Chapter 7

I wake up to the light of early dawn streaming through my window. My nightmares from the night before have left me damp with sweat. I climb out of bed and walk into the bathroom, being more careful on what buttons I press so that I don't end up being assaulted with that rosy oil again.

When I'm dried off and my hair combed through, I walk out to find an outfit has been left for me in the front of the closet: black pants, a deep red tunic and leather shoes. At least it's something I might normally wear. I look in the mirror and see myself as I would normally look, me just getting ready for a normal day at school or in the bakery. This calms me down a little bit.

I walk out and find Haymitch on my way to the dining room. We arrive to find Katniss already at the table. We bid her good morning and then fill our own plates. I realize as I'm sitting down that Katniss and I are wearing identical outfits. This doesn't really bother me, but I can see that it annoys Katniss. I decide not to ask her why.

After I finish eating I realize how nervous I am about these training sessions. We'll get three days to train before the Games begin. We'll be trained on everything from how to use a weapon to survival skills, and then on the last day, we're given a chance to perform in front of the Gamemakers. There are some tributes, like the Careers or Katniss, who already know how to use a weapon. But unlike the Careers, Katniss also knows survival skills better than any of them would. Just another reason I know she can win.

I still have no idea what my own strategy is. I'm certainly not going to just lie down and wait for someone to kill me. But there's still no way I can win these Games…. But Katniss can…

The thoughts of my strategies and what I'm going to do in the arena begin to spin in my head and I realize I'm not the only one who's nervous. Katniss has begun to turn the roll in her hands over and over while we wait for Haymitch to finish eating. Finally, after several platters of stew, Haymitch takes a long pull from his flask and leans his elbows on the table.

"So, let's get down to business. Training. First off, if you like, I'll coach you separately. Decide now."

"Why would you couch us separately?" Katniss asks.

"Say if you had a secret skill you might not want the other to know about," he answers. Katniss looks over at me. "I don't have any secret skills." I say matter-of-factly. "And I already know what yours is, right? I mean, I've eaten enough of your squirrels." This seems to surprise Katniss a little, but she quickly regains her composure.

"You can coach us together," she says. I nod in agreement.

"All right, so give me some idea of what you can do," says Haymitch.

"I can't do anything." I answer. "Unless you count baking bread."

"Sorry, I don't. Katniss, I already know you're handy with a knife." Haymitch continues.

"Not really. But I can hunt with a bow and arrow." She answers.

"Are you any good?" he asks. She pauses for a minute, as if she has to think about it. As if she doesn't know how skilled she is. She has to know how skilled of a huntress she is, doesn't she?

"I'm all right." She answers.

"She's excellent," I say without thinking. "My father buys her squirrels. He always comments on how the arrows never pierce the body. She hits every one in the eye. It's the same with the rabbits she sells the butcher. She can even bring down deer." I say. Her surprise quickly turns to suspicion. "What are you doing?" she asks.

"What are you doing?" I ask back. "If he's going to help you, he has to know what you're capable of. Don't underrate yourself." I answer simply. This seems to have irritated her. "What about you? I've seen you in the market. You can life hundred pound bags of flour. Tell him that, that's not nothing." She says snappishly.

"Yes, and I'm sure the arena is going to be full of bags of flour for me to chuck at people. It's not like being able to use a weapon. You know it isn't." I snap back, feeling my anger rise. Here she is underrating herself, barely acknowledging her abilities, and then making it sound like my own skills are worth noting; like I'm actual competition.

"He can wrestle." She continues to Haymitch. "He came in second in our school competition last year, only after his brother."

"What use is that? How many times have you seen someone wrestle someone to death?" I say, my anger and frustration rising even higher.

"There's always hand-to-hand combat. All you need is to come up with a knife, and you'll at least stand a chance. If I get jumped, I'm dead!" Her voice is beginning to rise in anger too.

"But you won't! You'll be living up in some tree eating raw squirrels and picking off people with arrows." Now I'm really angry and the next thing I say comes out without my permission. "You know what my mother said to me when she came to say good-bye, as if to cheer me up, she says maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner. Then I realized she didn't mean me. She meant you!"

