Chapter 7 My slumbers are filled with disturbing dreams. The face of the redheaded girl intertwines with gory images from earlier Hunger Games, with my mother withdrawn and unreachable, with Namine emaciated and terrified. I bolt up screaming for my father to run as the mine explodes into a million deadly bits of light.
Dawn is breaking through the windows. The Capitol has a misty, haunted air. My head aches and I must have bitten into the side of my cheek in the night. My tongue probes the ragged flesh and I taste blood.
Slowly, I drag myself out of bed into the shower. I arbitrarily punch buttons on the control board and end up hopping from foot to foot as alternating jets of icy cold and steaming hot water assault me. Then I'm indulged in lemony foam that I have to scrape off with a heavy bristled brush. Oh, well. At least my blood is flowing.
When I'm dried and moisturized with lotion, I find an outfit has been left for me at the front of the closet. Tight black pants, a long-sleeved burgundy tunic, and leather shoes. I put my hair in a single braid down my back. This is the first time since the morning of the reaping that I resemble myself. No fancy hair and clothes, no flaming capes. Just me. Looking like I could be headed for the woods. It calms me.
Luxord didn't give us an exact time to meet for breakfast and no one has contacted me this morning, But I'm hungry so I head down to the dining room, hoping there will be food. I'm not dissapointed. While the table is empty, a long board off to the side has been laid with at least twenty dishes. A young man, an Avox, stands at attention by the spread. When I ask if I can serve myself, he nods assent. I load a plate with eggs, sausages, batter cakes covered in thick orange preserves, slices of pale purple melon. As I gorge myself, I watch the sun rise over the Capitol. I have a second plate of hot grain smothered in beef stew. Finally, I fill a plate with rolls and sit at the table, breaking off bits and dipping them into hot chocolate, the way Sora did on the train.
My mind wanders to my mother and Namine. They must be up. My mother getting their breakfast of mush. Namine milking her goat before school. Just two mornings ago, I was home. Can that be right? Yes, just two. And now how empty the house feels, even from a distance. What did they say last night about my fiery debut at the Games? Did it give them hope, or simply add to their terror when they saw the reality of twenty-four tributes circled together, knowing only one could live?
Luxord and Sora come in, bid me good morning, fill their plates. It makes me irratated that Sora is wearing exactly the same outfit I am. I need to say something to Sazh. This twins act is going to blow up in our faces once the games begin. Surely, they must know this. Then I remember Luxord telling me to do exactly what the stylists tell me to do. If it was anyone but Sazh, I might be tempted to ignore him. But after last night's triumph, I don't have a lot of room to criticize his choices.
I'm nervous about the training. There will be three days in which all the tributes practice together. On the last afternoon, we'll all each get a chance to perform in private before the Gamemakers. The thought of meeting the other tributes face-to-face makes me queasy. I turn to roll I have just taken from the basket over and over in my hands, but my appetite is gone.
When Luxord has finished several platters of stew, he pushes back his plate with a sigh. He takes a flask from his pocket and takes a long pull on it and leans his elbows on the table. "So, let's get down to business. Training. First off, if you like, I'll coach you separately? Decide now."
"Why would you coach us separately?" I ask.
"Say if you had a secret skill you might not want the other to know about," says Luxord.
I exchange a look with Sora. "I don't have a secret skills," he says. "And I already know what yours is, right? I mean, I've eaten enough of your squirrels."
I never thought about Sora eating the squirrels I shot. Somehow I always pictured the baker quietly going off and frying them up for himself. Not out of greed. But because town families usually eat expensive butcher meat. Beef and chicken and horse.
"You can coach us together," I tell Luxord. Sora nods.
"All right, so give me some idea of what you can do," says Luxord.
"I can't do anything," says Sora. "Unless you count baking bread."
"Sorry, I don't. Hermione. I already know you're handy with a knife," says Luxord.
"Not really. But I can hunt," I say. "With a bow and arrow."
"And you're good?" asks Luxord.
