hey, I'm back! Sorry, it's been, like forever since I last updated this story. I got caught up writing another fanfiction and when I got back to this one I got an extreme case of writer's block. It sucked. But I got over it and here we are. Now, without further adieu, here's the story. Enjoy!
Jack's POV
Well, the time has come to get the brats ready for their interviews. Great. Every man's dream, teaching a sixteen year old boy how to smile, wave, and look pretty. Sure, it sucks that the kid's in the Hunger Games, sure, his best friend had the same crappy luck but they act like they're freaking five years old! No, I don't hate them, and no, I'm not a bitter old crackpot (I'm only 29), I'm an army veteran, and I'm treating them way nicer than I was treated in training. My buddies would say I'm babying them. That I've become a softy.
"Okay, let's work on the angle you're going for. Should you be fierce, funny, nice, a ruthless killing machine, the 'pretty-boy'?" I say to the boy, Sam. Karen's training his district partner MaddiGrace separately. Without his little friend around, he's not all smiles and sunshine. I would even say he's sulking.
"Does it matter?" He replies pessimistically. The boy's done a complete 180. Sam's practically a different person.
"Yes it matters." He rolls his eyes at me. "Do you want to win this or not? Without sponsors, you will DIE out there!" I yell harshly. He laughs, but there's no happiness, no humor.
"Trust me, I'm not making it out of that arena alive, sponsors or no sponsors."
"Well that's no way to be thinking. Don't count yourself out yet" I channel my inner Karen and try to be supportive.
"YOU DON'T GET IT DO YOU?" the boy snaps. "This isn't a game, not to me! The winner can't be me, it'll be her."
"Look, I know MaddiGrace is your best friend, but is she worth giving up everything for. Why would you die for her?"
"I'm not going to live. Not without her." He states simply.
"But why?" Suddenly, Sam's shoes become the most interesting thing in the room and he stares at them with captivation. Realization dawns on me. "You love her." I say softly. He nods.
I think for a moment. It's not supposed to be like this. Karen's supposed to look after the girl and I'm supposed to keep Sam alive. The problem before me is difficult. How could I choose to sit back and watch him die? But am I cruel enough to dare let him live?
MaddiGrace's POV
Tonight is the nigh of our interview, and I've got to admit, I'm a little bit nervous. I have to do well if I want to get sponsors and have any chance of surviving. Karen has practiced it with me time and time again, but it'll be different getting interviewed by Andy Leland. Who knows what he'll say.
I've been waiting for Celia for ten minutes. I'm about to leave when she bursts through the door.
"I had the best idea ever!" She exclaims. "I'm going to make you a pixie!" I stare at her in disbelief.
"A what?
"A pixie," she repeats, exploding with excitement.
"Did you have too much loop and not enough fruit in your cereal this morning?"
"Huh?" She gives me a confused look.
"You know. Are you a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?" I ask, tapping her head. She gets it now.
"Oh shut up!" She says, swatting my hand away good naturedly. "You'll look cute I promise." Apparently I don't look convinced. "Would I lie to you?" She adds.
"Yes" I say with false conviction. Celia smiles and shoves me into the dressing room. I pull on the dress. It's pink and strapless and the skirt goes out almost horizontally in little leafy waves of cloth almost like a tutu, except cute. It ends five or six inches above my knee. Wrapped around my stomach is a brown belt that laces vertically in the front down the center of my belly. I exit the dressing room and she pins my hair back in a loose bun with curly strands hanging down on both sides of my face, thin, but visible to the audience. She does my make up with a silver eyeliner pencil and light colored eye shadow. She uses a brush to dust just a teensy bit of glitter over my cheeks. She wraps pink and brown ribbons crisscross around my legs up to my knee, where she knots the ribbons together and let's the long ends hang freely. She does the same thing with pink and silver ribbons on the top half of my right arm from my elbow to my shoulder with a little bow at the top. Celia's decided that I'll go barefoot as to not ruin the effect of the ribbons. She carefully paints my nails silver with metallic turquoise swirls.
She takes one quick look at me, beams, and shoves me in front of a mirror. "Do you like it? Do you love it?" She asks. My skin is sparkling with the glitter she dusted over it and I look natural and carefree. I look magical. For just a moment, I almost believe I'm a pixie.
