Part II.
Swimming in the Flood.
There's plenty of applause as I return to my seat. I realize that Mr. Zimmer called me "Margarete" going up, and Mags coming down. Margarete is an anonymous tribute. Mags is a girl you'd like to be your friend. I think I was decent at doing what I hoped to do. It's all a little overwhelming, so I don't notice at first that Beanpole is up there taking his turn.
He's explaining why he's called Beanpole. He's as tall as Mr. Zimmer, he demonstrates. The iffy nutritional situation in 4 during the Dark Days as we struggled to spread our supplies thin enough to aid even more impoverished regions left a lot of those of us born in that time even shorter than we would have been in good circumstances, which is to say, largely smaller than those in the Capitol. Beanpole is, however, one of the three tallest tributes this year, with a modestly Capitol-worthy height. I like seeing him joking around a bit. I want people to like him too.
It still takes me by surprise when he mentions me. "We have one other thing in common," he tells Mr. Zimmer once seated. "And what's that?"
"We're friends with Mags."
I see my face up onscreen as the camera cuts to my reaction. I look surprised, then sort of embarrassed.
"And I don't make friends as easily as she does," he continues. "Which I'm hoping makes it easier for me to do whatever I have to in the arena."
Beanpole still wants to win. If Beanpole wins, "Mags was a very nice friend," will be my elegy. I could have worse.
Mr. Zimmer pegs him for the serious type and Beanpole explains how he had to grow up early and "be a man" for his mother's sake. He wants to win for her. Mrs. Mirande must be going crazy about now. …Should I have mentioned Papa? I guess it's a moot point.
For the first time I wonder if there were any girls back home with crushes on Beanpole. He didn't have any girlfriend I ever knew about, but he's tall and smart and responsible. These are qualities that could be liked in that manner. If he wins, will girls in the Capitol swoon over his hard-won smiles and gentle melancholy?
I wonder if the cameras catch us jabbing one another with our elbows when he returns to his seat beside mine.
The interviews go on. I think Laurie's shows that she's smart. Sparrow is poised, and, no, she does not have a "special someone" back home. Haakon seems excited, Cadelle Vetiver admits he's "not up to Luna's standard," but doesn't regret his decision to volunteer in the least. He dedicates his performance to his victor cousin- "if it's good." Daisy is too shy to talk very much.
By the time the tributes from 12 are finished, the energy has petered out of the room a bit. The program concludes with the national anthem and a few peppy comments from Mr. Zimmer.
We file into the back to meet our escorts, but it's dark and crowded. I wonder if any tribute has ever tried to escape at this point. I don't know how far you could get with our rudimentary knowledge of the Capitol, but you could definitely be lost in the confusion for a while.
Apple finds us though, efficient in her own curious way. Erinne catches us on our way to the car and tells us we wore our outfits very well. We thank her and Spring and Irish for their hard work. As Aulus holds the door open for us, I catch sight of Jack Umber for a moment. Clark is telling him something, but he's clearly looking at me. The joke? I doubt I'll ever know why since I'll be in the arena by ten o'clock tomorrow.
We got back to our floor of the Training Center and eat a late dinner. I would have been worried about messing up my makeup if we'd eaten before and nerves might have dampened my appetite, but this is going to be my last full meal- I'd better enjoy it. I'm not sure I should be pleased or embarrassed that I'm able to. Beanpole sort of picks at his plate.
"When you talked to Mr. Zimmer, I thought you could win," I tell him over what he dubbed our "pre-funeral death meal," much to Apple's dismay (Aulus tried not to laugh). I can't very well say that it's the first time I thought he might win, but I figure he ought to know.
"When you talked, I thought you deserved to win," he counters.
Apple tries to say something optimistic, but it's kind of hard to tell us we'll be okay when one of us- at minimum- will go home in a box. Hopefully still recognizable. There've been some closed casket affairs among the twenty-two tributes returned to 4 before us.
