I can hear the Woodcutters' Dance music from the moment I leave my compartment in the morning. It emanates from the sitting room (car? I can never decide about this), and I can hear it in the hall, in the dining car, and even on the tiny platform on the back of the train. When I go back into my compartment, it runs endlessly through my head.
Eventually, I can't put up with it anymore without saying anything, which is, of course, exactly what the instigators of this silliness wanted. Spring, Irish, and the youngest-looking cameraman, who seems to have befriended them, all laugh hysterically when I burst into the room, holding their poses, which capture one of the steps of the dance. "You want to practice your dancing with us?"
"J-just do me a favor and turn that down," I ask them. It would be different if they had just logged on to Capitol Net and looked up some generic recording of the music or a performance from some other time, but, again, of course they've found (or just have, via the cameraman) the footage of Mimi and Chiyo dancing while I struggle to follow their movements.
"You got it, boss!" Spring salutes me and reaches for the screen controller.
"Hey, you should watch "Events Enthusiast" today if you've got the time before we get to our stop in Five or while they're making you up or something," the cameraman suggests to me, "They've got a First Annual Hunger Games program on today that you might like. I've seen it before- it came out for the ten year anniversary of the Games."
"Wh-huh?"
"Because, you know, you like Jack," he explains himself, "I mean, I was only ten during his Games, so you were even littler. I thought maybe it would give you something to talk about with him."
It's a well-meaning remark, but… "Err, thank you for letting me know." I can't sure I'm sure whether or not I want to act on it.
I seek out Aulie and Apple's questionable expertise. "What do you think of the program 'Events Enthusiast?'"
"Enthusiastic," Aulie grins, unhelpfully, decorated teeth shining.
"What he means is, they have a positive spin on everything," Apple clarifies. "Which, frankly, is unrealistic, but it can be nice to watch things like that anyway as long as it's just for entertainment. It's not meant to be real news anyway."
"I see." This leaves me better informed, but still undecided. "…I'll eat breakfast in my room."
"Should I get someone to bring it in for you-?" Apple starts to get up.
"No, don't worry. I can carry it just fine." I know that even if I ask, they won't let me make it. That's the job of some Avox or other. I always hope my requests don't trouble them too much. Just because it's their job doesn't mean I have to make it hard.
I sit cross-legged on my bed, my tray balanced over my legs, stirring the bits of cinnamon spiced apple into my oatmeal, staring at the darkened screen across the room. It took some trial and error, but I was able to find and read a digital programming schedule. "Events Enthusiastic Remembers: First Annual Hunger Games" will begin at the top of the hour. Watch or don't watch?
Well. I can always turn it off, right? Cut myself short, just like Kayta's more detailed assessment of Jack which never reached me.
I turn on the show.
The host is a very bombastic young man with slicked back cobalt hair. Glitter sparkles on his eyelids when he blinks. It's obvious that, well, not that people in the Capitol were necessarily hugely excited about the Tenth Games, but that whoever's in charge of that kind of thing (the president? the Head Gamemaker?) wanted them to be.
No amount of later commentary can completely obscure how sparse and grim the First Games were. The tributes don't pass through the city in open chariots; horses pull them around in cages for the people to see. There's lots of shouting and it doesn't look pleasant, though this program has edited this out, allowing for the host to speak over it. Just as the Games are something lesser, the Capitol itself also shows the scars of the recent war. The people are dressed just the slightest bit less ostentatiously. In the distance I catch sight of damaged buildings on the usually pristine skyline.
More rebels died in the war than Capitol citizens. Double the amount, they say. District 13 was destroyed completely. But, to the victor go not only the spoils, but also the choice of whether or not to treat the losers with mercy.
We get to learn now how long the Capitol can hold a grudge.
The host backtracks to show segments of the reaping. The very first reaping. There are many more Peacekeepers in evidence than there are now in every district but 2. Which isn't to say that in 2 they're any less upset by the whole thing than anyone else. However, because of the eventual winner, the show is more interested in 1 than any other place. The man who comes to call the names- I'm not sure it's proper at this point to call him an escort- is tall and eerie in an outfit of black and blue with glowing white decorations. "Give us your sons," he recites some strange poem before he calls the names, "Give us your daughters."
Jack Umber is the first tribute reaped in the First Annual Hunger Games. In reality, this determined nothing. In retrospect, it seems strangely meaningful.
