The Hunger Games (10 page)

Caesar Flickerman, the man who has hosted the interviews for more than forty years, bounces onto the stage. It’s a little scary because his appearance has been virtually unchanged during all that time. Same face under a coating of pure white makeup. Same hairstyle that he dyes a different color for each Hunger Games. Same ceremonial suit, midnight blue dotted with a thousand tiny electric bulbs that twinkle like stars. They do surgery in the Capitol, to make people appear younger and thinner. In District 12, looking old is something of an achievement since so many people die early. You see an elderly person, you want to
congratulate them on their longevity, ask the secret of survival. A plump person is envied because they aren’t scraping by like the majority of us. But here it is different. Wrinkles aren’t desirable. A round belly isn’t a sign of success.

This year, Caesar’s hair is powder blue and his eyelids and lips are coated in the same hue. He looks freakish but less frightening than he did last year when his color was crimson and he seemed to be bleeding. Caesar tells a few jokes to warm up the audience but then gets down to business.

The girl tribute from District 1, looking provocative in a see-through gold gown, steps up the center of the stage to join Caesar for her interview. You can tell her mentor didn’t have any trouble coming up with an angle for her. With that flowing blonde hair, emerald green eyes, her body tall and lush…she’s sexy all the way.

Each interview only lasts three minutes. Then a buzzer goes off and the next tribute is up. I’ll say this for Caesar, he really does his best to make the tributes shine. He’s friendly, tries to set the nervous ones at ease, laughs at lame jokes, and can turn a weak response into a memorable one by the way he reacts.

I sit like a lady, the way Effie showed me, as the districts slip by. 2, 3, 4. Everyone seems to be playing up some angle. The monstrous boy from District 2 is a ruthless killing machine. The fox-faced girl from District 5 sly and elusive. I spotted Cinna as soon as he took his place, but even his presence cannot relax me. 8, 9, 10. The crippled
boy from 10 is very quiet. My palms are sweating like crazy, but the jeweled dress isn’t absorbent and they skid right off if I try to dry them. 11.

Rue, who is dressed in a gossamer gown complete with wings, flutters her way to Caesar. A hush falls over the crowd at the sight of this magical wisp of a tribute. Caesar’s very sweet with her, complimenting her seven in training, an excellent score for one so small. When he asks her what her greatest strength in the arena will be, she doesn’t hesitate. “I’m very hard to catch,” she says in a tremulous voice. “And if they can’t catch me, they can’t kill me. So don’t count me out.”

“I wouldn’t in a million years,” says Caesar encouragingly.

The boy tribute from District 11, Thresh, has the same dark skin as Rue, but the resemblance stops there. He’s one of the giants, probably six and a half feet tall and built like an ox, but I noticed he rejected the invitations from the Career Tributes to join their crowd. Instead he’s been very solitary, speaking to no one, showing little interest in training. Even so, he scored a ten and it’s not hard to imagine he impressed the Gamemakers. He ignores Caesar’s attempts at banter and answers with a yes or no or just remains silent.

If only I was his size, I could get away with sullen and hostile and it would be just fine! I bet half the sponsors are at least considering him. If I had any money, I’d bet on him myself.

And then they’re calling Katniss Everdeen, and I feel
myself, as if in a dream, standing and making my way center stage. I shake Caesar’s outstretched hand, and he has the good grace not to immediately wipe his off on his suit.

“So, Katniss, the Capitol must be quite a change from District Twelve. What’s impressed you most since you arrived here?” asks Caesar.

What? What did he say? It’s as if the words make no sense.

My mouth has gone as dry as sawdust. I desperately find Cinna in the crowd and lock eyes with him. I imagine the words coming from his lips. “What’s impressed you most since you arrived here?” I rack my brain for something that made me happy here.
Be honest
, I think.
Be honest.

“The lamb stew,” I get out.

Caesar laughs, and vaguely I realize some of the audience has joined in.

“The one with the dried plums?” asks Caesar. I nod. “Oh, I eat it by the bucketful.” He turns sideways to the audience in horror, hand on his stomach. “It doesn’t show, does it?” They shout reassurances to him and applaud. This is what I mean about Caesar. He tries to help you out.

“Now, Katniss,” he says confidentially, “When you came out in the opening ceremonies, my heart actually stopped. What did you think of that costume?”