I'm getting tired of watching recaps of things I've just been through, but resign myself to sitting through the replay of the interviews. I close my eyes and cover my ears with my hands when it's my turn. I can't stand listening to myself. It's so stupid and terrible. Beanpole really did look cool though.
"Mags!" Beanpole yanks me out of my self-imposed sensory exodus just in time for me to see Jack Umber looking positively delighted by my joke in his style.
"He liked you better than his tributes," Beanpole determines. When they'd shown him during Clark and Korona's interviews, he'd smiled in mild approval- nearly a non-reaction compared to this, but…
"No way," I argue, "He was just surprised."
I pull my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. Did I make Papa sad back home, or did he smile? I hope that he understands my not mentioning him- that I didn't mean him any harm.
I've got to hand it to Jeff Zimmer. He makes everyone look as good as he can. I can believe that nearly any of us could win from the way he treats everyone.
The playing of the anthem at the end of the program feels very final. Beanpole and I will leave for the arena at dawn. This is it for Apple. Aulus will stay over for the night to walk us down to our transportation in the morning.
"This year will be it for Four," Apple says, "I bet it will." She hugs each of us. "You've both been very nice to know and escort. Stay cheerful, Beanpole. I hope I was able to answer all you nosy questions to your satisfactions, Mags."
"Pretty much," I allow.
She's a bit wound up. "I'll watch the Games diligently as long as you're out there," she promises before hurrying out to the elevator in her pearl-encrusted heels.
"She doesn't want you to see her cry," Aulus shares a sad smile with us.
"You know that stuff we said about giving you a nickname if one of us won," Beanpole reminds him.
"Yeah?"
"We lied, Aulie," I continue.
Aulus hugs both of us at once (and boy is his hug stifling). He doesn't share Apple's reservations about crying in public and watching the makeup running down his face is more than enough to break me and Beanpole both. The three of us are basically an awful mess when he lets go and suggest we wash up and go to sleep.
Showering is a great idea. Sleep is harder. At first I keep drifting off only to wake up ten or fifteen minutes later. I hold onto my old dress from home again like it's a safety blanket. I dream about getting into a tiny rowboat with Beanpole and drifting off to sea without any sails or oars or even a pole to punt with. I dream of Papa caught up in the rebellion with his unhappily itchy trigger finger. It isn't the Games, but it's vaguely troubling stuff.
Aulus comes to fetch me, but I'm already awake. "'Morning," I yawn. He hands me some shoes and a jacket as I get out of bed. "What? Shouldn't I change?"
"You'll get uniformed up there, so might as well stay as you are. I just want you to stay warm in the meantime." Aulus' hair is messy and he's not wearing a dab of makeup. I take the clothes he offers and ask him to hold onto my dress from home on the off chance either Beanpole or I will be back for it. Beanpole is nearly sleeping on his feet in his pajamas, a jacket, and shoes without socks, just like me. Instead of going down, this time we ride the elevator up past floors that were so recently occupied by the tributes from Districts 5 through 12 to the roof. Aulus gives us one last hug before we're instructed to step into a waiting hovercraft.
Beanpole and I set across from each other and a woman in a lab coat uses a syringe to stick some kind of tracking chip into my arm. We take off and I can't help but snicker, being a bit sleep-deprived, at how ridiculous the two of us look. I peer out the window at the Capitol below us for a few seconds, but it makes me dizzy, so I turn away. After a while the staff pull the shades down over the windows anyway. An Avox brings us some food, but it's hard to eat. I drink some milk and pick at a bunch of grapes.
The landing is a little bumpier than our takeoff. "If I don't see you again, I want you to know I'm really glad we were friends," I tell Beanpole, "And I'm grateful to your mom for always being so nice to me and Papa."
"Me too, I-"
Whatever else Beanpole wants to say is interrupted by the hovercraft coming to a stop and the staff separating us for our final preparations. I'm taken down a dimly lit hallway to a small room. "Get changed into your uniform. Wait for further instructions," the woman tells me.
