Griffin Jagger, 17, D11M:

The people in the Capitol are strange. They remind me of the insects that crept through the orchards, in metallic neon hues. Surprisingly, most of them seem kind and helpful. The Peacekeepers that lined the plaza outside were all courteous, gently guiding people back from them, so different from the ones back home in District Eleven. All three members of my prep team have personalities as bright as their clothes, and they chatter to each other as they come in, two men and a woman.

The man who seems to be in charge introduces himself as Ansel, holding out a lavender-colored hand for me to shake. Zaps of yellow dance in his eyes and something about the way his skin is dyed has an underlying ripple effect, like an optical illusion that doesn't quite fool you. He looks almost grotesque, as his eyes and skin seem to pulsate in time. He notices me staring as he pushes a cart towards me. "I can turn it off," he offers.

"Oh, it's fine. I didn't mean to be rude."

"Nonsense!" He disappears into a storage closet and when he emerges, the flicker and wave effects are gone, much to my relief. "A delight to meet you. Now, do you have a token for us to collect?"

"I don't."

"Less work for us, all the better! Okay," he titters, "We have to take your official Capitol portrait. It's going to be displayed everywhere you're mentioned, which is going to be a lot, so you'd better give me a nice natural grin!" The other man rolls a camera forward and squints at me from behind it, ushering me to stand in front of a white panel on the wall.

"Ready? Three, two one!" says the second man. I give him an easy smile, and he takes the picture. "Good, you look natural!" he exclaims. "So many tributes smile with too many teeth, Ansel, I really do wonder why!" His name, I learn, is Thaddeus, and he's the only person in the group with no body modifications, save for a pair of small silver hoop earrings.

The woman, who sports a short purple bob only slightly darker than Ansel's lavender skin, says I can call her Sybil. "Ansel, Thaddeus, and Sybil," I say, trying to get used to the unfamiliar names.

"Yes dear?"

"Um, what are you going to do to me next? I want to look my very best for the Tribute Parade tonight, and I was just curious about the procedures I'll be undergoing." The prep team, no matter how bizarre they appear, know their craft well, and I need them to like me so they do a good job. As unfair as it is, the most attractive tributes get the sponsors, and I need to look great if I want to pull off the 'jovial handsome guy' angle.

"Oh, sweetheart, I am so glad you asked!" Thaddeus trills. "First, we'll be giving you a bath over there and waxing you-"

"Waxing me? What for?"

"Body hair is out this season. So, after that, we'll be doing the hair on your head. We've got a special treatment just for it! And then we'll be finetuning your makeup and facial features of course, and doing your nails, and we'll give you a full body polish! Then we'll pass you on to your stylist. The costume-ugh, it's revolutionary. You're going to love it."

"I'm sure I will. Thank you!"

"You're very welcome. Now, if you could just step into this bathtub?" The clawfoot tub has high sides, and the water level is high to match, with leafy bits floating on its vibrant surface. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the amount of color that's in the Capitol. I undress hesitantly, but the water is deliciously hot, and I think I'm going to have the best bath of my life until Ansel grabs a bristled brush, dips it in a pail of bad-smelling liquid, and begins to scrub away at my leg, leaving painful red marks in his wake.

"Ow!" I cry. "What are you doing?"

"Exfoliating you, silly. We've got to get rid of that nasty top layer of dead skin so we can get the smoothest result when we wax you."

"And remind me, why do I need to be waxed?"

"Because it'll make you look better, and making you look good is my job. Because you'll appear to be on the cutting edge of fashion and the sponsors will love you. Because it'll make you seem stronger to your fellow tributes." Now, he's right about the first one, maybe the first two, in that he needs to make me look good, and it might get me a few more sponsors, but I highly doubt the Careers are going to be intimidated by my smooth legs.

"Are the other tributes being waxed too?"

"Every one." An image pops into my head of these strange, exotic people trying to wax Soya and I laugh aloud. Soya's likely to fight them to the death. I sober up immediately, though, because soon she'll be fighting to the death against me, which is a less appealing idea. She actually seems alright, if you look past the prickliness, snappishness, and moodiness. And, of course, her ill-humored nature. She has the exact attitude of a wasp, or maybe even a Tracker Jacker.

