The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

by Suzanne Collins

  The list went chronologically by district, starting with District 3’s Urban-Teslee and Io-Circ pairings. “Our tech district tributes have us all wondering, what did they do with those drones?” said Lucky. Festus and Coral appeared next, followed by Persephone and Mizzen. “The District Four tributes are sailing high as we enter the final ten!” Lamina on her beam and Pup’s photo brought a cheer from Pup until it was replaced by Treech juggling at the zoo and Vipsania. “And crowd favorites Lamina and Pliny Harrington are joined by the District Seven boy, Treech, and his mentor, Vipsania Sickle! So, Districts Three, Four, and Seven all have both their teams intact! Now to the solo tributes.” A blurry picture of Wovey crouched down at the zoo, coupled with Hilarius with a bad acne outbreak. “Wovey from Eight with Hilarius Heavensbee as a guide!” Since they used his interview shot, Tanner looked better as he came up side by side with Domitia. “The boy from Ten can’t wait to put his slaughterhouse techniques to good use!” Then Reaper, standing strong in the arena, matched with a flawless-looking Clemensia. “Here’s a tribute you might want to rethink! Reaper from Eleven!” Finally, Coriolanus saw his own photo — not great, not bad — with a dazzling photo of Lucy Gray singing at the interview. “And the award for most popular goes to Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray from Twelve!”

  Most popular? It was flattering, Coriolanus supposed, but not especially intimidating. Never mind, though. Popular had gotten Lucy Gray a pile of money. She was alive, watered, fed, and well stocked. Hopefully, she could hole up while the others thinned their ranks. Losing Jessup as her protector was a blow, but it would be easier for her to hide by herself. Coriolanus had promised her she would never really be alone in the arena, that he would be with her all the way. Was she holding on to that compact now? Thinking of him as he was of her?

  Coriolanus updated his mentor sheet, taking no pleasure in crossing out Jessup and Lysistrata.

  10th HUNGER GAMES

  MENTOR ASSIGNMENTS

  DISTRICT 1

  Boy (Facet) Livia Cardew

  Girl (Velvereen) Palmyra Monty

  DISTRICT 2

  Boy (Marcus) Sejanus Plinth

  Girl (Sabyn) Florus Friend

  DISTRICT 3

  Boy (Circ) Io Jasper

  Girl (Teslee) Urban Canville

  DISTRICT 4

  Boy (Mizzen) Persephone Price

  Girl (Coral) Festus Creed

  DISTRICT 5

  Boy (Hy) Dennis Fling

  Girl (Sol) Iphigenia Moss

  DISTRICT 6

  Boy (Otto) Apollo Ring

  Girl (Ginnee) Diana Ring

  DISTRICT 7

  Boy (Treech) Vipsania Sickle

  Girl (Lamina) Pliny Harrington

  DISTRICT 8

  Boy (Bobbin) Juno Phipps

  Girl (Wovey) Hilarius Heavensbee

  DISTRICT 9

  Boy (Panlo) Gaius Breen

  Girl (Sheaf) Androcles Anderson

  DISTRICT 10

  Boy (Tanner) Domitia Whimsiwick

  Girl (Brandy) Arachne Crane

  DISTRICT 11

  Boy (Reaper) Clemensia Dovecote

  Girl (Dill) Felix Ravinstill

  DISTRICT 12

  Boy (Jessup) Lysistrata Vickers

  Girl (Lucy Gray) Coriolanus Snow

  The field had narrowed considerably, but several of the surviving tributes would be tough to beat. Reaper, Tanner, both of those District 4 tributes . . . and who knew what that brainy little pair from District 3 was up to?

  As the ten mentors gathered for a delicious lamb stew with dried plums, Coriolanus missed Lysistrata. She had been his only real ally, just as Jessup had been Lucy Gray’s.

  After supper, he sat between Festus and Hilarius, doing his best to keep from nodding off. At around nine, with nothing eventful having happened since Jessup’s death, they were sent home with orders to be there all the earlier the following morning. The walk home loomed, but he remembered the second token from Tigris and gratefully mounted the trolley, which dropped him a block from his apartment.