The door clicks shut behind me. I try the knob out of reflex. It's locked. My outfit for the Games is wrapped up in brown paper. There's a small shower, but I feel clean enough as it is and I'd be slightly concerned about getting my hair dry in the time remaining before I go up into the arena. I don't know if it will be cold out there.
I laugh when I open the package because the first things I uncover are the underwear. No wonder Aulus didn't see any point in our getting dressed. They really know what they want us to wear out there. No built in advantages or disadvantages based on our clothing, I guess. I'm a little grossed out to realize that the way they'll know I've completely changed is by watching via hidden camera. At least this part isn't aired all over Panem. …And in the arena they'll be watching everything. Get over it, forget about it.
There are socks, pants, a shirt with sleeves that almost reach my elbow, a slim-fitting jacket that reaches just past my waist, and a pair of black boots that don't quite meet my knees. I change everything except my ring. The clothes are pretty lightweight, so it probably won't be covered in snow out there. They're basically standard Games attire. Most of the outfits have been something like this. There's a stylized black "4" printed on the side of the right shoulder of the shirt, but it's hidden under my jacket.
I splash some water on my face from the sink. Behind the bathroom mirror are supplies I use to brush my teeth and fix my hair. Behind the bathroom mirror are supplies I use to pull, twist, and pin it into my usual look- like two lumpy coils of rope rolled up on the sides of my head. It should hold. I sit down on the little bench to wait. I close my eyes, but don't sleep; it's just a small concession to the knowledge that I'll need all the rest I can get soon enough.
Maybe I doze off a bit because I'm startled into alertness by a voice overhead instructing me (everyone) to stop onto the round metal plate in the far back alcove of the cell for a final inspection. Maybe I was wrong and no one was being examined by camera until then… Of course, then something could be hidden under your clothes? Maybe there are metal detectors.
Apparently we're all judged ready. "Stand still and prepare for lift off," the female voice instructs us. A glass tube lowers down around me. I feel so nervous as I start to lift up through it that I wonder if I'm claustrophobic and just never knew it before. It's dark. This is taking too long. Then sunlight strikes the top of my head and I'm passing out of the tube into the fresh air. It's bright and my bangs move a bit in the breeze.
I know that Jeff Zimmer will be providing much of the televised commentary on the Games, but it's Longinus Bronze's imposing tone that welcomes me here. How do they get it so loud when I don't see any speakers?
"Ladies and gentlemen, let the Twelfth Hunger Games begin!"
Sixty seconds are being counted down before the sounding of the gong will send us scattering. The Capitol's glittering Cornucopia sits in the middle of a ring of equidistant tributes, further up the hill we're on. I'm standing closest to Petey, from 3, and Jem, from 11. It's boy-girl again, but aside from that, the order looks random. Some of the packages in and around the Cornucopia are big. Others could fit in the palm of my hand. This time I'd estimate there are about twenty-four of them- one for each of us if we sat down for Exchange Day and divided them all up. Sometimes there are more, sometimes less. All the items are wrapped up in brown paper, which also makes it like Exchange Day, just without the colored nametags so I can only guess what things go to whom.
Outside of the clearing filled by tributes and the Cornucopia are a lot of slim stalks going up, up, up. It's bamboo. There are other plants, but mostly I notice bamboo- more, taller, and thicker than I've seen anywhere in 4. This might even be what they consider a "bamboo forest." I can't see anything that makes any direction look like a better choice to run to for cover or to find fresh water than any other.
Here's my plan for the next minute or so: run in, grab one thing- whatever I can easily, turn around, and run whichever way I don't see many, if any, other people headed.
The gong rattles the ground and I overbalance, falling a little too far forward, like Jack Umber with that wire, but keep on my feet. Someone- Mercy, from 8- shoots past me. I'm not greedy and I'm not choosy- all I want is my one "present." My eye's on the prize as I snatch a small parcel and Bailey, Sparrow's counterpart from 6, trips over my arm. I nearly drop the packet in pain and surprise. The toe of his boot hit my arm pretty hard. I can hear the sound of ripping paper as someone's bold enough to unwrap an item here, but I'm not about to stick around. I clutch the package and run back the way I came and further, into the thicket of bamboo. Fallen leaves crunch under my boots. At least the slight slope continues to keep gravity on my side. I run for as long as I can at this pace, rapid, but not frantic- maybe ten or twelve minutes- without ever looking back.