Cinna raises one eyebrow at me. Be honest. “You mean after I got over my fear of being burned alive?” I ask.

Big laugh. A real one from the audience.

“Yes. Start then,” says Caesar.

Cinna, my friend, I should tell him anyway. “I thought
Cinna was brilliant and it was the most gorgeous costume I’d ever seen and I couldn’t believe I was wearing it. I can’t believe I’m wearing this, either.” I lift up my skirt to spread it out. “I mean, look at it!”

As the audience
ooh
s and
ah
s, I see Cinna make the tiniest circular motion with his finger. But I know what he’s saying.
Twirl for me.

I spin in a circle once and the reaction is immediate.

“Oh, do that again!” says Caesar, and so I lift up my arms and spin around and around letting the skirt fly out, letting the dress engulf me in flames. The audience breaks into cheers. When I stop, I clutch Caesar’s arm.

“Don’t stop!” he says.

“I have to, I’m dizzy!” I’m also giggling, which I think I’ve done maybe never in my lifetime. But the nerves and the spinning have gotten to me.

Caesar wraps a protective arm around me. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you. Can’t have you following in your mentor’s footsteps.”

Everyone’s hooting as the cameras find Haymitch, who is by now famous for his head dive at the reaping, and he waves them away good-naturedly and points back to me.

“It’s all right,” Caesar reassures the crowd. “She’s safe with me. So, how about that training score. Eleven. Give us a hint what happened in there.”

I glance at the Gamemakers on the balcony and bite my lip. “Um…all I can say, is I think it was a first.”

The cameras are right on the Gamemakers, who are chuckling and nodding.

“You’re killing us,” says Caesar as if in actual pain. “Details. Details.”

I address the balcony. “I’m not supposed to talk about it, right?”

The Gamemaker who fell in the punch bowl shouts out, “She’s not!”

“Thank you,” I say. “Sorry. My lips are sealed.”

“Let’s go back then, to the moment they called your sister’s name at the reaping,” says Caesar. His mood is quieter now. “And you volunteered. Can you tell us about her?”

No. No, not all of you. But maybe Cinna. I don’t think I’m imagining the sadness on his face. “Her name’s Prim. She’s just twelve. And I love her more than anything.”

You could hear a pin drop in the City Circle now.

“What did she say to you? After the reaping?” Caesar asks.

Be honest. Be honest. I swallow hard. “She asked me to try really hard to win.” The audience is frozen, hanging on my every word.

“And what did you say?” prompts Caesar gently.

But instead of warmth, I feel an icy rigidity take over my body. My muscles tense as they do before a kill. When I speak, my voice seems to have dropped an octave. “I swore I would.”

“I bet you did,” says Caesar, giving me a squeeze. The buzzer goes off. “Sorry we’re out of time. Best of luck, Katniss Everdeen, tribute from District Twelve.”

The applause continues long after I’m seated. I look to Cinna for reassurance. He gives me a subtle thumbs-up.

I’m still in a daze for the first part of Peeta’s interview. He has the audience from the get-go, though; I can hear them laughing, shouting out. He plays up the baker’s son thing, comparing the tributes to the breads from their districts. Then has a funny anecdote about the perils of the Capitol showers. “Tell me, do I still smell like roses?” he asks Caesar, and then there’s a whole run where they take turns sniffing each other that brings down the house. I’m coming back into focus when Caesar asks him if he has a girlfriend back home.

Peeta hesitates, then gives an unconvincing shake of his head.

“Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what’s her name?” says Caesar.

Peeta sighs. “Well, there is this one girl. I’ve had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was alive until the reaping.”

Sounds of sympathy from the crowd. Unrequited love they can relate to.

“She have another fellow?” asks Caesar.

“I don’t know, but a lot of boys like her,” says Peeta.

“So, here’s what you do. You win, you go home. She can’t turn you down then, eh?” says Caesar encouragingly.

“I don’t think it’s going to work out. Winning…won’t help in my case,” says Peeta.

“Why ever not?” says Caesar, mystified.

Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. “Because…because…she came here with me.”

For a moment, the cameras hold on Peeta’s downcast eyes as what he says sinks in. Then I can see my face, mouth half open in a mix of surprise and protest, magnified on every screen as I realize,
Me! He means me!
I press my lips together and stare at the floor, hoping this will conceal the emotions starting to boil up inside of me.

