For some, it is quite easy to keep a low profile. One easy example- my mother. She is so quiet and secretive that you'd only really notice her if you know my outgoing father. And even then, you may not notice her, unless you visit our home. Eli's rather different. On a daily basis, he's either chased by girls or bullies; but at least he knows ten different places to go where they won't find him.

Me? I'm like Eli, I guess; except I'm not chased by boys much, unless they hate me and want a piece of my flesh. I can keep to myself, but only if I don't feel insulted. Because the truth is, I tend to show off, and I tend to pick fights. And when I do, I can't always find a place to hide from the messes I get myself into.

Today, I realize truly how hard that is for me.

When Eli taps my shoulder when we are at the first station, I am surprised by his choice. Why fire-starting? I turn my head to the side, just a little, to show my confusion. Instead of giving me a signal that this is part of a plan, he ignores me and kneels on the synthetic foliage beside a log in the practice area. I instantly see how the station works. My eyes sweep the floor and before the trainer can start lecturing me, I grab a long, thin stick and hand it to Eli. He grabs it and secures it in a knothole in the log. Then he skillfully twists the stick and rubs it back and forth in a downwards motion between his hands, and a few seconds later, I smell smoke. Then a spark flies up, and soon, we have a tiny flame. Eli lightly stamps it out with his shoe and we move on. As we leave the fire-starting station, we are congratulated by the trainer, and I choose the next station.

The knot-tying station is occupied by the trainer, the tributes from Three, and the boy from Ten. The trainer is helping the boy tie what looks somewhat like a snare that Eli and I use to catch rabbits; only this one is meant to catch a human leg. While his thick fingers struggle with the knot, the two from Three build an entirely different contraption. It's clear that at least one of them is a genius with snares. After constructing a rather complicated-looking snare with multiple interconnecting knots, they connect it with wire and some kind of mesh netting. Then they hang it from a high bar in the obstacle course, and drag a dummy from the target practice over. While her district partner holds up the dummy, the girl, Lydia, places the foot against the netting in the trap. The snare reacts so quickly that the boy from Three is almost dragged with the dummy as it is pulled up across the floor. The dummy's arm makes contact with the wire, and sparks shower the trainer, who is still attempting to help the boy from Ten with his first knot. A few seconds later, the very burnt, smoking dummy crashes to the floor.

The trainer races over to the two, shouting at them for wrecking one of the dummies, but he congratulates the tributes profusely after he examines the trap, which apparently can snag a tribute, electrocute them, and drop them on their head. If, of course, that trap were to be much more well-disguised.

Eli and I easily make our rabbit snares for the trainer, who seems fairly impressed, actually; considering he just had two geniuses show up. He shows us a few more complicated knots- a couple ties that are meant to strengthen our snares, and one for a fishhook. We don't tell him that neither of us have ever caught a fish, and the trainer never asks. After we are finished with the knots, we shake hands with the trainer and move on once more.

While I wait for Eli to make a decision on the next station, we walk around and I watch the other tributes. At the weight-lifting station, Cornelius bench-presses two hundred pounds with ease, and then snarls at the boy from Nine as he walks past him. The boy flinches, but knows to continue moving as if he never saw. The two tributes from Six paint elaborate patterns on their limbs at the camouflage station, the boy filling in his skin with tree bark, the girl with thick, luscious green leaves. The girl from Eleven, much taller than her trainer at the wrestling mat, knocks him over with a sledgehammer blow, and then apologizes profusely as she helps him up. For whatever reason, she catches my eye and holds my interest longest. She looks no different outside of a television- there is still the same brown skin and black, curly hair; the same towering, broad-shouldered figure. Then what is it that I find so interesting about her? She turns around and I instantly see. It's her eyes. They are such a sharp contrast from the rest of her- a strange blue-grey color, like rain right before it hits a puddle. Our eyes meet and her concern for the trainer quickly disappears. She regards me coldly for a second, and then turns around and helps the trainer stack some spears on a rack. Then Eli calls me and we head over to the ropes-course.

Technically, we're not giving away any secret strengths by doing the ropes-course. Everyone would expect us to know how to climb- it seems to be part of the predictability of being from Seven. But some of the tributes still watch us with interest. I mount the ropes first, gripping them tightly as they turn me upside down with my movements. Fortunately, I have practice with climbing this way, and it's practically second nature. I coordinate my hands and feet so that I can climb quite quickly backwards, and when I've almost reached the top net of the ropes-course, my feet let go of their ropes, and I turn with my hands. I feel my blood ever-so-slightly rising to my face as I sense at least three pairs of eyes watching my every move. 

So I have their attention. Good. Lightly swinging backwards for momentum, I curl my legs up toward my face and suddenly shoot them out through one of the gaps in the ropes. The momentum carries me farther than I'd hoped and I end up on top of the ropes, my hands still gripping the thick one I was holding. My back is arched and I'm turned backwards, facing the tributes watching me. I smother the urge to smile giddily when I see the open gapes on two of their faces. I pull myself out of my bridge, and Eli climbs up beside me. We sit down and he leans in close to me. I can hear the smile in his voice when he whispers, "That was cool."

I give one of my rare grins and reply, "Did you see yourself?" I'm pretty sure I recall him climbing using only his hands. Yet Eli's not the kind to show off. Usually.

He shrugs, a playful smile playing on his lips. "Well, these could be the last days of our lives, you know. We of all people should have the right to have fun." He speaks slower now, the casual factor in his statement gone as what he only just realized that he said sinks in. 

