The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (A Hunger Games Novel) EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Suzanne Collins
- Genre: Teen & Young Adult Fiction on Physical & Emotional Abuse
- Publish Date: 19 May 2020
- Size: 8 MB
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Avail for Download
- Price: Free
Coriolanus released the fistful of cabbage into the pot of boiling water and
swore that one day it would never pass his lips again. But this was not that
day. He needed to eat a large bowl of the anemic stuff, and drink every drop
of broth, to prevent his stomach from growling during the reaping ceremony.
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It was one of a long list of precautions he took to mask the fact that his
family, despite residing in the penthouse of the Capitol’s most opulent
apartment building, was as poor as district scum. That at eighteen, the heir to
the once-great house of Snow had nothing to live on but his wits.
His shirt for the reaping was worrying him. He had an acceptable pair of
dark dress pants bought on the black market last year, but the shirt was what
people looked at. Fortunately, the Academy provided the uniforms it required
for daily use. For today’s ceremony, however, students were instructed to be
dressed fashionably but with the solemnity the occasion dictated. Tigris had
said to trust her, and he did. Only his cousin’s cleverness with a needle had
saved him so far. Still, he couldn’t expect miracles.
The shirt they’d dug from the back of the wardrobe — his father’s, from
better days — was stained and yellowed with age, half the buttons missing, a
cigarette burn on one cuff. Too damaged to sell in even the worst of times,
and this was to be his reaping shirt?
This morning he had gone to her room at
daybreak, only to find both his cousin and the shirt missing. Not a good sign.
Had Tigris given up on the old thing and braved the black market in some
last-ditch effort to find him proper clothing? And what on earth would she
possess worth trading for it? Only one thing — herself — and the house of
Snow had not yet fallen that far. Or was it falling now as he salted the
cabbage?
He thought of people putting a price on her. With her long, pointed nose
and skinny body, Tigris was no great beauty, but she had a sweetness, a
vulnerability that invited abuse. She would find takers, if she had a mind to.
The idea made him feel sick and helpless and, consequently, disgusted with
himself.
From deep in the apartment he heard the recording of the Capitol anthem,
“Gem of Panem,” kick on. His grandmother’s tremulous soprano voice joined
in, bouncing off the walls.
Gem of Panem,
Mighty city,
Through the ages, you shine anew.
As always, she was painfully off-key and slightly behind tempo. The first
year of the war, she’d played the recording on national holidays for five-yearold Coriolanus and eight-year-old Tigris in order to build their sense of
patriotism.
The daily recital hadn’t begun until that black day when the
district rebels had surrounded the Capitol, cutting it off from supplies for the
remaining two years of the war. “Remember, children,” she’d say, “we are
but besieged — we have not surrendered!” Then she would warble the
anthem out of the penthouse window as the bombs rained down. Her small
act of defiance.
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