Chapter 7
I woke up the next morning and was relieved at the thought that I wouldn't have to go to training. It was such a relief to know that my muscles would finally be given a rest.
As though I had all the time in the world, I took a shower and didn't get in until the water temperature and pressure were perfect. This took about ten minutes, but I didn't care. I had nowhere to be.
Because I had gotten out at intervals to press the buttons before I used them on myself, I smelled masculine for the first time since I had volunteered for the games. I dressed and walked to the dining room.
Sitting around the table with aggravated expressions on all of their faces were Sheek, Ellika, and Jasper. They glared at me when I sat down and began eating an orange. "What?" I said, though my mouth was full.
"Have fun in the shower?" asked Sheek mockingly.
"More fun than I've been having," I replied.
"You were in there for over an hour. We should have started working half an hour ago! This could seriously affect us and our sponsors!"
"What work? I thought that all we had left before the games started was the interview." She had a look on her face that made it clear that I was missing something.
"We don't just have to show up for the interview, we have to prepare."
I thought to myself that I didn't need any preparation, that it was just an interview. Was I wrong or what?
Sheek and I had planned to be trained together, but after the fight over breakfast, she decided to be trained alone. She left with Ellika leaving me alone with Jasper. I asked him what he was training me for, and he said that he would be coaching me on what to say for the interview.
"We need to give you a strategy. You need to be memorable for the audience. We have to decide what we want them to remember you as." I nodded, but I really didn't think that a strategy was necessary for an interview.
"We'll try ruthless and coldblooded. With your impressive ten in training and those muscles you've got, you're a dead ringer for it. Try to answer these questions as if you were a mindless freak who had nothing but killing on his mind."
I did my best to be heartless, but it didn't work out to well. Jasper said that I couldn't scare a five year old.
We next tried sullen and hostile. The results weren't any better. The instructions were to answer yes or no. I would answer yes or no, but then I would add to it and eventually just rattle on about nothing in particular. Jasper said that, unless I was planning to talk my opponents to death, that we would have to pick something else.
Nothing seemed to do the trick. We tried humble, aggressive, assertive, obnoxious, loud, and funny.
After about two hours, we found the solution – passionate. To be passionate, I had to talk as though I worshipped the idea of the Hunger Games. I had to make them believe that I volunteered for it because I considered it the highest of honors.
This strategy was kind of a two-in-one: I could be bloodthirsty and humble at the same time. I could act like I had nothing but killing on my mind and as if I were thankful of the Capitol for introducing this competition. It was brilliant.
For the next hour, we perfected my strategy until I could answer all of the questions in Jasper's practice book without messing up once. By that time, it was time for lunch.
When Sheek came in, she walked with a gait, and as soon as she sat down, she requested somebody to rub her feet. A servant came in with warm oil and began a massage on her feet while she ate. As a result of this set up, I accidentally kicked the servant under the table a couple of times.
After Sheek's reaction to Ellika's lesson, I was quite scared. What would she have me doing that made Sheek's feet hurt so badly?
When I entered the room, Ellika gave me a smile that was so obviously fake that I almost cringed. "You're going to be working on your posture and stage presence with me, dear," she said.
"That doesn't sound too hard," I said. She gave a little giggle which did nothing to reassure me.
It was hard. She had me in a suit that hugged me so tightly that I was reminded of Opal trying to tackle me. The pants wrapped around my legs so tightly that I could hardly take a step without feeling the fabric tighten up in one area or another. The jacket was so unyielding that I had not choice but to stand up straight.
The shoes were the worst part. They were heavy and made of polished leather. Ellika reprimanded me for dragging my toe on almost every step. She made me pick my feet up, but not stomp. She made me take small, measured steps around the room.
When I had finally mastered walking an hour and a half later, we started on sitting. I had to sit directly onto the chair and place my hands in my lap. It proved surprisingly difficult, and took at least half an hour to master. We finished off the lesson with smiling while speaking. It was easier than the other things, but still pretty difficult.
I finished early, and was told to meet my prep team in my room. When I entered, they immediately removed all of my clothes and began to prep me as they had on my first day in the Capitol.
They washed my hair and body with a gritty soap. It hurt at first, but when they washed it away, my skin tingled and was soft to the touch. Next came my hair. They washed it, conditioned it, clipped it, washed it again with more soap, and finally called it good. I was hoping they wouldn't do my nails again when Eonna came in.
She dressed me in another suit. This one wasn't as stubborn as Ellika's, not to mention that it looked so much better on me. It was made of a silky silver fabric that was light as a feather and, thank goodness, rather stretchy. I could walk easily and sitting was hard at all. The shoes, which were leather but the same color as the suit, were much more manageable as well.
The ensemble was finished off with a lavish tie that was inlaid with real diamonds and sapphires. The blue and silver combination made my bluish grey eyes pop out, and did wonders for my skin tone.