I have to think about it. I've been putting food on the table for four years. That's no small task. I'm not as good as my father was, but he had more practice. I've better aim than Roxas, but I've had more practice. He's a genius with traps and snares. "I'm all right," I say.
"She's excellent," says Sora. "My father buys her squirrels. He always comments on how the arrows never pierce the body. She hits every one in the eye. It's the same with the rabbits she sells the butcher. She can even bring down deer."
This assessment of my skills from Sora takes me totally by surprise. First, that he ever noticed. Second, that he's talking me up. "What are you doing?" I ask him suspicously.
"What are you doing? If he's going to help you, he has to know what you're capable of. Don't underrate yourself," says Sora.
I don't know why, but this rubs me the wrong way. "What about you? I've seen you in the market. You can lift hundred-pound bags of flour," I snap at him. "Tell him that. That's not nothing."
"Yes, and I'm sure the arena will be full of bags of flour for me to chuck at people. It's not like being able to use a weapon. You know it isn't," He shoots back.
"He can wrestle," I tell Luxord. "He came in second in our school competiton last year, only after his brother."
"What use is that? How many times have you seen someone wrestle someone to death?" says Sora in disgust.
"There's always hand-to-hand combat. All you need is to come up with a knife, and you'll at least stand a chance. If I get jumped, I'm dead!" I can hear my voice rising in anger.
"But you won't! You'll be living up in some tree eating raw squirrels and picking off people with arrows. You know what my mother said to me when she came to say good-bye, as if to cheer me up, she says maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner. Then I realize, she didn't mean me, she meant you!" bursts out Sora.
"Oh, she meant you," I say with a wave of dismissal.
"She said, 'She's a survivor, that one.' She is," says Sora.
That pulls me up short. Did his mother really say that about me? Did she rate me over her son? I see the pain in Sora's eyes and know he isn't lying.
Suddenly I'm behind the bakery and I can feel the chill of the rain running down my back, the hollowness in my belly. I sound eleven year old when I speak. "But only because someone helped me."
Sora's eyes flicker down to the roll in my hands, and I know he remembers that day, too. But he just shrugs. "People will help you in the arena. They'll be tripping over each other to sponsor you."
"No more than you," I say.
Sora rolls his eyes at Luxord. "She has no idea. The effect she can have." He runs his fingernail along the wood grain in the table, refusing to look at me.
What on earth does he mean? People help me? When we were dying of starvation, no one helped me! No one except Sora. Once I had something to barter with, things changed. I'm a tough trader. Or am I? What effect do I have? That I'm weak and needy? Is he suggesting that I got good deals because people pitied me? I try to think if this is true. Perhaps some of the merchants were a little generous in their trades, but I always attributed that to their long-standing realationship with my father. Besides, my game is first-class. No one pitied me!
I glower at the roll, sure he meant to insult me.
After about a minute of this, Luxord says, "Well, then. Well, well, well. Hermione, there's no guarantee there'll be bows and arrows in the arena, but during your private session with the Gamemakers, show them what you can do. Until then, stay clear of archery. Are you any good at trapping?"
"I know a few basic snares," I mutter.
"That may be significant in terms of food," says Luxord. "And, Sora, she's right, never underestimate strength in the arena. Very often, physical power tilts the advantage to a player. In the Training Center, they will have weights, but don't reveal how much you can lift in front of the other tributes. The plan's the same for both of you. You go to group training. Spend the time trying to learn something you don't know. Throw a spear. Swing a mace. Learn to tie a decent knot. Save showing what you're best at until your private sessions. Are we clear?" says Luxord.
Sora and I nod.
"One last thing. In public, I want you by each others side every minute," says Luxord. We both start to object, but Luxord slams his hand on the table. "Every minute! It's not open for discussion! You agreed to do as I said! You will be together, you will appear amiable to each other. Now get out. Meet Lightning at the elevator at ten for training."
I bite my lip and stalk back to my room, making sure Sora can hear the door slam. I sit on the bed, hating Luxord, hating Sora, hating myself for mentioning that day long ago in the rain.