  The Grandma’am had gone to bed, but Tigris waited for him in his bedroom, again enveloped in her mother’s fur coat. He collapsed on the chaise longue at her feet, knowing he owed her an explanation of his time in the arena. It wasn’t only fatigue that made him hesitate.

  “I know you want to hear about last night,” he told her, “but I’m afraid to tell you. I’m afraid you could get in trouble for knowing it.”

  “It’s okay, Coryo. Your shirt’s told me most of it.” From the floor she retrieved the shirt he’d worn in the arena. “Clothes speak to me, you know.” She smoothed it out on her lap and began to reconstruct the terrors of his night, first lifting the bloodstained slit in the material on the sleeve. “Right here. This is where the knife cut you.” Her fingers tracked the damage down the fabric. “All these little rips, and the way the dirt’s ground in, tell me you slid — or maybe even were dragged — which matches up with the scrape on your chin and the blood on your collar.” Tigris touched the neckline, then moved on. “This other sleeve, the way it’s torn, I’d say you caught it on barbed wire. Probably at the barricade. But this blood here, the stuff splattered on the cuff . . . I don’t think it’s yours. I think you had to do something really awful in there.”

  Coriolanus stared down at the blood and felt the impact of the beam on Bobbin’s head. “Tigris . . .”

  She rubbed her temple. “And I keep wondering how it came to this. That my baby cousin, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, has to fight for his life in the arena.”

  This was the last conversation in the world he wanted to have right now. “I don’t know. I didn’t have any choice.”

  “I know that. Of course I know that.” Tigris put her arms around him. “I just hate what they’re doing to you.”

  “I’m okay,” he said. “It won’t last much longer. And even if I don’t win, I’m a shoo-in for some sort of prize. Really, I think things are about to take a turn for the better.”

  “Right. Yes. I’m sure they are. Snow lands on top,” she agreed. But the look on her face spoke otherwise.

  “What is it?” he asked. She shook her head. “Come on, what?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you until after the Hunger Games . . .” She fell silent.

  “But now you have to,” he said. “Or, I’ll imagine the worst things possible. Please, just tell me.”

  “We’ll figure something out.” She started to rise.

  “Tigris.” He pulled her back down. “What?”

  Tigris reluctantly reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a letter marked with the Capitol stamp, and handed it to him. “The tax bill came today.”

  She didn’t have to elaborate. Her expression told him everything. With no money for the taxes, and no way to borrow more, the Snows were about to lose their home.

  Coriolanus had been in a state of denial about the taxes, but now the reality of his family’s displacement hit him like a truck. How could he say good-bye to the only home he’d ever known? To his mother, to his childhood, to those sweet memories of his life before the war? Thes
e four walls not only kept his family safe from the world, they protected the legend of the Snows’ wealth. He would be losing his residence, his history, and his identity in one fell swoop.

  They had six weeks to come up with the money. To scrape together the equivalent of Tigris’s income for the whole year. The cousins tried to assess what they might still have to sell, but even if they sold every stick of furniture and every keepsake, it would only cover a few months, at the most. And the tax bills would keep showing up, every month, like clockwork. They would need the proceeds from selling their possessions, however paltry, to rent a new place. Eviction due to tax troubles had to be avoided at all cost; the public shame would be too great, too lasting. So move they must.

  “What are we going to do?” Coriolanus asked.

  “Nothing until the Hunger Games are finished. You have to focus on them so you can get that Plinth Prize, or at least another one. I’ll handle this end,” she said firmly. She made him a cup of hot milk laced with corn syrup and stroked his throbbing head until he fell asleep. He dreamed violent, unsettling things, replaying the events of the arena, and awoke to the usual.

  Gem of Panem,

  Mighty city,

  Through the ages, you shine anew.

  Would the Grandma’am still be singing it in their rental in a month or two? Or would she be too humiliated to raise her voice again? For all his derision of the morning recital, the thought saddened him.

