The Trubute

1

My name is Piper Lockly and I am breaking the law.Not that anyone minds. They should, but no one does. I am feeding my family in one of the only ways I know how. That's what everyone is trying to do: avoid starvation. Anyway, it's only illegal if you get caught.Welcome to District 12.Our district is poor and dirty. There is no other way to describe it. I live in the Seam, the poorest section, in a hovel that will never pass for a house. My father is a coal miner, my mother sews. I hunt, and I bring in more money than either of them.I shouldn't be hunting. I don't even know how the idea came into my head. My parents never taught me. They don't exactly think a thirteen-year-old wielding a knife is a good idea. But it's so easy to get out into the woods. Slip through the hole I spent three days making underneath the chain-link fence that is supposed to be electrified, but isn't. Grab the four knives that are the most precious things I own: shiny, sharp, deadly, off-balance because they are little more than kitchen knives, but I treasure them like they're made of gold. Reveal the bow and quiver of arrows that a man who I know hunts as well made me. I'm not a great shot with the bow, but throwing knives can't bring down much prey.I begin the hunt, following a trail I know will lead to birds. If I can get enough, Greasy Sae, a woman in the Hub who always buys from me, will make them into a stew. Then maybe I can sneak Peeta some extra food.I know it's selfish. Peeta gets more food than a lot of kids in the Seam. I give those kids food too. But I can't help taking care of him, protecting him from his mother, making sure he, unlike his two brothers, grows up right. He's only ten and I need to protect him. He's like family even if his mother hates me.After almost an hour of walking, I finally reach the thicket where I know pigeons like to hide. It takes almost no effort to take down three of the fat birds. I string them over my back and look at the sun, tossing my dark brown hair from my eyes. My mother nearly went berserk when I cut it, using a pair of her sewing scissors. It turned out ragged, starting from below my ears and falling to the top of my spine, but less heavy than before. Hunting with a sheet of thick brown hair covering my eyes was getting cumbersome.The sun tells me it's late. I have to get back.That's when I hear it. A crunch like a footstep, too close for comfort. I freeze before creeping away, scenarios flashing through my head. It could be a Peacekeeper to arrest me, another hunter, or a hungry person looking to steal from me. I keep moving, drawing a knife from my belt, moving backwards. Whoever it is, they're making a lot of noise. I see a flash of white.That's when I run.They come after me, but I know now that they're Peacekeepers, and I can't get caught, can't even be seen. Peeta comes into my head. Who will look after him if I'm arrested? The thought forces my legs to stretch further."Come on!" A voice yells behind me, but not too close, and I break through the trees, seeing houses around me. I dash for the fence, crawl under through a convenient hole and keep running. I reach a gate, scale it, drop to the ground and stop.I'm in Victor's Village. The place where victors in the Hunger Games go to live. It's the nicest place I've even seen, with the gables and bricks and pretty lawns."Look over there!" A male voice says, and I jerk out of my reverie, running for the nearest house. The door is locked, so I break a window and slip inside, avoiding getting caught on the sharp shards of glass. A stench reaches my nose, and I gag as I take in the dirty dishes, empty bottles of alcohol, and an inch-thick layer of grime."What the hell?" A rough, guttural voice says, and I spin around, looking at the speaker. A slightly paunchy, tall, and groggy man stares at me uncomprehendingly. I raise one of my knives, realizing who this is. Haymitch Abernathy, District 12's only victor in history and the town alcoholic.There's a knock at the door, and his gray eyes stiffen. I look at him, sure I'm about to be handed over, flogged, brought home to my parents soon to die."What!" He snaps."Mr. Abernathy, sorry to bother you, but is there someone else in there with you?" A man asks."Don't you think I'd know if there was someone else in my house?" Haymitch asks sarcastically."O-of course. We'll be…off then." The man says uncertainly, and I hear the Peacekeepers walking away. We wait a minute, sizing each other up before either of us says anything."So," Haymitch finally speaks, his eyes on my knife. I realize I should probably put it away, but my fingers are so frozen with fear I can't let go, "why are you in my house?"I glance at the pigeons still over my shoulder. "I needed a quick escape. I figured there was a one in twelve chance I'd get an occupied house. The odds just aren't in my favor.""Obviously." Haymitch sits down and raises a bottle to his mouth. "You seem a bit young to be breaking the law, Pigeon.""I'm thirteen." I say, raising my head, ignoring the nickname. A ghost of a smile crosses his lips."Of course. If you're young enough to fight in the Games, why not illegal hunting?" He said reasonably, but I feel like he's laughing at me."I should leave." I say, turning to the window, and then I pause. "Why didn't you turn me in?" I ask the man."I like you." He answers. I must look puzzled, because he shakes his head. "It's been a long time since anyone's talked to me honestly. And you look like a fighter.""Well, if we're being honest, you might want to think about cleaning up a little." I say, because it's the only thing that comes to mind that isn't too sappy or apologetic, and I doubt he'd appreciate either of those sentiments. I slip through the window."Are you volunteering?" He asks, and I look through the broken glass. I shrug."What's your name, Pidge?" Haymitch