to do. Even at school I used to avoid eating at a crowded table. Frankly, I'd probably have sat alone if Madge hadn't made a habit of joining me. I guess I'd have eaten with Gale except, being two grades apart, our lunch never fell at the same time.
I take a tray and start making my way around the food-laden carts that ring the room. Peeta catches up with me at the stew. “How's it going?”
“Good. Fine. I like the District Three victors,” I say. “Wiress and Beetee.”
“Really?” he asks. “They're something of a joke to the others.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” I say. I think of how Peeta was always surrounded at school by a crowd of friends. It's amazing, really, that he ever took any notice of me except to think I was odd.
“Johanna's nicknamed them Nuts and Volts,” he says. “I think she's Nuts and he's Volts.”
“And so I'm stupid for thinking they might be useful. Because of something Johanna Mason said while she was oiling up her breasts for wrestling,” I retort.
“Actually I think the nickname's been around for years. And I didn't mean that as an insult. I'm just sharing information,” he says.
“Well, Wiress and Beetee are smart. They invent things. They could tell by sight that a force field had been put up between us and the Gamemakers. And if we have to have allies, I want them.” I toss the ladle back in a pot of stew, splattering us both with the gravy.
“What are you so angry about?” Peeta asks, wiping the gravy from his shirtfront. “Because I teased you on the elevator? I'm sorry. I thought you would just laugh about it.”
“Forget it,” I say with a shake of my head. “It's a lot of things.”
“Darius,” he says.
“Darius. The Games. Haymitch making us team up with the others,” I say.
“It can just be you and me, you know,” he says.
“I know. But maybe Haymitch is right,” I say. “Don't tell him I said so, but he usually is, where the Games are concerned.”
“Well, you can have final say about our allies. But right now, I'm leaning toward Chaff and Seeder,” says Peeta.
“I'm okay with Seeder, not Chaff,” I say. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Come on and eat with him. I promise, I won't let him kiss you again,” says Peeta.
Chaff doesn't seem as bad at lunch. He's sober, and while he talks too loud and makes bad jokes a lot, most of them are at his own expense. I can see why he would be good for Haymitch, whose thoughts run so darkly. But I'm still not sure I'm ready to team up with him.
I try hard to be more sociable, not just with Chaff but with the group at large. After lunch I do the edible- insect station with the District 8 tributes — Cecelia, who's got three kids at home, and Woof, a really old guy who's hard of hearing and doesn't seem to know what's going on since he keeps trying to stuff poisonous bugs in his mouth. I wish I could mention meeting Twill and Bonnie in the woods, but I can't figure out how. Cashmere and Gloss, the sister and brother from District 1, invite me over and we make hammocks for a while. They're polite but cool, and I spend the whole time thinking about how I killed both the tributes from their district, Glimmer and Marvel, last year, and that they probably knew them and might even have been their mentors. Both my hammock and my attempt to connect with them are mediocre at best. I join Enobaria at sword training and exchange a few comments, but it's clear neither of us wants to team up. Finnick appears again when I'm picking up fishing tips, but mostly just to introduce me to Mags, the elderly woman who's also from District 4. Between her district accent and her garbled speech — possibly she's had a stroke — I can't make out more than one in four words. But I swear she can make a decent fishhook out of anything—a thorn, a wishbone, an earring. After a while I tune out the trainer and simply try to copy whatever Mags does. When I make a pretty good hook out of a bent nail and fasten it to some strands of my hair, she gives me a toothless smile and an unintelligible comment I think might be praise. Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. It couldn't be because she thought she had any chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim. And I decide I want her on my team.
Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He'll love that.
So I give up trying to make friends and go over to the archery range for some sanity. It's wonderful there, getting to try out all the different bows and arrows. The trainer, Tax, seeing that the standing targets offer no challenge for me, begins to launch these silly fake birds high into the air for me to hit. At first it seems stupid, but it turns out to be kind of fun. Much more like hunting a moving creature. Since I'm hitting everything he throws up, he starts increasing the number of birds he sends airborne. I forget the rest of the gym and the victors and how miserable I am and lose myself in the shooting. When I manage to take down five birds in one round, I realize it's so quiet I can hear each one hit the floor. I turn and see the majority of the victors have stopped to watch me. Their faces show everything from envy to hatred to admiration.
After training, Peeta and I hang out, waiting for Haymitch and Effie to show up for dinner. When we're called to eat, Haymitch pounces on me immediately. “So at least half the victors have instructed their mentors to request you as an ally. I know it can't be your sunny personality.”
“They saw her shoot,” says Peeta with a smile. “Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I'm about to put in a formal request myself.”
“You're that good?” Haymitch asks me. “So good that Brutus wants you?”
I shrug. “But I don't want Brutus. I want Mags and District Three.”
“Of course you do.” Haymitch sighs and orders a bottle of wine. “I'll tell everybody you're still making up your mind.”
After my shooting exhibition, I still get teased some, but I no longer feel like I'm being mocked. In fact, I feel as if I've somehow been initiated into the victors' circle. During the next two days, I spend time with almost everybody headed for the arena. Even the morphlings, who, with Peeta's help, paint me into a field of yellow flowers. Even Finnick, who gives me an hour of trident lessons in exchange for an hour of archery instruction. And the more I come to know these people, the worse it is. Because, on the whole, I don't hate them. And some I like. And a lot of them are so damaged that my natural instinct would be to protect them. But all of them must die if I'm to save Peeta.
The final day of training ends with our private sessions. We each get fifteen minutes before the Gamemakers to amaze them with our skills, but I don't know what any of us might have to show them. There's a lot of kidding about it at lunch. What we might do. Sing, dance, strip, tell jokes. Mags, who I can understand a little better now, decides she's just going to take a nap. I don't know what I'm going to do. Shoot some arrows, I guess. Haymitch said to surprise them if we could, but I'm fresh out of ideas.
As the girl from 12, I'm scheduled to go last. The dining room gets quieter and quieter as the tributes file out to go perform. It's easier to keep up the irreverent, invincible manner we've all adopted when there are more of us. As people disappear through the door, all I can think is that they have a matter of days to live.
Peeta and I are finally left alone. He reaches across the table to take my hands. “Decided what to do for the Gamemakers yet?”
I shake my head. “I can't really use them for target practice this year, with the force field up and all. Maybe make some fishhooks. What about you?”
“Not a clue. I keep wishing I could bake a cake or something,” he says.
“Do some more camouflage,” I suggest.
“If the morphlings have left me anything to work with,” he says wryly. “They've been glued to that station since training started.”
We sit in silence awhile and then I blurt out the thing that's on both our minds. “How are we going to kill these people, Peeta?”
“I don't know.” He leans his forehead down on our entwined hands.
“I don't want them as allies. Why did Haymitch want us to get to know them?” I say. “It'll make it so much harder than last time. Except for Rue maybe. But I guess I never really could’ve killed her, anyway. She was just too much like Prim.”
Peeta looks up at me, his brow creased in thought. “Her death was the most despicable, wasn't it?”
“None of them were very pretty,” I say, thinking of Glimmer's and Cato's ends.