"Oh, she meant you." Katniss says dismissively.

"She said, 'She's a survivor, that one.'" I tell her, remembering my mother's last words to me, word-for-word. "'She is," This silences Katniss for a moment. She looks over at me. I know that the pain from that memory of the last time I saw my mother is showing on my face, and she knows I'm telling the truth. Suddenly, her eyes soften, and she looks younger. I'm suddenly reminded of that day I burned the bread for her, when she had been starving to death. She almost sounds younger when she speaks. "But only because I had someone help me." She says softly.

I look down at the roll in her hands and I know we both remember that day. But I only shrug in response. "People will help you in the arena. They'll be tripping over each other to sponsor you." I tell her truthfully.

"No more than you." She says. I roll my eyes at Haymitch.

"She has no idea. The effect she can have." I look down avoiding their gaze, especially refusing to look at her. She doesn't have any idea of the effect she has on people. And my telling her, when I'd never spoken to her until we were on the train to the Capitol, is not the right thing to be doing. I'm revealing too much in saying it. I keep my eyes down and think about how much she'd noticed about me. About how I'd come in second only to Rye last year, how she's noticed how much I can lift. I've had my reasons for paying attention to her, but why has she paid any attention to me? Considering where we are, that's not a question I want answered. And the way she talked me up, like I was competition. Her lack of skills isn't what might kill her; it's her lack of belief in her own abilities. That's not something I want, since I want her to win these Games, since I certainly won't. Haymitch speaks up, breaking my reverie.

"Well, then. Well, well, well. Katniss there's no guarantee they'll be bows and arrows in the arena, but during your private session with the Gamemakers, show them what you can do. Until then, stay clear of archery. Are you any good at trapping?"

"I know a few basic snares." She says quietly.

"That may be significant in terms of food." He says. "And Peeta, she's right, never underestimate strength in the arena. Very often, physical power tilts the advantage to a player. In the Training Center, they will have weights, but don't reveal how much you can lift in front of the other tributes. The plan's the same for the both of you. You go to group training. Spend the time trying to learn something you don't know. Throw a spear. Swing a mace. Learn to tie a decent knot. Save showing what your best at until your private sessions. Are we clear?" Katniss and I nod as an answer. "One last thing. In public, I want you by each other's side every minute." We both start to object. The last thing I need is to end up revealing more about my feelings than I already seem to have done at the table. But Haymitch slams his hand on the table to quiet us. "Every minute! It's not open for discussion! You agreed to do as I said! You will be together, you will appear amiable to each other. Now get out. Meet Effie at the elevator at ten for training." We leave the table. I see Katniss bite her lip and stalk back toward her room, slamming the door loudly. She's angry. Angry at all of us; at me for something I've done, at Haymitch for making us stick together as if we're friends. I don't want to pretend to be friends in this situation. All it's going to do is backfire once we're in the arena. It's going to be worse for me. Katniss has already accepted that we're going to be enemies, but I can't, and I never will be able to. Even if she has to be the one to send an arrow at me, I'd still refuse to see her as my enemy. There's just too much about her that makes it impossible. My feelings for her, for one, as well as the fact that I know she can win, and I want her to win, to go home to her family that believes in her, that needs her to come home. Maybe I'd be able to sort these things out myself if it weren't for Haymitch's stupid instruction. It seems everything about these Games is here to torment me. My being called in the first place, Katniss being pitted against me, and then Katniss and I being forced to act like friends when she wants nothing to do with me, and if we were anywhere else in the world, I want to be more than her friend.

It's almost ten when I walk down toward the elevators to meet with Effie. Katniss shows up a few moments later, her anger replaced with a nervousness that I can understand. The elevator takes us below ground to the enormous gymnasium filled with various weapons and obstacle courses. Even though it's not ten yet, we're the last ones to arrive. The other tributes are gathered in tense circles. We are each given a cloth number that is pinned to our shirts.

