I KNEW I forgot someone in the circus alliance! Also just as I finished this chapter I remembered Zara is in there too so I'll get her next chapter.

Nene Palmer, District Six female (18)

How am I going to get some allies?

I was stuck at a table alone sadly eating lasagna that was delicious but I was too sad to enjoy it. I'd already tried and struck out a few times. First I went to the Careers, who seemed really interested at first. Alice said I was an "Amazon", which seemed like a good thing. Then Malcolm asked me if I wanted to kill people and I said "ew" and they kicked me out. I really didn't want to kill people but I thought maybe one little white lie was okay so when I tried to join up with Todd and his friends I made sure to say I was super excited about killing people. That didn't work, either. In hindsight there were a lot of strategies in the Games so I should have known different alliances would want different things.

"We should ask her."

A few tables down some of the other Tributes were having a conversation. I wasn't trying to snoop or anything but it was in public and they weren't whispering so I thought it was okay to listen.

"Nu-uh, she's too scary," someone else said.

"Nubia is scary too and she's nice," a third voice came in.

"We don't need more allies."

"I don't need a diamond either but I'd take one if I found it."

"She'll be great if the Arena is full of really high shelves." That was Tabitha's voice. I knew her because she was pretty loud and liked to wander around talking to people. At first the sentence didn't make sense but in some sort of epiphany I suddenly realized.

They're talking about me. The circus folk were going to ask me to be in their alliance. Or at least they were thinking about it. Oh my gosh what do I do? Should I go over and ask about it? No then they'll think I'm a snoop. I should just wait until they come. But what if they decide not to?

"I'm just going to do it," another girl's voice came. I heard the squeak as she slid over in her chair and stood up. I straightened up where I was sitting and tried to look like I was minding my own business.

Be cool, I thought as the girl came closer. Don't act scary. Put a lot of emotion in your voice. More than you think you need! Don't sound like a robot.

"Hi. Nene, right?" the girl was standing in front of me. I smiled in what I hoped was a friendly manner and didn't just look like I wasn't particularly angry.

"Yeah, that's me!" I said, a little louder than I'd intended but not too bad. I stuck out my hand even though I didn't really like handshakes.

"I'm Skada," the girl said. "You wanna join our alliance? It's okay if you don't."

"No, I do!" I said. "I do want to join."

Skada smiled. "Really? Great! Come on over and sit with us."

I'm in, I thought gleefully as I squeezed into the booth with the rest of the circus kids. Now I just had to act normal and not say anything about being for or against killing people.

Raleigh Foster- District Ten female (14)

If it wasn't for the Games it would be really cool to see all these new things and make friends. It was nice to think about all the Capitolite kids who got to live like this every day. I wasn't even that mad at them for the Games since they probably didn't get taught about people like us. All of this had been going on for a lot longer than any of us had been alive. I wished I could meet some of those kids because if they saw what we were like they're probably want to help us.

I couldn't really meet any of those Capitol kids, at least not for long enough to make friends. I did have to make friends, though, since I wouldn't be able to win the Games on my own. It seemed like a lot of Victors I could think of were in alliances. It just made sense that it was easier to stay alive when you worked with a team.

Where do I start? I didn't know any of these people yet. I didn't even know who wanted allies. Wait a minute...

"I want an ally. Who else is looking for allies?" I asked Calvary. When we got on the trains she'd mentioned that mentors often brokered alliances. She obviously knew what she was doing, since she'd won the Games. She even had an ally for a long time.

"Hmm..." Calvary called up a videoscreen and started swiping around. "Nene- no wait, she just joined the circus alliance. They're still open but that's a pretty big alliance. I don't know..."

"That's okay, let's look for just one person," I said. If Calvary thought it wasn't a good idea for me then it probably wasn't.

"Veda and Max are both looking," Calvary said. "I don't know that much about either of them. They're both from cults, though. Wow, what are the odds? Either of those sound appealing?"

I thought about it for a second. "I think I'll ask whoever I come across first and see what happens," I said. Just because I asked didn't mean I had to go through with it.

As luck would have it, it was Max I saw first, at the knife station.

"Excuse me," I said when he was between moves. "I heard you were looking for allies?"

Max seemed a little surprised, like he hadn't expected anyone to ask him. "Yeah, I'm looking," he said.

"I'm looking, too," I said. "Should we team up? I asked Calvary and she suggested you."

"You're the one who volunteered for your friend, right?" Max said. "Pretty cool. Yeah, let's ally."

Great, I thought. We were hardly best friends- we hardly even knew each other- but it was a start.

Max DeLoria- District Six male (17)

After a few minutes of getting to know each other Raleigh and I went back to training. Raleigh said she was going to try the shelter-making station. That left me with the more aggressive skills so I turned back to the knife table and started trying some new things. I didn't like the idea of killing people but in the Games I had to. I wasn't going to die for someone I didn't even know. I didn't ask to be in the Games and I couldn't be blamed for doing what I had to do to stay alive.

I took aim and tossed my knife at a dummy maybe fifteen feet away. The knife hit handle-first and clanked to the ground.

You're so stupid, I told myself. You already hit it once so you should be able to do this. You shouldn't need the assistant to show you again after she already did so many times. I was supposed to be better than this. Whatever we did back in school I always had to get to the top. I got the best marks on tests. I memorized the most verses. I volunteered for the most chores. I was destined for great things and I frustrated myself when I didn't live up to that.

It was good to have an ally. I wouldn't have thought Raleigh would come up to me like that. She just seemed so innocent about it, like she wanted to be my friend as much as she wanted to be my ally. I wasn't used to people being happy to just be with me like that. People liked to say love was unconditional but my life had told me a different story. People did things for you because they thought they'd get something better because of it. The only reason anyone was ever friends with someone else was because they enjoyed being with them. Friendship is fundamentally selfish. That doesn't mean it can't be a good thing.

Though I hadn't expected it, I was glad Raleigh was the one I ended up allying with. Raleigh was optimistic and believed people could be good. She wasn't entirely wrong but where she was mistaken was to think that allies would put themselves at risk for each other. Raleigh would likely take risks for me because she thought that was what an ally should do. She would think I would do the same but she was going to discover I wouldn't. I was going to gain what I could from the alliance before she decided it wasn't profitable enough for her and left, if we lived that long.

Morality only goes so far. I had standards for myself in this Games. I wasn't going to kill anyone who didn't threaten me first, though in the endgame that would unfortunately include everyone. I wasn't going to kill anyone younger than 15 unless I absolutely had to. And I had no intention of killing my ally. I wanted to do what was right but in the end this was the Hunger Games. People talk a lot about earning their place in Heaven but when it comes down to it they do anything they can to stay here on Earth.

Alliances so far:

Circus Afrolliance: Skada, Lester, Nene, Tabitha, Richard, Elle, Zara, Irina

Motley Crew: Toddward, Denton, Christobal

Max and Petra: Max and Petra

Careers: Alice, Malcolm, Juniper, Talise, Brock