The Unexpected Tribute
Chapter Two
by Technomad
Katniss EverdeenThis was something I hadn't really thought about. When I'd pictured myself returning to the Capitol for a second round of the accursed Hunger Games, I'd always thought Peeta would be my partner. After all, we were the "star-crossed lovers" whose story had captivated the country. Our mutual survival was, I knew, a large part of why President Snow had so pointedly arranged the Third Quarter Quell of the Hunger Games the way he had.
In our interview, when he'd shown up so unexpectedly in our house in Victors' Village, Snow had made it clear that he hated me. If he hated me, he hated Peeta just as much. Both of us had been complicit in spoiling the ending of the 74th Hunger Games. And he wanted us both dead. I had seen the hatred in his eyes, both when he put the crowns of victory on our heads, and when he'd spoken to me in our house.
I doubt that Haymitch Abernathy had even entered into his calculations, Victor though he undoubtedly was. I knew there was more to him than the "surly drunk" act he put on, but most people did not know him as well as I did. President Snow had not expected this development, and I pictured his fury when the news got to him.
As a mentor, Peeta was, at least in theory, off-limits. While "accidents" were by no means impossible, from the second we stepped foot in the Capitol, we'd be under the glare of thousands of lights and in the view of hundreds of cameras. President Snow had great power, but he was not absolutely all-powerful. If the people of the Capitol turned against him, he could be overturned quite easily. And the people of the Capitol loved their Hunger Games victors.
Thinking of Snow made me wonder if this train was the same one he had taken when he had come out to speak to me some months before. I looked around uneasily, half-expecting to see his deceptively-grandfatherly face smiling that evil smile, or hear his soft, insinuating voice. I shuddered at the thought that he had been on this very train. But there was no way to know.
Haymitch, Effie, Peeta and I were served with a luxurious breakfast. While nobody detests the Capitol more than I do, I have to admit that the food they serve is the best I've ever eaten. While I ate, I thought resentfully of how many children back in District Twelve were probably hungry that morning.
I noticed something very odd. Although there was wine available, as well as what looked to be white liquor, Haymitch was sticking strictly to non-alcoholic refreshment. His glass, like mine and Peeta's, was filled with fresh-squeezed orange juice. The only person who was drinking anything alcoholic was Effie. For such a tiny woman, she could punish the white liquor remarkably well.
Haymitch saw where I was looking. "Got to keep a clear head, sweetheart," he said, giving me a wink. "The Games are no place for someone with a fuzzy head!"
For some reason, this got to Effie. She made a sort of gulping, squeaking noise, got up, and fled the table. I waited a minute or two, but when she didn't return, I said something under my breath about "shallow Capitol mannequin." I looked up, to see Haymitch and Peeta both glaring at me.
"There's no call for that," Peeta said sternly. "She hates this whole situation just as much as we do. And she has to keep that Capitol act up at all times in public."
"Well, she chose to do this…" I muttered, before Haymitch cleared his throat in a way that I knew meant that I was to pay him attention.
"For your information, sweetheart," Haymitch snarled through a smile, "she wasn't given any choice about doing this job. I don't know if you know it, but the woman who Reaped me disappeared about eight years after I won the Quarter Quell." I did some rapid calculations in my head. That would have been about the year before Peeta and I were born. "Tiffany Bijou, that was her name." He looked slightly shamefaced. "You know, I haven't thought about her in years! We despised each other, probably about as much as you do Effie, but I noticed that she was gone and asked Effie. Apparently she hadn't liked it when two twelve-year-olds from District Twelve got killed in the first five minutes of the Fifty-Eighth Hunger Games. That was too much for her, she asked too many questions about why we have the Hunger Games…and she became an Avox."
I thought about that, and felt sick to my stomach. For all the bad things that can happen to us in District Twelve, that's one fate we don't face. I'd never heard of a District citizen becoming an Avox. Killed, yes…but being made a voiceless slave for the rest of one's life, and over such a petty thing, struck me as much worse. "I…I didn't know!"
"Neither did I." Haymitch's expression would never have been mistaken for a real smile. "That's not the only thing, either. Capitol citizens who get out of line can end up, along with their families, being used as prostitutes for powerful members of the Capitol elite. Effie said that even if she, herself, was willing to risk being made into an Avox, there was nothing at all she wouldn't do to protect her family. Sound like anybody you know?"
Put that way, it hit me right where I lived. To keep that from happening to Prim, I'd have done anything at all. The Hunger Games, sleeping with whoever Snow told me to, whatever it took. And then it hit me just how insensitive I'd been. "Oh, that's awful! She's just as trapped as we are!"