“Oh, that is a piece of bad luck,” says Caesar, and there’s a real edge of pain in his voice. The crowd is murmuring in agreement, a few have even given agonized cries.

“It’s not good,” agrees Peeta.

“Well, I don’t think any of us can blame you. It’d be hard not to fall for that young lady,” says Caesar. “She didn’t know?”

Peeta shakes his head. “Not until now.”

I allow my eyes to flicker up to the screen long enough to see that the blush on my cheeks is unmistakable.

“Wouldn’t you love to pull her back out here and get a response?” Caesar asks the audience. The crowd screams assent. “Sadly, rules are rules, and Katniss Everdeen’s time has been spent. Well, best of luck to you, Peeta Mellark, and I think I speak for all of Panem when I say our hearts go with yours.”

The roar of the crowd is deafening. Peeta has absolutely
wiped the rest of us off the map with his declaration of love for me. When the audience finally settles down, he chokes out a quiet “Thank you” and returns to his seat. We stand for the anthem. I have to raise my head out of the required respect and cannot avoid seeing that every screen is now dominated by a shot of Peeta and me, separated by a few feet that in the viewers’ heads can never be breached. Poor tragic us.

But I know better.

After the anthem, the tributes file back into the Training Center lobby and onto the elevators. I make sure to veer into a car that does not contain Peeta. The crowd slows our entourages of stylists and mentors and chaperones, so we have only each other for company. No one speaks. My elevator stops to deposit four tributes before I am alone and then find the doors opening on the twelfth floor. Peeta has only just stepped from his car when I slam my palms into his chest. He loses his balance and crashes into an ugly urn filled with fake flowers. The urn tips and shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces. Peeta lands in the shards, and blood immediately flows from his hands.

“What was that for?” he says, aghast.

“You had no right! No right to go saying those things about me!” I shout at him.

Now the elevators open and the whole crew is there, Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, and Portia.

“What’s going on?” says Effie, a note of hysteria in her voice. “Did you fall?”

“After she shoved me,” says Peeta as Effie and Cinna help him up.

Haymitch turns on me. “Shoved him?”

“This was your idea, wasn’t it? Turning me into some kind of fool in front of the entire country?” I answer.

“It was my idea,” says Peeta, wincing as he pulls spikes of pottery from his palms. “Haymitch just helped me with it.”

“Yes, Haymitch is very helpful. To you!” I say.

“You
are
a fool,” Haymitch says in disgust. “Do you think he hurt you? That boy just gave you something you could never achieve on your own.”

“He made me look weak!” I say.

“He made you look desirable! And let’s face it, you can use all the help you can get in that department. You were about as romantic as dirt until he said he wanted you. Now they all do. You’re all they’re talking about. The star-crossed lovers from District Twelve!” says Haymitch.

“But we’re not star-crossed lovers!” I say.

Haymitch grabs my shoulders and pins me against the wall. “Who cares? It’s all a big show. It’s all how you’re perceived. The most I could say about you after your interview was that you were nice enough, although that in itself was a small miracle. Now I can say you’re a heartbreaker. Oh, oh, oh, how the boys back home fall longingly at your feet. Which do you think will get you more sponsors?”

The smell of wine on his breath makes me sick. I shove his hands off my shoulders and step away, trying to clear my head.

Cinna comes over and puts his arm around me. “He’s right, Katniss.”

I don’t know what to think. “I should have been told, so I didn’t look so stupid.”

“No, your reaction was perfect. If you’d known, it wouldn’t have read as real,” says Portia.

“She’s just worried about her boyfriend,” says Peeta gruffly, tossing away a bloody piece of the urn.

My cheeks burn again at the thought of Gale. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Whatever,” says Peeta. “But I bet he’s smart enough to know a bluff when he sees it. Besides
you
didn’t say you loved
me
. So what does it matter?”

The words are sinking in. My anger fading. I’m torn now between thinking I’ve been used and thinking I’ve been given an edge. Haymitch is right. I survived my interview, but what was I really? A silly girl spinning in a sparkling dress. Giggling. The only moment of any substance I had was when I talked about Prim. Compare that with Thresh, his silent, deadly power, and I’m forgettable. Silly and sparkly and forgettable. No, not entirely forgettable, I have my eleven in training.

