pom. one.

POM.

Being in class with all these career kids is tiring. Not because they're obnoxious - well, maybe that too - but mainly because I just need a break from 'em talking about nothing but swords and bruises and beating each-other up. I mean, yeah, Happy Hunger Games and all, but One hasn't had a victor since I was in diapers and by the looks of this lot we won't have one for many more years to come.

I don't mind watching the Games that much, and perhaps I would be a better Career if I could afford it, but I've just got Mom and she's not out here bottling perfumes or creating catering delicacies. We get by, and I love the clothes she buys me - but a couple of shirts a season is a fraction of the cost of a season in Training. She's good with her hands, fixing up all the electronics around the District like she's from Three. She's not, obviously, but like me she found herself at a young age straying from the norm and honing in on what she was interested in, what could make her a dollar instead of a dime, not what could get her killed or washed-up.

I think it's kinda neat she's got a job everyone else here takes for granted. They all whine if we get an odd power-cut or two, curse District Three for their "shitty remotes" and say things like "Five have one job, and they can't even do it properly?"

Rude, right? Manners can get you far in life - I think that's how I got a sponsor. I wasn't dreaming of victorship since birth or begging to get my own set of knives each birthday, but if you're not at least enrolled in training you're asking to be excluded, bullied and ostracized in school. Never mind if you're good or not, you've just got to turn up and follow the crowd for an hour or two a week. I'm already abnormal enough, let alone my indifference for the Games.

Mom said we couldn't afford training at the fancy gyms and we didn't know anyone who'd home-school me, so at 10 years old I knocked on every retired Trainer's door I could find until the slamming stopped and someone actually smiled back at me. A lady leaned on her door frame and listened to my pitch for five minutes, telling me to come back the next day with a parent. Mrs. Grangerson - divorced, no kids, with a wicked sense of humour and the best shoe collection I'd ever seen - eventually met my Mom, once I'd dragged my poor mother down 13 blocks just to say hello. I wore my brightest shirt, showed her my cartwheels and she took me up on my offer, agreeing to sponsor me for a term to see how I did.

Safe to say I did well enough, because I was back the next year. Name on the roll, Pom Shields, Top 45 in my age group and looking to crack Top 40 if I wanted to stay for my third year. Knives are easy enough and I can just about manage a sword without taking someone's eye out but it's the ranged weapons I like the most. You get to think about things for a moment before you strike. Allows me room to listen, aim, breathe. I'm tiny, so I ace the stealth tests - save for my wild planet of spiraled hair, wrapped up into a bushy ponytail for training.

I know my flaws - knobbly knees and terrible balance and big feet - but I know my strengths even better. Like Mom, I focus most of my energies on things I'm good at. How I can use them to my advantage, to better myself and my situation. There's just not enough time to be mediocre at everything when I can excel once or twice. Mediocrity gets you killed, and excellence might just keep me alive. Besides, I won't be volunteering any time soon - if not ever. I've only got to survive high school, not the Hunger Games.

Outside of training I like to join Mom on her set-up jobs, see how things connect and work from behind the scenes. Mrs Grangerson insisted I keep up with other hobbies, save me from becoming a stagnant Career (I never liked those robot-children, she told me, even in my day). Clothes are what I like the most, cutting up catalogs and raiding hand-me-down shops for cool patterns and last decade's Capitol prints. Most kids at school say I dress eccentrically, but that's alright. My hair already takes up half the room - why not finish it up with an outfit too?

I think Mom thinks I worry too much about my appearance, and maybe I do - but it's all just for fun. Looking funky makes me feel confident. I don't want to be boring. Maybe I'm a hypocrite for going to Career training and wearing the same old silly uniform as everyone else, but I had to bargain my social status and balance out the odd with the normal. People tend to leave me alone, and if it's working so far why test the waters? I'm happy, for the most part. I do wish Mom would worry less. I know she wants to give me more than what she can, but some kids I know don't even have parents - let alone one. I've never needed a father, whoever he is, and that's okay with me.

It might not be okay with her, but I'm perfectly fine existing as just the two of us. Mom and Pom. Pom and Mom. Crazy hair and skinny arms and a half-step in the other direction. It's always been us two, and Grandma sometimes - Grandpa died before I was born, but I'm sure he was a nice man. Grandma's losing her memory, calls me Pom-Pom and sometimes Mom's first name. It's a little unnerving but I know she means well when she pats my head mid-conversation when we go to see her once a month. Any longer and Mom gets flustered, so I distract her with coffee and chatter about school or window-shopping.

Most of the time Mom is Mom and I'm the daughter, but in those few hours she needs someone to look after her for a change. I know most people would frown at that, but she's done so much for me it's the least I can do. Three dollar coffee and a happy smile on Mom's face - that doesn't cost a thing.