As soon as we join the circle, the head trainer, a tall, athletic woman named Atala steps up and begins to explain the training schedule. Experts in each skill will remain at their stations. We will be free to travel from area to area as we choose per our mentor's instructions. Some of the stations teach survival skills, others fighting techniques. We are forbidden to engage in any combative exercise with another tribute. There are assistants on hand if we want to work with a partner. While she's reading the list of stations, I end up looking around at the other tributes. I'm as big, if not bigger, than most of the boys and almost all the girls. Most of them look underfed. The exceptions are of course the Career tributes, which is the name we've given the tributes from Districts 1, 2 and 4. They're the ones who volunteer more often (but not always, as Katniss wouldn't be here otherwise), the ones who have trained for these Games, even though that's against the rules, the ones who are more likely to win than most. All of the Career tributes seem to project brutality and arrogance. I realize they're looking over at us, at Katniss, and they show nothing but contempt for her. Maybe it was our stylists' doing that made us outshine them last night, but since our district doesn't usually outshine the Careers like that in anything it might have taken a hit on their pride and their sponsorship possibilities. It's obvious that they plan to wipe her out in the bloodbath if they can. When Atala releases us, the Careers head right for the deadliest looking weapons and handle them easily. I nudge Katniss on the arm, making her jump slightly. "Where would you like to start?" I ask her soberly. She looks around at the various stations. "Suppose we tie some knots." She answers.

"Right you are." I answer. We cross to the empty station where the trainer seems happy just to have us there. After Katniss shows her knowledge about snares, he shows us a simple trap that will have a human competitor dangling by a leg from a tree. We spend the next hour mastering it. Then we move on to camouflage. I quickly learn that I'm actually pretty good at this and find that I'm genuinely enjoying myself. The trainer who runs the station is full of enthusiasm at how I swirl the combination of clay and mud and berry juices. I turn to Katniss. "I do the cakes." I admit to her.

I've been frosting the cakes in the bakery since I was about eight, when my father decided that I was better at making designs in the frosting than he was. It became one of my favorite chores at the bakery, since I could draw pretty much whatever I wanted into the cakes. I also came to like it for another reason. Katniss would bring her sister to the bakery window to look at the cakes on display. Primrose would be the most enthusiastic about the cakes, but it was one of the first times I picked up on something about Katniss herself. How much Katniss loved her sister. How she'd almost always bring her sister to the window whenever they were in town, how Katniss would almost smile a little bit when she was with Primrose, the only time I'd ever see her do that. I never spoke to her when she was at the window, I always looked away when ever she saw me, but I liked seeing her outside of school, with someone she cared about, rather than around people she didn't really know and didn't really talk to. It made me feel like I knew her a little better.

"The cakes?" she asks. I realize that she had been preoccupied with watching the boy from District 2 throw a spear at a dummy, watching it pierce the heart. "What cakes?"

"At home. The iced ones, for the bakery," I answer, hoping she remembers. She looks closer at the pattern I've painted on my arm, the alternating pattern of light and dark that I had used to suggest sunlight falling through leaves in the woods. At first, she seems impressed, but then her liking quickly turns to annoyance.

"It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death." She says bitingly.

"Don't be so superior. You can never tell what you'll find in the arena. Say it's actually a gigantic cake-" I say, trying to make a joke.

"Say we move on." She breaks in. Well, that didn't go the way I had hoped.

For the next two days Katniss and I pass quietly from station to station. We pick up some valuable skills, from starting fires to knife throwing, to making shelter. Katniss sweeps the edible plant test easily, and I find that I'm better at hand-to-hand combat than I would've expected. We steer clear of weightlifting and archery though, wanting to save those for the Gamemakers on the final day. The Gamemakers appeared early on the first day to watch us train. Twenty or so men and women dressed in deep purple robes. They sit on elevated stands around the gymnasium, sometime wandering around to watch us, jotting down notes and eating at the endless banquet that has been set for them. They do seem to be keeping an eye on the District 12 tributes. Several times I've seen one of them watching me or Katniss, fixated on us.