  As he dressed, the stitches on his arm pulled, and he remembered he was supposed to drop by the Citadel to get them checked. Dark red scabs had settled on his scraped face, but the swelling had abated. He dabbed some of his mother’s powder on, and while it didn’t really cover the scabs, the scent soothed him a bit.

  Their hopeless financial situation made him accept the tokens Tigris offered without hesitation. Why bother pinching pennies when the dollars had fled long ago? On the trolley, he choked down his nut butter on soda crackers and tried not to compare it with Ma Plinth’s breakfast rolls. It crossed his mind that, given his rescue of Sejanus, the Plinths might provide a loan, or even a payout for his silence, but the Grandma’am would never allow that, and the idea of a Snow groveling before a Plinth was unthinkable. The Plinth Prize, though, was fair game, and Tigris was right. These next few days would determine his future.

  At the Academy, the ten mentors drank their tea and readied themselves for the cameras. Every day brought them more scrutiny. The Gamemakers had sent over a makeup person, who managed to tone down Coriolanus’s scabs and give his eyebrows a little shape while she was at it. No one seemed in the mood to talk about the Games directly, except Hilarius Heavensbee, who could talk of nothing else.

  “It’s different for me,” said Hilarius. “I checked my list last night. Every single one of the tributes left has had food, or at least water, since they’ve been in the arena. Except old no-show Wovey. Where is she anyway? I mean, how would I know if she just curled up and died somewhere in those tunnels? Maybe she’s already dead, and I’m just sitting here like a jackass, playing with my communicuff!”

  Coriolanus wanted to tell him to shut up because other people had real problems, but instead he maneuvered himself into a seat on the end, next to Festus, who was deep in discussion with Persephone.

  Lucky Flickerman opened by recapping the remaining tributes and inviting Lepidus to take comments from the mentor pool. Coriolanus was called upon first thing to respond to the Jessup scare. He made a point of complimenting Lysistrata’s brilliant handling of the rabies situation and thanking her for her generosity in the last minutes of Jessup’s life. He turned to the section where the fallen mentors sat, asked her to stand, and invited the audience to give her a round of applause. Not only did they oblige, but at least half stood up, and while Lysistrata looked embarrassed, he thought she didn’t really mind. Then he added that he hoped to properly thank her by fulfilling her prediction that the victor would be a tribute from District 12, namely, Lucy Gray. The audience could see for themselves how clever his tribute had been. And they shouldn’t forget how she’d stood by Jessup until the bitter end. Again, that was behavior you might expect of a Capitol girl, but of one from the districts? It was something to think about, how much they rewarded character in the Hunger Games victor, how much she reflected their values. Something must’ve hit home with the audience, because at least a dozen pings sounded from his communicuff right off. He held up the cuff for the camera and thanked the generous sponsors.

  As if unable to stand that much attention being showered on Coriolanus, Pup sat forward and loudly announced that he’d “Better get Lamina her breakfast!” and ordered up a storm of food and drink. No one else could compete, as she was the only tribute to be seen in the arena, so it was just one more way in which Pup was annoying. It gratified Coriolanus that no new pinging came from his rival’s cuff.

  Knowing he wouldn’t be called upon again until the others had been interviewed, Coriolanus adopted an interested demeanor but barely listened to their pitches. The idea of approaching old Strabo Plinth for money — not blackmailing him, of course, but giving him the opportunity to make a financial gift of thanks — kept nagging at him. What if Coriolanus dropped by the Plinths’ to check on Sejanus’s health? That had been a bad cut on his leg. Yes, what if he just dropped by and then saw what happened?

  Lucky interrupted Io’s thoughts on what Circ might do with the drone — “Well, if the light-emitting diodes on the drone aren’t broken, he might be able to fashion a flashlight of some sort, which would give him a great advantage at night” — to direct the audience’s attention to Reaper’s emergence from the barricade.

