Lily Juniper Abernathy: The daughter of an alcoholic victor (book 1)

I am not good at public speaking

"No, no, NO Misss Abernathy! You do NOT tell capitol citizens that capitol citizens did that to your legs!"

I rolled my eyes- this woman, I think her name was Emmaline- was trying and failing to prep me for interview. I only had a few hours to go and I was hopeless at it.

I shrugged "You asked me what happened to my legs?"

"Well, just say it was an unfortunate accident."

"OKAY," I sighed "It was an unfortunate accident." I repeated

"Good. Try and say it without sounding like a boy this time

I sighed harder "It-was-an-unfortunate-accident."

I put my head on the desk "I sound like a parrot." I growled

"You know, miss Abernathy you'd think, with your mother being a renound public speaker that you may of inherited that?"

I swear she was saying that to me every hour on the hour since I got here.

"Shouldn't you be telling me, you know, I'll be fine, to just be myself? Stuff like that?"

"No, because the Capitol do not like your farther and therefore they do not like you, okay?"

I glared "Okay?"

"Now, from the beginning- you come on stage, you smile, maybe wave a little- in fact forget the wave because we don't want you falling on live television- you smiled and nod at the crowd then take your seat and Cesar says "Hello Lily, how are you?" and you say?"

I sighed and muttered "Hello Cesar I'm fine thank you what a pleasure it is to be here."

"With more enthusiasm." She insisted

I sighed and did an imitation of my mother "Hello Cesar! I'm fine thank you- it's just a wonderful, fantastic privilege to be here with you and the lovely citizens of Capitol today!"

She nodded "Very good."

I decided at that very moment I was definitely just going to be myself.