The chatter died away as the mentors pushed through the swinging balcony doors and caught sight of what awaited them below. All signs of the reaping festivities had been stripped away, leaving the vast hall cold and imposing. Twenty-four small tables flanked with two folding chairs each were spread out in orderly rows. Each table bore a sign with a district number followed by a B or a G and next to it sat a concrete block with a metal ring on the top.
Before the students could discuss the layout, two Peacekeepers entered and stood guard by the main entrance and the tributes were brought in single file. The Peacekeepers outnumbered them two to one, but it was unlikely that any of the tributes could make a break for it, given the heavy shackles attached to their wrists and ankles. The tributes were led to the tables corresponding to their district and sex, directed to sit, and then chained to the concrete weights.
Some of the tributes drooped in their seats, chins almost on their chests, but the more defiant ones tilted their heads back and surveyed the hall. It was one of the most impressive chambers in the Capitol, and several mouths gaped open, awed by the grandeur of the marble columns, the arched windows, the vaulted ceiling. Coriolanus thought it must be a marvel to them, compared to the flat, ugly structures that were the signature style in many of the districts. As the tributes’ eyes traveled around the room, they eventually made their way to the mentors’ balcony, and the two groups found themselves locked in one another’s gazes for a long, raw moment.
When Professor Sickle banged the door behind them, the mentors gave a collective jump. “Stop eyeballing your tributes and get down there,” she ordered. “You only have fifteen minutes, so use them wisely. And remember, complete the paperwork for our records as best you can.”
Coriolanus led the way down the steps that spiraled into the hall. When his eyes met Lucy Gray’s, he could tell she’d been looking for him. Seeing her in chains disquieted him, but he gave her a reassuring smile, and some of the worry left her face.
Sliding into the seat across from her, he frowned at her shackled hands and gestured to the nearest Peacekeeper. “Excuse me, would it be possible to have these removed?”
The Peacekeeper did him the favor of checking with the officer at the door but then gave him a sharp shake of the head.
“Thanks for trying, just the same,” said Lucy Gray. She’d braided back her hair in a pretty fashion, but her face looked sad and tired, and the bruise still marred her cheek. She noticed him looking and touched it. “Is it hideous?”
“It’s just healing,” he said.
“We don’t have a mirror, so I can only imagine.” She didn’t bother to put on her sparkly camera personality for him, and in a way he was glad. Maybe she was beginning to trust him.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Sleepy. Scared. Hungry,” said Lucy Gray. “Only a couple people came by the zoo this morning to feed us. I got an apple, which was more than most but not exactly filling.”
“Well, I can help a bit with that.” He pulled Tigris’s packet from his book bag.
Lucy Gray brightened some and carefully unwrapped the waxed paper to reveal the big square of bread pudding. Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, no. You don’t like it?” he exclaimed. “I can try and bring something else. I can —”
Lucy Gray shook her head. “It’s my favorite.” She swallowed hard, broke off a bit, and slipped it between her lips.
“Mine, too. My cousin Tigris made it this morning, so it should be fresh,” he said.
“It’s perfect. It tastes just like my mama’s did. Please tell Tigris I said thank you.” She took another bite, but she was still fighting tears.
Coriolanus felt a twinge inside him. He wanted to reach out and touch her face, to tell her that things were going to be all right. But, of course, they weren’t. Not for her. He fumbled in his back pocket for a handkerchief and offered it to her.
“I still have the one from last night.” She reached for her pocket.
“We’ve got drawers full,” he said. “Take it.”
Lucy Gray did, dabbing her eyes and wiping her nose. Then she took a deep breath and straightened up. “So, what’s our plan today?”
“I’m supposed to fill out this questionnaire about your background. Do you mind?” He pulled out the single sheet of paper.
“Not a bit. I love talking about myself,” she said.
The page began with basic stuff. Name, district address, date of birth, hair and eye colors, height and weight, and any disability. Things got more difficult with family makeup. Both Lucy Gray’s parents and her two older siblings were dead.
“Is your whole family gone?” asked Coriolanus.
“I have a couple of cousins. And the rest of the Covey.” She leaned in to check the paper. “Is there a space for them?”
There wasn’t. But there should be, he thought, given how fractured families were by the war. There should be a place for anyone who cared for you at all. In fact, maybe that should be the question to start with: Who cares about you? Or even better, Who can you count on?
