Meet your new hero.
Here, he’s friendly.
And, for now anyway, he’s a hero.
Credit: Scholastic
Coriolanus climbed it slowly, attempting a casual dignity in case he caught anyone’s eye.
This year, beginning this very day, he was hoping to achieve personal recognition as well.
Mentoring in the Hunger Games was his final project before graduating from the Academy in midsummer.
Viewing was encouraged in the Capitol, but a lot of people avoided it.
How to make it more engaging was the challenge.
With this in mind, for the first time the tributes were to be assigned mentors.
Twenty-four of the Academy’s best and brightest seniors had been tapped for the job.
The specifics of what this entailed were still being worked out.
There was talk of preparing each tribute for a personal interview, maybe some grooming for the cameras.
But he only allowed himself one swallow.
“Your lecture on district retaliation haunts me.”
“Love the bangs!”
“How did your mother’s back surgery go?
Well, tell her she’s my hero.”
His once-fine physique was shrunken and draped with sagging skin.
The close-clipped precision of a recent haircut and crisp suit only threw his deterioration into relief.
“Ho there,” he slurred, waving a crumpled piece of paper over his head.
“Reading the things off now.”
The students hushed, trying hard to hear him above the din of the hall.
“Read you a name, then you who gets that one.
“Glasses,” he mumbled.
“Forgot them.”
Everyone stared at his glasses, already perched on his nose, and waited while his fingers found them.
“Ah, here we go.
in her shrill voice.
She had always been prone to gloating.
After ten years, a pattern had emerged.
Excerpt from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes 2020 by Suzanne Collins.
Provided courtesy of Scholastic Inc.
