The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

by Suzanne Collins

  For there sat Mrs. Plinth, frumpier than ever, her hair disheveled and her dress awry, crying into a handkerchief. “You’re such nice people,” she sputtered. “I’m so sorry to have dropped in on you like this.”

  “Any friend of Coriolanus is a friend of us all,” said the Grandma’am. “Plinch, did you say?”

  Coriolanus knew she knew exactly who Ma was, but to be forced to entertain anyone, let alone a Plinth, at this hour challenged everything she stood for.

  “Plinth,” said the woman. “Plinth.”

  “You know, Grandma’am, she sent the lovely casserole when Coriolanus was injured,” Tigris reminded her.

  “I’m sorry. It’s too late,” said Mrs. Plinth.

  “Please don’t apologize. You did exactly the right thing,” said Tigris, patting her shoulder. She spotted Coriolanus and looked relieved. “Oh, here’s my cousin now! Perhaps he knows something.”

  “Mrs. Plinth, what an unexpected pleasure. Is everything all right?” Coriolanus asked, as if she wasn’t dripping with bad news.

  “Oh, Coriolanus. It isn’t. Not at all. Sejanus hasn’t come home. We heard he left the Academy this morning, and I haven’t seen him since. I’m so worried,” she said. “Where can he be? I know Marcus being like that hit him hard. Do you know? Do you know where he could be? Was he upset when he left?”

  Coriolanus remembered that Sejanus’s outburst, the throwing of the chair, the shouting of insults, had been confined to the audience in Heavensbee Hall. “He was upset, ma’am. But I don’t know that it’s any cause for worry. He probably just needed to blow off some steam. Took a long walk or something. I’d do the same thing myself.”

  “But it’s so late. It isn’t like him to up and disappear, not without letting his ma know,” she fretted.

  “Is there anywhere you can think of he might go? Or somebody he might visit?” asked Tigris.

  Mrs. Plinth shook her head. “No. No. Your cousin’s his only friend.”

  How sad, thought Coriolanus. To have no friends. But he only said, “You know, if he’d wanted company, I think he’d have come to me first. You can see how he might have needed some time alone to . . . to make sense of all this. I’m sure he’s all right. Otherwise you’d have heard of it.”

  “Did you check with the Peacekeepers?” asked Tigris.

  Mrs. Plinth nodded. “No sign of him.”

  “You see?” said Coriolanus. “There’s been no trouble. Maybe he’s even home by now.”

  “Perhaps you should go and check,” suggested the Grandma’am, a little too obviously.

  Tigris shot her a look. “Or you could just call.”

  But Mrs. Plinth had calmed down enough to take the hint. “No. Your grandma’s right. Home is the place I should be. And I should let you all get to bed.”

  “Coriolanus will walk you,” said Tigris firmly.

  As she’d left him no choice, he nodded. “Of course.”

  “My car’s waiting down the block.” Mrs. Plinth rose and patted her hair down. “Thank you. You’ve all been so kind. Thank you.” She’d gathered up her voluminous handbag and was starting to turn when something on the screen caught her eye. She froze.

  Coriolanus followed her gaze and saw a shadowy shape slip out of the barricade and cross toward Lamina. The figure was tall, male, and carrying something in his hands. Reaper or Tanner, he thought. The boy stopped when he reached Marcus’s corpse and looked up at the sleeping girl. I guess one of the tributes finally decided to make a move on her. He knew he should watch, as a mentor, but he really wanted to get rid of Mrs. Plinth first.

  “Shall I walk you to your car?” he asked. “I bet you’ll find Sejanus in bed.”

  “No, Coriolanus,” said Mrs. Plinth in a hushed voice. “No.” She nodded at the screen. “My boy’s right there.”

  The moment Ma said it, Coriolanus knew she was right. Perhaps only a mother would make the connection in that gloom, but with her prompting he recognized Sejanus. Something about the posture, the slight stoop, the line of the forehead. The white Academy uniform shirt glowed faintly in the dark, and he could almost make out the bright yellow mentor badge, still hanging by the lanyard on his chest. How Sejanus had gotten into the arena, he had no idea. A Capitol boy, a mentor no less, might not have drawn too much attention at the entrance, where you could buy fried dough and pink lemonade, where you could join the crowd watching the Games on the screen. Had he merely blended in, or even used his minor celebrity to set suspicions at bay? My tribute’s finished, so I may as well enjoy myself! Posed for pictures? Chatted up the Peacekeepers and slipped in somehow while their backs were turned? Who would think he’d want to enter the arena, and why on earth had he?

