Under the Moon

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Duck!" I shouted at Copper but he either wasn't paying attention or just didn't hear me. I had no choice but to push him to the ground. He looked at me in confusion as I pointed to the arrow shooting through the air and then at Sapphire, who was holding the bow. "You saved my life," he said, "My hero!" I laughed. I, his hero? "Anyone would have," I told him as a small group of Peacekeepers surrounded us. "What is going on?" one of them demanded gruffly.

"She saved my life," Copper said. The Peacekeepers looked at me, confused. So I told them what had happened. They immediately ran to Sapphire, who was still clutching her bow, angry that Copper had lived. But when the Peacekeepers surrounded her, she put on a sweet expression. "I was just practicing!" she cried, "I didn't intend to hurt him!"

"Practicing on what?" wondered a Peacekeeper, "The boy's head?"

Knowing that it was obvious that she meant to kill him, Sapphire mumbled, "Something like that."

"You aren't allowed to fight during training. Of course, tributes in the Capitol cannot be legally punished if they haven't actually hurt anyone, so all that happens is that you are banned from training for the rest of the day!" a Peacekeeper said as he led her out the room. I guess missing training would be pretty bad for most tributes, since we learn everything we need to survive in the games here, but Sapphire is a Career, meaning that she has spent her whole life training for this. Missing half a day would not affect her at all. "Good grief," Copper says, shaking his head, "She is certainly unique."

"Well if you want to put it in a nice way, unique is the word," I said, "But a better word to describe her is insane!"

"She will be one of the tributes who go crazy and try to eat whoever they kill," Copper said.

"Copper!" I cried, "You're scaring me."

"Sorry, sorry! I wouldn't want to scare my hero," he laughed.

"Don't call me that," I said, giggling.

"What do prefer Miss Zinc Zirconium?" he teased.

"Well maybe my first name, Zoe or even better, what I introduced myself as, Zeze," I said.

"Right!" he tapped his forehead, "But wouldn't you be Zezeze, because your initials are Z, Z, and Z?"

"No, I consider Zeze my first name and Zirconium my last name," I said, "What about you? Would you prefer Copernicus Snow?"

"No! I'm Copper! Who even has such fancy sounding, long, old fashioned first names anyway?" he wondered.

"I don't know. Maybe the president," I said. Suddenly, his body became tense and his facial expression became suspicious. "What does the president have to do with anything?" he demanded.

"Nothing, nothing," I said, "I was just kidding." He looked at me for a moment, and then his muscles relaxed. "Alright," he said.

At the end of the training, I returned back to our story in the Training Center. I took a shower and changed into a white top and black pants I found in the closet, before entering the dining room. I was early; the only person already there was Brinkley, who beamed at me as I said hello. "Hi sweetie-pie!" she crooned, "Did you have fun?"

"It was okay," I mumbled.

"That's nice dearie! Now let me go call Guerrick, Chloro, and Phyllis for dinner!" she said.

"Alright," I smiled weakly. A few moments later, Chloro and Phyllis quickly sat down and said hello. Then Guerrick came, late as usual, and dressed in his dirty, torn training clothes. "How was your first training day?" Chloro asked.