Chapter 5

I was woken by Cashmere before the sun was up the next morning. I was surprised that I had slept at all; my stomach was a ball of nerves. Today we would start training. I choked down the milky drink for breakfast. It was definitely disgusting, but I had felt somehow healthier since having it, stronger and more confident. That was definitely a plus.

Beryl took us down to the training room, we would start off with group training and then Cashmere and Erran would take us individually on the last day to plan our strategy. I was nervous about working in front of the other tributes. They would be judging me, expecting me to be good. District One always had the distinction of being considered exceptional, as did District Two. I just hoped against hope that I would live up to the expectations.

A woman in Capitol uniform explained the rules of the Hunger Games to us and told us the current statistics on how we would die. I briefly thought that maybe this was a little insensitive, but pushed the thought aside. Now was not the time to be polite. After more instructions that, I am embarrassed to say, I did not listen to, we were told to go and train on a station of our choosing. The young children went for the fishing or the survival skills in a few clumps. There seemed to be too many young ones.

I watched as Jasper went straight to the station with the biggest weapons. Of course he would go straight for the swords and things. I looked around. What was I really good at? Nothing came the echoing answer. That was helpful. I kept looking. I could use plenty of the weapons, many of them I could probably defend myself with. But what was the use in training things that I had already trained on. It wasn't like I was going to become brilliant in a week. More likely I would just embarrass myself.

Then I saw one station that remained unoccupied. It was a large climbing mesh that arced overhead. I headed towards it.

I wasn't the best climber, but everyone was crowding around Jasper watching as he swung a sword around, hitting pretty much anything and everything. I rolled my eyes. I knew from his technique that he wasn't practising, he was showing off.

I climbed higher and higher. I reached the roof and looped my legs up and pushed my body through one of the wider holes. I was on top of it. I crept up and nestled myself in the metre high gap between the mesh and the roof. Feeling more comfortable than I had since finding out that I was going to have to volunteer, I congratulated myself on finding the only place in the training centre that no one would think to look. I was completely hidden from view.

But I wasn't here to hide. I was here to watch. I already knew that I would have to separate Jasper from his sword if I wanted to beat him. I also knew that playing to his ego would probably get me on his good side. I just had to find out about the others. Once I knew them, I could beat them.

Before I knew it, it was time to show off our skills. I knew that this was important, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to be enthusiastic. I found myself becoming more and more melancholy as the weeks progressed.

I had managed to infiltrate myself well with the other careers by providing valuable information on the other tributes. Well, that, and the perfume that my father had given me that I sprayed liberally on myself. The career pack was taking shape; it was led by Jasper and Slade, of course, male ego winning out. Acacia was quiet but deadly, I had seen her with a javelin on the second day and whilst she didn't fight the boys for leadership, when she spoke they seemed to shut up. The boy from 4 was another quiet one, he was brought on mostly because we all knew that he was a career and with him, he dragged a terrified looking red haired girl from his district. That made six including me. The odds were looking decidedly in our favour.

For the test, I decided on a bow and arrow. It had been a toss up between that and the knives. I wanted to make sure that I didn't have to get close to anyone to kill them, which would give me an advantage since most of the other were using close range contact weapons. In theory I could kill them before they even saw me coming. I settled on archery because I figured there would be more arrows in a quiver than small knives in the cornucopia.

I had been all right at archery back in District One. As long as I remembered to concentrate, I could hit a target from at least twenty metres away. It would have to be enough.

We waited in a holding room for our training. I saw many legs jiggling with nervous energy. Jasper was called in first and I saw him swagger off into the room. I didn't know what to expect. This part of the pre-games ritual was never televised and the doors looked more ominous than anything I had seen so far.

I heard the speaker click on.

"Allure Desiree"

I swallowed hard and got to my feet. I walked towards the door and was startled to see some of the younger tributes shying away from me as though afraid. My performance must have been convincing these past few days.

I strode into the high roofed room and was met by a line of people watching me. I could tell from their clothes that they were influential people, probably the betters. I looked around the room and saw the archery stand. Excellent, I thought and strode over towards it. I was about to pick up the bow and arrow when something caught my eye. It was a large industrial fan. I had an idea.

I moved over to the fan and pulled it over to where the bow and arrow were waiting. I pointed it so that I was between it and the line of people watching.

I grinned at them apologetically.

"It's hot in here." I said by way of explanation and saw them smile.

In one deft motion I pulled out my fathers perfume and splashed a heap across my body, hoping that they wouldn't notice the movement as I tried to continue fluidly to reach for the arrow. I didn't have to look around to know that the perfume had worked. I heard a soft but distinctive collective sigh from the spectators.

I brought the arrow up and let fly. I missed the bullseye by a little bit, but I knew that it didn't matter. I turned to the watchers and bowed, smiling sweetly.

"Thank you for having me." I said and turned to leave. As I did so, I pretended to crash slightly into the fan. I laughed breezily. "My goodness, I hope you wont take marks off me." I said. The spectators laughed appreciatively.

I walked out of the room knowing that as soon as I walked out of the door, the air that had been pushed up by the fan would have passed on as I had 'crashed' into it, pushing it in the other direction, and they would have felt sad that I had left.

That night, as we watched the coverage of the Hunger Games, I held my breath to see my score. I was very thankful that I would be the first to be called out. Caesar Flickerman grinned onto the screen and began to announce the scores. I could hardly move.

"First up, the lovely Allure from District One. We have a score of nine." I exhaled deeply. It was perfect. High enough that I would be considered useful, but not high enough that I would be a career target.

I noticed that the others were all staring at me curiously. Apparently it hadn't occurred to them that I might be a threat and I could see them all wondering what I could possibly have done to deserve a nine. I just shrugged at them and avoided their eyes, pretending to be enthralled with the coverage. After a moment, they seemed to get over me and turned their attention back to the coverage too. I settled back, pleased with myself and watched Jasper get his ten. Maybe it wasn't quite so hopeless after all.