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Coriolanus left the Academy in a state of agitation, but once again the rush of attention quieted his distress.
From his fellow students in the hallway, from Tigris and the Grandma’am as they ate a quick supper of fried eggs and cabbage soup, from complete strangers as he made his way back to the zoo that evening, eager to keep his hand in the Games.
The soft orange glow of the sunset suffused the city, and a cool breeze swept away the suffocating heat of the day.
Officials had extended the zoo’s hours until nine o’clock, allowing the citizens to see the tributes, but there had been no more live coverage since his earlier visit.
Coriolanus had decided to make another appearance to check on Jolene and suggest she sing another song. The audience would love that, and perhaps it would draw the cameras back again.
As he wound through the paths of the zoo, he was filled with nostalgia for the pleasant days he’d spent there as a child, but he felt saddened by the emptiness of the cages. They had once been full of fascinating creatures from the Capitol’s genetic ark. Now, in one, a lone tortoise lay in the mud, wheezing.
A bedraggled toucan squawked high in the branches, fluttering freely from one enclosure to the next. They were rare survivors of the war, as most animals had starved or been eaten.
A pair of scrawny raccoons that had likely wandered in from the adjacent city park dug in an overturned trash can. The only beasts thriving were the rats that chased one another around the edges of fountains and scurried across the path mere feet away.
As Coriolanus neared the monkey house, the paths became more populated, and a crowd of about a hundred people curved from one side of the bars to the other.
Someone jostled his arm as they sped by, and he recognized Lepidus Malmsey pushing ahead through the visitors with the cameraman. A sort of commotion was occurring down front, and he climbed up on a boulder to get a better view.
To his chagrin, he saw Sejanus standing at the edge of the cage with a large backpack beside him. He held what appeared to be a sandwich through the bars, offering it to the tributes within.
For the moment, they were all hanging back. Coriolanus could not hear his words, but he seemed to be trying to coax Dill, the girl from District 11, to take it.
What was Sejanus up to? Was he trying to outdo him and steal the day’s thunder? To take his idea of coming to the zoo and then dress it up in a way Coriolanus could never compete with, because he could never afford to? Was that whole pack filled with sandwiches?
That girl wasn’t even his tribute.
When Sejanus caught sight of Coriolanus, his face brightened and he waved him over. Casually, Coriolanus made his way through the crowd, soaking up their attention. “Trouble?” he said as he surveyed the backpack. It was overflowing with not only sandwiches, but fresh plums as well.