I hope I don't encounter any of those in the arena. I know how to avoid their nests well enough, but I'm not prepared for any sort of ecosystem other than a temperate rainforest. I definitely need some allies who can deal with mutts and animals that I'm not familiar with. My mentor hasn't been much help. He was too drunk to stand up or speak without slurring, and after five minutes of rambling about the various symptoms and threats of dehydration, he excused himself for a 'breath of fresh air' and never came back.

I'm depending on my prep team to help function as mentors, since my actual one is incapacitated, and tell me about the possibilities of meeting allies tonight. In a few hours the tributes will all gather in the staging area for an agonizing thirty minutes before the Tribute Parade itself takes place, and we'll meet each other for the first time. I would like to know something about the other people before then.

"Sybil," I ask, "Have you seen the Reapings?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?" she replies, stirring something in a tray using a plastic dowel.

"Could you describe the other tributes? Like which ones I might want to align myself with, which ones I want to stay away from, who's a threat and who's not, who's a part of the Career Pack?"

"Oh, for sure. So, let's begin with the Careers. I've been tuned into Jack Cannon's analysis program all day long, and the big news is that there were a lot of outer-district volunteers. You, of course, and the pair from Six, and the girl from Five, if I remember right. The pair aren't expected to do very well, but you're trailing just behind the girl, Thys, in terms of betting predictions."

"What are my predictions at?"

"You're in eleventh place, but your odds actually aren't terrible. You have a lot of room to gain popularity, and there's been some new developments in the past minutes. I'd say you're in the top eight by now. I'll check after we've finished waxing you."

"Alright. So who should I watch out for?"

"Well, the Careers are a mixed bag this year. Both from One volunteered, only the boy did for Two and the girl from Four. The girl from Two is also clearly a Career and glad to be here, she's trending for second place right now. The boy from Four isn't running with them, his mentor's already put out a statement saying so."

"'His mentor? As in Griffin Cadbury?" Griffin's a rare name in Panem, and as far as I know, the District One victor is the only other person who bears it.

"Yes. So, I think you might want to ally with his tribute, and also probably the girls from Five and Seven, and maybe also the boy from Nine. They're the other high climbers on the betting charts, and all about your age, so you'd be very powerful if you all grouped together. You could rival the Careers."

"But then the Careers would target you," Ansel cuts in, "So that might not be the optimal solution here. I think maybe a less intimidating alliance made up of mostly younger tributes would draw less attention and help you fly under the radar."

"Okay. So basically, I have no good answer."

"Yeah, probably."

"Then my strategy is going to be to just stay approachable, meander around, and try not to annoy anybody tough."

"Don't worry," Thaddeus says, trying to comfort me. "You're sure to find a solution at some point."

"Alright. In the meantime, I think I'll just see who I click with." As my prep team members babble on about what tributes besides me they think are strong this year, I barely notice when Sybil begins to smear a semi-warm liquid on my leg, laying a sheet of paper over it and waiting for it to settle-

"Ouch!" I hiss, as Sybil holds up a strip of wax with dozens of strands of hair set in it. The prep team folks are nice and helpful, but their fashions are so utterly stupid. Still, I try to endure, because in the end, I'd rather lose my leg hair than my life, and I need to conform to the Capitol standards of beauty if my strategy is to pan out.

Sorrel Harding, 13, D12F:

I frantically struggle to claw my way out of the tub as two of the ladies on my prep team hold me down, the third using a thin pink spatula to spread wax on my stomach and tearing out the sparse hairs there. The people of the Capitol are so cruel, from the patronizing way they speak, to agony in the name of beauty, to the way they're pampering me for the sole purpose of making sure I'm dolled up nice and pretty for my bloody death.

As one of the women twists my elbow up so she can get at my armpit, I find myself going into self-preservation mode, like it did back home whenever I was buying nuts or fruit from someone who had ventured outside the fence and a Peacekeeper walked by. I could neither freeze nor run, so my go-to move was to drop to the ground and disappear into the brambles of arrowwood and swamp blossoms, hands careful and silent over the treacherous carpet of pine needles and dry twigs and leaves and vines that could trap you if you moved wrong.

I'd do anything to have that ability now, to get away from these loud, careless people and their torture instruments and their complicity in the Capitol's dominion. Despite my protests, somebody rips another patch of hair from my belly, another finishes my armpits, and the third continues working up my arms until I'm completely hairless from the neck down. Now comes the worst part of all. The lady who did my armpits takes hold of my head, gripping each side of it firmly so I can't move as the other two begin to slather liberal amounts of wax on my face.

