Child's Play: The Forty-Third Hunger Games

Chapter 13

Randy Burnside- 17

Everyone had problems, but sometime people exaggerated their own. It was hard to be sympathetic with someone whining over an hour of overtime when I was running from three thugs who wanted something worse than that. I wasn't entirely innocent of what they were mad about, but they started it when they mugged me for the little money my mother and I managed to live on. It was a scenario I'd been in dozens of times before, and it didn't always end with me in one piece.

I ducked into an ally and sprinted down the narrow path. Normally allies were bad news, but I knew this one. It had a door that was always unlocked, and it led to an abandoned storefront with a fire exit I could use to make my escape. I shut the door as my three pursuers rounded the corner. I could hear them trying to figure out where I'd gone, and I tiptoed across the floor in case they got it right. I reached the fire escape and huddled just inside the door, looking down at them as one pushed over a garbage can and another checked a drainage grate.

I did't start fights. I just tried my best to end them and stop them from starting at all. It was the only thing I could do after so many thefts and assaults. My mother and I needed the money they extorted so we could eat. I might not have lost so many fights if I wasn't so underfed. I had to learn to fight smarter, but people in Three had a reputation for brains. A lot of times, it was better to run, and I'd left my pride behind the first time a fight broke my nose.

The boys in the alley beneath me were after me for stealing back the day's worth of money they beat out of me two days ago. I'd been watching them ever since, waiting for an opportunity. I found it when one of them- using my mother's money- got drunk enough to pass out in another alley. It was only bad luck that one of his friends came out saw me as I was picking his buddy's pocket. Three against one wasn't for me, even if one of them was unconscious.

"He's not here," one of the boys said. They were hardly boys, though. Each of them was twice my size, and would have been even if I hadn't been short.

"Maybe he went up that ladder," another one said, pointing to the fire ladder for the building across from me. There was no way I could have gotten up that ladder without them seeing me, but stupidity knows no bounds.

"Stay here in case he comes out," the leader said to the third boy. The other two started up the ladder. They reached another unlocked door and disappeared inside the building. The boy left behind leaned up against the wall by my fire escape and lit up a cigarette.

Opportunities didn't come often for me, and I always took the ones that did. I retreated farther into my building and looked for something I could use. The building was abandoned because the last owner ran out of money before he could finish repairing it, so the walls had holes and there were piles of equipment lying around. I found a brick on a pile of ashes and crawled back to the door. The boy was still there. I reached my arm out through the iron railings of the fire escape and dropped the brick on his head. If someone started a fight with me, I had to be willing to end it.

Lisette Crowley- 16

People in Three had a reputation for being intelligent. I liked to think I was, but around here, I was average. We had a reputation for being bookish and introverted. I couldn't spend an hour in my room without running outside to check on my family and make sure I hadn't missed anything. And lastly, with our peering, nearsighted eyes and analytical brains, we definitely weren't thought of as artistic. Somehow, I didn't get the memo.

I hadn't thought I'd be able to use my talent much in my District. Artistry didn't have much place in any District, except sometimes in One. That was the realm of the Capitol. The Districts supplies necessities and services. It was the Capitol that made the actors, singers, artists, and anything else uneccessary but enriching. Fittingly, it was from the Capitol that I got my chance.

It wasn't fairness so much as laziness that brought the opportunity. I saw a flier for a Capitol-sponsored art contest and knew what the motive was. I wasn't smart in the same way most people in Three were, but I was no sap. It was a graphic design contest, and the winners were promised the chance of possible work instead of a prize. What the flier meant was that we could send in art if we wanted. We wouldn't get paid, but if someone in the Capitol thought our work was good enough to slap his name on and get him out of doing it himself, we might hear from him. But I wasn't in it for glamour or to see my name in lights. It was enough to know my art was up in lights, and it was likely that my gracious sponsor might toss me what he considered a pittance, just so he could call himself a patron of the arts and brag to his friends that he helped the poor and downtrodden.

The motive of the contest was selfish, but that didn't stop me from putting my all into my work. I knew my audience and played to it while maintaining my personal standard and aesthetics. It took me two weeks to finish my project. The flier specified that we work with paper, probably because the possible patron was a poster designer. I chose fireworks for my theme. They were colorful and full of life, and I knew a Capitolite would approve of the cheery design. I made them in the shape of Panem's symbol for extra patriotism and brown-nosing. To make sure I stood out, I had Spark, an eggheaded classmate, help me seed the paper with tiny particles that showed up under black light. I promised him half of any first payment I got. At first when I unveiled my drawing, it was a simple but vibrant scene of fireworks done in highlighter on a black canvas background. But when I turned off the lights and turned on Spark's flashlight, the blacklight particles lit up and Panem's crest appeared in the middle of all the bursting colors.

I never found out where I placed among all the entrants, but I got a call a few days later. It seemed a Capitolite art patron had been following the show and wanted more of my work. I knew the "patron" couldn't even make his own pieces, but I let him have his pride. I just wanted to make art. Getting paid for it was a dream come true.

Randy is short with tan skin, black hair, brown eyes, and a beat-up face. So basically he looks like Sylvester Stallone, except he's of American Indian descent. Lisette is average in looks but taller than average. She has brown eyes, brown hair and pale skin.

Just one more girl from Jayman and the Reapings will be done.