I only open my door when Tyson's insistent knocks turn into annoyed pounds upon it. It's time to eat, he says, his face smoothly blank as ever. After the meal we sit down to watch the training score show. Most of the half-hour we spend watching is filled by advertisements because the true content is so sparse, but it's well-known that companies pay ridiculous sums of money for even a 15-second clip. In between sequences of two to four ads, the tributes are displayed in district order, starting with the district 1 male. A large picture of his face and an equally large, flashing number between 1 and 12 are prominent. In the lower right-hand corner are other statistics, such as weight, height, and the best time achieved on the obstacle course, for the benefit of more analytical people.
The careers, such as marvel, Cato and the girl from 4, all get scores between 8 and 10. Wow, Cato's weight is a body-crushing 211 pounds, and none of the other careers even break 180. The boy from 4 gets a score of 5 and is actually the lightest boy at 108 pounds. Stara manages a 6, which is about average for a non-career tribute. More ads. District 6. They're showing an ad for a magnetized, zebra-bone spoon that attracts itself to food so that you have to use even less effort to eat. Idly I wonder how that could actually work. ... District 9. The girl gets a 3. ... Ad.
My face comes up, and they flash the number 7. That's at least 8 more than I was expecting. The others let out a cheer and Bessie says, "Wow, that's the highest score out of the non-career tributes so far." I look in the corner of the screen and realize that I've gained an impressive 13 pounds due to the lavish abundance of food. Jill gets a pitiful rating of 2; her nerves probably failed her and she missed with all her knives or something, but I don't ask. Thresh, his face fixed in a scowl, comes up with a 10, and his district partner manages an impressive 7. Her weight only has two digits; she's the only tribute with that distinction. The quality of the ads is lessening now; it's obvious that these companies are poorer than their competitors. Advertising space is hotly competitive and the earlier slots always cost far more than the later ones. Katniss surprises everyone with her 11, so I pretend to be surprised as well. I know why she got it, after all.
Marius, who has been oddly dossile during the training score show, leaps up as soon as the screen fades to black. "Interviews are tomorrow, and I've got the perfect interview costume ready for you. But we'll wait till tomorrow. I just wanted you to feel the anticipation before then. Oh, by the way, I found your chariot ride costumes. You do realize just how much time and effort I spent designing them right? And you just threw them away. Well, no matter." On that ominous note, he turns toward the door and pads away slowly, like a wolf on the hunt.
"Uh-oh," I say, my mind full of dread. What horrible plan does he have in store for our interviews? Did Memnia go along with it? She probably did; his controlling nature would see to that. I'm surprised to see that Jill's face does not mirror my misgivings. Instead, it's just empty. Downcast. Devoid of hope. Jill hugs herself and lets her head sag, and I look away as I hear the muffled sobs. I suppose that she was bound to break eventually, and with the games only two days away, it's happened. Better now than later. At least she might have a chance at recovering some of her old steel before they start. Most likely she'll be a wreck at the interviews.
I crawl into the cocoon of blankets to sleep, staring out of the window absently and watching the Capitol night-life scurrying around. Eventually, the motion outside the window begins to blur and become choppy. A red car drives forward, stops, then eludes my focus as I search for it. Wow, it's all the way down the block and turning on to an intersecting street and now it's disappeared. I didn't even see it turning. I just saw the turning lights. There's a man carrying a banana. I notice him walking into a building and think blearily that maybe I should tell him to watch where he's going before he runs into it. He disappears into the building ...
I walk around on the street, toting my four-pound spear. Everything is so much bigger now that I am not staring at it from a tenth-floor window. There are shops and outdoor market stalls everywhere, cars driving, people rushing about getting their shopping done, others loitering in groups chatting in a carefree manner. Yet something is wrong. I should not be here. I should be in the training center. I can even hear the voice of Marius yelling at me. "Your interview costume is ready," he shouts, with a mix of jubilation and annoyance. "I already gave you 10 minutes to go shopping outside. Get back here now." The voice is in the back of my head. I turn this way and that to look for its source and just see the training center window. It's broken, glass shards all over the sill, as if I'd jumped out of it.
I notice a huge gate on the north side of the city square and run toward it. I bump into dozens of innocent shoppers and apologize until it sounds meaningless. I see a parked car in the middle of the sidewalk and take a huge leap over it and keep running and running. Marius's voice becomes higher- and higher-pitched until it sounds more like a rat squeaking. I run and run and see the gate looming closer. I run harder. The gate is within reach. I see the huge latching bar and move my hand toward it. I hear a clatter and realize that the gate has jumped into the air and landed several yards away. I race toward it and am about to unlock it when the same thing happens. "NOOOOOO," I shout, "I won't let you win!" I lunge toward the gate again, only to be thwarted. I hear Old Boone lowing from the back of my mind, cropping grass with gusto and sipping enthusiastically from the stream. I ask him to lend his strength so that I can outrun the gate. He moos again, and it is almost as if he is laughing.
