After an hour spent dabbling with camouflage materials, I shake the twigs outs from my hair and move onto the next station. Not in the mood to talk to anyone, I head over to the emptiest station and pick up some flints to start making a fire. The woman in charge of fire-making offers me some matches, but I politely turn them down. From past Hunger Games I know that matches are hard to come by, and so I may as well learn how to set fire without them. She seems to approve of my determination as she tucks the matchbox back into a box, then squats down beside me.
"You'd want to select the wood carefully," she says, straight to the point, "I don't recommend anything that gives off a lot of smoke, so steer clear of pine and similar trees. The point is to keep you as warm as possible without revealing your location to everyone else in the arena. And chose small dry twigs; they are very easy to construct and light up. I know it's obvious, but many tributes forget this."
She reaches over to take the flints out of my hands, setting them down by the pathetic bundle of twigs that I was going to set alight.
"First thing first," she tells me, "You need a good strong base to set on fire. Now, there's a certain way to arrange the branches that will give you maximal heat for longer..."
With deft fingers, she deconstructs my branches and fixes them up the correct way. After she is finished, she takes down the whole lot again and makes me set it up. After two attempts, I manage to build it the way she wants. I pluck my flints off the ground to start the fire, but again my technique is wrong. She leans over to fix up the flints in my hands, straightening them so that they would strike each other in a particular way. Picking up her own set of flints, she commences to show me how to best start a fire. The stones are a little large for my hands, and I struggle a little to copy her striking motion. That's why the first spark that catches onto the branches makes my chest want to burst with pride. I have successfully set alight a fire all by myself, and with only flints at that.
I do it again and again, using flints and other types of materials to start fires. Eventually the thirty minutes it takes to assemble and light a fire is reduced to twenty, then ten minutes. As I leave the station, the woman in charge shoots me a proud smile, one that says 'You did a fantastic job, dear'. I grin back as I wipe my sooty hands on my pants, getting ready to learn about foraging skills at the next station.
"Hi there," says a young man with a silver hoop in one ear, his pose relaxed against a synthetic tree trunk, "Welcome to Foraging 101. There are a couple of others heading this way, so I think we'll wait for them and start all together."
I turn my head to follow his gaze, curious about the identity of those joining us. Felix grins at me when he sees me looking, and bounds over to us. The red-head from District Five walks behind him, her face an impassive mask.
"Hey, Rue!" he says as he reaches me. I smile back at him, still so overwhelmed by his strange enthusiasm and friendliness towards me. He settles into place beside me, his shoulder millimetres from mine.
"You two from the same district?" asks the trainer, smiling slightly at Felix's bubbling presence.
"I wish!" Felix replies.
"No we're not," I say at the same time, "I'm from District Eleven. He's from District Eight. We met this morning."
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone so friendly to a district rival before," the trainer says, "But then again, you are what? Twelve?"
"She is," says Felix, "I'm thirteen."
"Well, the young ones should stick together then," the trainer replies, then added as the red-headed girl join our ranks, "And welcome to Foraging Class. I'm Leonardo Quintera, but call me Leo."
"Felix," says Felix, "And this here's Rue."
"Gwendolyn Hart," says the girl from District Five, her voice measured.
"Well, Felix, Rue, Gwen," Leo says, "Let's start with common berries and fruits. Then we'll move onto nuts and edible leaves. And if there's time, I can also do a quick class on using plants as medicine."
"Let's get started with that," says Gwendolyn, "And please don't call me Gwen. I prefer Gwendolyn."
We head over to a booth filled with baskets of all types of plants, from colourful fruits to strangely-shaped nuts. Felix positions himself next to me, while Gwendolyn stands a few feet apart from us, listening intently to Leo and taking down pages of notes. I sketch down a few plants myself, mainly pictures of the types that are poisonous. I am already familiar with many of the edible plants, and I've seen most of the dangerous ones, but I am not about to take my chances. Leo hands around the fruits and leaves as he explains, giving us different tips on how to find them, and how to identify edible plants from their poisonous counterparts.
"Let's see how much you all remembered," he says at the conclusion of the session, "I have an assortment of plants here. You will each take a basket, and sort them into edible and poisonous categories. Don't be fooled by their appearances; perform all the classification tests before you sort them."
I take my basket to a flat area not far from the booth, and begin to separate the tumbling heap of plants into groups. The easiest are the nuts and larger fruits, and within five minutes I am down to half a dozen leaves and three types of berries. A quick glance upwards tells me that Felix is struggling majorly. His basket is still full to the brim, with only five plants separated into groups before him. Gwendolyn, on the other hand, is flying through her sorting. She only has a small pile of berries left to identify, and as I watch she squeezes a berry open to scrutinise the juice. The blood-red liquid oozes out over her fingers, staining them a brilliant red. She deftly places the berry onto her 'poisonous' pile. I would've done the same. Nothing but nightlock stains such a brilliant red.
I turn back to my basket, and pick up the first leaf. Breaking it along the spine, I carefully sniff the faint aroma. It smells like eucalyptus, and coupled with the light purple veins running along its surface, I recognise it as shadowtorn, a dangerous drug if eaten. The rest of the leaves are safe, and apart from the nightlock, all the berries are edible. Leo comes over as I place my last plant onto the 'safe' pile. Running his fingers through the plants in each group, he checks twice to see if I've sorted them correctly. Finally he straightens, and grins at me.
"All right, Rue," he says, "You've got a knack for this kind of thing. You and Gwendolyn. I've never seen anyone sorting plants as quickly and accurately as you two did. You better stick by Felix though. From the look of his 'safe' pile, he's going to poison himself the minute he eats anything from the arena."
Leo is right, of course. Felix has somehow managed to classify nightlock, shadowtorn and a handful of other lethal poisons as edible plants, and still he is not finished sorting his basket. Hearing his name, he looks up at us and smiles somewhat ruefully.
"Looks like I better train myself not to eat a thing," he says, "All the damn plants look the same! How am I supposed to tell nightlock apart from blackberry?"
"I better teach you about medicine then," says Leo, sighing, "If you must poison yourself, I'd rather you be able to fix it with some other plants. Now, there's two types of main medicinal plants. One that treats a wound and heals it, and one that temporarily releases the pain. Ideally you want the first type, but the second is good for treating minor wounds..."
Gwendolyn is already busy scribbling away, her hand fairly flying across the page. She stops here and there to tuck a wayward curl of hair behind her ear, only to resume writing with an insane speed. She's holding onto every word Leo speaks, just as I am. I know that this knowledge of food and medicine is the most likely skill that will keep me alive, and I think Gwendolyn knows that it's her best chance too. But these plants will probably be the death of Felix, unless he is able to survive on stolen food and sponsor parachutes. The thought of this smiling boy beside me, dead by nightlock poison, is one that upsets me a lot. I guess I'm supposed to be glad that one of my opponents has such a major flaw, but I just can't think of him as an opponent. If he's been trying to get under my skin with his carefree chatter and smiling face, he has succeeded.