"No, no, no," complains Decima. "I don't know what he was thinking dressing you in this!" She tugs at the fabric of my dress disappointedly.
It is almost time for the Opening Ceremonies to start, but we are in disaster mode. Lucius, it turns out, is color blind, not to mention the fact that he has no fashion sense whatsoever. I'm dressed in a black, silk dress, with a full skirt and no sleeves. Starting slightly below the neckline, tiny rhinestones have been attached to the fabric. They cluster heavily at my waistline, and then spread out farther down the skirt.
It looked fine, until Lucius started stitching on the first bow. Complaining that my look was too plain, he whipped out a roll of rainbow silk, and stitched on gigantic bows of the stuff in random places of the dress. He must have talked with Ellis's stylist because Ellis has a bow tied around his neck, and it looks like he's having trouble breathing.
Decima sighs and shakes her head. "I knew it," she says, "they gave the worst stylists to District 12. I'll just have to do something about this. Hold still." She then takes out a nail file from her handbag and starts sawing away at the thread holding one of the bows to my dress.
We are standing in a big room full of horses, chariots, and other tributes, and it's kind of embarrassing when everyone is looking at me having my dress taken apart. A tall boy in an entirely blue outfit laughs and points, but his district partner, a girl who looks about my age, gives an understanding look to me. She's dressed as a giant guppy-like fish. They must be District 4.
"Everyone in your chariots!" says a voice projected across the room. Decima curses, and starts sawing away with her nail file even faster. Ellis has followed suit, and takes off his neck bow. He climbs onto our chariot, which is pulled by one brown horse and one black horse—another sign of Lucius's incompetence in color—and looks nervous.
The last bow finally comes off right as District 1 is announced, and the horses start inching forwards. I jump onto the chariot beside Ellis, and from behind us, Decima waves and shouts, "You both look great now; I know you'll do just fine!"
Now that I think about it, Lucius's idea for my outfit was pretty good, originally. The black fabric of the dress represents coal, and the rhinestones are diamonds. It's true that if enough pressure is applied to coal, it turns into diamond, which is so much prettier than plain old coal. And that's what Ellis and I are, as the tributes from District 12, we are the diamonds selected from the coalmines, and we will sparkle at these Hunger Games.
We reach the archway to the city streets, and a voice yells, "District 12!" The lights are blinding for the first few seconds as expected, and I can't see anything. But then they stay that way, which doesn't make sense. Then I realize that they are reflecting off the rhinestones on my dress and on Ellis's shirt. We are creating a rainbow of light in the darkening sky of the evening.
I can only catch glimpses of the cheering crowd, but they all look as ridiculous as my prep team and stylist.
After parading throughout the entire city, the horses stop in the city circle and form a half ring around a podium. The wild cheering of the crowd is silenced as the national anthem of Panem starts to play. We all have to stand for this, not that I could have sat down in this dress, though. Then the president steps up to the podium and gives a speech welcoming us—the first ever tributes in the first ever Hunger Games.
"And may the odds be ever in your favor," he closes his speech with. That's funny, I'm sure I heard Decima say the same thing at the reaping. Maybe it's the trademark saying of the Games.
As we travel back to the Training Center, I can see that District 12 is definitely one of the best-dressed districts—only due to Decima's last minute repairs, though. The District 1 tributes are actually giving us dirty looks as our chariots pass by each other as we circle out of the area around the podium. We have literally outshone them, and they were also dressed in rhinestones.
Decima congratulates us when we step out of the chariot back in the Training Center, the prep team is bouncing up and down trying to look out of the archway in search of important Capitol people who might notice them, and Lucius grumbles, "You would have looked a thousand times better with bows…."