The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

by Suzanne Collins

  Lucky furrowed his brow. “Huh. I don’t quite get that.”

  Dean Highbottom tapped his temple with his forefinger. “Think it over.”

  “Hi, Handsome,” squawked Jubilee despondently.

  “Oh, there we go! I told you, didn’t I?” crowed Lucky.

  “You did,” admitted the dean. “And yet it was still unexpected.”

  Nothing much else happened before lunch. Lucky did the weather report district by district, with the added fillip of Jubilee’s company, but the bird refused to talk again, so Lucky began speaking for it in a high-pitched voice. “How’s the weather look in District Twelve, Jubilee?” “They’ve got snow, Lucky.” “Snow in July, Jubilee?” “Coriolanus Snow!”

  Coriolanus gave the camera a thumbs-up when they cut for his reaction. He could not believe this was his life.

  Lunch disappointed, as the menu consisted of nut butter sandwiches, and he’d had nut butter for breakfast. He ate it, because he ate anything free, and it was important to keep his strength up. A ripple went through the hall indicating something was happening on the screen, and he hurried to resume his seat. Maybe Lucy Gray had surfaced?

  She had not, but the pack’s morning laziness had given way to direction. The three strode across the arena until they were directly under Lamina’s beam. She took no notice at first, but Tanner smacking a sword blade against one of the poles brought her to attention. Lamina sat up and surveyed the pack, and she must have sensed a change in the air, because she pulled out her ax and her knife and polished them on the flag.

  After a brief huddle, in which the District 4 tributes relinquished their tridents to Tanner, the pack split up. Coral and Mizzen each went to one of the metal posts that supported the beam, and Tanner stood directly under Lamina, holding the pair of tridents. Knives in teeth, Coral and Mizzen gave each other a nod and then began to climb their respective posts.

  Festus shifted in his seat. “Here we go.”

  “They’ll never make it,” said Pup in agitation.

  “They’re trained to work on ships. They climb ropes as part of it,” Persephone pointed out.

  “Rigging,” said Festus.

  “Yes, I get it. My father’s a commander, after all,” said Pup. “Rope climbing is different. The posts are more like trees.”

  But Pup had been getting on everyone’s nerves, and even the mentors without a tribute in the confrontation seemed eager to comment.

  “What about masts?” asked Vipsania.

  “Or flagpoles?” Urban chimed in.

  “They won’t make it,” said Pup.

  While the District 4 pair lacked Lamina’s smooth style, they were indeed making it, slowly pulling their way higher and higher. Tanner directed them, calling on Coral to wait a moment when Mizzen fell behind.

  “Look, they’re timing it so they reach the top together,” said Io. “They’re making her choose who to fight, then the other one will reach the beam.”

  “So she’ll kill one of them and climb down,” said Pup.

  “Where Tanner will be waiting,” Coriolanus reminded him.

  “Well, I know that!” said Pup. “What do you expect me to do? It’s not like they have rabies and there’s a simple fix like sending in water!”

  “Never would have crossed your mind,” said Festus.

  “Of course, it would’ve,” snapped Pup. “Shut up! All of you!”

  A silence fell, but largely because Coral and Mizzen were nearing the top. Lamina’s head went back and forth as she decided who to confront. Then she headed for Coral.

  “No, not the girl, the boy!” exclaimed Pup, jumping to his feet. “Now she’ll have to fight the boy on the beam.”

  “I’d do the same thing. I wouldn’t want to fight that girl up there,” said Domitia, and murmurs of agreement came from a few of the mentors.

  “No?” Pup reconsidered. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Lamina reached the end of the beam and swung the ax down at Coral without hesitation, just missing her scalp but shaving off a tuft of hair. Coral retreated, lowering herself about a yard, but Lamina struck at her a few more times, as if to drive the point home. As expected, this gave Mizzen time to mount the beam, but when Tanner threw the trident up to him, it peaked about two-thirds of the way up and fell back to the ground. Lamina took one last swipe at Coral and then moved swiftly for Mizzen. He was no match for her sure-footedness on the beam and only managed a few hesitant steps as she bore down on him. Tanner did better with his second throw, but the trident bounced off the underside of the beam and landed in the dirt. Occupied by crouching to try and catch it, Mizzen straightened up just as Lamina came in, bringing the flat side of the ax against the outer part of his knee. The force of the blow threw them both off balance. But while she recovered by straddling the beam, Mizzen fell, losing his knife and just barely catching himself with one arm.

