Sunshine - A Hunger Games Story

9| Stage-fright

All of the tributes sit in silence as we wait for our names to be called. Tonight we all present a chosen skill for the judges before they give us a final rating. Scary Mary goes first as the girl from district 1. Then Tinny Tom, 1's male tribute. District 2 goes next and so on. Rhett holds Sydney's hand before she is forced to leave for her turn.

When it is my turn, I walk into the training room, clenching and unclenching my fists as my nerves get the best of me. I walk over to the sword rack and pick up the short sword that I had practiced with and look around the room for an instructor to use as a sparring partner. There is no one.

"Um, could I get a sparring partner?" The game maker, a round blond, looks up and waves his hand sending a trainer down to pseudo-fight me.

Some of the judges quiet down while others keep talking.

The trainer grabs a sword and gets in a ready stance. He takes the first swing allowing me to block and attack, but he's ready for this. It's the same man who showed me all of the moves in the first place. I continue to dodge his attacks and try and attack him, to no avail. I struggle to remember some of the moves he taught me in between the swift strikes.

Eventually I make the decision to knock the sword out of his hands and finish things hand to hand. With my light body, I easily dodged his subsequent punch and I uppercut him like I've seen a field worker do when he was trying to evade capture after stealing corn. In the end, I pin the dude down and quickly back down, claiming victory.

A few judges clap as I leave, panting the way there. I go straight to bed afterwards. I am exhausted.

The next morning, our scores are to be revealed. Elouise, Humphrey, Jasmine and Fred's stylist, Minnie, Fred, and I all sit squished together on the couch facing the T.V. watching Caesar.

"District 1, Tom Huffman... with a six. Mary Nelson... with an eleven." A little later, he announces district 4's score. "Rhett Parker... with a score of ten. Sydney Parker... with a score of seven. District 5, Floyd Glenn... with a score of seven. Faith Singleton.. With a score of eight. " Finally, he announced district 8, soon to be followed by my district. "Henri Peaches... with a score of six. Katy Perking... With a score of ten. Fred Thomson... with a score of nine. Ayesha Santana... with a score of nine." Nine. That's ¾ of a full score. Amazing.

Humphrey congratulates me on my high score. Jasmine ushers me downstairs to the dressing rooms to get ready for tonight. When I asked, she said "It's never too early to start."

"I made the perfect dress for tonight. It's going to be the new 'in' style." She holds up an emerald green dress with glitter covering the top and small yellow pok-a-dots along the skirt. Jasmine lowers the a-line dress onto me with the help of the rest of her prep team. I get to look in a wall length mirror as they all do my make-up. The dress covered all of my legs with silky green and left my muscular arms completely uncovered. The color made my forest green eyes pop, along with the help of the make-up my prep team spent hours putting on. The green dress also contrasted with my almond-brown hair. The brown strands were woven together into two braids, showing off the strands of lighter and darker colors that came from sun-bleaching. Jasmine gave me flats saying "With the length of that dress and your lack of experience with heels, I'm sure we can get away with flats. It will make you look more sophisticated if everyone thinks you're walking perfectly with heels on. Plus you're tall, which makes it even better."

I have my dress on, shoes, make-up, hair done, I even snuck on my anklet from my district which got past the inspection.. Now, it's time for the show. Or to wait in line for another hour to wait for my turn.

Henri is in front of me in line and I can tell he is nervous. "Hey Henri. You'll do great, kid. Don't worry so much. Do you know what you're going to say?"