I howl in pain as they pull pieces of paper away from my face, praying that they won't do something crazy like try to wax my eyeballs. Even they probably wouldn't go that far, but if anyone were to try it, it would be them.

The second the waxing is finished, one of the women splashes a strange-smelling oily liquid on me, and the stinging from the wax instantly disappears, along with the sticky residue it has left behind. She speaks directly to me for maybe the third time today. "Alright, can you head over to that chair right there?" She points to a folding chair with a canvas back, and I obediently do as I'm told.

I hate people like her, who treat me like a tool to help advance their careers. They care little for the problems of those of us living in poverty in the outer districts unless they can spin it as an "uncivilized savage being reformed by us Capitolites" or "poor little orphan girl" thing to feed their own egos and look good in front of their friends.

The woman sets up a white device on a tray table, alongside a permanent marker. Another picks it up and uncaps it, flipping it in her hand. They think it's beneath their dignity to speak to me unless they really have to, but the general gist of their conversation is that they're going to perform a procedure called protemsculpting, which will temporarily create mock flesh that will bond to and move with my actual skin to change the shape of my body.

The woman with the marker begins to draw shapes on me, dotted lines and arrows, all over my sides, my stomach, my back, and my arms. The marker tickles as she sketches out long ovals on my calves, and crescent-moon shapes on my hips. A few of the dashed shapes are on my shoulders, and one or two on my neck, but my face is left untouched.

"A pity Malva said we can't do anything to her-well, I'd hesitate to even call it a face. Look at those ugly little cheek hollows!" says one woman to her friend in a cruel, ringing tone. At least the Malva person, my stylist probably, has a little more sense than these-using their own words-well, I'd hesitate to even call them people. They're little more than living dolls clad in blinding colors who are only too happy to mock a poor girl's malnourished appearance. Eating nothing but watery tesserae porridge for ten years will do that to you.

"Will this hurt?" I ask tentatively.

"It won't if you're nice to me!" the rudest lady, the one I'm considering the head gossip, says brightly. She fits the handheld white device, almost like a steam iron, the mayor had one of those back home, over my calf and switches it on. She lowers the opening of it, almost like the suction vacuum nozzles that I saw avoxes using on the train, to my skin and it produces the strangest sensation. The Head Gossip, my new nickname for her, runs it along the outlined area, producing a sort of prickling, and it feels like a bubble of air is trapped beneath my skin. Another lady grabs a spray bottle and pumps it a few times, spritzing the area with an herbal-smelling mist that settles in droplets and makes the trapped air bubble or whatever it is release.

To my surprise, when I try to flex the muscle in my leg, it works. The new material they've bonded to my skin is attached and I can feel and move it around just like I would normally. I pinch the new skin and yelp. Whatever bizarre science this is, it's beyond my understanding, and I don't even bother trying to consider the possibilities behind it. Chip probably is though.

Chip and I made friends on the train and we've already decided to be allies. Two young tributes from District Twelve? It'd be stupid not to team up. We're both fast and small, and I'm already having grand dreams of a huge alliance of younger tributes. That's probably not going to happen, realistically, but I can still hope. I think I'll be able to make maybe one or two more allies, but we won't be a powerful group unless we have someone tougher and older who can get us some supplies or weapons.

At least my mentor is helpful. He's from District Nine, and is already pleased about my alliance with Chip. I told him all about the advice Mrs. Stoker gave me back in the District Twelve Justice Building, and he confirmed to me that it's pretty solid. He suggested that I make some allies tonight at the Tribute Parade so I can divvy up tasks as soon as possible tomorrow morning and make the most of my time in the Training Center. Tonight my plan is to stick by Chip's side and make harmless smalltalk with the least intimidating tributes, probably the friendly-seeming younger ones.

The Careers will be on the hunt tonight. My mentor, Roland, came prepared with fuzzy printouts of paused Reaping footage, showing the expressions of other people at the Reaping. The tributes from One look particularly vicious. The girl is practically the definition of beautiful, but that elite, methodical gaze of hers that sweeps the plaza, the glint of unfettered nastiness in her eye, rosy lips quirking up in a cruel smile, it all confirms to me that she's a force to be reckoned with. Her glossy blonde hair reminds me of the merchant girls I pined for in District Twelve, but her face and its twisted haughtiness will be in my nightmares for the foreseeable future.

