Maysilee Donner Quotes

“Listen, Louella, if you let them treat you like an animal, they will. So don’t let them.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“Good-bye, Maysilee Donner, who I loathed, then grudgingly respected, then loved. Not as a sweetheart or even a friend. A sister, I'd said. But what is that exactly? I think about our journey - everything from sniping with her in those early days after the reaping to battling those pink birds. I guess that's my answer. A sister is someone you fight with and fight for. Tooth and nail.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“If something attacked me right now, I’d let it take me. I know, I know, I just made a deathbed promise to Maysilee to carry on the fight, but I can’t seem to rally. I pat her necklace against my pants to wipe off the blood — these black clothes just never stop giving — and hook the fancy clasp behind my neck to hang there with its friends. I’ve got my own jewelry collection now, what with District 9’s sunflower, Wyatt’s scrip coin, and Lenore Dove’s warring songbird and snake. Why, I’m almost as decorated as Miss Donner herself.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“That’s when I hear Maysilee begin to scream. In a flash, I’m on my feet and thrashing through the smoky tunnel in the hedge. I spy bright patches of pink up ahead, hear honking, not unlike Lenore Dove’s geese. My ax is out of my belt, drawn and ready as I leave the holly bushes for a whirlwind of feathers.
The two dozen waterbirds remind me of ones I’ve seen at the lake. Long-legged. Beaks like sword blades — thin, narrow, and deadly. Not cool blue gray, not paper white, but the color of the bubblegum sold at the Donners’ sweetshop. They dive again and again at Maysilee, who’s kneeling on the ground, trying to use a tarp as protection while she vehemently slices at them with her dagger. A couple of dead birds lie on the ground, but they have taken their toll. Blood blossoms from her cheek, her chest, the palm of her hand. Like Ampert’s squirrels, they have no interest in me. Programmed to target Maysilee in a very personal punishment. I hack away at the mutts with my ax, piling up a collection of rosy wings and legs like cattail stems, but they badly outnumber us.
A bird swoops down at a sharp angle, driving its beak through her throat. As it withdraws, I decapitate it, slicing through the skinny neck. I realize Maysilee’s beyond recovery when the flock clears out. Falling to my knees beside her, I reach for her sound hand, which grasps mine like a vise. Her wounded one curls up and rests in her nest of necklaces, which lays in a pool of blood. Through the rasping of her breath, she attempts to speak, but the last mutt silenced her voice with its wicked beak. Mine seems silenced as well, as no words of comfort or hope or apology make it out. I just stare into those burning blue eyes, letting her know she’s not dying alone. She’s with family. She’s with me.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping