Garniet Carrola [D1]

My hair is my pride and my joy. A lovely creamy blonde like my mother's, it corkscrews gently down into ringlets of perfection.

See, I'm two sentences in and I'm already getting poetic.

I promise you, it won't happen again. I tend to do that when I'm talking about my hair, which is really pretty sweet. Ringlets of perfection, yada yada yada - well, all of that's essentially true. My hair is a nice light blonde, and it does curl into the kind of soft ringlets boys go crazy over. But poetry's just silly, so I'll try to avoid it for the rest of this report.

I guess my face is all right too. I've got a button of a nose, very small and snubbed a bit at the end. I think it and my eyes are a silly combination: they're a lot bigger than my other features, after all. But everyone else tells me they're stunning, and what do I know, eh? Personally, I think it's just the fact that they're as blue as amethysts. People love a blonde girl with blue eyes, whatever stupid jokes they crack about 'dumb blondes'.

My mouth, I'm assured, is as charming as the rest of my accursed face. It's a pursed-up, cupid-bow affair, and I don't even need to wear lipstick since it's always a soft mauve pink. Actually, if they were any other color I wouldn't mind prettying them up a little. I may be a self-declared tomboy, but that doesn't mean I can't look good - it's just that looking too good can make you seem weak. There's a delicate balance in that, and my overly pretty face doesn't help me keep it stable.

Ironically, the only redeeming flaw of my face comes within my mouth. My front teeth are huge, and I mean huge. Beavers have nothing on them, and they jut right out from beneath my lip if I'm not careful. They and several of my other teeth used to be crooked too, until Mom made me get braces. It was an agonizing year, but I'm finally through with being a metalmouth.

That's only one facade of what Mom darling can force on me. I'm pretty sure she was a Career at my age, too, which makes this whole girly-girl thing even more confusing. Every single day, I must wear the most embarrassing, the most childish pastel blouses and skirts which ever existed. At school, no one can say or do much of anything without getting into trouble, but on my way home or to the training center I'm often the subject of taunts.

Well, at least I can make sure no one who's not a Career can mess with me. I know better than to get myself all bloodied up in a fight with another one of us - not that I'd lose, but it wouldn't be worth it. Anyone else, though, is fair game. And I've made sure they know it. I may be only fourteen, but that doesn't mean I can't defend myself.

Though I'm not too fast, I'm strong, and I can take a lot of punishment before I go down. Added to that is the intimidation factor: even underneath pink silk, my height and my sturdy muscles are quite noticeable.

I can't, of course, wear frilly skirts while I'm hacking up a dummy with a sword. So I usually bring my training clothes to the center with me, and I change in the locker room there. Dad, bless him, has made sure and certain that I have training clothes to begin with. If Mom had her way, I'd never escape those lacy straitjackets. But she doesn't, so I can change. I've got several sets of training clothes, depending on the weather, but they're all black and they all include sweatpants. Heck, I'd wear 'em everywhere if I could - they're quite comfortable.

My name is Garniet. You can call me Garny for short - no, scratch that, you can't. Unless you're a good friend of mine, that is, and if you are I don't see why you're even bothering to read this. You already know all this stuff, don't you?

Well, seeing as most people reading probably don't know me, I'll get on with writing. You should know that if you call me Garny without my express permission, I'll thump you six ways to next Tuesday, and I mean that! I like the nickname, of course; I wouldn't let anyone call me something I didn't approve of. It's just that Garniet is perfectly good for use by strangers. It's like calling someone else Miss or Ma'am, see? Only those are too confusing, so I'm sticking with my given name as a sign of respect.

I do like having a nickname, though, whether or not I allow everyone to use it. I've often wondered why that is. Garniet is a pretty name, and it's not too long for practical use. Well, I'm not sure, but I think it's because of the root. Garnet. Pretty obvious - just add an 'i' and there you go! But it's a gemstone name, just like everyone and their grandmother has 'round District One. I guess I just don't like being so common.

I think I'd like a bird name better. Lark, or Robin, maybe. And Sparrow wouldn't be so bad either. It's the wings. Like I said earlier, I'm not too fast a runner. And if you can't run or fly, what's there left to do but pretend you have wings, flutter-swooping into the endless sky - oh, that's poetic, isn't it? Sorry. I got carried away, I guess. I took a poetry class once.

Well, poetry aside, the problem I have with my name could well be my ego. I've got one, and it's big - I don't mind admitting it. I've got trouble admitting when I'm wrong, and I tend to blow up if I'm insulted. I mean, like punching people blow-up. One of the side effects of being a Career is that you know you can punch - and well, too - so many times it doesn't stay an angry fantasy, locked in my head. I can tell you I've gotten in trouble at school a fair amount of times, but the teachers go easy on Careers, so I've never so much as been suspended. Detention is the heaviest punishment I've ever gotten.

I do have some soft spots, though, however often I break noses. One is birds, as I've said. I don't have any qualms about eating them - a chicken is, well, a chicken. And it's not particularly graceful. The same goes for turkey and all that. I don't really count them, but I do count real, fluttery-swoopy birds. I wouldn't hurt one of those for the world.

Another of my soft spots is for my family. I'm Mom and Dad's only child, and they dote on me. I know I'll never be able to repay that, and I also know they'd never expect me to. I love them, though. Very much. And now it's time to move on before I break into song or something.

I suppose I've had a fairly typical childhood. But there are a few points, as there are in anyone's life, where I deviated from the common lot, no, everyday, no, run-of-the-mill... oh, heck. I give up.

When I was born, my parents were not married. It wasn't exactly the first time such a thing has happened, but both their sets of parents were horrified. I think Grandma on my mother's side was actually tempted to leave her cash to someone else, but Grandpa talked her out of it.

The pressure their families put on my parents was too much for them, or maybe it was their own idea, but they wed within a few days of my arrival. So, by the time I could do anything besides sleep and cry, it was for the eyes of a lovely young couple.

But then, of course, Dad got sick. Because it's always something, isn't it?

And this wasn't any coughing, sneezing, oh-I'll-be-all-right-in-a-few-days sickness. This was the real thing. My parents tell me he couldn't move from bed for days at a time, and he could only drink tiny sips of water if he didn't want to vomit it back up. The same went for food. They tell me he nearly died.

Myself, I think it was the flu, if a pretty nasty case. After all, no one can resist exaggerating sometimes.

Anyway, I was only two weeks old at the time and Mom was terrified I would catch whatever it was too. So she and I moved in with family friends for the time. Dad, of course, needed someone to take care of him, so Mom hired a nurse and that was that. We're not exactly poor - my parents own a top-notch jewelry shop - so she could afford the best.

There was another child in the house we were staying in, a boy named Flash, about my age. Mom tells me we took to each other right away, though we did argue sometimes. Apparently he seemed to think that when we played Hunger Games, I had to be the one who was killed. I, naturally, disagreed.

Eventually Dad got better and we came home. But Flash and I stayed friends. We were sparring partners when we began our training as Careers. We walked home from school together. We played at each other's houses. There was never anything romantic between us, whatever you think! We were just... friends. Isn't it amazing how much that word can mean?

Or at least, what it did mean.

It was a few days after our own Peridot Myler's return from the arena. I was told he was out taking a walk in the evening. Someone hadn't tied up their dog properly, had left the door or the garden gate open... I'll never know. But whatever happened, we know a dog got loose.

It was a Great Dane. I'll always remember that. A big yellow Great Dane, belonging to a breed so little known for violence, jumped him on his way past its yard. He did put up a fight, and the dog was injured - he wasn't a Career for nothing, after all. But he was only thirteen! Not ready for the Games, not ready for a fight, not ready to die! He would never have been ready to die.

He did die, though. Throat torn out, they tell me. The dog was taken into custody, probably killed, though I've never cared to find out. I don't know what was done to the owner.

And that's where Flash ended. Don't speak to me about him. Just... please. Don't.