The Unexpected Tribute

Chapter 9

by Technomad

From the unpublished writings of Haymitch Abernathy

On the night of the interview, we were all dolled up and ready to go when the time came. I got a moment's amusement at the way Katniss preened for us. Her dress looked very like the wedding gowns I had seen for sale in previous Capitol visits, which didn't surprise me. There had been a lot of anticipation of her and Peeta's wedding. Apparently Cinna had included a surprise in the dress he had made for her. I asked her what it was.

"I don't know myself, Haymitch. You'll see it when I give my interview. I asked him, and he just said it would surprise me, too." I shrugged my shoulders. I had a lot of faith in Cinna, particularly after he did such a wonderful job with the costumes we'd worn for the Tributes' parade, and I looked forward to seeing what he had come up with this time. He'd gone with a nice Capitol-style suit for me, with no surprises in it. Whether that was because he couldn't think of anything appropriate for me, or because he didn't want me to overshadow Katniss' surprise, I did not know. Like everybody else, Cinna had apparently not been expecting me to put myself forward in Peeta's place.

And, speaking of Peeta…he came over and drew me off aside. Katniss gave us a curious look, and Peeta winked at her. "Gotta talk privately. Guy talk." When we were as private as we could get, Peeta leaned close and said, in a low tone: "I know that Katniss and Cinna have something or other up their sleeves, but I had an idea that might just force them to call off these Games!"

That got my undivided attention. "Go on. I'm listening. I take it I have a part to play?"

"Yes, you'll have to do this. I'd have done it if I'd stayed on as Tribute, but you jumped in and forced me to change my plans." Peeta gave me a stern look. "Maybe, when I explain this, you'll understand why I didn't want you to put yourself forward!"

"Like I said, I'm listening!" Peeta began to explain what he had planned, and I had to admit, it was simple, brilliant and utterly workable. When he was done (it didn't take too long) I clapped him on the back. "Peeta, Katniss may be pretty smart, but I think you're smarter than she is! Or else you use what you've got more effectively than she does!" I meant every word that I'd said. Katniss is smart, there's no doubt about that. But she has a tendency to go straight ahead at problems, even problems that would be better dealt with by taking an indirect or unexpected approach.

We came back to find Katniss going over old Hunger Games videos. "I'm trying to figure out what they'll throw at us. Every year, the Arena's different, you know. I'm trying to spot patterns in what they use." I nodded. That was actually a very good idea. We'd all been in the Arena before, but our experiences had been very different. Mine was beautiful, but almost everything there was poisonous. The only sources of eatable food and drinkable water were what the Gamemakers set out for us at the Cornucopia. Luckily, I'd been inured to doing without.

Katniss and Peeta's Arena had not been as directly lethal, but had still had deadly traps within it. Seeing if there was some sort of pattern to what the Gamemakers came up with struck me as excellent thinking. We still had a couple of hours before we were due to line up for our interviews, so Peeta and I got stuck in on the job too.

There were some things that had been tried only once. One year, they had put the Tributes into a barren, snow-covered wilderness. Without warm clothing, there wasn't much they could do other than hole up and slowly freeze to death. The Victor that year had had to have extensive medical attention, and while I had met her, she played little role in the mentors' society that I had joined after my own victory. She had died a few years ago, so the question of putting her back into the Arena had not even come up. Lucky stiff!

Several times, the Arena had been a nearly-waterless desert. However, that didn't provide those Capitol vultures with the drama and excitement they wanted, either. All that a smart Tribute had to do was to stake out a water hole, and ambush other Tributes who came in search of precious water. The last time this had been done, a group of non-Career Tributes had managed to form an alliance, and seized control of the only water hole. By the time the Careers figured out what was going on, they were cut off from water, and fighting among themselves for the limited supplies that had been set out at the Cornucopia. The survivors of that fight were disunited, and, one by one, they came looking for water, and fell right into ambushes.

The Tribute who ended up as Victor that year had been apparently planning his moves for some time. As soon as the last Career was dead, he began killing his former comrades, by stealth at first, then openly. He had not seemed particularly threatening, but he'd got ahold of a sword from one of the dead Careers, and he turned out to have some natural talent for using it. The other Tributes in his group hadn't anticipated that he'd turn on them, and he took most of them out with little trouble. The last two gave him a real fight, but he did end up killing both of them.

I'd known him since he joined the Mentors' society, and he always just kept in the background. To meet him, you'd never know how dangerous he could be. But in our card games, he showed the ruthless, sneaky streak that he'd shown in the Arena.

When the signal came, Katniss and I went out to be escorted to where we would wait for our interviews with Caesar Flickerman. I offered Katniss my arm, and, with a slightly surprised look on her face, she took it, as cooly as though we'd done this every day of our lives. Arm in arm, we walked in to be greeted by the other Tributes.

