7. Searching For the Skill

       It can’t be too difficult, can it? I mean, other tributes know how to do this. I should too, I’m from District 7 for crying out loud, I thought angrily to myself. I surveyed the rack of axes as the rest of the other tributes homed in their skills or developed new ones. Daniel stuck by me, quietly observing the others while I scanned the variety of axes. I couldn’t believe there was so much to choose from. There were small ones that were hatchets, larger ones that looked thick, long or light.

            “I would stick with the hatchets first, they’re easier to throw,” Dan whispered out of the corner of his mouth. He didn’t want to take his eyes off the competition, which was very understandable. While I did the crucial training, Dan was the spy who would report back to Johanna. Most likely she asked that of him, because I found it hard to believe he’d do it without her asking.

            After pondering another minute or two, I went with Dan’s suggestion and picked up a small, light hatchet. I bounced it around in both hands, feeling the weight of it and how it moved.

            “What’s the proper way to throw this thing?” I asked as I looked at the dummies across the room. They were my targets. As much as I didn’t want to—even though they were only dummies and not real people—I was going to have to aim for the heart. I would be lucky if I managed to hit any part of the dummy on my first try.

            “Let me help.” I flinched when Daniel grabbed my arms. “Do you know which is your throwing arm?”

            “I think it’s my left,” I tried to remember. I never really threw much because I threw like a girl.

            “Alright, let’s take this slow. Just pull back your arm; the sharp end of the hatchet should be facing the ceiling.” I extended my arm back. “Don’t be so tense.” I eventually relaxed. “Now focus.”

            I squinted hard, trying to tell my arm mentally to strike the dummy closest to me in the chest. I could feel my arm start to tire.

            “Now throw it,” Dan whispered.

            I gave a grunt and let the hatchet fly. It certainly almost got the distance; it was just a few feet in front of the closest dummy. I snorted. It was good for a first try, but I wanted to shoot for better—like actually hitting the dummy rather than coming up short. Coming up short wouldn’t help me survive in the Games. That one mistake would cost me my life, without a doubt.

            “Give it a little more thrust,” Dan suggested as he put another small hatchet in my hand. I saw the experts at the station watch me intently.

            I repeated the motion again, this time getting a hit. The hatchet whizzed throw the air, sinking its blade into the dummy. It was a little low, towards the private area, but it was a hit nonetheless. I could feel my arm aching already. Maybe that was an indication that I needed to move on to something else.

            I looked around, trying to find a station that didn’t have many—or if I was lucky, no—tributes occupying the space. I wasn’t going to dare try The Gauntlet, only because part of the Career pack dominated that space. I saw the District 2 female hanging around the Archery station, being a standout. I found that to be a little unusual. Careers usually stuck together for everything, including training.

            “Where are you heading next?” Dan asked me. I looked at him. “I can tell you want to move onto something different. Where you go, I go.”

            “I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said. Dan tilted his head to the side.

            “But I thought you wanted me to stick around.”

            “Only to help me throw an ax.”

            “You threw a hatchet, Bridget. There’s a difference,” he said gently. Ax, hatchet—they both could chop wood and tributes’ limbs off. “If you still need me around, I’ll be at the Shelters, okay?”

            “Okay.”

            Daniel and I parted ways, he for the Shelters, as for me—I had no idea yet. I looked around. The Boxing station didn’t look to be crowded. There was only one other tribute there with an assistant that held a punching bag. The tribute looked to be my age. I could see sweat trickling just from under his blond bangs, his wavy hair slightly stuck to his head like the helmet he wore. His hazel eyes were furrowed in concentration as his gloved hands socked the bag, sometimes forcing his assistant back a step or two.

            Might as well try it, I considered. A little timid, I walked over to the station. An assistant was already there waiting for me, with gloves and a helmet in his hand. He helped me get situated before he picked up the tall punching bag I would beat up—or try to anyway. I tried to throw a hard punch, but the force reverberated off the bag and back at me. It ricocheted off my helmet, temporarily dazing me. I heard the boy snicker. I ignored him and went for another hit.

            It seemed like I had only attempted this for one minute when really I had for ten. Once I was breathing heavy, I backed off from the bag, my shoulders slumped, arms dangling at my sides. The assistant knew I had called it quits, so I took off the gear.

            “You definitely don’t know how to throw a punch,” the boy teased me as he continued to punch his bag. I didn’t say anything back to him; I exited the station before he could provoke me further and cause me to flip out on him.

