A/N tada! Next chapter! Quite proud of this one, very long. For me… I'm sorry that calamity turned out so… sarcastic. She appears to have developed our dry, British, trademark sense of humour. Ah, well. Oh, and I forgot to do this last time-

Disclaimer- I own neither the hunger games, or Maximum Ride and Iggy. I do, however, own Calamity, Cherry Blossom, and Felix.

I sit on the overstuffed, shiny sofa in the justice building, squashed between my mother and father. I can hear Iggy Griffith's mother in the next room, crying loudly. I look over to my mother. She's not crying, but her hands are clenched so hard the knuckles are white, her face is pale and her lips are clamped tightly together, as if she is scared she would start screaming, or crying, or both.

"Why?" I look over at my father. He looks as though someone just jumped out from behind a lamppost and yelled boo at him. Like, loudly. With a mask on. Maybe some fake blood and a knife thrown in, too.

You guys can look after yourselves. Her family can't I reply. I see my father fighting down annoyance. Not well, apparently.

"Oh, dear god, when are you going to stop being so damn noble? You're not going to have time to change your ways now!" my mother jumps, and stares at my father with wide, brown eyes. Then she bursts loudly into tears. These are strangely more reassuring than the silence. I shoot my father a "look what you've done now" look, and try to comfort my mother. She just cries harder. I'm almost relieved when the peacekeepers come to take them away. I sign I love you at them, but I'm not sure they see. No-one else comes to see me, and I have to wait for an hour until it's time to go to the station and board the train.

I feel a childish flutter of excitement when the train glides into the station. I've never been on a train, before. I think I'm beginning to accept my death, and therefore enjoy some of the small pleasures of life.

Iggy Griffiths walks up next to me, and stands there silently for a few seconds as the train finishes pulling into the station. This is not awkward at all. I can't even say hi.

"Erm, hey" he said. Oh, great. How can I reply? Any suggestions? Nope. Fine, then. I tapped the back of his hand in a lame greeting.

"So, erm… trains, huh?" no offence to him or anything, but he does seem slightly dense. I cannot make conversation. I tap the back of his hand again, and decide this will be my reply to everything he says until he goes away.

"You know, this one goes, like, super-fast." Yes, well done. I sigh loudly and tap the back of his hand.

"Erm, can you reply, please? I can't tell if you're nodding and whatnot." Ohh, he honestly doesn't know I'm mute! Oops. Actually, I feel quite offended. I remembered he was blind. I wave Cherry Blossom over, and gesture to my throat, then to Iggy. She looks at me blankly. I repeat the action, as the train doors open. She still doesn't get it. I keep doing this as we walk through the train doors.

"I CANNOT UNDERSTAND YOUR SIGN LANGUAGE!" she yells slowly. God, what do they feed the people in the capitol? Stupid juice? I pull some paper out of my pocket (why didn't I think of that before?) and wrote, all in capitals, I AM NOT DEAF! Then chewed the end of my pencil, and added could you please tell Iggy I'm mute? We're having communication problems. I resist the urge to scrawl "duh" at the end, and proudly present the paper to Cherry. Revelation dawns on her face, and she turns to Iggy as we walk into a room mostly occupied with a huge, long table. Covered in food. Mm, food.

"CALAMITY CANNOT REPLY BECAUSE SHE IS MUTE!" Cherry yells. You can tell the woman has a way with words, eh? I note with satisfaction that Iggy looks annoyed at Cherry, and embarrassed at the same time. It makes him look like a chimp.

"I'm not deaf, you know." He tells Cherry calmly, then turns to me. Kind of creepy… "I'm sorry, I didn't realize." I mentally smack my forehead with my hand. What does he not get about I cannot reply? I sigh and give a very unladylike grunt, the walk off to sit down. At least, I try to walk off to sit down. What actually happens is I glance back, and see Iggy standing helplessly on the other side of the room. Oh, yeah. He can't see the table. I sigh at my own weakness, and think, even as I walk over and take his wrist, you're going to have to kill this guy. I lead him quickly over to the table, and then sit as far away as I can. Felix and Cherry sit down too. Wait, when did Felix get here? Man, this guy's good. I can see how he won his games. Some capitol assistants come and try to serve us, but I wave mine away. I can't look helpless. They'll pick me out and go for me first if they think I have any sign of weakness. I know no tributes are here, but I'm worried about rumours reaching them of the helpless little mute girl. I quickly ladle some sort of rice dish onto my plate.

"Ahem." Says Cherry. "Now, even though this year I have two severely handicapped tributes-"she stops, mid-flow, because Felix has put a hand up to stop her. He's seen me writing furiously on a paper napkin.

Who're you calling handicapped? I hand the paper over. The message makes no sense at all, but I just want her to know I sure as hell haven't given up yet, and won't do in the near future. She glares at me, but then continues.