By this point I'm sweating and my stomach has started to hurt. I slow to a walk, don't feel much better, and since it seems so quiet, decide to give in, sit on the ground, and see what's under that not sweat-stained paper. It's a…switchblade? Yes. I flip it open. A utility knife. "Thanks, somebody," I say quietly. This is a good gift. I'm not champion whittler, but the ability to cut things will help me make things. With all the bamboo around and my knife, I've got the basics for going fishing. I can use a few strains of my hair for a short line, craft a hook, and as long as this soil's not completely barren, dig up some kind of insect for bait. What I'm lacking now is a body of water.
All the sweating has made me thirsty. Fresh water, fresh water, fresh water. I command myself to get up and start walking agin. I close the knife and put it in one of my pants pockets. I pocket the paper and twine that made the package as well, just in case. I roll up my jacket sleeves. I'm hot. Water, water, water.
I find a half-snapped off piece of bamboo, put my foot against it for leverage, and snap it off to use as a walking stick or fishing pole or weapon, depending on the situation. Bamboo is a very useful material.
Water should flow downward along with gravity, just like I have, so if I walk down, but at an angle, I think I'll increase my chances of coming across some trickle. There's got to be some source of water supporting all this bamboo.
Did anyone fight at the Cornucopia? Even if someone died there, they won't fire any cannons until that whole melee has played out one way or another. So, did no one die or is there still fighting going on?
What I've learned from watching the Hunger Games is that it takes longer to kill a person than you'd expect in most situations. There are never any guns. There are few things as equivalently quick as a bullet to the head.
How long have I been walking? Should I be moving faster? How big is the arena? I suddenly smile as I realize how boring I must be right now to the people watching. Of course, there are still plenty of other tributes to watch, so someone's bound to be doing something moderately entertaining.
Eventually, I'm caught in a funny mix of boredom and nervousness. I don't want to kill or be killed, but it'd be kind of nice for something to happen to me.
The first cannon fires and I jump into the air about half a foot. That was unexpected. I clutch at my chest, feeling my heart beat like an overheated engine. Another shot. A third. Then silence. It's back to the soft wind and my breathing. My heart's still pounding, but I feel, rather than hear, that.
I can't come up with any better plan, so I decide to keep moving on. I straighten out my path a bit. I'm relatively sure there's no one straight ahead of me, but if I veer too far to the right or left, who knows what I'll find. The knowledge that death has visited here makes me cautious again. I think of Faline in my place. I think of Aoko walking in a forest five years ago and- I try not to think of this part. I try, I try- think of something else! But I see it in my mind anyway. She claws and scratches back against those hands around her throat. My pace slows to all but a stop as I worry over the awful memory.
The same thing almost happened to Shy Evert, the victor of those Seventh Games. She coughed blood onto the face of her attacker though and in that moment as he grappled with his surprise and disgust she pulled out the tiny knife she had salvaged. That knife had to have been half the size of the one I'm carrying now. She stabbed that boy. He was from…7, I think. Shy stabbed him five times until he let her go completely and ran as fast as her pained lungs would allow. That sly, wood-wise boy didn't die then, but his wounds got infected and made him easy pickings for another of the Seventh Games' stronger players later.
They said that Shy pretended to be sick as part of her strategy, but I don't know how anyone could fake coughing up globs of blood. By the end of her Games, she was white as a shroud. I thought she might die all by herself near the end without any of the other three finding her when she was one of the final four.
Shy Evert is one of the few victors I have rooted for. Because she got the guy who killed my best friend, I suppose. When she went into her Games, Shy was already a little of a ghost among the living, I think. She looks much healthier now. Maybe the Capitol cured her as part of her prize for having won.