            Since I felt that I needed to recuperate a little bit, I decided to head to the Fire Making station. That was pretty interesting and difficult in itself. The only progress I made was being able to get a few sparks flying, but I never got a tiny flame going. So far I seemed to only reach the bare minimum for each station I had visited. That didn’t sit with me very well.

            I managed to hit the Knot Tying station; I ended up tangling the rope around my legs somehow. Daniel had to come and unwind me from that mess. Thankfully, none of the other tributes noticed my stupidity. Yet, they did notice I couldn’t wield a sword for my life. I couldn’t hold it right; it was much different than holding a hatchet. The sword was obviously heavier, and I had to hold it with both hands at its hilt. I nearly made a gash in my leg while trying to swing it around. It was evident I couldn’t be trusted with a sword, yet I was capable of handling a hatchet. Of course, both weapons were different.

            I avoided the Hammock Making station, only because I didn’t want to get myself tangled up in that as well. I figured since I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to try out the Camouflage station, I decided to check out the Edible Plants. It was very informational; Daniel hung around with me there. There were some plants I knew were edible and some that weren’t. The Edible Insects was a little more disgusting, because I would never think of myself eating bugs. But hey, if I’m in the Games and there’s nothing to eat, it’s better to eat bugs than starve to death.

            Dan and I were trying to memorize the edible insects when lunch was called. That was good, because I was kind of hungry. As one cluster, all the tributes went to the cafeteria to eat. Just like the food on the Tribute Train, the cafeteria food was good. For once I ate mostly all what was on my plate. The Career pack had a table to themselves, chatting and boasting about how accomplished they felt and supposedly were. I saw Districts 10, 11, and 12 were at one table. The female from District 11 looked out after the District 12 kids. They had to be one of the few youngest ones here; they looked to be twelve and thirteen. That always hurt my heart, seeing the youngest ages be picked for the Games. But that’s something that couldn’t be helped.

The District 11 girl seemed to be concentrating, as if she was trying to listen in on everybody. It was a smart thing to do, but it wasn’t hard to hear the Careers.

            Besides the groups that we saw at the tables, the rest of the districts had their own little spaces. It was a pretty quiet lunch besides the Careers loudly saying how they sliced the head off a dummy with a spear, or how they nailed a dummy in the heart with a knife. I was sure everybody knew it was to intimidate the rest of us. They wanted to show their power early, to let others know they were clearly the ones to be aware of—or that the victor of the Hunger Games this year would be a Career.

            “I’d love it if none of the Careers was a victor this year,” Dan mumbled to me as he glared at the pack. “It’d be a slap in their faces for being so cocky.”

            “Not all of them look it,” I whispered. “See that girl over there, the one with the dark brown hair?”

            “Yeah, I see her. Why?”

            “I saw her away from the pack during training.”

            “Really?”

            “Yup, she hung around the Archery station a lot.” I poked at the crumbs on my tray. “She may be the only Career that doesn’t look enthusiastic to participate in the Games.”

            “That’s a first.”

            “No kidding,” I agreed. “It’s the last Games, so really there can be a lot of firsts. So much can happen in so little time.”

            When everyone was done eating, we sat for a half hour or so before we were granted permission to go back to the Training Center to train for another two hours. Daniel went to the Weightlifting station where a few other male tributes took advantage of. Both tributes of District 12 were at the Blowguns station. Might want to try that sometime too, if I ever get a hold of one in the arena, I considered.

            I spent the last two hours of my training with one hour of slingshots and the remaining hour with snares. It was obvious I was better at the slingshot than the snare, because I never hunted. Daniel didn’t know how to work a snare either, so we worked together to get it figured out. As usual, he figured it out quicker than I did. Step by step, he showed me. I managed to get a little better, though I often kept second-guessing myself. I hated doing that. I couldn’t do that when the Games began.

            The Games, they were less than two weeks away. Only three days to train, one to show the Gamemakers what I could do. The time span between the scores given and the interviews would be dedicated to learning how to win over the crowd for the interviews the night before the Games. The interview would probably be the longest night of my life. I’d wait anxiously for my turn; I’d probably stutter and whisper so that nobody, not even Caesar Flickerman, could hear me. I’d be a nervous wreck.

            Johanna wouldn’t approve at all. She wanted me to look tough. Well, that seemed to be a difficult task at the moment the way the first day of training was going for me. I bet I was as much of a threat as the youngest tributes in the Games.

*      *      *

            Thankfully when Daniel and I got back to our floor, Johanna wasn’t present. Only Alden, Jade, and Harper were. I knew I could tell them about my horrible first day of training and not have any of them give harsh criticism. They wouldn’t yell at me, they’d listen like normal people and try to cheer me up.