He doesn't appear to have any parents. People are upset, but no one makes any special fuss over the fact that it's him in particular. He walks up to the Capitol's go-between with that shocked, empty look, moving like he's under a spell, that has become so familiar in the years since. Many tributes ascend the stage like Jack Umber. There is little special about him here. He was younger than I am. He looks young. There's a childishness in his face that isn't there anymore. His green eyes seem much wider.
Those people in 1, who said little for Jack, cry and scream for the girl who is called. This was going to be hard from the start.
"Did you think you were going to die?" the host asks Jack in the present day.
"Every single one of us thought we were going to die. I mean, our lives were one hundred percent in the Capitol's hands. Even when I realized my last opponent was dead, I didn't know for sure that the Capitol would keep their promise to let the last one of us live." He wears such a mild smile while saying such a terrible thing. "I feel lucky everyday of my life."
Indebted. Does he feel like that? That's what bothers people a bit about him back home. They'd rather he act like his being alive today was a right, not a privilege.
But on some level, it is a privilege. The Capitol may not pick the winner, but they can chose to have anyone of the tributes be a loser. The arena is not a bell jar. The Gamemakers keep things going as it suits them. Maybe if you haven't been through the Games you can't understand that. They let me win. They let Jack win.
In a close-up shot from the presidential address on the night of the tribute parade, Jack is looking down at the ground. He looks tired.
The host goes on about how the Games have changed and "improved" in so many ways since then. How the tributes are coiffed and costumed beforehand and more elaborately uniformed after. How they get a chance to peek at life in the Capitol. How they're given an opportunity to train and be scored on demonstrated skills. How they're interviewed now, allowing viewers to gain some insight into them and become distinct for something not purely physical. Jack nods a lot, politely, as the host goes on over pictures that accompany all his talking points.
If they had done all those things at the time of Jack's Games some of them might've helped him. …Or they might have altered the playing field entirely. He might have died.
If Jack hadn't been the first victor, would being a victor be very different?
They move on to in-Games footage.
I stop eating.
The girl from Twelve purposely (it looks purposely) steps from her place before the countdown ends. There weren't bombs then. She's felled with a perfect (computerized?) sniper shot. There is no bloodbath. There is barely a stone-shaped marker to be considered a Cornucopia. There is only panic and pandemonium. There are no cross-district alliances- having had no cross-district interaction before this point, there is no foundation to build them on.
Jack doesn't even look at this district partner. He runs. He falls and scrapes his knee. He gets back up and runs again, not quite in his original direction. The girl from Eight runs into him and after they both stand, dazed, for a second, he shoves her aside.
I didn't remember these details.
I'm glad I don't remember the details.
I don't want to see Jack curled up on the ground in the dead leaves. I don't want to see him trip over the body of his district partner. I don't want to see him lose his teeth. I remember these things. They're enough. They're too much.
I don't want to see him (grapple, punch, bite, claw, struggle, strangle, cry) kill.
I turn off the television. I can't finish my oatmeal, but no one here is going to comment on it. I drop my plates off at the kitchen service window for one of the Avoxes to take care of. It's not much, but at least no one has to retrieve them from my room. I brush my teeth and try to think of something more cheerful. I can't go to 5 and be my normal self feeling like this.
I need to talk to someone. I go looking for Aulie or Apple and find Aulie first, alone now."We're within the borders of Five now," he informs me.
"A whole district that generates power?" I put the question to Aulie.
"That's the specialty," he shrugs, "Most of the power for the entire nation is generated in Five. I remember learning about it in school- they use wind and the sun and water to make energy. They're creative with what they've got, I suppose."
"It's a bit like Ten," I observe, "But rockier. Lots of space, not too many people."
"Lowest population of all," Aulie confirms.
On the way toward 5's town, I see one area particularly scarred by bombing. There are bits and pieces of buildings still standing. "What's that?" I point.
His mouth tightens. "The old town," he says.
The reason, maybe, for 5's low population.
"Is power really the only thing out of Five?" I wonder again.
"There's some engineering this and that. Some minerals. …I think they grow potatoes."
My mind goes immediately to an image of Shy Evert digging potatoes out of the dirt (I don't know the specifics of how they do it, but I do know potatoes grow underground). Of course, in my imagination, she makes it look like pretty everyday business, which, even if it's not some glossy Capitol version of events, is probably more glamorous than the reality. Anyway, Shy is a victor and her talent is needlepoint. I don't think she digs up potatoes anymore- assuming she ever did. I will think about Shy now, not Jack. I will stay as focused as I can on the visit at hand and its trappings.
