Chapter 32: Lamb Chopp

Everybody was always making fun of her and her name.

It's not like it was her fault. Her mother had met, fallen in love with her father, Elias Chopp; she had married into the family – a long line of parts dealers who specialized in producing and repairing agricultural machinery.

When her mom, Suzanne, had then fallen pregnant, she hadn't immediately shied away in well-justified horror at the tempting opportunity to indulge in a cute play-on-words by passing on such a tongue-in-cheek reference down to her daughter's name. It was sort of like that story of a female friend of Suzanne's who lived down the lane – Mrs. Toon, who was quite taken with the idea of naming her newborn son Carr. Apparently, the second 'R' was added so as not to make the connection too obvious.

Lamb had been left little choice but to learn how to roll with the punches that came in the form of mockery from her classmates. Much of it was immature and frankly stupid, like the joke that had everyone asking her with knowing grins, 'What's for dinner tonight?' whenever she walked into the lunchroom. The joke ran on far past its normal shelf life until it just wasn't funny anymore.

It still hurt, though. No one except Lamb's parents knew how she would retreat reclusively up into her room after homework and the day's work on the farm was done, crying herself to sleep.

So that, by the time she was 17 and her second-to-last Reaping resulted in her own name being drawn for the 32nd Annual Hunger Games, Lamb was almost… relieved. Maybe eternal rest following a hopefully quick pinch of pain to get there would be better than the teasing she had been subjected to. It had to be better – right?

Bludd, her fourteen-year-old district partner, quickly displayed that there was little to him of consequence once they got on the train. After the knot of fear had nonetheless settled into her stomach regarding her reality – she was going to a fight to the death – Lamb found that her mentor, Viscera, was quite friendly and tried to put her at ease. And it was hard to be scared around Guernsey, the slow man who made it out nearly thirty years ago with a little bit of luck.

Maybe Lamb would have some luck, too, because the State knew, she surely would need it.

The second the Reaping recaps aired, several of the Capitol comedians were making a bit out of the nom de plume (one of the late-night hosts employed the phrase, which to Lamb just made it all the more tragic – she wished her name from birth was only a pen name).

What astonished her was that for every giggling Capitol comic on late-night TV, there were scores of others who were genuinely fascinated and enthralled by her name. What a marvelous and unique name!, the ladies in the hair salons walking down the Avenue of Tributes said, when Bludd and Lamb made their debut in the tribute parade.

"I'd like to meet her mother!" the First Lady stated quite seriously during a sit-down interview. "The clever wit of it… somebody's thinking!"

While it was clear that the people who praised her obviously got the joke, they at least didn't milk a bit from pointing it out while snickering every five seconds. That was more than Lamb could say for the other tributes in training, especially when Cheecha called them to attention at the mats by hollering, "Order! Order!"

"Oh, I'd like a slab of chicken with a side of lamb!" The boy from Two guffawed.

"Sweet and spicy turkey!" The girl from Twelve added.

"Can I have fries with that?!"

Everyone except for Lamb and Bludd busted up, even as Cheecha glowered. "It's not funny!" Lamb appreciated when the Head Trainer sent a truly apologetic look her way.

Well-practiced from all the taunts in school, Lamb adopted a similar approach of ignoring when it came to Training, focusing on nothing but what the instructors showed her. The Careers didn't know when to cut a joke and spent much of their time trying to intimidate her. More fools them. If they were going to waste their time chortling over her instead of brushing up on their combat skills, then they were really helping her, right? Anyway, Lamb just hoped she could get a really good Training Score. That would shut them up.

She didn't shut them up when the score returns came in three nights later, pulling an average 6, but at least it was average and not poor. If the Careers didn't stop yanking on her chain, at least she might make them take pause. Sad little Bludd did worse, with a 2. In this area, Guernsey and Viscera tried to be supportive, but were ultimately not much help – there were no Training Scores when Guernsey was competing, and though they had been introduced by the time Viscera was a tribute, the scores still hadn't meant much, only in their second year at the time. Lamb went to bed that night heartened in some ways, but nervous in others. The interviews were the next night, and she wasn't much of a public speaker.