"'Trapped' is a pretty good way to put it, sweetheart," Haymitch said. "All of us here on this train are trapped in our own individual ways. This whole country is one gigantic trap. I'd say even Snow is trapped, although he did a lot of the work to get that way all by himself."
"You're probably right." I felt dreadfully ashamed at how I'd misjudged Effie. "Er, may I be excused? I need to go find Effie." The men both raised their eyebrows. "I want to apologize to her," I clarified. At this, they both smiled.
"Go on. Find Effie," said Peeta. "I'd try her stateroom, but if she's not there, try the ladies' room."
As I got up, I said "Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs, mentor," and both Peeta and Haymitch chuckled. I had to admit, being "mentored" by someone my own age, someone who'd been in the same Game I'd been in, was an incongrous situation.
When I came to the door of Effie's stateroom, I could hear her inside. I knocked on the door timidly, and when she sniffled "Come in," I entered. The décor was different from my room, and I could see that Effie used this same room every year. It had the mark of her taste all over it. Peeta, Haymitch and I all had just as much luxury, but our rooms were far more impersonal, since they were normally used by different people every year.
Effie was sitting on her bed, wiping her eyes. I felt a little helpless, but I had enough experience dealing with distress to at least make an attempt to help. Sitting down beside her, I put my arm around her. "I'm sorry, Effie. I hadn't realized how hard this is on you, too."
Effie put her arm around me, leaning her head against me. "It's never really been easy, Katniss," she said softly. "I know what you probably think of us, but we in the Capitol are human beings, too…and we have children."
This, to say the least, was unexpected. I'd never thought of Effie in that way. "Effie? You - ?"
Effie gave me a watery smile. "Why, yes. I have two boys, and a girl. Would you like to see their pictures?" At my nod, she pulled out a small album she'd had on her nightstand. "I keep them here so I can open it at night, before I go to bed, and feel that they're not so far away." She wiped her eyes. "The first times I went out to the Districts, they were terrified. 'Don't go, Mommy! Don't go!' they cried. And when I got back, they clung and clung to me for most of a day."
I could imagine that. To most Capitol citizens, the Districts were the heart of darkness, and seeing your own mother going out into such a place would be terrifying for small children. I looked down at their pictures. They were blonde, and smiled uncertainly at the camera. The younger boy and the girl were both missing teeth, being at the age when baby teeth fall out to be replaced. They looked healthy and happy.
"You must love them an awful lot, Effie," I said softly. "They favor you, particularly around the eyes." I imagined how my mother would have reacted to those pictures, back before the dreadful loss of our father had sent her into a black depression. She'd have cooed in delight, and soon been absorbed in shop-talk with Effie about the ins and outs of raising children. Mom had never had boys, so Effie could have told her a few things she might not have known.
I'd never wanted to have children of my own. I'd seen what parents in my District had to go through, every Reaping day, and never wanted to face that ordeal. However, the fates had decreed that I face a different ordeal, and now had to go do it again, so my previous fear of that seemed small and insignificant. And Effie's three looked so delightful! Her oldest boy looked to be about Prim's age, and involuntarily, I wondered how they'd get along. Prim had reached an age where she no longer thought boys were "icky," and I'd heard her giggling with her friends about boys they knew, and about me and my so-called love life.
I'd never really had that luxury; at Prim's age I'd already been the family breadwinner for a while. I felt a second's passionate envy of Prim, and of Effie for being able to have children without worrying about them ending up in the Arena. Then I remembered all the other horrible things that could happen to Capitol citizens, and my envy turned to bile in my throat. I looked at Effie. "Haymitch told me why you do this. You don't like it, do you?"
Effie dabbed at her eyes. "No. I hate it. I hate every minute of it, and I despise myself for going through with it. I can't even take refuge in a bottle, the way Haymitch did for so long." She sniffled. "I have to be not just a Capitol citizen, but the epitome of a Capitol citizen, every second of these events. If I were all alone in the world, I might risk rebellion." She dabbed at her eyes. "But even when I'm most afraid for them, I can't wish my children didn't exist!" She broke back down, crying.
This was a side of things I'd never thought about. I'd always thought of Effie as an airheaded Capitol fluff, with no more going on in her head than a rag doll. Imagining her as a mother, watching her children growing up, being as willing to do whatever it took to protect them as I was to protect Prim, shook the foundations of my world. I suddenly hated myself for being so preoccupied with my own selfish concerns. Even though Effie had a softer life than I'd had, she was also a human being, and now I could see that she was older than I had thought at first. Our lives in District Twelve tend to age us prematurely, particularly those who have to go into the mines. After a decade or so down the mines, Gale's youthful beauty would be a thing of the past, which made me sad, even though I didn't see him as a romantic possibility.