  Even the sound system in the arena picked up Coral’s war cry as she gained the top. Tanner ran down to her end and managed to hurl the trident within range. The easy way Coral snatched the weapon from the air drew a few exclamations of admiration from the Capitol audience. Lamina gave Mizzen a glance, but his helpless condition posed no immediate threat, so she turned and braced herself for Coral’s attack. Lamina had better balance, but Coral’s weapon had more range. After Lamina managed to block the first few jabs with her ax, Coral wove the trident in a twisting move that distracted the eye before it plunged into her opponent’s abdomen. Coral released the weapon and stepped back, using her knife as a backup, but none was needed. Lamina fell off the beam and died on impact.

  “No!” cried Pup, and the word echoed around Heavensbee Hall. He stood stock-still for a long moment, then picked up his seat and left the mentor section, ignoring Lepidus’s outstretched mic. He slammed his chair down next to Livia’s and strode out of the hall. Coriolanus thought he was trying not to cry.

  Coral crossed to Mizzen and stood over him for a disconcerting beat, in which Coriolanus wondered if she was planning to kick his arm free and send him after Lamina. Instead she sat down on the beam, locking her legs for support, and helped him to safety. The ax had damaged his knee, although it was difficult to gauge to what extent. He half slid, half lowered himself down the pole, closely followed by Coral, who picked up the unused trident from the ground where Tanner had abandoned it. Mizzen leaned back against the pole, testing his knee.

  After performing some kind of dance over Lamina’s body, Tanner bounded over to them. Mizzen grinned and raised his hands for a victory slap. Tanner had just made contact when Coral drove the second trident into his back. He fell forward into Mizzen, who, braced by the pole, shoved him away. Tanner turned in a circle, one hand swatting uselessly behind him as if to dislodge the trident, but the barbed tines were buried deep. He fell to his knees, his expression more wounded than shocked, and collapsed facedown in the dirt. Mizzen finished him with a knife to the neck. He then went back and sat against his pole while Coral tore a strip of fabric from Lamina’s flag cloth and began to bind his knee.

  At the studio, Lucky’s face stretched into a comedic mask of shock. “Did you just see what I saw?”

  Domitia had quietly gathered her things, her lips pressed together in disappointment. But when Lepidus pushed the mic at her, she spoke in a calm, detached voice. “It’s a surprise. I thought Tanner might win this thing. And he probably would have if his allies hadn’t betrayed him. I guess that’s the takeaway. Be careful who you trust.”

  “In and out of the arena,” said Lepidus, nodding sagely.

  “Everywhere,” Domitia agreed. “You know, Tanner was a very good-natured sort of person. And District Four took advantage of that.” She looked sadly at Festus and Persephone, suggesting this reflected badly on them, and Lepidus gave a disapproving click of his tongue. “It’s one of the many things I’ve learned from being a mentor in the Hunger Games.
I’ll always cherish my experience here, and I wish all the remaining mentors the best of luck.”

  “Well said, Domitia. I think you’ve just showed your fellow mentors how to be a good loser,” said Lepidus. “Lucky?”

  The cut revealed Lucky trying to lure Jubilee off the chandelier with a cracker. “What? Aren’t you going to talk to the other one? What’s his name? The commander’s kid?”

  “He declined to comment,” said Lepidus.

  “Well, let’s get back to the show!” called Lucky.

  The show was over for the moment, though. Coral finished bandaging Mizzen’s knee and collected their tridents, yanking them from her victims’ bodies. Mizzen limped as the pair walked unhurriedly across the arena to their preferred tunnel.

  Satyria came over and had the mentors rearrange their chairs into two neat rows of four. Io, Urban, Clemensia, and Vipsania in the front. Coriolanus, Festus, Persephone, and Hilarius in the back. The musical chairs continued.

  Perhaps the indignities of being Lucky’s dummy had become too great, because Jubilee refused to come down from the chandelier. Lucky leaned heavily on his stringers in Heavensbee Hall and in front of the arena, where the crowd had set up cheering sections for the various tributes. Team Lucy Gray was well represented by young and old, male and female, and even a handful of Avoxes — but they didn’t really count, having been brought along to hold signs.

