"Would you rather... eat a live worm or kiss Haymitch Abernathy?"
Margaret Donner's face contorted in surprise and disgust. "Are you crazy, Iris? Haymitch Abernathy?! I think the worm would taste better!"
"I think he's kinda cute," Iris Wheaton said, a blushing smile crossing her face.
"He's so weird!" Margaret argued. "He never talks to anyone, and he never smiles! Not ever!"
"Maybe no one's given him anything to smile about," Iris suggested. "What do you think, Maysilee?"
Margaret and Iris turned on the third member of their party -- Margaret's twin sister, Maysilee. Maysilee blushed. "I don't know. I agree with you both. He is really cute, but he seems pretty grumpy."
"Like I said... I've never seen him talking with anyone unless he has to," Iris said. "Maybe he needs a friend."
"Yeah!" Margaret snorted. "Who's gonna be his friend? You, Iris?"
Iris blushed. "Well..."
"I didn't think so," Margaret said. "I dare you to go up and talk to Haymitch. See if he really is just lonely like you seem to think."
"No!" Iris cried. "What do I know? I'm just a merchant's daughter! He's a Seam boy!"
Margaret looked quite self satisfied. "Fine. Then I guess 'poor Haymitch' will just have to be alone forever."
"I'll take the dare," Maysilee interjected quietly.
Both Margaret and Iris whirled to look at her. "What?" the other girls chorused at the same time.
"I'll go talk to Haymitch," Maysilee said, putting her chin up in the air.
"No you won't," Margaret said, convinced her sister was only putting them on for show. "You're too afraid of him."
"Am not, Maggie! Just watch!" With that, Maysilee picked up her lunch tray and strode across the lunch room to where Haymitch Abernathy sat, all alone, eating his lunch.
Iris and Margaret watched, wide-eyed, as Maysilee plunked her tray down right beside Haymitch's and started talking to him. He looked a little irritated, and seemed to give short answers, but Maysilee stayed where she was until the teacher called for everyone to come back to class.
"She's got guts," Iris whispered to Maggie as they got in line. "No one else in uppers is brave enough to sit by Haymitch Abernathy. No matter how cute he is."
Though she hadn't known it when she'd taken the dare, by the end of lunch, Maysilee Donner had learned that there was something more to Haymitch Abernathy than met the eye. Though he hadn't spoken five words to her during lunch, she found herself determined to get to know him. The following day at lunch, she sat beside him again, and she did the same all through the next week.
Finally, one day, as she sat her tray down beside Haymitch's, he turned to look at her. Maysilee found herself caught up in his dark gray eyes, which were surprisingly bright and a little bit frightening. A single, dark curl fell over his forehead, evidence that his hair needed a trimming. "Why are you doing this?"
Maysilee didn't really have a good answer formed in her head. She'd been thinking about it all through the past week, afraid that he might ask. Though she had come up with many answers that she might give, none of them were really a suitable reason for her to sit by him for an entire week. So the answer that came out of her mouth was as new to Maysilee as it was to Haymitch. "Because I like you."
The answer caught Haymitch off guard. Something in the way Maysilee said it made him think that she didn't mean it like all the other girls who had tried to flirt with him in the past. And he'd spent his fair share of time on the other side of the slag heap with one of the Seam girls, or even a merchant's daughter. No one quite so pretty as Maggie or Maysilee Donner, though. But Maysilee's happy, friendly tone didn't imply kissing on the slag heap. Her tone implied friendship, of which Haymitch usually wasn't a big participator. Somehow, though, the thought of being Maysilee's friend didn't disgust him, so he simply turned back to his lunch and let her chatter on like she had for the past week.
