I am so sorry for the person I will become in March.
PEOPLE magazine released an excerpt from chapter one of Sunrise on the Reaping. Read below
āHappy birthday, Haymitch!āĀ
The upside of being born on reaping day is that you can sleep late on your birthday. Itās pretty much downhill from there. A day off school hardly compensates for the terror of the name drawing. Even if you survive that, nobody feels like having cake after watching two kids being hauled off to the Capitol for slaughter. I roll over and pull the sheet over my head.Ā
āHappy birthday!ā My 10-year-old brother, Sid, gives my shoulder a shake. āYou said be your rooster. You said you wanted to get to the woods at daylight.āĀ
Itās true. Iām hoping to finish my work before the ceremony so I can devote the afternoon to the two things I love best ā wasting time and being with my girl, Lenore Dove. My ma makes indulging in either of these a challenge, since she regularly announces that no job is too hard or dirty or tricky for me, and even the poorest people can scrape up a few pennies to dump their misery on somebody else. But given the dual occasions of the day, I think sheāll allow for a bit of freedom as long as my work is done. Itās the Gamemakers who might ruin my plans.Ā
āHaymitch!ā wails Sid. āThe sunās coming up!āĀ
āAll right, all right. Iām up, too.ā I roll straight off the mattress onto the floor and pull on a pair of shorts made from a government-issued flour sack. The words "courtesy of the Capitol" end up stamped across my butt. My ma wastes nothing. Widowed young when my pa died in a coal mine fire, sheās raised Sid and me by taking in laundry and making every bit of anything count. The hardwood ashes in the fire pit are saved for lye soap. Eggshells get ground up to fertilize the garden. Someday these shorts will be torn into strips and woven into a rug.Ā
I finish dressing and toss Sid back in his bed, where he burrows right down in the patchwork quilt. In the kitchen, I grab a piece of corn bread, an upgrade for my birthday instead of the gritty, dark stuff made from the Capitol flour. Out back, my maās already stirring a steaming kettle of clothes with a stick, her muscles straining as she flips a pair of minerās overalls. Sheās only 35, but lifeās sorrows have already cut lines into her face, like they do.Ā
Ma catches sight of me in the doorway and wipes her brow. āHappy 16th. Sauce on the stove.āĀ
āThanks, Ma.ā I find a saucepan of stewed plums and scoop some on my bread before I head out. I found these in the woods the other day, but itās a nice surprise to have them all hot and sugared. āNeed you to fill the cistern today,ā Ma says as I pass.Ā
Weāve got cold running water, only it comes out in a thin stream that would take an age to fill a bucket. Thereās a special barrel of pure rainwater she charges extra for because the clothes come out softer, but she uses our well water for most of the laundry. What with pumping and hauling, filling the cisternās a two-hour job even with Sidās help.Ā
āCanāt it wait until tomorrow?ā I ask.Ā
āIām running low and Iāve got a mountain of wash to do,ā she answers.Ā
"This afternoon, then,ā I say, trying to hide my frustration. If the reapingās done by one, and assuming weāre not part of this yearās sacrifice, I can finish the water by three and still see Lenore Dove.
A blanket of mist wraps protectively around the worn, gray houses of the Seam. It would be soothing if it wasnāt for the scattered cries of children being chased in their dreams. In the last few weeks, as the Fiftieth Hunger Games has drawn closer, these sounds have become more frequent, much like the anxious thoughts I work hard to keep at bay. The second Quarter Quell. Twice as many kids. No point in worrying, I tell myself, thereās nothing you can do about it. Like two Hunger Games in one. No way to control the outcome of the reaping or what follows it. So donāt feed the nightmares. Donāt let yourself panic. Donāt give the Capitol that. Theyāve taken enough already.
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