My outfit for 5 is mostly white. A white dress with a little hood in the back. There are green leggings and tall black boots to go with it. When I pull the hood up, everyone laughs that the shape of my buns underneath it make me look like a mouse. They mean this in a nice way- that it's cute.
"Put up your hood," Aulie urges me as we walk out and onto the platform and are immediately buffeted to by a stiff wind.
"I don't know how much it'll help," I mumble.
"Oh, just put it on," Aulie pulls the hood up himself.
"Aaaaah," a tiny, breathy voice accosts me, "How cute!" Shy jogs up to meet me, her wispy blond hair trailing behind her in short pigtails. She's not as thin as she was when she won, though her many layers of clothes in whites and browns over a bright blue dress, add to that perception. "Mags!" she exclaims, "It's you!"
She reaches out toward me and when I hold my hands out, she takes both of them. "You're so little and cute!"
"And you're so pretty," I answer. Oh, she really is. Depending on your tastes, you could make a case for the looks of any of the female victors who came before me, but I like Shy.
"I hope that you like visiting Five," she keeps hold of my right hand, leading me along, "It's a kind of quiet place, but that never bothered me."
A tough-looking, middle-aged man approaches us, "Mike McRonsenburg," he introduces himself, tipping his gray cap to me, "Chief Engineer and, uh, mayor, I suppose. Welcome to District Five."
"Thank you for having me."
"We thought we'd take you on a little driving tour." He coughs. There's a bit of grit in his tone. His cough isn't the same type that Shy exhibited during her Games. I'm not picturing him spitting out blood at any moment. "I've got a work truck rigged up for it." He points over his shoulder with his thumb to where a sandy-colored vehicle is waiting. It has a large bed set up to seat, presumably, workers, more than carry a lot. There's a sort of yellowish tarp stretched over the top on a lightweight frame to serve as some kind of sunshade for whoever sits in the back. "There's not a lot to see in town, it's pretty dinky, but I don't think I'm exaggerating much if I say that Five's got some of the most beautiful natural scenery around."
"If I'm not wrong, I believe some of the land that lies within Five's borders was once a protected area on account of its rare looks," Apple pipes up.
"You are exactly right, ma'am," McRonsenburg replies, punctuating his response with a funny clicking noise made with his tongue.
Apple seems pleased to be right.
"Now, I'll be driving this truck myself, so there won't be any threat of funny business," he continues on and I wonder if this is a reference to the stunt Kayta pulled back in 7, because even if no one specifically informed Chief Engineer McRonsenburg about it our stop in 7 ran on television last night and I can't imagine that none of Kayta's troublesome wildness leaked out.
Shy gives me an idea of what they might have seen. "Mac doesn't drive like a maniac," she promises me. She's obviously pretty familiar with McRonsenburg to call him by a nickname.
"In the Capitol, people have to be properly licensed to drive a car," Apple tells her.
"Oh, Kayta'd surely fail that," she nods sagely.
Unscheduled trips probably didn't make the show, but reckless victor driving, why not? It probably fits right into Kayta's public image. He's freewheeling and that's appealing- in a certain way, to a certain demographic.
"So you up for it?" McRonsenburg asks. I guess if I didn't want to, he'd offer something else?
"Let's go," I cheer.
Aulie hops up into the truck first to help the rest of us up after him. I think it's partially practicality and partially showing off. Aulie is the biggest person here and he's in competition with McRonsenburg for the most muscular (it's hard to say between them, though there's a difference from McRonsenburg's worker physique and Aulie's workout nut style). One of the cameramen will take a seat up front beside McRonsenburg to capture the scenery and another will ride in the back with our small group. Aulie helps the man in back move his equipment; then gives a hand to Tosca. She's an imposing woman, but beside him, she seems less physically threatening- then she catches my eye and gives me a look that reminds me how little that part of the equation matters.
It's not fair, it really isn't, but I just don't like Tosca. She bugs me. Is it that she's smug? Because she is kind of smug. It's… I don't know.
Aulie practically picks up Apple, just to mess with her of course. "You big ox," she flails her hands against his chest. One of the cameras is (fortunately?) capturing all of this. I catch the cameraman's eye and he turns his lens toward me. I waggle my eyebrows and roll my eyes. There's some footage for them to play around with.
"Miss Shy?" Aulie asks for her.
"Oh, oops," she releases my hand and holds out both of hers for Aulie to grab. He scoops her up and her dress swings around so that I can see she has frilly bloomers on underneath, maybe on account of the cold weather. "Hee hee," she giggles, both feet (dark boots with spats) steady on the truck bed. "Let's do that again sometime," she smiles at Aulie.