asks as I set my feet down on the grass."Piper Lockly." I tell him."Try not to get arrested, Piper Lockly." He says, and I walk away, thinking privately that it would be a strange day when I came back to Haymitch's house.But return I did, though why I have no idea. Over the next long months, no one noticed his house getting in better shape except me. I soon realized that the day I spoke to him, he'd been barely drunk. I soon became accustomed to his rages, his drunken stupors, his nightmares. I cleaned up his house, made him food, all to repay that debt that he sealed when he saved my life. He protested and groaned at my presence, but I was persistent past his complaints. There were days when I hated him and he hated me, but after a long time, I think I earned his trust. I knew he didn't have faith in much of anyone anymore, not after his Games. I was too young to watch them, but my father told me that it had been brutal. And that scared me too much to pry.It gave me pleasure, taking care of Haymitch, as crotchety and ungrateful as he was. To watch his house become clean again, to make him eat when he was slightly more sober than usual, to learn his mercurial personality. I learned to take the knife from his hand before waking him, though he still tried to attack me when I did, to not attempt to control his drinking but rather allow him to decide because otherwise he'd never let me through the front door, and to throw my knives with much more accuracy than before.I'm glad I met Haymitch. He became an ally, a person to complain to about the Capitol, to make fun of their accents with. And when the next Hunger Games came around, the 68th Games, I was not chosen, but two seventeen-year-olds were, and when the brutality and the blood were finally over and Haymitch returned, I was waiting. He hated me that day, he hated everything. He raged for hours while I waited. And when he finally fell unconscious, trying to forget the memories, I waited. When he woke up, he didn't say a word, but he didn't need to. He had been on his own for nineteen years. He didn't deserve it. I knew, even at thirteen, that nineteen years of coaching tributes and watching them die would take its emotional toll, because after a while, you'd give up hope that they'd ever make it home.I'm glad I met Haymitch. If I hadn't, I would never have survived.It's cold today, colder than usual. Winter is in full swing, but I'm happy for the first time in a while. I've managed to keep food coming in. My family is finally, blessedly well fed.I'm at school when the alarm rings. I recognize it at once: we all do. The siren tells us that there's been a mining accident. Since nearly everyone has family in the mines, we all rush to get out. I don't know why, but I don't feel as frightened as I should. Of course my father survived. There was another mining accident when I was six and he made it through that without more than a coating of coal dust.We are herded to the entrance of the mine, even the teachers looking around anxiously. I scan the crowd for my mother. Where is she?"Piper!" A voice calls, and I turn, my face brightening.It is not my mother, and my smile fades briefly."Did you find your parents?" Peeta asks me, and I wrap an arm around his shoulders."Not yet." I smile. "Get on home. I'll come see you later. None of your family will be here. Go on."He turns and weaves through the crowd. My smile leaves with him. Why can't I find my mother?"Mom?" I yell, and some people look at me pityingly.I make it to the front, hanging over the barrier, blocked by Peacekeepers. I see a girl holding onto her blond sister and her blond mother. I recognize her as a classmate of Peeta's. Her father is the one who made me my bow. Her father is down there now, with mine.The elevator comes up, vomiting coal-stained miners onto the ground, coughing and stumbling. I search their faces, but there's nothing familiar, nothing. I look over the crowd again. My mother is not here, and the crowd only swells as grateful families absorb the workers. The elevator comes up again, and again I search, and again the black-soot faces reveal no one familiar. More and more people begin to leave, and I cannot find either of my parents, and the number of miners coming from the elevator are becoming fewer and fewer. And my dread grows because I know what's coming. My fingers are gripping the barrier so tightly I have lost feeling in my joints.Finally, the elevator comes up and opens its doors and there is no one inside. It feels as though my heart cracks and a wisp of cold escapes, freezing my lungs. I take a deep gasp, but no oxygen relieves the numbing pain.A Peacekeeper comes over. It's Darius, with his bright red hair. I sell to Darius, sometimes, when I can get something decent. I know him, and the sympathy on his face burns.I hardly listen as he tells me what happened, how the miners had no idea anything was wrong, how my mother woke up and went to the mine, how she was with my father when the fire lit and incinerated their bodies to pure molecules. I will never know why she went there today of all days. Maybe she sensed something was wrong. Maybe she simply wanted to see my father. It's no comfort. I am alone.He reaches for my arm, and I pull away, tripping in my numbness. I know where they will take me, to the orphanage, where I will never be happy. I have seen the orphans' eyes, and they are sad and tired and hopeless. Hope has kept me going all throughout my life. I cannot be hopeless.I run, from the smoke spiraling into the sky, from Darius's frantic shouts, from the sobs of the families' whose loved ones have not returned home. But none of them are alone.My vision blurs and behind my eyes something stings. I cannot see the ground beneath my feet, but I keep running, driven by a primal instinct I can't control.I feel my toes catch on