The hovercraft comes for me, a rope ladder unfolding from its depths. Clatter, clatter, clatter the rungs spill down. I look up into the hovercraft, but I can't see anything inside but light. I step onto the bottom rung very carefully. I don't think climbing a ladder would be good for my foot. I still can't see anything up there, but I wave up at whoever's controlling the craft. I'm on, I'm ready; let's go.
Someone gets the idea. The craft moves and I sway in the breeze. What would they do if I fell? Like rolling up a rope or reeling in a line, the ladder begins to retract back into the hovercraft. I watch the little sea of the arena until I can't anymore- latex gloved hands reach down and grab my arms, helping to pull me in.
"Hello," a pretty woman with green-tipped brown hair addresses me first, "How are you feeling?"
"I have been…better," I admit. I wish that I could look back at the arena and watch it recede, but there are no windows anywhere I can see. I've made a jarring mood from one strange world to another. Goodbye, bamboo island of death.
"You should drink some water," a man suggests, all dressed in white and plastic just like the woman.
"I think I still have some in my canteen," I suddenly realize I'm still carrying it. I pull it out and give it a shake, which reveals that some dregs still remain within.
"Maybe something cold would be better?" the woman presses gently. They look at me like I'm temporarily insane and just need to be reminded how the real, rational world works. Possibly they're right.
"Okay," I agree, and accept the man's offer of water in a pretty bluish bottle. He exchanges it for my canteen, which he turns around to examine from several angles (really, I don't think there's anything that interesting about it), and smiles a different, amused kind of smile.
The woman helps me to a seat and wraps a temporary bandage around my foot. "When we get back to the Capitol, they'll get you all fixed up," she assures me.
"You kind of remind me of someone I know," I admit to her, hoping it doesn't sound stupid or rude.
"And who is that?" she inquires patiently.
"Our district escort. Apple Smitt."
"She's my older sister," the younger Smitt woman replies.
For some reason this maybe coincidence strikes me as extremely funny. I think that maybe it's because I'm sleep-deprived. I laugh and laugh and Ms. Smitt and the man humor me and don't interfere with it. I live in a world that doesn't make any sense yet I keep trying to piece things nicely together.
The man gives me a blanket to put over my shoulders to make up for my half-dry and torn clothes. The water is so cold it hurts the tender places in my mouth.
Gosh, what do I do now? What do I think now? Most of the time in the arena I hadn't even been willing to believe it was possible for me to live and now I'm alive and the other twenty-three tributes (and some of them I knew and some of them I loved) are all dead. I am District Four's first victor then. Me. What were the odds?
"Will it take a long time to get back to the Capitol?" I ask.
"We're already more than halfway there," Apple's sister says.
It's so unreal. Am I dreaming I'm the victor? …But I don't know what this part of coming out of the arena alive is like from past experience. They don't show it to us on TV. So…?
When will things outside the arena feel real again? Will they feel really real again? Really real. I'm not even sure what kind of distinction I'm trying to make now. Don't think about it, I tell myself. Just keep going. Don't think about it.
Talking slows the thoughts.
"Will I get to sleep a lot before I'm crowned and stuff? Because I think I'm going to need a whole bunch of sleep to do anything now. …Also, I probably need about three months of beauty sleep to look presentable in front of a Capitol audience again."
"Apple was right," the man notes, "You are cheeky."
"You will be allowed plenty of time to rest," Ms. Smitt confirms.
I finish my water and make the remainder of the flight in silence, keeping any unnecessary cheekiness to myself. For some reason I feel a little chastened. It's enough to make me feel really real for at least a while.
It's dark when we land at a hospital and I'm immediately cheered when Aulus- Aulie- rushes over and scoops me up in his arms. "Oh, Mags!" he hugs me, and as much as I'm sure he wants to be careful, he's a big, muscular guy and very enthusiastic, so I kind of wince at the same time as I try to smile. "You're alive! You won! I'm so happy to see you again!"
"I'm really happy to see you too!"
His face brushes against mine and I feel stubble that I just now notice. There's extra makeup too, attempting to mask the puffy bags beneath his eyes. He's been scrimping on sleep- watch us as much as he could, I imagine. And maybe he's been crying as well. I didn't see it happen, so it's not real to me yet, but Beanpole died this very morning. Aulie saw it. Apple saw it. Everyone back home saw it. The worst and best day of District 4's Twelfth Hunger Games all in one.
"Let's go get you taken care of," my coach says and carries me inside.
It's not like any trip I've made to see a doctor before, even aside from how much bigger and more high-tech the facility is. I don't have to wait for my turn to be seen. Two doctors and a handful of nurses and aides are ready and waiting to see me. The doctors act neural and professional, but some of the nurses seem a bit admiring.