            I was changed into comfortable clothing, already with a shower. Night was falling in the Capitol, and Johanna still hadn’t come back yet. Alden and Harper had left so it left me, Dan, and Jade on our floor. I was sprawled out along the couch, glaring up at the ceiling. Daniel sat on the floor near my head, his head resting on my right shoulder. Jade was fussing about how the food was going to get cold if Johanna didn’t show up soon for dinner.

            “Tomorrow will be better,” Dan mused. “I mean, it was just our first day. Now that we know what options we have we can use our time more wisely and figure out what we’ll need.”

            “That’ll be mostly everything for me.” I messed with Dad’s bracelet on my wrist.

            “Mostly?”

            “Some of those stations I don’t want to go near.”

            “Oh…right, your fear of heights.”

            I didn’t sit up as Johanna finally made her presence known. She slammed the door behind her, strutting in. Daniel didn’t budge either; he still sat by my head.

            “Finally,” Jade said irritably, her heels clacking along the floor. “I was about ready to throw the food away.”

            “I’ll heat it up in a few minutes,” Johanna said. “So”—she came around to sit on the couch—“how did the first day of training go?”

            “It was something,” I mumbled. I stared up at the ceiling.

            “We did okay,” Dan said, shrugging.

            “Did you do a good amount of training?” Johanna probed.

            “We didn’t have enough time to do all the stations,” I huffed.

            “You at least visited the axes, right?”

            “That’s the first thing I went to.”

            “Good. How did that go?”

            “I only got to throw a hatchet.”

            “Hmm…it’s a start,” she said carefully.

            “We read up on the edible plants and insects, just in case. We did run into our hitches though,” Dan grumbled.

            “I wondered when this would come about,” Johanna snickered. Great. She just wanted to hear how miserably I failed and yell at me for it. It seemed that was all she loved to do: yell at people and laugh at their failure. It was probably a pastime of hers.

            “I can’t tie knots or make a hammock for the life of me,” I groaned, throwing an arm across my forehead. “I can’t even throw a punch with good enough effort without smacking myself in the face.”

            “Way to show the competition how uncoordinated you are.”

            “Thank you for being sympathetic,” I snarled at her. “Daniel did better than me.”

            “You’re still adjusting,” Dan said. “You’ll find your rhythm.”

            “Well, she better find it soon. You both have two more days before you perform in front of the Gamemakers,” Johanna reminded us. That’s already bashed into my head. Thank you for reminding me of just one of the many dreadful things I don’t want to do. “You have until then to find a talent that’ll be good enough to get you a decent score.”

            “Aren’t we trying to shoot for a high score?” Dan turned his head to look at her.

            Johanna shook her head. “High scores show how much of a threat you are to the others,” she explained. “That’s what gets you a target on your back. If you want to survive the first day, get a decent score so that many will forget about you. When you’re forgotten, you survive longer.”

            “Here’s what I’m shocked by,” I butted in. I looked at her. “You’re not yelling at me.”

            “I would be, but then I remembered I was a tribute once like you two. Not everybody finds a rhythm quick like some. Now, if you get a very bad score, then I’ll scold you for it.”

            Well, at least she was willing to wait until I made a fool of myself in front of the Gamemakers before she’d yell at me. I had two days to prevent that from happening. Aside from trying to get a decent score so I would be forgotten—hopefully—by other tributes and trying not to look too weak to the competition, I had to avoid Johanna giving me another cold lecture like she had when Dan and I had first arrived on the Tribute Train.

            Johanna retreated to the food which she heated up. Jade bade Dan and me goodnight before heading off to bed. We never turned the TV on. We sat in silence until about nine o’clock. I was the first to yawn, signaling for me to get to bed.

            I slipped off the couch and trudged into my bedroom where I slipped into fancy nightwear I never dreamed of wearing. Despite yawning not too long ago, I felt wired with anxiety. I had a feeling this would be a daily thing for me from now on.

            Back home, I would be worry-free. I would be living a normal life in District 7, not out doing work while my dad went to work. Since the boys weren’t old enough to work just yet, they’d keep me company during the day. We always had the best times, Dan, Ewan, and me.

            Even though it was only a few days that had passed since Daniel and I had left District 7, I felt like I had already forgotten that he had a twin brother. I felt horrible, forgetting Ewan like that. I bet right now, back in 7, he was missing Dan and me, wishing that we were back home so that things would feel normal like they once were.

That’s what I wanted more than anything right now: for things to be normal again.