For Oswin, reaping days are a blessing.
That isn't something she shares with others from the district. People already think her odd with her bookish ways and hunger for intelligence. Many people in District Twelve are proud if they knew their entire alphabet; most are content to be able to scratch their names out in a rough scrawl. Life for the people here is painfully simple, an endless cycle of long hours in the dark mine tunnels and fitful sleep.
Reaping day means a day off. Oswin is never sorry about that, despite the unfortunate fact that the day always ends in two children going to their deaths.
She regrets thinking that. She hates the Games, hates the Capitol, hates the way the districts are trodden down. She’s never been to the other districts, never even seen more than their Justice Buildings in the reaping replays, but if Twelve is anything to go by, life is nothing more than a forced servitude to the painted freaks of the Capitol.
Oswin shakes her head, and climbs out of bed, catching up her book from the table beside her bed as she goes. It's a gift from her father for her eighteenth birthday; how he had managed to get hold it, she doesn’t know, and if she's honest, she doesn't care. She just hopes he hadn’t done anything illegal to get it.
The book is ancient, its pages turning brittle and yellow, the binding starting to come apart slightly. It smells musty and damp. The text is more than a little faded, but still legible if read in the light that filters through the light film of coal dust that decorates every available surface in the district. Corners are dog-eared and falling apart, grubby marks rubbing on pages and creases darting over the canvas. Oswin curls up on the seat under her slit of a window, and promptly loses herself in a world where men are gentlemen, and the ladies wear beautiful dresses, and it is a universal truth that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
She can't shake the feeling that it used to be real. That life before Panem wasn't the way they say it was.
She gives a start as her mother knocks on the bedroom door. It’s time, finally. Her last reaping. She lays the book down tenderly, sliding it under her pitiful pillow, and slips into her reaping clothes. She never bothers to dress up properly; why glorify the event more than absolutely necessary? This year she’s going in a plain grey dress that is starting to look a little worn after all the other girls who have worn it. Almost everything she wears is second-hand but she doesn’t mind. It only adds character. And there's not much of that around here right now.
Oswin pauses by the mirror as she turns to leave the tiny room, giving a futile wipe at the cloudiness that renders the top corner useless. She debates tying up her hair, but it’s not long enough to cause much bother, so she doesn’t bother. On an impulse, she snatches up the book back from its hiding place before leaving, so at least she’ll have something to read while she waits for the reaping to finish.
***
It’s been a long day for the Capitol escort, and he’s not too happy to be having to finish it off in District Twelve. The whole place feels grimy, and he can almost feel the gritty coal dust collecting in his lungs. He’s made it through the speech without hacking, although it’s not like anyone would really care. Most of the people in front of him are coughing themselves. District Twelve is always so depressing, all grey and black and lifeless. Even the people, scrubbed though they are, look a bit grainy, every crease and wrinkle faintly marked by the coal they worked with.
He feels like doing something to spice things up, but even though he knows most of the Capitol aren’t watching, that might be taking things too far. He’ll just have to do his best.
“So, District Twelve! Let’s see who our girl this year will be, shall we?” he bubbles, trying to sound enthusiastic. There’s no point; the people don’t respond in any way, just look at him with a resigned listlessness. And the Capitol won't be watching this. Most will have lost interest with Eight, and it's considered extreme diligence to watch as far as Ten. It's a winners thing. People only want to watch the districts who try and please them.
As his hand slips into the bowl, he notices a girl in the older girls' pen lounging against the fence, with a book dangling from her hand. A book! Here, of all places! He hasn't seen a book in years, not a proper one. If the Capitol don't have them, how would someone in the once-crushed District Twelve? He should inform the Peacekeepers. Books are dangerous, and unlike the rest of this Snowforsaken district, this girl with her shrewd, intelligent expression looks like she might be able to actually understand the inky squiggles on the page. Somehow.
He shakes it to the back of his mind. He's paranoid. So the girl has a book. As long as she's still working, who cares? Even if she can read it, she probably won't be able to understand it. So it's not worth bothering about. With a pointlessly theatrical gesture, he pulls out a slip, and unpeels it slowly, encouraging the crowd to “cross your fingers for a winner, folks!” as he opens the name. Of course, there is no response apart from a few stifled sobs and people leaning forwards, their eyes already accusing.
“Oswin Moledy!”
The crowd has been near-silent the whole time, so the slightly nervous cough that comes from the girl’s pen is clearly heard. It’s an older girl, so that’s good, although it’s been so long since Twelve had a victor, what’s the point in hoping anymore?