But now Peeta has made me an object of love. Not just his. To hear him tell it I have many admirers. And if the audience really thinks we’re in love…I remember how strongly they responded to his confession. Star-crossed lovers. Haymitch is right, they eat that stuff up in the Capitol. Suddenly I’m worried that I didn’t react properly.

“After he said he loved me, did you think I could be in love with him, too?” I ask.

“I did,” says Portia. “The way you avoided looking at the cameras, the blush.”

The others chime in, agreeing.

“You’re golden, sweetheart. You’re going to have sponsors lined up around the block,” says Haymitch.

I’m embarrassed about my reaction. I force myself to acknowledge Peeta. “I’m sorry I shoved you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he shrugs. “Although it’s technically illegal.”

“Are your hands okay?” I ask.

“They’ll be all right,” he says.

In the silence that follows, delicious smells of our dinner waft in from the dining room. “Come on, let’s eat,” says Haymitch. We all follow him to the table and take our places. But then Peeta is bleeding too heavily, and Portia leads him off for medical treatment. We start the cream and rose-petal soup without them. By the time we’ve finished, they’re back. Peeta’s hands are wrapped in bandages. I can’t help feeling guilty. Tomorrow we will be in the arena. He has done me a favor and I have answered with an injury. Will I never stop owing him?

After dinner, we watch the replay in the sitting room. I seem frilly and shallow, twirling and giggling in my dress, although the others assure me I am charming. Peeta actually is charming and then utterly winning as the boy in love. And there I am, blushing and confused, made beautiful by
Cinna’s hands, desirable by Peeta’s confession, tragic by circumstance, and by all accounts, unforgettable.

When the anthem finishes and the screen goes dark, a hush falls on the room. Tomorrow at dawn, we will be roused and prepared for the arena. The actual Games don’t start until ten because so many of the Capitol residents rise late. But Peeta and I must make an early start. There is no telling how far we will travel to the arena that has been prepared for this year’s Games.

I know Haymitch and Effie will not be going with us. As soon as they leave here, they’ll be at the Games Headquarters, hopefully madly signing up our sponsors, working out a strategy on how and when to deliver the gifts to us. Cinna and Portia will travel with us to the very spot from which we will be launched into the arena. Still final good-byes must be said here.

Effie takes both of us by the hand and, with actual tears in her eyes, wishes us well. Thanks us for being the best tributes it has ever been her privilege to sponsor. And then, because it’s Effie and she’s apparently required by law to say something awful, she adds “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I finally get promoted to a decent district next year!”

Then she kisses us each on the cheek and hurries out, overcome with either the emotional parting or the possible improvement of her fortunes.

Haymitch crosses his arms and looks us both over.

“Any final words of advice?” asks Peeta.

“When the gong sounds, get the hell out of there. You’re neither of you up to the blood bath at the Cornucopia. Just
clear out, put as much distance as you can between yourselves and the others, and find a source of water,” he says. “Got it?”

“And after that?” I ask.

“Stay alive,” says Haymitch. It’s the same advice he gave us on the train, but he’s not drunk and laughing this time. And we only nod. What else is there to say?

When I head to my room, Peeta lingers to talk to Portia. I’m glad. Whatever strange words of parting we exchange can wait until tomorrow. My covers are drawn back, but there is no sign of the redheaded Avox girl. I wish I knew her name. I should have asked it. She could write it down maybe. Or act it out. But perhaps that would only result in punishment for her.

I take a shower and scrub the gold paint, the makeup, the scent of beauty from my body. All that remains of the design-team’s efforts are the flames on my nails. I decide to keep them as reminder of who I am to the audience. Katniss, the girl who was on fire. Perhaps it will give me something to hold on to in the days to come.

I pull on a thick, fleecy nightgown and climb into bed. It takes me about five seconds to realize I’ll never fall asleep. And I need sleep desperately because in the arena every moment I give in to fatigue will be an invitation to death.