  On-screen, a shadowy Sejanus knelt, set down a parcel, and rolled Marcus onto his back. He did his best to straighten the legs, to fold the arms on the chest, but the limbs had grown stiff and defied arrangement. Coriolanus couldn’t tell what was happening next, something with the parcel, but then Sejanus rose to his feet and held his hand over the body.

  That’s what he did at the zoo, thought Coriolanus. He remembered when, after Arachne’s death, he’d caught a glimpse of Sejanus sprinkling something over the dead tribute’s body.

  “That’s your son in there? What’s he doing?” asked the Grandma’am, aghast.

  “He’s putting bread crumbs on the body,” said Ma. “So Marcus has food on his journey.”

  “His journey where?” asked the Grandma’am. “He’s dead!”

  “Back to wherever he came from,” said Ma. “It’s what we do, back home. When someone dies.”

  Coriolanus couldn’t help feeling embarrassed for her. If you ever needed proof of the districts’ backwardness, there you had it. Primitive people with their primitive customs. How much bread had they wasted with this nonsense? Oh, no, he starved to death! Somebody get the bread! He had a sinking feeling that his supposed friendship was going to come back to haunt him. As if on cue, the phone rang.

  “Is the whole city up?” wondered the Grandma’am.

  “Excuse me.” Coriolanus crossed to the phone in the foyer. “Hello?” he said into the receiver, hoping it was a wrong number.

  “Mr. Snow, it’s Dr. Gaul.” Coriolanus felt his insides contract. “Are you near a screen?”

  “Just got home, actually,” he answered, trying to buy time. “Oh, yes, there it is. My family’s watching.”

  “What’s going on with your friend?” she asked.

  Coriolanus turned his head away from the gathering and lowered his voice. “He’s not really . . . that.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve been thick as thieves,” she said. “‘Help me give away my sandwiches, Coriolanus!’ ‘Empty seat next to me, Sejanus!’ When I asked Casca what classmates he was close to, yours was the only name he could think of.”

  His civility to Sejanus had obviously been misread. Really, they were hardly more than acquaintances. “Dr. Gaul, if you’d let me explain —”

  “I don’t have time for explanations. Right now the Plinth brat’s loose in the arena with a pack of wolves. If they see him, they’ll kill him on the spot.” She turned to speak to someone else. “No, don’t cut away abruptly, that will only draw attention. Just make it as dark as you can. Make it look natural. A slow blackout, as if a cloud has drifted over the moon.” She was back in the next breath. “You’re a smart boy. What message will that send to the audience? The damage will be considerable. We must remedy the situation at once.”

  “You could send in some Peacekeepers,” Coriolanus said.

  “And have him bolt like a rabbit?” she scoffed. “Imagine that for a moment, the Peacekeepers trying to chase him down in the dark. No, we’ll have to lure him out, as uneventfully as possible, so we’ll need people he cares about. He can’t stand his father, no siblings, no other friends. That leaves you and his mother. We’re trying t
o locate her now.”

  Coriolanus felt his heart sink. “She’s right here,” he admitted. So much for his “acquaintances” defense.

  “Well, done and done. I want you both here at the arena in twenty minutes. More, and it will be me serving you with a demerit, not Highbottom, and you can kiss any chance of a prize good-bye.” With that, she hung up.

  On his television, Coriolanus could see that the image had darkened. He could barely make out Sejanus’s figure at all now. “Mrs. Plinth, that was the Head Gamemaker. She’d like you to meet her at the arena to collect Sejanus, and I’m to accompany you.” He could hardly admit to more without giving the Grandma’am a heart attack.

  “Is he in trouble?” she asked, wide-eyed. “With the Capitol?”

