You Are My Mockingjay- Watty's Finalist 2013

Night before Senior year

The boys played a few more minutes until heat exhaustion came upon them.  The sun had reached it's hottest point to where the boys were sweating from head to toe.  "That's it, I quit!"  Said a breathless Peeta who wiped his brow of sweat off his face.  

  "Oh good I'd thought someone was never going to say something."  Marvel says collapsing to the ground.  I need a break!"  Cato laughs at them thinking they were silly to stop but he agreed to stop for the day.  He wipes his sweaty hand on his pants and helps Marvel up from the ground.    Marvel was practically light weight compared to Cato.  For he jolts Marvel right up with one pull.

   "Come on lets get some water."  Cato says with a cool smile, the boys headed towards the girls who were chatting away with something.  From the looks of it Cato could tell it must have been something important due to the face Clove was making as he approached.  "What are you girls talking about?" Said Cato as he bends down to reach for his water. Taking a couple chugs from it he looks into Cloves eyes.  But she refused to look.  

  "Oh I know what it is."  Marvel says as he nudges Peeta to assume that he was right.        

  "Um yeah me too."  Says Peeta says awkwardly.  

  Katniss and Clove look at him strangely.  "Oh really, then what is it?"  

  "Your talking about guys."  Marvel winks with a smile.  Marvel was always known as the clown in the group which he was proud of.  Laughter surrounds the group except from Clove who just stared at Marvel turning red.  

 "No that's not it you dummy.  We were talking about our senior wishes." Katniss implies. 

Peeta looks up glumly feeling slightly dumb.  "Oh thaaat, ok I see now."  

  Katniss nudges Clove on the leg with her elbow.  But Clove doesn't do much other then looks to Cato.  "What did you girls say?"  Marvel says as he takes a seat below Clove who almost sat in some gum.  

  "Well I said that I want to focus on my grades to get into a good collage."  Katniss says as she places her water bottle down.

Peeta looks at her squarely.  "Oh please, you know your a hard worker and you have gotten great grades in the past.  Why pressure yourself?"  

  Eyes stare into Peeta as Katniss glares at him.  "Because Peeta, this is our final year to prove to ourselves on what we can do.  Our whole lives depend on this."  

Peeta puts his hands up innocently. "Hey I was just asking.  You know I didn't mean it negatively."  

  Katniss wipes her hands of her black stretch pants.  "I know I just, this just really is important to me and I want to give it my all."

  "What about you Clove?"  Clove surprisingly turns swiftly to the side to face Marvel and the group as he digs into a bag of BBQ chips.  

"I really haven't thought about it...you?"

 "I want to go into the championships for wrestling and maybe if I can pull my grades up I hope to end up going to Dukeford collage."  A soft smile comes through Cloves face as she was happy to see Marvel interested in his education.  

"For me I just want to enjoy every minute of it, I mean who knows when we will all see each other after we graduate."  Cato said standing half up on the bleachers.  

  "More importantly I want to be more outgoing then I have been in the past. I feel like I have enclosed myself these past three years of high school and I don't want that for myself anymore." Marvel says as he tries to swallow some chips.