Chapter 5: Training and Interviews

Following the opening chariot parades, the next three days and nights feature no Mandatory Viewing or Attendance of any kind. Cameras are not allowed in the Training Center where tributes are being evaluated. In past years, I've taken this break as an excuse to fully relax and not think about the Games. However, with Primrose's participation this time around, relaxing will be close to impossible.

Despite my knowledge that she is safe (for now), I cannot help but fret. Is she being bullied by the Careers or any of the other tributes? Is she scared? Does she miss me? These thoughts create a cacophony of noise in my head to the point where I need to escape to the woods just to process them. I can't very well ponder these concerns in my own home. Mother has taken to weeping at inopportune times; between her, and the plaintive mews from a cat that still can't seem to fully grasp his mistress is gone – probably forever – I can't hear myself think.

Gale seems to sense how I need to get back into the woods more for a moment's peace than even just to hunt. We loaded up in bulk fairly well on Reaping morning, so we're in no danger of running low at the moment. Even so, I can tell that his incarceration within the Justice Building, however brief and absent of any tortuous abuse, seems to have actually shaken my hunting partner up. Probably due to the novelty of it more than anything else – neither of us has been arrested before. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time after making a poor judgment call, and in light of that, Cray felt he had no choice but to slap us on the wrist to make a point. Despite our doubts that we'll ever be at serious risk of punishment as long as Cray remains Head Peacekeeper, Gale and I both agree: from now on, we take Reaping Day off from hunting, and treat it as the holiday it's always been. Any stocking up we do will be on Reaping Eve henceforth.

For those three days between the parade and when the training score returns will be announced by the Gamemakers, Gale and I mostly move through the trees in companionable silence. We walk more than we shoot, and we talk still less. I've never felt the need to chatter with Gale anyway; we keep to an economy of words that allows us to say what absolutely has to be said and no more. Such is the way of being a huntress. Too much talking with a partner, or even just thinking out loud, can scare away the game.

On the morning of the fourth day, however, my thoughts begin to linger not just on Primrose, but on Peeta as well. I haven't been so lackadaisical that I fail to shoot down any squirrel. In fact, it's all the little hunting I've managed to do the past three days. I try to tell myself that it isn't just an excuse to go round back of the loading dock in the hopes that I might see him and talk to him a little. But when I've come by each morning, it is the Baker who has answered me. Seeming to read why I've been coming around, he explained to me the other day that the Bakery always gets a rush on customers, mostly the Capitol camera crews and many in the Peacekeeper Corps who need feeding, and Peeta's been kept very busy.

I shudder when I think how mercilessly the Witch must taskmaster her youngest son, especially seeing as the eldest has moved out and the middle now has a ticket (almost assuredly one-way) bound for the arena.

I may be acting mellow, even lethargic, outside of my own head, but as it now becomes clear, Gale notices.

"What's up with you and Mellark?" he asks sharply, piercing the stillness of the forest this afternoon preceding the Training Score announcements.

"Nothing," I shrug, trying to make it as nonchalant as I can. In truth, I don't really know myself. There's no point in denying it anymore: Peeta Mellark creates odd stirrings in my chest, and probably has for some time. Stirrings for things I've told myself I'll never want. But I'm not about to have this kind of conversation with Gale. The night of the chariot parade was probably the first time Peeta and Gale interacted in any setting outside of our trades for squirrels, and yet I know intuitively that my hunting partner and my… the brother of my sister's district partner (an accurate yet laborious description) don't coexist well in my brain.

"Don't give me that, Catnip. Since when have you ever let some fella, never mind a Townie of all people, pay a call to you?"

"Peeta was not paying a call," I trill out a laugh, trying to make it sound natural rather than nervous. "He was just escorting me to the Square. We both have expectations now that our siblings are the tributes for District 12." The way I figure it, Peeta and I are the faces of District 12, are representing our district, just as much as his brother and my sister are. I can hate it, and I do, but I can't do anything to change it now. When reaction shots from Twelve are broadcast to the Capitol and the nation, Peeta's and my faces, along with Mother, the other Mellarks and I guess Delly, will be the public front of our district's larger participation in the Games. We, the relatives of the tributes, will be the first thing people see when anything befalls our loved ones who are fighting for their lives.

