The schedule gets moved around, and our training session comes first. But right now, my prep team helps me by making sure I sparkle. It's not really fair, the fuss over the girl tributes than the boys. And in the state I'm now in, I'm calling it sexist.

Xena places a wax-coated strip onto my leg, waits, and pulls it off with a hard tug.

"Ow!" I yelp in spite of myself.

"Sorry!" Xena smiles sympathetically. She doesn't have the normal Capitol accent, it's foreign and something I can't name. Her "sorry" sounds like "Sarry."

Xena finishes with three more pulls of my leg hair, and lifts me off the platform.

"Alright, then. Now for hair."

She and my other stylist, Sarsen, a man with orange sticky lipstick and red wavy hair, brush out my matted curls and scrub it clean.

African-American hair tends to be dry, so we use lots of conditioner. But in our little Hob, it's terribly expensive (as is most other things) and I haven't washed it thoroughly in weeks. I can hear the impatient clucking of their tongues as the dump more flower-scented conditioner onto my head.

Miranda styles it after it's washed, putting it into two poofs towards the back of my hair so that it stays out of my way.

I walk into Frinda's room and she checks me over.

"Very nice," she says. "Go to training, and when you come back your mentor will be here."

I nod and leave.

On the elevator, I see that Thresh is wearing the exact same outfit I am, a t-shirt with "11" printed on the back and black pants.

We arrive in the training room. Only the tributes from District 2 are here.

It's that scary-looking older boy I saw on the TV earlier. He's blonde, and handsome, but there is something lethal, not right, in his eyes. The girl beside him is equally so, with an oval head and piercing brown eyes and black hair pulled back.

Thresh doesn't seem afraid. He nods at them in greeting. They nod back.

Slowly, the rest of the districts flood into the room with scattered chatter, ending with District 12.

I feel my heart pounding for whatever reason when I see Katniss and Peeta arrive.

The woman named Atala gives us the rules.

"No fighting with the other tributes," she says, "you'll have plenty of time for that in the arena. In two weeks, 23 of you will be dead. But be warned: the arena can be hazardous. Some of you will die from starvation, thirst, and other natural causes. Exposure can kill as easily as a knife."

She blows he whistle. The training has begun.

I go over to camouflage. Using the mixed plants and mud, I make my hand look like a swamp. I scrub it off and start over.

I find out later I can't really camouflage.

I try weights. I try to pick one up, but it doesn't budge. I believe it's cemented into the ground, but once I leave, Cato comes behind me, picks it up as easily as it were a baseball, and throws it.

I gulp.

Cato puts his knife down on a table and leaves.

I grin. At home, I loved to fool with people.

I think it's time to annoy Cato.

I take it quickly, sure no one's watching, and climb up the ropes.

"You took my knife!" Cato accuses the boy from district 1.

"No!" the other boy rejects him.

"Yes you did!" Cato says angrily. "Where is it?"

"I didn't take it, you—!"

I plug my ears from the language. What have I done?

They continue to fight right there, on and on, until the peacekeepers have to separate them.

I laugh in spite of myself. This is actually funny. I twirl the knife in my hands.

I look down and see Katniss and Thresh looking up at me, laughing.

I get down later, and watch Katniss from hiding places.

Peeta sees me after a while, whispers something in her ear, and she turns to see me. I hide behind the wall and walk away, embarrassed.

The bell rings, signaling training time is up. My heart pounds as Thresh and I board the elevator.

"Hey, good trick with the knife back there." He grins.

I press a finger to my lips. "No telling."

He nods.

As the go into our apartment, we see a man wearing a purple tux by Kevana. He's handsome, with black swept hair and chocolate brown eyes.

"Tributes, this is your mentor, Cerna Vinci."

Vinci looks at Thresh, smiling and shaking his hand.

Then he looks at me.

"This is the girl tribute?" he asks with a much different approach. He seems disgusted.

"Yes, this is Rue," Kevana says. "She's twelve."

Vinci gives me one look, up and down, and leaves.