Chapter 4

4.

I stand in front of the crowd desperately racking my brain to find something to think about other than the current situation. I am almost pained by hard this is proving to be.

I feel so exposed. I feel as if I’m standing up in front of the crowd with nothing but the dirt smudged into my skin as a cover. I feel so violated that Marcel might as well just poke me with a stick as if he’s displaying some kind of art piece placed in the middle of a viewing area for everyone to walk by and stare at.

What are these people staring at?

I wish they would look at something different or that Marcel would or the mayor would speed things up. I wish that someone would jump from the crowd yelling something obscene. At least then all the eyes directed at me would be looking at something different.

I rack my brain to remember if there ever was a time that I had felt so violated and so exposed as I do right now. No. I can’t.

I’ve never really been able to put myself into that kind of a situation. I mean of course there was the time I fell from the tree when I was child after I got stung from tracker jackers, but I was so young and so delirious at the time I hardly remember at all if there was anyone else besides my dad.

Besides that I don’t think there ever was a time I felt so uncomfortable. Wait. Yes, there was a time. It happened rather recently now that I think about it.

I remember that time was about two years ago, young enough to not be eligible for the reaping, but old enough to understand what it meant.

I was walking home from school with my brothers and sisters joking about the day of we had. I was holding Prunus’ and Pyrus’ hand as they rambled on and on about how their teacher had taught them about the spelling of animal’s names and the noises they make.

“C-O-W! Spells our cow! Moo! Moo! Moo! As he pulls the trough! P-I-G! Spells our Pig! Oink! Oink! Oink! And he’s pink and big! H-O-R-S-E spells our horse! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Are his sounds of course!”

Lamium repeated the noises they would make only twice as loud only adding to their enjoyment and they screamed in delight. I smiled as my siblings joked with one another, but almost my complete focus was on Amaryllis.

She walked beside me struggling to keep pace with us. Her face, flushed of all color, struggled to keep a faint smile on her gaunt face. Her breathing was short and rapid and she made these horrible little wheezing sounds that I could only pick up because I was paying such close attention to her.

Amaryllis woke up in the middle of the night complaining of a stomachache. I let her sleep beside me for a little while but she remained restless clenching my hand every time she felt a pain in her side. She tossed and turned and when she puked I finally went to wake my mother.

My mother said it was the stomach flu though and that she shouldn’t be worried. That put Amaryllis at ease, but it didn’t put me at ease.

I hate whenever one of my siblings is sick. I hate when anybody I love is going through any kind of pain. I would take the pain from them if I could but unfortunately it never worked that way.

My mother went to the cupboard and picked a few medical leaves from the shelf. She mashed them up in a bowl, added a little bit of water, and fed it to Amaryllis. It was a temporary fix, but within an hour, Amaryllis was complaining of a stomachache once again.

Mom and dad had work, and Amaryllis was still too young to stay at home by herself so she was sent to school. I had no classes with her so I wasn’t able to keep a close of watch on her as I wanted to.

I wasn’t able to see her for the whole day, so when I saw the gaunt, pale girl that stood before me after school I was almost at a loss for words, but Amaryllis hated attention on her and that was the last thing I wanted to do for her.

She walked beside us with one of her arms wrapped around her stomach as the other hung limply by her side. She leaned forward as if she were about fall flat on her face. Sweat beaded on top of her forehead and every time she blinked her eyes remained closed for a brief second.

She conversed with us only briefly as we continued along our way, and I seemed to be the only person who noticed how much she was struggling. I made everyone stop at the local market so she could sit down for a bit, but I let the others go off and explore by themselves.

Lamium found his way over to the ornamental markets. He loved wood carving. He made little trinkets all the time for the twins to play with and even made himself a necklace once. Prunus and Pyrus followed him singing their new song.

Amaryllis and I sat down along the curb of the market. She laid her head on my lap and I could feel the heat emanating off of her forehead and I immediately grab my bag. I pull out some of the medical leaves that mom had given her in the morning.

I didn’t have my mother’s medicine bowl so I shove them in my mouth and begin chewing them. They tasted bitter to me, but then again I wasn’t the sick one. I spat the mixture into my hands and tried to place it in her mouth. She made feeble attempts to chew, but it would only seep out through thte corner of her mouth and back onto my lap.

I yelled ofr Lamium and the twins as I helped her to her feet, we had to leave. I dragged her in the direction of home, knowing my mother would be back home by now. Lamium!

