Catching Catnip

Chapter 2

The ride to the Capitol was long and quiet, I tried to break the silence multiple times between Katniss and I but I kept getting the feeling she was mad at me.

"Hey Catnip." I say, itching the back of my neck.

"Hey, do you know where our 'mentor' is? Isn't he supposed to be mentoring us?" She said.

"I think he's in the bar car." I should just ask her now. "Are you mad at me? You've been kind of distant since the reaping."

"You were supposed to stay with Prim." She said, shaking her head. "Chances are neither of us are going to make it, so that leaves her with no one."

Oh, I get what she means now. Katniss voulenteered for Prim so she'd survive, but now she doesn't have anyone. Except how would I know she'd want that? I just nod my head. At that moment our mentor stumbles in, nearly falling over with two half empty glasses of liquor in his hands.

"Have any of you seen the ice?" He says with slurred words.

"Hey where have you been aren't you supposed to be giving us advice?" Katniss asks, clearly annoyed.

"Listen sweetheart, the only reason I came in here was for the ice." He plops in the seat in front of us. "You're very unlikely to avoid your inevitable death anyway."

The two argued for about twenty minutes, but I just tried to zone them out. There were more important things to worry about. I knew that Katniss was just trying to find someone to relieve her stress onto, I didn't mind, we still had about a day left on the train.

* * *

The rest of the train ride felt pretty short, and our mentor, Haymitch agreed to helping us. Today we're finding out our training scores. Right now I'm sitting in the waiting room, feeling sick to my stomach. I hope no one notices, wouldn't want to be pegged as a wimp this early in the games - I think. I don't know if there is a really smart strategy I could use, like most winners usually do, not that I'm even planning on winning. To be honest, I'd most likely just tell Katniss to do that and hope for the best. 

"Gale Hawthorne, District twelve" the loud speaker booms.

"Good luck." Katniss says with an artificial smile. I just keep going with no idea what I'm going to do.

I walk in to a large room with weapons, supplies and dummies balanced against walls. The game makers excessively stuff their faces with what appears to be an entire pig, paying almost no attention to me. I grab a net and some sticks with a bow. I better stick to what I know. There is a squishy, gray, foam cube lying not far away, that'll work. I roll the cube from a couple yards away into the trap. Once it's caught up dangling a few feet in the air, I shoot it with the bow, straight through the center. Hope that doesn't seem suspicious, not too many people know how to do stuff like this in District Twelve, unless you hunt.

Not a head turned. Apparently they have better things to do then to pay attention to children their about to kill. I could hit one of them in the eye if I wanted to, but that probably never dawned on them, because people from district twelve aren't considered anything special.

If that's not good enough I guess I'll have to focus more on weapons then my traps. I pick up my bow. This should turn heads. I aim and shoot one of the shot glasses directly out of someone's hand.

I hear gasps and shrieks for a few moments before one of them shouts "That's enough! Your excused." His pointy eyebrows tilt inward as I leave. Well, at least I made an impression.