While breakfast and dinner are served on our floors, lunch is served in a dining room off the gymnasium. Food is arranged on carts around the room and you serve yourself. The Career tributes gather rowdily around one table, as if showing off the power and superiority in their alliance. They ignore the rest of us, who sit, for the most part, alone at other tables. Katniss and I share a table together, and since Haymitch keeps pestering us about it, we try to keep a friendly conversation going. It's not the easiest thing since talking about home is painful and talking about the present isn't a much better option. I end up talking about the different bread that they serve us during lunch. I tell her about the differences I noticed between the refined bread of the Capitol, the fish-shaped loaf with green tint from the seaweed from District 4, the crescent moon dotted with seeds from District 11, and the drop biscuits that are common at home, along with the various breads from the other districts.

"And there you have it." I finish telling her, putting all the bread back into the basket.

"You certainly know a lot."

"Only about bread." I say. "Okay, now laugh as if I've said something funny." We both give a somewhat convincing laugh that makes some of the others stare at us. We ignore them. "All right, I'll keep smiling pleasantly and you talk," I can tell that this act is wearing us both out. I may be doing what Haymitch told me to, but every time I have these conversations with Katniss, I can't help but think about what it would've been like if I had been able to approach Katniss at school before the reaping and talk to her, rather than talk to her because someone ordered me to, which only makes this whole thing painful and confusing again.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was chased by a bear?" she asks.

"No, but it sounds fascinating." I say. And she tells me a story about how she had once daringly challenged a black bear over the rights to a beehive. This is one of the easier parts of these conversations, listening to her. I end up asking her questions out of real curiosity and genuinely laughing, enjoying the feeling for the brief moment it's there.

During the two days we train, I also pay attention to the other tributes, especially the Careers, since they will be the biggest threat to survival. If it weren't for the brutality they're known for and the fact that they seem to have made Katniss something of a target, I'd find a way to ally us with them in the beginning of the Games. But I know Katniss would never go for that and I can guess what her reaction would be if I suggested it. As the days go on, I notice that I'm not the only one paying attention to the competition. I notice the covert glares some of the Careers give Katniss, and I know that they'd never let her in. But the Careers aren't the only ones paying attention to her. On the second day, I notice that the little girl from District 11, Rue as I've heard her be called, has been watching us, sometimes following us to the same station. I point this out to Katniss as she throws a spear. "I think we have a shadow." I say to Katniss. Katniss looks over at her and I see the pained expression on her face. This was the girl that reminded Katniss of her sister. Except unlike her sister, there was no one to take this girl's place when she was called.

"I think her name's Rue," I whisper to her. This makes her bite her lip, as if it reminds her of something just as painful. When she speaks, her voice is harsher than I had expected. "What can we do about it?"

"Nothing to do, just making conversation." I answer back. After this, it seems that Katniss can't ignore Rue. She joins us at different stations sometimes. We learn that she's clever with plants, can climb swiftly, and has good aim, hitting the target every time with a slingshot. But even with all this, I know her chances are lower than mine.

I also end up picking up a few things on some of the other tributes as well. The blonde girl from District 1 seems to have decent range with a bow and arrow, though I know she's nowhere near as good as Katniss is, since I saw her miss the target at least twice from a further distance. The boy from District 2 seems to know how to use every weapon they have in the gymnasium, but seems best with a sword. The girl from 2 is an expert knife thrower that I have yet to see miss. The boy from District 11, Thresh I think is his name, seems to be the strongest tribute of all of us. This is only a part of our competition. It's when I watch the Career pack approach the boy from District 11 and talk to him, that the idea hits me. Katniss may be a target, but I'm like the rest of the tributes here, invisible, beneath their notice. But if I could join them, fool them into thinking that I'm their ally; I could lead them away from Katniss, even if for just a small amount of time. And I'd have access to the supplies in the Cornucopia, so maybe I could help get Katniss a weapon and get a weapon myself…

It might not work, but it's a plan. The best strategy I've come up with so far. I might as well try. I watch as the conversation between the Careers and Thresh seems to sour; Thresh shaking his head angrily and walking away from the knot-tying station. As the second day of training ends, I watch as Katniss goes to the elevators and I walk up to the Career pack.

