The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Read online

  But who was he to feel superior? Across from the bench, on the bulletin board for student notices, a memo had been posted. It read:

  10th HUNGER GAMES

  MENTOR ASSIGNMENTS

  DISTRICT 1

  Boy Liviaw Cardew

  Girl Palmyra Monty

  DISTRICT 2

  Boy Sejanus Plinth

  Girl Florus Friend

  DISTRICT 3

  Boy Io Jasper

  Girl Urban Canville

  DISTRICT 4

  Boy Persephone Price

  Girl Festus Creed

  DISTRICT 5

  Boy Dennis Fling

  Girl Iphigenia Moss

  DISTRICT 6

  Boy Apollo Ring

  Girl Diana Ring

  DISTRICT 7

  Boy Vipsania Sickle

  Girl Pliny Harrington

  DISTRICT 8

  Boy Juno Phipps

  Girl Hilarius Heavensbee

  DISTRICT 9

  Boy Gaius Breen

  Girl Androcles Anderson

  DISTRICT 10

  Boy Domitia Whimsiwick

  Girl Arachne Crane

  DISTRICT 11

  Boy Clemensia Dovecote

  Girl Felix Ravinstill

  DISTRICT 12

  Boy Lysistrata Vickers

  Girl Coriolanus Snow

  Could there be a more stinging public reminder of his precarious position than to be dangling there at the end like an afterthought?

  After Coriolanus spent a few minutes puzzling over why he’d been brought to the lab, the guard told him he could go in. At his tentative knock, a voice he recognized as Dean Highbottom’s bid him enter. He had expected Satyria to be present but found only one other person in the lab — a small, stooped old woman with frizzy gray hair who was teasing a caged rabbit with a metal rod. She poked at it through the mesh until the creature, which had been modified to have the jaw strength of a pit bull, yanked the thing from her hand and snapped it in two. Then she straightened as well as she could, turned her attention to Coriolanus, and exclaimed, “Hippity, hoppity!”

  Dr. Volumnia Gaul, the Head Gamemaker and mastermind behind the Capitol’s experimental weapons division, had unnerved Coriolanus since childhood. On a school field trip, his class of nine-year-olds had watched as she’d melted the flesh off a lab rat with some sort of laser and then asked if anyone had any pets they were tired of. Coriolanus had no pets — how could they afford to feed one? But Pluribus Bell had a fluffy white cat named Boa Bell that would lie in her owner’s lap and bat around the ends of his powdered wig. She had taken a fancy to Coriolanus and would start up a raspy, mechanical purr the moment he petted her head. On those dreary days when he’d slogged through the wintry slush to trade back a bag of lima beans for more cabbage, it was her silly, silky warmth that had consoled him. It upset him to think of Boa Bell ending up in the lab.

  Coriolanus knew Dr. Gaul taught a class at the University, but he’d seldom seen her at the Academy. As Head Gamemaker, though, anything related to the Hunger Games fell under her purview. Could his trip to the zoo have brought her here? Was he about to lose his mentorship?

  “Hippity, hoppity.” Dr. Gaul grinned. “How was the zoo?” Then she was laughing. “It’s like a children’s rhyme. Hippity, hoppity, how was the zoo? You fell in a cage and your tribute did, too!”

  Coriolanus’s lips stretched into a weak smile as his eyes darted over to Dean Highbottom for some clue as to how to react. The man sat slumped at a lab table, rubbing his temple in a way that suggested he had a pounding headache. No help there.

  “I did,” Coriolanus said. “We did. We fell in a cage.”

  Dr. Gaul raised her eyebrows at him, as if expecting more. “And?”

  “And . . . we . . . landed onstage?” he added.

  “Ha! Exactly! That’s exactly what you did!” Dr. Gaul gave him an approving look. “You’re good at games. Maybe one day you’ll be a Gamemaker.”

  The thought had never crossed his mind. No disrespect to Remus, but it didn’t seem like much of a job. Or like it required any particular skill, tossing kids and weapons in an arena and letting them fight it out. He supposed they had to organize the reapings and film the Games, but he hoped for a more challenging career. “I’ve got a great deal to learn before I can even think of that,” he said modestly.

  “The instinct is there. That’s what matters,” said Dr. Gaul. “So, tell me, what made you go into the cage?”

  It had been an accident. He was about to say so when he thought of Lucy Gray whispering the words Own it.

  “Well . . . my tribute, she’s on the small side. The kind who’s gone in the first five minutes of the Hunger Games. But she’s appealing in a scruffy sort of way, with the singing and all.” Coriolanus paused for a moment, as if reviewing his plan. “I don’t think she stands a chance of winning, but that isn’t the point, is it? I was told we were trying to engage the audience. That’s my assignment. To get people to watch. So I asked myself, how do I even reach the audience? I go where the cameras are.”

  Dr. Gaul nodded. “Yes. Yes, there’s no Hunger Games without the audience.” She turned to the dean. “You see, Casca, this one took the initiative. He understands the importance of keeping the Games alive.”

  Dean Highbottom squinted at him skeptically. “Does he? Or is he just showboating for a better grade? What do you think the purpose of the Hunger Games is, Coriolanus?”

