"So, let us get down to business. Training. First off, if you like, I can coach you guys separately. Decide now." He says, Separately? Why would we need to be coached separately? I barely see enough of Katniss as it is.
"Why would you one to coach us separately?" Katniss repeats my thoughts.
"In case one of you has a secret talent or skill. One which you do not want the other one to know about." he replies as if we are the most stupid people here. We probably are. Katniss and I exchange glances.
"I do not have any 'special' skills are talents." I say, "Plus, I already know what yours is right? I mean, I have eaten enough of your squirrels." She looks at me strangely. What does she think that she sell us them, and then we just throw them out again? God, she can hunt in the 'off limit' woods, but she can not understand the most simple of things. Seriously.
"You can coach us together." She tells Haymitch, we share another glance and I nod in agreement.
"All right, so give some idea of what you to can do." Haymitch tells me.
"I can not do anything." I reply, "Well, unless you count baking bread of course."
"Sorry. I do not. Now, Katniss, I know you are handy with a knife. Anything else?" Asks Haymitch.
"Not really. But I can hunt, with a bow and arrow." She replies, just hunt? She is like the amazing and beautiful goddess of hunting squirrels. Scared of nothing at all, except maybe makeup and girly clothes.
"And you are decent with it?" Haymitch asks. Katniss has to think about this for a moment. Does she not even realize how good she is? Hmm, why yes I have been hunting for five years, shoot animals straight in the eye everytime. Am I any good at shooting with a bow and arrow? I am not sure to be honest. For goodness sake.
"I am alright I guess." She says humbly. I just decide to hurry this whole process.
"She is fantastic with the bow and arrow. Shoots the animals straight through the eye everytime. She is extremely popular with the traders around town." I say. Katniss just looks back at me with complete shock. Yes Katniss, it is called a 'compliment'. " She can even bring down deer." I add.
"What are you doing?" She asks me in a harsh whisper.
"What are you doing? If he is going to help you, he has to know what you are capable. Do not underrate yourself." I tell her.
"What about you?" She angrily says, "I have seen you in the market with your father. You can lift fifty-kilo bags of flour around the square. Tell him that! That is not nothing special!" She is almost shouting by the end of the sentence.
"Yes. I am sure the arena is going to be full of bags of flour that I can chuck at people. It is not like being able to use a weapon. You know that!" I shoot back, with just as much anger in my voice as her. Wait. She notices me. HUZZAH! I have finally gotten somewhere. After eleven years of noticing her.
"He can wrestle." She tells Haymitch. "He came second in our school competition last year. Just after his brother." Rylee has always made me fight against him. Even though, I admit, I am not bad at wrestling. I am still not as good as Rylee.
How does she know all this stuff about me? Has she been keeping tabs on me like I have been on her?
"What use is that? When was the last time you have seen someone in the arena, wrestle someone to death?" I say in disgust.
"There is always hand-to-hand combat in the arena. Come up with a knife, and you will at least stand a chance! If I get jumped I am dead!" She shouts. Jeez, she can get really crazy!
"But you won't be! You will be living up some tree, eating raw squirrel all day, picking people off one by one with your arrows! Do you want to know what my mother said to me when she said goodbye, as if to cheer me up?" I pause for a moment, taking in her reaction, "She said "Maybe district twelve will finally have a winner this year. She is a survivor that one, she is!" Then I realized, she was not talking about me she was talking about you!"
"Oh, she meant you!" She tells me.
"Really? My mother might not like me, but she knows my bloody gender!" I say, almost screaming. My throat is burning, so I use Katniss' silence to take a sip of my hot chocolate, which has now gone cold.
Katniss just continues to stare at me with shock and disbelief, while Haymitch twiddles his thumbs and mumbles, even after I told him not to, to himself.
She stares at me blankly, almost like she is having a flashback. She quickly breaks the long silence once emotion has gone back to her eyes, she sounds young and innocent when she says, "Only because someone helped me." So she does remember that day in the backyard.
My eyes flicker down to the roll I did not realise she was holding in her hands. Though, to act like it does not bother me I just shrug in response as well as saying, "I am sure people will help you in the arena. They will be lining up the streets to sponsor you." She looks as though I have offended her greatly. Well, popularity, to her, is an alien concept.
"No more than you." She replies, she suddenly drops the gaze I reinforced.
This statement just makes me roll my eyes at Haymitch, "She has no idea, the effect she can have on people." I run my fingernail against the wood grain on the table, refusing to stare at those wonderful grey eyes of hers. Haymitch just chuckles to himself and mumbles, "Women." I agree Haymitch, I agree.