something and I go plummeting down, slamming into the icy ground, my arms just catching myself. I lie there for a moment, catching my breath, half-wanting to just lie there, curl up and fall asleep in the snow, not move for an eternity. But that would mean admitting the inevitable.I cannot survive on my own.My scraped and bleeding hands push my limp body up, and my legs creak into action, pushing me on in an everlasting race. I don't know where I'm going, but I have to escape the smell of the smoke, the ash that's intertwined with my hair and my clothing. I feel as though I'm choking on the fumes.The stitch in my side finally proves too much, and I slow down, heaving for breath, blinking away the salty tears.I'm in Victor's Village, out of place among the immaculate houses. I don't go for Haymitch's, though. I swerve and run for another. My elbow breaks the window, and I climb inside, tripping over the rug and falling once more on the ground. This time I don't move. I just curl into a ball and began to heave sobs out of my stomach, dry, hacking sobs. Tears wet my cheeks, and I feel a scream bubbling out of my throat. It comes out, and I sound like a feral animal, a wild dog. I scream and scream, at the unfairness of it all, at my father for being a miner, at my mother for being with him, at myself for thinking I could just run into the past and stop it from happening. I scream until I feel like I'm about to vomit, and then I keep sobbing.Somewhere, in a world that isn't mine, the sun sets and rises again. My voice disappears at some point, and I am too exhausted to move. My mouth is dry and my stomach does not growl, but aches. I lie on my side, my hands curled around each other, my legs splayed out, as the hours tick by. I do not want to stand. I do not want to even breathe, because every inhale blisters and every exhale is a dagger's thrust.But at some point, the sun hits my face. I instinctively flinch away from it, and the movement sends pins and needles up my arms. My fingers twitch to rub out the cramps, and I allow them to, one limb at a time. I slowly work out every ache, giving my mind something to do. And as I do, I try to think. I try to remind my heart that I didn't lose everything in the fire. I have my daggers. I have my bow. I have Haymitch. I have Peeta. I can survive.One leg at a time, I push myself up using an embroidered armchair. My knees wobble, but I lock them into place, forcing my brain to put one foot in front of another, unlocking the door and stepping into the sunlight, squinting against the glare and seeing him watching me from his front door. I slowly walk over to Haymitch, and he has the strangest expression of pity on his face. It is so foreign on him that I almost begin laughing."Oh, Pidge." He says softly, and I nod, choking on the newest lump on my throat.Then he does something I never thought he'd do in a thousand years. He awkwardly reaches out for me, and I bury myself in his filthy chest. He smells of liquor and dirt and sweat, but the stink is enough to drown out the smoke coating my entire body.Somehow I end up inside his house. I think he might have carried me, or dragged me. Haymitch tells me quietly where the bathroom is, and I walk upstairs, locking the door behind me.I strip and toss the clothes in the trash. The hot water washes away every trace of ash. I have never showered before in my life, and hot water is a luxury, but I hardly notice. I massage thick soap into my hair and scrub down every inch until it is bright red and stinging, but the pain is distracting, so I'm embrace it.When I turn off the water and step out, wrapping a thick white towel around myself, I see a mirror. When I look into my own eyes, I see a pale, slight girl, short, thin, dark circles under her gray eyes, ragged black hair clinging to her cheeks. I don't see whatever Haymitch sees when he calls me a fighter. I see a lost, little girl with no family and no future.That's when I hear the argument raging downstairs. I crack open the door and look down the stairs, barely showing myself, and see the white uniform of a Peacekeeper at the door and Haymitch confronting the man."I'm not handing her over to you!" Haymitch says furiously."Mr. Abernathy, you don't have a choice. Piper is an orphan. She needs to come with us.""She's not going anywhere!""She has nowhere else to go! She has no one to go home to!" The Peacekeeper insists."She's got me." Haymitch says, and he slams the door, rattling the windows. I can't help a small smile from appearing on my face."You can come out now." Haymitch calls up, and I slip one of his shirts over my head. It goes down to an inches above my knees. I walk down the stairs to see him sitting in a chair, drinking from a bottle."You heard?" He asks.I nod, and he closes his eyes."There's a bedroom upstairs." He says, and I turn, going back up. We don't say anything else. I collapse on the bed and fall into sleep immediately.My nightmares rage at me out of the dark, filled with fire and tumbling earth and the haunting image of hands stretching out of the rubble, reaching for me, but I can't quite reach. I wake up screaming, tangled in the sheets, crying for my parents to run. My door opens and yellow light streams inside, revealing Haymitch, no bottle in his hand, his eyes concerned, I stare at him, and he leaves, but the door stays open, the comforting light slowing my heart even if the hole stays.I had nightmares every night for five months, and every night Haymitch would come inside. Sometimes, he would only open the door, but others, he would comfort me in the best way he knew how.That was two and a half years ago. It is impossible to describe how things have changed. My nightmares are less frequent. I still hunt, but I no longer want for food. Peeta remains my brother in all but blood. And Haymitch?Haymitch has become my father.