It's such a joke! Sora and I going along pretending to be friends! Talking up each others strengths, insisting the other take credit for their abilities. Because, in fact, at some point, we're going to have to knock it off and accept we're bitter adversaries. Which I'd be prepared to do right now if it wasn't for Luxord's stupid instruction that we stick together in training. It's my own fault, I guess, for telling him he didn't have to coach us separately. But that didn't mean I wanted to do everything with Sora. Who, by the way, clearly doesn't want to be partnering up with me, either.
I hear Sora's voice in my head. She has no idea. The effect she can have. Obviosly meant to demean me. Right? But a tiny part of me wonders if this is a compilment. That he meant I was appealing in some way. It's weird, how much he's noticed me. Like the attention he paid to my hunting. And appearently, I have not been as oblivious him as I imagined, either. The flour. The wrestling. I have kept track of the boy with the bread.
It's almost ten. I clean my teeth and smooth back my hair again. Anger temporarily blocked out my nervousness about meeting the other tributes, but now I can feel my anxiety rising again. By the time I meet Lightning and Sora at the elevator, I catch myself biting my nails. I stop at once.
The actual training rooms are below ground level of our building. With these elevators, the ride is less than a minute. The doors open into an enormous gymnasium filled with various weapons and obstacle courses. Although it's not yet ten, we're the last ones to arrive. The other tributes are gathered in a tense circle. They each have a cloth square with their district number on it pinned to their shirts. While someone pins the number 12 on my back, I do a quick assessment. Sora and I are the only two dressed alike.
As soon as we join the circle, the head trainer, a tall, athletic woman named Atala steps up and begins to explain the training schedule. Experts in each skill will remain at their stations. We will be free to travel from area to area as we choose, per our mentor's instructions. Some of the stations teach survival skills, other's fighting techniques. We are forbidden to engage in any combative exercise with another tribute. There are assistants on hand if we want to practice with a partner.
When Atala begins to read down the list of the skill stations, my eyes can't help flitting around to the other tributes. It's the first time we've been assembled, on level ground in simple clothes. My heart sinks. Almost all of the boys and at least half of the girls are bigger than I am, even though many of the tributes have never been fed properly. You can see it in their bones, their skin, the hollow look in their eyes. I may be smaller naturally, but overall my family's resourcefulness has given me an edge in that area. I stand straight, and while I'm thin, I'm strong. The meat and plants from the woods combined with the exertion it took to get them have given me a healthier body than most of those I see around me.
The exceptions are the kids from the wealthier districts, the volunteers, the ones who have been fed and trained throughout their whole lives for this moment. The tributes from 1, 2, and 4 traditionally have this look about them. It's technically against the rules to train tributes before they reach the Capitol but it happens every year. In District 12, we call them the Career Tributes, or just the Careers. And like as not, the winner will be one of them.
The slight advantage I held coming into the Training Center, my fiery entrance last night, seems to vanish in the presence of my compitition. The other tributes were jealous of us, but not because we were amazing, because our stylists were. Now I see nothing but contempt in the glances of the Career Tributes. Each must have fifty to a hundred pounds on me. They project arrogance and brutality. When Atala releases us, they head straight to the deadliest looking weapons in the gym and handle them with ease.
I'm thinking that it's lucky I'm a fast runner when Sora nudges my arm and I jump. He is still beside me, per Luxord's instructions. His expression is sober. "Where would you like to start?"
I look around at the Career Tributes who are showing off, clearly trying to intimidate the field. Then at the others, the underfed, the incompetent, shakily having their first lessons with a knife or an ax.
"Suppose we tie some knots," I say.
"Right you are," says Sora. We cross to an empty station where the trainer seems pleased to have students. You get the feeling that the knot-tying class is not the Hunger Games hot spot. When he realizes I know something about snares, he shows us a simple, excellent trap that will leave a human competitor dangling by a leg from a tree. We concentrate on this one skill for an hour until both of us have mastered it. Then we move on to camouflage. Sora genuinely seems to enjoy this station, swirling a combination of mud and clay and berry juices around on his pale skin, weaving disguises from vines and leaves. The trainer who runs this camouflage station is full of enthusiasm at his work.
