Chapter 10 - Vala POV
I woke up to the very unpleasant sound of Hermia screeching into my ear, "WHY ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING? DINNER STARTED 15 MINUTES AGO AND WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING PATIENTLY FOR YOU GUYS TO SHOW UP! THE PLUM STEW IS COLD!"
I rubbed my eyes blearily and sat up. I glanced at my reflection in the giant mirror across from the bed. I looked like a train wreck, with my hair sticking up everywhere, and my dress twisted around my legs.
"Saywah?" I said unintelligently.
"GET YOURS BUTTS OUT TO THE DINING ROOM IN THE NEXT 5 MINUTES!" Hermia yelled before stalking out of the room.
I looked over at Adrielle and burst out laughing.
"Let's get going," Adrielle said, still giggling, "We'll be killed before the Games even start otherwise."
Of course, this made me crack up even more. I was ecstatic that I had reached my goal of being late for dinner without even thinking about.
Now that I had rubbed the morning-ness out of my eyes, I saw Adrielle more clearly.
"How are you already out of bed?" I asked.
"I woke up when Hermia slammed the door," she replied.
"So you just let her scream at me?" I asked. I clutched my chest, pretending to be horrified.
"Yea, pretty much. Let's just say I was getting back at you for not waking me up at 5," Adrielle said, smirking.
"You foul, loathsome, little cockroach!" I said, throwing a pillow at her, and giggling. This was one of my favorite catch phrases.
Laughing, Adrielle threw the pillow back onto the bed. "Let's get going," she said.
I got out of bed and untwisted my dress. I took my hair out of its bun, and smoothed it out around my shoulders. So much for taking a shower before dinner.
"You're a really heavy sleeper, Val. Didn't you hear the door slamming? Or Hermia screaming at me?"Adrielle asked as we were heading out the door.
"I heard screaming, but I couldn't make out what the words were," I replied.
"Okay," Adrielle said, giggling. "Come on, let's hurry. Hermia might start screaming at us again."
We ran towards the dining room. Before we even got inside, we bumped into Hermia.
"There you are!" Hermia said, obviously irritated. "The food is cold! We've been waiting for almost half an hour!" She continued to scream.
"Hermia, calm down!" A male voice said from the dining room.
"Yea Rainbow, listen to him," I said, enjoying the shocked expression on Hermia's face. The male voice started to chortle.
I noticed Adrielle walk into the dining room, and I followed her. There, sitting at the gigantic wooden table were our mentors, Finnick and Annie. Finnick and Annie!
Seeing Finnick laughing, I realized that the 'male voice' was his. Finnick's.I suddenly wished I had taken a shower and changed before dinner. I couldn't believe that he was here! I had completely forgotten that he was one of our mentors! Of course, I couldn't believe that Annie was here too.
"Hello. Adrielle, right?"Finnick directed at Adrielle.
"Hi, yea. Adrielle," Adrielle said, blushing.
"Hi!" Annie said.
"Hi Annie."Adrielle replied.
"So you must be Vala," Finnick said to me, his blue eyes sparkling.
"Uhm, yea…I mean no! I mean, you can call me Val. Hi Finnick," I rushed, trying not to squeak.
"Hi Val!" Annie said. She was always so chipper. I liked that.
"Hey Annie," I said back, smiling.
"Take a seat!" Finnick said, sweeping his arm around, indicating the seats around him.
I blushed and sat down next to Adrielle, who was sitting next to Annie. Hermia took the farthest seat away from me possible. I smirked at that.
"Well, come on, let's start eating," Finnick said, looking over at me.
"You didn't start eating yet?" Adrielle asked.
"No! Eating without everyone is disrespectful!" Hermia said.
"You could've though," I said.
"It's disrespectful," Hermia snapped at me.
"Okay Hermia, we get it. Stop arguing so with Vala so we can eat," Adrielle said. She was speaking slowly, like she was talking to someone who couldn't speak English.
Finnick chuckled and gave Adrielle one of his brilliant smiles. Hermia just glared.
We all settled down while the Avoxes served us dinner. I picked up my spoon and started to eat my soup. It was lamb stew, with dried plums, and it wasn't cold at all. It was delicious. I watched Hermia flinch as Finnick made a small slurping noise. I winked at him, and picked up my bowl. I put it up to my lips and started slurping as loud as I could, with flecks of soup dirtying the pristine white tablecloth. Adrielle began to do it too. I saw Annie snort into her own soup at the expression on the Rainbow's face. Within second everyone around the table, except Hermia, was cracking up.
Hermia finally just shouted at Finnick, "You can mentor them yourself! I don't care what happens! Just teach them some MANNERS!" and stormed out of the room.
One of those very awkward silences followed, that was broken up by an Avox setting an enormous, frosted, chocolate cake on the middle of the table. The outside of it was decorated with multi-colored fish, sharks, shells, seaweed, that kind of thing. Ugh, I wish they would stop trying to remind us of home, I thought. The Avox began cutting large slices, and she set them in front of us.
"Thank you," said Adrielle with a smile, as she received her slice. She was always the more polite of the two of us.
The Avox eyed her weirdly, set down the cake knife, and scurried away.
Finnick was the one who broke the second awkward silence of the day. "So, what skills do you ladies have? We'll need you guys to perfect what you're good at, and try to at least learn how to use some new weapons. How about you, Adrielle?"
Adrielle squirmed around in her seat and managed to say, "I'm not really good at anything."