I'm changed out of my ruined Games attired and into a papery hospital gown so that only my coral ring token from Faline remains. They take my pulse and blood pressure; a blood sample; my weight. A nurse puts disinfectant on the cuts on my face and arm. My face should heal fine on its own. Parts of Haakon's saw slash to my arm will require stitches, as will my foot, obviously. Some kind of aloe-based lotion is rubbed onto my sunburn.
When I ask if the person who replaced Jack Umber's lost teeth is available to work on mine, they just laugh.
Aulie holds my hand as they put me under for the surgery on my foot. He promises to be there when I wake up, and he is, when I briefly come to in the early hours of the morning, sleeping in the chair beside my hospital bed. They've giving me intravenous fluids and medicine. I wonder if they also removed my tracker and gave me a new tooth while I was out. That kind of efficiency seems Capitol-esque. The stitches are in place in my arm. I'm still awfully tired though. I decide that I'm not going to worry about it until it's more properly morning. It's easy enough to drift off back to sleep.
My morning meal is small to pace me after my days of deprivation, but it doesn't take much for it to be wonderful. I would have been content with something as simple as Crispco Crackers. Aulie drinks his coffee and laughs when I tell him so.
He gets out a hand mirror and helps me to see that I did have a new molar put in. I can't tell it from my other teeth, aside from the fact that it's whiter after the inevitable drop off in cleaning they experienced during the Games.
He's yawning a lot, which makes me self-conscious of how selfish I've been and tell him it's okay to leave me a while. Since apparently Apple is on her way over anyway, Aulie relents and we part ways temporarily. …It's nice to be able to see someone walk away from me and be completely sure that I'll see them again.
The nurses come in and out to see that everything is healing on schedule. I remark to one on the trend I've noticed in their behavior.
"We all drew straws to see who would get to help with you," a charcoal-black, artificially black-black woman, barely older than me, explains, giggling once none of the other nurses are nearby. She looks like she was carved from some exquisite piece of coal. "We knew we would get the winner, whoever it was, but some of us- like me- were specifically rooting for you."
"For me," I wonder, "Really?" Everyone back in the districts has natural built-in loyalties, but how do the people in the Capitol pick their favorites? The characters we become, I guess, the stories we create.
"You're very self-deprecating," she says. I'm not sure if it's an observation or an answer. She has a smile like polished pearls. Her name is Phoebe. She inputs my current vital signs into an electronic chart and leaves me to my idle thoughts until I drift off again.
When Apple finally shows herself, several hours later than Aulie's comment had convinced me she would, she's dressed to the nines and glittering with elaborate District 4-influenced beach glass and seashell jewelry. A cameraman and assistant trail in her wake. Oh, yeah. I guess it stands to reason our reunion might be filmed. Were there cameras present last night taking things in between Aulie and me too? There might have been, but I didn't see them.
Between Beanpole and I, I think Apple liked Beanpole better. I feel bad about that. I want to discuss it with her, but it's not hard to guess that now is not the time.
"You're on," the man who isn't managing the camera announces and immediately Apple just about pounces on me. I feel like a tiny mouse. We hug and some of her eyeshadow rubs off on my face and she pats my head and when we gush about how happy we are to see one another, just like with Aulie, it's completely real and I hope that when they air this footage that people will be able to see that.
For something to do while we chat, I encourage Apple to take down my long-suffering hair from the two droopy buns that have lasted, more or less, for the past few days, and it's just as frizzy and corkscrewed as I told Beanpole it would be. Apple takes a brush and comb from her handbag and sets at trying to tame it.
I try to show her my new tooth. I point out the crutches I'll have to use for a few days because even the Capitol's accelerated healing procedures can only do so much for my chewed up foot.
Apple gives up on my hair once she's worked it into two puffy pigtails. "This is a job for professionals," she mock-despairs.
"Luckily I have some." I thank her a bunch for coming to visit me. They turn the camera off and the official part of our reunion concludes. "You want to see my stitches?" I offer her my arm.
"No, thank you," Apple says primly, though her expression suggests disgust.
"How long do you think it will be before I get to go home?"
"Well," she considers it, "There will be the recaps and crowning. …And they probably won't want you on crutches for that, so as soon as your foot has healed I imagine things will get rolling again. Then the next day, you do a final interview and we take you home until your victory tour."
"Mostly you sit at the recap though," I complain. I want to get it over and done with. I want to go home, like I told Haakon, and "home" didn't just mean getting out of the arena- I meant District 4.
"You're not going to look very heroic on crutches," Apple advises me. "Your dress- and I've gotten a sneak preview of it and it's going to be gorgeous- it won't flow as nicely if you're on crutches either."
I roll my eyes. There was never anything heroic about me to begin with. "Well, I know that the schedule isn't going to flow according to my whims anyway." Being a victor only brings with it the benefits that the Capitol feels like giving you. You live, but you dance to their tune.
"Just work on getting better," she encourages me.
"Apple," I venture, "About Beanpole-"
"If I were you," she cuts off that train of thought quickly, "I wouldn't talk about that right now. Your heart has got to heal up too. Let the matter rest."
