CHAPTER 6
Coriolanus relished the disappointment on Sejanus’s face, but not for long, because that would’ve been petty. “Look, Sejanus, you may not think so, but this is me doing you a favor. Think about it. What would your father say if he found out you’d traded the tribute he’d lobbied for?”
“I don’t care,” said Sejanus, but it didn’t sound convincing.
“All right, forget about your father. What about the Academy?” he asked. “I doubt trading tributes is allowed. I’ve already been slapped with one demerit just for meeting Lucy Gray early. What if I tried to trade her? Besides, the poor thing is already attached to me. Dumping her would be like kicking a kitten. I don’t think I’d have the heart.”
“I shouldn’t have asked. I never even considered I might be making things difficult for you. I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” Sejanus’s words began to spill out. “It’s just this whole Hunger Games thing is making me crazy! I mean, what are we doing? Putting kids in an arena to kill each other? It feels wrong on so many levels. Animals protect their young, right? And so do we. We try to protect children! It’s built into us as human beings. Who really wants to do this? It’s unnatural!”
“It’s not pretty,” Coriolanus agreed, glancing around.
“It’s evil. It goes against everything I think is right in the world. I can’t be a part of it. Especially not with Marcus. I have to get out of it somehow,” Sejanus said, his eyes filling with tears.
His distress made Coriolanus uncomfortable, especially when he valued his own chance to participate so highly. “You could always ask another mentor. I don’t think you’d have a problem finding a taker.”
“No. I’m not handing Marcus over to anyone else. You’re the only one I’d trust with him.” Sejanus turned to the cage, where the tributes had settled down for the night. “Oh, what does it matter anyway? If it’s not Marcus, it will be someone else. It might be easier, but it still won’t be right.” He collected his backpack. “I better get home. That’s sure to be pleasant.”
“I don’t think you’ve broken any rules,” said Coriolanus.
“I’ve publicly aligned myself with the districts. In my father’s eyes, I’ve broken the only rule that matters.” Sejanus gave him a small smile. “Thanks again, though, for helping me out.”
“Thank you for the sandwich,” said Coriolanus. “It was delicious.”
“I’ll tell Ma you said so,” said Sejanus. “It’ll make her night.”
Coriolanus’s own return home was somewhat marred by the Grandma’am’s disapproval of his picnic with Lucy Gray.
“To feed her is one thing,” she said. “To dine with her suggests that you consider her your equal. But she isn’t. There’s always been something barbaric about the districts. Your own father used to say those people only drank water because it didn’t rain blood. You ignore that at your own peril, Coriolanus.”
“She’s just a girl, Grandma’am,” Tigris said.
“She’s district. And trust me, that one hasn’t been a girl in a long time,” the Grandma’am replied.
Coriolanus thought uneasily of the tributes on the truck debating whether or not to kill him. They’d certainly demonstrated a taste for his blood. Only Lucy Gray had objected.
“Lucy Gray is different,” he argued. “She took my side in the truck when the others wanted to attack me. And she had my back in the monkey house, too.”
The Grandma’am held her ground. “Would she have bothered if you weren’t her mentor? Of course not. She’s a wily little thing who began to manipulate you the minute you met. Tread carefully, my boy — that’s all I’m saying.”
Coriolanus didn’t bother arguing, as the Grandma’am always took the worst view of anything she deemed district. He went straight to bed, dropping with fatigue, but couldn’t quiet his mind. He took his mother’s powder compact from the drawer of his nightstand and ran his fingers over the rose engraved on the heavy silver case.
Roses are red, love; violets are blue.
Birds in the heavens know I love you. . . .
When he clicked the latch, the lid opened and the floral scent wafted out. In the shadowy light from the Corso, his pale blue eyes reflected back from the round, slightly distorted mirror. “Just like your father’s,” the Grandma’am frequently reminded him. He wished he had his mother’s eyes instead, but never said so. Maybe it was best to take after his father. His mother had not really been tough enough for this world. He finally drifted off, thinking of her, but it was Lucy Gray, spinning in her rainbow dress, who sang in his dreams.
In the morning, Coriolanus awoke to a delicious smell. He went to the kitchen and found that Tigris had been baking since before dawn.
He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Tigris, you need to get more sleep.”
“I couldn’t sleep, thinking about what’s going on at the zoo,” she said. “Some of the kids look so young this year. Or maybe I’m just getting older.”
“It’s disturbing to see them locked up in that cage,” Coriolanus admitted.
“It was disturbing to see you there as well!” she said, pulling on an oven mitt and taking a pan of bread pudding from the oven. “Fabricia told me to throw out the stale bread from the party, but I thought, why waste it?”
Hot from the oven, drizzled in corn syrup, bread pudding was one of his favorites. “It looks amazing,” he told Tigris.
“And there’s plenty, so you can take a piece to Lucy Gray. She said she liked sweet things — and I doubt there are many left in her future!” Tigris set the pan on the oven with a bang. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to do that. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m wound up tight as a spring.”
Coriolanus touched her arm. “It’s the Games. You know I have to do the mentorship, right? If I’m to stand a chance at getting a prize. I need to win that for all of us.”
“Of course, Coryo. Of course. And we’re so proud of you and how well you’re doing.” She cut a large slice of the bread pudding and slid it onto a plate. “Now eat up. You don’t want to be late.”
At the Academy, Coriolanus felt his apprehension melt away as he basked in the response to his recklessness the previous day. With the exception of Livia Cardew, who made it clear she thought he had cheated and should be dismissed as a mentor immediately, his classmates congratulated him. If his professors were not so openly supportive, he still received several smiles and subtle pats on the back.