He is indeed laughing at me. I try to project my desperation into his thoughts, but he's set up an impregnible fortress around them with a gate that is similar to the one I'm unable to open. My mind begins to actively assault his mental barrier, but it holds, and I finally give up. On the ground, I stare at the gate, just a few feet from my hand, knowing that if I get too close it will elude me once more. Tears begin to fall freely from my eyes; freedom is so close, yet so elusive. My crying stops when I hear loud booming footsteps advancing down the road toward me, and there is Marius, holding out a handsome leather suit and tie. "Time to go," he says, and he sounds gentler than ever. Then he transforms into Old Boone and begins to gore me with his horn, and I can hear that wild laughter issuing from the Old Boone in my head.
I wake up to the breaking of a new dawn. The sunlight streams through the window and I hear the distant echo of birdsong, counterpointed by the rush of air from speeding vehicles. I take in the calm of reality for several minutes before I feel able to rise from my bed to make myself presentable. Today is interview day. I let my emotions out now; I must keep them under control for the interviews tonight. I allow myself to wallow in the bathwater for a full hour, sighing, crying and compartmentalizing until I am able to hold the smooth mask of efficiency for five minutes without stopping.
After the five minutes are up, I dress myself and head to the breakfast table, where Jill, Julius, the mentors and the stylists are just polishing off their first courses of food. I quickly move to join them. They're talking to Jill about the interviews, but her face is twisted in a grimmace of pain. She's merely picking at her second flapjack, spread with a dainty dollop of syrup. Judging by her unfocused expression, she's not taking in a word they're saying.
"You better eat that up. You only get three more solid meals before the arena," I say to Jill. She turns her head toward me, but her eyes are still infinitely far away. Tyson stops talking and raises his eyes to the ceiling, as if seeking an answer to the dilemma there. Bessie just looks at me and sighs.
"Good morning Dallas," Bessie says, with a halfhearted try at brightness. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yep," I lie, hesitating just enough to make it sound like I thought about the question. "A solid eight hours."
"Ah very good. As you know all too well, interviews are an important part of the pre-game prep. It's one of the few times that you are treated like a person, instead of an expendable object. So you have to pick your archetype or persona or whatever. I know you've watched at least 50 other interviews, so choose something that will help you gain sponsors please. Tyson will help you refine it in the morning. In the afternoon I'll work with you on polishing up your public image. It's not your fault, being a cattle rancher and all, but you have to look smart to get sponsors, so just deal with it. For me and you. Well, no time to waste."
She escorts Jill out of the room by the hand because Jill seems to be incapable of doing much by herself right now. I stand up and follow Tyson down the hallway to a den-like room with deep, plush armchairs and glossy wall-mounted screens. A few potted plants sit on the window sills to benefit from the sunlight. Tyson and I sit across from each other in identical cushioned chairs. He waits till I have settled comfortably.
"Thought of anything?"
"Er," I say limply, my mind racing to contrive something. "Like, uh, what about ... um, hmm-"
"Shut that baby talk up right now," Tyson orders. He sounds more than a little annoyed. "If you haven't thought of anything, it's better to just say no. I don't have time for er and um and what about. Now give yourself five minutes to think. There's a clock right up there." He points to a digital clock on one of the screens that is precise to the millisecond. I begin to think.
I agonize over different angles I could use. 3 minutes in, and I realize that every angle that I might be good at doesn't endear to sponsors. But doing a bad job at adopting one of the more popular personas would be a lot worse. Finally, I say as the minutes tick down to nothing, "I'll be sardonic."
"Hmmmm," says Tyson. "Well, at least I don't have to think about how to coach you. Sardonic's an instinct thing. For the last twenty years I've been feeding prepackaged lines to tributes who wanted to play sexy or barbaric or innocent. I even brought my line book. But luckily I won't have to use it. I guess I owe you one, but don't get too excited about paying it back. You're the one who's going to die after all. Just sit there and think of the snappiest sardonic comments you can for the next three hours. You know the sort of questions Caesar asks; he's been doing these interviews for at least thirty years. He's probably got his best questions on a notepad he consults during the commercial breaks."
Tyson sidles away, leaving me to think of my best cutting remarks. I have to be really careful that my words will not be interpreted as rebellious against the Capitol, or they will invent some especially gruesome method for my execution during the games. So I'll just undercut the tributes instead. Thinking about my competition also allows me to analyze them better. I begin to classify them by various criteria: danger level, weight, weapons I remember them using well, food they enjoyed at lunch. Stara would have been proud, I think, as an Avox enters the room and beckons me to the lunch table.
Unlike the morning, where I was allowed to think in solitude, the afternoon is long and excruciating. My public speaking is far worse than I could have imagined, or so Bessie's coaching leads me to believe. I tend to slouch in my seat, and she has to keep pointing at my sagging shoulders as I practice talking to her as if she's the interviewer. Apparently I'm also too quiet.
"But I have a microphone when i'm up there," I protest. She makes a chopping motion in the air with her right hand. "Microphones are like crutches. You shouldn't need them. You should be able to make your voice heard all the way to the top of that theater without one. I know, because the Ancient Greeks were able to do it. And they didn't even have the privilege of such great food."