Well, he's right, I think. But he knows that it isn't that simple. If we followed that statement into the arena, we would be dead in a matter of hours. Eli knows better. He knows that what he said came off as incredibly arrogant. There is pain in his eyes, and I almost wish I could tell him that what he said was a harmless statement.

But nothing is a truly harmless statement in the Capitol. If we ever thought that our district was severe, with so many Peacekeepers watching the people that we eventually stopped needing blood samples on Reaping Day; then we were mistaken in the beginning. At least we know now to tread more carefully in the future.

"Well, then," I sigh, crouching on the ropes, "let's go choose another station. Even though I could stay up here forever," I add, still smiling slightly about my entrance up here. Eli nods and goes ahead of me, climbing swiftly with both hands and feet the entire way down. When he reaches the bottom, he waves at me to come down. And I wish I don't want to show off still, but I tell myself that it's so we- no, one of us- can go back home. Though no promises can really be made about that. I take a deep breath and climb backwards in the quickest but most modest way I can muster. And do something I never do while I climb.

I slip.

On about the tenth rope from the bottom, my foot catches on its rope, and my hands miss their next one. I end up falling backwards, and I expect to hit the ground, but my foot is tangled in one of the ropes. My back hits them, and sways slightly from bouncing off the cords. I see a couple of tributes laughing and pointing. I let myself smolder as I figure out a route down. If there is one thing I hate most in life, it's probably being laughed at. But I am soon smiling as I get an idea. For now, showing off is the answer as I see it.

So I untangle the rope from my foot and drop.

I hear gasps as I fall. But I've calculated exactly as far as I need to perform this stunt. After I pass three ropes, my hands reach out and snag another. I swing and pass through the opening in the ropes, much larger than most of the others. After I've reached full momentum, I let go. I tuck into a ball, and after one, two, three flips, I land on the next level of ropes, my feet landing firmly on the cords. I sway a little, but I can feel in the air that I've gotten the reaction I wanted, even without looking at the expressions of my audience. I smile to myself as I casually walk across the cords of this level, and then swing my way down. As I walk out of the station, I allow a glance in the general direction of the more stunned tributes. I almost giggle like a little girl seeing the reactions on some of their faces. Even more so when I see the pair from Two gaping at me. That'll show them to laugh. As I walk to the next station, grinning smugly, I can't help but think about how lucky it is that Eli and I were in athletic training at our school.

. . .

That is, until we get back from the first day of training.

"What were you thinking?!" barks Cedar to us when we mistakenly tell him of my little victory. I've never really seen him angry outside of his mood swings, and it is actually rather scary to see him this way anyway. But my mind reasons that it may actually be an advantage on my part that I forgot to tell Cedar that Eli and I are gymnasts. Maybe he'll begin to think it was accidental? But then, of course, I say the stupidest thing I can possibly say prior to that moment.

"I was trying to show them that I wasn't an incompetent idiot, like they were so convinced everyone was!" I yell back.

"Which is exactly what you don't want to do," Ash breaks in quietly, materializing beside me and making me jump. "Can I tell you a story?" he continues, unflinching at Cedar seething ten feet from us. Sensing a possible idea I may have missed, I sit on the floor, waiting for Ash to begin. A person who has been neighbors with someone suffering mood swings for two years, possibly longer, probably has picked up a few things in that time frame, after all.

Ash takes a deep breath before saying anything. "My girlfriend-" he manages, before his voice cracks. He swallows, and continues. "You remember her? Henna?" I nod. Ash's face, even after all this time, still takes on the slightest blush when he says her name. "Henna was good with a sword. She'd practice with a handmade one for hours out in the woods when no one was looking on. She was very good. Very."

Ash breathes in and out, and I hear the tightness in his voice as he says, "So good that she beat all three trainers at the fencing station. People who'd been trained by professionals all their lives." His eyes darken, and his face becomes stormy. I watch his hands clench until they turn white.

Ash whispers, "She paid for it in the arena. All that skill, washed down the drain because the Careers were watching. She left her pedestal, and the second she left it, the Careers nearest her were all over her." A pause, full of tension, full of angry knots left twisted. "They all ganged up on her, beat her up. Then one of them took out a sword. Stabbed her with it. Over and over and over."

Ash trembles, his eyes shut tight. "Those Careers laughed. They. Laughed. And what did I do?" He shakes his head at me, and gives me a cruel smile. He slams his hand on the coffee table, making me jump. "I ran away!" he chokes out. "I could have saved her, and instead, I ran! Just like the coward I am! I ran!" Cedar is suddenly behind Ash, holding his arms as he screams incoherently at me, at the Careers, at everything. I draw back, startled, and then suddenly, absolutely terrified. So this is what happened to my best friend. This is what killed him. This is what fighting for your life does.

This is what the Hunger Games is going to do to me. Eli.

Ash's head rises from its slump and he gives me a tight smile. "So there's your lesson," he spits. I nod and return the smile, just as tightly as he did to me. "Remember it well." Then Cedar half leads, half drags Ash off to his room.

Then I go off to my own room to scream into a pillow. Because it's painfully clear to me what the Hunger Games could do to me. I know it already. I know that by the time I leave here, I am probably never leaving the arena alive. I am either leaving as a body or as a monster. Either way, coming home is something no one is looking forward to. Me, least of all.

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Um.

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