"I do the cakes," he admits to me.
"The cakes?" I ask. I've been preoccupied with watching the boy from District 2 send a spear through a dummy's heart from fifteen yards. "What cakes?"
"At home. The iced ones, for the bakery," he says.
He means the ones they display in the windows. Fancy cakes with flowers and pretty things painted in frosting. They're for birthdays and New Year's Day. When we're in the square, Namine always drags me over to admire them, although we'd never be able to afford one. There's little enough beauty in District 12, though, so I can hardly deny her this.
I look more critically at the design on Sora's arm. The alternating pattern of light and dark suggests sunlight falling through the leaves in the woods. I wonder how he knows this, since I doubt he's ever been beyond the fence. Has he been able to pick this up from just that scraggly old apple tree in his backyard? Somehow the whole thing- his skill, those inaccesible cakes, the praise of the camouflage expert- annoys me.
"It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death," I say.
"Don't be so superior. You can never tell what you'll find in the arena. Say it's actually a gigantic cake-" begins Sora.
"Say we move on," I break in.
So the next three days pass with Sora and me going quietly from station to station. We do pick up some valuable skills, from starting fires, to knife throwing, to making shelter. Despite Luxord's order to appear mediocre, Sora exceels in hand-to-hand combat, and I sweep the edible plants test without blinking an eye. We steer clear of archery and weightlifting though, wanting to save those for our private sessions.
The Gamemakers appeared early on the first day. Twenty or so me and women dressed in deep purple robes. They sit in the elevated stands that surround the gymnasium, sometimes wandering about to watch us, jotting down notes, other times eating at the endless banquet that has been set for them, ignoring the lot of us. But do they seem to be keeping their eye on the District 12 tributes. Several times I've looked up to find one fixated on me. They consult with the trainers during our meals as well. We see them all gathered together when we come back.
Breakfast and dinner are served on our floor, but at lunch the twenty-four of us eat in a dining room off the gymnasium. Food is arranged on carts around the room and you serve yourself. The Career Tributes tend to gather rowdily around one table, as if to prove their superiority, that they have no fear of one another and consider the rest of us beneath notice. Most of the other tributes sit alone, like lost sheep. No one says a word to us. Sora and I eat together, and since Luxord keeps dogging us about it, try to keep up a friendly conversation during the meals.
It's not easy to find a topic. Talking of home is painful. Talking of the present unbearable. One day, Sora empties our breadbasket and points out how they have been careful to include types from the districts along with the refined bread of the Capitol. The fish-shapped loaf tinted green with seaweed from District 4. The crescent moon roll dotted with seeds from District 11. Somehow, although it's made from the same stuff, it looks a lot more appetizing than the ugly drop biscuits that are the standard fare at home.
"And there you have it," says Sora, scooping the breads back in the basket.
"You certainly know a lot," I say.
"Only about bread," he says. "Okay, now laugh as if I've said something funny."
We both give a somewhat convincing laugh and ignore the stares from around the room.
"All right, I'll keep smiling pleasently and you talk," says Sora. It's wearing us both out, Luxord's direction to be friendly. Because ever since I slammed my door, there's been a chill in the air between us. But we have our orders.
"Did I ever tell you about the time I was chased by a bear?" I ask.
"No, but it sounds fascinating," says Sora.
I try and animate my face as I recall the event, a true story, in which I'd foolishly challenged a black bear over the right to a beehive. Sora laughs and asks questions right on cue. He's much better at this than I am.
On the second day, while we're taking a shot at spear throwing, he whispers to me. "I think we have a shadow."
I throw my spear, which I'm not to bad at actually, if I don't have to throw too far, and see the little girl from District 11 standing back a bit, watching us. She's the twelve-year-old, the one who reminded me so of Namine in stature. Up close she looks about ten. She has bright, blue eyes and satiny light skin and stands tilted up on her toes with her arms slightly extended to her sides, as if ready to take wing at the slightest sound. It's impossible not to think of a bird.
I pick up another spear while Sora throws. "I think her name's Kairi," he says softly.
