Rue's Story: Catch Me If You Can

Chapter 1

I once had a dream. I lived in a world seperate from the cruelty and injustice of the Capitol. It was just my family and all of my trusted friends and we lived by a river with wheat fields and apple trees. There are mockingjays everywhere, alerting the start and end of the day. Everything was true and fair. Everything was...perfect. As I wake up on this morning, I realize how far I am from living that dream.

It's foggy outside and the sun is slowly rising. I sneak out of the bed I share with my four sisters: Laurel, Mardie, Rayne, and, the second youngest, Kleo. Samson, the baby of our family, is in his rugged, rundown crib that has been passed down ever since I was a baby. My parents have a bit smaller bed than ours. I hear the scratching of the rusty springs as I heave myself carefully from where I lay. I cautiously tiptoe out to our porch. All of the sudden, the old floorboard beneath me creaks.

"Woo?" Kleo's delicate little face appears above the thin blanket.

"Go back to sleep, Kleo," I whisper. She pushes the blanket off and jumps down from the bed. I know better than to stop her. I seat myself in the red rocking chair my father had made for my mother's birthday a few years ago. It took him several years to finish because of our busy schedule working in the orchards. He could only work on it in the middle of the night because it was against the law to build unless you paid a license fee once every three months. We can barely pay for the food we sometimes have on our table.

Kleo groggily follows me out to the porch and crawls onto my lap. Her hazel eyes stare into the distance as if in deep thought. Many people say she looks just like me, but I know she's much prettier. One day, she'll grow up to be such a beautiful woman.

"Why is ya' name in so many times, Woo?" she asks with a glint of sadness in her eyes. She's never been able to say her R's correctly. "If this is your first yeea', shouldn't you only be in once?" I'm not surprised she knows about the tesserae. The law states that if you have three children or more, only three have to attend school. My parents decided to keep Kleo home and teach her how to be a good wife and housekeeper. She'd much rather be at school so she eavesdrops on my mother to see if she can learn anything.

"Well," I began, "in order to get tessera for a year's supply of both grain and oil, I have to put my name in the Reaping a couple more times. But it's alright, Kleo."

"But what if you get chosen? I don't want you to leave, Woo..." Tears slowly started draining from her big eyes.

"There are so many people in the Reaping. Out of all of them, I wouldn't worry about me getting chosen." I wipe away the tears streaming from her eyes and rock my chair back and forth as she rests her head on my shoulder. I sing the song my mother sings to us when we're feeling upset.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow.

A bed of grass a soft, green pillow...

Kleo's eyes have already shut as I continue to soothingly sway the chair. The mockingjays have already begun their song, signaling that work has started. But nobody treads down the path to the orchards. Not today.