"What do you want?" the boy from District 2 asks.

"I want to join you. Your alliance, I mean." I say.

"Why should we let you in? What can you do?" says the girl from District 4.

"You wanted someone like Thresh. I may not be as strong as he is, but I'm pretty strong. And I can fight. Especially with a knife."

"He isn't the worst tribute in these Games. So we wouldn't look like idiots taking him on…" says the girl from District 1, considering. She turns to the boy from District 2. "He might be able to help us get to that girl." She says, meaning Katniss.

"But what if she's nothing special? What if she just has a good stylist?" He says.

"I've seen her, she not too bad. Not the best, but still decent, and she could be hiding things."

"I doubt it." Says the boy, arrogantly. Then he turns to me "Is that girl hiding something? Can she do anything special?" he asks.

"Well," I say thinking of a skill. "She can throw knives very well. She has very good aim." This seems to annoy the girl from District 2, the one who never missed with the knives. "Let him in Cato. We can't have two knife throwers in the Games. We might not get as many sponsors. He can help us find her and kill her." She says. This seems to convince the boy, Cato. "All right, fine. He's in." He points to me. "Don't tell anyone you're in, especially not the girl from your district. And don't think we won't kill you first." He turns back to the others. "We're not letting anyone else in. We already let that boy from 3 in and I'm still wondering why we did that and no one else is worth it." They all nod in agreement and turn to leave for the elevators. I make sure I ride in a separate car from them. I'm one of the Careers now. Hopefully the people back home won't hate me once they figure out what I'm trying to do. Hopefully, I'll live long enough to show that, at least to the audience.

Back on the District 12 floor, Haymitch and Effie have spent the two days of training grilling us throughout breakfast and dinner about every moment of the day. What we did, who watched us, and how the other tributes size up. I leave out the part of my allying with the Careers at dinner on the second night; I'll have to tell Haymitch that alone. I had expected Haymitch and Effie to fight during these training days, but they seem to have joined forces for us. Well, at least it helps. I'm more patient with their questioning, listening to their advice when it's given, but Katniss soon becomes fed up and surly. She's definitely not used to taking orders.

When we're finally dismissed for bed on the second night, even my patience has been worn down and I grumble to Katniss, "Someone ought to get Haymitch a drink." This makes Katniss laugh for a moment, but then her expression quickly sobers. "Don't. Don't pretend when there's no one around." She says.

"All right, Katniss." I say tiredly, feeling the invisible wall build between us again. After that, we only talk in front of people.

On the third day of training, they start to call us out of lunch for our private training sessions with the Gamemakers. District by district, first the boy then the girl from each. We're slated to go last. We linger in the dining room as we wait to be called. As the room empties, the pressure to keep up a friendly conversation lightens, and by the time they call Rue from District 11, we sit in silence. Katniss seems comfortable with the silence, but I keep trying to think of something to say. Finally, they call my name. I rise from my seat.

"Remember what Haymitch said about being sure to throw the weights." she reminds me. The way she says it doesn't sound forced at all, and almost feels like something a friend would say.

"Thanks. I will." I say, and feeling like I should say more, I add, "You… shoot straight." She nods and I walk into the room.

When I walk in, I take in all the equipment and the long table with a feast for the Gamemakers. The Gamemakers, are obviously drunk and only a few pay any attention to me, the others seem to be loudly singing some sort of song. I take a deep breath and begin to lift the weights set up in the room. I lift over one-hundred pounds and begin to throw the weights across the room. I feel foolish randomly throwing objects around and I know I'm not really worth watching either. I just keep throwing them, sometimes getting them pretty far, sometimes getting them only a few feet. One almost lands on my foot, but none of the Gamemakers seem to notice. After about fifteen minutes of this, one of the Gamemakers tells me I can leave and I walk toward the elevators. I leave hoping that I at least get a decent score and that Katniss does better than I did. At least I know she'll have their attention.

Author's Note: So I know it never says when exactly Peeta joined the Careers but I figure it was before the Games because it does say in Catching Fire that the alliance between the Careers and whoever else they add is determined before the Games.