Gale is frowning at me like he doesn't believe me. I silently will for him to leave it alone, but he doesn't. "I don't like the way he's hanging round you. Posting bail for you… did he think in paying all his money that Cray would whore you out?"

My face twists in revulsion. "Don't be vulgar, Gale! For Snow's sake! He's walking with me into Town, not taking me to the Slag Heap!" A sudden, rather crude image of Peeta and I in a very… compromising position pops into my head at just that moment – and I shock myself when I don't immediately bat it away. I seem to burn, in fact, with a yearning I couldn't begin to name even if I wanted to. I cast about to change the subject. "And who says he's the one doing the hanging round?"

OK, wrong thing to say, especially considering where I've been stealing away to the past few days. I don't pretend to think Gale hasn't noticed that too. "That's the other thing: I get we're on a bit of a lull for hunting, but the little you have done, it's been nothing but squirrels. Or is that not all you're trading with Mellark out back on his loading dock? Does he get to suck on your tongue in the bargain?"

Gale's rather graphic descriptions are making me see things. Now all I can hallucinate is a picture of Peeta and I wrapped around each other in a close embrace, our tongues dueling as we deeply kiss. My body thrums in mad delight and I actually feel an…. ache between my legs. Snow's Roses, what is happening to me? I overcompensate with a scowl.

"No!" I gawp, hissing the word like the very idea of making out with a Merchant boy is absurd. Only my traitorous body disagrees and thank heavens Gale can't read me that well. "And I haven't seen him since the parade anyway. His father says the Bakery's been kept quite busy. Business booms for them during the Games."

"Aye? Does it now?" Gale grunts, but the assurance that I haven't seen or done… anything else with Peeta Mellark in several days effectively convinces him to let the matter drop.

I shrug. "Capitol camera crews have to eat too."

"Fucking pigs!" Gale grunts, now satisfactorily distracted as he works himself up into one of his anti-Capitol rants. I smile indulgently, even as I have the most unsettling feeling that despite telling the truth, it feels like I'm still hiding something from my best friend.

Or is it really that I'm hiding something from myself?

My heart executes a flying…. happy leap when I answer the knock on our door that evening and find Peeta waiting.

"Hi," I greet him, an odd chirp to my voice.

Peeta grins devilishly. "Shall we?"

I grin, by now amused and charmed by him. "We shall." Looping my arm through his, we set off down the lane. Like on our prior excursion, Mother trails behind us. I can sense her scrutiny has increased tenfold since even the night of the chariot parade, even if there is nothing to tell. I feel heartened by how Peeta clearly senses it too.

"Your mother is staring at us," he murmurs low in my ear, his breath on my earlobe causing me to shiver.

Smirking, I whisper back, "Oh, so you've noticed?"

"I just think she's being a protective mother to her daughter. As all mothers should be." Clearly, he's remembering our last conversation, the one where I pretty much accused her of being withdrawn. Mother and I have never had the best relationship these past several years since the loss of my father, but never before have I felt a pang of guilt go through me at the thought of how I've treated her. How we've treated each other. I can only explain it as Peeta is making me see things in a whole new way – it's a marvel, really, considering we've only known each other on a communicative basis less than a week.

"Mrs. Everdeen!" Peeta calls over his shoulder. "Would you care to join us?"

"No, thank you, dear, I'm fine," she responds almost automatically.

I smile with mirth. "Engaging her in conversation isn't going to stop her from watching us, you know."

"It was worth a try," Peeta's own smile frolics, accentuating his dimples. "And anyway, you make it sound as though there's something to watch."

I blink, positively dazzled by his witty riposte. No, not just dazzled ….. aroused. I feel a dampness between my legs that is strangely thrilling. The muscles of my womanhood ache. So overcome am I, and it isn't just from the heat, that I feel as though I'm speaking outside of my own body with what I float next:

"Shall we… shall we give her something to watch?" My voice is breathless.

The light in Peeta's blue eyes is suddenly so smoldering, I feel I'll surely faint. "Why, Miss Everdeen, whatever did you have in mind?"

I turn pink, ducking my head down. "Nothing. Forget I said anything." A moment of silence, and then I chuckle. "Why is it that whenever we're with each other, we start talking like Effie Trinket?" There was something indeed very Capitolite about the way we were… flirting (was that flirting? Was I flirting?) … just now.

