The Ballad of Haymitch Abernathy and Effie Trinket

Chapter 3 - arriving in the Capitol

Effie's POV (just expect that most of this will be from Effie's POV)

We finally arrived in the Capitol. I was so happy. Haymitch just didn't want to leave me alone for some reason. "Here we are," I told Peeta and Katniss, in my usual bubbly voice. It didn't seem like they wanted to talk. "You two are quiet." Peeta did not respond, but Katniss snapped at me. "We're going to go die soon! What do you expect? For us to be all chatty? Have you ever thought about that? We're gonna die!" I was shocked. Usually, the tributes just stayed quiet and barely talked to me and Haymitch. "I- sorry," I quickly said.

As we walked trough the crowd that was waiting for the tribute train, I noticed Haymitch stumbling out the train and almost falling. He did this every year. Why couldn't he just stop drinking during the time period of the games? I don't think it's that hard. He had to get help from someone in the crowd, again. I was used to this, but that doesn't mean I learned to ignore it. Being the absolute mess he was, he drew all the attention to himself. He obviously did not know this, but I would have preferred a little more of the attention to be my way. I mean, my outfits were always extremely uncomfortable, and I didn't wear them for nothing. I wore them so I might have gotten promoted to a better district.

Ugh, why was Haymitch such a mess? When I watched him in the 50th games all those years ago, he had been my all-time favorite tribute. The only reason that I accepted the job of district 12's escort, is that I would be able to meet Haymitch. Unfortunately, exactly the year I started my new job, he had turned to drinking. So when I met him for the first time, he was very drunk, and I was honestly shocked. I had never seen him that way before. That was when my main goal started to be getting a promotion.

As we walked to the tribute headquarters, I tried to start a conversation. "So, this will be your home for the next week! You'll eat here, sleep here, wash yourself here, and since you're district 12, you get the penthouse! Isn't that neat?" Neither Katniss nor Peeta replied. "Alright then, let's go to the elevator. All you have to do is press the button that says 12, and the elevator brings you to your penthouse!" "You're acting like we don't know what an elevator is," Katniss replied. "Well- um- I mean, you are from district 12." I know that wasn't the right thing to say, I just didn't know what to do. Katniss gave me a wierd look.