It’s no good. One hour, two, three pass, and my eyelids refuse to get heavy. I can’t stop trying to imagine exactly what terrain I’ll be thrown into. Desert? Swamp? A frigid wasteland? Above all I am hoping for trees, which may
afford me some means of concealment and food and shelter. Often there are trees because barren landscapes are dull and the Games resolve too quickly without them. But what will the climate be like? What traps have the Gamemakers hidden to liven up the slower moments? And then there are my fellow tributes…

The more anxious I am to find sleep, the more it eludes me. Finally, I am too restless to even stay in bed. I pace the floor, heart beating too fast, breathing too short. My room feels like a prison cell. If I don’t get air soon, I’m going to start to throw things again. I run down the hall to the door to the roof. It’s not only unlocked but ajar. Perhaps someone forgot to close it, but it doesn’t matter. The energy field enclosing the roof prevents any desperate form of escape. And I’m not looking to escape, only to fill my lungs with air. I want to see the sky and the moon on the last night that no one will be hunting me.

The roof is not lit at night, but as soon as my bare feet reach its tiled surface I see his silhouette, black against the lights that shine endlessly in the Capitol. There’s quite a commotion going on down in the streets, music and singing and car horns, none of which I could hear through the thick glass window panels in my room. I could slip away now, without him noticing me; he wouldn’t hear me over the din. But the night air’s so sweet, I can’t bear returning to that stuffy cage of a room. And what difference does it make? Whether we speak or not?

My feet move soundlessly across the tiles. I’m only a
yard behind him when I say, “You should be getting some sleep.”

He starts but doesn’t turn. I can see him give his head a slight shake. “I didn’t want to miss the party. It’s for us, after all.”

I come up beside him and lean over the edge of the rail. The wide streets are full of dancing people. I squint to make out their tiny figures in more detail. “Are they in costumes?”

“Who could tell?” Peeta answers. “With all the crazy clothes they wear here. Couldn’t sleep, either?”

“Couldn’t turn my mind off,” I say.

“Thinking about your family?” he asks.

“No,” I admit a bit guiltily. “All I can do is wonder about tomorrow. Which is pointless, of course.” In the light from below, I can see his face now, the awkward way he holds his bandaged hands. “I really am sorry about your hands.”

“It doesn’t matter, Katniss,” he says. “I’ve never been a contender in these Games anyway.”

“That’s no way to be thinking,” I say.

“Why not? It’s true. My best hope is to not disgrace myself and…” He hesitates.

“And what?” I say.

“I don’t know how to say it exactly. Only…I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?” he asks. I shake my head. How could he die as anyone but himself? “I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not.”

I bite my lip, feeling inferior. While I’ve been ruminating on the availability of trees, Peeta has been struggling with how to maintain his identity. His purity of self. “Do you mean you won’t kill anyone?” I ask.

“No, when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll kill just like everybody else. I can’t go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games,” says Peeta.

“But you’re not,” I say. “None of us are. That’s how the Games work.”

“Okay, but within that framework, there’s still you, there’s still me,” he insists. “Don’t you see?”

“A little. Only…no offense, but who cares, Peeta?” I say.

“I do. I mean, what else am I allowed to care about at this point?” he asks angrily. He’s locked those blue eyes on mine now, demanding an answer.

I take a step back. “Care about what Haymitch said. About staying alive.”

Peeta smiles at me, sad and mocking. “Okay. Thanks for the tip, sweetheart.”

It’s like a slap in the face. His use of Haymitch’s patronizing endearment. “Look, if you want to spend the last hours of your life planning some noble death in the arena, that’s your choice. I want to spend mine in District Twelve.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if you do,” says Peeta. “Give my mother my best when you make it back, will you?”

“Count on it,” I say. Then I turn and leave the roof.

I spend the rest of the night slipping in and out of a doze, imagining the cutting remarks I will make to Peeta Mellark in the morning. Peeta Mellark. We will see how high and mighty he is when he’s faced with life and death. He’ll probably turn into one of those raging beast tributes, the kind who tries to eat someone’s heart after they’ve killed them. There was a guy like that a few years ago from District 6 called Titus. He went completely savage and the Gamemakers had to have him stunned with electric guns to collect the bodies of the players he’d killed before he ate them. There are no rules in the arena, but cannibalism doesn’t play well with the Capitol audience, so they tried to head it off. There was some speculation that the avalanche that finally took Titus out was specifically engineered to ensure the victor was not a lunatic.