Peeta snorts. "Well, you're the one who always insists on proper grammar: May I pay a call to you?"

I scowl, rolling my eyes. "I don't sound like that!"

"If by that, you mean cultured and refined, yes you do!" Peeta laughs. He shrugs. "I think you even impressed my mother at dinner the other night, though she'd never admit it. I figure she half-expected you to eat with your elbows on the table like some savage!" I hoot, once again reminded of our district escort, who apparently has a pet peeve over our Seam tributes eating without proper table manners. If Effie Trinket actually lived in the Seam and saw how most of us starve, she would understand. Peeta shakes his head, his voice growing quiet.

"You have no idea, Katty girl, the affect that you have…" There's a wistfulness to his voice that frightens me, though not in a bad way. If anything, I'm curious to know what he means by that, but we've now reached the Square, and in the nick of time too. I've barely taken my seat with Peeta and Delly when Caesar is reading off the training score returns.

The Careers score high with anywhere from 8s to 10s. Low to medium for the rest, except for the girl from District 5, whom I've taken to calling Foxface. She nets a 7. Nothing else of note happens till we get to District 11. Thresh nabs a 9, but his district partner Rue shocks by getting a 7 – a truly excellent score for a twelve-year-old.

"And now we have… the truly angelic Primrose Everdeen!" Caesar calls. I feel Peeta reach for my hand, and I clasp it without another thought. "With a score of…." The Games host is doing something weird with his eyes, crossing them. At one point, he lifts the paper to the light and turns it this way and that, as if he can't quite possibly believe what is written there.

"…. 10."

10?! 10!

I leap to my feet, squealing happily and clapping my hands, my voice lifted in a pleasantly surprised but delighted shout. Catching the Witch out of the corner of my eye, I smugly smirk at how she looks so agog.

Peeta grabs for my shoulder, tugging me back down into my seat as he turns me to him, giving me a little shake. "What did she do? What did she do?!"

"I don't know!" I laugh brightly, just as stunned but thrilled as the rest of us are.

"And finally, Rye Mellark, truly handsome fellow, with a score of… 9."

I shriek again, clutching at Peeta. Delly is beside herself with pride. "He did all right! He did all right!"

"He did amazing, Delly!" I say sincerely, and Peeta half-laughs and hugs me.

"Do you think he wrestled for them?" I murmur low in his ear.

"Oh, almost certainly." He beams. "About time he stopped dicking around."

The next night is the tribute interviews with Caesar Flickerman. Much hay is made out of District 12's truly remarkable showing, with District 11 receiving much of the same curiosity.

"Maybe it will be an outlander district for the win this year, hmm, Claudius?" Caesar asks that morning, as Mother and I clean around our humble kitchen.

That night, I'm strangely nervous when Peeta comes to pick me up. I'm talking faster than normal, almost prattling, as we walk arm-in-arm.

"I hope they make Primmy look beautiful tonight. I just have to pray she won't be too nervous…"

"She eased up enough during the parade. The city's likely a culture shock. And even if she gets stage fright, Rye will help her. He talks too much for his own damn good. Caesar will lend a hand, too."

He's right. The Hunger Games lead commentator has panache for coaxing even the shyest tributes out of their shells.

And tonight, Caesar gets the ball rolling most exuberantly, bringing out the Careers to give us a starting splash to the show.

Glimmer, the girl from 1, oozes raw sex appeal. Next to her, I feel quite frumpy, even if my blue dress. Marvel solidifies his image as a dolt by cracking really lame country jokes that nobody seems to get. Cato is brash and arrogant, his responses crafted more for shock value and awe rather than anything of substance. He seems to expect the Crown. His district partner, Clove, is sly and elusive. So is the girl from 5.

When we reach District 11, Thresh is like a statue when he refuses to give any answer that is more than one syllable. Yes or No is his only fare. If he's playing for the dark and mysterious angle, it's certainly working. Rue makes ladies in the studio audience oooh and ahhh and gush, in a harbinger of what I hope my sister will elicit.

"I'm fast," Rue reveals when Caesar asks her to explain her fine training score. "If they can't catch me, they can't kill me. So don't count me out."