"Love it. Definitely love it." Her face is glowing with excitement and pride.
"Come on, you're gonna be late!" Celia drags me out of the dressing room to the auditorium where we'll be interviewed. "Good luck! I know you'll be great" She says. She gives me a quick hug, then rushes off to find her seat. I skip off to the seats in the very back where all the other tributes have gathered. I'm the only one that's opted to go barefoot. A little embarrassing, but they don't get to be pixies.
I see Sam sitting in one of the two District 12 seats. I run over to him.
"Hi ya' lil' Sammy!" I say. I drop into the seat next to him. He looks at my outfit in slight shock. I'm the only one that's dressed anything like this. All the other girls look like they're heading off to the Homecoming dance and I look like I belong in a Disney princess movie. (But Disney princesses trump Homecoming queens any day in my book.)
"Let me guess. Ballerina?" He asks.
"Pixie actually." he laughs and I slap him in the arm. "Look at you all high and mighty! What are you supposed to be? Barbie's boyfriend Ken?" He glares.
"Yes. That's exactly what I'm supposed to be." Sam replies sarcastically. I laugh.
"So Jack decided on the pretty-boy thing for you?" I ask. He smirks.
"Aw. You think I'm pretty MaddiGrace?" That remark earns him a slug in the gut. "Oof!" He doubles over (I'm a lot stronger than I look.) "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Pixies don't punch. Walt Disney would be ashamed of you right now." He tells me, shaking his head disapprovingly. I stick my tongue out at him.
The room begins to buzz with noise as the audience fills in. Out of the corner of my eye, I see people staring, pointing and Sam and me and whispering. What are you looking at? I think. I glance at Sam's outfit. Pretty normal. A white button down shirt, a black jacket, a loose-hanging black tie, black pants, and his White Sox hat. Nothing out of this world. I can't believe Finnegan gave his baseball cap the okay. Anyways, besides my pixie get-up, there's nothing all that interesting about us. Suddenly it hits me. Oh yea! We got the highest scores! I remember. We're friggin' awesome! I decide to ignore them. I learn that Sam's angle is pretty-boy, funny nice guy, and also tough guy. I tell him that I'm supposed to be pretty, sweet as apple pie, but somehow I have to try to look dangerous. Both our trainers want us to put an emphasis on the fact that we're best friends.
Andy Leland walks on stage and begins to make jokes. It's show time. Everyone rushes to their seats. A few minutes into his monologue, he calls the girl from District 1, Molly Sands, up to the stage while "Summerboy" by Lady Gaga plays. As soon as she was up on stage, he calls Flynn Fitzpatrick up, playing "Growing Up" in the background. District partners are going to be interviewed at the same time. The interviews go pretty well for everyone. Tex is a clear crowd favorite. They're going wild from the moment he sprints out to stage singing along to "El Scorcho" by Weezer (he's extremely tone-deaf by the way). The twelve year olds are so damn adorable even I would want to sponsor them, and I'm broke. Grant Anderson, the kid who played along with my pretend cowboy gunfight, runs out to "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. His interview is pretty fucking hilarious. Finally, it's our turn.
Andy calls me up and "Lovesick" by Emily Osment comes on. Everyone else was in a huge rush to get on stage, but I decide to take my time. I strut down the aisle like a super short runway model, waving, blowing kisses, and of course, singing along and dancing. The crowd eats it up. I reach the stage and Andy calls Sam up. "Good Girls Go Bad" by Cobra Starship starts blasting out of the speakers. Sam jogs out, high-fiving everyone he passes, whooping and hollering. The ends of his long-ish blonde hair stick out from beneath his baseball hat. He kind of reminds me of a jock dressed up for Homecoming. He's in the center of the aisle, halfway to the stage, jumping up and down and pumping his fists like a rock star. The audience loves him.
Finally, he gets to the stage and we take a seat on the couch behind us. Andy waits as the cheering from the crowd dies down.
"Wow. Quite the reception, huh guys?" We smile and nod. "You've made quite the impression on your audience. With your performance at the opening ceremony, and your charisma, and your designers work on you. Oh and don't even get me started on your training scores! Eleven and twelve! I'm still geeking out about it!" Everyone laughs. "SO, I'm dying to know, how'd you pull off those scores?"