Oswin can’t really believe it. Her last reaping, and she’s been picked. Her name was only in there three or four times. What are the odds?
She feels the rough steps of the stage under her shoes, then hears her footsteps echoing on the wooden boards, her gaze fixed on the beaming Capitol man. His smile looks huge and dazzlingly white, although there are a few grains of coal dust stuck to his teeth. And the smile doesn't reach his eyes. This close up he seems mostly plastic, less of a person than the make-believe people in her book. And he's not handsome or charming, just a figure calling her to come and die.
This is really happening.
The district looks different from up here.
She realises she’s still holding her book.
The escort hands her the microphone, and suddenly the dazed feeling fades away and is replaced by something quite different.
“District Twelve," she starts, and to her surprise, the words come easily, "Some of you know me, most of you don’t. Know this though – I love you all, you are my people. No matter what happens, you will always be that. I don’t particularly want to do this, but I must. But I won’t fail. And we will show the Capitol that we still have a voice, and that it will not always be silenced by what they call entertainment, these ‘Games’.”
She can hear her pulse in her ears. Where did that come from? Faces openly gawp at her but she feels miles away and ten feet tall. She just did that.
Silence from the crowd. The Peacekeepers stood tall by the fences are looking unsure; should they intervene or let her finish? The escort plucks fruitlessly at the microphone, but Oswin hangs on. She can feel it now, the confidence of being right bubbling up in her, drowning out any sense of fear that was lingering. This is what everybody else thinks, she knows. And she is the one to say it.
With one hand she clutches the microphone; in the other, the precious book crumples with her anger.
“Twelve – let’s show them what we’re made of and what we think of them!”
The crowd erupts with noise, feet stamping, voices cheering. Oswin hands back the microphone, and smirks as she watches the escort try to restore order.
“Thank you, Oswin for that…erm…that…that lov…let’s pick our boy, shall we?”
The Capitol must be watching now, and he wishes it was boring and silent again. District Twelve isn’t meant to have this sort of thing happen. Reapings are usually quick and simple. Like the tributes. But this girl has spirit, and the sponsors will love that, even if she does seem a little more …revolutionary than was really comfortable.
He turns his head to see if she's proud of herself, to find her looking down at her district, hands clenched in front of her, stood tall, eyes blazing and her dress worn and torn slightly.
“The boy! Get on with it!” hisses his assistant through the microphone in his ear, and he jumps, feeling more flustered. He's still Capitol; he's still in charge. Though the hammering of feet on the floor makes him queasy and urgent.
He slams his hand into the microphone, sending a painful burst of noise over the square. Everybody stops what they are doing. Faces drop. What have they done?
"That's more like it," the escort grunts, and stamps authoritatively over to the boys' bowl. The boy’s bowl is stuffed full of names; tesserae is needed here more than anywhere else, it seems.
He snatches the first one he grabs, and squeaks out the name, his voice breaking on the last syllable in his nervousness.
“Nash Derrah!”
The boy who stumbles up to the stage and shakes his hand is from the twelve year olds pen, and he looks more than a little terrified, although he’s doing his best not to let it show. It's not really a handshake, more of a weak clasp. The escort hates seeing a twelve year old go, they always look so small and helpless.
On the other hand, this tribute at least looks like he isn't going to rile up the crowd, so there's something to be thankful for.
“Any volunteers?” he asks the crowd hopefully, but there aren’t. There rarely are in Twelve, but he had to try. Somewhere, a woman is crying, the boy’s mother, no doubt. Children are precious to these people – so many die in the mines each year that the ones that are left are especially treasured.
And here he is, sending one to his almost certain death. Again. The escort feels vaguely sick. No. They've brought this on themselves; someone needs to point that out to the girl. Perhaps he should do it, later. After all, he is her escort now. She'll have plenty of time to get to grips with the concept on the train.
Nash’s speech is short and leaves more women in the crowd sniffing.
“I don’t know what chance I have, but I’ll try! Please don’t give up on me. I’ll come home – I want to find my first diamond in the mine, I want to take care of my family, and I want to fall in love one day. So let’s go win this thing! Yeah?”
He tries not to let his lip wobble as he finishes. For all his bravery, underneath it all he’s just a scared twelve year old boy who knows that there is every chance he is going to die very soon.
Nobody bothers to even think that nobody in Twelve has found a diamond in the mine for years. Right now, you're lucky to even get a lump of coal.
As they enter the Justice Building, Oswin wonders vaguely what Elizabeth Bennett would do if she was reaped. That would never happen; they were too polite to commit such atrocities.
How life has changed.