When she goes, I petulantly think that no one's telling me about Beanpole's death just because they want me to see it for the first time when I watch the recaps. …But even if I'm right, there's no use in holding it against Apple. It's not her decision. I'm sure they treat all the victors like this.
Victors. I let it echo through my head. Victors, of whom I am now one. There are little kids out there who have now been traumatized by the sight of a shark biting into my foot (but the way the Capitol fixes things, I can see it will be all but good as new, though I'm not sure how much I can feel in my two smallest toes) or by my flying into a berserk rage and killing the girl who had been my friend.
I wonder when I'll have the opportunity to interact with the other victors.
Inevitably, because of that "save it for the live audiences" component of things, I can't even call up Papa or Faline or any of my classmates back home. We don't get to talk until we do it on camera.
I learn how to walk with the crutches and travel aimlessly around the all but empty floor with Phoebe, the nurse I've decided I like best. There don't seem to be any other patients recovering on this floor, although on the third day after my arrival, I catch sight of a familiarly flashy man. He's the District 10 escort. His name is Ferdinand?
One of the doctors stops me before I get over to talk to him though. I watch from a miffed distance as he enters the elevator with a girl who is definitely Emmy Pollack (bright pink streaks in her hair just like at the reaping), but neither of them looks back and sees me.
Phoebe explains some of it to me when we next meet. This is the victors' floor. It's always used for us. Nurses just circulate up here from other floors when necessary. Once annually there's a new patient who's planned on (the newest victor). Other times, I suppose it's the victors' emergency room in the Capitol. I can't really ask for the specifics about Emmy. Generically though: "Is there activity up here frequently?"
"Well, compared to the other floors of the hospital, it's a graveyard. But you only make the twelfth victor. And most of the time they're away in the districts so it would take something pretty serious for them to be shipped out to us."
"So this is where Gerik got his leg?" I muse, looking around and considering things in a new light. 'Where Shy was cured of her, um, tuberculosis or whatever it was?' I'd also like to say, but I know better while within their facility than to question the official government take on that.
"Yes. But I didn't have my nursing certification then. Beto was the first victor case that I saw."
"So I guess they don't come in much otherwise then." My hair has finally smoothed out into easy manageability. I sit in a chair and braid it up while Phoebe changes the bed sheets.
"Jack comes a little bit. He's in the Capitol the most among them, I think."
"And One is close to the Capitol," I note. For him, I imagine, the time and distance is never a viable excuse.
Erinne and her team show up on the fourth day after my arrival. I had forgotten for a while about how Aulie'd done my nails before the Games. The painting he'd done for fun has completely worn and chipped away. Erinne and I make idle small talk that doesn't verge much on the actual content of my Games as Irish and Spring work on my nails, shaping and buffing and painting them a neutral, almost clear color.
"As long as both you and the Director of Victor Affairs approve of my work, I can have the contract as your designer and general style coordinator," Erinne informs me, sketching as her allies move on to my toes.
"We're feeling really good that we're dressing a winner," Irish pipes up, "And such a small, cute one too."
"Of course I'll keep you on," I say, "…Although I wouldn't eve know how to begin looking for someone else if I had to." This makes all three of them laugh.
"No one tell her the procedure," Erinne tells her team in an exaggerated stage whisper.
I drop a mention of how I heard Apple saw my crowning dress in some degree of readiness, but everyone laughs off this transparent attempt to learn something about it ahead of time on my part.
On the fifth day after, Aulie and Apple pick me up together and we head for the Training Center in the car that Beanpole didn't win his chance to drive. Some of the nurses, Phoebe included, are openly sad to see me go. "I'm only leaving so soon," I try to cheer them up, "As a result of everyone's great work!
"Next time we'll sabotage something then," Phoebe chirps back.
But I mope on the ride. The car reminds me of Beanpole. The Training Center reminds me of the rest of the tributes. We ride the elevator in silence.
"Hey, I've got something you'll like," Aulie thinks of his way of cheering me when we reach our floor on the almost empty building (just us and the staff- no Beanpole lying on the couch, no other tributes living their parallel last days out on floors above and below). He dashes into my bedroom and comes back with a bit of fabric flapping between his arms. He's trying to shield it from my eyes until exposing it at the last moment.
"You saved my dress!" I try to say cheerfully, but my voice cracks with a barely suppressed sob. "Thank you!" I wrap my arms round the dress and slip down onto the couch. Is it better to let myself cry or to hold it in? Beanpole's ghost is all too present in our midst.
Aulie sits down on one side of me and Apple on the other.
"Is Beanpole," I stumble over a delicate question, "Is he coming home with us?"
"No, he's already gone on ahead," Apple dabs at the corners of her eyes with a lacy handkerchief, "They don't want a mix of feelings on display when you come home. No one in Panem wants to watch his mother sob for him."