"That, my friend, is classified information." Sam informs him. Andy looks at me pleadingly.
"Oh come on. Just a hint?"
"Sorry, our lips are sealed." I tell him. Andy looks slightly put out.
"Fine, let's move onto something else then. How about the reaping?" We nod our consent. "So, your reactions were very interesting. MaddiGrace, your discontent was obvious. Hugging Sam? That had to be one of the most touching things I've ever seen. Are you two maybe dating?" He accuses, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course not!" I insist immediately. "Sam's my best friend." That earns some awwing from the audience.
"Aw, that's cute. How about District 12's reaction? They didn't seem all that happy."
"Well, everyone know we've been best friends our whole lives. They didn't like that after the games… we're never going to see each other again." Sam's voice gets softer at the end of the sentence. The audience calls out their sympathies.
"That is some bad luck" We both nod. "Now, I might be hearing things, but I could have sworn I heard a few people yell "Not the twins!"
"You heard correctly" I assure him.
"But you guys clearly aren't related! You look nothing alike!"
"It's true. We're both from the Seam, but I have the Town look." Sam says, flipping his hair Justin Bieber style.
"Sam and I were both born the same day minutes apart, we're next door neighbors, and we've been inseparable since birth. We're also Gemini, the twins, so people nicknamed us the twins." I explain.
"Hmm, interesting. Like your outfits. What do you think of getting dressed up?" Andy inquires.
"Despite the monkey suit I'm in now, Finnegan doesn't make me look like a doofus, so I'm cool with it." Sam replies. Andy looks to me.
"What about you MaddiGrace?"
"I absolutely love Celia's taste in clothes! The pixie look rocks! But I do feel a little bit like a Barbie doll." I confess. Suddenly, the Barbie Girl song starts playing from the back of the room. Tex jumps out of his feet, waving his iPod in the air.
"Haha, very funny!" I yell to him.
"Um, Tex? Why do you have that song on your iPod?" Sam asks. Good question.
"Ah, the question is, why don't you?" Tex calls.
"Who says we don't?" I retort.
"Do you?" he asks accusingly.
"Hells yea!" Sam and I shout in unison. Sam pulls our iPods out of the pockets if his "monkey suit" and tosses mine to me. We both start blasting "Barbie Girl." We cut the song short and shout "Owned!" The crowd howls with laughter.
"Sam? Really?" Andy asks pointedly. Sam turns bright red.
"She uploaded it on there! I'm an innocent victim!" He insists.
"Guilty as charged." I reply impassively.
"So, I hate to interrupt your happiness, but there's a question that I have to ask."
"Shoot" Sam allows him.
"When the time comes, will you guys turn on each other?" We're shocked at Andy. Isn't it obvious?
"Of course not! I could never hurt my lil' Sammy!" I exclaim, pinching Sam's cheeks. He whacks my hand away.
"And I could never hurt sweet, innocent little MaddiGrace!" he says. Sam stands, scoops me up and rocks me like a baby.
"Sam! Put me down!" I screech, pounding my fists on his chest. He smirks.
"Well, she's little anyway." I scowl at him. "Besides, I've got a promise to keep." The buzzer sounds just as he finishes. Cliff hanger!
"Wait! What's the promise!" Andy pleads. Sam shrugs.
"Sorry Andy. We're out of time." Sam throws me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Adieu, adieu, to you and you."
"Auf Weider-sehen!" The crowd looks at me in confusion. I translate, "Goodbye!" I wave and blow kisses as Sam carries me back to our seats.
When we get back, I go straight to my room and change into my pajamas. I'm glad to go to sleep. It's been a long day and tomorrow will be even longer. Tomorrow, the Games begin.
So, what'd you think? Did you like seeing a different side of Sam? I hope so. I thought it was interesting writing through Jack's point of view. Well, anyways, I really hope you liked it, and I would be much obliged if you were to review my story.
Sam: You know MaddiGrace, if you're Barbie, and I'm Ken, that makes me your boyfriend.
MaddiGrace: OH shut up Sam. You know it was a joke. It meant nothing. I'm NOT gonna date my best friend. I don't think of you that way.
Me: Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that MG.
MaddiGrace: What's that supposed to mean?
Me: Hahahahaha. You'll find out soon enough. Peace peoples!
