Jeopardy: The Fourth Quarter Quell

Elevator - Lexi

Alexandra

Breakfast!

I've never had breakfast before now. And now I've had two breakfasts in two days. There's so much food that I don't know what to eat first. Bread from every district, from our grainy rolls to the seaweed-tinged buns from Four. A single plate devoted completely to different types of cold meat, piled high in one massive, meaty lump. Even though there's only four of us, there's a whole rainbow of coloured drinks in pretty jugs with our seal painted on the side. The table almost groans with the weight of it all. It looks almost too good to eat.

Almost.

My chair swivels when I land in it, making the brightly coloured room spin in rainbow blurs. I laugh and it sounds like my laugh is trailing behind me. If I could spin all day and not get dizzy...

All too soon, my ride has come to an end and the chair glides to a halt. But I'm facing the window, the wrong way. There are pictures hanging on the buildings outside, not like the pictures that dangled from the massive building at night when everybody cheered. Those pictures were of people who won before. These pictures are of us.

Directly where I'm looking is a dark-skinned boy, the one who spends all his time up trees. He's laughing at me, and someone has painted circles of gold around his eyes and sprinkled it in his fuzzy hair. The background to his picture is a solid dull orange-brown colour that makes me think of the ground back home when it's dry and not fit for growing.

Next to him is a banner in yellow with a girl on it. She's smiling and pulling on one of her plaits; her hair has been plaited across her head into rows like furrows of golden corn. She looks very young next to the boy. There's no real effects used on her face but her cheeks are quite red with smiling. She looks so friendly that I smile at her even though she's not going to be able to smile back because she's just a picture.

She also looks very familiar. I pull on the brim of my cap; it helps me think. I don't think I know her from home because I'm the only girl from home here - that's the rules - but I'm sure I know her from somewhere.

It's me!

I immediately start laughing again. Of course she's me. I just didn't recognise her without the hat. They wouldn't let me wear it, the colourful people with the weird not-quite-clothes clothes. If they wore things like that back home, they'd get sunstroke. Or heatstroke. Whichever it is. And they'd just blinked big wide eyes at me and laughed. Not like I laugh, but like Flax laughs. Like he's actually angry and he's only laughing so he doesn't shout. But Flax doesn't laugh very often.

Right now Flax is stuffing his face with cold meats, squinting. I've not seen him not look squinty. His eyes are practically slits; it's a wonder that he can see out of them. Like the escort woman. Her eyelashes are so big and thick that they almost cover her eyes. I watch them, interested, because they're so heavy that it's got to be like a little workout for her just to blink. She must have really strong eye muscles.

"You must have really strong eye muscles," I tell her.

"Shut up and eat," she says.

So I do.

My tummy feels really full, bulging out of the navy kit that I wore yesterday. It's not like anything I've ever worn at home; it's too tight and too dark and I can see all the places that I'm slightly lumpy. I tap a finger onto my tummy. It feels podgy and makes a happy gurgling noise.

I prod Flax in the arm. He doesn't feel podgy, he feels like rock. He scowls across at me. Even though I'm only twelve and he's nearly eighteen, I'm tall and he's small and we're almost the same height.