"Yes," Aulie agrees as though he's suddenly remembered something important, "And now that you've won, you have to consider the kind of front you want to put up in public. All the other tributes are going to be deemphasized. Your story is going to depict the win like it's your destiny." And he and Apple know, just as well as I do, how huge of a portion of it it was dumb luck and what parts weren't were built on the hands and labor and care of those who helped me (even if it was only for as short a time as a split second- Haakon, Sparrow, Laurie, Jem, Juna, Beanpole). "Obviously, how personable you are and how that inspired others to like and trust you will play a large part in the story they'll tell about you, but you have to be careful how and how much you talk about the other tributes. Try and follow the lead of the presenters. Mr. Zimmer still wants for you to look good."
"Can't part of my thing be being self-deprecating?" I ask, although discussing it immediately makes it seem somewhat disingenuous. "It's not," I try to explain, "That I'm not really glad that I survived and that I didn't accomplish things on my own, but-" (modesty probably isn't a big virtue in the Capitol, huh?) "-Maybe I sort of understate things and it could come off kind of amusing-funny?"
"Oh," Aulie understands, even if Apple's still lost at sea somewhere.
Since if I don't laugh I will cry. It's weird. I don't feel quite myself, but I don't think I'm quite as broken as I expected to be. It has to be the unrealness of it all. The horrors will haunt me in my dreams, and my fears and regrets will rebound with a vengeance at some point.
Then again, maybe they won't. Maybe some people are better built to handle this than others.
I want to talk to other victors. How did they feel then? How do they feel now? I need to know.
"That would probably work out fine," Aulie okays it.
My thoughts have moved on alone to other parts of this process. "When do you think I might get to finally meet other victors?" I query.
"Well, during the victory tour, right, Apple?" Aulie isn't sure he can think of anything sooner, but he's never worked with a victor, so he can hardly be blamed for not being sure.
"Jack might be at the recaps," Apple considers it, "Though I don't know ho much time there might be for chatting backstage."
"Make me some?" I request.
"I will see what I can do," she promises.
Aulie and I eat lunch in front of the television, watching some inane celebrity dancing competition while Apple is out, busy coordinating the myriad details of the upcoming conclusion to the Games. "They wanted to get a victor on this program," Aulie says.
"But everyone turned them down?"
"Well, the rumor is that Sunny said she'd like to do it, but Victor Affairs decided she shouldn't."
The dancing they show is somewhat stylistically removed from the dancing we do back in 4. Aulie tells me who a few of the contestant are, but the meaningless names just don't stick.
I learn from a television promo that my crowning and Games recaps will be tomorrow night. I can walk without crutches, though I'm still taking things carefully. "When were you two going to tell me about that?" I laugh, half amused, half just uncomfortable. I see my first outside-looking-in shots of my Games in montage. How surreal. I'm walking on rocks and finding the large hook. I'm reining through the bamboo forest in a scene I can't clearly place, blood on my clothes and knife in my hand. I'm reaching out to the rope ladder and lifted up staring at the sea.
"District Four Congratulations Mags Gaudete, our first victor," reads a stylized title care after the listing of the airtime (no channel listing- every channel will carry this required programming). Did the people back home really arrange for that message in pretty gold and green or was it another Capitol touch?
"We figured it could wait until tomorrow morning. All you can really do in advance for this is get worked up."
"You might have a point."
"See there? We understand you."
It's a strangely quiet day spent in the Capitol. When Apple comes back she sits with me and pages through a dossier on her electronic schedule device (or whatever it is- I don't know the proper name), showing me the scheduled bounty that my win will bring each 'Parcel Day' up until the next Games. …When the sugar comes in, every little kid in the district is going to love me, aren't they?
"Are you going to come out to town and make a big fuss over it with me each time?" I try to have fun with some light-hearted teasing. "You know, Emmy and Ferdinand style?" I refer to the Parcel Day proceedings in District 10 I've seen bits and pieces of all throughout the last year. The victor and her escort were always there together.
But what does it say about a suggested scenario if Apple finds it less amusing than I do?
"Emmy can't handle Parcel Day without Ferdinand," I guess, fishing for information- if I can't get it from the victors themselves, I might find it someone else in this system.
"You shouldn't speak ill of your seniors," Apple tries to sidestep the implied question.
"I'm older than Emmy Pollack," I say, although I know she means her precedence over me as a victor, not her age.
"I might come for the pleasure of it, if you invite me, but there's no reason I'd be necessary." In a way, Apple is conceding my point. "I'm sure that you're more what they want in a victor. People are suppose to come out better for respecting and fearing the Capitol, not worse."
In theory. …Or at least according to Apple's perception of things. But who is really the aberration- me or Emmy?
It would only be mean to keep badgering Apple. She doesn't mean badly. I change the subject slightly. "I get a lot of money as a victor, right? And a new house?" …Not that I'm sure I'm entirely keen on leaving my old one.
"Yes, you do," she brightens.