  “To punish the districts for the rebellion,” Coriolanus said without hesitation.

  “Yes, but punishment could take a myriad of forms,” said the dean. “Why the Hunger Games?”

  Coriolanus opened his mouth and then hesitated. Why the Hunger Games? Why not just drop bombs, or cancel food shipments, or stage executions on the steps of the district Justice Buildings?

  His mind jumped to Lucy Gray kneeling at the bars of the cage, engaging the children, the thawing of the crowd. They were connected in some way that he couldn’t quite articulate. “Because . . . It’s because of the children. How they matter to people.”

  “How do they matter?” Dean Highbottom pressed.

  “People love children,” said Coriolanus. But even as the words came out of his mouth, he questioned them. During the war, he had been bombed and starved and abused in multiple ways, and not just by the rebels. A cabbage ripped from his hands. A Peacekeeper bruising his jaw when he mistakenly wandered too close to the president’s mansion. He thought of the time he had collapsed and lain in the street with the swan flu and no one, no one would stop to help. Racked with chills, burning with fever, limbs spiked with pain. Even though she was sick herself, Tigris had found him that night and somehow gotten him home.

  He faltered. “Sometimes they do,” he added, but it lacked conviction. When he thought about it, people’s love of children seemed a very fickle thing. “I don’t know why,” he admitted.

  Dean Highbottom shot Dr. Gaul a look. “You see? It’s a failed experiment.”

  “It is if no one watches!” she snapped back. She gave Coriolanus an indulgent smile. “
He’s a child himself. Give him time. I’ve got a good feeling about this one. Well, I’m off to visit my mutts.” She patted Coriolanus on the arm as she shuffled toward the door. “Very hush-hush, but there’s something wonderful going on with the reptiles.”

  Coriolanus made as if to follow, but Dean Highbottom’s voice stopped him. “So your whole performance was planned. That’s odd. Because when you stood up in the cage, I thought you were thinking about running.”

  “It was a rather more physical entrance than I had envisioned. It took some time to get my bearings. Again, I have a great many things to learn,” said Coriolanus.

  “Boundaries being among them. You’ll be receiving a demerit for engaging in reckless behavior that could have injured a student. You, namely. It will go on your permanent record,” said the dean.

  A demerit? What did that even mean? Coriolanus would have to review the Academy student guide so he could object to the punishment. He was distracted by the dean, who pulled a small bottle from his pocket, twisted it open, and applied three drops of clear liquid to his tongue.

  Whatever was in the bottle, most likely morphling, worked quickly, because Dean Highbottom’s whole body relaxed and a dreaminess settled in his eyes. He smiled unpleasantly. “Three such demerits, and you’ll be expelled.”

  Coriolanus had never received an official reprimand of any kind, nothing that would stain his spotless record. “But —” he started to protest.

  “Go, before you receive a second for insubordination,” said Dean Highbottom. There was no give in the statement, no invitation to negotiate. Coriolanus did as he’d been directed.

  Had Dean Highbottom actually used the word expelled?

  Coriolanus left the Academy in a state of agitation, but once again the rush of attention quieted his distress. From his fellow students in the hallway, from Tigris and the Grandma’am as they ate a quick supper of fried eggs and cabbage soup, from complete strangers as he made his way back to the zoo that evening, eager to keep his hand in the Games.

  The soft orange glow of the sunset suffused the city, and a cool breeze swept away the suffocating heat of the day. Officials had extended the zoo’s hours until nine o’clock, allowing the citizens to see the tributes, but there had been no more live coverage since his earlier visit. Coriolanus had decided to make another appearance to check on Lucy Gray and suggest she sing another song. The audience would love that, and perhaps it would draw the cameras back again.

  As he wound through the paths of the zoo, he was filled with nostalgia for the pleasant days he’d spent there as a child, but he felt saddened by the emptiness of the cages. They had once been full of fascinating creatures from the Capitol’s genetic ark. Now, in one, a lone tortoise lay in the mud, wheezing. A bedraggled toucan squawked high in the branches, fluttering freely from one enclosure to the next. They were rare survivors of the war, as most animals had starved or been eaten. A pair of scrawny raccoons that had likely wandered in from the adjacent city park dug in an overturned trash can. The only beasts thriving were the rats that chased one another around the edges of fountains and scurried across the path mere feet away.

  As Coriolanus neared the monkey house, the paths became more populated, and a crowd of about a hundred people curved from one side of the bars to the other. Someone jostled his arm as they sped by, and he recognized Lepidus Malmsey pushing ahead through the visitors with the cameraman. A sort of commotion was occurring down front, and he climbed up on a boulder to get a better view.

  To his chagrin, he saw Sejanus standing at the edge of the cage with a large backpack beside him. He held what appeared to be a sandwich through the bars, offering it to the tributes within. For the moment, they were all hanging back. Coriolanus could not hear his words, but he seemed to be trying to coax Dill, the girl from District 11, to take it. What was Sejanus up to? Was he trying to outdo him and steal the day’s thunder? To take his idea of coming to the zoo and then dress it up in a way Coriolanus could never compete with, because he could never afford to? Was that whole pack filled with sandwiches? That girl wasn’t even his tribute.