I'm not walking now. That is probably not very smart of me. I'm a bit rested, physically at least, from my flashback moment, so I resume my forward motion at a quicker pace. I keep going until a fourth cannon shot jerks me to a stop. Is Beanpole okay? Is Sparrow?
I'm getting hungry, but in a sort of superficial, spoiled by the Capitol sort of way. I haven't done anything especially strenuous today compared to what I might do back home and will all the good eating the past week afforded me, it should be a small enough thing to skip lunch. Was there any food wrapped up at the Cornucopia?
If I should wish for anything, it's water though. That's more important to my survival here than food. As long as I get clean water, I'm not sure the Games will even last long enough for me to have a chance at starving to death.
The wind picks up again, but from a different direction. It feels nice and takes off some of the edge of the heat. More importantly, it has a familiar scent. It's salty. It's the sea! There's no landmark that can cheer me like the ocean- even if it's only an artificial one. I don't move like a sprinter, but, like the fishermen's families who come to meet them at the dusk, I half run, half slip down toward where I hope to meet the water.
I can hear it! There are waves! Known to me or not, this is the sea! As trees give way to scruffy beach grass and sand, I really pick up my pace and soon enough am running down the dunes to the water. I shove my bamboo pole into the damp sand, leaving it to stand on its own, and proceed until the tide is swirling up around my waterproof boots. Do I feel safe enough here to take them off and feel the squelch of sand mixed with sea underneath my bare feet? I cup a handful of water and let it dribble out between my fingers back to its source. The sun is beginning to set, beautifully reflected in the water. I didn't find the water my body need, but this is definitely the water my heart needed.
I hope Papa is seeing this. …I wish Beanpole could see it. I can't see anything on the other side of the water. It's probably meant as a boundary of the arena. But just here? How far does it wrap around the land that I've traveled? What shape is the arena? How big is it? I'm coming back around to the same questions I asked myself earlier.
The ability to possibly flee into the water faster and further than pursuers makes the water so advantageous to me that I'm not going to be quick to leave it. Tonight, I've decided, I am staying here. My jacket looks good against the sand. It's not perfect, but it will do for camouflage under cover of night. I'm basically praying to have good luck. I make sure my boots are wet all over then roll them in sand to disguise their brilliant blackness. I move back to a place the water doesn't seem to have reached during the day and lay down in the shadow of the dune. It's small protection, but I'm going to hope it will do. If there's someone out there who really wants to get me, I doubt I can come up with anything good enough to save myself. And I am the one who's going to have to save me. I can't count on anyone to do it.
I turn a bit onto my side and something pokes me in the ribs. "Oww," I grumble under my breath. I pull out the object, a bit of driftwood, and am about to chuck it away toward the water, when I remember I'm going to want to fish sooner or later. Might as well get whittling now. With night coming, I can't see too far away, but the knife and driftwood in my hands stay close by. The main difficulty of a hook made from hook is that I'm going to need something to use as a weight. There isn't much you can catch if your hook is just left floating along the top of the water.
It's nice that it looks like, temperature-wise, we're in for a mild night. The anthem starts to play from speakers I can't see. Maybe they're flown over our peninsula? (island?) like the screen that will display the photos of the tributes lost today.
The death recap goes in district order. Wiley from 2 is not who I expected to see first. It makes me curious to know what happened. Who (or what, the possibility occurs to me with a tentative burst of further nerves) killed him? The next faces jumps us forward quite a few districts. It's the round-faced girl from 9. That means Beanpole and Sparrow are, well, not necessarily safe, but alive. The girl from 9 is followed by the boy from 10 and the boy from 12- the one I pegged from the beginning as pretty much a goner. The seal of Panem concludes the presentation.
I work on the hook a little longer before putting the knife back into one pocket and the half-finished hook in another. The sound of the waves puts me at ease. "Pardon me, Apple, if I snore," I say aloud. Who knows if anyone can hear me here or if it'll be aired, but I want to say it anyway. I have a reputation as a goofball to keep up, don't I?