Foxface's Story

Chapter 20

A woman who I presumed was the head of the training centre stood in front of all the tributes. She introduced herself as Atala and then began rattling off statistics about how we would all die. “Wonderful,” I thought to myself. “Could this morning get any better?” Finally she finished talking and let us get on with the training. The Career tributes, the tributes from 1, 2 and 4, all straight away ran for the most dangerous weapons. Well, all most all. The boy from 4 hung back for a minute until joining them. The tributes from 12 stuck together and headed off to a station. I thought that that would be a good strategy and turned to Don to say so but he wasn’t there. He’d walked off to the axe handling station and had left me by myself.  That left me and the other tributes just standing around awkwardly, not really knowing what to do. Eventually we all wandered off and I found myself at a station about building fires with the girl from 6. The instructor at the station was friendly enough but I could tell that the only reason he was teaching us this was he wanted the games to be more interesting. The idea made me sick and as soon as I learnt the basics I moved on. Next, I went to a station about bow and arrows. As it turns out, I’m not very good at firing a bow and arrow and almost killed the instructor. He was telling me to point this way, point that way, move slightly to the left, that I eventually decided I’d just ask him to show me but as I turned to him I let go of the arrow narrowly missing his head. Needless to say I left that station shortly after. I decided I needed a change and went to a station I knew I would be good at. The station about edible and non-edible plants. At the station, the instructor gave me a sheet of paper that had edible and non-edible plants. I took a quick look at it and gave it back to the instructor. She raised one eyebrow and gave me a look that said I couldn’t possibly have memorised it but let me go on all the same. There was a table with a touch screen that had all the plants on it. Hanging above the table was a screen that had two columns, one for edible plants and the other for non-edible plants. You had 5 minutes to do it and as soon as I got to the table the instructor pressed start. I began to analyse the plants and I managed to shut out the rest of the training centre and the noise to give myself full concentration. I forgot all about the time limit and the instructor standing next to me. My hands flew across the tables, dragging the different plants into the correct columns. With two minutes to go I finished. I took a deep breath and turned to face the instructor. She was standing next to me with her mouth hanging open and small part of me felt satisfied that I’d shown up the capitol.
“Ho-How did you do that so fast?” She asked her eyes wide. “You didn’t even look at the sheet for more than minute.”
“Good memory I guess.” I said, not willing to tell her the truth.
“But almost nobody passes that first go and you didn’t even look at the sheet for more than a minute!”
Instead of answering her, I just shrugged my shoulders and walked off. Trying to decide what station to go to next, Atala announced it was time for lunch. Once I had my plate of food, more delicious capitol food, and had sat down, a figure came to sit down beside me. At first I thought it was Don coming to apologise but I looked up to see the District 10 boy sitting there. He smiled at me and stuck his hand out.
“Jason,” he said.
“Abigail,” I offered my name and shook his hand. His hand was rough, probably from years of working in district 10 and his grip was strong but it felt nice. I smiled shyly and returned to eating my food. I didn’t really want to make friends because the thought of the arena and the games was still to fresh in my mind so I sat there saying nothing, eating my food until I realised he was looking at me.

I didn’t know what to do. Should I say something or should I just let it slide? My mind whirled as I tried work out what to do. Back at home, I was known as the quite girl who sort of just sat on the sidelines. I kept to myself and tried to stay out of everyone’s way. I wasn’t very good at making conversation with people. In fact, the only people I ever really talked to were my family and Torah. Torah. That struck a nerve. Forcing all thoughts of Torah, my family and District 5 out of my head I sneaked a peek at Jason. He was still watching me and when he saw me looking he winked. ‘God, does that boy have an eye twitch or something?’ I wondered to myself.
“Nah, it’s not an eye twitch.” Jason said laughing.
I froze suddenly realising that I’d spoken allowed. Blushing, I tried to think of a response.
“Well, why do you keep doing that then?” I asked.
“Doing what?” he responded.
“The weird winking thingy,” I said trying to stop blushing.
“Oh this?” he said giving me a wink.
“Yes! That! Why do you do it?”
He just shrugged and winked again. I let out an exasperated sigh and went back to eating my food. I was tucking into a fruit salad dressed in a sweet syrup, thinking about what station I was going to try next when Jason spoke again.
“So Abby, what’s up with your district partner?”
“Huh?” I asked confused. “And my name’s Abigail, not Abby.” Only Torah called me Abby.
“Why aren’t you sitting with him?”
“Oh…um…”
Jason looked at me waiting for an answer. 
“He um…” I said unsure how to continue. “We sort of got in a fight and yeah.”
“Uh huh,” he said not looking convinced.
“Well we don’t have to like each other,” I said suddenly defensive. “It’s not like it’s a rule or anything. And besides, you’re not sitting with your partner.”
“That’s because she’s still getting her food. She has some kind of allergy.”
I looked up and realised he was right. The door opened and the girl came through holding her lunch looking confused as to where to go. “Sierra!” Jason called. “Over here.”
The girl, Sierra, smiled gratefully at Jason and sat down at our table.
“So, did you get anything good?” Jason asked peering down at her lunch.
“Nope. It’s just the same plop we get at home but a higher grade.” She said. Her voice was sweet and it had sort of a twang to it. Jason laughed and then seemed to remember I was sitting there.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Sierra, this is Abby. Abby, this is Sierra.”
I shot him a glare and reached out my hand.
“My name’s Abigail,” I said shaking her hand.
“Sierra. Nice to meet you,” she replied. After that we ate in silence and I glanced around the room taking in the other tributes. The careers had joined tables up and were eating altogether. I could already see an alliance forming. Most of the other tributes sat with their district partner. The boy and girl from 12, Peeta and Katniss I think, seemed to be very friendly with each other. They were talking to each other occasionally laughing and the boy looked at her with surprising fondness considering that we were training for the Hunger Games. Finally I sorted Don out of the crowd. He was eating all alone looking glum. I felt a pang of sadness for him and thought about asking him to come and join us but then remembered the way he’d yelled at me this morning. Not before long Atala came and announced that training was about to begin again. 

Oops no update before Christmas :/
But update is now here! :D
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Until later *salutes* :)