  Coriolanus found it strange that she’d be more worried about the Capitol than an arena full of armed tributes at this point, but maybe she had reason after what had happened to Marcus.

  “Oh, no. They’re just concerned with his well-being. Shouldn’t be long, but don’t wait up,” he told Tigris and the Grandma’am.

  As fast as he could, short of carrying her, he moved Mrs. Plinth out the door, down the elevator, and through the lobby. Her car rolled up soundlessly, and the driver, most likely an Avox, only nodded at his request to be taken to the arena.

  “We’re rather in a hurry,” Coriolanus told the driver, and the car sped up immediately, gliding through the empty streets. If it was possible to cover the distance in twenty minutes, they would.

  Mrs. Plinth clutched her handbag and stared out the window at the deserted city. “First time I saw the Capitol, it was night, like this.”

  “Oh, yes?” said Coriolanus, only to be polite. Honestly, who cared? His entire future was on the line because of her wayward son. And one had to question the parenting of a boy who thought breaking into the arena would solve anything.

  “Sejanus sat right where you are, saying, ‘It’ll be all right, Ma. It’ll be okay.’ Trying to calm me down. When we both knew it was a disaster,” said Mrs. Plinth. “But he was so brave. So good. Only thinking of his ma.”

  “Hm. Must have been a big change.” What was it with the Plinths anyway? To be constantly turning advantage to tragedy? You needed only to take a cursory glance at the interior of this car, the tooled leather, the upholstered seats, the bar with its crystal bottles of gem-colored liquids, to know they were among the most fortunate people in Panem.

  “Family and friends cut us off,” Mrs. Plinth went on. “No new ones to be made here. Strabo — his pa, that is — still thinks it was the right thing to do. No kind of future in Two. His way of protecting us. His way of keeping Sejanus from the Games.”

  “Ironic, really. Given the circumstances.” Coriolanus tried to redirect her. “Now, I don’t know what Dr. Gaul has in mind, but I imagine she wants your help getting him out of there.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she said. “Him so upset and all. I can try, but he’ll have to think it’s the right thing to do.”

  The right thing to do. Coriolanus realized that this was what had always defined Sejanus’s actions, his determination to do the right thing. That insistence, the way, for instance, he would defy Dr. Gaul when the rest of them were just trying to get by, was another reason he alienated people. Frankly, he could be insufferable with those superior little comments of his. But playing on that might be the way to manipulate him.

  As the car pulled up to the entrance of the arena, Coriolanus saw an effort had been made to conceal the crisis. Only a dozen or so Peacekeepers were present, and a handful of Gamemakers. The refreshment booths had shut down, the day’s crowd had dispersed earlier, so there was little to draw curious spectators. Stepping out, he noticed how quickly the temperature had dropped since his walk home.

  In the back of a van, a Capitol News monitor displayed a split screen with the actual feed of the arena next to the darkened version going out to the public. Dr. Gaul, Dean Highbottom, and a few Peacekeepers were gathered around it. As Coriolanus walked up with Mrs. Plinth, he made out Sejanus kneeling next to Marcus’s body, still as a statue.

  “At least you’re punctual,” said Dr. Gaul. “Mrs. Plinth, I presume?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Plinth, a quaver in her voice. “I’m sorry if Sejanus has caused any inconvenience. He’s a good boy, really. It’s just he takes things so to heart.”

  “No one could accuse him of being indifferent,” Dr. Gaul agreed. She turned to Coriolanus. “Any idea how we might rescue your best friend, Mr. Snow?”

  Coriolanus ignored the barb and examined the screen. “What’s he doing?”

  “Just kneeling there, looks like,” said Dean Highbottom. “Possibly in some kind of shock.”

  “He appears calm. Perhaps you could send the Peacekeepers in now without startling him?” suggested Coriolanus.

  “Too risky,” said Dr. Gaul.

  “What about putting his mother on a speaker, or a bullhorn?” Coriolanus continued. “If you can darken the screen, surely you can manipulate the audio as well.”

  “On the broadcast. But in the arena, we’d alert every tribute to the fact that there’s an unarmed Capitol boy in their midst,” said Dean Highbottom.

  Coriolanus began to get a bad feeling. “What do you propose?”