  When Sejanus caught sight of Coriolanus, his face brightened and he waved him over. Casually, Coriolanus made his way through the crowd, soaking up their attention. “Trouble?” he said as he surveyed the backpack. It was overflowing with not only sandwiches, but fresh plums as well.

  “None of them trust me. And why should they?” asked Sejanus.

  A self-important little girl marched up beside them and pointed to a sign on the pillar at the edge of the enclosure. “It says, ‘Please don’t feed the animals.’”

  “They’re not animals, though,” said Sejanus. “They’re kids, like you and me.”

  “They’re not like me!” the little girl protested. “They’re district. That’s why they belong in a cage!”

  “Once again, like me,” said Sejanus drily. “Coriolanus, do you think you could get your tribute to come over? If she does, the others might. They have to be starving.”

  Coriolanus’s mind worked quickly. He had already received one demerit today and did not wish to push his luck with Dean Highbottom. On the other hand, the demerit had been for endangerment of a student, and he was perfectly safe on this side of the bars. Dr. Gaul, who was arguably more influential than Dean Highbottom, had complimented his initiative. And in truth, he had no interest in ceding the stage to Sejanus. The zoo was his show, and he and Lucy Gray were the stars. Even now, he could hear Lepidus whispering his name to the cameraman, feel the viewers in the Capitol watching him.

  He spotted Lucy Gray at the back of the enclosure, washing her hands and face at a faucet that jutted from the wall at knee height. She dried herself on the ruffled skirt, arranged her curls, and adjusted the rose behind her ear.

  “I can’t treat her like it’s feeding time at the zoo,” Coriolanus told Sejanus. It was not consistent with his treatment of her as a lady to be shoving food to her through the bars. “Not mine. But I could offer her dinner.”

  Sejanus nodded immediately. “Take whatever. Ma made extra. Please.”

  Coriolanus chose two sandwiches and two plums from the pack and crossed to the edge of the monkey house, where a flat rock provided a likely seat. Never in his life, not even in the worst years, had he left home without a clean handkerchief in his pocket. The Grandma’am insisted on certain civilities that held chaos at bay. There were great drawers of them going back generations, plain to lacy to embroidered with flowers. He spread out the worn, slightly rumpled square of white linen and laid out the food. As he seated himself, Lucy Gray drifted up to the bars unbidden.

  “Are those sandwiches for anybody?” she asked.

  “Just for you,” he answered.

  She tucked her feet under her and accepted a sandwich. After examining its contents, she took a nibble from the corner. “Aren’t you eating?”

  He wasn’t sure. The optics so far were good, singling her out again, presenting her as someone of value. But to eat with her? That might cross a line.

  “I’d rather you have it,” he said. “Keep up your strength.”

  “Why? So I can break Jessup’s neck in the arena? We both know that’s not my forte,” she said.

  His stomach growled at the smell of the sandwich. A thick slice of meat loaf on white bread. He’d missed his lunch at the Academy today, and breakfast and supper had been meager at home. A dollop of ketchup oozing out of Lucy Gray’s sandwich tipped the scale. He lifted the second sandwich and sank his teeth in. A little shock of delight ran through his body, and he resisted the impulse to devour the sandwich in a couple of bites.

  “Now it’s like a picnic.” Lucy Gray looked back at the other tributes, who had moved in closer but still seemed uncertain. “You all should get one. They’re real good!” she called. “Go on, Jessup!”

  Emboldened, her hulking district partner slowly approached Sejanus and took the s
andwich from his hand. He waited until a plum followed and then walked off without a word. Suddenly, the other tributes rushed the fence, hands thrusting through the bars. Sejanus filled them as fast as he could, and within a minute the backpack was almost depleted. The tributes spread out around the cage, crouched protectively over their food, wolfing it down.

  The only tribute who had not approached Sejanus was his own, the boy from District 2. He stood at the back of the cage, arms folded across his colossal frame, staring down his mentor.

  Sejanus pulled one final sandwich from the backpack and held it out to him. “Marcus, this is for you. Take it. Please.” But Marcus remained stone-faced and immobile. “Please, Marcus,” Sejanus, pleaded. “You must be starving.” Marcus looked Sejanus up and down, then pointedly turned his back on him.

  Lucy Gray watched the standoff with interest. “What’s going on there?”

  “What do you mean?” Coriolanus asked.

  “I don’t know exactly,” she said. “But it feels personal.”

  The tiny boy who’d wanted to murder Coriolanus in the truck sprinted up and snatched the unclaimed sandwich. Sejanus made no move to stop him. The news team tried to engage Sejanus, but he brushed them off and disappeared into the crowd, the limp pack over his shoulder. They shot a bit more of the tributes, then headed toward Lucy Gray and Coriolanus, who sat up straighter and ran his tongue over his teeth to clean off the meat loaf.

  “We’re here at the zoo with Coriolanus Snow and his tribute, Lucy Gray Baird. Another student just passed out sandwiches. Is he a mentor?” Lepidus thrust the mic at them for an answer.