Jeopardy: The Fourth Quarter Quell

Water - Adrienne

Adrienne

The water swirls around me, teasing strands of my hair in every direction. Sunlight pierces through the surface, glinting off the bodies of a nearby shoal of silvery fish and warming the water so that it feels like a pleasant bath. The whole of Panem is blissfully mute. It's just me and my net and the fish and the water.

A foot kicks just within my vision.

Oh, and Crispin too.

He waves a few times to try and get my attention. I pretend to ignore him, staring into the shoal as if chosing an angle to strike from. He waves again, more frantically. Sensing the disturbance in the water, the fish tighten into a perfect sphere, starting to float away.

I glare at Crispin. He's not actually grinning back, but his eyes are creased up around the corners in the same way that they do when he's wearing his 'I got my own way again' smile. One day I'd love to slap that smile off his face. But not today.

He points up; 'I need air', and without waiting to see if I nod or not, he's gliding towards the surface, leaving wisps of current in his wake.

I turn my attention back to the fish, but they've bunched closely together and I don't think I'll be able to get near them. It's a good job neither Crispin nor I have any real need to work or we'd have starved by now. My lungs are still holding air, but there's no point hanging around trying to get near these fish now they're on alert, and there's the reaping to think about too, so I kick out with my feet and float off after Crispin.

That magical moment when my head breaks the surface completely obliterates all other thoughts for a split second. All at once the sound rushes back into my ears; children shouting far away, waves splashing on the shore, the calls of nearby boatsmen. The sea is calm, and not too far to my left a thread of golden beach is lined with tiny colourful specks for huts and backed by gentle slopes, dotted with clusters of brown villages. All kinds of boats bob up and down on the tiny waves, jostling with each other, all coming in for the reaping. Some have been out for weeks. Many of the men are leaning overboard, eager to see their families again, chins coated with stubble and cheeks encrusted with salt. Much to my annoyance, there are no women.

"Ahoy there!" a voice calls brightly, "Fancy you'll get back in time, do you?"

A tiny little sculler is floating around near us, a man with an irritatingly familiar grin at the paddles. Without even waiting for an answer, he casts out a line, but Crispin ignores it and hauls himself aboard anyway, shaking his head so that his tawny hair justs away from his face like lionfish spikes.

"You coming, Ade? Or do we have to race you back?" he laughs, as the man claps him proudly on the back, his eyes glinting as he looks down at me. A quick assessment shows that he's strong, especially in the arms, and with Crispin at the second paddles, I'm never going to win. And I need to save my strength, anyway.

"Fine, I'm coming," I say, and tug myself up, ignoring the rope. The man laughs again and sticks out his hand for a greeting. I take it with all the strength I can muster.

"Caspian Mere, at your service," he declares, "And you must be the infamous Adrienne Meera, am I correct?"

He says it with the exact same tone Crispin uses when he knows he's right. It has about the same effect; I start to get annoyed. Humility is obviously not something the Mere family feel like they have to bother with. And there's no doubt that Caspian is exactly like the rest of his family. He has the same hair, the same slightly mocking tone, the same slightly shrivelled ears that Crispin tries his best to hide. Caspian wears his proudly, jutting out from a ring of ragged hair and patches of sunburn.