lumpy, overly bright yellow flowers.
“Gaudy. Clunky. Shoddy.”
“Uh-huh. And that’s why I’m going in alone.”
She shrugs and walks away, but not far. Just to a nearby food-preparation booth. Skinning squirrels, making bread on your campfire coals, roasting stuff on a stick. Like we’re all going to a cookout.
I get to the shelter booth in time to participate in a session with the four District 9 tributes. I can’t help thinking about what Mags said, that we’ll likely be on the move. But maybe I can throw something together quick in a rainstorm.
While this booth isn’t dedicated solely to tarps, they’re certainly featured. You can make a shelter by tying one between trees. Or tying a rope between trees, draping the tarp over it, and anchoring your tent with rocks. Or finding a fallen tree, leaning branches against it, and covering it with the tarp. Or building an A-frame from branches and throwing the tarp over it. Two tarps? Use one for the floor. If there are no tarps in the arena, they’re going to have some mighty disappointed tributes.
Other tips include using your weapon, preferably an ax or a knife, to cut brush and branches, and finding a flat surface to build on so if it rains, the runoff doesn’t soak you.
We’re supposed to work alone, so we each get a tarp and have at it. A half dozen upright posts and a thick column lying on the floor stand in for trees. I build a tent by fastening a rope between trunks and arranging a tarp over it, while quietly observing District 9. Their faces still healing from their last sunburn from home. Their calloused, capable hands. Their lean, muscled arms. Their quiet efficiency. Even without Beetee’s directive, I can see they’d make good allies.
Just as I’m joining a couple of them at the rock pile, who saunters up but Panache. He’s all full of himself, grabbing a tarp and some sticks – like he’s even been at the lesson – and taking over the middle of the fake forest. The instructor frowns, because she automatically hates him, too, and I can feel District 9 shifting, so he’s not directly in any of their sight lines.
I ignore him, carry my rocks back to my site, and start pinning the tarp edges to the ground. Panache singles out the biggest guy from 9, since, of course, he thinks he’ll be their leader, and corners him against the fallen log. “We’ve been thinking about letting you guys join the Career pack.”
The guy’s face shows no emotion. “No.”
Not “No, thanks” or “No for now but we’ll talk it over.” Just a flat, definitive “No.” Then he goes back to laying branches against the log.
This doesn’t land well with Panache, who clearly thinks he’s offered them the moon. “No?” He takes a threatening step toward the guy, then notices a Peacekeeper, hand on his taser, and stops. “What’re you looking at?” he says to the smallest girl from 9, who’s not looking at him, just making a bed from pine needles. She refuses to meet his eye, which makes him nuts. He snaps, “Fine. We’ll kill you first, then!” Stepping forward, he yanks her sunflower from its grass braid and hurls it to the floor. The token shatters into a dozen pieces. Panache plows into the crowd before the Peacekeeper can respond.
A small, pained cry escapes the girl’s lips as she crouches over the bits. The sunflower mattered, I think, even more than being her last handful of home. I bet someone close to her made it. Her ma or pa? Her sister or brother? Someone she loves. They made it to protect her and remind her how precious she is, to give her something to hold on to at the end, if the unthinkable happened and her name got called at the reaping. And now it’s chunks of salt flour dough dabbed with yellow paint. The other tributes from 9 gather around her, viewing the wreckage as silent tears roll down her cheeks.
I don’t know what to do. I wish I could comfort the girl, but I don’t even know her name. And I can hardly make my move now, even if Beetee says 9 is essential. I’m racking my brain when sud-denly there’s Maysilee, kneeling across from the girl, mixing up some white gooey stuff on a leaf with a twig. She doesn’t ask permis-sion, she just carefully arranges the broken pieces into their original form, then begins to smear goo on the edges and glue the sunflower back together. And all of 9 just stands there, speechless, letting her.
I notice a little piece of yellow by my boot and retrieve it, then cross to add it to the sunflower puzzle. Squatting down next to Maysilee, I ask, “What is that stuff?”
“It’s glue. I made it with flour and water and salt from the food booth. It’s the best I could do.” She addresses the girl. “After it’s mended, you’ll have to be very careful with it, since I couldn’t heat this up. Maybe your mentor can find you some proper glue at the quarters, but for now this should hold.”
The girl wipes her tears and nods. Given the lack of communication, I take that as an opening. “That a sunflower?” She nods again. “I love those things. My ma tries to grow them in the garden every year. Guess yours are finer, though, with all that sun you have in Nine.”
There’s a pause long enough to make me think I’ve failed, when she quietly offers, “We have big fields of them.”
“Yeah? Bet that’s a pretty sight.” I spend a minute as if contemplating it. “My girl back home? She sings a song about sunflowers. An old-timey song.” Since the four tributes look somewhat interested, I give it a go, even though it’s a little weird.
Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travellers journey is done.
Okay, maybe too weird. Maysilee has her lips pressed tight together, like she’s trying not to laugh. Nothing from the rest of the group. Ampert’s right, these Niners are not a chatty crew. I forge on. “Well, it sounds better when she sings it.” The girl laughs a bit, but not mean. “I’m Haymitch, by the way. And she’s Maysilee.”
“Kerna. You’re with Ampert.”
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