I bite my lip. Kairi means sea. Kairi. Namine. Neither of them could tip the scale at seventy pounds soaking wet.
"What can we do about it?" I ask him, more harshly than I intended.
"Nothing to do," he says back. "Just making conversation."
Now that I know she's there, it's hard to ignore the child. She slips up and joins us at different stations. Like me, she's clever with plants, climbs swiftly, and has good aim. She can hit the target every time with a slingshot. But what is a slingshot against a 220-pound male with a sword?
Back on the District 12 floor, Luxord and Lightning grill us through breakfast and dinner about every moment of the day. What we did, who watched us, how the other tributes size up. Sazh and Arylon aren't around, so there's no one to add any sanity to the meals. Not that Luxord and Lightning are fighting anymore. Instead they seem to be of one mind, determined to whip us into shape. Full of endless directions about what we should do and not do in training. Sora is more patient, but I become fed up and surly.
When we finally escape to bed on the second night, Sora mumbles, "Someone ought to get Luxord a drink."
I make a sound that is somewhere between a snort and a laugh. Then catch myself. It's messing with my mind too much, trying to keep straight when we're supposedly friends and when we're not. At least when we get into the arena, I'll know where we stand. "Don't. Don't let's pretend when there's no one around."
"All right, Hermione," he says tiredly. After that, we only talk in front of people.
On the third day of training, they start to call us out of lunch for our private sessions with the Gamemakers. District by district, first the boy, then the girl tribute. As usual, District 12 is slated to go last. We linger in the dining room, unsure where else to go. No one comes back once they have left. As the room empties, the pressure to appear friendly lightens. By the time they call Kairi, we are left alone. We sit in silence until they summon Sora. He rises.
"Remember what Luxord said about being sure to throw the weights." The words come out of my mouth without permission.
"Thanks. I will," he says. "You...shoot straight."
I nod. I don't know why I said anything at all. Although if I'm going to lose, I'd rather Sora win than the others. Better for our district, for my mother and Namine.
After about fifteen minutes, they call my name. I smooth my hair, set my shoulders back, and walk into the gymnasium. Instantly, I know I'm in trouble. They've been here too long, the Gamemakers. Sat through twenty-three other demonstrations. Had too much wine, most of them. Want more than anything to go home.
There's nothing I can do but continue with the plan. I walk to the archery station. Oh, the weapons! I've been itching to get my hands on them for days! Bows made of wood and plastic and metal and materials I can't even name. Arrows with feathers cut in flawless uniform lines. I choose a bow, string it, and sling the matching quiver of arrows over my shoulder. There's a shooting range, but it's much too limited. Standard bull's-eyes and human silhouettes. I walk to the center of the gymnasium and pick my first target. The dummy used for knife practice. Even as I pull back on the bow I know something is wrong. The string is tighter than the one I use at home. The arrow's more rigid. I miss the dummy by a couple of inches and lose what little attention I had been commanding. For a moment, I'm humiliated, then I head back to the bull's-eye. I shoot again and again until I get the feel of these new weapons.
Back in the center of the gymnasium, I take my initial position and skewer the dummy right through the heart. Then I sever the rope that holds the sandbag for boxing, And the bag splits open as it slams to the ground. Without pausing, I shoulder-roll foward come up on one knee, and send an arrow into one of the hanging lights high above the gymnasium floor. A shower of sparks burst from the fixture.
It's excellent shooting. I turn to the Gamemakers. A few are nodding approval, but the majority of them are fixated on a roast pig that has just arrived at their banquet table.
Suddenly I am furious, that with my life on the line, they don't even have the decency to pay attention to me. That I'm being upstaged by a dead pig. My heart starts to pound, I can feel my face burning. Without thinking, I pull an arrow from my quiver and send it straight at the Gamemakers' table. I hear shouts of alarm as people stumble back. The arrow skewers the apple in the pigs mouth and pins it to the wall behind it. Everyone stares at me in disbelief.
"Thank you for your consideration," I say. Then I give a slight bow and walk straight toward the exit without being dismissed.