Requested by anon - Effie's losing hope that Haymitch is going to save her. Then he comes to save her!


She should never have agreed in the first place. This was exactly the kind of mishap that would happen whenever she let pride get in the way. I should have realized it, she thought furiously as she stood still at the corner, too afraid to move. Effie had no idea why she thought it was a good idea to enter into a bet with Haymitch. Surely there were other ways to go about in her attempt to control his drinking.

"You think it's easy to just stop drinking?" asked Haymitch when she brought up the topic yet again.

"I'm not asking you to completely stop drinking. Try to water it down somewhat or you know, try to go a few days without touching a bottle. How about it?"

"Sweetheart, just like how you can never look after my geese, I can never go without alcohol. Simple enough for you to understand?"

"That's where you're wrong. I can look after your geese. I just never had the opportunity to," she retorted, crossing her arms stubbornly.

Haymitch's turned to her with a slow smirk on his face. "Let's see it then, you take over the geese for three days and I won't drink for that three days. You fail, I go for my whiskey."

She paused, mulling it over and with a determined look on her face, Effie agreed.

"And I don't mean just standing outside their pen to feed them, Eff. I mean the real deal. You have to make sure the pen is clean; fresh straws, fresh water and when you let them out during the day make sure they get back in at night. Understand?"

Fresh what? she thought in alarm. I have to enter the pen?!

Effie swallowed, already regretting her decision. "I'm not an idiot, Haymitch," she replied tersely and spun on her heels, already planning to ask Katniss the proper ways to care for the geese.

Feeding those animals had been easy. All she did was to throw bread at them from a distance. Haymitch watched her in amusement.

"Their pen needs to be dry, don't forget. Make it as homely for them as you would for yourself," he reminded her.

It was the third day and she could no longer put off the cleaning. She released the geese to wander around the yard and with a disdainful look around the pen she tried to figure out how best to go about with her task.

She did not expect the geese to wander back into the pen and on hindsight she should have closed the door. Her eyes widened in shock when a large male goose stood staring at her. Effie backed away when it began to waddle towards her, honking loudly and stretching its neck.

"Shoo, get away!" she swatted her hand. "Do not come near me or I swear you will not be fed for the rest of the week."

Two of its companion entered the pen and Effie had no idea what was with these fowls but they tend to flock together and she found herself backed into a corner. Effie stomped her feet in an attempt to chase them away. It worked for a second when they paused to assess if Effie was a threat.

"Oh no, no, please don't come near me," her lips trembled. Effie gave a cry of surprise when the male goose pecked her shin. "HAYMITCH! Haymitch, get them away from me!"

Effie screamed for him and it must have alarmed the geese because they all started honking and flapping their wings at once. It became a cycle; they frightened Effie whose screaming frightened them.

She had no idea how long she called out for him. Her voice was becoming hoarse and she had been pecked more than once. Effie hated how helpless she felt and she was utterly embarrassed by the fact that there were tears falling down her cheeks.

"Go away," she said weakly, having lost all the energy she had in her.

Her fingers gripped the metallic pen so tight it had gone numbed with angry red marks indenting her palms. The sky was glowing orange as the sun began to set and that was when she saw Haymitch walking towards the house.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw her and grinned maniacally once he realized what was happening.

"I've been screaming for you for ages and you're telling me you weren't even in the house at all!" she shouted at him. "You good for nothing drunken – Haymitch? - HAYMITCH COME BACK HERE!"

"I don't think so, sweetheart. If you're gonna hurl abuses at me, I'm gonna go in and you know, take a nice long overdue drink."

"Drink? Haymitch, we had a deal!"

"And you've clearly lost. Problem in paradise?" he said smugly, nodding towards the geese crowding around the gate.

"Haymitch, please, I've been standing here for an hour," she begged, "please get me out."

"Walk out, it's not that difficult."

"I can't. They'll attack me; I've been attacked too many times already. Haymitch, please, I can't do this. I'm bruised and in pain, my leg is bleeding and –"

"Spare me the theatrics, Effie," he snorted but glanced down at her legs which, true enough, had a thin trail of blood. "Come on, just walk out slowly."

She threw him a look but inched carefully towards the exit with her back pressed against the pen. A gosling wandered up to her. Looking at the tiny harmless little bird, Effie had a sudden surge of confidence. She bent down to swat it away the same time that Haymitch shouted.

"Effie! No don't – "

She gave an undignified scream and dived for cover as the protective mother goose flew a few inches off the ground and went straight for her. Effie covered her head in desperation, screaming at the top of her lungs until she felt Haymitch's hand closed roughly around her arms to haul her to her feet.

"Never again," she raged at him. "I am never going within ten feet of those foul creatures."

"Fowl creatures?" he snickered.

"FOUL! They're absolutely evil."

"Cheers," he raised his bottle of whiskey, mocking her even more. "Eff? What is this funny feeling in my heart?"

She gave him a quizzical look.

"Oh, that must be glorious feeling of winning, especially against you."

He winked just before she stomped off, cursing him under her breath.

"I did save you from my geese! Where are your manners? Not even a thank you? I was thinking that maybe you could show your appreciation tonight!" he shouted after her retreating back.


I was not feeling the angst today, so i decided not to do the "Haymitch rescuing Effie from prison" scenario and decided to do something light.

To the Guest reviewer who asked about Live A Little, well... I did plan to make a second installment and so far, I have only written on paragraph. I'll get to it one day.

To Linda, saw your review and sure, I'll write it (it's just that I have a few other requests on my inbox so it might take a while to write yours :l) but in the meantime if you want a whole lot of stories about pranks, you can try reading Live A Little (this sounds like shameless self promoting! Yikes).