the 19th Hunger Games

Chapter 4

That evening, dinner was horrid. Not the food, that part of dinner was great. But the whole atmosphere was drenched with hatred towards one another. No, correction. The whole atmosphere was drenched with hatred towards Ahm, and from his point towards us. He hated Yune and Mace and he hated us. Yune and Mace and Oscar and me, we hated Ahm right back. He’d gotten even more unpleasant after our victorious tour through the Capitol. He hated how the crowd had adored us but even more, he hated how he was now the escort of the two kids who might really stand a chance. He thought he’d get through this easily, seeing us getting killed and then going of to another district, something far better than 10. He had probably hoped for 4 or 2, or maybe 1. But now he had seen how popular we were, his situation was getting tense. The crowd loved us but we were the kids with no mentor, therefore no sponsors. That wouldn’t do any good to Ahm reputation, even if it didn’t make any sense. The Capitol citizen would blame him directly or indirectly for not being able to help us survive. He hated us for it all. Still, our stylists tried to make the best of it. Mace dragged me into a conversation between him and Yune and Oscar since I’d been eating in silence, thinking about the days to come. Two days of intense training, and after that I’d have to impress the Game Makers. I really had no idea how to do it. I had no training tactic since there was no mentor to tell me what to do. And never was there any footage released of what happened inside the Training Centre so everything would be new for both Oscar and me. The only thing I knew was that one of the Game Makers watching would be Seneca Crane. I knew he was very young too, absurdly young. Not much older than I was. I wondered how he’d gotten to be Head Game Maker. Also I wondered how he could be so young. He’d been Head for about 2 years now, which should mean he’d been my age when he got here. But I remember seeing him on the screens for the last to years and he still looked exactly the same. I’d seen more people like that. Caesar Flickerman had been the tribute’s interviewer for as long as I could remember and he never seemed to age. Somewhere in the Capitol there had to be someone who was keeping people young and alive forever.

“So Xanthe,” Mace said, “what do you think?” I tore my eyes away from my plate and stared at him blankly.

“Excuse me?”

“We were talking about how you two are going to impress the Game Makers,” he explained with a curious look.

“Oh,” I mumbled, looking away. “I don’t know really.”

“What are your talents then?” Yune asked. Both stylists and Oscar looked at me, waiting for an answer. Apparently Oscar had already explained all he could do, whatever that might be.

“Uh… I can throw a lasso,” I said.

“She told me she can pretty much use anything to make one too,” Oscar added.

“Really?” Mace asked. “That’s a good thing because they should have a station for practicing trapping skills where they have rope so you can make one. Can you do it fast?” I nodded.

“It’s rather simple. Weaving a long piece of rope is easy, should take about five minutes if you don’t make mistakes. Then you only have to knot the lasso. Piece of cake.” So that was pretty much my strategy. What I didn’t like was that Ahm was paying close attention to every word I said. He didn’t really show but every now and then he stopped chewing and cocked his head just the slightest bit. I really didn’t trust the guy.

   After dinner strange kids in white suits came to clean up the dishes. I wanted to help but Mace and Yune told me told to. Ahm just sneered at my attempt to help and then disappeared, off to nowhere. I decided to take a shower and then hit the bed even though it wasn’t even 8 o’clock yet. I just felt like sleeping as much as possible so in the morning I’d be ready for training. I really didn’t want to risk my brain continue sleeping while it needed to be awake, so better be safe than sorry. But Oscar had other plans.