"Darling, we're finished with the sculpting. Now don't you scratch, got it? We don't want your new skin to be peeling up at the edges, now, do we?" One of the women, the one with narrow, glowing red irises, directs me towards a washbasin and I'm bent over backwards as she gives my hair a rinse, and the excess water drips down my bare back as she brings me back to the chair, pulling my shoulders up and back.

The Head Gossip rummages in a bin of metal pieces, eventually coming up with nail clippers and an emery board, roughly snatching my hand towards her. The third woman seats herself on a tall stool, balancing a makeup palette on her knee and various tubes, creams, and brushes in her lap, and Red Eyes brandishes a pair of scissors just over my left shoulder. "Now don't be too upset, but your hair is dreadfully matted, and I'm going to have to cut quite a lot of it off. See how it's hanging a few inches below your shoulders right now? I'll salvage as much of it as I possibly can, but worst-case scenario, you're probably going to end up with something just barely touching your shoulders. How do you feel about that?"

"Cut it off." The venom in my voice surprises me. I'm so used to being gentle and soft back home, making sure I'm never harsh or sharp, never wanting the children to be scared of me, that I've forgotten what it's like to be decisive. I've been negotiating baths and vegetables with toddlers for so long that I essentially lost my ability to be assertive and actually tell somebody what I want for real, not what I think is easiest for them or a fair compromise. Everything here is about celebrating teenagers dying, I think I can have a free pass for being tough-no, not tough, normal. Choosing my own hairstyle is normal, and I deserve it.

"Really?"

"I'm serious, please, just chop it off. It's just hair, and I don't really care about my appearance all that much anyway. I want it out of my face." Head Gossip seems like she's about to faint, and it makes me wonder if doing something this impulsive is a good idea. Screw it, in a week I'll be eating insects to live and getting chased by half a dozen Careers or dying of hypothermia. A new haircut to go with my new dog-eats-dog attitude.

"How short do you want it?" Red Eyes asks. "I'd recommend keeping it long enough to pull it back, but it's your choice."

"Surprise me, please. Just hack off as much as you need. But maybe keep it long enough for me to pull it back, like you said." I sit back in the chair listening to the soothing snipping sound of the scissors as the other women trim my nails and dust powder on my face, and at long last, I'm ready for the grand reveal. Red Eyes covers my eyes with her hands as she guides me to a floor-length mirror, and when I look at myself, I'm stunned.

The sculpting has covered up all evidence of malnourishment, and my skin is glowing from their treatment. I look strange hairless, but the rich, matte finish of my skin from what Red Eyes called a "lotion that works like magic" makes me look so polished and fresh. My face is covered in clean, subtle makeup, save for a smoky, ashy gray on my eyelids that accentuate my naturally gray eyes, and pinkish-orangish-brownish shade on my lips. But my hair is best of all. It frames my face well, messy dark waves down to my chin. It looks fluffier and more voluminous than it's ever been, and I give it a light shake. It's so deliciously light, and I toss my head up, getting used to the lack of weight.

I look like, well, not exactly a different person, but a more grown-up person, a stronger, more resilient, more utilitarian person. I look like a fighter, and I utterly love it, because for just a moment, I can feel the warmth of my own confidence throb in time with my heart, and I know that I'm capable of surviving anything.

Radley Allaway, 17, D9M:

The people on my prep team are uncomfortably effusive. They're, well, they're alright, and I suppose it could be worse, but they're so casual and they keep gabbing about my best features, which is made even more awkward, because I'm naked, and when you're naked, a talkative stranger prodding your chest with a clawed nail and going on about how your bone structure is just perfectly suited to using a longsword, it gets draining very quickly.

"Those shoulders though!" professes Bliss, the man filing my toenails, in what I hope is praise, "They were absolutely made to wield a flyssa, I'm telling you Dezzie!"

"Nuh-uh," Desdemona says with a shake of her head, comb raking painfully against my scalp. "A khopesh would be so much better for him."

"Does it really matter?" expounds the third member of my prep team, Lavina, who's the only sensible one of the lot. Bliss opens his mouth to speak, but Lavinia holds up a finger. "That is a rhetorical question, which means you're not meant to actually answer it. My point," she says, picking up a warm towel and a pair of tweezers, "My point is that Radley here has a mentor, and an exceptional mentor at that, who has already informed us that Radley will be using a sickle. Had you been paying attention, you would have known this. Either way, I am sure our tribute has had enough of your petty arguments for a lifetime. I know I certainly have."

