The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes opens with a display of the Snow family's poverty. An orphaned, school-aged Coriolanus Snow lives with his grandmother and cousin Tigris, foregoing their only food of boiled potatoes to ensure that Grandmam has some sustenance. Impatient to get to the academy for what is clearly an important day, a shirtless Coriolanus waits impatiently for Tigris's arrival with his dress shirt, which she has inventively and frugally spruced up to make him look his best. With his destitution sufficiently masked, Coriolanus heads to the Academy, confident he is about to be presented with the school's generous Plinth Prize.