Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. Please don't sue!

Aimee looked around anxiously.

Good, she thought. No more of that nasty pack of boys. R'tuuro and his gang had always been hounding after her for as long as she could remember—even when they all had been in diapers.

If anything, it had only gotten worse after her father died. That was about the point when 'pee-wee' and 'tracker-jacker food' had become 'turncoat' and 'nasty little-' No. She wasn't even going to gratify that rude insult with a thought.

It was only because she was different, really.

"Your turn, Aimee. What do you want to be when you grow up?" The classroom was brightly lit. Thirty other little faces were peering curiously at her, and the teacher was smiling kindly. Most of the other children had said they were going to be miners, mainly because they couldn't think of anything else. There were a few who had talked about shop keeping. One little boy—K'thon--had said he had wanted to become a priest of this strange cult that had cropped up in the Seam. Of course, he had followed this with a rakish smile, and the entire class had laughed.

Aimee wasn't going to do any of that. Why be a worker bee when you can aim higher?

"I'm gonna be Pwesident," she said.

The teacher winked. "Oh, you mean Mayor, don't you?"

Aimee stared at her blankly. "No, I mean Pwesident. Like Snow. I will do a gooder job than he is doing. I will be gweat!" She nodded emphatically, as if to prove her point.

The room fell silent.

No one appreciated a person from Twelve who could set their sights higher than the mines—not even the others from that district. If that person was a girl on top of that…people had no idea how nasty other people could be. Even the downtrodden enforced their position at the bottom. Panem ran on order. Shatter that order…and…well, who knows what could happen?

Aimee could do a better job ruling Panem than anyone before her. She knew she could. She would be fair, and she would listen. The Hunger Games would cease to exist.

All she needed was a mechanism to get to the top, and she could change Panem forever. The Hunger Games was that mechanism.

What she figured to do was get into the Games, be a charmer on camera, win (the hard part), and stage a coup d'état. The population of the Capitol loved their tributes. If she could win everyone's support, there would be fanatics who would follow "their" tribute to the ends of the earth. They would be her loyal army. If she could also get people from the districts to help…they could overrun the Capitol easily. That was why publicly, she had stopped her dreams of power and had assumed a "mousy" personality. No one in Twelve could resist a young, soft-spoken, pure child.

That's what she was counting on. Katniss Everdeen was loved because she triumphed in the face of adversity. Perhaps she could provoke someone off camera—and make it look like she had never done anything wrong when they attacked. People were suckers like that. They would root for her…they always had.

"…and the female Tribute from District Twelve is…Petunia Gladestem!"

Aimee cleared her throat. This moment was on camera, so she had to make it dramatic. "I…volunteer!" She made sure to say it with strength. She had to be cute, but not vulnerable.

Surprised faces turned to her.

Step one, complete.

Well, on that note, Phase One…complete! Wow, it's been a year! Next up are the goodbyes. I'm squeezing that into one chapter because…let's face it…do we really want to go through all 24 again?

Cheers,

JF450.