Desdemona grits her teeth, trying to stay quiet, but she can't bare it and forces all of her words out at once. "A sickle is much more like a khopesh than a flyssa. Just saying." She shuts her mouth abruptly and pops the lid off a bottle of hair moisturizer like she never said anything at all.

Lavinia glowers at her, lingering an extra few seconds because of the interruption. "What I am saying is that we are not in charge of bossing Radley around or preaching about what weapon would be best for him or who he should ally with. We are cosmetologists, people, not mentors. We keep him looking his best and leave survival advice to the folks who are actually prepared to handle it."

She really is right about that. My mentor, Maeve, is in her forties and from District Six. She looks almost childish, with her wide-set eyes, thin lips, chubby cheeks, and hair drawn back in low pigtails, but her voice and mannerisms are so much like my mom's that it hurts to hear her talk. The similarities did, however, help me to trust her immediately, which probably saved her some time. She's already tapped my main ally, and she says she's on the lookout for another and she'll keep me posted.

As of right now, she's decided that she wants me to stick with the girl from District Seven, Jenna. She's also decided that I need to talk to her tonight, to make friends early and earn her trust before the Hunger Games begin. "You want as much time as possible to learn about one another before the Hunger Games begin. Trust is a tenuous thing, especially when a bunch of mutts are staring you down the nose. It can break at any moment, and you need to learn to get along well with her right now so you'll be working as a team in the arena," Maeve advised.

I know she's right about that too. Bliss checked his tablet and reported that Jenna and I are both predicted to be in the top eight as of the moment, and Maeve's proposal of an alliance would really delight the sponsors. Then again, they already love me, and I don't mean that in an arrogant, Career-ish way, but being a handsome blonde boy with manners and charm has gotten me this far. The people outside loved that I waved and blew kisses at them, bowing slightly to the richer-looking ones. Everybody wants to bet on me because they can see that I fit in with them.

I hate to admit it, but I do. I like looking nice, and sometimes I'm too vain for my own good, but I still feel so set apart from the Capitolites. I hate them, I hate the way their fear tactics breed hatred and desperation, and I hate the way their disgusting Hunger Games pit the poor districts against one another so we forget who's really screwing them over, but most of all, I hate the way they see our innocence as most beautiful and touching when they see it shatter, and the way they think being victorious is a great prize for one whose youth is still intact, although they have seen and brought about horrors far beyond their years.

I feel terrible even being in the presence of the prep team, because I have to admit they're good people who think they're doing what's best. They genuinely believe that I should be excited and honored to go into the arena representing my district. They truly think that the only reason poor people are unhappy is because they choose to be, and although they're uninformed, they do try their best to make sure I'm the one who lives, so on some subliminal level they must not want me to die. Right?

Lavinia looms above me, wielding the sharpest pair of tweezers I've ever seen. Aunt Tamsin always kept some around to pull out stones from the horses' hooves, and a more precise set for removing thorns from our own hands and feet, but they never had a pointed blade at the end. Why would they? Lavinia swoops in with a towel, laying it on the side of my face and pressing down on it hard with her hand. With the other, she clicks the tweezers together and brings them up to my face.

At first I think she's going to stab me in the eye, but they actually land just above it, on my eyebrow. I realize what's about to happen about half a second before I feel a sting and a few of my eyebrow hairs are plucked out. "Lavinia, what are you doing that for?" I ask.

"Oh, we're doing it to fix your eyebrows!" Desdemona exclaims, grabbing a hand mirror and thrusting it into my hands. "See how there are some of those bothersome hairs that lay outside of your natural brow shape? Lavinia's just taking those away to make you look more appealing. You naturally have great eyebrows, and a lovely hard-angled arch shape. We just need to take care of those nasty little outliers and your face will be much, much better-looking. Especially because you have more of them on one side than the other. The improved symmetry of your face will draw the…" Desdemona devolves into a long, meandering rant about how removing a few eyebrow hairs is going to make all the difference in the way other tributes view me, but all I can think about was one little fragment of it.

"Nasty little outliers," she had said. The people from the Capitol, the betting analysts, are calling me an outlier contender, or so Bliss told me earlier. I'm an outlier contender because I come from an outlier district. Nasty little outliers. Do they think of my district and I this way, bothersome and disposable, and that if I too were removed, the Hunger Games would be so much better?

