Rue's Story: Catch Me If You Can

Chapter 5

Dinner is amazing. We eat pork roast with beet and carrot stew with sweet mashed potatoes and fried asparagus. By the end, I have stuffed myself with all of this and five buttered rolls with two glasses of fizzy soda. I've never had so much food in my life, and I'm sure it wasn't too hard to tell. I ate as if it's been years since a crum of food has been placed on my tongue. Now, I feel as if I can barely move, and I can tell Thresh feels the same way.

Just as I am about to remark on how I felt like a stuffed chicken, the servant walks in bearing a huge dish of what they call "cheesecake". It has five different favors in it. Vanilla, chocolate, coconut, strawberry, and peanut butter with milky buttercream frosting. The taste of it just blends together in my mouth and created this feeling that makes me forget how full I really am. By the time I have downed two pieces, I start hoping that one of the servants can roll me to where I need to go next.

Sadly, I am forced to get up myself and walk to the couches. A big TV stretches from wall to wall in this room. Seeder says that we'll have to watch the reapings from other districts to see what were up against. I try to pick out people that stick out. Both tributes from 1 seem pretty good. District 2 has one really bulky looking kid who could probably break my neck in a second. They're all Careers, of course. No doubt they'll all team up. There's a boy from 10 with a limp. And then, of course, there's our reaping. I look so small and timid walking onto the stage. I wish I had had some courage and at least hidden the fact that I was terrified. But District 12 had some drama. The girl, Katniss Everdeen, volunteered for her little sister, Primrose Everdeen. I swear, that was true bravery.

The tapes end and Mayce decides to go get some beauty sleep, so that leaves Seeder, Thresh, and I to watch recaps of old Hunger Games. Seeder leaves right before the 60th Games tape saying that she is tired. I guess she'd been worn out from the long day. As it starts, I realize that this is the year that Seeder won. I pay close attention to how she uses her skills from our district to survive and strive throughout the games. Many poisonous plants killed off tributes, while life-saving plants weren't used when necessary. Of course, Seeder used that to her advantage. I am amazed at, not only her knowledge, but her speed and agility. She skillfully uses her knife, as if cutting branches in the orchards. I become inspired by her and make her my example for the rest of the games.

We stay up for a few hours watching recaps until I can't take it anymore. I say good night to Thresh and head to my room. I take a hot, soothing shower, unlike any cold bath I've ever experienced. I figure out how to switch settings using a small rempte control pad that had pressure, temperature, type of soap, smell of shampoo, etc. I come out feeling sore yet relieved. I put on some blue, silk pajamas and slip under the warm comforter of my bed. Like Mayce, it's time to get my beauty sleep.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow

a bed of grass, a soft green pillow...

With that song in mind, I slip into the calmest sleep I've ever slept.