To get that bad stuff out of my mind, I asked Effie: "So tell me all about them. What are their names? What do they like in school - if anything?" Effie perked right up, and began filling me in on all the details about her children. I learned a lot about them in the next half an hour, as well as picking up details about daily life in the Capitol that I hadn't expected to get. I listened carefully; stuff that was commonplace to Effie was new and exotic to me, and since I didn't know how much more of a life I had ahead of me, I was grabbing greedily at every bit of it I could.
When we rejoined the men, we were obviously on good terms, and Peeta and Haymitch both smiled. "All is well, I trust?" asked Haymitch. I nodded.
Peeta turned to Haymitch and asked: "Now that Katniss is here, I need to pick your brains. I may be 'mentoring' you, but we all know that's utter hokum. You've been to more of these than all of us. Tell me what to expect."
Haymitch leaned back in his chair, the way he does when he's about to launch into a story. "Well, for starters, as a mentor, you'll be joining one of the most exclusive fellowships in all of Panem. This is one club where the membership requirement is much too high for most people. We Victors - that's all three of us here, Peeta - share a bond among ourselves that nobody else really understands." He glanced at Effie. "No offense meant, Effie."
Effie looked down at her plate. "None taken, Haymitch. I can imagine what binds you together, and I'm eternally grateful not to know what it's like firsthand."
Haymitch went on: "When you get there, you'll meet the other Victors. They're a varied bunch, to put it mildly. Some of them were long-shot winners, particularly those from the Districts who seldom or never have a winner. Like Twelve. Others are Career Tributes, from Districts where they have a sub-rosa program to train promising candidates to volunteer for the Hunger Games."
"That's unfair!" I burst out. I remembered some of the younger Tributes from the previous year. Rue, in particular, suddenly burst back into my memory. "Those Careers are all of them at least as old as we were, and they've been trained, too?" I'd heard rumors to that effect, but having Haymitch confirm them was a different matter. I knew Haymitch, and I knew that while he would lie if he thought it necessary, he would not lie to us.
"As best they can be. And training's no guarantee of victory in the Arena, Katniss," Haymitch pointed out. "The Gamemakers make sure that it isn't just a straight-up fight. They throw things at the Tributes that'll take anybody out, trained or no. The Careers do have something of an advantage, but they're also often overconfident and contemptous of their opponents. Overconfidence and misplaced contempt are lethal."
I flashed back in my mind to when I'd really met Rue. I'd been cornered up a tree by the Career pack, plus Peeta, whom they'd recruited for his strength, and little Rue had pointed out the tracker-jacker nest to me. I'd had to be the one to cut it down, but having it land on them when they had stupidly gone off to sleep under my tree had done a lot, all by itself, to even up the odds. Even the toughest of the Careers was helpless against a nestful of enraged tracker-jackers. I shuddered, remembering the hallucinations I'd had from just a few of their stings. Mentally, I begged Glimmer's forgiveness, for the awful way I'd had to kill her. She might have been the worst bitch in Panem, but she hadn't deserved that!
One of the things I generally did not let myself think about was how the parents of the Tributes I'd had to kill had felt, seeing their child die on live TV, and knowing who had done it. When Peeta and I had gone on our first-ever double Victory Tour, I had wanted to go to all of the other Tributes' parents and apologize to them, beg their forgiveness for what I'd had to do.
I'd seen how dreadful that was a couple of years before I'd volunteered for the Games, when a young guy only a couple of years older than I was myself had been killed. It wasn't even a mine accident; much as we hate them, we in District Twelve have learned to accept mining's dangers as part of our way of life. Rather like I imagine people in District Four do for shipwrecks and drownings at sea, and District Seven people do for lumbering accidents. But he'd been murdered by a guy who resented the fact that the girl he'd married had turned the murderer down.
His parents had never been the same after that. It wasn't as bad as my mother, but it was bad enough. His mother would seem to be all right, then something would remind her of her lost boy and she'd collapse in a puddle of tears. And his father kept on keeping on - he had to, to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads - but he had a look on his face when he thought nobody was watching, a look like he was staring at something a very long way away. Haymitch had the same look sometimes, when he was sober.
I didn't hate the Hunger Games for the danger they put me through. I'm fairly used to danger, from my trips into the woods, and while I don't like the idea of dying, or being hurt, I can live with it. What I hated the Games for, more than anything else, was making me into a killer. Oh, I could rationalize what I'd done, at least by day. At night, though, the ghosts, particularly Glimmer, Marvel, Cato, and Rue, kept me company. They were my faithfullest friends, never very far away.
And I knew that I would have them with me for the rest of my life.