No, they're not self-aware enough for that. I highly doubt these people even understand why throwing parties for the commencement of an event where children are killed, and saying they're looking forward most to a part of it specifically called the Bloodbath, and betting about which children will die first is messed up.

"Alright, Desdemona," Lavinia says, yanking out another few hairs. "I think we've had enough talk of eyebrows. Maybe instead you could tell Radley about the things you're doing to his hair."

"Oh, of course! So I'd like you to know first off that I already washed and conditioned it. Right now I'm putting some products in it for the evening. The first is a wax that I'm combing into your hair right now. It's going to make it very soft and supple and shiny. The second is a pomade that's going to give you a lot of lift and hold. Tonight I'm going to be parting your hair far off to one side and sweeping the front of it smoothly over, keeping it flush with your scalp and extending it forward just past your hairline. The rest I'll be combing down against the back of your head, so the pomade is going to make sure everything stays in place, even if it;s windy or gets jostled around. The only way to ruin your hair is if you deliberately try."

I can barely understand some of the things she's saying, but I get the general gist. "Okay, and what about my makeup? Who's going to do that?"

"Oh, I will," says Lavinia. "I'll be giving you some dramatic contouring, actually."

"Why?"

"See, your costume is reddish, so I want a golden-bronze, angular full face done. The lighting in the amphitheater is very harsh, so it's going to be mainly floodlights at the top of the domed ceiling. The light tends to refract around and cast shadows on darker tones, so the matching reddish makeup is going to make you look firmer and give you a more consistent, coherent look, especially in photos, rather than if I gave you subler makeup. If I made you look more natural, you'd look washed out and ironically, actually seem more yellow or orange tinted in the brightness. Especially in photos."

The prep team goes on and on, telling me all about the details of the procedures and processes they're putting me through, and I start to feel calmer and more relaxed. Maeve gave me clear, simple advice: find Jenna, talk to Jenna, and befriend Jenna. I'm a friendly, sociable person, and tonight, my job is easy enough. I can do what I need to get done, and I can get my first ally in only a couple of hours. I enjoy caring about and for other people, but in these coming days, my safety comes before anyone else's. After all, only one gets to come out alive.

Soren Ventra, 15, D3M:

When I was back in District Three, I assumed that I hated my situation, environment, and the people around me quite a lot, on a general scale. When I was on the train, I had never experienced such an outpouring of hate, being trapped in a metal box with the Fat Escort and the Pola bitch for a whole three hours. I was certain I had reached maximum capacity for hatred. But now? Now I am experiencing an entirely renewed fervor on top of my additional, second wind of hatred, and my expectations are so low they must be subterranean at this point.

Much like the old, rusted out subterranean tunnels in District Three, the heads of the Capitolites are largely hollow, and very little lies beneath the surface. The only things to be found are pieces of largely useless junk.

So obviously I was thrilled to see what new low the prep team was going to bring. Three men pranced in, all smiling wide. What about, I didn't care. Their happy faces would disappear soon enough. I pride myself on being mulish, dogged, obstinate, and uncooperative, and it would be almost fun to see these Capitol freaks try to break me. Even the escort couldn't make me behave for the crowds outside, and her whole job is making sure I'm a polite little tribute when I'm all gussied up on my way to certain death, so I doubted these people would get very far.

I gave each of the men a, well, a creative nickname: Wardrobe Malfunction, due to his terrible dress sense, Highlighter Head after his hideous, over gelled, too-yellow hair, and my personal favorite, Kiss-Ass Kid Killer because he was doing so much sucking up to the Capitol despite knowing that I'm being sent to die. I was expecting them to give up quickly, but much like every expectation I've had, it was shattered almost immediately.

They took my picture right away, which I didn't fight too much, since it's just inevitable, but the second they began to lead me to the bathtub, I figured I'd start giving them problems. The first thing I did was run away, hoping to make all three of them try to totter around the room to catch me. As it turns out, Wardrobe Malfunction is a lot more spry than I predicated, despite his dragging trouser hems, and grabbed me right away.

Then I pitched a fit and started screaming, insulting them as loudly and repetitively as they could so they'd just stand slack-jawed in shock while I went off in my own direction, like the Fat Escort had when I acted up on the train. Unfortunately, this lot seemed to be far less emotionally fragile than she was, and refused to give in to me.

