Where It Never Rains

Part 2-- Boris and Annamaria

Romantic was not the best way to be in District Five. It was inefficient and frivolous, and that was the last thing a busy scientist or engineer—what every ambitious Five child wanted to be when they grew up-- needed.

But romance was good for one thing: making marriages easier; and the stability it brought to his life more than made up for the fact that Boris Kistner was marrying a diehard romantic.

Annamaria's family was unlucky indeed—being romantic and emotional ran in her entire family's blood; meaning they would never climb to the heights of society. But she herself was lucky in other ways: first, you couldn't deny she was a startling beauty. Her translucent skin, turquoise eyes, slender figure and long red hair had turned the heads of all men around her, even the most cool and logical ones.

Even Boris, who stood out among his friends for cool-headedness.

He could have married another scientist... such as Rosalind, his laboratory partner since graduation; even more brilliant than him. But he wanted children, and he always doubted she wanted any. At any rate, someone with less ambition, less social position, would be more likely to stick around and be patient with the work of raising them.

Even if they're to be reaped. There's always that risk.

And so he walked into the risk with eyes open, for the chance to raise a family of his own; and after they married, he and Annamaria settled into a house with many rooms.

Those District Five citizens not of top scientific caliber tended to become teachers... altogether a less desirable profession. But to its credit, District Five hated to waste the talents of a single citizen, no matter how low on the social totem pole.

You entered the teaching profession at fifteen, and for the first three years, you were just as likely to be reaped as anyone else. (It was a rumor that if you weren't even good at teaching, you'd be even more likely to be reaped than the others. At any rate, it was a way to get rid of surplus romantics.) The teachers who really mattered, the elites, if you will, of a middling profession; weren't in charge of young children anyway. They'd be whisked off to District Five's top universities and exempted from reaping. No way was a mere Bohr going to reach that rarified air. Yes, Annamaria was rumored to be descended from one of history's greatest physicists; but by the time of her generation, the Bohrs were apples fallen too far from that tree.

Perhaps reflecting that, Annamaria had lost no fewer than twenty family members to reapings over the years. The last one had been her own little sister, just a few weeks after turning thirteen. Even though she had tried not to grieve too much—what was a death from a Panem reaping, anyway?—she couldn't help herself. Samantha had been her best friend, her sunshine. And now her sunshine was gone—always clouded over with the prospect of her own reaping, two more long years.

But those two years had passed, and Annamaria had escaped—a second important way luck had been on her side.