I don't own The Hunger Games.
Annie stood sweating with the other girls as Enobaria talked them through the plan of the day.
"The plane leaves at nine thirty am, so if you're not on board by then you can expect to be dismissed from the squad, seeing as this is the biggest charity event of our year so far. You'll attend the team's signing at one pm, and then practice will begin at five pm and carry on until eight. Then at eight forty five, you'll be attending the Dallas v. Panem charity cheer off. Which, by the way, you'll probably lose. That doesn't mean I don't want you to cheer your little socks off, seeing as people are paying to see it. Then afterwards, you mingle with the crowd in your uniforms. When I say 'mingle', I don't mean that you can go home with them." She glared pointedly at Cassidy.
"Hey!" She scowled back.
"The team will be staying in Dallas until the charity game, which is two days from now. You girls will be coming back the day after the signing though, because we don't want another cheerleader on cheerleader fight." This time, Enobaria glared at Johanna.
"I feel no shame." She shrugged.
"Nobody ever beats the DCCs in a cheer off, but I want you to come pretty damn close to that victory. You'll be marked on a scale of ten for tricks, timing, presentation, and the overall routine. Don't try to do your best- do your best. Especially you, academy girl."
Annie sighed and nodded her head. When she came to the Panem Allstars she had expected to be treated liked the other girls, but they wanted her to prove that she was worthy of being on the squad. She hadn't been through all the exhausting audition rounds like the other girls had, and to them that made her seem like someone who got everything handed to them on a silver platter. They didn't know how hard getting a full scholarship and then graduating from the Academy had been, or how difficult it was to even get a tape of your best performances sent off to different squads. Cassidy had reminded her every so often that she was only there because their third flyer had dropped out a few weeks before the pre-season games begun and that Panem had been getting desperate.
"Alright, thirty more minutes of practice and then hit the showers! You don't want to stink up the plane!" Enobaria yelled, and the girls grumbled before heading back to equipment or the mats. Today it seemed that everybody was working extra hard for their trip to Dallas, despite the fact that it was seven o'clock in the morning and they had been there since four am.
"Hey, Johanna." Annie joined the captain on the resistance machines that strengthened your calf muscles. It was a machine that would work well for both of them, seeing as Johanna needed to strong legs to keep from dropping the flyers and Annie needed them to stand tall when she was caught.
"'Sup rookie?" Her hair was plastered to her forehead, and she was pushing her legs up and down on the machine with such a speed that Annie suspected they might fall off.
"Why's everyone so pumped for Dallas? Well, everyone except you." Annie asked, locking her feet into position on the machine next to Johanna's. She started to pump her legs, slowly at first but gaining pace.
"They're our biggest rivals. They're every squad's biggest rivals. The other girls see it as a chance to get in a good, tough fight." Johanna's face had gone red, and she pushed her legs faster.
"You'll strain yourself." Annie pointed out. "Why aren't you excited? You like fight."
"Because," Johanna slowed down. "I hate them. They're just too damn nice and the whole 'America's sweethearts' thing makes me feel sick. They've been the best for too long, but we can never seem to take them down."
"Well, maybe today we'll beat them." Annie shrugged. She stood up and stretched out her legs.
"Not a chance." Johanna laughed. "But I'll be damned if we don't give it our best shot."
…
Annie had been on a plane before, she used to vacation in France, but she had never been on a plane with more than twenty girls who were gossiping, laughing, and screaming through turbulence.
"They're giving me a migraine." Marvel complained from the seat to her left.
"I know what you mean." Olivia, a twenty five year old tumbler on Annie's right, agreed.
"You think this is bad?" Johanna asked from the seat in front of Marvel.
"Do you not remember last year's Thanksgiving game?" Clove asked, pressing her nose through the gap in the seats.
"That was crazy." Glimmer laughed from the seat in front of Olivia laughed, and Marvel grimaced at the memory.
"I think I ruptured an eardrum that day." He scowled.
"Only because it was your first season." Johanna laughed.
"Hey, it was mine and Clove's first too and we didn't complain about the noise." Glimmer shrugged and unbuckled her seat belt so that she could turn around and face them.
"Whatever Johanna. You just think you're better than us because this is your third, and we've only done two." Marvel poked her in the back of the neck teasingly.
"Are we all going to ignore the fact that this is my fourth?" Olivia smirked. "So you should follow Annie's example and shut up."
