The 55th Hunger Games

Chapter 7

        Samantha arrives not long afterwards and fills her plate. When she comes to the table she sits down at the opposite end, discretely ignoring the rest of us. I finish my plate slowly and go get second helpings, like Seamus had told me to do.

        Krissy arrives at our compartment a while later to escort us down to the training room floor on the bottom level of the building.

        We ride the glass elevator once more. We watch as we disappear below ground level. The door opens in a large gymnasium. Obstacle courses are set out around the room. There are dummies and targets everywhere, as well as a great number of very sharp looking weapons.

        As we step out of it I see that most of the tributes are already here. Some tributes mill around those from other districts but most stand rigidly by their partner's sides. Someone pins a cloth with the number 7 to the back of both mine and Samantha's shirts.

        Krissy wishes us both luck and the elevator door closes again, taking her back up to the seventh floor. I wish I could return with her, because as soon as the door closes Samantha leaves me and goes to mingle with the others.

        I immediately feel alone standing all by myself. I move a little closer to the assembled group to look a little less alone, and that's when the elevator door opens again, and in steps the two tributes from District 9: the fair girl and her male partner, who looks about her age and height. Both of them are barely smaller than me I see, so I guess we are all around the same age.

        Her male partner with sandy hair sees me looking. I'm thinking that maybe they'll come over to talk to me when a stern female, dressed in a jumpsuit, calls us all over and tells us to stand in a circle.

        Sheepishly we all do as she says.

        She introduces herself promptly as Leesa and explains to us what will basically happen over the next three days. There are stations set up around the room with experts on hand which we can practise with and receive advice from. We are free to travel around to these stations as we please. There will be no physical contact between tributes. On the last day we will have our chance to perform our skills in front of the gamemakers who will give us a score from one to twelve -twelve being the highest- which can be used to prove to the sponsors that we are worth their money.

        She runs through the list of stations and then dismisses us. The circle separates off in different directions. With much glancing around, I make my way over to the station Seamus told me to go to: the knot tying station. I am the first to arrive at this station and the instructor jumps straight into showing me some basic knots and snares. When I explain to him that I am a good climber, he shows me a snare which will leave an opponent dangling from the top of a tree branch.

        I never seem to master that knot, probably because the thought of actually putting it into action scares me, so I leave the station and go to the fire making station instead.

        There I am given flint and steal. We only ever use match sticks at home and I have never tried with materials such as these. Eventually after hours, I manage to coax up a small blaze, but really, it's not much of a triumph, considering that flint and steal will not exactly be found easily in the outdoor arena. Maybe there will be some at the cornucopia, but I can't guarantee I will be able to get to it, so next I move on to using two bits of wood and some dry grass. After an hour, I tire of trying and decide to give it more effort tomorrow.

        I stand and look about the area. The targets and dummies are over the other side of the gymnasium. There is only half an hour left on the clock above on the wall and I figure I should at least go over there and look, even if I do have no particular interest in using one of those weapons. I have not, as of yet, seen Samantha over at any of the survival stations, so I can only guess she must be over at the skills stations where the Careers have been hanging out.