Child's Play: The Forty-Third Hunger Games

Chapter 23

Mati Berlin

Me, Splinter and Hosanna were an odd trio. I was the goofiest, of course. Hosanna was quiet and serious. Splinter was a sort of medium between us, and he was the most well-rounded. We all got together before we went into the training room and discussed what we should practice. We could already tell Hosanna was the most likely to kill someone. She wasn't cruel or anything, she just had a quiet air about her that let us know she knew what it took to win the Games and was ready to go there. She went to the weapons and practiced with all of them in order to be ready for whatever was at the Cornucopia. Splinter already knew axes, so he practiced with them for a while and then went to learn snares.

I was both the smallest and the least intimidating member of the alliance, so I naturally ended up with the less aggressive duties. I was assigned to learn first aid, medical plants, and water purification. I had a hard time with the plants, since they all looked the same. It would be too easy to mix up a medicinal plant and a fatal one. First aid was better, since it was more hands-on. The assistant said I should focus on trauma (like getting shot, which would be pretty traumatic), dehydrating conditions like dysentery, and infections.

Our assignments were all perfect. Hosanna was more responsible and frankly more mature than I was, so it made sense she'd be doing the heavy emotional lifting of killing. Splinter knew axes but went to the snares station pretty quick, which told me about his personality. He knew how to kill, but he didn't want to. Snares were the only weapon that were designed so you could change your mind. As for me, I was more lighthearted. I liked jokes and games and encouraging people, not competing.

"This is weird, but is there a cooking station?" I asked the first aid attendant. I didn't know much about serious stuff like the Games, but I knew positive mental attitude was important. A lot of people overlooked it, but there was more to survival than not dying. Surviving meant staying alive, and life was more worth fighting for if it didn't suck. Little things, like properly cooked food instead of raw potatoes, could make a real difference.

"Ask Jemimah," the attendant said, pointing at the edible plants attendant. "She might know that sort of thing."

It turned out there were some important things to learn about something as mundane as cooking. I learned that water purified with chlorine tasted worse than water purified with iodine and I could make it taste better by boiling it five minutes before adding the food. I learned boiling root vegetables boils away some of the vitamins, but some foods, like acorns, had to be boiled. And I learned you could eat stinging nettle leaves if you boiled them first. They turned into tea, which sounded wonderfully comforting. It would be nice to have warm, yummy tea in the Arena.

Weapons and getting food were more important, but my skills would still be helpful. To survive, you had to care for the heart as well as the body. Splinter and Hosanna wouldn't think of that. It was up to me.

Splinter Ironwood

My mentor, Paul, was one of the oldest mentors. In fact, he was the second oldest, right after Orchard. He won the second Hunger Games, back before there were Careers and mutts. After I finished practicing axes and learned two simple snares, I stopped to discuss things with him. I couldn't learn many skills in such a short time, but I could learn a lot from someone who had been there.

"You had an alliance, too. How did that work out for you?" I asked.

"I didn't have one at first," he said. "I spent the first two days up a tree eating bark and drinking condensation. I got my ally when my District partner Cassia saw me and climbed up after me without so much as asking."

"Were you together all the way until the end?" I asked.

"We made it pretty far. We were up there eight days before either of us touched the ground. We didn't even get down to... you know. Those are the parts you never see on camera, not that I knew that at the time. Even in the Arena, I was mortified at the thought that everyone I knew my see my naked rear end when nature called," Paul said. He had a habit of going off on tangents, which only made his stories more interesting.

"What happened?" I asked. I would have thought I'd be polite enough not to ask about his dead ally, but when the time came, curiosity overcame tact.

"She heard someone calling for help. I was too scared, but she went to look. Later, when I saw the replay, I saw it was the girl from Four. She was one of the three that started killing right away, and she did the same thing to four Tributes," he said. After a pause, he went on, "I stayed up there until the last cannon came. It was hers."

"What would you have done if you two were last?" I asked.

"I never thought about it. The Games were so new and I was so young, I guess I still thought they'd all turn out to be a joke. I didn't really think Cassia was dead until I saw her grave," he said. But he knew why I'd asked. "I don't think I could have killed her, but I'm a bad example. Things are different now. There's no room for anyone else. If you want to get home, you have to decide what you're willing to do."

Paul said he was a bad example, but I thought he was right. I'd thought about what would happen if I had to kill an ally, and I rebelled against it. I was protective by nature. I'd run closer to precariously tipped trees more than once when someone else was in danger. Teamwork was necessary in Seven. I didn't know if I had it in me.

Hosanna Rayles

I knew I couldn't master every weapon in three days. I couldn't master one weapon in three days, which was why I was using all of them. What I could do in three days was get a basic knowledge of most simple weapons. I could get good enough that I wouldn't hurt myself and could conceivably hurt any non-Careers attackers. Like all outliers, I knew the Careers were out of my league. The only thing to do when they came around was run.

I felt like a snake for the reasons I'd picked my allies. Mati was louder than I liked, and there was a horrible reason that made her a good ally. I wouldn't get attached to her, and that would make it easier to leave her... or kill her if I had to. Splinter was quiet and a useful ally, but I had ulterior motives with him as well. He wasn't as optimistic as Mati, but I was even less hopeful. Between the two of us, I would be the one to reach the point where I was willing to kill before he did. That increased my chances of survival. It was at the expense of theirs, and that was why I felt guilty.

It was wonderful to be in the Capitol. I never thought I could really leave Nine. It was just a child's dream, not reality. As soon as I got on the train, I sat next to the window and watched everything go by. Since I came from the southernmost tip of Nine, I got to go through Two and see an entirely new District before we reached the Capitol. As soon as we crossed the border, everything was different. Two was so dry I could see the air shaking, and most of the time there was no grass at all. Everything was sandy and dusty, and there were huge mountains along the border. That must have been where they got all the rocks.

The Capitol was just as strange. There was also no grass, but that was because there were buildings everywhere. There were so many lights it never got dark, and there were more colors than I'd seen all my life. I never knew there were so many people here. There were as many people here as there were in Nine. They all looked so different, but they all had some common theme to them. They all looked like they were putting forth different variations on the same aesthetic, and they looked to me like they only wanted to look different and creative because they wanted to look stylish. There was no substance behind their colors and clothes. They just wanted to get noticed, but not because they had something worth noticing.

That didn't stop me from trying everything the building had to offer. I'd never seen a computer before, and it blew my mind right away. I could push a button and see any part of Panem projected on my wall like a giant window. I felt like I was spoiling what I might really get to see if I won, but I looked at every District. I'd known so little about them it was like seeing new worlds. I saw trees in Seven so tall they never stopped. Four had an ocean. I'd never really seen an ocean. It went on forever. I wanted to see all of it for real, and the only way to do that was to win. I'd get the whole world if I won. Maybe that was worth killing for.

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