"So maybe I could bring my dad a present home from the Capitol?" I wouldn't mind picking out something for Mrs. Mirande too, but I don't want it to seem like I'm buying her off.
"That's a lovely idea," she agrees. But, of course, I can't go out onto the streets in front of people before the ceremonies of tomorrow night, so we use her device to look at digital catalogues of top of the line fishing gear. Some of it I can't figure out (and Apple doesn't know much more about fishing than what I've previously told her), and some of it practically seems like cheating, but I pick out a reinforced pole and a couple of fancy lures I think he'll appreciate.
I get to eat more freely at dinner, as I show no ill effects of my larger, richer lunch shared with Aulie. The pretty blond Avox is back.
On a whim, I ask Apple if I could hire a particular Avox to come work for me (by which I really mean come be a guest in my new house), but she laughs and tells me district citizens aren't allowed to employ Avoxes. Sorry, lady. I know it would be sort of futile to save just you, but aren't futile gestures what I specialize in? I thought you might even like District 4.
I think that I should be able to sleep all right, but Apple leaves a sleeping pill and a glass of water out for me just in case.
She knows better than I do.
I dream about Sparrow smiling at me with rows of teeth, like a shark. Of Haakon sawing off his own leg and then offering his axe to me to finish the job. Of Beanpole leaving to die on purpose and not face off with me, his face solemn with his frequent melancholy. I lean back for a dentist to examine my teeth and the dentist is Jack Umber, who holds up a pair of pliers. "This is only going to hurt a lot," he warns me, smiling, and behind his shoulder a camera zooms in on my panicked eyes.
I wake up. It's still pitch black. I take the sleeping pill.
It must have been for more than just sleeping. After that, I don't dream, or at least I don't remember.
Apple and Aulie and I eat pancakes for breakfast. I idly pack up the majority of my few things since I'll be busy tonight and the following morning before my afternoon return home. Apple tells me to keep any of the clothes I've worn and liked since used things won't be recycled for next year. In light of this, I cram pretty much all of it in the small suitcase she gave me. I can always give them away to my friends back home.
After lunch, Erinne is back with her team and plastic boxes of equipment. When Irish unfolds her kit, I can see two publicity still taped into the lid from the pre-Games interviews- one of me and one of Beanpole. Beanpole looks calm and dignified and kind of handsome for Beanpole. I have my big mouth open. Some photo editor choosing what shot to use captured my character perfectly.
They set up in the sitting room, just tossing a piece of clear plastic over the couch. The primping and preening starts with a skin treatment and shaving my legs, which, apparently, will show to some degree. Hair and make-up will come after they've gotten me into my dress. I figured it would be a dress even before Apple dropped a hint.
But, oh, what a dress! I don't feel like I deserve it. I would feel lucky just to go home as I am and live and be forgotten about. Is it okay to be happy about my dress? The Capitol wants me to be. I decide that I should be happy, at least for the sake of Erinne, who worked so hard on this. The bodice is strapless and fitted. The skirt has two layers. One short, that shows off my legs (giving me all the height they can, because I may be fashionably slim, but even by underfed District 4 standards, I'm short) and the one open in the front and long in the back, a beautiful gradient of ocean colors that flows behind me when I walk like the rising tide.
I stumble over my words (as usual), but Erinne guesses my intent. "Speechless, huh?" she laughs.
"Yeah," I agree.
Then the other two laugh as well. Erinne makes some minor adjustments to the fit of my dress. The group chatters cheerily at me as they go to town on my hair and makeup. They're keeping with my two bun hairstyle. It's not very glamorous, but, then again, neither am I. The fact that none of the other victors sport a look like it might have helped with that decision.
"I got addicted to the twenty-four hour Games feed because of you two," Irish says. "It's weirdly mesmerizing when you actually know some of the tributes. That they're really real; that they're really like that."
"I wanted to go out there and give you a bath!" Spring declares.
"I'm all clean now." I hold still for glittery blue mascara.
"And Beanpole was more fashion forward than we thought, asking you about what would happen with your crazy hair."
"He was about the best friend I could've asked for out there, even if we weren't together for very long." Instead of tearing up and stymying their efforts, I quickly ask about my footwear next. "Not heels?" I hope.
"Flat as a…flounder?" Spring guesses, holding up a pair of white and gold laced sandals.
That does make me smile. "Still reading up on fish?"
"You know that I get to design you a new outfit for every stop on your victory tour, right? I need all the inspiration I can get," Erinne says.
For my hair there are trailing decorations made of twin and ribbon and pearls simulating fishnets and seaweed, one dangling ornament for each side. They keep my buns low to allow room for the crown the president will give me.
Once I'm finished, Aulie and Apple are allowed back in. They ooh and ah over my appearance and get Spring to use Apple's tiny camera so they can take about a dozen pictures with me. They're all dolled up too, since as my team they get to share in a portion of the glory with me. I'm not sure anything Apple or Aulie did had an effect on whether I lived or died, but they were amazing moral support. I try and tell them so, but they ask me to save it for the stage or after. "If we're going to cry and ruin our makeup," Aulie insists, "It might as well happen in front of thousands of people so they know it's because we love you."
