Today is Victor's Birthday….
The building is so gigantic that Victor almost wants to back away. But he's brave. And brave, strong kids don't back away. So he follows his father right up the steps into the Training Center. Once inside, he's immediately greeted by a very cheery looking lady, who he, for some reason, instantly dislikes. "Welcome future victor!" The lady smiles at him. Victor notices that her eyes are a very strange bright orange color. He doesn't like to admit it, but he's a little bit scared of them so he tries to avoid eye contact by looking around the room. In the right corner, a woman is typing really fast on some machine. There is a bright red rug on the floor and the walls are shiny wood. It doesn't really look like a place where people will be fighting with swords. But suddenly Victor hears shouting. The orange-eyed lady gives a sharp sounding laugh. "That will be the tributes. Shall we go see them?" Victor nods enthusiastically. "Yeah!" He shouts. His father chuckles behind him and turns to the lady.
"That's my boy. He's excited already." The lady opens a door for them and leads them down the hallway. It's plain gray concrete with a row of cold metal doors, very unlike the lobby Victor was just in. Victor can't help but think it's a little odd. Suddenly, the chirpy lady opens a big set of metal double doors by pressing her palm against a red button. The doors swing open into the largest room Victor has ever seen. It's filled with kids of all ages. In a far left corner, huge boys toss spears at targets. They all look like they could win the Games. In another corner, a few girls closer to Victor's age throw knives at moving targets. Victor vaguely wonders how they are doing that so well. A line of ropes snakes across the top of the room and an obstacle course is right next to Victor. He's just itching to try it out. In fact, a group of kids who look just his age are lining up behind it. He runs over to join them. Victor's father waves goodbye, then heads back to the lobby with the odd lady. Victor plants himself in the back of the line. He's a little nervous, knowing that unlike regular school, he's not coming home tonight. This is home now. But mostly he's just excited. The instructor turns to him. He nods and turns to the other children. "This is our new trainee, Victor." Victor is expecting him to say something else, maybe mention that Victor is the son of a Games Winner, or even introduce the other kids, but he doesn't. Victor watches the first girl begin the obstacle course, at the lowest setting possible. She falls down after not even 3 seconds. The instructor shakes his head angrily, and then yanks her back up. "Jewel, what is wrong with you!" He roars.
Most of the other children jump back, but Victor is used to such things being shouted. His mother has even started yelling and hitting Amandine now. It's strange, because just a moment later she will be back to cooing at baby Amethyst. Aunt Jade coos at her baby, Glimmer all the time, but somehow Victor doubts she hits. The instructor continues roaring at Jewel. "This is the third time this week that you haven't made it past the second obstacle. You are useless!" With that, he pushes her roughly to the side. Jewel begins to cry. The instructor ignores her and tells a boy to begin the obstacle. But soon the boy is crying as well. He's scared of the instructor. And just like that, just about every kid in Victor's group is sobbing. Except for Victor and one other girl. A group of instructors rushes over to calm and toughen up the group while chaos goes on. The girl who isn't crying turns to Victor. "Crying is a sign of weakness you know." She tells him matter-of-factly.
"I know." He answers.
"My name's Pearl. I'm going to be a victor!" She smiles. Victor doesn't have time to tell her that he's going to be one too, when a bell rings. Pearl grabs his arm. "Come on, that means it's time to go to dinner, and then back to the Boarding House, where you go to sleep. You can sit at dinner with me." Victor shrugs. He guesses he's okay with that. He doesn't really know who else he can eat with anyways. He follows all the others into another huge gray, metal room. A group of people are standing behind a counter serving food to other children with trays. Pearl points out all the good and bad things that Victor should eat. He eventually settles for a piece of chicken, some potato wedges and an apple. Pearl sets down her tray at a table with no one sitting at it. "The food here is really good for you. It'll make you grow super big and strong." Victor smiles. He really wants to grow big and strong. He and Pearl munch away at the food. Victor doesn't like it all that much. It's not that it's yucky tasting, but it's tasteless. After eating the chicken and the potatoes, he's full, but it wasn't a particularly enjoyable meal. He misses the family's personal chef. At least there's dessert to look forward to.
He turns to Pearl. "So what's for dessert?" She raises her eyebrows at him, as if he just said something very silly.
"Dessert?" She questions. Victor speaks the next words very slowly.
"Yeah, dessert, like cookies and cakes and stuff." Pearl nods as if she is trying to understand.
"I've heard of those things, but I don't think I've ever tried them. I've been here for maybe 2 months, but they've never served us dessert. I think they said it could slow us down in training. I didn't get it at home either because only the rich people can have dessert." She pauses. Victor is confused. So Pearl is poor? He has learned about poor people in school when they talk about other districts, but he's never met a poor person. He looks over and gives Pearl a quick sniff. She backs away. "What are you doing?" Victor shrugs.
"I was seeing if you were dirty, like we learned that the poor kids in the districts are. But you don't seem that dirty to me." He tells her. Pearl nods again.
"Oh yeah, we learned the same stuff. Only, being poor in District 1 is different. Plus, there are showers here at the Training Center. I'm at the Training Center because it got hard for my daddy to feed me, because he works in the diamond mines and nobody's rich there. He says I have to try hard not to be eliminated for as long as possible, so I can get fed good stuff." Victor looks at Pearl.
"What's eliminated?" Pearl explains to him that that's what it's called when you get sent back home. Victor remembers that he's heard the word before. Suddenly, a huge boy comes and steals Victor's apple. The boy is absolutely gigantic and he turns to laugh with his absolutely gigantic friends. Victor frowns. That was his apple. But Pearl gets up and literally blocks the boy's way. Victor sits back in shock. What is she doing? That boy could crush her like a bug! The boy looks shocked too for a second, then regains his composure and bends down to look at Pearl. "Well, do you want to get out of the way, little girl?" He says in a menacing voice. But Pearl stands strong.
"That was my friend's apple. Give it back to him now." All of the huge boys start laughing. Victor feels his face turn red. Why won't Pearl just sit down? Well, Pearl obviously isn't listening.
"Victor needs that apple so he can grow into a big Career, because that's what he wants to be." She stops for a minute and puts her hands on her hips. Victor tries to make himself even smaller. Maybe if he tries hard enough he can disappear. Pearl shouts the next words to the huge boy. "But you're not gonna be a Career, because Careers have to be smart and you're dumb." The boy draws back his arm. Victor puts his head in his hands. That boy is going to punch Pearl! In that moment, he decides to be the big and strong Career he's planning to be. He is going to punch that boy right back. But instead, the shocked boy just hands Victor back his apple. Well, he probably doesn't want to hit a little girl. Victor stares at the apple in his palm. Oh yes, Pearl is very different from anyone he has ever met. But he thinks he's just found a friend.