I fought the urge not to hold Cato's hand. We were standing so close to each other, I just couldn't help it. I "accidentally" brushed his hand with my finger. But nobody seemed to notice except for him. He just looked over and smiled at me.
"AND HERE COMES DISTRICT 1!" Caesar Flickerman loudly announced just outside. "Okay, be tough, be pleasant, and be deadly." Alovera quickly explained. He probably meant for Cato to be tough and for me to be deadly, and I have no idea where the "pleasant" part goes. "AND NOW FOR DISTRICT 2!" was the last thing we heard before the chariot took off. As soon as we moved, Cato started doing a beauty-pageant wave. I fought the first signs of a laugh and just smiled instead. "Cut it out!" I hissed. He laughed and changed into a regular wave. I started waving, too. Someone threw a rose at me. But me, with my awesome throwing-knife senses, caught it with my mouth. The crowd went wild. But for some weird reason, it wasn't directed at me. You could just feel it. I whipped around to see whose attention they were catching, and Holy Capitol… District 12 was on fire. Like, LITERALLY. They had sleek black clothes and were on FIRE. And whaddaya know?! They were holding hands and they lifted it up into the air. Dumb-os. They're EN-E-MIES! Remember? I always thought 12 was a little slow. I looked at the other Victors districts (in 12, they call us Careers. What kind of a dumb name is that?!). Over at 1, there was a tall dude that looked average. Probably does well with a spear or something. And that blondie from 1? Sure, she's pretty. There's some sponsors. But she looks like she doesn't even know how to pull up a zipper. Seriously. I looked over at 4, and there's this puny kid. A KID. Why didn't anyone else older volunteer? And I look over at the girl. I think her name was Phoenix or something. I've heard them talk. She's pretty handy at making nets.
And now for a "special talk" from President Snow, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. And then we went in. Wow. It was WAY more boring than I thought. When Alovera and Cato's stylist Cynthia were talking to us, I saw Cato staring at 12 with a hard look in his eyes. 12 looked over and was smart enough to leave. Cato turned back. Alovera and Cynthia instructed us to wash up and show up for dinner. Tomorrow was the first day of training.
I scrubbed off all the gold glitter on my body and rubbed at my face to get the blush off, although I did like the gold eyeliner. Kinda. Dinner was meh. We already got used to Capitol standards. I had like, 4 bites and I got this nauseated feeling. I told them I was just tired and I left. There was a weight thingy in the corner of my room. Really. I think that's like, a silent complaint or something. I stepped on it. It stopped at 115. Wow. I haven't even eaten anything and I've gained 5 pounds. What's up with that? And on top of that, I fell asleep when my head with the pillow. I usually think for like, 20 minutes and then fall asleep. Seriously weird. I'm thinking about asking Aurelia if the food is like, drugged or something. I'm serious.
The Training Center was awesome. I mean, it had like, over 50 different types of throwing knives. But first…watching. We always watch the other tributes and see if there's any other tribute good enough to be in our group. They might join. If they join and they're not that useful…Well, all I can say is cannon time. I stood next to Cato with my arms crossed. We were all watching the guy from 12. He fell from the training ropes. Pathetic. And then the girl from 12 (I never learned her name. Stupid, huh?) walked up to him and told him something. The guy looked over at us and turned away again. She whispered one last thing and left. He looked at us. We all kinda laughed. He got up and slowly started to walk over to the medicine balls. And now he had our attention. He picked one up, and it crashed down. We all laughed. He glared at us, picked it up, and BLAM! He threw it at a pedestal holding some weapons. My weapons. I'm going to kill him for that.
We were all lining up to throw some knives. Sweet. It was by order of District. Marvel, the guy from 1, went first. He was okay. I guess I was right about the spear thing. But Glimmer, the girl, missed by like, a hundred miles. See? I was right there, too. Cato was next, and was kinda okay. Like Marvel. Atala nodded at me to go. I smiled. I picked up 4 knives and waited. Waited for a light to go on. A light went on to my right. I threw the knife without hesitation. It landed in the middle of the middle. Another one to my left. One to my middle. And then I side-threw one (to land again in the middle of the middle) so it could wedge into the target behind the middle target. I walked slowly to the back of the line. The girl from 12 was watching me. That was for you, 12. That was for you.
Hi guys! I really hoped you liked it. Thanks to all of you who subscribed and would get a message when I updated. THANK YOU SO MUCH! I got 2 reviews so far, please write some more. I'm aiming for like, 5 reviews by Chapter 7. So PLEASE REVIEW! Thanks!