Lamium! Hurry! Sure enough he was running carrying the twins on each side. A look of panic struck across his face as he recognized the situation. Amaryllis then threw up. The twins shrieked in disgust. Lamium gasped and dove to catch the falling Amaryllis. She threw up again, this time blood.

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head then. She began to shake and soon enough the slight tremors began to turn into flails. She was having a seizure. I tried to hold her arms down the best I could, but she was heavily seizing. I glimpsed at Lamium who was crying out of confusion. He looked at me desperately hoping I would know what to do.

The twins sobbed hysterically at his side as well. They didn’t know what was going on, they were so young. They were scared. I was scared too though. I was horrifically scared. I didn’t know what was happening besides the fact that my sister was ill, deathly ill.

I began yelling for help. I didn’t know who exactly I was yelling for, but I was trying to find them. I then noticed we had a drawn a crowd around us. All eyes were on me, the one yelling my lungs out of their function. The one who was trying to desperately trying to help their sister.

Everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to do something. I didn’t know what though.

I felt helpless. I felt weak. I felt alone.

How I felt at that moment is exactly how I feel now. Hundreds of eyes focused on me waiting for me to do something, but I have no idea what to do. All I can function to do is stand there. Stand there and not cry and that was proving as the biggest challenge.

As the mayor begins to read the Treaty of Treason as he does every year signaling the end of the grievous year before and the start of a new torturous Hunger Games, I struggle to keep my composure. I am a twelve year old girl from District 12. Already I know that I am going to be considered a weak competitor amongst the other tributes. I have to keep my composure in some way.

I cannot look at my family, for that would just break me down on the spot. I look for something to tear my attention away from the depressing situation. I look first to the surrounding crowd of boys and girls that crowd the stage, but I cannot look at them for long, for they are all looking at me with pity. I hate when people have pity for me. It makes me feel weak and that is not what I need right now.

I then switch my view above them, focusing on the horizon of the trees in the distance that I would climb every day. I begin to daydream. I imagine myself sitting at the top peak of my favorite tree; the one with a mockingjay nest at the highest branch.

I imagine myself sitting on the closest branch whistling my favorite melodies and songs to them longing for them to lull back the tune. I can see the brilliant birds flying around me filling the air with their joyous sound. I see myself smiling as I watch them, longing to be one of them; to be flying amongst them singing the melodic jingles of Mother Nature.

I can feel the wind seeping under the gaps between my torso and my arms making me feel as if I’m almost flying. I lift my arms up by my side and close my eyes in brief second pretending that I am a mockingjay. The sounds of the forest surround me.

The pinecones plummeting to the ground as their tips break off from the feeble branches. The dew dropping from the leaves hitting the flowers that bloom on the ground beneath me. The howl of the wind as it tries to tell me its secret. Oh how I wish I would be there right now.

But I’m not there. I’m standing on the platform of District 12 waiting for my time when they separate me from all that I’ve known and love. I’m waiting for the time where they tell me my life is over. But I won’t let them tell me that.  No one dictates my life but myself and it’s then when I open my eyes to bring myself back to reality.

The mayor had just finished reading the dull treaty, and I can see that not a lot of people were actually paying attention. I can tell by the looks of several viewers in the crowd that they were daydreaming just like me. Maybe they were also pretending they were far away from the evil clutches of the Capitol. He steps away from the mike and the anthem of Panem begins to play over the deadly silence that fell upon the crowd.

I glance quickly over at Thresh who seems nonchalant about the whole situation, as if he volunteered for this. He has such a look of determination in his eyes that it scares me. I think again that if I am to win the Hunger Games, he will have to die.

I look at the muscles on his arms as I feebly rub the foreskin of mine. Definitely wouldn’t be able to strangle him. I’d have to shoot him with something and oh what a horrible thought that is. I’ve never killed a spider yet alone a human being.

The idea of me actually killing someone is so repulsive that I have to hold back the bile that comes up my throat. I can feel the burning of my throat as I force it back down the way it came. Small tears form on the bridge of my eyes and I think to myself how great that must look.

There was a height difference of at least three feet between me and Thresh. Odds are that he would kill me before I even got the chance to kill him in the Games. The only thing that I could bring myself to think of was that these are the Hunger Games. Thresh and I were not the only competitors, there were twenty-two other tributes. Hopefully someone will kill him before he kills me.