Thank you all of my reviewers:) Here I am going to have a little shoutout for you guys, which I have never done before.
Yumni, Pinkatailmon: Thank you for your continued support from chapter 1:)
HermoineJMalfoy, randomgirl18: Thanks for your support too :D
Lolaag194: Finn shall be spared. Sorry I didn't answer your request on the previous chapter.
Catnip851: Thanks for your eager anticipation for every chapter!
And all the others I can't include here because it would make it too long, thank you very much, too:)
And "Backpack Man" gag is inspired by Doctor Legolas' review. Credit goes to you, Doctor!
"You know, your plan is unrealistic, right?" Elysia asks me while we're walking to the cornucopia.
"What?" I sputter. "What do you mean, unrealistic?"
"I can't build a catapult. Not that I don't know how, of course I do, because I'm so smart. It's that we don't have enough materials for it. We'll need loads of wood, hammers, nails…"
"WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME EARLIER?" I bellow at her.
Elysia shrugs. "I thought it'd be cool to hang around you guys and get free food and stuff. Plus, I get a personal backpack carrier."
"I am not your backpack carrier!"
"Hush, Backpack Man," Elysia shouts at Darin.
Darin is so outraged he can't even speak. All the sounds he manages to make are strangled noises and incomplete sentences like: "But I—" "But you—" "Ugh!"
"So why don't you think of a plan, if you're so smart?" I say to Elysia.
"Oh, I'm smart, alright. My DNA was genetically engineered so I would inherit the best of my family line. I could explain further, but I'm scared your tiny brain won't be able to understand." Elysia explains.
Now it's my turn to be so mad I'm speechless. "MY BRAIN IS NOT TINY! I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I'M ON TOP OF MY CLASS—"
Joannie pulls me backward and calms me down. "She's just a ten year old girl. She doesn't know what she's talking about."
"I am eleven years, three months and thirteen days old, to be exact. And I do know what I'm doing. What about you, Miss Curly French Fry Head?"
Curly French fry head? Is that what fifth-graders use as insults these days? I look over to Ferrous, but he just shrugs and shakes his head.
Joannie rolls up her sleeves, infuriated. "I'LL SHOW YOU, CURLY FRENCH FRIES!" It takes both Darin and I to restrain Joannie from knocking Elysia to another dimension.
"I say we leave her here and move on," Joannie snarls.
"Guys," Ferrous says in a hushed voice so Elysia can't hear. "We still need her. She might come in handy if we have an idea to escape.
I sigh. "Unfortunately, Fern's right. Which is why he will have the important occupation of keeping Elysia entertained so she won't bother us."
"Why me?" Ferrous whines.
"No generation gap," I reply, "now go."
Ferrous groans. He then plasters a smile and skips to Elysia.
"Got any new ideas to leave this place so we won't have to spend as much time with her?" Joannie asks, pointing at Elysia.
"No, but we should still head to the cornucopia, to see if anything useful is there."
"Maybe we can camp out there, like the Careers," Darin suggests.
"I only hope nobody beat us there," I mutter.
Darin nudges me, points to the tree on my right and says, "bird". I immediately know what he means. I take an arrow from my quiver and shoot two birds with it.
Joannie whistles. "Awesome shooting."
I shrug modestly and take down another bird. I never know what to say when people praise me.
I get the birds and pluck the arrows out of them. "Any ideas on how to cook these?" I ask, holding up my kill.
Ferrous rushes towards me, dragging Elysia along. "Oh goodie! Food!" he exclaims. "Oh, and Elysia is driving me nuts. Can we switch shifts?" he whispers, gesturing at Elysia.
Elysia removes her glasses and wipes it. When she puts it back on, she squints at me. "You are so much uglier in HD," she informs me.
"Wow, thanks," I mutter.
"I can help you heat that up," Elysia says, pointing to the birds.
Joannie raises an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
Elysia gets out her tin can and pulls out several other electronic parts.
"Wow, where'd you get all that?" Darin asks.
"I found a torch someone dropped and I took it apart. Thank you for asking, Mister Backpack." Darin groans. Mister Backpack does not like his new nickname.
Elysia connects the wires to a set of batteries and the tin can, forming a closed circuit. "There. The tin can will heat up and it can fry your chicken," Elysia tells us.
"It's not a chick—oh, whatever." I decide that it's pointless arguing with Elysia, so I start skinning the birds. Darin helps. In no time the birds are cut in pieces, ready to be cooked. I put the chunks of birds onn Elysia's tin can. We take turns to eat. They're not entirely cooked, but still better than eating it raw.
We finish two birds and leave the third for later. For the first time in many days, my stomach actually feels satisfied.
I look around me. Tall trees, green grass, still so far away from the cornucopia. Probably need a few days to get there, if we continue this pace.
"Oh my god, Lily!" Ferrous suddenly shouts.
"What?"
"I FORGOT TO WATER SHELDON!"
"Sheldon?" Joannie asks.
"Sheldon is Ferrous' orchid. He seems to be pretty fond of it, because it's really rare or something."
"It's not just any orchid! I found it in the wild! Do you know how many orchids you get to find in the wild?" Ferrous wails.
"We've been in the arena for around a week and you don't remember your plant until now?" Darin questions, shaking his head. "You are such an irresponsible plant owner."
"Why do you even want a living organism? Robots are much better. No fuss," Elysia says.