  Lamina, who’d been collecting water, bread, and cheese from a half dozen drones, neatly lined up her provisions along the beam. She barely acknowledged Reaper’s entrance, but he walked over to her with purpose. He pointed up at the sun and then to her face. For the first time, Coriolanus noticed the toll the long days outdoors were taking on Lamina’s skin. She’d been badly sunburned, and her nose was peeling in response. On close inspection, the tops of her bare feet were red as well. Reaper indicated her food. Lamina rubbed her foot and seemed to consider whatever his offer might be. They went back and forth for a bit, then both nodded in agreement. Reaper jogged across the arena and climbed up to the flag of Panem. He pulled out his long knife and stabbed through the heavy fabric.

  Loud objections came from the audience in the hall. This disregard for the sanctity of the national flag shook them. As Reaper began to saw his way through the flag, carving off a piece the size of a small blanket, the unease grew. Surely, this should not go unchecked. Surely, he should be punished in some way. But given that being in the Hunger Games was the ultimate punishment, no one knew what form it should take.

  Lepidus hurried over to Clemensia to ask what she made of her tribute’s behavior. “Well, it’s a stupid move, isn’t it? Who’s going to sponsor him now?”

  “Not that it matters, since you never feed him,” Pup commented.

  “I’ll feed him when he does something that merits feeding,” said Clemensia. “Anyway, I think you’ve got that covered today.”

  Pup frowned. “I do?”

  Clemensia nodded to the screen as Reaper jogged back to the beam. Further negotiation occurred between him and Lamina. Then, on what appeared to be the count of three, Reaper tossed up the wadded piece of flag as Lamina dropped down a piece of bread. The flag didn’t quite make it high enough for her to catch hold of. More negotiation ensued. When Reaper finally delivered it after several attempts, she rewarded him with a chunk of cheese.

  It wasn’t an official alliance, but the exchange seemed to bond the two a bit. While Lamina shook out the flag and draped it over her head, Reaper sat against one of the posts and ate his bread and cheese. They didn’t speak to each other again, but a relative calm came over them, and when the pack appeared at the far end of the arena, Lamina pointed them o
ut. Reaper gave her a nod of thanks before withdrawing behind the barricade.

  Coral, Mizzen, and Tanner sat in the stands and made eating motions. Festus, Persephone, and Domitia all obliged them, and the three tributes shared the bread, cheese, and apples dropped by the drones.

  Back in the studio, Lucky had brought his pet parrot, Jubilee, to the set, and he spent several minutes trying to coax it to say “Hi, Handsome!” to Dean Highbottom. The bird, a depressed creature in the midst of battling mange, perched wordlessly on Lucky’s wrist as the dean folded his hands and waited. “Oh, say it! Come on! ‘Hi, Handsome! Hi, Handsome!’”

  “I don’t think it wants to, Lucky,” said Dean Highbottom finally. “Perhaps it doesn’t find me handsome at all.”

  “What? Ha! Nooo. He’s just shy in front of strangers.” He held out the bird. “Would you like to hold him?”

  The dean leaned back. “No.”

  Lucky pulled Jubliee back to his chest and stroked his feathers with a fingertip. “So, Dean Highbottom, what do you make of it all?”

  “All . . . what?” Dean Highbottom asked.

  “All this stuff. All this different stuff happening in the Hunger Games.” Lucky waved his hand in the air. “All of it!”

  “Well, what I’m noticing is the new interactivity of the Games,” said Dean Highbottom.

  Lucky nodded. “Interactivity. Go on.”

  “Right from the beginning. Even before, actually. When the bombing occurred in the arena, it not only took out participants, it changed the landscape,” the dean continued.

  “Changed the landscape,” Lucky repeated.

  “Yes. Now we have the barricade. The beam. Access to the tunnels. It’s a brand-new arena, and it’s made the tributes behave in a brand-new way,” the dean explained.

  “And we have drones!” said Lucky.

  “Exactly right. Now the audience is an active player in the Games.” Dean Highbottom inclined his head toward Lucky. “And you know what that means.”

  “What?” said Lucky.

  The dean spoke the next words slowly, as if to a small child. “It means we’re all in the arena together, Lucky.”