"Now, I don't think it would be in your best interests to pair up together-"I cut her off with a glare. I snatch the napkin back and scrawl I want Griffiths for an ally. What can I say? I will do anything to annoy this woman. Also, I reckon he has pretty good hearing. I consider for a split second, then add we have a week. We can work out some method of communication. I thrust the napkin at her, then begin eating my food, to show I don't want to listen to her any more. I see Iggy patting the table cloth, and don't quite understand. Then I realize- he can't find his fork. I smile to see he obviously has no intention of listening to Cherry, either, and tap the table by his fork. He grins at me, and picks it up. He starts eating, never spilling a drop. I turn away from him, and continue eating my food.

"Hey, you two! Slow down, it's not gonna disappear! You'll make yourself sick, and that's the last thing you need." Felix speaks quietly. I look up at him, grin, and continue eating, but at a slightly slower pace. When I finish, I ladle myself another helping. Then another. Finally, I sit back and contentedly sip orange juice while I wait for Iggy to finish.

Finally, he swallows the last of his fourth helping of some sort of stew, then turns his face towards Cherry and Felix, though looking somewhere eight inches above them.

"the reaping recap is on now." Says Felix, and flicks on a TV on the far wall. He describes the tributs from each district. Both district one's look quite beaten up- the boy has only one eye, and the girl is covered in scars. Volunteers, of course. District two has a good looking boy and girl, very similar. They could be twins, with their blonde hair and blue eyes of the exact same shade. I dub them the Aryan Twins. District three offers up a small twelve year old boy, and a girl with plaits and glasses. District Four has the predictable muscly pair. District five- now, this ones interesting. The boy is a typical scared little shrew, but the girl- she looks like trouble. Eyes so dark that they're practically black, and short brown hair cut in pixie-type fashion. She gives a sly grin and wink as she walks up on stage. Six and seven are boring, eight yields a tiny girl with a determined face, then we come to us. I see myself volunteer, and notice something I didn't at the time. I have a triumphant smile on my face, like I've beaten the system, and the scar on my throat makes me look feral, almost like I'd volunteered because I had a shot at winning. The commentators describe me as "nines first ever career", which is promising, but does not help my budding "lie low, run away" strategy. Eleven is uneventful, and twelve has a muscly boy and another feral girl. Great, the composition looks bad this year. We sit in silence for a few seconds, then-

"Right!" starts Cherry, taking a quick sip of some wine. I notice Felix is avoiding it. "Calamity has revealed that she wishes to ally with you, Iggy. Is this acceptable?" Iggy looks shocked for a second, then recovers his calm mask.

"Fine with me. You can probably move like a cat. Easy for you to get food." I smile at him, but then remember he can see.

You hear really well. No-one will sneak up on you. I mime to Felix, who says it aloud. Iggy grins at me, then reaches out and pulls a berry from a fruit tureen in front of him. He chucks it in the air and catches it expertly in his mouth. Now, I must say, that's impressive. Now let's just hope he can aim a spear that well.

"Okay, so we've established that you will be allies. I'll see you tomorrow, when we get to the capitol! Toodle-oo!" Cherry calls. I watch her bob out of the room. I catch Felix's eye, and laugh slightly.

"We'll sort out strategies and stuff when we get to the capitol. I recommend you two spend your time trying to come up with a means of communication. Do either of you know Morse code?" Felix asks quietly. Without waiting for an answer, he creeps out of the room. Iggy turns to me.

"Do you?" he asks. I make a little uh-uh grunting noise in the back of my throat, and his face falls. I write can you read? On a scrap of paper, and pass it to a capitol servant wandering by, miming speech. They read it out.

"Yeah, but I can't see anymore, though." No-freaking-duh, I think. Then I grab his hand, and pull it towards me. He looks surprised but does not protest. I flip over the hand so that its back faces up, and trace letters onto it with my finger.

So you can tell what I'm saying now? I write. His face breaks into a wide, sunny smile.

"Brilliant!" he says. Over the next half an hour, we work out some basic communications. One grunt for yes, two for no. two taps on the back of the hand as a general alert. One whistle tune for danger, another for safety, a third for come here, and a fourth for go back. When Cherry finally comes to tell us to go to bed, we're feeling well and truly proud of ourselves.

Iggy walks me back to my room, and gives me an awkward hug goodnight. I stand there, not sure what to do, for a maximum of one second, and pat his back. He steps back and blushes. I find his hand.

Tactics? I say, trying to distract myself from the last few seconds.

"Hide. Defiantly. If there's anything close and useful at the cornucopia, I'll grab it. But then run."

How will you tell? At the cornucopia. He doesn't reply. I don't think he knows. Maybe that's why he agreed to be my ally? So I can tell him what's good at the cornucopia?

"Night" he says quickly, and walks off. I sigh to myself, and go into my room. It's huge, about the same size as our entire house at home. Against the wall is a large, double bed covered with a silky duvet. Next to me was a chest of drawers. I dug around in it, and was pleased to find a pair of cream leggings, a burgundy top and a leather jacket. I set them aside, and changed into a long white night-dress. I carefully folded up my dress, and placed it into the empty top drawer of the chest.

I walked across the room, snapped off the light, and slid into bed. My head had hardly touched the pillow before I'd fallen asleep.

Remember guys, reviews make me feel like some-one actually cares if this gets updated except for me, and then I update more.

~Fridgey