"Okay, I promise to save the sappiness."
Erinne and her team pack up and go on ahead on their own. The three of us follow not long after to the same place the interviews were filmed, now even more packed, and wildly decorated in a style that reflects upon both the nature of the arena I came out of and District 4, but I only get a momentary glimpse of it before I'm tucked away backstage until my actual cue. My team, who will go one before me, stand further up in the wings. Some of the crew are viewing the live footage of the excited crowd on a monitor. The president is in his box. …I don't care if I've won the Hunger Games, that man still scares me.
Microphone settings are fine-tuned and lights are adjusted. I see that Jack Umber is already looking at me from near the other edge of the stage when my eyes fall upon him. He smiles. Does he know I want to talk to him? I smile back.
The anthem starts out blaring and Jeff Zimmer gives an introduction to the evening's events. From his box, the president gives a statement that I can't make out all the words of, but everyone applauds. Mr. Zimmer announces his co-hosts, first Longinus Bronze, who gets applause, and then Jack, whose fanfare is peppered with female (mostly; presumably) screaming.
The trio banters about what a satisfying Games this was, apparently. They joke about my quick and successful recovery. "Jeff," Jack chuckles, "I haven't been in your radiant presence for five days!"
They introduce the design team and Erinne discusses my previous Games attire, hinting at what I'll be wearing tonight.
Aulie goes on and they ask him about the skills I demonstrated in the arena. He says he wishes he could take more credit for them, but that I showed up as ready to win as anyone could.
Apple talks about how she always knew District 4 would do it eventually (this leaves two districts who have no victors- 11 and 12). She assesses my personality and call me, "above all, gutsy."
It's all staged to create the maximum amount of build-up and excitement in the audience. "Well, we've seen it ourselves, haven't we, ladies and gentlemen?" Mr. Zimmer prompts the crowd, "Miss Mags is quite a girl! So, let's let her see it too, shall we?"
That's my cue.
The lights are brilliant. The noise is deafening. Mr. Zimmer steps up to greet me. He and Mr. Bronze and Jack take turns shaking my hand. Does Jack wink at me or is it my imagination? "Don't look up," he says with a flush of good humor.
People begin to giggle in anticipation as I (of course) look up.
The shark, dead and stuffed, is hanging from the ceiling with my hook and piece of pole still stuck in its lip. "Oh, my-" I stagger back a step and Mr. Zimmer steadies me as I wobble on my weaker foot.
"I thought you might like it for your mantle," Mr. Bronze smirks. Well, he would.
"Ha ha ha," I laugh nervously, "I would need one big mantle for that thing."
"Now, now, that's enough of that, Mr. Bronze, Jack," Mr. Zimmer chides comically, leading me up to my chair. This victor's seat is gold-colored (maybe even actually made with gold) and of a woven design with a black velvet pillow for me to sit on.
The terrible humor that preceded it cushions me against what I am about to see: my Games, from reaping to victory in three well-edited hours.
There isn't much to surprise me in the first segment, because I've already watched the initial recaps of the reapings, chariot ride, training scores, and interviews. Since the focus is now squarely on me, even segments that weren't aired in full before are things I was there for. Fellow tributes whose trajectory through the Games intersected with mine tend to be more feature- Sparrow, Beanpole, Haakon. I see how frequently I smiled for the camera regardless of nerves and how, even more frequently, people smiled back.
And that's going to be the idea, isn't it? To know me being to like me?
The arena footage bears this out quickly. I am bumbling and whimsical, a people person who is uncomfortable on her own, as opposed to Beanpole, who seems in control when clinically observing other hapless tributes at a distance. They let us see Sparrow as she examines the darts and unlabeled bottle packaged with them. I frown, but this part isn't a surprise to me anymore. The editors always love foreshadowing.
One way in which all the other tributes receive an equal minimum airtime is in death. It's…not exactly enlightening to observe any of the ones I've missed thus far, but later in the Games it will mean something. I'm doing a lot of wincing now, but editing and distance provide a decent buffer of unreality. If the arena is unreal now, I suppose I'm back in this world and I can take some comfort from that.
"Pardon me, Apple, if I snore," I say onscreen, facing away from the camera and then, I don't exactly snore, but my breath goes in and out with a funny little catch, that makes me put my hand to my forehead and the audience giggle.
It's bloody, but interesting to see Beanpole's discovery of the shark as a result of another injured tribute's misfortune and the subsequent "aiding and abetting" he described to me. He doesn't talk to himself the way I did in the arena, but his melancholy isn't as heavy as I might have imagined. Somewhere inside, he found a reason to be brave. One thing he does is a lot like me. Based on what they've picked to show at least, he always seems to be looking at the sea. The recap paints him in a good light. …I still feel like he should be sitting here beside me. It still won't sink in that he's really dead. And watching his tricks here is almost like a film.
