When The Canary Sings

Stay Alive.

First Person Point of View: Becca Blue: 

*

"Katniss?" I call as Haymitch, Effie and I wait outside of her locked bedroom door. Inside, she is sobbing, "Katniss, what happened?" I ask, but she continues to sob.

"Darling, did you freeze?" Effie calls, "it couldn't have been that bad!" She muses, I look at her through the corner of my eye. Today was the individual assessments, before both of them went down, I pulled them aside and told them to give 'em a show. They didn't even have time to react to what I said because Effie whisked them away.

Eventually, It is just me waiting outside Katniss' door. "Katniss?" I ask, one final time, but she responds with a harsh 'go away,' and I leave. I slug myself back to my room and gaze at my pristine white guitar that sits in the corner. It looks back at me, and I look away, scared of my own guitar. It feels stupid, it sounds stupid, but when I'm away from home, from Will, from the sky and birds, I have no motivation to even write. Sure, I hum and sing softly whenever I'm alone, but in the Capitol, much like the colors and fashion, everything seems so forced and unneeded. Even my singing.

Eventually, I get called outside for dinner. Effie practically hauls Katniss out of her room to come and eat. The scores will be televised live for everyone to see, and considering Katniss's reaction earlier once she came back, I have a pit growing in my stomach. I mean, I got a ten, and she came back sobbing. What could that mean?

Dinner is relentless, Katniss and Peeta are completely silent, and the adults are making small talk and don't even bother talking to me. It's like I don't even exist! The worst part is Ophelia isn't here, and I don't even know how to find her, or how to call her since I don't have her number. Suddenly, I lock eyes with Katniss.

"You okay?" I mouth, and she gives me a small nod. Lie. Then, Haymitch interrupts the boring small talk.

"That's enough small talk, how bad were you today?" He asks so bluntly I think Effie's head might explode like a volcano. I turn my head to Peeta.

"I don't even know if it matters," Peeta snarks, "by the time I showed up, they wouldn't even look at me. They were singing some drinking songs, so I threw around some heavy things til they said I could go." He scoffs, and I see Katniss relax a bit.

"And you, sweetheart?" Haymitch asks, and I can tell that Katniss does not like the nickname because her head snaps up.

"I shot an arrow at the gamemakers." She says.

"Ya' what?!"

"You what?!" Effie and I exclaim at the same time, but I am more happy with this revelation. She did it! She made a show! I rejoice in my head, silently praising her.

"Not at them, in their direction," she quickly defends, "they were ignoring me! So I shot an apple at that stupid pig roast's mouth!" She fumes, and I give her a reassuring smile.

"Good job," I whisper, and she cocks an eyebrow.

"What'd they say?" Cinna asks.

"I dunno," Katniss shrugs, "I walked out after that."

"Without being dismissed?!" Effie gasps, clearly horrified, two of the preps from Peeta's team try to calm her down. They end up doing nothing.

"Well, that's that." Haymitch shrugs, buttering a roll, and I almost laugh at how little he is bothered by what just happened.

"Will they arrest me?" Katniss asks, this time looking at me.

"No," I assure her, not really knowing if I was correct. "They couldn't replace you. Not this late." I say, knowing that this does little to ease her worries. They could just send some mutts after her in the arena, but I'll make sure she can survive those.