"And then Miss Mags," Aulie yanks me up and rather than setting me down, swings me over his shoulder.
"Hey!"
He walks over and raps his knuckles against the truck's rear window. "We're all in and ready to go, Mr. McRonsenburg." The style team will probably join us for the later goings-on in town.
"Make him put me down," I pout in Apple and Shy's direction.
"But you look so cuuuute like that," Shy titters, "And, anyway, I saw you looking at my bloomers."
"Wh-what?! It was an accident!" My face must be bright red if the way it feels is any indication.
"I'll let you look again if you just ask me," she carries on, her voice almost painfully sweet.
"Everyone is picking on me!" I say. I doubt that sighing, giving up, and acquiescing to the madness would end this any sooner. This is the footage they're going to want- me fussing, me joking, me acting mock put-upon. …Will it provoke a response from Jack? It's not just Apple making things pseudo-difficult now. …I hope that Jack doesn't think much now about those long ago days. I hope that fame and television appearances and teasing me can form at least a smokescreen, separating those desperate days from his daily life these long years past.
Aulie puts me down. "Thank you," I mumble.
We settle down and drive off. Tosca sits beside the cameraman, out of the sight of our future viewers. The rest of us take the other side. We quiet down as the view opens up. There are hills and pine trees and lots of weather-shaped rock formations.
"You gotta tell 'em what they're looking at, Shy!" McRonsenburg yells out the window at the local victor.
"I'll tell 'em what I need to tell 'em!" Shy shouts back- not angry; still smiling. "I want you to be surprised," she explains more quietly.
I feel like Shy Evert is like the picture you see through a kaleidoscope, changing based on what you're viewing her through. What's acting and what's real? Or is it all real? People are complex. Who knows how many sides there are to her.
"We're going into the Upper Geyser Basin. I don't know how much you know about our geothermal activity…?"
"Not a lot," I'm honest.
"Good," she replies, "Good."
"…So I'm going to be surprised?" I feel cautious.
"Keep your eyes peeled in that direction," she points, "But don't worry. I really don't think you'll be able to possibly miss it."
"'Eyes peeled,'" Aulie repeats, "That's funny."
I know it when I see it.
Wow, do I ever. Water is shooting up into the air, white and frothy. It's like when waves crash on the rocks. Well, something like that. Because I've never seen water from the ocean streak up half as high as that.
And it's not just for a blink of the eye. Shy was right about not missing it. It just keeps going…
It soars and gushes for a good two or three minutes and my eyes must be huge as I watch. I know that I'm agape.
"That's Old Faithful!" Shy explains, when the water halts its explosive escape and we've all stopped gawking. "It's the most famous thing in the district, actually," she remarks, "Then me."
Of course, I knew about Shy and not Old Faithful, so, maybe that's the assessment of things within the district. "That's, uh, a geyser then?" The reality blows the simple definition of the word- all that I previously knew about geysers- out of the water. …Uh, so to speak.
"Yes, it's our most famous geyser, although down here there are a whole bunch."
"…that's really something else."
Shy nods. A brisk wind blows her hair around her face and tugs at my hood. Having it up hasn't been bad. "The world's a pretty amazing place."
McRonsenburg stops the truck and we sit and look down into the basin for a while and eat some weird sticky candy that Shy picked up at some place called the "Sign Shop" (it's a nickname, apparently, for the general store).
I figure now is as good a time as any. I turn away from the scenery to face Shy. "Hey, can I ask you something I've been wondering for years?"
"Go ahead," she invites me.
I've been getting a better idea of what the reality of the Tour is like versus the editing. I figure that as long as it's kept mostly private between me and another victor, anything they don't like, they'll just cut, assuming it's not subversive. I don't see how this could be. It's just curiosity about Shy's life. "You were really sick during your Games, weren't you? Did you get cured afterward?"
She seems like she expected this question. "Yeah, I had tuberculosis. If I hadn't won the Games, I wouldn't have been able to get powerful enough medicine to actually cure it. I was pretty sick. I'd probably be dead now. …But, instead, I'm cured."
"Huh." It was sort of what I thought, but I'm still impressed. In this way, I think Shy is an outlier among victors. Certainly there's a trade-off, but I don't get the feeling that Shy would have preferred things go the other way… I know this is presumptuous, but I think she's decided her life was worth it. "Well, I'm glad you're healthy."