"Hi, Haymitch!" That was Johanna Mason. Trust her to pipe up first. "I see you've decided to disappoint me! And breaking Peeta's heart on top of it all? You Lothario, you!" Katniss tensed up, and I could feel her getting ready to go for Johanna's throat. I'd noticed that Katniss did not approve of Johanna. Whether it was her casual attitude toward nudity, or her advances toward other men, something about her rubbed Katniss wrong.

"Easy, Katniss," I hissed in her ear. "She's just teasing you. She likes to do that."

"She's a hussy! And a…" I tightened my grip on her arm, unobtrusively.

"She's also someone who's fundamentally on our side. I know her a lot better than you do. For that matter, I know all these people," I gestured, drawing Katniss' attention to the others. "I don't think there's a person in this room who's really happy with this scheme to throw us back into the Arena. Many of them have been coming here for years, some even longer than I have. They know the Capitol. And they've got some things cooked up." I gave her a wink. "As do we…right, sweetheart?"

One by one, the others were called in, in order of their District numbers. We watched the events on monitors that had been set up for us. And the others' plan became clear.

Cashmere and Gloss, the District 1 brother-and-sister team, told Caesar that they were terribly sorry to be saying goodbye forever to the Capitol people. They even said that to them, the people in the Capitol who loved them were their real family. Knowing those two, I wouldn't have been a bit surprised. They were both spectacularly good-looking, and I knew what happened to pretty Victors.

Beetee asked why President Snow couldn't change the rules of the Quarter Quell, and whether, if he couldn't, if he was as all-powerful as we in the Districts tended to believe that he was. When he got to the question of the legality of the Quell, I noticed that the audience was murmuring. This was a good sign.

Finnick recited a poem, "to his one true love." Apparently a lot of people in the room thought he meant them, if the reaction meant anything. Mags just reached out and hugged Caesar Flickerman goodbye, and I'd swear I saw tears start in Flickerman's eyes.

When it was Johanna Mason's turn, I could feel Katniss tense up again. We both knew that Johanna was unpredictable, and that she wasn't any happier about this than the rest of us. "Just watch, sweetheart," I murmured in Katniss' ear. "She's got something or other up her sleeve!"

Sure enough, she did! When Flickerman was incautious enough to mention that he'd seen some of the other tributes crying, and ask Johanna how she felt, she burst out with "Of course I'm angry! We had a deal! I win the Hunger Games, and in return, I get to live the rest of my life in peace! But now, you're trying to kill me again! Well, you know what? FUCK THAT!" By this time, she was screaming at the top of her lungs. "And FUCK EVERYBODY WHO HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT DECISION!"

Katniss squeezed my arm. "You know what?" she whispered in my ear. "I think I like her, after all!" I gave her a conspiratorial little grin. For all that they were different people, from very different Districts, I could see a lot of commonalities between Johanna and Katniss, and I thought that if Katniss would give Johanna a chance, they could easily become friends.

By the time it was our turn, the audience was in an uproar. I could hear weeping, and cries for change. I looked out past the bright lights, and could see Mentors here and there in the audience, unobtrusively whipping them up. Like us Tributes, they were not happy with this whole situation at all. Peeta was being commiserated with by some sympathetic Capitol types, and I could tell that he was working on them with all his skill, trying to get them to join in the calls for change.

It was a little while before things quieted down enough for Caesar and I to begin our conversation. I remembered him from twenty-five years before, and at first glance, he'd changed only a little. His hair was a different artificial color, but his grin was as wide and radiant as ever. Looking at him, you'd think we were old, intimate friends who had come together again after too long. That's part of why he's so successful. In these interviews, he can coax the shiest, most frightened Tributes out of their shells, making them into people that the Capitol likes.

"Well, Haymitch," he began. "I never thought to see you back here again. Are you surprised to be back in that chair?"

"More shocked than anything else, Caesar. I must say, you've held up better than I have!" As I'd hoped, this got a chuckle out of the audience. I went on: "The deal always was that if you won the Hunger Games, you were exempt for the rest of your life. At least, that was what I was told, and believed for twenty-four years." I cocked my eyebrow, knowing that the cameras were zooming in on me. "If we can't trust the government of Panem to keep a promise that stood so long, what can we trust them about?"

The audience murmured. They were Capitol citizens, one and all, and they knew that only the whim of the government separated them from the lives we District residents lived. They didn't care for the idea that the government was no longer trustworthy.

Caesar tried to change the subject, and unknowingly gave me a perfect opening. "Haymitch, we know that you've come to care greatly for Miss Everdeen and Mr. Mellark. What role did you plan to play in their wedding?" This brought more murmurs from the audience, and I wondered if Caesar was secretly sympathetic to our cause.