Lastly, I decided to pull out the big guns and play my trump card: I began physically fighting them, hitting them, throwing things at them, knowing that no Capitolite would want to scrap with a kid from District Three, and even if they tried, I could just threaten to have them fired for hurting a tribute. It never even got to that stage. Highlighter Head and Kiss-Ass Kid Killer frog-marched me to the tub before I could even chuck my shoe at them.

Now one of them pinions me down as the other two attempt to get me clean. Sadly, their technique succeeds, and they scratch me roughly with brushes and cloths and mountains of foaming soap that's made to smell like flowers. As one might expect, I really dislike flowers, and among other things, talkative people, which is why the members of the prep team are really beginning to grate on my nerves and wear away all of my residual patience. If there's one thing I loathe in this world, it's chatterboxes.

"Could you keep it down?" I bark at Yellow Highlighter.

"Not really. I don't take orders from you, I take orders from your stylist, and he told me that I can do whatever I like so long as you're scrubbed down and made up by the top of the hour. By the way, things are about to get less pleasant anyway, so I'd suggest you fix that attitude of yours."

"Ha!" I scoff. "You can't possibly do anything worse than this!" He somehow manages to prove me wrong yet again, dripping a hot, viscous, magenta fluid on my leg. "Hey! What the hell are you doing, nimrod?"

"You'll see." Yellow Highlighter uses a rod of some kind to distribute the liquid evenly over my skin, and Kiss-Ass Kid Killer lays a strip of stiff white paper down over it

"I'm serious! I demand, as an official tribute, that you stop this at once and tell me what's going on!" Kiss-Ass pushes down on the paper, pressing both it and the substance trapped beneath it into my leg.

"We're waxing you, Soren. Every tribute goes through it. Now stop whining and flailing around, and do try to sit still."

"You're what? This can't be happening!" Yellow Highlighter tears the paper away, eliciting a yelp from me and a slight chuckle from Wardrobe Malfunction, who's still trapping me in the tub.

"Like it or not, it is." More wax follows, as a thin stream of it pours out of the mouth of a jug and drips onto my skin, along with pieces of the paper. Nothing I do stops it, and the three of them together wrestle me into submission so they can force my head underwater for a few seconds to wash my hair. I hate a lot of things in life, anybody could tell that, but my hair is one of the few things that I don't mind. However, I do mind it being touched by these people. Hair washing was much less enforced by Miss Marlowe and Matron than washing of the face and hands, and as such, my hair ended up greasy and lank, just like everybody else's. I should have predicted that these people would want it to be clean and shiny, just like everything else.

My mentor, in my opinion, is even more of a numbskull than the bozos trying to rub cleanser into the roots of my hair and thinking I won't mind. He's from District Twelve, and at the ripe old age of fourteen, thinks highly enough of himself to give me advice. He must be criminally insane to believe that I'd ever listen to anyone's advice let alone the suggestions of someone younger than me and from an outer district. Please, like that'd ever happen.

I bow down to no man. I would've thought these people would have learned that by now.

"Pick your battles, Soren," he told me. "You can't afford to be petty in the arena if you want to live. It's really upsetting to see you shooting yourself in the foot like this, and I'm angry you won't let me help you. I swear, someday you'll see, living with anger isn't as easy as it seems right now."

"Then die mad about it," I had sneered back. He told me to choose a weapon, preferably a dagger, and try my best to impress the Gamemakers, so I plan to do exactly the opposite. I won't pick up anything deadly during training, and I won't perform like a trained monkey for Lucent Whatsherface. He told me not to get too close to Pola and to branch out, maybe teaming with District Five, so I'll ally up with Pola instead just to spite him.

Joke's on you, Sage. You might be a victor but you don't know how to play games with people the way I do. I guarantee I can win these games too, just you wait and see.

I lash out at Highlighter Head, who's moved on to trimming the split ends of my hair, knocking his arm aside and snatching up the scissors.

Let them try and stop me. I'll be ready.


Hey y'all! This was a little bit of a filler chapter, just to let you know how the tributes are feeling about the Capitol. The results of the latest poll are up on my profile, and I don't have a new one this week. The next chapter will be from the perspective of one of the Gamemakers, and I promise she'll tell you all about the mutts!

Until next time, LC :)