Maybe the recap isn't going to be so bad?
…And then Juna and I find one another (along with the usual captioning that labels her "Juna Bright, District 12," the editing gives her another description in light of my win: "Friend #1") and that notion is completely dashed for me when I get to see her fate with my own two eyes. They make sure to include her "canary in the coal mine" explanation. It fits the foreshadowing agenda far too well. Sparrow appears behind her as hands reaching through the dark and stabs her in the throat with a dart like she later used on me. She holds Juna down with a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming as she dies and watches dispassionately as her body is removed from the arena. "I think she bled out," she lies to me.
I'm glad no one let me eat dinner before this because, man, do I feel sick.
The captioning pops up after this, giving off a funny sort of irony. "Friend #2."
All the items that exchange between my "friends" and I are highlighted as well. The canteen Juna "gifted" me, then the Crispco ("I could eat the whole tin!") crackers.
The hook I'll find later is accidentally dropped off the rocks by Meridew, after a long, impatient stretch of trying to tie together a long enough braid of plant fibers to try and fish off the outcropping. The water was way too low for it at that point, even if there had been something other than the shark to catch. Her awkward attempt to fish without even using bait is intercut with my lecturing Sparrow on various matters of fishing.
And while Haakon and Meridew camp out between the rocks, glum and cheerless, at least based on what the editing shows us, I braid Sparrow's hair and hold her arm while we walk down the beach and rattle off a million different ways to eat bananas. Sparrow and I definitely look like friends. And, beyond that, apparently I look like someone you, theoretical person in the Capitol, might like to be friends with too?
Things turn less pleasant when we encounter and kill Ada Spelling, and here in my seat I grip the arms tighter and tighter, but the friendship angle carries on with my story about Aoko Ayu. Have they ever shown the picture of a past tribute during a recap before? There hasn't been a victor yet whose sibling or cousin or anything the Capitol feels is worth committing on has proceeded them in death.
Five years ago and Aoko, with stiff black braids jutting away from her head, is just as I last saw her. They intersperse footage of Aoko running through a forest of black pines with equally tiny Daisy Arlen running in the opposite direction through the bamboo to her death. Sparrow and I knot together a net while Sparrow hums. How perfectly they've painted my nightmares.
Sparrow smiles in her sleep. Haakon keeps watch over Meridew. Beanpole wades in the shallows and says my name.
The bloodbath of the following day is no clearer to me in retrospect than it was as it occurred. Apparently Sparrow shared no words with the camera about her strange actions at this point, weighing her allegiances to me and to Laurie on her own. "Laurie Tart, District 5. Friend #3." Korona kills Mercy, Laurie kills Heath, Laurie kills Korona.
And while I never quite had the time to get comfortable with her, there we are talking and getting to know one another.
The little bit of tears I shed there seem a natural part of this character in the center of this story. While I sleep, Sparrow kills Laurie in cold blood and, now, watching, I bite my lip and fight this building urge toward tears. "Well," says Sparrow, "I actually like you."
Look at what I do after- I stick loyally to her even after I see her cunning and calculation. Right up until I see and feel the darts she shoots at me, hoping to take me out quickly, Sparrow and I are friends. Despite what I did, I want to say that we are still- we stayed- friends. Cadelle, Sparrow, and Jem fall to my hand in my rage and it's amazing and horrible to see. I'm like a completely different person.
Are they closing up on my face now as the tears start to stream down while I watch this?
When there's nothing else one can do, it's one's responsibility to watch and remember, isn't it? To bear witness?
They show Meridew and Haakon curious at the closely-spaced cannon shots. "What do you think that is?" Meridew asks her partner. Haakon shrugs.
Onscreen I collapse by the creek. My mouth moves in words that either weren't recorded or have been removed so the audience today won't hear. I know what I'm saying then. "Brendan, Elmo, Nicholas, Peter, Zeno," I mouth the list along with my past self. Behind me, Beanpole is watching. "Beanpole Mirande, District 4. Friend #4."
In time-lapse style, Beanpole waits and keeps watch over me throughout the whole night, helping and comforting me the next day when I awake. His question of whether or not I know the names of all the other tributes is answered not only by my actual response of, "Most of them. Not all," but a montage of shots that capture that other tribute (and the ones who have died by this point are depicted in a somber gray-scale) along with me saying their name: Juna, Jem, Daisy, Ada, Sparrow, Laurie, Cadelle, Bailey, Meridew, Haakon…
What is it about watching someone cry? Even though the person up there crying is me, watching it makes me makes me cry even harder. Me from the arena finishes her sobbing and eats bananas and chocolate with Beanpole, but here on stage I wipe my face frantically with my wet fingers, wishing for a jacket or a long sleeve, if not a handkerchief, to stifle my tears with. And I hope the Capitol will forgive me for being such an ugly cryer. It won't be long before my nose begins to run.
