Ox: Thresh Speaks

Reaping

Life is hard in Eleven. By the time I was five, I had lost two brothers and a sister and nearly killed my mother. My younger brother and my sister died of sweating sickness, my older brother died trying to steal fruit. They shot him. And my mother…I was a big baby, you see. She lost a lot of blood, got weak. Grandmamma says she never the same after that.

I never even got ill. No, I grew big and strong, and that is why grandmamma called me Ox. I saw another sister die. My tenth winter, my mother. Then the house was left for grandmamma and Fennel and me.

You know them too. You see them in the Victory Tour. Think yourself lucky. That is the last time anybody saw them alive.

I worked hard, very hard. Fennel and grandmamma and I picked potatoes all over the district, and I pulled the cart. We got famous for it. Everybody called me Ox because I did better than the animals. Even the Peacekeepers; “Hey, Ox, you’d better get a move on!” Fennel jumped when the Peacekeepers shouted, but I never did. Grandmamma always told her not to jump because sometimes that’s all it takes for them to shoot.

And so life passed. I pulled the cart all day and at night. I slept on the mat in the corner of our hut and dreamed of endless fields of potatoes. And Fennel and I were lucky. We took tesserae but we never got called to the reaping.

Things work differently in Eleven. You heard Katniss; Eleven has too many people to fit in one square. So this is what they do. One week before the Reaping, they do first draw. You stand still, very still, while the Peacekeepers read from the towers the names of all the people drawn for the Reaping. It is long list, and can go on for hour, and if you move, they shoot. And you concentrate, because if you don’t you might miss your name.

For seven draws I listened for nothing.

And then, at my last draw; Thresh and Fennel Furrow. Grandmamma looked like crying all week. Fennel was good, she said there’s still thousands of names in there. All possible. So grandmamma didn’t cry, but she did worry. What would I do without my Ox, she said. Who to pull my cart? Not Fen, she too weak still.

And I said nothing.

And then some days later my grandmamma gave me my father’s old shirt, too tight in the arms, and Fennel my mother’s old dress, and we caught the Reaping Tram into the square.

It was crowded in there. People everywhere, pressed up to my arms. Lots of different people, people I knew and people I didn’t, people with thin arms and people with yellow hair, people with tears and people with wrinkles hiding their eyes. It was very hot. Grandmamma kissed us both and was swept away and even I, taller than most, couldn’t see her.

Fennel went off to her pen, saying nothing so I knew she was worried. Fennel usually talked a lot and grandmamma would laugh because she said so much and I so little. But on the day that both of us were in the Reaping draw, she said nothing. I squeezed her arm and pushed her towards her pen because she looked like she didn’t know where she was going. I didn’t know where I was going either but I had to look like I did or she would have been even more scared. So I fought my way to my pen. “Careful, Ox,” someone shouted after me.

We stood for a long time in the heat while the woman on stage talked. I was close to the front and the boy in front of me had clumps of dirt in his hair. He started leaning on the fence and a Peacekeeper prodded him sharply with his baton to make him stand upright. The people next to me started to wilt but I stood up strong. I didn’t dare look around to see Fennel.

When they read the girl’s name out, I didn’t hear. It wasn’t Fennel and that was all I needed to know. Somewhere far back, somebody cried out. At first I couldn’t see the girl, even though I tried to follow the escort’s eyes. She looked a bit annoyed, as though someone had told her to work on after dark when she hadn’t eaten all day, and next to her the cameraman turned so he could see the girl.

She looked like she was flying up onto the stage, like a tiny fluttering bird. Her mamma had tried to pull her hair back but it was fighting free, and her dress had little patches in it like it had been worn a lot before.

She was very small.

People clapped but nobody was very happy. A few people were muttering and there were soft squelching noises as the Peacekeepers dealt with them. The person crying wouldn’t stop and the crying faded into the distance. The girl didn’t watch. She stood there on stage, smaller even than the podium, and looked at the floor. I thought she might hide her hands behind her back but she left them by her sides.

The escort offered her the microphone but she didn’t make a speech. And then the woman turned to the boy’s basket.

And you know what happened next.