7
The next three days fly by with many successes. I actually finish the obstacle course the next day, and I beat my record in running on day three. I also learned which plants are eatable and which are not.
Today is the day of the Individual Sessions. When we arrived at the Training room today the trainers ushered us into the lunch room which is off to the side through a door. They call us one by one in order, which means District Twelve will go last. I sit staring at the wall with Haymitch to my left and May Lilly to my right. I will go after May Lilly. I wonder what she's planning on doing.
Penelope pulled us each to the side this morning to discuss our strategy. She told me that I need to show my knife throwing skills. Skills, I smile at the sound of the words. I am not skilled in knife throwing, I'm just lucky. The first time I ever threw a knife, it was a pocketknife, I was playing mumbly peg, a game where you try to get your knife to stick into a small round stick in the ground. I started playing when I was about thirteen because one of the boys dared me. I've never been one to refuse a challenge. I remember balancing the knife on my arm and then flinging it toward the rod. I missed the first few times, but then started to get the hang of it and now none of the boys even bother challenging me to play.
I lose all thought of time as I think of the game, and I only return to reality when I see the last boy from District Eleven stand up and walk into the training room. Each session is roughly fifteen minutes long. I stand and stretch my legs readying myself for when my names called. I decide to do a few stretches just too fully prepare my body.
Elder shifts his eyes to me and they linger too long for my taste before they return to the wall. I just finish do the full splits when May Lilly is called. She stands and starts to walk toward the door. As she passes me I grab her hand and squeeze it. "Good luck," I say smiling at her.
She smiles back and says, "Thanks." Then she continues toward the door. I notice how small her frame is compared to almost all the other tributes. I think there's one other thirteen-year-old and he's a boy.
We wait another fifteen minutes and then I hear the intercom call out, "Maysilee Donner." I stand and start to walk towards the training room. I stare at the ground trying to calm my racing heartbeat I have to do good.
"Hey Maysilee," I hear Haymitch call. I turn and see that he is still deciding whether to continue what he was going to say. His eye's don't focus on anything for a minute, and then there staring into mine as he says, "Knock'em out." I smile at him and turn back around entering the room.
The Gamemakers have overseen our entire training, but today they don't have forty-seven other children to observe all at once. They sit in an upper room that looks over the entire training room. Their long purple robes fall down to their ankles and their faces all have the same expression, boredom. They must be pretty weary after having to watch all the other children that they hardly pay attention to the last ones, just another disadvantage for the District Twelve tributes.
Some of them have their chairs turned completely around facing someone behind them. I walk up to the center and say, "Maysilee Donner, District Twelve." Some turn their heads and nod and so I begin before I lose them again.
I know I want to involve the obstacle course, but I'm not sure how. I then get an idea and ask a few of the trainers to help me move the dummies. I place them at different places throughout the entire course. I then tell the trainer that's in the middle of the course to put on protective gear. As he does that I grab two belts that have six to eight knives each and strap them across each shoulder. I then take another belt with two throwing axes and tie it around my waist. Completely prepared I close my eyes and imagine the course and me running through it hitting the dummies. I breathe in…and then out. In…out, I nod to the trainer in the front and he swings the flag.
I sprint to the beginning throw one knife into the dummy to the right and then one to the left. I run into the course dodging the pole swinging towards my head and re-arm myself. I jump from one platform to the next and throw a knife into the next dummies face.
After a few more dodges and throws that hit each dummy in a killing strike I pull both axes out and jump into the section where the trainer is. Immediately the foam sword comes down, only this time I realize it's a real sword. I deflect it with my axe and hop back. My opponent charges and I jump to the side. He zooms past and I swing the axe into his back. It hits his armor and starts to flash yellow. I've only wounded him. I flip the axe through the air and he whips around swinging the sword high towards my head. I duck and come up sinking my axe into his left shoulder armor. The armor flashes orange and I jump back getting a good aim. I throw it into the helmet. The armor then starts to flash red and I continue into the second part.
The foam pole swings around and I duck my head just in time. I then hop away from the hammer and jump across the small ravine that lay between me and the next part. My feet hit the edge and I stumble forward. A pole hits my arms, but I regain my balance and remember that I left a dummy unharmed behind me. I quickly turn and fling the axe at it. It hits the dummy in the heart and I turn back around and proceed.