The backs of cool fingers touch the outside of my arm.
I didn't think anyone was close enough to me on the stage to reach out and touch me. I look away from the scene of Beanpole and me walking out to tempt in the shark to see Jack Umber kneeling on the floor beside my seat. He's offering me the thing that I need most. It's a handkerchief, white with a silver edge and monogrammed- not "J. U.," but "J. Z." Jeff Zimmer's. A friend not named as such by the recap of my Games, but a friend nonetheless.
And why is Jack handing it to me? He had the smallest gap to close to reach me. He was seated between Mr. Zimmer and me.
Onscreen, Beanpole leaves me during the night, whispering "Good luck and good winds."
Jeff Zimmer, Capitol. Friend they forgot to number. Jack Umber, District 1. …Friend I have yet to befriend?
I accept the handkerchief. Mr. Zimmer's eyes leave the screen for a brief second to look at me. "Brendanelmo, Nicholas, Peterzeno," Jack hisses, blocking his mouth from the cameras with his hand, before he scoots back to retake his seat.
For whatever reason he attempted to recite back my litany of sea-saints to me, his strangely accented list has slowed my tears. The Hunger Games continue in edited form as Haakon and Meridew stalk silently through the bamboo, leaving their hiding place and homing in on the sound of Beanpole trying to set up some kind of trap. I wipe my face with the downy soft handkerchief as I stared, transfixed, at a scene I was- fortunate or unfortunate? - to miss.
While I snoop around and settle in between the rocks, Beanpole sticks to his usual gambit, the one he described to me- head for the water. He doesn't make it, though. He does a nasty number on Meridew, but when he falls face down on the sand with Haakon's axe in his head, that's that. I awake from my doze at the sound of the cannon and visibly shiver. Beanpole's glassy eyes reflect the rapidly rising tide.
Something is wrong with Meridew's breathing from Beanpole's attack. Haakon holds her hand. He can't bring himself to finish her, but he can't help her either. I don't know how he would, even if he wanted to. Haakon had a friend too.
The lead-in to the final sequence is set again without any added music. Haakon slogs through the water, looking nervous and tired. When I sing to myself, I see now that he could hear me.
"Hey, Haakon," and the responding, "Hey," set the tone for the last battle of the Games, in all its inept and terrifying glory. It's obvious that I'm an awful fighter and in the condition Haakon was in by that last afternoon, he's not all that much better. The whole thing is too scary for anymore crying on my part. I wonder how they managed to capture such horrifying underwater footage of the shark and its attacks.
In the end, I think they manage to treat Haakon as fairly in the recap as they can any opponent of the eventual victor. The tide of tribute versus tribute turns the moment he helps me against the shark. "The axe is right there!" "Friend #5," the subtitles dub him. Enemies into friends. If it had been planned, it would probably be treason, but the spontaneity of human nature and goodness can't be governed.
Haakon doesn't take nearly as long to die after the footage has passed through the editing room. I consider this a small reprieve.
I look strange and shining, damp and foam-speckled and lit by the falling sun as I'm taken from the arena.
"Friends in the Capitol," the tail end of this victory story notes over footage of Aulie carrying me, Apple hugging me, and Erinne and her team fussing to fix me up. "And I was the first one here to officially befriend her!" Mr. Zimmer reminds everyone, teasing, but also proud, and comes up to surreptitiously take back his handkerchief while hugging me, summing up my Games with some comments to conclude the night.
When he steps away, I see that the president has left his box and is ready at the edge of the stage as the anthem starts up again. In a little dun-colored box, the simplest of the sort that people in the Capitol purchase jewelry in, he carries my crown- it's gold, and not perfectly smooth and reflective, but more faceted and glittering. It's not a fairy tale style crown. It's a slim branch lined with leaves.
He could easily place it on my head if I stayed standing, the president is a good foot or more taller than me, but I bow out of respect and the enormity of the moment and he settles the crown- yes, I remember now, it's a laurel crown- on my head (it sits between, higher than, my buns).
Only a ghost of a smile crests across his lips, a maintenance of formality. There must be thousands of people in the Capitol now who feel they are, or would like to be, my friend. The president is not one of them, but at least we're clear on this. It's greatly preferable to falsehood- I could never handle games of that scale. Mr. President, please believe that I don't want to cause any problems. I didn't win for that. If I'm going to sacrifice myself, it has to be for something.
And because of these thoughts, this silence exchange made only in my mind, I'm not really smiling anymore and when the president steps away so that everyone can see me again, out of the corner of my eye Apple makes a little, "Up, up," gesture toward the corners of her mouth, and how can I not respond properly? Together we can help each other every step of the way.
I curtsy and smile and wave and wave and keep on waving. Underneath the thunderous approval of the Capitol public, I stand between Mr. Zimmer and the president and, still living, I drown.