I leaned back and allowed myself to smile, as if reminiscing. Lying through my teeth, I said: "Oh, they're already married. It wasn't long after we all got back to District Twelve." I went on to describe the "toasting" ceremony, when a new husband and wife would toast a piece of bread and eat it together. "We kept that quiet, knowing that you in the Capitol would want to see a big, splashy wedding. I was the main witness. Even a lot of people in District Twelve didn't know about it. After all that public attention, doing something private meant a lot to them." Then I sounded sad and regretful. "Maybe they should have waited?"

"Why ever do you say that? We're all happy to hear that they got some happiness!" Caesar turned to the audience, and noises of affirmation came from them. I could hear some people yelling congratulations.

"I'd think so, too," I paused, readying the zinger that Peeta had prepared for me. "If it weren't for the baby!"

The sudden silence was overwhelming. I looked out, and those in the audience I could see were staring, eyes wide and faces pale with shock and horror. The Capitol citizens are people, too, and even for them, sending a pregnant woman into the near-certain death of the Arena was well over the line. Caesar looked at me like I was a ghost.

"A…baby?" Caesar's voice was very quiet, but in the silence, it seemed to echo.

"Yes. That's the sort of thing that can happen, when a man and a woman get married, you know. When they did that, they had no idea that this was coming." I shrugged my shoulders. "They trusted the Capitol to keep its promises."

At that, the audience absolutely erupted. They were yelling and shouting, and at first, I couldn't make out what they were saying. Gradually, a chant emerged, until most if not all of them were chanting in unison: "Shame! Shame! Stop the Games!" It was music to my ears. I knew that Capitol people were not evil, but for too long they'd seen us District residents as less human than they were. This rubbed their noses in the evil they'd been complicit in, and for many of them it was more than they could stand.

The chant went on for some time, until Caesar managed to quiet the audience down. He bade me farewell and good luck, and as I left, he gave me a very penetrating look. He'd been manipulating audiences for a very long time…since before I'd ever come to the Capitol…and he had to have a pretty good idea that nothing I had done had been spontaneous.

I joined the other Tributes, and applauded noisily as Katniss came onstage. The audience cheered and cheered for her, calling out to tell her how much they loved her. For all of her prickly personality, I have to say that Katniss played up to it very well. She gave the audience a sweet, shy smile and gave Caesar a bigger smile.

Caesar was still rattled by my revelation about her "pregnancy." He took a little while before he asked her the first question, fiddling with his microphone as though he'd never seen such a thing before.

"So, Katniss. We just got your good news. Let me say on behalf of everybody here that I'm so sorry about what happened." The audience was deathly quiet. Everybody wanted to know what the Girl on Fire had to say.

"I'm sorry, too. I had hoped for a beautiful wedding here in the Capitol, so all my new friends, like my prep team, Cinna, Effie, and you could attend too. I know you wanted to share that day with me and Peeta," Katniss said. Her voice was soft, but everybody could hear her. "At least Cinna was able to make this beautiful dress for me."

"And it is a beautiful dress!" Caesar's voice rang with sincerity, but I didn't know how much of it was real. When dealing with that man, it was always a good idea to remember that he was an extremely experienced performer. How much of his inner thoughts showed on the surface was always an unanswered question.

"Let me show you how beautiful it is!" Before Caesar could say anything, Katniss was up out of her chair, twirling around and around. As she twirled, the same sort of heatless flames that had made our costumes for the Tributes' parade so memorable appeared, seeming to consume the dress. I hadn't known just what Cinna had done, and watched with as much interest as everybody else.

When she was done twirling and the flames had gone, the white wedding-style dress was gone. Instead, she stood there in a dress that had the exact colors of a bird's feathers. A very familiar bird. She raised her arms, showing that her sleeves had been transformed into faux wings.

Cinna had made her a mockingjay. The symbol of rebellion. While I rejoiced at this triumph of his art, I also grieved inside. I'd come to respect Cinna for his skill and his love for Katniss, and I knew that the Capitol would make him pay for this.

We Tributes were standing in a line at the back of the stage. I felt Thresh touching my hand with the stump at the end of his arm (a souvenir of his Games) and I grasped it. Before long, we were all holding hands, and we raised our hands over our heads, showing that we were all in solidarity on this. The people in charge cut the lights, but the lights behind us went last, so for a few seconds, we were silhouetted against the backdrop. Then we were all hustled off the stage, to get ready for the Games.

I didn't know how much damage we'd managed to do, but I had never seen a Capitol audience react the way this one had. I hoped that it would be enough.

As we were herded back to our quarters, I thought about a drink. To my surprise, I found I had no desire for white liquor, or anything alcoholic. Sticking it to the Capitol was much better and more satisfying than all the alcohol I'd ever poured down my throat to try to numb myself.