"She's pretty awful ever since she got better," Mr. McRonsenburg laughs, "She comes over to my house and wakes me up at Six AM with soda bread to ask me to fix her radio before I go work at Power Control HQ."
"You told me I could come over any time the sun was up, Mac," Shy retorts.
"That I did!" he admits, "You were always such a quiet little girl though, Shy. I never realized that when you healthed up you'd be such a firecracker."
"I'm making up for lost time." She flops her head to the side, leaning it on Mac's shoulder. "You never know when your time's going to be up. You never know which cough is going to kill you and which is going to save your life."
I drag the toe of my boot through the dirt, drawing a rough, meaningless line. "My best friend at the time was the girl reaped into your Games."
Shy thinks about this. She lifts her head back up. "The same age as you? She must've been a pretty little girl."
"We were twelve then."
"She had black hair maybe? Braids?"
"Yeah, that's how she wore it into the Games. Back home she used to wear her hair, well, kind of like I do." She was reaped wearing the same hairstyle as me. It doesn't mean anything, it just is. She was the one who showed me how to put my hair up this way.
Shy pushes some loose strands of her pale hair out of her eyes, "I was feeling pretty poorly then, so I can't say I paid all the much attention to any of the tributes who didn't scare me stiff, but, yeah, I know which one she was."
"Her name was Aoko."
McRonsenburg looks uncomfortable at this turn of the conversation. "Is it true that you eat seaweed in District Four?" he asks me. "That's really what makes your bread green?"
"Yes, really," I snort at the strange, slightly pained look on his face.
"Wow, then. Same as you said, Shy, the world is somethin' else. People are somethin' else." He gets up, "Let's go hit Plant Five for a tour."
"I watched some stuff about Jack Umber and the First Hunger Games this morning," I admit to Apple and Aulie as we get back on our way. "I think it got me a little worked up."
"Never you worry about Jack," Shy speaks up, "Whatever happened to him back then, he doesn't do a single thing these days that he doesn't feel like- writer of his own story and all that."
I give a small shiver. I can't quite shake it off. "The First Games were really scary," I say.
"They were supposed to be," Tosca answers me. "The Games still are, but not just frightening, they have to be more than that."
"Hmm." It's interesting for her to say so.
The tour through Plant 5 is calm and perfunctory. Certain workers have been singled out in each sector to show me things. Apparently, those who were interested won the opportunity through a plant-wide lottery. A district-wide lottery won Plant 5 the chance to host me. I learn that there are twelve separate power plants (of a few different types) in District 5, along with Power Control Headquarters, where McRonsenburg is the boss. There's something amusing about this numbering scheme.
From Plant 5 we drive back to town.
The actual town that makes up the central part of District 5 puts me in the mind of a brighter-colored version of District 12. It might be somewhat less shabby or the people here just do a better job bothering to hide the worn-down parts from the public eye. There is a shop practically plastered in hand-painted signs. The name "Sign Shop" no longer seems inexplicable. There are tiny garden beds beside the doors of many of the living spaces, which seem to rise to a standard three levels. Laundry hangs out of windows to dry. I think multiple families probably occupy the spaces in a less oppressive version of what I witnessed in 8, 6, and 3. There's a ramshackle stage set up with a plain sheet for a back (backdrop?) and a ring of folding chairs around it. For all that it gives me the impression of being thrown together little more than a day ago (if not a few hours before my arrival), it is interestingly designed.
"The boy didn't have any family," Shy tells me dryly as we stand behind the stage, blocked from view by the sheet as the cameramen find their places and McRonsenburg tests the microphone. "The girl had an assortment."
I don't know why she doesn't say their names. The girl was Laurie Tart. I never learned the boy's name.
"You just take it easy and you'll be all right, you know," Shy gives me some sort of advance, I suppose.
"I'm trying," I shrug.
A bell rings somewhere in the distance, summoning people maybe, or marking the time.
"Now…hmm," she puts my hood back, "You need to let everyone see your face for this." She leans in close and smooths my hair. Her fingers are soft where they brush my face. "That'll do it."
Another bell rings, closer.
Chief Engineer-slash-Mayor McRonsenburg gets things started and calls for Shy, who takes the stage to a tiny fluttering of applause. When I follow, I am greeted somewhat more fitfully.
As Shy said, there's no one for the boy, which isn't to say that he'll be quickly forgotten. He probably had friends. And there they are, Laurie's mother, her aunts, the brothers she played rough games with. They regard me with cool interest. I was played by Sparrow pretty much the same as Laurie. The only difference was the Sparrow liked me better, which translated into being less willing to see me hurt and to keeping me around longer. Laurie probably would've been better served to stick the Games out on her own.
