on a train

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell turns over the crate to her parents. They believe her about finding it on the beach. They open one can to celebrate, and then Shark very sensibly insists that the rest of it be stored until it is needed.

The next few days, leading up to Tony's victory tour's stop in Four, see her ferretting out her remaining stash and distributing it between her parents and Lynnis's family until it's all gone. They're assuming a ship lost a lot of merchandise at once. Bad weather, one assumes.

She stops replacing her shells by the doors. But she does show up to work, until the day before when she has to leave. Then, she fakes sick enough to stay home, spends the day sleeping, and - at night - is rested enough to execute her plan.

Dear Mom and Dad.

I'm going for Atlantis. It's okay! I have a plan! I'll come back and get you when I can and then we can all live there. Please tell Mr. Carrasen I'm sorry about the canoe. I'll bring him a new one after I get there! I love you! It's going to be great!

- Shell Bell

...the idea, after all, is to instantly convince them that she is dead. That she is too foolish and unprepared to have any chance. That there is no point in worrying about her any further, and they should move directly to grieving - certainly not wasting time looking for her or reporting her as a missing person. The fact that she's not swiping any of the cans and only one water container - is not even bringing a fishing rod - is another clue, of course.

Shell Bell wears her nice dress - it'll attract less attention in the town than work clothes, on a Victory Tour day where everyone's supposed to celebrate, and the town in question is big enough that her mere unfamiliarity won't catch her out immediately. She packs one more practical change of clothes, sticks her stick in her hair, and puts one salty roll in her pocket to eat at around midnight and a few strips of dried salmon to nibble on as necessary through the walk. She's also wearing the less remarkable-looking of the two protective amulets she traded for during her stay in Milliways. It looks like a lump of white glass - it could even pass for sea glass. The other stuff she obtained is waiting for her in her room in the bar.

She melts the lock on the canoe shed and buries it deep in the sand. She drags out a canoe. Briefly, she considers actually canoeing to the next town up, but while she knows how to row like any District Four resident does, she's worried about being noticed on her way in, and it'll be easier to avoid that if she's not in the place where all the actual industry goes on, namely the shore. She pushes it out to sea regretfully. Saltwater spatters her dress, but it dries as she goes.

She talks to her recorder in the dark silence.

And just before dawn peeps over the ocean, she's picked her way through the sleeping town to the train station and she's pretending to be a premature, eager celebrator.

Comments

[ferratus]

"I better get out there," says Tony. "Gotta do the early morning routine. Sherry, you coming?"

[sicaria]

"When do I not?" she says, smiles over her shoulder at Bella, and follows him out.

The door, once closed behind her, looks comfortingly solid from this side. That is an illusion, but it's a nice one, isn't it?

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell stays put. Is there a TV in here? She wonders if she could have it on very quietly and get a live feed of the exterior goings-on.

[sicaria]

There is!

[she_sells_seashells]

She does!

[ferratus]

And there's Tony, soon enough: expressing his heartfelt condolences for Four's tributes, whom he remembers by name, and then making the crowd laugh twice and flirting with an old lady in the front row.

[she_sells_seashells]

Aww.

[ferratus]

He makes it look effortless. Spontaneous. Sincere.

It isn't really.

[sicaria]

Eventually, the show is over and Sherlock returns to her room.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell flips the TV off; it's now advertising shoes. "Hi again," she says. "You've got really good stage presence. Is it terrible?"

[ferratus]

"Yep," says Tony, and opens the door to his room, and gives it an annoyed look, and walks back through it and closes it again.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell looks at her knees. "I shouldn't have asked that, huh?"

[sicaria]

"I don't believe it had an effect on his mood either way," says Sherlock. "He is always like this after public events."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I can't even imagine it. I was only up on stage for a minute, and even when I was panicking I didn't really expect Lynnis to defect, and then they make him talk about it a dozen times. And he manages to look like it's not even hard."

[sicaria]

"Tony is very good with that sort of thing," says Sherlock.

Bell may remember Sherlock's own victory tour, which was marked by flat affect, stilted apologies, and being whisked off the stage in a hurry.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell does remember that. She doesn't remark on it, though!

[sicaria]

After a moment, she adds, "I am not."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I saw," Bell says.

[sicaria]

"But then, I don't believe anyone expected me to be."

[she_sells_seashells]

"It didn't really fit with any part of the image you projected before that, no."

It didn't really hit Bell, in the bar, that she was talking to Hunger Games victors, except long enough to ask Sherlock not to kill her. Now she is in the train, and Sherlock and Tony continue to exist, and, yes, they are victors and she is in their train.

[sicaria]

"Pretending to be clumsy and incompetent before my Games began was the extent of my acting ability. Emotions are more difficult."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I really am clumsy. It's a good thing, too, or I might have been picked at Career camp and I would have been in Tony's Games."

[sicaria]

"What would you have done, if Lynnis had not stepped up?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"I had my stick. Assuming I didn't get a chance to escape into the arena, most of the other tributes' mined platforms would have gone off in rapid sequence before we were allowed to move, I would have fled with no supplies into the arena, and anyone I ran into would have died of internal burns that I'm sure would look very strange on an autopsy report. And then I would have never, ever come back the next time I found a door."

Pause. "That's if I actually had to go. If Lynnis hadn't stepped up, the seventeen-year-old Career girl in training would have socked her in the nose and volunteered and the girl Four Careers would have been a year younger than they're supposed to be until we hit a cohort that had two - they put in occasional backups for that in case one dies or defects."

[sicaria]

"A sound plan," says Sherlock. "Particularly the part where you flee the universe afterward."