“Married?” He laughed, then remembered they married young in some of the districts. How did he know? Maybe she had a husband back in 12.
“Why? Are you asking?” said Lucy Gray seriously. He looked up in surprise. “Because I think this could work.”
Coriolanus felt himself blush a little at her teasing. “I’m pretty sure you could do better.”
“Haven’t yet.” A flicker of pain crossed her face, but she hid it with a smile. “I bet you’ve got sweethearts lined up around the block.”
Her flirtation left Coriolanus tongue-tied. Where were they? He checked the paper. Oh, yes. Her family. “Who raised you? After you lost your parents, I mean.”
“An old man took us in for a fee — the six Covey kids who were left. He didn’t much raise us, but he didn’t mess with us either, so it could’ve been worse,” she said. “Really, I’m grateful. People weren’t excited about taking in six of us. He died last year of the black lung, but some of us are old enough to manage things now.”
They moved on to occupation. At sixteen, Lucy Gray wasn’t old enough for the mines, but she didn’t attend school either. “I make my living entertaining people.”
“People pay you to . . . sing and dance?” asked Coriolanus. “I wouldn’t think district people could afford that.”
“Most can’t,” she said. “Sometimes they pool their money, and two or three couples get married the same day, and they hire us. Me and the rest of the Covey, that is. What’s left of us. The Peacekeepers let us keep our instruments when they rounded us up. They’re some of our best customers.”
Coriolanus remembered how they’d tried not to smile at the reaping, how no one had interfered with her singing and dancing. He made a note of her employment, finishing the form, but he had plenty of questions of his own. “Tell me about the Covey. What side did you take in the war?”
“Neither. My people didn’t take a side. We’re just us.” Something behind him captured her attention. “What’s your friend’s name again? The one with the sandwiches? I think he’s having trouble.”
“Sejanus?” He looked over his shoulder and back through the rows to where Sejanus sat across from Marcus. An untouched meal of roast beef sandwiches and cake languished between them. Sejanus was speaking entreatingly, but Marcus just stared fixedly ahead, his arms crossed, his whole being unresponsive.
Around the room the other tributes were in various stages of engagement. Several had covered their faces and were refusing to communicate. A few were crying. Some warily answered questions, but even they looked hostile.
“Five minutes,” Professor Sickle announced.
That reminded Coriolanus of another five minutes they needed to address. “So, the night before the Games begin, we’re going to get a five-minute interview on television in which we can do whatever we want. I thought you might sing again.”
Lucy Gray considered it. “I’m not sure there’s a point to it. I mean, when I sang that song at the reaping, that didn’t have anything to do with you all here. I didn’t plan it. It’s just part of a long, sad tale that nobody but me gives a hoot about.”
“It hit a nerve with people,” Coriolanus observed.
“And the valley song was, like you told me, maybe a way to get food,” she said.
“It was beautiful,” he said. “It made me feel like when my mother . . . She died when I was five. It made me remember a song she used to sing to me.”
“What about your daddy?” she asked.
“Lost him, too, actually. The same year,” Coriolanus told her.
She nodded sympathetically. “So, you’re an orphan, like me.”
Coriolanus didn’t like being called that. Livia had taunted him about his parentless state when he was small, making him feel alone and unwanted when he was neither. Still, there was that emptiness that most other kids didn’t really understand. But Lucy Gray did, being an orphan herself. “It could be worse. I have the Grandma’am. That’s my grandmother. And Tigris.”
“Do you miss your parents?” Lucy Gray asked.
“Oh, I wasn’t that close with my father. My mother . . . sure.” It was still hard to talk about her. “Do you?”
“A lot. Both of them. Wearing my mama’s dress is the only thing keeping me together right now.” She ran her fingers down the ruffles. “It’s like she’s wrapping her arms around me.”
Coriolanus thought of his mother’s compact. The scented powder. “My mother always smelled like roses,” he said, and then felt awkward. He rarely mentioned his mother, even at home. How had the conversation gotten here? “Anyway, I think your song moved a lot of people.”
“That’s nice of you to say. Thank you. But it’s not really a reason to sing in the interview,” she said. “If it’s the night before, we can rule food out. I’ve got no reason to win over anybody at that point.”
Coriolanus tried hard to think of a reason, but this time her singing would only benefit him. “It’s a shame, though. With your voice.”
“I’ll sing you a few bars backstage,” she promised.