My performance is especially self-aware, probably as a result of having Jack on my mind, which is both for the better and for the worse. I speak better than I did in 6, but I feel hyper-conscious of all my small awkward tics.
Afterward, Shy and McRonsenburg both compliment me on how I did. A table and chairs are set up on the stage and we eat there, with much of the town eating and hanging around just below us in the chairs. Some of the people come up to ask me questions and make remarks, which the powers that be (Tosca, Apple, McRonsenburg) allow. Someone tells me I should've allied with Laurie instead of Sparrow. "For my sake or for Laurie's?" I respond, which garners a bittersweet laugh.
Understandably, Laurie's family doesn't stick around for any of this.
Shy is pleasant enough company. She tells me about some of the things she's done in her visits to the Capitol- window-shopping, seeing the ballet, visiting a botanical garden. Once she met up with Jack there. They saw a movie and he bought her a pair of shoes. "I've only worn them twice though," she admits, "They just seem too nice to just wear on an ordinary day around here."
McRonsenburg and Aulie get a bit drunk together and McRonsenburg tells Shy how much he loves her "just like" how he loved her father, which is the point at which she thinks we need to go home and let the volunteers start cleaning up. "In any case," she hugs me, "It was great meeting you. We'll have to do something together in the Capitol next Games season if we have any free time."
"Yeah, of course," I agree. I don't know what being in the Capitol with free time is even like. It would be good to have someone who's willing to spend time with me and give me an idea of what I can do and what to expect.
"You had a nice time in Five, didn't you?" Apple remarks back on the train, taking out her earrings to begin what must be the rather complex process for her of getting undressed and un-fixed-up to go to sleep.
"Compared to some of the other places I've been, it was kind of relaxing." Not as relaxing as it will be when I'm back home and all this rigamarole is over though. Although I'm aware that as a victor, my life will never been quite as low-key as it was before, I can see that as the years pass, things probably will fall into some kind of pattern. Whether things will work out well or not is a combination of factors, like in any other situation. There's what I do, what happens outside my control, and what my attitude is in facing it.
"Well, here's hoping for more relaxing stops on our Tour," Apple pats my shoulder and heads off to her quarters.
Despite having been pinned up and even covered with the hood for half the time, my hair has managed to work itself into some tangles. I fight with it for a while before giving up (I'm just not in the mood for this) and going to sleep.
I dream that Shy and I are shopping in the market back home. I buy some ordinary groceries. Shy wants to buy some kind of local jewelry and keeps asking me questions about how the various things are made. She picks up a coral pin, a bracelet with pearls, a woven headband: "Does this come from the ocean?"
I wake up homesick.
"Detour to Four on the way through?" I suggest, although I don't seriously believe we would do it. I'm just joking around. We could head south from here. If we just kept going long enough, eventually we would reach 4. Eventually we would reach the ocean.
On the ocean, I don't know how far we would have to go to reach someplace else. There's a certain distance no ships go past on purpose. It's not just illegal, it's dangerous.
There's a saying at home though. That staying in the harbor isn't what ships are made for.
"I know you're missing your father and all, but you know how the trip goes," Apple says, "We're more than halfway through."
"I know." I lean my head against the window. It leaves a smudge on the glass. I don't think Apple likes it when I do that, but I'm not doing it to bother her. I have to tell myself more seriously to stop.
"We're going to watch the rerun of your stop in Six, Mags," Spring waves her hand, inviting me to come join them.
"Want to watch?" I ask Apple. I'm not sure I'm really up to seeing 6 again so soon. Also, I know that I'll undoubtedly watch and be horrified at all the dumb things I said and did there.
"Let's watch the Fall Fashion Gala instead," she counters.
I think my eyes bug out a little.
"You and me," she insists.
I think she knows. I think she understands. My mouth doesn't close quite all the way. I nod very slowly. I point back at Apple as I turn toward Spring. "I'm gonna…watch that. With Apple."
"Okay," Spring lets me go just like that, "Have fun."
This is the first time I've been inside Apple's compartment on the train. It suits her. There is lots of green (though not only green- there are light purples and whites and tans utilized in the color scheme) and many small bangles and knickknacks hung and pinned up here and there. Apple seems to travel with very many things, but this seems like her.
We sit together on her very puffy bed and she cues up the fashion program from her TV recording device. It aired at an inconveniently late time last night for our purposes. Back home in the Capitol, she would probably have stayed up for it. Maybe she would've watched with friends or her sister.