Thankfully, Lucky Flickerman had a way of drawing even the tributes with the worst stage fright out of their shells to show off their best side. When she loosened up, Lamb discovered for herself that she was witty, resilient especially in the face of bullying, which to his credit, Lucky didn't shy away from. He allowed Lamb to open up about it, and in the process, turn it into something cathartic that made her feel better. Lamb was also surprised and delighted to discover that many in the Capitol judged her to be one of the prettiest tributes from this year's crop. Lamb could tell when she returned to her seat that the girl from 1 was jealous, following her with eyes narrowed into slits, and she resolved to put as much distance between the two of them as possible in the arena.

When the Games opened and the tributes were lifted into the arena, Lamb's first thought was…. This isn't so bad.

Their prison was a series of grasslands backed by snowcapped mountains in the distance. The grass blades seemed just tall enough to make a decent hiding place, if you crouched, but beyond that, there wasn't much else you could do to conceal.

When the gong sounded, Lamb erred on the side of caution while still remaining proactive, gunning for a backpack that was only about ten yards ahead of her pedestal. She got to it first and snatched it, and the pitchfork and scythe lying next to it, up with no trouble, but was just on her way back out to sprint into the beyond when the boys from 4 and 9 attacked her.

Or tried to attack her. Both of them being twelve-year-old midgets, it was a wholly unserious assault. Lamb moved instinctively, sending the prongs of the pitchfork through District 4's forehead while pre-emptively slashing out at Nine with the scythe. Both went down near simultaneously, and years later, the moment would somehow end up in the Hunger Games Top 50 Most BAD-ASS Bloodbath Moments. Shocked over what she had just done, almost without thinking, Lamb fled.

She was nearly at the foothills of the mountains when the cannons began to sound, and they seemed to go on forever. Lamb kept careful count: 17.

17?! They had already bypassed the Final Eight, and she was one of them! The faces in the sky told her who also was left: Five Careers (minus the Four boy she gutted), and also a large boy from 12 who had been accepted into their crowd. Lamb remembered watching them in Training.

It was down to her against an entire alliance. If she moved her weapons fast enough, she could maybe take down two, possibly three, with surprise on her side – but never all six!

She was well and truly fucked.

Unless she made an effort to stay hidden for the next several days, drag it out and keep the Careers off their footing. If she ran out the clock and kept a final fight out of reach, a couple of the Pack might succumb from natural causes and die off, leveling the playing field a little bit.

The strategy paid off – sort of. After three mornings in, the girl from Two's face had already appeared in the sky. Another cannon was heard just before supper that same evening, signifying the girl from 4. Lamb thought she had heard howls in the distance. Wolf mutts? Hyenas? Coyotes? There were plenty of all three in Ten, but from the sound of their yaps alone, she couldn't tell which.

The following day, she began climbing the mountain under which she was camped, to create a bit of a height difference. The progress was slow, and she hadn't ascended very far when, in the early afternoon of the sixth day, the four remaining Careers cornered her with wild shrieks and war whoops. Three large boys with lurid thoughts on their minds, and the jealous girl from 1, who claimed Lamb as her own personal kill before she and the others went into melee.

Lamb was quivering, and she screamed. She screamed and screamed until the whole mountain seemed to be quivering.

Because it was. All at once, buckets of snow and a rockslide to boot buried Lamb and the Careers under the mountain.

After several, suspenseful minutes, a hand broke through the ice and rock. It was Lamb's.

Hers would be one of the shortest Games since the 10th, and the Bloodbath wouldn't reach such levels again until the Second Quarter Quell.

The Victory Ceremony was an absolute rave. Hundreds of Lamb's fans in the Capitol had organized and christened themselves The Lamb Chops; they were constructing their meetings around Sunday dinners. Lamb only felt sadness when Guernsey and Viscera introduced her to their dear friend Dell Fonio from 9 – the mentor of the boy she had killed. The middle-aged Victor of the 3rd Games told her repeatedly not to worry about it, but she still did. It was a shock and relief to her that, when Viscera her mentor kissed her on the roof of the Training Center for the first time, Lamb didn't mind in the slightest. She was attracted to the intimacy of both girls and boys, and Viscera being thirteen years her senior was absolutely not a problem. Viscera and Lamb were one of the first same-district power couples, but they wouldn't be the last – look at Finnick and Annie. And also that beautiful, romantic couple out of Twelve, Katniss and Peeta…