The 55th Hunger Games

Chapter 8

        The second day of training passes similarly to the first, but this time I keep my head low. Under Seamus's instructions I do not go back to the obstacle courses. He says I should suppress my skill till the final day when I can show the gamemakers in my private session. I have not yet picked up the courage to talk to Samantha yet. Strangely, I feel as though I am in her debt. I'm not sure why, considering that maybe she had only wanted to insult me, but I am sure it was something more.

        I return to the fire station, and sooner than expected, manage to begin a blaze with the wood by rubbing a rounded stick between my hands onto wood and dried grasses.

        I try again to see if I can repeat my triumph. I manage it in only half an hour. Then I look over and see that the young girl from District 5 is struggling with the flint and steal. Really, her success should be none of my concern, but then I get a picture of her shivering and freezing in a very cold arena as night falls, and then find myself moving over beside her.

        "You have to do it really quickly," I tell her, taking the stone and flint in my hands.

        She looks up at me unsmiling, and watches as I strike the flint with a rock. Small sparks begin to fly after I begin to strike it for a while. I had become very practiced on the art of it yesterday, it seems.

        "Now, you try." I hand the flint and stone back to her, and she takes them in her small hands.

        She seems to be striking it both harder and quicker, but instead of striking it down the flint she just seems to be hitting it.

        I try for another fifteen minutes to explain it to her. Eventually she gives up, and goes back to her old ways. It is plain to me that she no longer wants my help, so I stand and leave the fire station and go instead over to the edible plants station. Some plants I may know, but it would be foolish of me not to try this station. After all, maybe it will give me a clue as to what sort of environment I will be facing.

        There is a book with pages of compressed leaves which I should learn the names of. The instructor tells me to identify a series of leaves he places before me and tells me their properties. He also strongly advises me, along the other three tributes at the station, not to eat anything unless we are certain we know what it is. He enforces this upon us particularly when we move on to identifying berries. Years of watching the games has taught me that the gamemakers often seem to enjoy placing berries in the arena which look similar to berries we would recognise, but are in fact deadly poisonous.

        I listen as he explains a way to tell if a mushroom is poisonous or not. If you rub its top and it turns yellow, it means that it is poisonous, if it doesn't it might not be. Might not be poisonous is not something I would particularly want to take any chances with.

        He then goes into a detailed description of edible roots and bark, which as a boy from district seven I am already very familiar with, so I leave the plant station.

        Seamus had not been happy when I told him I had not even tried any of the other skill stations in part from the obstacle course. I had almost told him in frustration that there would be no use me wasting my time on the skills stations when I do not plan on using any weapons to harm people, but managed to hold that particular piece of information back. It is also very unlikely that I will even get my hands on the weapons, as they will most certainly be at the very centre of the Cornucopia. I don't think I will risk running into battle to get them.

        But as much as I do not want to travel into the midst of the Career pack once more, I do, if only to placate Seamus. If I find that I am not good after fifteen minutes of archery, I will tell him that I am hopeless. And if I find that I am good, I will tell him that I am hopeless also. All I must do in those fifteen minutes is avoid the Career pack.