On the way to District 3, Apple watches with me.
"Oh, I like that one," she says. And, "what a funny shade of yellow." And, "I don't know, I think I'd be afraid that the top would fall off and that would so embarrassing." Not too much, just short comments here and there.
I try to get immersed in it, but I don't know much about fashion and I don't want to ask questions I don't mean or care about just for the sake of asking.
When the program is over, Apple switches over to some celebrity news fluff. There's a pretty, almost obsidian black-colored actress (honestly, her skin, hair, and the irises of her eyes are all this eye-entrancingly deep shade) on holding a white cat. She's talking about the zoo that's just opened in the Capitol funded largely by her generous donation. This zoo is meant to replace one that was heavily damaged in the war.
I hear a funny chime and look around.
Apple touches her comm-tablet device (I still can't get the proper name to stick), which was apparently the source of it. "Well," she tells me, "Time to get dressed for your excursion into Three. That should be interesting."
"They're all interesting," I agree. …though whether that's strictly a good thing…
I catch a glimpse or two of the outlying lands through the window as we head into 3. It's one of the smaller districts, I know. The area where people actually live and work is condensed well. I'm not sure whether this land I'm seeing now is technically considered a part of 3 or not. There are various wilds in between some of the districts, while others do actually meet more or less at their borders (though the edges of the districts are largely empty, there are less than fifty miles, for instance, between us and 11 at our nearest point).
The Capitol wants us fenced in within whatever district we belong too. It's just that some in some districts you can go further without seeing the fences. I don't remember when the fences when up exactly, but it was within my lifetime. Before that, people traveled. My mother traveled.
There are a few people waiting to meet us when we arrive, but their victor isn't one of them. The man in charge steps forward after allowing us our short dramatic for television (maybe?) walk through the station and introduces himself as the person in charge here- Ohm Merritt, the mayor of 3, who is visibly the youngest head of a district that I've encountered. I would guess that he's about thirty. Clipped to the sides of his plain black glasses are a variety of strange lenses and other attachments. For magnification? "It's my pleasure to welcome you to District Three, Mags," he shakes my hand.
"Thanks for having me," I say, because something can be a pleasantry, but still be the right thing to say. They have to have me, but it doesn't have to be gracious.
"Where's Beto?" Tosca asks. There's definitely suspicion in her look, like she has some particular reason for this omission in mind.
"He's back at his place, working," Mayor Merritt breezily whisks her question away. If he thinks he knows better than Tosca, he's probably right. Beto is of this district. Ohm Merritt is the one who has to live with him.
"We'll pick him up later." He's firm about it. Tosca swallows this down with a sour look. I can't quite figure out why it is that I have no desire to figure her out when I've wormed my way (purposely or not) into getting to know so many other people around me. She's probably a perfectly fine person. She's just not my sort of person (and that's okay- just because you should be nice to everyone you can doesn't mean you have to like them).
"I composed several variations on the basic itinerary and ran all of them through the official channels," the mayor looks back down at me, removing three sheets of paper from an unusual metallic-looking clipboard, "Therefore, feel free to pick whichever one you'd prefer to follow on your visit here."
I accept the sheets of paper and skim over their contents, but I don't know how I should choose between them. One laboratory and one factory are much the same as any others to me. I have no special mechanical or technological smarts, nor, necessarily any inclinations toward one output of such of another.
I look over my shoulder at Apple and Aulie, hoping that one of them will take discreet notice of my discomfort and assist me.
Apple, smiling, becomes my rescuer. "Ooh," she reaches over my shoulder and gently lifts the pages out of my hand, "The Songbox development facility? We'd love to see that."
She presses one of the papers back into Mayor Merritt's grasp. "I think this will do nicely."
"Thanks," I whisper.
"At your service as always, dear," she pats my shoulder.
The mayor's personal driver, a really big, blue-eyed man, chauffeurs our group from the train station into the labyrinthine depths of 3's multi-storied clusters of homes and schools and places of work. I'm afraid if I were asked to find my own way back to the train station after all the twists and turns our path takes, I would be completely lost. The buildings and streets seem cleaner than their rough equivalents in 6 and 8 though. Whatever rougher side 3 might have, they hide it away, off their main thoroughfares.
