Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884

The second night we run between seven and eight hours. With a current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepinesss. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didnt ever feel like talking loud, and it warnt often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next. Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights, not a house could you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two oclock that still night. There warnt a sound there; everybody was asleep.

True Grit Charles Portis 1968 I noticed that the houses in Fort Smith were numbered but it was no city at all compared to Little Rock. I though then and still think that Fort Smith ought to be in Oklahoma across the river then but of course it was not Oklahoma across the river then but the Indian Territory. They have that big wide street there called Garrison Avenue like places out in the west. The buildings are made of fieldstone and all the windows need washing. I know many fine people live in Fort Smith and they have one of the nations most modern waterworks but it does not look like it belongs in Arkansas to me. There was a jailer at the sheriffs office and he said we would have to talk to the city police or the High Sheriff about the particulars of Papas death. The sheriff had gone to the hanging. The undertaker was not open. He had left a notice on his door saying he would be back after the hanging. We went to the Monarch Boardinghouse but there was no one there except a poor old woman with cataracts on her eyes. She said everybody had gone to the hanging but her. She would not let us in to see about Papas traps. At the city police station we found two officers but they were having a fist fight and were not available for inquiries. Yarnell wanted to see the hanging but he did not want me to so he said we should go back to the sheriffs office and wait there until everybody got back. I did not much care to see it but I saw he wanted so I said no, we would go to the hanging but I would not tell Mama about it. That was what he was worried about.

The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins 2008 When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prims warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course she did. This is the day of the reaping .I prop myself up on one elbow. Theres enough light in the bedroom to see them. My little sister, Prim, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mothers body, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Prims face is as fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me. Sitting at Prims knees, guarding her, is the worlds ugliest cat. Mashed-in nose, half of one ear missing, eyes the colour of rotting squash. Prim named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat matched the bright flower. He hates me. Or at least distrusts me. Even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Prim brought him home. Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. It turned out OK. My mother got rid of the vermin and hes a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me. Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love. I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my hunting boots. Supple leather that has molded to my feet. I pull on trousers, a shirt, tuck my long dark braid up into a cap, and grab my forage bag. On the table, under a wooden bowl to protect it from hungry rats and cats alike, sits a

perfect little goats cheese wrapped in basil leaves. Prims gift to me on reaping day. I put the cheese carefully in my pocket as I slip outside. Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour. Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many of whom have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails and the lines of their sunken faces. But today the black cinder streets are empty. Shutters on the squat grey houses are closed. The reaping isnt until two. May as well sleep in. If you can. Our house is almost at the edge of the Seam. I only have to pass a few gates to reach the scruffy field called the Meadow. Separating the Meadow from the woods, in fact enclosing all of District 12, is a high chain-link fence topped with barbed-wire loops. In theory, its supposed to be electrified twenty-four hours a day as a deterrent to the predators that live in the woods packs of wild dogs, lone cougars, bears that used to threaten our streets. But since were lucky to get two or three hours of electricity in the evenings, its usually safe to touch. Even so, I always take a moment to listen carefully for the hum that means the fence is live. Right now, its silent as a stone. Concealed by a clump of bushes, I flatten out on my belly and slide under a metre-long stretch thats been loose for years. There are several other weak spots in the fence, but this one is so close to home I almost always enter the woods here.