He would have to work to persuade her, but for the moment, he let it drop. Instead he let her interview him for a few minutes, answering more questions about his family and how they’d survived the war. He found her easy to tell things to, somehow. Was it because he knew that all he recounted would vanish in the arena in a few days?
Lucy Gray seemed in better spirits; there had been no more tears. As they’d shared their stories, a sense of familiarity had begun to grow between them. When the whistle blew to signal the end of the session, she tucked his handkerchief neatly back into the pocket of his book bag and gave his forearm a squeeze of thanks.
The mentors headed obediently to the main exit, where Professor Sickle instructed them, “You’re to go to the high biology lab for a debriefing.”
No one questioned her, but in the halls they wondered aloud about the reason. Coriolanus was hoping it meant Dr. Gaul would be there. His neatly completed questionnaire was in stark contrast to the spotty efforts of his classmates, and this could be another moment for him to stand out.
“Mine wouldn’t speak. Not a word!” said Clemensia. “All I’ve got is what I had after the reaping. His name. Reaper Ash. Can you imagine naming your child Reaper and them ending up in the reaping?”
“There was no reaping when he was born,” Lysistrata pointed out. “That’s just a farming name.”
“I guess that’s true,” said Clemensia.
“Mine spoke. I almost wish she hadn’t!” Arachne practically yelled.
“Why? What did she say?” asked Clemensia.
“Oh, it seems she spends most of her time in District Ten butchering hogs.” Arachne made a gagging motion. “Yech. What am I supposed to do with that? I wish I could make up something better.” Suddenly, she stopped, causing Coriolanus and Festus to run into her. “Wait! That’s it!”
“Watch it!” said Festus, pushing her forward.
She ignored him and chattered on, demanding everyone’s attention. “I could make up something brilliant! I’ve visited District Ten, you know. It’s practically my second home!” Before the war, her family had developed luxury hotels in vacation destinations, and Arachne had traveled extensively in Panem. She still bragged about it, even though she’d been as Capitol-bound as anyone else since the war. “Anyway, I could come up with something better than the ups and downs of a slaughterhouse!”
“You’re lucky,” said Pliny Harrington. Everybody called him Pup to differentiate him from his naval commander father, who watched over the waters off District 4. The commander had tried to mold him into his image, insisting Pup have a crew cut and shined shoes, but his son was a natural slob. He dug a piece of ham out of his braces with his thumbnail and flicked it to the floor. “At least she isn’t afraid of blood.”
“Why? Is yours?” asked Arachne.
“No idea. She cried for fifteen minutes straight.” Pup grimaced. “I don’t think District Seven prepared her for a hangnail, let alone the Games.”
“You’d better button your jacket before class,” Lysistrata reminded him.
“Oh, right,” Pup sighed. He worked the top button, and it came off in his hand. “Stupid uniform.”
As they filed into the lab, Coriolanus’s pleasure at seeing Dr. Gaul again was dampened by the sight of Dean Highbottom stationed behind the professor’s table, collecting the questionnaires. He ignored Coriolanus, but then, he wasn’t particularly friendly to anyone else either. He left the talking to the Head Gamemaker.
Dr. Gaul poked at the muttation rabbit until the class had settled in, then greeted them with “Hippity, hoppity, how did you fare? Did they greet you like friends or just sit there and stare?” The students shot confused glances at one another as she retrieved the questionnaires. “For those of you who don’t know, I’m Dr. Gaul, the Head Gamemaker, and I will be mentoring your mentorships. Let’s see what I have to work with, shall we?” She flipped through the papers, frowned, then pulled one out and held it up before the class. “This is what you were asked to do. Thank you, Mr. Snow. Now, what happened to the rest of you?”
Inside he glowed, but he maintained a neutral expression. The best move now was to support his classmates. After a long pause, he spoke up. “I had good luck with my tribute. She’s a talker. But most of the kids wouldn’t communicate. And even my girl can’t see the point of making an effort at the interview.”
Sejanus turned to Coriolanus. “Why should they? What does it get them? No matter what they do, they’ll be thrown into the arena and left to fend for themselves.”
A murmur of assent came from the room.
Dr. Gaul peered at Sejanus. “You’re the boy with the sandwiches. Why did you do it?”
Sejanus stiffened and avoided her gaze. “They were starving. We’re going to kill them; do we have to torture them ahead of time as well?”
“Huh. A rebel sympathizer,” said Dr. Gaul.