Thresh's Hunger Games

Reaping Day

          I work at the ground endlessly with my hoe, hacking at the roots of the corn stalks and listening to the daily work song.
           Faintly, I can hear mockingjays sing along with our work songs. I can tell they favor the tree pickers. The small, lightweight little girls who pick fruits from the slenderest of branches.
         No one in my family could ever have a job like that. My father was massive, probably just under seven foot. He was also one of the strongest people in district 11, if not thee.
       My mother is also tall and stocky, along with my brother and three sisters. My brother is twelve, along with one of my sisters.
           At eighteen years old, I think I'm about six foot six or seven. Who knows, I've never been measured.
            I continue working, sweat dripping down my back and into my brown eyebrows. I wipe the sweat away with one sore hand, worn raw from working.
           I listen to the song, an old classic. My  brother, Darius's favorite song. He's twelve . Just one year until he'll have another name in the reaping. Just one more year until I'm out of it. My name is in the reaping bowl fourty five times this year.
           I swore on my life my siblings would never be reaped. I wouldn't let them even take one tesserae, even if it meant more food for my family.
            A breeze cools my back as the sun beats down on me. I continue working down the fields until I hear it. Over the work song, I hear a girl's whistle.
        The mockingjays pick up the tune until the whole field falls silent. That whistle is the one to signal quitting time. Way up in the trees, the small picker girls see the flag that signals quitting time before the rest of us.
           I swing my hoe over my shoulder and begin walking towards the rows of sheds for tools and crops.
        After about walking- or being escorted- about a mile everyone with a hoe tosses the tool into a shed, while the others drop off their crops and tools as well. 
          I assume it's about ten o'clock, because we get off early today and the intense heat hasn't gotten to its fullest potential.
          We walk about three miles through the fields and to the village. The sun is still making its way up its daily arc.
        I walk in the crowd of eighteen year old boys. Not surprisingly, I'm the biggest and tallest. I trek behind a small boy. He must only be about five foot five inches. I smirk.
           I wave the neck of my shirt, trying to fan my heating body. So, so terribly hot. On our walk, we stop my a drinking pool and I pull my cantine off its shoulder strap and fill it up with the water and drink the cool liquid until its halfway empty. I fill it up again and catch up with the group.
          We are surrounded by a squad of peacekeepers, in sterile white suits, wielding maggot white guns.
         One pokes me with his gun to hurry me  on. I walk faster, not looking back at the peacekeepers.
         I jog to the center of the group just as we enter the village. We walk another half mile to the square and then we are dismissed.
             I break into a run as soon as I am freed from the clutches of the the peacekeepers.
               My family's house is about four blocks away, and I reach it in about three minutes at full speed.
           I burst through the door and am immediately greeted by my siblings. They must have beat me to the house.
              My mother rushes into the room and shoos them away from me.
        "No!" She scolds them. "Let him bathe first, I don't want you all wet in your reaping clothes."
          I just noticed that my siblings were in their reaping clothes. Nice shirts, clean pant. My sisters have their hair down up, while my brother's hair is smoothed down with my mother's careful fingers.
          I bathe and dress in my father's old reaping clothes. I stand in the cracked mirror in the family's bathroom as mother wets and smooths down my hair to the right side of my head. I barely have any hair, but she fixes up the hair I do have.
          After she is finished I look up and smile softly. My teeth glow under my dark skin and lips. "Thank you." I say.
           "Go see your sibling." Mother says. I can see in her eyes she is sad. I hug her and she holds me tightly. She begins to cry and I pat her back.
         "Please, I'll be alright." I soothe her. She breaths quickly, and hurried me out of the room.
       As soon I go to the kitchen, my two youngest sisters run to me. "Thresh!" They shout. I can see in their eyes they've cried, even though they aren't in the reaping yet.
          Avah, the youngest one, is seven and Mary is ten. I swing the girls onto my hips and greet my brother.
         He is sitting at the table, head down. "Hey, you okay, Darius?" I ask him. He sniffs and looks at me. His eyes are filled with tears. "Oh, you'll be okay." I assure him. "I will, but you won't!" He sobs. "Your name is in fourty five times!" I set my sister down and kneel beside him.
         "Listen, I won't get picked in the reaping." I smile weakly about him. I know there is a high chance of me being picked, but I don't tell him that. He shouldn't worry. "But you could." He adds solemnly.
             Easily, I pull his chair toward me and scoop him off the ground. "Don't worry about me," I whisper into his ear. "But I do."
            Mother comes back in and my sisters rush to her. She's still faintly crying as she begins slicing us rations of bread. It's in a crescent shape, and she's cutting thin slices with a serrated bread knife. My sibling gather at the table and eat their ration of bread as I sit watching them, love deeply in my eyes.