Too Clever

Chapter 16

     The next couple hours are absolutely miserable, and I'm beginning to think that my life is slowly coming to an end. How could I have been so ignorant? I'm an extremely intelligent person; I get some of the highest grades in my class, and I've always been smarter than the average person. So why now, in the Hunger Games, do I do something so drastically stupid as to put my life in danger?
     My anger at myself actually gives me a small serge of energy, and I suddenly want to do something to fix this utter nonsense I put myself in right at this very moment. But I know I can't. I have to wait, or I'll just get myself into a whole new mess with the Careers.
     A few more hours.
     Will I be able to wait that long? I think. Or will I collapse from dehydration and never get up?
     The thought scares me, and I have to remind myself that I still have those oranges that I can get a little juice from. I eat one now and save the rest for later, just in case I have to stay here longer. I can't stand the thought of that, and I quickly distract my mind with tying little knots in the bag containing the oranges. But this only makes my head hurt more, and I finally have to accept that I will have to sit here and do nothing for the next few hours and hope that I'll be able to stick it out.
     Just a few hours.
     The seconds drag by, turning to minutes, to hours, like a clock ticking away the last moments of my life. I vaguely notice a beehive above my head in the trees, but I don't want to waste energy in moving quite yet.
     And then something great finally happens—the sun begins to descend, and with it, twilight arrives. I can barely focus because my vision is blurred as an effect of dehydration, but I can just see through the leaves the Careers lighting their torches and gathering up their weapons. Finally, the group treks into the forest to begin another night of hunting. It's strange, they seem a little slow and not as alert as they've always been. Maybe something happened to them earlier. But I dismiss the thought and blame my bad judgment on my foggy mind. Right before they disappear into the tree line, I notice that the pack looks a little small, but I can't make out who is missing. I know that this time, I'm not imagining things. Could some of them be dead? Did the two cannons that woke me up this morning signify the death of a Career, maybe two?
     I wait another few agonizingly long minutes. Then I run as fast I my shaky legs will allow in this state to the lake, my water skin clutched between my fingers.
I immediately dunk the water skin into the water, soaking myself almost up to my elbow in my haste, and gulp it down in a matter of seconds. I know I should technically be purifying it with a few drops of iodine, but I don't have any at the moment and I'm in no shape to be scavenging around for any in the Cornucopia. Plus, if there is any iodine in the heap of weapons and supplies, the Careers might be using it and would probably notice if I took it. I'll just have make do with what I have.
I drink a little more water, fill it up to the rim again, and return to my stuff in the woods, feeling a little better, or at least less shaky, then before.
     The anthem begins to play, and the Capital seal lights up the sky. There were two cannons fired today at dawn, and as cruel as it sounds, I'm eager to know whose deaths they signified. Could it be a Career?
     It turns out I did have a bit of good fortune today. Glimmer's face appears on the screen. Following her face is...another Career! Both female tributes from 1 and 4 are dead. Two less Careers to worry about now. I know I shouldn't be celebrating a person's death, but it does mean that I am one step closer to home. One step closer to my family.
     I wonder how Glimmer and girl from District 4, Cora, died. At first, I think of natural causes, but that's not logical; the Careers have the whole Cornucopia of food, and the lake is right beside them as well. Then what else could it be? The Careers couldn't have begun to turn on each other this early in the Games, could they?
     Oh well, all that matters is that three of them are dead—Glimmer and both tributes from 4—and I'm still here.
     I wonder how my family is holding up. If they're watching the Games on the large screen in the square or at home. If neighbors and friends are supporting them. If they believe they might see me again. I have have so many questions I may never know the answers to. They swirl around in my head until sleep chases them away.
                          **********
     The next morning, I awake to the soft sound of chirping birds. The sound is so sweet I momentarily forget where I am, why I'm here. I only listen to birds as they bounce notes back and forth, creating a beautiful melody. I get a glimpse of one flying above my head and its grey and white features identify it as a mockingjay.
     Also above my head is a large, tan colored wasp nest. Suddenly I return back to reality, and a chill runs through me. The bees' gold bodies tell me they are tracker jackers, as I learned from my father back at home. I realize I noticed this wasp nest last night when I was on the brink of dehydration, but I didn't think anything of it.
     Being in the presence of a mutt worries me, and I need to move somewhere else. It's not an option to venture deeper into the forest like I did earlier in the Games; I almost died of dehydration. It's also not an option go move closer to the Cornucopia. The only option I have left is to move to a different part of the tree line. So I peer through the trees and greenery and observe the Careers camp for a moment, just to be sure I won't run into them as a relocate.
     Only three of them remain. Cato is sound asleep next to the Cornucopia, and Clove is asleep about ten yards away, sprawled out on her stomach. Marvel lies nearby, eating a pack of dried fruit and scanning the edge of the woods, probably on watch. But he's facing another way, so I take my things and quietly make my way over to a place where I am facing the front of the Cornucopia. Marvel now faces the exact opposite direction of where I am now, which satisfies me.
A few hours later, I see Cato get up and slowly head over to the lake. That's when I notice the large, swollen bumps on his body. He also seems a little dazed, like he isn't exactly in control of himself. I analyze the other Careers and see that they too have have those swollen bumps on their skin.
     There's only one explanation for this. Tracker jackers. They must have gotten stung yesterday.
     Then something else dawns on me. Maybe that was how Glimmer and Cora died. It would make sense.
     But how did the Cato, Clove and Marvel go hunting last night? They must not have gone very far; they all seem to be a little subdued. In fact, even last night, right before they went hunting, I had thought that the Careers looked a little slow, as if in a daze, but I thought I had just imagined it due to my own foggy state. But it must have been real; that's the side effects of tracker jacked venom.
    I slump down on a tree stump and take a small sip of water, thinking of how lucky I am to have it; there must be at least one or two other tributes in the arena who lack water.
     I almost doze off when I feel a ticklish feeling on my arm, as if something is crawling across my skin. I quickly look down at my forearm, and sure enough, a small spider is slowly making its way up towards my shoulder. I let out a slight gasp and swipe the spider off of me. I shudder, still feeling like my skin is crawling. That's one thing I really hate about the outdoors. I've never done well around bugs, especially spiders.
     One time, a few years back when we were picking all of our fresh tomatoes in our little garden, my mother and I discovered a large spider constructing a web under one of the bushes. She had let out a bloodcurdling scream, and I had spun around, not knowing what to expect, and found her halfway across the yard pointing at the tomato bush.
     "What? What is it?" I had said, worried.
     "There's a giant spider under that bush!" my mother had exclaimed, and you'd have thought the very world was coming to an end by the way she was reacting. Eventually my father came outside and killed the spider, but until the day I left for the Capitol, my mother still had me check under that bush every time we worked in the garden. I wonder if she had Nora take up that job.
    The memory brings a smile to face, and laugh a little, picturing my mother's reaction to the spider. I would give anything to be back in our little garden again with Nora and my mother. I miss them them so badly it hurts.