Chapter Text
Stanley Yelnats was the last in his house to wake, not counting the animals. Norman-the-Scrawny sat across his stomach, facing Stanley and purring. A couple of chickens clucked around on the floor.
Stanley’s bed was in the corner of his room, tucked beneath the rafters. His schoolbooks, clothes, toiletries and other possessions all lived under it. There was enough space, but only just. The house was little more than a shack; his family barely squeezed into it.
He heaved himself out of bed and looked out of the window, though there wasn’t much to see – mostly dense acres of pine and larch trees. The surrounding forest gave District 7 a constant aura of menace. Now, on the morning of Reaping Day, the silence was almost as stifling as the tall, towering trees.
Every year, Stanley and his parents tried to pretend that the Reaping was a kind of game. The winner got to go away to a holiday camp for a while, like the rich kids from the Capitol did. When Stanley was younger he used to play in the backyard, making obstacle courses from the woodpile and pretending that he was at camp. Sometimes he had to climb a high ropes course and make it from one fence to another without touching the ground. Other times, he played at bungee jumping, tying nylon rope to his belt and jumping from the table. Now, Stanley tried to pretend that if he was Reaped he could go off to holiday camp and make friends.
He didn’t have any friends in District 7. He was overweight in a community where starvation was common, and the kids at school resented him for it. Even his parents sometimes made comments without realising it. Just the other day, his mother had cried when she found that there was no meat left for the Sunday stew – she had sworn there had been some leftover. Stanley, knowing he had finished it off, had been too ashamed to confess.
He never meant to overeat. Whenever he did, the food sat heavily in his stomach and made him sick with guilt. But the sickness kept him off school and the eating helped fill the hollow place that the daily teasing left him with. It was a vicious circle that he couldn’t break.
It was unfair, because Stanley wasn’t a bad kid. He always tried to do the right thing and he worked hard at school and at home. He just always seemed to have bad luck.
It was all because of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather!
Through his nerves and his mouthful of toothpaste, Stanley smiled. It was a family joke. Whenever anything went wrong, it was always blamed on Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.
Stanley’s great-great-grandfather had been in the 4th Hunger Games, during which he had supposedly stolen a pig from a one-legged District 11 girl, causing her to put a curse on him and all of his descendants. Stanley didn’t know how true this was. His great-great-grandfather had been in the games and won, but the exact circumstances of it were never discussed. He certainly didn’t believe in curses and neither did his parents. But whenever things went wrong, it felt good to be able to blame someone.
Things went wrong a lot. Their luck always seemed to be out.
He spat into the sink and again looked out at the vast expanse of forest. He watched the trees bend in the wind, leaning towards each other as though they were whispering. In his mind he could hear his grandfather’s voice singing to him.
‘If only, if only,’ the mockingjay sighs
‘The bark on the tree was just a little bit softer.’
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely
He cries to the moo—oo—oon
‘If only, if only.’
It was a song his grandfather used to sing to him. The melody was mournful and sweet, but Stanley’s favourite part was always when his grandfather howled the word ‘moon.’
His grandfather had been a cobbler. When he died his father had taken over the business. To run a business well, you needed three things: intelligence, perseverance, and a tiny bit of luck.
Stanley’s father was clever and very determined. Often he would work through the night to get a pair of shoes finished for the morning, simply to earn a little more money. He just never had any luck.
Every time a customer complained, or a nail slipped, or the rent was late, Stanley would hear him cursing his dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-grandfather.
Stanley’s father’s full name was also Stanley Yelnats, his full name being Stanley Yelnats III. Our Stanley is Stanley Yelnats IV. Everyone in his family had always liked the fact that ‘Stanley Yelnats’ was spelt the same forwards and backwards. So they kept naming their sons Stanley. Stanley was an only child, as was every other Stanley Yelnats before him. He sometimes wondered what his parents would have done had they had twins.
All of the Yelnats had something in common. Despite their terrible luck, they never gave up hope. As Stanley’s father liked to say, ‘I learn from failure.’
But Stanley sometimes wondered if that wasn’t part of the curse. If his father wasn’t always so hopeful, it wouldn’t hurt him so much every time those hopes were crushed.
‘Not every Stanley Yelnats has been a failure,’ Stanley’s mother would point out, whenever Stanley or his father became so discouraged that they began to actually believe in the curse. The first Stanley Yelnats, Stanley’s great-grandfather, had been born into luxury, his father having won the Hunger Games. ‘He couldn’t have been too unlucky.’
She always neglected to mention the bad luck that befell the first Stanley Yelnats. He had been Reaped for the 20th Hunger Games and nearly killed by Kissin’ Kate Barlow, that year’s legendarily vicious District 1 tribute. Although he had won in the end, the Capitol hadn’t been pleased; all odds had been on District 1 and dozens of rich sponsors had lost money. A week after his victory, his house in Victor’s Village had mysteriously burned down and never been replaced.
If it weren’t for that, the Yelnats family would now be living in a mansion in Victor’s Village. Instead, they were crammed into a tiny hut that smelled of rotten wood and feet.
If only, if only …
From downstairs, Stanley’s mother called for him to come down for breakfast. Drying his face on his pyjama shirt, he took a last look at the forest before obeying.
He hoped that the odds were in his favour.
*
Stanley felt somewhat dazed as he took his place in the square. He was towards the front, packed in with the other thirteen year olds. Some gave him terse nods, but most ignored him. He generally liked it better that way. One boy, Derrick Dunne, gave him an exaggerated wave and then sniggered. Stanley ignored him.
At school, Derrick Dunne routinely tormented Stanley. The teachers never took Stanley’s complaints seriously, because Derrick was a small, weedy boy who barely reached Stanley’s shoulder. Some even seemed to find it funny that a little kid like Derrick could pick on someone as big as Stanley.