"Of course not, pumpkin," Caesar croons, and I can tell he means it.

Then the buzzer is sounding, and I draw both hands to my mouth as I gasp.

My baby sister looks like a fairy nymph from the stories my daddy used to tell me about the forest. Fairy wings are attached to her back that make her almost flutter, levitate even, as she half-skips up to Caesar. I wonder if Haymitch Abernathy coached her to enter like that.

"My goodness, Primrose! I would say you are the most adorable twelve-year-old to come out of…. Twelve," (laughter from the audience for the man's perfect comedic timing) "in years! But beware, folks: behind this charming tree nymph lies a cunning warrior. For you, my dear Prim, have accomplished something no other twelve-year-old has done: a record high training score for one your age! How did you do it?"

Scattered applause, and I glance to Peeta, amazed and actually proud. "Did she really?" Hunger Games History class in school demands that we memorize many rote, basic statistics like the one Caesar just cited.

He shrugs. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Prim grins coyly, batting her eyes a little. There's that cherubic face that can just draw you in. I've never been able to say No to that face. "A district lady never reveals her secrets, Caesar."

"So sultry!" Caesar chortles, delighted.

Peeta makes a face. "Sultry? She's twelve! Don't age her before her time!" he says the last part louder, towards the jumbo screen.

"I quite agree," I huff.

"And, my dear, that is a lovely dress! Your stylist seems to have made quite an impression!"

"Cinna's the best!" Prim bubbles, wiggling a little so that her fairy wings flap. "But you know, Caesar, that's not all it can do. Wanna see?"

"Yes!" Caesar shouts.

And with that my sister begins to spin. When she does, her nymph dress is made to shimmer.

"Ohhhhh… Oh, do that again, Miss Everdeen!" Caesar is enraptured by her. Enchanted. He looks in danger of having a stroke. Prim twirls and twirls until she teeters like a dreidel, and Caesar has to catch her before she falls. "Don't stop!"

"I have to! I'm dizzy!" she twitters.

"Now, Primrose, I have another question for you. It's about your sister. I hear that she came to see you in the Justice Building. What did she say to you?"

Prim grows quiet. "I love Katniss more than anything. She's 16, beautiful and the best sister ever! She was very distraught when I was picked, but I told her I would try to win for her."

For some reason, I'm half-expecting Caesar to show how I was late for my sister's own Reaping. I had gotten the impression from Cray that one of the reasons he was punishing me was to avoid bad media exposure. Nothing is revealed as to my new criminal history, however.

"And try you will," Caesar kisses her on the head. "Primrose Everdeen, the Little Angel!"

Now it's Peeta's brother's turn, and within seconds, I realize: clownish Rye is back.

Right away, I can tell he has some of Peeta's wit, but while Peeta is more eloquent, Rye brings about his humor from a gift for wordplay, and rather rude wordplay at that. A man of banter himself, Caesar develops a rapport with him that soon has the audience in stitches. They even roar at a joke Rye dares to make at the President's expense, all with a rapping lyricist's sense of rhyming. As in, 'Snow' rhyming with …. an abbreviated word for a lady of the night.

A couple seats down from us, I can hear the Witch tssk. "Snow is a jolly old ho…. He'll be murdered in his bed!"

Caesar wipes a tear from his eye. "Now, Rye, tell me: is there a special girl back home?"

"You bet Abernathy's pimpled ass there is!" The audience shrieks in shocked delight. Not even Cato was this uncouth.

"Oh, well, she's a lucky little lady! Can you tell us about her?"

"I shall wax loquacious on her in the form of a poem!" Rye clears his throat impressively. "My darling lassie is more beautiful than the fair Annie…" The camera pans out to a girl with auburn hair, a Victor from District 4 who won several years ago after a dam broke in the arena. "…. And my girl has a far tighter fanny!" He grins dopily, waiting for applause. "Peace out!" There's an odd little drumroll, as though someone is playing a set of bongos backstage. "Thank you, I'm here all week!" I chance a glance at Delly, who appears to have turned a deep shade of crimson. Next to me, Peeta groans.

"In all seriousness, Caesar: …" Rye picks up.

"Oh, so now you decide to get serious?" Peeta mutters darkly.

"…. I'm in a bit of tough spot here. With my district partner."

