HUNGA GAMEZ (part 2)

People swarmed around me in the hot, sticky bookstore. This small venue, the store The Wild Rumpus, was holding more people than I thought profusely possible. A lady wearing a hat that is caked with decorative badges and buttons slapped a note card that read “141” into my hand.
“Um, what’s this?” I asked timidly.
“Yer gonna be the 141st person to get yer book signed by Suzanne Collins, kay?” I wondered how she could seem so bored when such excitement was buzzing around the area.
My first book signing! How exciting, I thought to myself. I had just finished the book The Hunger Games a few hours prior to reaching the bookstore, and it had officially reached the top of Anjali’s Most Favorite Books Ever list. The store was crammed with mostly teenagers, I could hardly step a square inch without trampling someone’s feet. It was a complete nerdfest, but I was loving it, I felt like I belonged.
A middle-aged man somehow stood up above the crowd. “Okay everyone! Before Ms. Collins signs any books, she’s going to do a quick reading from her latest book, Mockingjay,” said the man. His voice wavered, clearly he was yelling at the top of his lungs, “But in order for her to do this, we need you guys to be really, super duper quiet! Wow, there’s a lot of you out there.” The excited buzzing of the crowd died down.
I was standing on my tiptoes, trying to get a glance of my new favorite author. At once, a petite woman was eased up onto a nearby table. She had blond and gray wavy hair, and she pretty looked frail. I did not expect her to look like this. Sure, there was a small photo of her in the back of the book, but she looked entirely different in real life.
She began to speak, “Okay. Hi everyone- I’m going to read a small passage from my book. I’ll need you guys to bear with my since I don’t have a very loud voice.” As she began to read, something occurred to me. So many people, including me, had read those same words, but never had we heard it read by the person who wrote them herself. I thought about it. This frail, diminutive woman had written these words. She had put them out into the world for everyone else to read, and now she was reading them aloud to us. It was inspiring, and I felt that everyone else in the room was feeling the same thing as me. I observed many of my fellow fan’s faces, and was not to see them overtaken with awe.
That was when I realized that I wanted to do something like that. I wanted to write words and release them into the world for everyone to read and fall in love with the way Suzanne Collins did with her books. The idea that everyone had enjoyed Ms. Collin’s words before we heard her read them herself made the reading that much more special. Something about that day and hearing her read taught me or inspired me, rather, to strive for the lasting impression that Suzanne Collins left on her audience.
Too soon, the reading ended, and I was snapped out of my little trance. I was sad that I would probably never be able to experience something as magical as that, or at least not for a long time. But before I knew it, a voice from behind me called, “Numbers 141 to 150 may now come up to get their books signed!”