Satyria took him aside after homeroom. “Well done. You’ve pleased Dr. Gaul, and that’s won you some points with the faculty. She’ll give a good report to President Ravinstill, and that will reflect well on all of us. Only, you need to be careful. You were lucky how it played out. What if those brats had attacked you in the cage? The Peacekeepers would have been bound to rescue you, and there could’ve been casualties on both sides. Things might’ve been quite different if you hadn’t landed your little rainbow girl.”
“Which is why I turned down Sejanus’s offer to trade tributes,” he said.
Satyria’s mouth dropped open. “No! Imagine what Strabo Plinth would say if that went public.”
“Imagine what he owes me if it doesn’t!” The thought of blackmailing old Strabo Plinth had definite appeal.
She laughed. “Spoken like a Snow. Now get to class. We need the rest of your record spotless if you’re going to go racking up demerits.”
The twenty-four mentors spent the morning in a seminar led by Professor Crispus Demigloss, their excitable old history professor. The class brainstormed ideas — beyond the addition of mentors — to get people to watch the Hunger Games. “Show me I haven’t been wasting my time with you for four years,” he said with a titter. “If history teaches you anything, it’s how to make the unwilling comply.” Sejanus’s hand went up directly. “Ah, Sejanus?”
“Before we talk about making people watch, shouldn’t we begin with the question of whether or not watching is the right thing to do?” he said.
“Let’s stay on topic, please.” Professor Demigloss scanned the room for a more productive answer. “How do we get people to watch?”
Festus Creed raised his hand. Bigger and burlier than most his age, he’d been one of Coriolanus’s inner circle since birth. His family was old Capitol money. Their fortune, largely in District 7 timber, had taken a hit during the war but had rebounded nicely during the reconstruction. His scoring the District 4 girl reflected his status quite accurately. High, but not stellar.
“Enlighten us, Festus,” said Professor Demigloss.
“Simple. We go straight to the punitive,” Festus answered. “Instead of suggesting people watch, make it the law.”
“What happens if you don’t watch?” asked Clemensia, not bothering to raise her hand or even look up from her notes. She was popular with both students and faculty, and her niceness excused a lot.
“In the districts, we execute you. In the Capitol, we make you move to the districts, and if you mess up again next year, then we execute you,” Festus said cheerfully.
The class laughed, then began to give it serious thought. How could you enforce it? You couldn’t send the Peacekeepers door-to-door. Perhaps some random sampling where you needed to be prepared to answer questions that proved you’d watched the Games. And if you hadn’t, what would an appropriate punishment be? Not execution or banishment — those were too extreme. Maybe some loss of privilege in the Capitol, and a public whipping in the districts? That would make the punishment personal to all.
“The real problem is, it’s sickening to watch,” said Clemensia. “So people avoid it.”
Sejanus jumped in. “Of course they do! Who wants to watch a group of children kill each other? Only a vicious, twisted person. Human beings may not be perfect, but we’re better than that.”
“How do you know?” said Livia snippishly. “And how does someone from the districts have any idea what we want to watch in the Capitol? You weren’t even here during the war.”
Sejanus fell silent, unable to deny it.
“Because most of us are basically decent people,” said Lysistrata Vickers, folding her hands neatly on her notebook. Everything about her was neat. From her carefully braided hair to her evenly filed nails to the crisp, white cuffs of her uniform blouse setting off her smooth, brown skin. “Most of us don’t want to watch other people suffer.”
“We watched worse things during the war. And after,” Coriolanus reminded her. There had been some bloody stuff broadcast over the airwaves during the Dark Days, and many a brutal execution after the Treaty of Treason had been signed.
“But we had a real stake in that, Coryo!” said Arachne Crane, giving him a sock on the arm from the seat to his right. Always so loud. Always socking people. The Cranes’ apartment faced the Snows’, and sometimes even from across the Corso, he could hear her bellowing at night. “We were watching our enemies die! I mean, rebel scum and whatnot. Who cares about these kids one way or another?”
“Possibly their families,” said Sejanus.
“You mean a handful of nobodies in the districts. So what?” Arachne boomed. “Why should the rest of us care which one of them wins?”
Livia looked pointedly at Sejanus. “I know I don’t.”
“I get more excited over a dogfight,” admitted Festus. “Especially if I’m betting on it.”
“So you’d like it if we gave odds on the tributes?” Coriolanus joked. “That would make you tune in?”
“Well, it would certainly liven things up!” Festus exclaimed.
A few people chuckled, but then the class went quiet as they mulled over the idea.
“It’s gruesome,” said Clemensia, twisting her hair around her finger thoughtfully. “Did you mean it for real? You think we should have betting on who wins?”
“Not really,” Coriolanus said, then cocked his head. “On the other hand, if it’s a success, then absolutely, Clemmie. I want to go down in history as the one who brought gambling to the Games!”
Clemensia shook her head in exasperation. But as he walked to lunch, Coriolanus couldn’t help thinking that the idea had some merit.
The dining hall cooks were still working with the reaping buffet leftovers, and the creamed ham on toast had to be the high point of the school lunch year. Coriolanus savored every bite, unlike at the original buffet, when he’d been so distraught over Dean Highbottom’s threatening manner that he’d barely tasted a thing.
The mentors had been instructed to gather on the balcony of Heavensbee Hall after lunch, ahead of their first official meetings with their tributes. Each mentor had been given a brief questionnaire to complete with their assignee, partly as an icebreaker, and partly as a matter of record. Very little information had been archived on previous tributes, and this was an effort to correct that. Many of his classmates had difficulty hiding their nerves as they headed over, talking and joking a little too loudly, but Coriolanus had gotten a leg up by meeting Lucy Gray twice already. He felt completely at ease, even eager to see her again. To thank her for the song. To give her Tigris’s bread pudding. To strategize over their interview.