"She hasn't said anything because it's her rookie year." Clove said, raising an eyebrow. "We would destroy her."
"Clove." Glimmer scowled.
"It's fine. She's right." Annie laughed. It wasn't fine, not really, but there was nothing that Annie would be able to do until she had proved that she belonged on the squad.
"You have the most flyer potential than I've seen in a long time." Olivia said. "You should be proud."
"I'll bench you." Clove threatened.
"You can't do that. Anyway, I said she had potential. You're better because you're experienced, but don't expect it to stay that way for long."
"I'm sure Clove will always be way better than me." Annie said, blushing. Getting the cold shoulder from the vice-captain wouldn't be Annie's ideal way to start the trip.
"Whatever. Just remember that we'll always be better than Cassidy." Clove shrugged again and turned around as the seatbelt sign flickered on.
"Guys, we're landing. The nightmare is over." Marvel grinned, gripping the armrest of his seat excitedly.
"Dallas, here we come." Johanna sighed, and buckled up for landing.
…
Finnick sighed and leaned back in his chair after signing his thirty eighth autograph of the day. Usually, he loved meeting and greeting fans. The ones who followed the team cross-country were his favourite kind and usually the fans in other states made him happy because it meant that they had country-wide support, but today he was just bored. There was something about Texas that Finnick didn't like. Maybe it was that they were about to face one of their biggest rivals, or maybe it was just the accents. He wasn't really sure.
"Hey." He greeted a teenage boy who had come for an autograph. The starting team for the game in two days' time were sat in a line behind a long table signing autographs. Some of the players had a few people in their lines, and others only had one or two. Players like him, Cato and Gloss, who was one of the best linebackers they'd had in five years, had lines of up to twenty people at a time. On the other side of the room, people were hording in and queuing for miles to get signatures from the Cowboys.
"This is shit." Finnick muttered as the boy went on his way. He felt a rough punch to the back of his head, and turned around to glare at the cheerleader who had hit him.
"Be nice." One of the older cheerleaders hissed. Her name was Kelly, or Kayla, or something like that. He looked along the line of red and black clothed cheerleaders. He spotted Johanna, who was glaring at the DCC girls, and Clove stood with the newbie he had met a few weeks ago in the cafeteria. He could barely remember the encounter, training had been a bitch that day, but he had remembered that she was pretty and had given him her water.
"Um, hi." The girl at the front of the line cleared her throat to get his attention.
"Right. Sorry." Finnick mumbled, and signed her Panem Allstars baseball cap.
"That's not even my number." He pointed out to the next guy in the line. He pointed to Gale Hawthorne, one of the offensive linesmen. "That jersey's his."
"Well, maybe I want you to sign it." The boy retorted. He looked about seventeen, and looked like your typical Texas rich boy.
"Well, what's the point?" Finnick rolled his eyes.
"So that I can laugh at your idiocy." The boy snorted. "How dare you bring your team here, thinking that you're better than us?"
"We're here for a charity game, dumbass." Cato said from the seat next to Finnick.
"Boys, boys, boys!" Izabelle Barnes ran over to them, smiling warmly. "Come on now Finn, sign the jersey and move onto the next fan. We wouldn't want any trouble."
She was always running in to help out in sticky situations. She always travelled with the team, wherever they went. She said it was because she was the team owner's daughter and that her daddy wanted reports, but most people knew it was really because she wanted to make sure that her boyfriend Finnick didn't get into too much trouble.
"Whatever." Finnick reluctantly signed the jersey, and the boy walked off to join another queue.
"Was that really so hard?" Izabelle snapped. "You have reputations to hold on to, Finnick."
"Iz, the guy was a jerk." He sighed and started to tap his pen against the table.
"I don't care, Finnick! You have to greet them nicely!" She snapped, before turning on her heel and flouncing off to talk to Coach Brutus.
"Bitch." Cato muttered, signing an older woman's poster for the signing.
"Easy, man. She's not so bad." Finnick signed one more autograph before standing up, almost pushing his chair into the cheerleader stood behind him.
"I'm taking a break." He announced, and pushed his way down between the line of players in their chairs and the cheerleaders behind him. His eyes met Annie's, but she quickly looked away.
"Cheerleaders are supposed to smile." He joked as he walked past her, earning himself an elbow to the ribs from Johanna.
"Bitch."