  Coriolanus wished Lucy Gray could see how many people loved her. He wished she knew how he advocated for her. He’d become more active, pulling Lepidus over during quiet stretches and praising Lucy Gray to the skies. As a result, her sponsor gifts had reached a new high, and he felt confident he could feed her for a week. There was really nothing left to do but watch and wait.

  Treech came out long enough to snag Lamina’s ax and for Vipsania to feed him. Teslee retrieved another fallen drone and collected some food from Urban. Little else occurred until late afternoon, when Reaper wandered out of the barricade, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He seemed unable to make sense of the scene before him, the stabbed bodies of Tanner and particularly Lamina. After walking around them for a time, he lifted Lamina up, carried her over to where Bobbin and Marcus lay, and arranged the three in a row on the ground. For a while, he paced around the beam, then he dragged Tanner over beside Lamina. Over the next hour, he collected first Dill and then Sol, adding them to his makeshift morgue.

  Jessup remained the only one left out. Reaper was probably afraid of contracting rabies. Once he’d neatly lined up the others, he swatted at the flies that had gathered. After pausing a moment in thought, he went back and cut off a second piece of the flag, draping it over their bodies and causing another wave of outrage in the hall. Reaper shook out Lamina’s flag remnant and tied it like a cape around his shoulders. The cape seemed to inspire him, and he began to spin slowly, looking back over his shoulder to watch it fly out behind him. He ran then, spreading his arms out as the flag streamed in the sunlight. Exhausted by the day’s activities, he finally climbed into the stands and waited.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, feed him, Clemmie!” said Festus.

  “Mind your own business,” said Clemensia.

  “You’re heartless,” Festus told her.

  “I’m a good manager. It could be a long Hunger Games.” She gave Coriolanus an unpleasant smile. “And it’s not like I’ve abandoned him.”

  Coriolanus thought about inviting her to the Citadel for his follow-up appointment. He could use some company, and she could visit her snakes.

  Five o’clock rolled around with the dismissal of the student body, and the eight remaining mentors gathered for beef stew and cake. He couldn’t say he missed Domitia, and certainly not Pup, but he missed the buffer they had provided between him and the likes of Clemensia, Vipsania, and Urban. Even Hilarius, with his woeful tales of being a Heavensbee, had become a strain. When Satyria released them at around eight o’clock, he headed straight for the door, hoping it wasn’t too late to have his arm checked.

  The Citadel guards recognized him, and after they searched his book bag, he was allowed to keep it and go down to the lab unescorted. He wandered a bit before finding his destination, then sat in the clinic for half an hour before a doctor appeared. She checked his vitals, examined the stitches, which were doing their job, and told him to wait.

  An unusual energy filled the lab. Quick footsteps, raised voices, impatient commands. Coriolanus listened hard but he couldn’t make out the cause of the activity. He did hear the words arena and Games more than once, and wondered about the connection. When Dr. Gaul finally appeared, she made only a cursory check of his stitches.

  “Another few days,” she confirmed. “Tell me, Mr. Snow, did you know Gaius Breen?”

  “Did I?” asked Coriolanus, picking up on the past tense immediately. “I do. I mean, we’re classmates. I know he lost his legs in the arena. Is he —”

  “He’s dead. Complications from the bombing,” said Dr. Gaul.

  “Oh, no.” Coriolanus couldn’t process it. Gaius, dead? Gaius Breen? He remembered a joke Gaius had recently told him about how many rebels it took to tie a shoe. “I never even visited him in the hospital. When is the funeral?”

  “That’s being worked out. You must keep it to yourself until we make an official announcement,” she warned him. “I’m only telling you now so that at least one of you will have something intelligent to say to Lepidus. I trust you can manage that.”

  “Yes, of course. That will be strange, announcing it during the Games. Like a victory for the rebels,” said Coriolanus.

  “Exactly. But rest assured, there will be repercussions. In fact, it was your girl who gave me the idea. If she wins, we should compare notes. And I haven’t forgotten you owe me a paper.” She left, pulling the curtain closed behind her.

