The next morning a screeching alarm found its way into my dream about winning the rebellion. Even in dreamland, I knew something was wrong when it was coming from a little fuzzy rabbit. I jammed the pillow over my ears and used some very descriptive words. The alarm finally stopped, and a voice came on over the intercom. It was none other than the gravelly voice of Grig saying, "Get up! Stop sleeping! We're almost in the Capitol!"

"Almost" apparently meant "are" in Grig's dictionary, because by the time I'd sleepily pulled on a pretty purple baby doll, some jeans, and black boots; and put my hair in two braids, Grig told us we'd been in the Capitol for over an hour.

"You're making everybody wait! Jesus!" Who's Jesus?

"What time is it?" I yawned.

"6:30!" That really woke me up- or maybe it put me back to sleep.

Right then, Urso stumbled in. He rubbed his eyes. They had dark circles under them. He was wearing a nice short sleeve button-up shirt and some dark jeans. He said something that sounded like, "urblegurgletlehinburkdolbr," but he was probably muttering something under his breath.

Grig pushed us out the door- literally shoved us- then nimbly hopped down the steps and shoved us (again) into a waiting car. It was a limo with a hot tub. When I asked if we could use it, Grig slapped me and made my lip bleed. He said it was none of my "durn beeswax!" For the rest of the ride, I looked out the window at the passing cars and, especially, the people. Oh, the people. One person had a 5 foot tall afro. Most of the people were even weirder than that. They had red eyes, polka-dotted skin, and feet that looked like caterpillars. So these would be the people who would watch me kill 12 year olds.

We pulled up in front of a building that was extremely tall. There was a circular tower in the middle and 6 spiral-y things about 10 feet away from that. Glass elevators were going up through the center of the spirals. Inside, there were drawings and paintings and photographs crammed together on the walls, and peacock colored drapes on the windows. The white marble floors clicked under our shoes. People with crazy body decorations stood in little groups off to the side, but hardly made a sound. I felt their eyes boring into the back of my skull.

"This is where your stylists are," whispered Grig. He saw our questioning looks and quickly added, "They'll make you less ugly." Typical Grig.

We walked up to a lady with a huge green beehive with little diamonds cut out of it. She was sitting behind a desk, so I figured she was a "receptionist," like in one of the movies we watched the day before. "Hello," she said in a very low voice, especially for a woman. It was probably changed, like everything else in this city. "You two must be from District 4. Follow Hiboq," she said pointing to a tiny man with huge eyes.

Hiboq didn't say a word the whole time. The elevator was glass so Urso and I played a game about finding the weirdest alteration among the Capitol citizens. I found a woman who had a branch coming out of her belly button with a bird made out of her hair on the end, but Urso found a guy with hair all over his body of different shades and textures. So nasty.

We were put in separate rooms. My room was neon yellow, and after ten minutes of waiting, it was starting to hurt my eyes. After my prep team was through ripping all of the hair off of it, my skin hurt worse than my eyes. My stylist was named Queego and he didn't seem very happy to be there. He had a blue hairdo shaped like the building, but was mostly normal other than that.

"You're Magali?" he snapped.

"Call me Maggie."

"So Magali." This was going to be a long day. "What is your District known for?"

"Fishing?" I answered in question form.

"Precisely. First thing in the opening ceremonies is going to be a chariot ride. You will exit the chariot in special outfits to symbolize what your district does and walk down a carpet."

"So your going to dress me like a fish." This actually made him smile. Maybe he thought I'd be some prissy little snob.

"Well, actually," he started as I made a face, "you will be dressed as a mermaid!" My face lit up. How fun would that be! But then I thought again.

"Will Urso be one too?" I asked.

"He will be a sailor."

"Well that's good," I replied with a smile