Ferrous buries his head in his hands. "Sheldon's going to die because of me, and I'm going to have karma for it! Remember when I forgot to feed our pet fish and it died and I got bad luck for an entire week?"
"I told you, it was mere coincidence," I tell Ferrous.
"A mockingjay flew by and pooped on my head!"
"I looked at it and there was nothing there!"
"It's my head! I could feel it!"
"Shouldn't you be more concerned about our safety rather than your orchid's?" Joannie asks.
"Right, right. I hope mom remembers to water Sheldon," Ferrous sighs.
"If mom really were home, don't you think they would be doing something more important? Like, I don't know—rescuing us maybe?" I ask sarcastically.
"You don't care about Sheldon!"
"No, not really," I admit.
"I still don't get why anyone would name their plant Sheldon. What kind of a plant name is that?" Elysia asks.
"It's a nice name!"Ferrous protests.
"Let's stop thinking about Sheldon for a while. There's the pond we passed by before. Let's go take a break there," Joannie says, pointing to the pond. We wash our filthy faces and we refill our water bottles.
"Refill my water bottle, Backpack Man," Elysia orders.
"It's my water bottle!"
"No, I took ownership of it. Now fill it up."
Darin mutters something under his breath. I can't hear it, but I'm pretty sure it's not something nice.
I put my hand in the cool water and it calms me down. In the woods at home I would stick my hand in the lake and feel the water beating down on my hand. Once I used a generator to light up a light bulb using running water. Nothing as fancy as Elysia's tin can/grill, but I was pretty proud of it.
I pull my hand out of the water. A new plan hatches in my head, but I want to consult Joannie before announcing it to everyone, so I won't humiliate myself.
"Hey Joannie," I nudge her.
"Yeah?"
"Say I have all the equipment I need. If I use a generator and turn the energy of running water in the arena to electrical energy and direct it to the force field, would it shatter?"
She considers for a moment. "I guess so. This is the part where Elysia comes in handy, right?"
"Absolutely," I say and turn to the others.
"Hey. I've got another idea. We can use the hydroelectric power provided by the running water in the arena, and turn it into electrical power and aim it at the force field. You think you can do that, Elysia?"
Elysia nods. "But I've still got limited parts. We need to check the cornucopia for other gadgets."
"I can get back to Sheldon!" Ferrous shouts enthusiastically.
"That' right," I smile.
It's getting late so we camp by the pond.
"Hey, why don't we tell some ghost stories?" Joannie suggests.
"Oh, I've got a good one. I'll go first," Darin volunteers.
We sit in a circle but don't start a campfire. Instead, Elysia puts back together the torch to provide an eerie illumination. Darin puts the torch under his chin and starts telling the story.
"Once, on a stormy night—"
"Wait," Elysia says, "your nostrils look weird in the light. There. That's better." Elysia adjusts the torch.
"My nostrils are not weird! Anyways. Once, on a stormy night. A ghost creeps into a house, hoping to haunt the owner. Then, he opens the fridge…And eats the last peanut butter sandwich!"
Silence fills all around us. Someone coughs.
"That…wasn't scary at all," Joannie finally says.
"What's with you and your obsession with peanut butter?" I ask.
Darin shrugs. "I like peanut butter."
Then we hear some rustling noises. We turn towards the source and draw our weapons. A group of three walks out of a bush. There's a girl in the middle, leaning on the guy on the right. She looks seriously mauled. The guy on the left has an eye patch hastily made with a leaf.
"Enemies!" the eye patch guy shouts. "Wallie! Get Crystal out of here! I'll hold them off." Wallie and Crystal hobble away as quickly as they can, which isn't very quick.
"First, they're going so slowly I could just moonwalk there and kill them if I wanted to," Joannie says," and second, there's no way one of you can hold off all of us."
"Woah, we don't want to fight." Darin lowers his dagger.
Eye patch guy shouts a battle cry and lunges at the easiest target—Elysia, but she quickly slips away and I pin him on the ground.
He slashes at my arm and I cry out in pain. Joannie immediately rushes forward and grabs him by the neck and puts her knife up to his throat.
Eye patch guy squints his eye at Joannie. "Eden?"
She presses the knife more firmly on his skin, not happy to hear her real name.
"Eden! Eden, it's me, Melvin! Please, don't kill me!"
Joannie's eyes soften and she releases Melvin. Melvin pushes her on the ground and runs after Wallie and Crystal.
I rush to help Joannie up. She looks completely taken aback.
"Should we follow them?" Ferrous asks.
"No," Joannie says firmly.
"Who's Melvin?" Darin asks.
"He's…he's from my district. I haven't seen him in a while, and with his eyepatch, I didn't recognize him…" Joannie falters and stares longingly at Melvin, still making very slow progress at walking with Crystal.
I walk up closer to them, and with my good arm, hurl our last bird at them. They look so scared, so hopeless that I couldn't help myself. Wallie picks up my gift.
"You're welcome!" I shout at them.
"You should rest," I tell Joannie as I walk back to her. Everyone else looks at me in awe, as if I've done something crazy.
"No, I'm not tired. I'll help you bandage your arm and I'll take first watch," Joannie offers.
After Joannie wraps up my wound, I crawl into my sleeping bag. Ferrous is in his, next to mine.
"Good night, Fern," I whisper, though I know he's asleep.
"Sheldon," he mumbles in his sleep.