"Oh PUL-EEZ!" I scoffed at Adrielle. "Like you didn't win the Archer's competition when you were only 6 YEARS OLD! Oh, and all those trout we ate for dinner? It sure wasn't YOU who stabbed them with your spear and trident! "
Annie and Finnick cracked up at my sarcasm and Adrielle blushed. I was right after all; she was amazing with a bow and arrow, spear, and trident.
"Ok," Finnick said, "What about you Val?"
It was my turn to squirm in my seat. "Uhm…I don't really have any skills."
Now, Adrielle scoffed, "Oh! I don't really know anything!" she mimicked in a super high pitched voice. I had to roll my eyes at that. "Yes. Yes you do. You can throw a knife and hit ANY target! And those trout we had? You helped me catch them with your own spear and trident!"
I squirmed even more while Adrielle looked triumphant. I guess she was right. Kenn had taught us how to use spears and tridents when we were little, and we caught fish with them almost every day since. It was true that I was good with a knife too, that I had taught myself. I remember watching the Hunger Games one year and seeing a girl from District 12 win just by hitting everybody in the head with a knife. Mad that a girl from District 12 could throw a knife better than I could, I had gone out every night since I was 5, and aimed a knife at the target Kenn painted on the side of our garden shed.
Watching all of this happen, Finnick laughed and said, "Val, show me how well you can throw this knife," and handed me the cake knife.
Of course I had to be the one to show off, since none of the other weapons were available. I shyly took the knife from him. Glancing around the room, my eyes fell on a portrait of President Snow that was normally hidden behind the door. I stood up, and walked over to the point in the room that was farthest from it.
"Kiss your world good-bye, Snow," I said softly, with all eyes on me.
I whipped the knife across the room as hard as I could, and watched it stick right in his blood red lips, the knife buried so deep that only the hilt was showing.
Looking impressed, Finnick and Annie clapped. I blushed, and sat back down. Noticing Adrielle's jealous look, I whispered, "You'll have your time to shine later."
She laughed lightly and said, "I can wait."
Realizing I had left the knife in Snow's lips, I got up and yanked it out.
"Cake, anyone?" I asked sweetly.
Everybody laughed at that.
After we all finished our cake (it was delicious by the way), the Avoxes came and cleared the table.
Finnick leaned back in his chair, and said, "Okay. Let's talk about getting sponsors. We will arrive in the Capitol at lunch tomorrow. When we arrive at the Capitol, smile, wave, blow kisses, do whatever you need to earn sponsors. Be nice to people. Don't push or shove the photographers, even if they get irritating."
"They already did. I wanted to push them all down since we were on our way to the train earlier today," Adrielle said, voicing my thoughts.
Finnick chuckled and continued, "Anyways, if they do, don't do anything that'll make the Capitol not like you. Alright?"
"Okay. I won't," Adrielle said quietly.
Even though I knew she was sincere, I had to snort at that.
"See you guys tomorrow morning. Come on Annie," Finnick said, getting up and walking to the door. "Night." He continued, giving us each a small wave.
"Night," Adrielle and I said in unison.
Annie got up and followed Finnick to the door.
"Night Annie," Adrielle said.
"Good night Annie," I said.
"Night, Adrielle, Val," she replied.
Once she was out the door, Adrielle yawned.
"We shouldn't be so hard on her," Adrielle said suddenly. "Hermia, I mean. She's helping us get sponsors for the Games, and she could really help us in a life or death situation."
"Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I guess it's just the idea that she's actually excited about sending us into the games," I said, suddenly feeling ashamed.
"Come on. I wanna go sleep," Adrielle said with an even bigger yawn than before. She got up and walked towards the door. I followed her.
We walked to our rooms in silence.
"Night, Val," Adrielle said as she walked into her room.
"Night, Ad," I replied quietly.
I walked up to my door with the big number 4 on it and sighed. I quietly opened the door and tiptoed inside. It was dark. I stumbled around trying to find a light switch, tripping over a million things in the process. I finally found it and flipped it on. The room was instantly flooded in light.
Squinting, I found my way over to the bathroom. The inside was blue, green, and purple with shells in the walls. For the first time in my life, my favorite colors and things were mocking me. After furiously brushing and scrubbing my face, teeth, and hair, I walked back out into my room to put on my pajamas.
The closet was huge. And of course it was filled with mostly ocean colors. Ugh. After finding the only red nightgown there was, I slipped it on. It was very light, loose, and floaty. I loved it.
I looked into the mirror and saw that I looked horrible. Hopefully that would be fixed tomorrow by my prep team. Thinking of my prep team reminded me to take one last look at my arm hair before it would be ripped off.
I finally crawled into bed. Then I realized that I had forgotten to turn off the lights. Grumbling, I got up again and went to turn it off. Right next to it, I realized, was another portrait of President Snow. He was everywhere. Knowing I wouldn't be able to fall asleep with that creep staring at me, I just decided to leave the lights on.
Now I had to have something to do.
I walked back into my bathroom until I found a drawer full of scissors. Figuring that those would have to do, I grabbed them and got back into my bed.
The scissors felt too bulky in my hands, so I took them apart, so each half would be like two knives. I took one, aimed, and threw it.
Thump. It hit Snow in the forehead. Thump. In the nose. Thump. Thump. In each of his snakelike eyes. Thump. His puffy, bloody, lips. Thump. Thump. His ears.
Running out of good targets, I just started throwing them all over his face.
Thump. Would I die the first day in the arena? Thump. Would Adrielle die? Thump. Should I kill Adrielle? Thump. Who are the other tributes? Thump. What will the arena be like this year? Thump. Will I survive the Games?