My arm throbs a little, but it's manageable I dodge and deflect a couple more obstacles and then throw two more knives hitting a dummy in the throat and shoulder. Darn it! I jump down and realize that this is the home stretch. I have to make it count. A pole drops down to head level and I drop into the full splits. I then throw a knife into a dummy. I do a roll out from my full split position and land on my feet. That ought to up my points.
I am at the finish there's just a small sprint and then the last dummy that stand in the center of the exit. I jump over the invisible rope that I always forgot about, and then I run at full speed toward the dummy.
About ten feet away I drop to my knees and skid across the linoleum floor. As I slide by the dummy I pull a knife out and slice his legs. The dummy falls and I continue sliding out. I know the Gamemakers won't count that as a kill, so I spin around and throw the knife. It sails high up. To high and flies back into the course. The bell goes off signaling the end of the session and I stand. I am so ashamed that I didn't finish. I unstrap the belts and as I pass the Gamemakers I hear a few snickering at me. I glare at them and then shake the hair out of my face and walk, chin up toward the elevator.
"You haven't been excused," I hear behind me my steps falter. I roll my shoulders and continue walking to the elevator. I push past the Avoxes and jab the button for the twelfth floor. I bury my head in my hands and then push them through my hair. I am so dead I think.
How could I let my temper get the better of me, especially in my Individual Sessions? The Gamemakers rate you on a score of zero through twelve after today's performance. Getting high scores will keep you from being an easy target, but getting higher than a Career will make a deadly target. I know I'm going to get a low score. You don't ignore Gamemakers without consequences. I want to cry my heart out, and scream until my lungs burn at the same time.
The door opens and I see both Penelope and Georgette looking at me. "How'd it go?" Georgette says at the same time Penelope says, "What did you do?" I look at both of them and decide who to answer.
"I got angry," I say looking to the ground, willing it to open and drag me in. It doesn't, and I am sentenced to be on the receiving end of Penelope's onslaught.
"Oh God," says Penelope. "What happened?" I relate the entire story to her and she listens intently. To my surprise she doesn't get upset. When I finish I wait for the yelling to begin, but it doesn't. Penelope stares deep in thought, and then says "Well, you won't be getting a very good score now will you?" She winks and I stare at her quizzically for a few minutes then I wonder if ignoring the Gamemakers is a bad thing. "At least you didn't throw something at them," Penelope says and I laugh.
"I'd never do something that unintelligent," I say and Penelope smiles. Georgette on the other hand is completely horrified at the story.
"How can you make jokes? You don't do stuff like that Maysilee! It's bad manners," says Georgette before fleeing to her room. Penelope and I watch her walk out of site and I then excuse myself and walk to my room. I need to change before dinner.
When I finish freshening up and changing I look at the golden pin of the mockingjay. It is a beautiful piece. It is sometimes considered a symbol of rebellion. A mockingjay is a cross between a mocking bird and a jabber jay.
A jabber jay is a creation of the Capitol. It was created back in the Dark Days when the districts rebelled. The jays were sent into rebel bases. It would then fly back to the Capitol and relay the conversations since it was constructed to repeat anything it heard. It could even repeat a person's accent. The jabber jays were affective for a while, but when the rebel ambushes were continually thwarted they caught on and started feeding the jabber jays lies. Seeing that the birds were of know use they released them into the wild to die out since all jabber jays were male. But nature defied the Capitol and jabber jays mated with female mockingbirds and thus a new species was created. One that can repeat any song it hears completely. The Mockingjay, something the Capitol didn't expect, didn't approve, had entered the world.
I put the pin on my shirt and walk out of the room thinking of mockingjays, and the rebellion, and if anyone would ever be brave enough to start a new rebellion. Only they would win this time. My thoughts are changed suddenly when I feel my arm pulled and slam into the wall.
My vision blurs a little and when it clears again I see Elder's face right in front of me. I wriggle my body trying to get free, but it's no use. I am too weak. Elder looks at me for a few seconds and then says, "I want to finish what we started at the parade."
"Let me go," I say and I want to kick myself when I hear the quivering in my voice.
"What? Why, I thought you were tuff enough to get out of my grip," Elder says and his grip tightens a little.
I should scream, I should, but I can't. My voice catches in my throat and instead I twist back and forth trying get free. My skin feels like it's about to rip of where he holds me since it doesn't move when I do.
Elder pulls me forward and then slam me against the wall again. I feel my consciousness slowly draining, but I force myself to stay awake and give him a swift kick to the groin. Elder lets out what seems to be a mix of a groan and a gasp and then I'm slammed into the wall again. I kick again and again, hitting him in the ankle and shin. I stomp on the top of his foot and his hands release a little bit. I wrench one arm away and hit him in the jaw. He takes a step back and I stumble out of the hall. My head spins, and I barley reach the end before I fall on the ground.
