Survivor: The Forty-Seventh Hunger Games

Chapter 12

Potato's one of the weird ones. They always spice things up.

Parker "Potato" Springfield, 15

I was minding my own business eating leftover potatoes when someone up and jumped on me. Sometimes I liked to sneak up on people and spook them, but I never grabbed them in a net and started dragging them across the ground like a wild dog. A whole bunch more people gathered around while I tore at the net and growled. I'd never seen so many people so close to me. Most people were afraid of me. I wasn't sure why. I never bothered anyone unless they got too close while I was eating. Except the spooking people thing, I suppose, but I wasn't that scary.

"Reaping," someone said. Oh, it's that again. A long time ago, back before it got cold and then warm again, I got sick off eating a bad potato and someone carried me to a big stage while I was all tired. I didn't remember much of it. I'd thought it was a dream until now, but I vaguely remembered someone saying "Reaping" back then, too.

There were a lot of things about the world I didn't understand. There were other people like me, but they were also different. They talked a lot, and I didn't understand a lot of what they said. Sometimes they chased me away when I tried to dig up potatoes to eat, and one time a man hit me with a rope. I started coming in the night after that. Sometimes they shined lights at me, but I ran away like the raccoons and they left me alone. I didn't take many potatoes anyway. The other people never ate the potatoes. They dug them up and piled them into huge heaps and then just took them away. I never understood why they wasted all that food.

Sometimes the others hung around in groups. Nobody ever hung around with me. The others would come separately but then stand together, but I was all alone. Sometimes I followed them at night and they went into big buildings and stayed there all night. I slept under logs or anywhere else that was comfortable. That was the way it had always been.

Maybe it hadn't been, though. I was never sure if it was a dream or not, but I remembered living in one of those buildings with other kids like me. That was a long time ago, though, and I never saw any of those kids. I wasn't a kid anymore, though, so they probably changed just like me. It wasn't important, since I could take care of myself. I didn't need anyone else.

The people picked the net up so I was off the ground. They carried it between themselves and dragged it all the way into town. It was too loud and bright in town, so I never went there. It was even louder when they took me. Besides the people carrying me, there were screaming kids and crying ladies and all sorts of noise. The people dropped me outside a big wooden structure and left me alone. A few minutes later, I heard someone call my name.

"Parker Herrington!" Really, my name was Potato. No one had called me Parker since those dreams. Sometimes people called me "the creep in the fields", but that wasn't my name either.

The people came back and picked my net back up. They carried me past a bunch of people and dropped me on a stage. Some weird lady in a crazy outfit looked at me like I was the strange one. Then more people in weird silver clothes picked me back up and threw me in some shiny metal vehicle. This day just got weirder and weirder.

Rahina Herrington, 15 (D11F)

Life's hard when you're the Devil's child. That never seemed to me to be a fair thing to condemn someone for, since I didn't ask the Devil to be my father. I would think my mother should be the one to blame for having a child with the Devil. I was starting to think that maybe the whole thing was made up, since the only sign of my infernal parentage was being a few shades lighter than the rest of my family. Perhaps the Devil was being wrongfully accused so my mother didn't have to own up to some unsavory activities.

That hardly mattered anymore, since I didn't live with my family. Whatever weird amalgamation of cults they followed decreed that children had to be cared for, even if they were the Devil's, until ten years of age. Then they threw me out to the streets, which seemed a much warmer and more hospitable home. Brock and his wife Mariah were exactly the kind of angels my family talked about but never saw, even if our first meeting was something out of a PSA. Usually if some weird grungy guy stops to talk to a homeless girl, it doesn't end with him giving her a place to stay.

There might have been something to the cursed child thing, since I wasn't a very grateful houseguest. Maybe I thought it was too good to be true and was trying to push until I proved Brock wasn't as patient as he seemed. He'd put up with a lot since I came to stay with him, and he probably knew how much I cared for him, even though I said it wasn't anything. But then, even the nicest, politest kids were surly on Reaping Day. As soon as I got out of bed, everyone started to clear out of my way.

"What are you looking at?" I snapped as some poor sap who happened to pass nearby. I kicked a stone into a gutter as I walked to the Reaping Center. I peevishly resented all the children who were already there. Why are they in my way? I raged to myself, ignoring the fact that they didn't want it any more than I did.

Snapdragon provided a target for all my crabbiness. She represented many things I hated: pretension, the Capitol, rich people, happy people, and frilly dresses. I stewed in the crowd as I waited for her to pick a name.

"Rahina Herrington!" she said, her voice as light and airy as the words were not.

"Yeah?!" I yelled. She jumped and dropped the paper in surprise.

"Ah... yeah," she said. I sucked my teeth in contempt and started stomping my way to the stage. An unfortunate girl who didn't get out of the way in time got jostled aside as I bulled past.

"This must be your first time on television. Is there anything you'd like to say?" she asked after she called the boy to join me. I took the microphone and shouted for all I was worth.

"*!^#(^ # &* %$!"