"Indeed? How so?" Caesar queries. I perk up. Prim? What does this have to do with Prim?

"Now I know she wowed us all with that training score. She can handle herself, clearly. But I nevertheless feel a certain obligation to her."

Now I'm leaning forward, intrigued. Huh. Maybe Rye isn't entirely the buffoonish fool I've made him out to be. Or maybe he is being foolish, because I don't think I've ever seen a tribute profess loyalty to someone other than him or herself. In the arena, you have to look out for your own life.

"Rye, are you suggesting you'll protect Primrose Everdeen in the arena?"

"If the situation presents itself, and she allows it, yes." My one eyebrow goes up into my hairline. This is more than I had ever hoped for.

"But why would you? What makes her life as important as your own?"

"Because she's my little sister."

…. What did he just say?

My head is swimming; beside me, Peeta looks dazed.

"It's…. it's a ploy!" I stutter. "He's playing some angle for the cameras!" I suddenly wheel on my mother. "Mama?" But, to my shock and increasingly gnawing sense of dread, the seat once occupied by my mother is empty.

Several chairs down, the Witch is on her feet and shrieking something, her attention and ire vacillating between her middle son on camera and her husband, who is oddly glancing down at his feet.

Oh…. Oh Snow…. Clarity descends on me, and I crane my neck around to demand of the man:

"Is it true? IS IT TRUE?!"

The Baker does not answer. I wheel sharply towards Peeta, only to be struck by the confusion etched across his own face.

The buzzer is sounding and Caesar is showing Rye off with the smile of a journalist who's just gotten a really juicy scoop.

Peeta and I stagger up the path out of the Square towards the Seam as he walks me home.

"Do…. do you think Rye was making that up?" I ask weakly, my voice small.

"I'm…. I don't know what to think. I don't want to believe it, but… I'm beginning too."

I grab for his arm, insistent. "Did you know?!"

"N-no…." And I can tell he speaks truthfully. Peeta would never lie to me.

It's my mother, and his father, who have lied, if Rye is to be believed. If the biggest scandal to hit the Games in years is true, then that means that Mother and the Baker, my mom and Peeta's father, they… they did….

"They had an affair," I murmur quietly. Peeta is silent as the grave next to me. Finally:

"They very well may have." He kicks at a rock in anger. "I knew they used to date, but…." He growls. "I'm glad Rye finally pulled his head out enough to focus on what he has to do, but I didn't expect him to announce it to the world and the rest of the competition! This isn't what I meant when…"

I blink, studying him. "When what?"

He sighs, swaying to a halt just steps from my front porch as he turns to face me. "When I visited Rye in the Justice Building, I told him if he ever listened to me for once in his life, he'd better damn well do it now. I… I ordered him to protect Prim in there, whatever the cost."

My grey eyes are as big as saucers, sparkling in the moonlight. "You… you told your brother to guard my sister's life? For… for me?"

"Yes." He is gazing at me with something that frightens me. But it's not a bad frightened, or a good frightened. It's… I don't know.

"Why?"

He doesn't reply, instead holding me in his gaze again like he expects me to know. And I might know, but my brain cannot go there, make the leap.

"And he actually listened to you?" I blast out.

"Who, Rye?"

I half-laugh, half-huff. "Who else?"

"Fair point." We share a chuckle, awkward and stilted. "… I guess. It would certainly be a first."

I wheel back through everything that has come at me just this night alone. I don't know if I trust Rye, and I definitely don't know if his bombshell reveal even has a shred of truth to it, but… for the sake of my sister, I at least have to trust him, if not quite believe anything he says.

Fortunately, I can say I don't harbor the same doubts for the man's brother, now standing before me. A young man who apparently cares for my sister as much as I do.

Stepping into him, my lips slightly parted, I am suddenly overcome with the urge to embrace this handsome man. And I do, hugging him around the neck. And when I draw back, I do something I've never done before, with anyone, and ghost my lips in a kiss across his cheek.

"Thank you," I whisper, choked with tears.

"You're welcome," he nods sincerely. Then he suddenly stoops and kisses me across the cheek. "Goodnight, Katty…."

I stare after him, enthralled and so, so… drawn to him, as he ambles off into the gloom. "Goodnight….."