I hear the steps of Elder walking over to me and right when he's about to drag me back Penelope appears at the entrance. Elder immediately drops down on the ground and says, "Are you OK?"
"What happened?" Penelope asks.
Elder helps me up all the while making a story up about how he was walking around the corner and bumped into me. My head begins to clear, and when Penelope asks if it's true I nod. I know I should tell the truth, but what's the point? In one more day we'll be in the Games, and then won't matter.
Dinner flies by with my head still feeling light and I don't eat much. May Lilly tells us about how she showed how she made a trap for tributes, and that the Gamemakers seemed to enjoy it. Haymitch doesn't reveal his session except to say that he broke something. Elder talks about how he sliced up all the dummies with a sword and I wonder how he thought this was going to make an impact on the Gamemakers since that's what he's been doing every day.
I say that I used the obstacle course, but that's it. I don't want to give all my secrets away since in thirty-six hours we'll be enemies. I can't believe this. In a day and a half, my allies will become enemies. And by this I mean Haymitch and May Lilly.
After dinner we all gather around the television to see what all the tributes scores are. The scores are mainly for sponsors to see which tributes are the best to bet on. Claudius Templesmith, The Hunger Games Announcer, sits at a desk as the tributes picture flash behind him with their numbers as he read it.
Only a few stick out in my mind since the mass of the tributes is so big that most just blur together. The Boys from One both get a ten and the girls get a nine and a ten. The boys from Two get a ten and nine, and one boy and one girl from Four get a nine. These are the highest scores. The others mainly from four to eight in the score range. I feel for the girl from Six that got a three.
When it reaches District Twelve I feel like I'm going to get a headache from all the flashing picture and scores. I hear Claudius say May Lilly's name and I look up rubbing the bridge of my nose. Claudius pauses dramatically and says, "A score of six." Everyone cheers and May Lilly smiles brightly.
Elder is next and we all wait as Claudius says, "A score of nine." Everyone is about to congratulate him when he stands up and walks over to the wall and punches hit. Georgette's face is hysterical and I start to giggle into my hand, Elder glares at me and then we here my name.
Everyone quiets down and then Claudius looks right into the camera and pauses. I feel like I want to step through the screen and rip the paper out of his and so I can see for myself. My heart races and I grip the first hand I come in contact with, which happens to be Haymitch. "With a score of," Claudius says "Eight."
I gasp and everyone looks at me with wide eyes. Then they start cheering and I am wrapped in a hug by Georgette and then Epria. Penelope winks at me and I feel like that was the best praise. We settle down again and I grab Haymitch's hand once again, this time for his sake more than mine.
"And finally, we have from District Twelve, Haymitch Abernathy, with a score of. . . ten." I look at Haymitch wide eyed and he smiles at me. Everyone in the room, except Elder, whoop and wales and then we all congratulate each other.
I don't notice when I get to Haymitch and I'm about to hug him when I realize it's him. I stand with my arms half open staring into his gray captivating eyes. I don't like him that way, or do I? I realize that I could and this stalls me. I shake the thought from my head and hug him anyways. He stands ridged for a second and then wraps is arms around me as well. He feels strong and for a minute it's Miller I'm hugging and then I smell sweat and water that surrounds Haymitch, instead of Miller's flour and baked bread smell from his fathers' shop. I pull away and look into his eyes saying, "Congratulation." He stares at me, and after a moment of silence he says, "And to you."
Hey Everyone!
Well Chapter 7 done. I hope you're enjoying. Feel free to PM me any ideas or your feedback, and don't forget to follow, Favorite and Review! And my the odds be ever in your Favor!
Chapter 8 Preview
My heart beats in my ears and I start to think that Penelope was right since a thousand conversation scenarios run through my head. The Director walks up to me and tells me to go ahead and start to walk up. I almost trip over my skirt and before I know what happening I'm in Haymitchs arms. His gray eyes stare into my blue ones and then he says, "Easy there, don't want to get a wound right before the Games." He smiles and I smile back. "Go get'em," he says and winks. I nod and regain my balance. With one flip of my hair I start back towards the stadium.
I stand just outside of the light from the stadium and take a few breathes as Caesar says, "And now from District Twelve, Maysilee Donner!"