  Free to go, Coriolanus buttoned his shirt up and collected his book bag. What was he supposed to write about, again? Something about chaos? Control? Contracts? He felt fairly sure it began with a C. When he approached the elevator, he found a pair of lab assistants ahead of him, trying to maneuver a cart into the car. On the cart sat the large tank filled with the snakes that had attacked Clemensia.

  “Did she say to bring the cooler?” asked one of the assistants.

  “Not that I remember,” said the other. “I thought they’d been fed. We better check. If we’re wrong, she’ll go ballistic.” She noticed Coriolanus. “Sorry, need to back out.”

  “No problem,” he said, and stepped aside so they could wheel the tank out. The elevator doors closed, and he could hear the whir of it ascending.

  “Oh, sorry, it will be back in a minute,” the second assistant said.

  “No problem,” Coriolanus repeated. But he was beginning to suspect a very great problem. He thought of the activity in the lab, and the Games being mentioned, and Dr. Gaul promising repercussions. “Where are you taking the snakes?” he asked as innocently as possible.

  “Oh, just to another lab,” said one, but the assistants exchanged a look. “Come on, the cooler takes two.” The pair receded into the lab, leaving him alone with the tank. “In fact, it was your girl who gave me the idea.” His girl. Lucy Gray. Who’d made an entrance into the Hunger Games by dropping a snake down the mayor’s daughter’s back. “If she wins, we should compare notes.” Notes about what? How to use snakes as weapons? He stared into the undulating reptiles, imagining them being let loose in the arena. What would they do? Hide? Hunt? Attack? Even if he knew how snakes behaved, which he didn’t, he doubted these would conform to any norms, as they were genetically designed by Dr. Gaul.

  With a sharp pang, Coriolanus had a vision of Lucy Gray in their final meeting, clutching his hand as he promised her they could win. But there was no way he could protect her from the creatures in this tank, any more than he could protect her from tridents and swords. At least she could hide from those. He didn’t know for sur
e, but he was guessing the snakes would head straight for the tunnels. The dark would not impair their sense of smell. They would not recognize Lucy Gray’s scent, just the way they had not recognized Clemensia’s. Lucy Gray would scream and fall to the ground, her lips turning purple, then bloodless, while bright pink and blue and yellow pus oozed onto her ruffled dress — That was it! The thing the snakes had reminded him of the first time he’d seen them. They matched her dress. As if they had always been her destiny . . .

  Without knowing quite how, Coriolanus found the hand-kerchief in his hand, neatly balled up like a prop in one of Lucky’s magic tricks. He moved to the snake tank, his back to the security camera, and leaned over, resting his hands on the cover as if fascinated by the snakes. From that vantage point, he watched the handkerchief fall through the trapdoor and disappear beneath the rainbow of bodies.

  What had he done? What on earth had he done? His heart raced as he blindly turned down one street and then another, trying to make sense of his actions. He couldn’t think clearly but had the dreadful feeling that he’d crossed some line that could not be uncrossed.

  The avenue felt full of eyes. There were few pedestrians or drivers out, but even their notice felt glaring. Coriolanus ducked into a park and hid in the shadows, on a bench surrounded by bushes. He forced himself to control his breathing, counting four in and four out until his blood stopped pounding in his ears. Then he tried to think rationally.

  All right, so he’d dropped the handkerchief with Lucy Gray’s scent — the one from the outside pocket of his book bag — into the snake tank. He’d done it so they would not bite her as they had Clemensia. So they would not kill her. Because he cared about her. Because he cared about her? Or because he wanted her to win the Hunger Games so that he could secure the Plinth Prize? If it was the latter, he had cheated to win, and that was that.

  Hold on. You didn’t know if those snakes were going to the arena, he thought. The assistants had, in fact, told him otherwise. There was no history of such a thing ever occurring. Perhaps it had just been a temporary flight of madness. And even if the snakes did end up in the arena, Lucy Gray might never encounter them. It was a huge place, and he didn’t think snakes just went around attacking people right and left. You had to step on them or something. And even if she did run into a snake, and it didn’t bite her, how would anyone trace that back to him? It required too much high-security knowledge and access that no one would presume he had. And a handkerchief with her scent. And why would he have that? It was okay. He was going to be okay.