…
"One wrong move and I will kick your ass so quickly you'll think I was a tornado. We are not going down without a fight, even if it means I have to kick all you newbies off the squad for putting one foot wrong." Johanna yelled as she and the others got ready for the cheer off. Enobaria, who was stood in the corner, nodded in approval at Johanna's little speech.
"Alright Annie, you haven't had your first make-up crash course yet so let me give you a hand." Glimmer smiled at her from the make-up table next to Annie.
"Go ahead." She spun her chair around as Glimmer picked a red lipstick.
"This will look with your skin tone, seeing as you only went with minimal fake tan. You might look pale if you're next to Cassidy, so steer clear." She nodded towards Cassidy, who had gone for the darkest shade that she could pull off when they had been spray tanned earlier.
"Is that a bad thing?" Annie asked after Glimmer had applied her lipstick for her.
"No. You look more natural. Also, the lipstick matches the uniform." The squad were dressed in red shirts that cut off just before the belly button with players' numbers printed in black on the front and back. The also wore red shorts with that had a black waistband and the same numbers that were on their shirts written in black on the sides. Glimmer's number was eighteen, which Annie didn't really recognize. Her's was twelve, which somebody had told her was Gale Hawthorne's number. Clove had number two, Cassidy has Gloss' number one. Johanna's number was four- as head cheerleader she had the captain of the football team's number, which happened to be Finnick Odair. Who, by the way, had a girlfriend that Annie thought had treated him like crap at the signing.
"We'll go for black eyeliner and subtle red eye shadow. They're team colours, and all." Glimmer dabbed a brush into the eye shadow pot and Annie shut her eyes.
"So, what other classes will I have to take?" Annie asked as Glimmer applied it to her eyes.
"It depends really. We have classes on things like dealing with the media and etiquette. But we also have classes for dance and tumbling. If you're really struggling with something, we've got professionals that you can hire for some one-on-one lessons." Glimmer handed Annie the black eye pencil so that she could apply the eyeliner herself. While she was doing so, Glimmer selected a light bink blush for Annie.
"Perfect." Glimmer grinned once they were done, Enobaria blew her whistle, and the girls lined up behind Johanna and Clove.
"Remember girls, this may be for charity but I want you to fight." She ordered. The audience started clapping, and they pushed through the curtain to get to the stage.
They didn't win the cheer off, but Johanna seemed relatively pleased with their score. Well, as pleased as she could have been after a loss. They had scored eight out of ten for their tricks, one of which had involved Annie flipping down from the top of a pyramid to be caught by the newest base boy. They had scored ten for their timing, eight for their presentation, and nine for the overall routine. They had ended up with a score of thirty five out of forty, and the Dallas cheerleaders had scored thirty seven. It was close like they had wanted it to be, and a fair fight. Johanna hadn't even tried to trip their captain as she ran onto the mat covered stage.
After showering, re-applying their make-up, and putting their uniforms back on, the squad were allowed to join the party. A band had now taken their place on the stage.
"Look at them." Johanna sneered at three of the dancing Dallas cheerleaders. "Think they own the place."
"Well, it is their state. We're guests here." Marvel pointed out. His and the other boy's uniform consisted of red pants with two black stripes going down the sides, and a t-shirt style red spandex shirt with the Panem Allstar's logo, a black five pointed star speckled with red dots, printed in the middle and a black neck line.
"Shut up." She snapped. Annie cast her eye over the dance floor.
"We should be dancing." She suggested. "We're cheerleaders."
"Great idea, rookie! We'll show those damn Cowboys who the real boss is." Johanna grinned venomously and grabbed Annie and Marvel's hands to drag them onto the dance floor. A fast song was playing, and they started dancing wildly. Cassidy and Clove joined them, and so did Glimmer and the new boy who Annie learnt was called Michael. They shook their heads to swing their hair and did complicated footwork that they only learnt after years of practice. Annie was having such a good time jumping up and down and singing along with the band that she didn't notice the dancing couple behind her until she danced straight into them.
"Whoa!" The boy staggered backwards and she almost died when she realised it was Finnick.
"Do that again and I'll have you dismissed!" The girl snapped. Annie recognized the dark brown hair and blue eyes from the signing.
"Iz, she didn't mean to. Calm down." Finnick rolled his eyes and turned to Annie. "Are you okay?"
"I-I'm fine." She stepped backwards as he reached for her. "I have to go."
She readjusted her shirt and weaved her way through the thick crowd of people, thinking of getting air and going home, and how she barely even knew the boy but Finnick was hurting her a little anyway.