Life With No Games

Chapter 8: Dinner With The President

I'm not the first one there. Beetee and Enobaria are talking in a corner and Annie's fixing Blake's tie. When she spots me she turns.

     "Hi Katniss!" She says excitedly. It sounds like she wants to know what happened with Rue because we never got a chance to talk after that.

     "I told her um kind of..." I say, "It was fine... just complicated." She nods.

The thing I like most about Annie is that she understands and doesn't question things. I can talk about just about anything and the first thing she'll reply is"I get it."

I smile at her and she smiles back. I decide to go and check out the food and I pick a bunch of stuff for us to share. Just then Johanna walks in with her daughter. She walks straight towards me only taking a small break to get a piece of cheesecake with her name in golden icing on the top.

     "Katniss!" she says, I wait for more but that's it.

     "Hi Johanna!" I reply, "Hi Alexa," I say to her daughter. "I heard you just finish school!"

     "Ya." Alexa says, "Now I can spend the rest of my life doing nothing, because I'm never moving out." She definitely has her mother's humor. 

Everyone chats for a bit, but finally the lights dim.

     "Is there going to be a show?" asks Rue.

     "I don't think so." I reply, unsure. The lights flicker back on and a woman is standing there.

     "Sorry about that." she says, "I just wanted to get your attention." She has light brown hair in a braid, just like my signature one, but there is something about her eyes that reminds me of someone, but I don't know who. "My name is Cassia Snow, or President Cassia Snow now I guess." Now I know who I'm seeing and President Snow's eyes are never leaving my brain ever again.

It takes a minute for everyone to register what she just said, but once they do I see no one has the same reaction as me. I see anger, shock and confusion, mostly from my kids. But me, I full of fear. This is exactly what I thought would happen. President Snow's granddaughter rose to power and now she's going to kill us to pay for killing her grandfather. I try to throw up all the stuff I ate here back up, knowing it's poisoned. That's the way Snow killed his enemies, it would be really funny if that's the way we die. To Cassia anyway.

And to make it worse I gave food to my children! Now Rue and Finnick will have to die as well!

     "Now, now" Cassia says, "I know it's a surprise, President Snow's granddaughter as the new president! Who would have guessed?" She laughs, but not an evil one like her grandfather, one that makes me want to laugh along too.

     "This has to be a joke!" Johanna says, with the same power in her voice as 25 years ago. Alexa nods along with Enobaria. Beetee, Peeta and Haymitch are waiting for more information and Annie is clutching her head, while Blake tries to console her. But me, I'm ready to grab my kids and run, except I'm frozen in my spot.

     "This is not a joke, but please let me explain." Cassia gestures to a large round table. We all willingly go for a reason no one can explain. "Also get food, because this may be a long talk." No one moves. "Okay..." She says awkwardly, but she starts her "story" anyway.

     "I grew up under the shadow of my grandfather, but from a young age I never understood why the capital did the hunger games. Hadn't the rebels faced their punishment? But Katniss," She gestures and looks at me. I'm frozen,waiting to hear more. "You were my inspiration. I used to always wear my hair like I'm wearing now, hoping to one day find true love and save them like you did. Little did I know it was all an act." Her hand touches the tip of her braid, deep in thought. "When the rebellion broke out I didn't know what to think, but like everyone in the capital, I was scared. We had always had everything and now we had almost nothing. I started wearing my hair down and started hating the rebels and victors, especially after my grandfather was killed."

There it is, the end of the story, when she tells us that we are here to die. Maybe I could bargain with her. Tell her to kill me, but not my kids. Maybe because I didn't kill her grandfather, she would let Rue and Finnick live. But he died anyway, so I guess we are going to too. But she wasn't done.

     "But thank you Katniss for killing President Coin, because as I looked into it more, you saved me I could have been killed in a hunger games." She shoots Johanna a dirty look and I remember sitting down 25 years ago. Deciding to have a ceremonial hunger games with capital children, how Johanna mentioned that President Snow had a granddaughter.

     "I decided to do more research into the districts and the first and second rebellion and I found that I agree with you and I am a rebel on the inside. So I decided to run for president, hoping to help other people understand the rebellion and make Panem a better place. Of course it was hard, but finally after years of motivational speeches people finally voted for President Snow's granddaughter as the new president!" She exhales and waits for reactions.

     "So you aren't going to kill us?" Is all that I can manage to stay. Cassia laughs, her friendly laugh.

     "Of course not," Her smile fades a bit. "My grandfather did some horrible things. I don't blame you for killing him." She looks at me and her brown eyes glow. "But thank you Katniss, again for killing President Coin instead of my grandpa. He did die, but you showed Panem that he wasn't the only villain.

     "So why are we here three days early?" Peeta asks.

     "I wanted to meet all of you and also have extra celebrations." Cassia bites her lip. "Oh sorry, you probably were all rushed to leave. I never thought of that, I was just so excited to meet you!"

I decided to go to the buffet and pick out a bunch of food. I trust Cassia if she wanted to kill us, she could have. I sit back down and Cassia starts talking again.

     " So for a special celebration as a victory for the rebels we will be doing a 7 day festival. One day for each surviving victor. We will go in order of year, so Beetee's first, winning the 39th hunger games. Haymitch is second, winning the 50th, Enobaria is third, winning the 62nd, Annie winning the 70th, Johanna winning the 71st and even though Katniss and Peeta won the same games, you still will have separate days and Katniss will be on the last day with an extra special rebellion finale day! Any questions?"

 She waits for people to say something, but everyone is so starstruck, if that's the right word. They all have this planned, we each get a day and of course I'm the centre of attention, the last day. The biggest day. Cassia starts talking to Beetee about his day tomorrow, and asks him if he wants to make a speech. Johanna keeps interrupting her and asks what will happen on her day.

I just make sure that Rue and Finnick have something to eat and just try and wrap my head around what happening. So the dreaded three day victors day is now a whole week. Cassia turns to me.

     "Katniss, I'm going to have to focus on you the most because you have the big finale. I'm going to have to get you to do a speech."

     "About what?" I ask

     "Anything really, you could talk about the rebellion, tributes, your life now. Anything."

I really don't want to do a speech. But I know I can't talk myself out of it. If not Cassia, Peeta. He can talk me into anything and he knows it.

     "Okay," Is all I can say.

     "Perfect." She smiles again and walks over to Haymitch.

So I have to do a speech. What should I do it on? Should I talk about Rue? No I always talk about her, I need to talk about something different, something new. The rebellion? I don't really want to talk about that.

We are invited to stay at the mansion and I accept. I decide to ask Peeta later about what to make a speech on.

     "I think you shouldn't plan it Katniss," He says. "You always do your best when things are improvised."

     "But I can't go on stage and can't think of anything." I reply and Peeta nods.

     "Maybe have your basic topic and know what you're going to talk about." He suggests.

     "Thank you honey." I kiss him on his cheek. I still don't know what I'm going to do, but his advice means the world to me. "I'm excited to learn about Beetee's games."

     "Ya, it will be interesting, this whole week will." He says.

     "I guess," I mumble and I decide to go to bed.