His father said to ignore him. ‘Be the bigger man,’ he told Stanley. The irony was lost to him.
Now Derrick was nudging the boy next to him, trying to find someone to share in the sport. Usually he was successful. Fortunately for Stanley, most of his neighbours were more interested in the stage than him.
As people continued to arrive the space got tighter and Stanley lost sight of Derrick. It gave him some relief, though he couldn’t help feeling self-conscious of the amount of room he was taking up.
He tried to distract himself by focusing on the Reaping platform, at the two glass balls sitting on the table. In the boys’ one, three slips of paper had his name on them. Two were the compulsory submissions, one for each year of his eligibility. The third he had exchanged for tesserae in a splurge of shame, having once again eaten the remnants of the evening meal. He had never told his parents.
Beyond the table holding the glass balls, five people were sitting. One was Mayor Dunne, Derrick Dunne’s father. Like his son, he had pale hair and a ferrety face. Unlike his son, he looked weary and frightened.
Sitting next to him was Angelus Pendanski, District 7’s escort from the Capitol. Pendanski’s taste in suits was a source of rare mirth in the district, and he wasn’t disappointing today. Fluorescent purple with tasselled sleeves, it clashed somewhat scarily with his shock of green hair. Oblivious to the crowd, Pendanski was grinning as he spoke to Mayor Dunne, flashing too many of his teeth. He didn’t seem able to sit still.
As soon as everyone was assembled, Mayor Dunne stepped up to the pundit and began to read the Treaty of Treason. Stanley wriggled uncomfortably, both from the heat and the murmurs of discontent building around him. The entire Reaping was an ordeal, but the reading of the treaty was particularly hated. He got the sense that even Mayor Dunne was relieved when he got to the end and it was time to introduce the past Victors.
To Stanley’s knowledge, District 7 had only had five victors in 74 years. Two of them had been Yelnats and both were now dead. He sometimes wondered why this didn’t cause him more pride.
Of the three living victors, the oldest was Blight Sawyer, who was in his mid-forties. Privately, Stanley had no idea how he’d won. Rake-thin and very pale, he frequently missed Reapings on the grounds of ill health. Stanley found it difficult to imagine him as a killer, or even as a fighter. Then again, his great-grandfather had by all accounts only won through chance.
‘He was lucky to have won,’ his mother liked to point out.
Looking up at Blight’s weathered face, Stanley wasn’t so sure.
The next victor was the most recent, having won only four years back. A community home kid, Clyde Livingston was something of a hero to the younger members of the district, having won his games through an impressive mix of speed, strength and guile. For a couple of years Stanley had saved endlessly for a poster to put on his wall.
After his first Reaping, though, he had changed his mind. Up close Livingston was not the glorified champion he had been presented as on television. Though still handsome, his face now had the haunted look worn by many victors. He was famously shy and rarely seen at public events. And yet he spent the majority of his free time working in the District 7 community home, to which he had donated a large percentage of his winnings.
Instead of buying the poster, Stanley had stuffed the money into an envelope and posted it through Livingston’s letterbox. ‘For the community home,’ he had written on the front. He had no idea whether it had got there.
The last victor, Johanna Mason, was the only female winner. She had won a few years before Clyde Livingston, and he and Blight were the only people she was ever seen to speak civilly to. Abrasive, rude and surly, she had won her games by pretending to be a weakling all through the training process. Unlike the Career districts, District 7 set no great store by winning, but even they had been mortified by her inanity. Stanley had felt sorry for her.
Then she revealed herself to be a born killer, and he realised that he had been fooled.
Unlike Blight and Clyde, who made some effort to dress for the occasion, Johanna Mason never did. She was lounging in her chair, wearing baggy trousers and an oversized sweatshirt that accentuated her boniness. Stanley got the feeling that she didn’t much want to be here. He couldn’t imagine why.
When the introductions were done, Pendanski bounced up to the podium. Stanley felt himself losing concentration as he went through the usual speech. Suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking of those three slips in the big glass dome. He wished he could see his parents in the crowd.
And then it was time for the drawing. Pendanski made a show of reaching into the bowl holding the girls’ names. Almost unconsciously, Stanley held his breath.
‘Maeve Collingwood!’
There was a brief silence. Then there was a movement in the fifteens and the crowd parted for a tall, gangly girl to make her way forwards. Stanley glimpsed her face as she mounted the stage. She was wide-eyed and stunned.
‘Boys next!’ Pendanski trilled, reaching into the other bowl. Stanley tensed. He could feel the beat of his heart in his fingertips.
Pendanski picked a slip deep in the bowl and drew it out. He paused dramatically before reading out the name.
‘Derrick Dunne!’
Stanley relaxed, a mixture of relief and pity coursing through him. He disliked Derrick, but he didn’t want him to die. He moved back, along with the others in his area, to allow him through.
But something was wrong.
Onstage the Mayor had gone a sick, greenish colour at the calling of the name. He was now on his feet, talking urgently to Pendanski, drawing him away so they had their backs to the crowd. Stanley wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw something flutter as it exchanged hands.
Then Pendanski was back at the podium and announcing that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the male tribute was to be reselected.
Stanley turned sharply and caught Derrick’s eye. He knew he should be furious, but his face was so ashen, so confused, that he could only dredge up pity for him. Then his attention was called back to the stage, where Pendanski was once again rooting through the slips.
Once again, he withdrew one with a flourish. Once again, he paused before reading it.
And, once again, the District 7 tribute was a Stanley Yelnats.
Stanley cursed his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.
The odds were just never in his favour.