  “We think someone he knows needs to slip in as unobtrusively as possible and coax him out,” said Dr. Gaul. “Namely, you.”

  “Oh, no!” burst out Mrs. Plinth with surprising sharpness. “It can’t be Coriolanus. The last thing we need is to put another child in danger. I’ll do it.”

  Coriolanus appreciated the offer but knew the chances of this were slim. With her red, swollen eyes and wobbly high heels, she did not inspire confidence as a covert operator.

  “What we need is someone who can make a run for it, if necessary. Mr. Snow is the man for the job.” Dr. Gaul gestured to some Peacekeepers, and Coriolanus found himself being suited up in body armor for the arena. “This vest should protect your vital organs. Here’s your pepper spray and a flash unit that will temporarily blind your enemies, should you make any.”

  He looked at the small bottle of pepper spray and the flash unit. “What about a gun? Or at least a knife?”

  “Since you’re not trained, this seems safer. Remember, you’re not in there to do damage; you’re in there to bring your friend out as quickly and quietly as possible,” instructed Dr. Gaul.

  Another student, or even the Coriolanus of a couple of weeks ago, would have protested this situation. Insisted on calling a parent or guardian. Pleaded. But after the snake attack on Clemensia, the aftermath of the bombing, and Marcus’s torture, he knew it would be pointless. If Dr. Gaul decided he was to go into the Capitol Arena, that’s where he would go, even if his prize was not at stake. He was just like the subjects of her other experiments, students or tributes, of no more consequence than the Avoxes in the cages. Powerless to object.

  “You can’t do this. He’s just a boy. Let me call my husband,” begged Mrs. Plinth.

  Dean Highbottom gave Coriolanus a little smile. “He’ll be all right. It takes a lot to kill a Snow.”

  Had this whole idea been the dean’s? Had he seen a neat shortcut to his ultimate goal of destroying Coriolanus’s future? At any rate, he seemed deaf to Ma’s entreaties.

  With Peacekeepers at either elbow — for his safety, or to prevent him from bolting? — he crossed to the arena. He had little recollection of being carried out after the bombing — perhaps they’d gone out another exit? — but now he could see the significant damage to the main entrance. One of the two great doors had been entirely blown away, leaving a wide hole framed with twisted metal. Besides the guard, little had been done to secure this area other than placing a few rows of waist-high concrete barriers across the opening. Sejanus wouldn’t have had much trouble getting past those if there’d been a decent distraction, and
there’d been the bustle of a carnival most of the day. If the Peacekeepers had been concerned about rebel activity, they would have been focused on someone targeting the crowd. Still, it seemed a little too relaxed. What if the tributes tried to make a break for it again?

  Coriolanus and his escort wove their way through the barriers and into the lobby, which had taken multiple hits. The few unbroken electric bulbs around the admission and concession booths showed a layer of plaster dust coating chunks of ceiling and floor, toppled pillars and fallen beams. To reach the turnstiles required navigating the debris, and again he could see how Sejanus might have crossed it undetected, with a little patience and a bit of luck. The turnstiles on the far right side had been targeted, leaving gnarled, melted metal shards and open access. Here, the Peacekeepers had built the first real fortification, installing a temporary set of bars encased in barbed wire, and a half dozen armed guards. The undamaged turnstiles were still an effective blockade, as they did not allow reentry.

  “So he had a token?” asked Coriolanus.

  “He had a token,” confirmed an old Peacekeeper who seemed to be in command. “Caught us off guard. We’re not really looking for people breaking into the arena during the Games, only out.” He produced a token from his pocket. “This one’s for you.”

  Coriolanus turned the disk in his fingers but made no move to the turnstiles. “How did he think he’d get out?”

  “I don’t think he did,” said the Peacekeeper.

  “And how will I get out?” asked Coriolanus. This plan seemed dicey at best.

  “There.” The Peacekeeper pointed to the bars. “We can pull back the barbed wire and tilt the bars forward, creating an opening big enough for you to crawl under.”

  “You can do that quickly?” he said doubtfully.

  “We’ve got you on camera. We’ll start moving the bars when you’re successfully bringing him out,” the Peacekeeper assured him.