Third Quarter Quell

Chapter Four: The Procession

"What do you mean you want me to dress up as a baker's wife?" one of the girls was shouting at her stylist.

Katniss walked over. "You ought to show more respect for Dierdre. She knows what she's doing."

"But baker's wives are fat!"

"She can make fat girls look hot."

"I have a very decent weight, thank you very much."

"Your diet must be almost neglible," Katniss said.

"You don't want to know what I eat," hissed the other girl.

"Spotted dick?"

The girl growled and lunged at Katniss.

"You can save that for when you're in the arena," said Dierdre, pulling the girl back.

As Katniss turned to leave, the other girl said, "Remember the name Bella Swan, because it will be your downfall."

Katniss looked back at her. She was sure she could take the girl. She didn't look any tougher than Clove, at any rate.

She passed a room with an open door where a girl was being dressed up as a queen, with a train and crown and everything. The odd thing is that the girl didn't seem to really be sitting in her chair. Katniss couldn't quite figure it out.

"Queen Katherine is an identity I can get used to," the girl said to her stylist.

In another room, she saw a girl being dressed up as what they called an "Indian" in the textbooks. Though if the pictures were to be believed, this girl probably was a descendant from a tribe of living Indians.

Katniss waved at her.

"No need to do that," the girl said. "This isn't a friendly competition."

"That's no reason to not be nice to each other before the battle begins."

"Most of the people are going to be after the few. Then it'll all be over."

"I doubt they'll allow it to end until thre's only one left standing," Katniss said. "That's what they have always done in the past."

"This isn't like past games," said the other. "This is a quell."

"I know that. But I still wish you all the best luck in the world."

Katniss went on.

So many people she was meeting for the first time today would be dead within a few days. The competition would go on as long as it would, but the longest Games was the First Quarter Quell, which had lasted three weeks. And this was another quarter quell…it could last a while. But some of these people would surely be gone the first day. Katniss could only hope that she herself wouldn't be one of them.

There was a really small girl being dressed in Goth clothes. She was smaller than Prim, even.

In an instant, Katniss caught a glimpse into the small girl's eyes.. She felt a surge of pain rush through her. She doubled onto her back, leaning against the wall. She had often imagined what it would be like to have a knife thrust into her, but this was worse. It was like being put on a waffle iron and forced to bend down as the top of the appliance slammed down on your neck. Only four-hundred times as hurtful.

It subsided a bit after a few minutes and Katniss got up.

She wondered what had caused it. Maybe it was fear coming on, about being thrust into the Hunger Games again.

She suddenly had a need to see Prim. She ran from room to room, calling her sister's name. Many of the rooms whose door handles she rattled were locked, though one that wasn't revealted a girl with blond hair and whose neck was exposed, as she wore only a toga

"Nice outfit," Katniss said.

"Were you looking for someone?"

"My sister. She's in the competition too."

"My sisters have been dead for a long, long time," the blond girl said, quietly.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I have adoptive sisters, though. My parents are good at picking up strays."

"That's…nice of them."

"My adoptive sisters are really swell. One I pretended to hate for a while as she was coming into the family. I'm the one who made her a permanent member of our family, though. She didn't have any other choice but to endure me, and so our parents let me perform the initiation ceremony."

"Your family had an initation ceremony for your adoptees?"

"Yeah. Had to, didn't they? Doesn't every family require initiation for adopted kids?"

"I wouldn't know. My mother's not good enough to take care of her own kids, let alone ones she would choose to adopt on one of her drunken days."

"I'm Rosalie Hale, by the way" the blond girl said.

"Katniss Everdeen."

They shook hands.

"If you care about your sister as much as I care about my adoptive ones, I'm sure we'll be great friends."

Katniss nodded and went on.

Prim was completely covered up. You could only see her eyes. "What is this?" Katniss demanded of Cinna, who was both her stylist and Prim's.

"You don't want the audience getting any ideas. Besides, if you're the Girl on Fire, your sisters can be the Girl of Ice."

"Um…"

"She will be carrying this dagger," Cinna indicated. "And at the appropriate moment she will raise it and ice will shoot up to the ceiling. Then she will remove her shawl and everyone will see her face."

"I guess I can approve of that, but when I see her in that outfit, it just makes me want to burn whatever the culture was that thought it was appropriate."

"The Middle East was always cruel to its women. They even had an instrument that only men were permitted to look upon. If a woman ever saw it, she was instantly killed."

"A dagger?" Katniss asked wryly.

"No, a musical instrument."

"What kind of sick culture are we talking about then?"

"That's what I ask myself every time I am forced to thank of them," Cinna said.

"Then why dress Prim up like them?"