"Amazing," I told Eonna. She smiled but said nothing. She was a woman of few words. I didn't really mind.
I ate dinner next to Sheek. She was dressed in a silver dress that exaggerated curves that I knew weren't actually there. They made her look odd in my eyes, but I knew she would look drop-dead gorgeous to any other adolescent boy in all of Panem.
She wore gloves that were studded with actual diamonds and topaz. Just like the sapphires lit up my eyes, the topaz made her golden eyes gleam. I realized just how observant our stylists were, and how ingenious they were also.
We were escorted out of the flat and into the elevator. The whole ride down, which took all of ten seconds, Ellika was giving us last minute instructions. She was annoying, but I knew that, deep beneath all of that makeup and hair, she cared about us.
When we got out of the elevator, they lined us up at the very front of the line. Sheek went before me, and Cleota was behind me, with Lex behind her.
I was happy and just as talkative as any of them, but then I caught the girl from District 3 looking at us and listening to our conversation. I gave her the meanest glare I could muster before remembering Jasper telling me that I couldn't scare a five year old, let alone a girl who had mysteriously scored an eleven in training.
She smiled back at me. I was taken aback. She giggled as she mouthed the words ten and pointed at me. She pointed at herself and mouthed the words eleven. This really made me mad, but I thought that this was what she wanted so I resisted the urge to ball my fists.
I turned away from her and resumed conversation as if I had forgotten all about her, but she remained at the forefront of my thoughts. How had she gotten that eleven? Why was she so cocky? What made her so sure of herself as to taunt me, one of the two biggest guys here?
Just then, we were led to a small area outside the training center. We could tell that we were behind the stage, and there was a flight of stairs and a door that surely led to the place where we would be interviewed. We were seated and given a small talk on how the interviews would work. Each of us would have three minutes to talk, after which time a buzzer would sound, signifying the end of the interview.
We started to hear the crowd fill up. It grew louder and louder until I became sure that every seat was filled and every person in the Capitol was here to watch me talk.
Pretty soon, we heard a loud voice boom over the noise of the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! I welcome you to the first ever Hunger Games interviews. Tonight, we will officially meet the twenty-four tributes before, well, you know." Horrifyingly, the audience laughed hilariously at this. I found it rather disgusting.
The voice continued to boom out. "I, Julius Avery, will be your host for tonight. And we will begin with Sheek Marther from District 1!" Everybody screamed wildly as Sheek walked through the door and out onto the stage. I was sure I could hear the pained moans of a few boys in the crowd, and I smiled.
Sheek's three minutes passed in a blur, and before I knew what was happening, it was my turn. I took a deep breath, and then turned the handle and walked through the door.
On the stage, there were two big, red armchairs. Sitting in one of them was Julius Avery who wore a suit that had small spikes running along the seams. His makeup was all black and white which gave him a startling appearance.
I took the chair next to him. He smiled and said, "So, Apollo, you volunteered for the Hunger Games. Why?"
"Well," I said in my humblest voice, "I just saw it as a great opportunity to prove myself to Panem. And where else will I get that kind of glory and respect? Not in District 1, let me tell you. And if I have to kill a couple people to do it, so be it. It might actually be kind of fun," I said innocently, but the message was clear.
"We certainly do have a competitor folks!" said Julius to the crowd. They applauded, and we both smiled. When they had died down, he returned his attention to me. "So, you got a ten in training. That's an impressive score. How do you think that will affect your chances?"
"I think it may put a target on my back, Julius," I said. "But it may also make them wary of me. And let me be the first to tell you – they should be."
His eyes widened, and he looked at the crowd in surprise. They were screaming their heads off. I was putting on a show, and they wanted more. Julius asked me what I was looking forward to most about the games, and I said truthfully, "Julius, I look forward most to the interview between you and I at the end of the games."
This sent the crowd over the edge. They were lapping up every word I spilled. I wanted to keep talking, but the buzzer went off, and I walked off the stage. I thought it had gone great.
The rest of the interviews passed without many surprises. Cleota, Lex, and Garth all acted like ruthless killing machines, but none to the effect of my act. The girl from three hinted that she had something that nobody knew about, but was careful not to divulge the slightest detail about it. The boy from seven seemed pretty tough, and the small girls both seemed overly innocent and denied any real skill behind their sevens.
We were escorted back into the training center and rode the elevator to our respective floors. Ellika, after telling Sheek and I how wonderful we were, forced us into our rooms. She told us that we needed all the sleep we could get. I knew she was right but I was really nervous for the coming day.
The thoughts that filled my head were violent and scary, and they were all about the next day. I eventually fell into an unwilling sleep, but the thoughts followed me into my dreams. I didn't sleep very well that night, but I was pretty sure that nobody did on the eve of the Hunger Games.
