Chapter 2: A Form of Training

Dad's reaction to this news was...interesting. He went out and got a job. We moved up a floor.

And then moved back down in a few months, but I could tell he really felt badly about it this time. He cried for a week, and not just because the voices were tormenting him.

But I worked very hard. I excelled, if I do say so...enough of my teachers did. The other kids in the class called me "Little Motorhead," since I was the youngest in the class. It was a nice time. I was made to feel important. Like I had something to contribute to society. I might not be pretty but my brain was valuable. I was valuable.

During the weekdays, I usually went upstairs to my friend Geiger's tenement. His mom had been taking care of me since I was little and now she decided to take over much of my bringing up, though of course, she had help. Geiger never called me 'that rat-faced girl' and we were best of friends, even if he wasn't as smart as I was. He didn't hold that against me, and I didn't hold that against him. We were more like siblings, really, than friends. If any of the boys started to get too rough, he would always defend me. When he needed help with math, I helped him. We fought and played like siblings.

With all of this going for me, even living in the middle of garbage wasn't so bad. I was never very demanding. I was being listened to, and I had good friends and an extended family unit beyond my father that cared about me.

But there was still something looming over me, and when I was ten, I seriously started to think about it.

The Hunger Games.

Most of my friends at school preferred not to talk about it, or think about it. But my friends, or the older brothers or sisters of friends, just kept dying. They went away, and then they died. Most Threes did. They died quickly, too. Within two or three days. Except for one boy, a few years ago when I was about five or six, who became our Victor.

But most of us, we figured we didn't stand a chance, not against the kids from more 'physical' districts; not against the Careers.

But somehow, I thought, that had to change. I was going to have to take out tesserae soon. I needed more food than what Father and I could scrounge up, I needed more, and better. I was beginning to fade in class halfway through the morning from hunger. And I'd fainted more times than I could count. The teachers brought me what they could, but it was embarrassing. And I may not possess anything but my pride, but I did have that.

But taking out the tesserae meant that my name would be entered multiple times each year, and I'd have a higher chance of going to the Games. And why bother to be educated, why bother to work so hard, if it was all just going to end? When I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen...when I hadn't even done anything yet? I didn't want to be wasted. I knew I had things to contribute, a life to live. Things to do.

So that year, my tenth year, I watched every moment of the Hunger Games. I paid attention to everything. I wanted to live. No different than anyone else, I suppose, but I had to find something I could use, since we weren't permitted to train for the Games in Three.

It was a little known fact that I have possibly the best eyesight in District Three—maybe the best eyesight in several districts. So I studied the television. I took note of patterns. Tiny little details that most people would miss, I could see. I wrote notes, but only afterward, in private. Writing is how I process information. I observed the different tributes, what they did, what they didn't do, how quickly they died.

I saw one of my friend's sisters die in the Cornucopia bloodbath. Her counterpart, a boy of about twelve, died shortly thereafter. Still, I watched very closely, even if it did make me want to cry for the rest of my life. I knew I had to. I knew it could mean the difference between life and death.

When the Victors came around on their tour, I watched them. Tried to connect who they were with how they won. Most of them never seemed, onstage, to be the same people who were crowned Victor on the broadcasts. They often looked bewildered. Tired. Confused. Lost.

And then I thought about our Victor.

He was smart, but it wasn't necessarily because of that. Someone in the program I was in for mechanical engineering went to the Games last year...and died within three days. But he was trying to be something he wasn't: a warrior. He was trying to be like the tributes from 1 and 2, raised for the Games, trained from a young age. But in reality, he was just a kid from 3, starved, overworked, scrawny like the rest of us.

Beetee won because he didn't try to be anything other than what he was: an electronic genius. And because he concentrated on surviving. And yes...there was luck in there. He won with his brain and will.

If I had to be a tribute, the only way I was going to win would be with my brain and will. And by using every ability I could find in myself.

Of course, there was no guarantee I was going to the Games. It could pass me by. But I could just as easily go when I turned twelve, too. I'd always felt it was best to be prepared for anything.

And so when I turned twelve, I went to the Justice Building and took out tesserae. Father didn't really want me to. But he also couldn't stop me and his attempts at getting employment to prevent that weren't very diligent.

I think being fired that last time did it for him. He just didn't want to try anymore. It's hard to have respect for a man who doesn't even try, but I justified it by reminding myself that he was sick in the head. With something I didn't, and couldn't, understand. Even if I wanted to understand, it was nearly impossible to get the sort of information I'd need to help him. And doctors? Who could afford doctors?

My first Reaping Day was nerve-wracking. I understand that most people prepare for it specially, making special bits of food and such. Dressing nicely. I didn't. I couldn't. Anything special was out of the question, but I did make sure to be very clean, to braid my hair as nicely as possible. I remember standing with lots of my classmates. Everyone nervous, everyone silent, trembling. The girl crammed in next to me, a girl I'd never seen before, reached out and grabbed my hand just as the names were announced. I squeezed it in return, just happy for some sort of human contact in the midst of all these people.

The names were called. But not mine. At least not that year.

After that Reaping Day, I was, if anything, even more invested in the Games. Even if I hadn't been picked, I really knew the tributes, now...they were my peers. My friends. I wished for them to stay alive. I hoped. But they didn't. It was awful, being with the families. The girl tribute had lived in my building. When the Careers killed her, I could hear her mother's wail from three stories down.

It was even worse when the two caskets came back.

My name wasn't called when I was thirteen, either. Again, I heard the wailing when the Threes, inevitably, died. Again, the funerals, with the caskets and the Victor tour.

Dad didn't talk much during the Games. He watched in the square with lots of other people. It's sometimes better to watch with a crowd.

After that, he tried to get a job again.

They wouldn't even hire him, this time. So he started stealing. I ignored it and took out more tesserae.

My notes on the Hunger Games grew and grew, even between games. My curiosity had been piqued by the Games broadcasts, and now I was ravenous for information. Each time there was a new government broadcast, I was glued to the screen. Every time there was a re-run of a previous Games, I was right there. There was so much information to be had if you just knew where to look. At night, I'd write and collate my notes, think about them long and hard, and then work on stuff for school. I didn't sleep much.

There's a reason caffeine is very popular in Three.

My thirteenth year was a banner year for me. I made several machines that won design awards. Two of them won patents with the Capitol. I got money for that, and for a few months, we were able to move out of the basement to the first floor. Buy decent food. There was a little resentment on my father's part. We fought about it on occasion. There were tears on my part. None on his.

I loved him, but I didn't understand him. Not for the first time, I wondered what happened to my mother. I'd ask, he'd get angry. Dad was scary when he was angry. I stopped asking.

I turned fourteen. Another Reaping.

And the first name called was mine.