"Because it will shock the audience when she turns out to be the weilder of the Blade of Frozen Matter."

"Is there something about that knife that you're not telling me?"

"You will find out when the time is right."

"As long as it saves Prim's life, I don't care if I ever find out."

"That's the spirit. And you're next for being suited up."

Cinna had Katniss put on the garments of a Viking, bone helmet and all.

"Couldn't we go with the same style from last year?"

"Sponsors like novelty. So we give them novelty."

"How are you going to pass me off as the Girl on Fire in this?"

"Easily enough. The boat float you'll enter in will have a flamethrower. But they won't go up unless you are holding Peeta's hand in the air."

"Yeah, I know the drill."

"Good."

At eight p.m., all of the Tributes were hidden behing a curtain in a row. Katniss and Peeta were number thirteen, right behind Prim and Gale. Prim looked back at her sister with those eyes which were the only parts of her that wasn't hidden behind cloth.

Katniss waved at her sister in a way to indicatet that she'd do just fine, Katniss believed in her, after all.

"Here it goes," Peeta said.

"The precession," said Katniss.'

"Our second run."

"Second chance to die."

"I won't betray you this time."

"We stick together, us and Prim and Gale."

"Or your sister."

The procession began, and the first chariot carrying the girl with blond hair went forward. Beside her was a boy with huge biceps.

The second chariot went through, then the third and fourth.

Soon Prim was at the front, and the look she gav e Katniss was a really frightened one.

But the cart she was in shot forward and she had to face the front.

Just as Katniss and Peeta shot out, Prim in the cart ahead held up the knife Cinna had given her. It was short, but instantly a huge block of ice rose up to the ceiling. The audience gasped. Then Prim threw off her headrest and people could see that she had pigtails. There were hoots and cheers galore.

Katniss became afraid that the Viking boat float would smash into the cart Prim and Gala were in, but the ice vanished and the cart moved on.

Peeta was reaching for Katniss' hand for some reason. Now she remembered they were supposed to hold their hands up, clasped together. They did so, and flames shot up behind them.

"THE GIRL ON FIRE!"

There were many screams of delight, and Katniss and Peeta went into place alongside Prim and Gale.

"Good going, sis," Katniss whispered over to her sister, who was smiling.

"I did great, didn't I?'

"Yeah."

Katniss' eyes were now intent on the next pair to enter, and she didn't hear any more of her sister's babbling. This couple was the girl who had compained about being a baker's wife. Now she was grinning as she pretended to put a plastic cherry tart into an oven and her marble-skinned husband had a rolling win, which he brandished as though it were a sword.

"Bella and Edward," Peeta muttered.

"You know them?"

"They're on every poster for the Third Quarter Quell."

"I hadn't noticed."

"You haven't looked at the posters then."

"I have better things to do than lookk at posters."

"Like what?"

"Like ensure that me and my sister stay alive."

"I don't hear the word 'boyfriend' in that litany."

"You too," Katniss said, punching his shoulder. "So,, see? I'm responsible for four people."

"Whose the fourth?"

"Gale of course."

"Oh." Peeta looked worried.

"He was my friend before you and I faced the Hunger Games last year. And he took care of my sister while I was here."

Peeta appeared to want to ask her to let Gale take care of Prim now, but thought better of it.

Now the girl who had been dressed as a queen, with a cape and scepter and everything, rode forth with her partner, who was dressed as a jester and not a king, as Katniss had previously thought he'd be. He had dark hair and bowed obsequiously to the queen-girl.

Katniss still couldn't figure out what was strange about the way the girl was sitting, but she knew there was something…

"She's a hot ticker," Peeta said.

Katniss punched him in the arm.

"What?"

"a minute ago, you were all over me, and now you're all over her."

"Well, she is dressed like a queen, and you look like a…"

""Viking. Yeah. Go on and stare at Queen Katherine."

"Katherine? Is that her name?"

"That's what she said when I walked by her dressing room."

Peeta was silent. Katniss was going to ask him what he was thinking when she felt the pain again that she had borne before. She turned to see who had entered th procession but she couldn't. She had to bend down.

"Katniss, you okay?"

"Does it look like I am?"

"We should halt it—"

"No," Katniss said firmly. Peeta could not make her look weak in front of all the sponsors. It would mean the end of their chances of victory.

She didn't stop hurting for a few minutes.

"You sure you're all right?" Peeta asked, when she raised herself.

She nodded and turned to see who else had come. There were a few new pairs in line, but the one she was certain had caused the pain was the small girl all decked in black.

The procession went on, more or less normally, but Katniss kept glancing over at the small girl. Somehow, she thought, that girl was a threat of the sort she had never encountered before. She wondered if she were about to meet someone worse than Clove.