Through our visits to the Songbox facility (I learn they make some kind of miniature music player that's very popular in the Capitol- Aulie and Apple each have one), some place where they're doing a lot of heating small pieces of metal together (soldering? soldering.), and a special school of some sort, where I think my appearance may have been won by the students via a contest (from the way they keeping point them out to me, there seem to be many schools in 3), Mayor Merritt carries on all kinds of overlapping conversations with workers, plant heads, teachers, Tosca, Apple, and Aulie that I can barely understand. If I had grown up here, it would be different, I suppose, but were they to invite me right now, I'd definitely be too dumb to be of any special use in 3.
Meeting up with their victor, Beto Ernst, does nothing to ease my feelings of tacky inferiority. He addresses everyone else before me and little of what he even remarks upon to these other people is straightforward. Over a dark suit, he wears what I recognize from television as a "lab coat." He's a strange mix of dressed up and disheveled. I'd like to guess that he got dressed up like this because of my visit (maybe he was told to- I'm not sure he strikes me as the type who cares much about appearances), but didn't see that as any reason not to spend time working until he was forced to meet me.
"Hello. I hope that you are operating within your preferred parameters today, Mags," Beto says blankly. He holds his arms and looks at me over the tops of his glasses. …I am expected to reply, of course, but how…?
"Hi." What is there to do but act as I always do? "It's nice to meet you." It would be wrong to assume off the bat from what I've seen on television that Beto and I are unlikely to have much in common or that he's going to be hard to connect with. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.
"Yes," Beto responds unreadably stoically to my words.
Tosca sighs and makes some kind of motion to her cameraman, which means something like "Cut the cameras," no doubt.
I am undaunted. "District Three seems really advanced. Such a smart guy like you is obviously a perfect fit here. I bet all the kids look up to you."
"I am…" he struggles, "Figuring infrequently in the local public eye."
"Why don't all of us head on over to the stage set-up and you two can talk more along the way?" Mayor Merritt suggests benevolently. "We'll keep it short, Beto."
"My stuff's on ice," he remarks. He shrugs. We squeeze back into the car together.
"I heard that you kept on going to school after high school? In Four there isn't any school after high school, although I know some people who studied in other districts before the fences went up- some teachers and stuff. Someone told me you're writing a book?"
"Yes," he answers shortly.
"I love to read," Apple tries to bolster me as my words sink into the quagmire of Beto's thoughts and seemingly disappear, "Especially romance novels. …I imagine you're not writing fiction though, Mr. Ernst."
He shakes his head.
"After his Games, Beto went on to receive a doctorate in mechanical engineering," the mayor tells us over his shoulder.
"It's the most advanced degree you can get, dear," Apple informs me.
"For engineering, you must be smarter than all the rest of us in this car put together," I smile.
"…Ah," his shoulders lift and fall again.
Well, flattery is clearly not the way to Beto's heart.
I am not feeling particularly comfortable as I go onstage with him. He points at the families while Mayor Merritt tests the microphone. "Ada. Petey."
Ada's mother is already crying. I look at her; I look away from her. I stumble through my pre-prepared speech. This is not one of my best performances. District 3 doesn't seem to care much over all. They give me my token applause. It's a subdued district. People probably just want to go back to their homes or work.
It doesn't mean that they're not upset though. These are smart enough people to know that getting mad at me is basically useless and getting mad at the Capitol might be useful in the long run, but in this moment would only be a death sentence.
I receive precisely the proper amount of polite response. Maybe someone here has calculated a formula for it.
Beto makes only one broadcast comment before the ceremony is concluded: "District Four gets their turn. Every district gets the victors they deserve. Enjoy," he gestures toward her, "Mags Gaudet."
People clap just as mildly for him as for me. Mayor Merritt makes some concluding remarks and then ushers us from the stage.
There are strange, entertaining lights set up all around the table chosen for the celebratory meal. They blink and flash and flutter in strange patterns and colors (and shapes- the flashes of light seem to make shapes and I can't imagine how), but never entirely disrupt the pattern of illumination. It's mesmerizing. I do the slack-jawed yokel thing I usually save for the Capitol and stare for a while over my place setting as I'm served.
I am seated beside Beto, as is expected. He seems content to ignore me, but that doesn't suit my style of manners. I decide that I should at least try and talk to him."So, what have you been working on? I heard they had to get your out of some kind of workspace you have in the basement of your house to come and be part of the ceremony. I'm sorry I had to interrupt your day like that."
"Speak. More. Slowly," Beto punctuates each sharp word with a jab of an ink or oil-smudged finger. There's something weird about his eyes that I was never able to notice on TV, or maybe it wasn't there before. I can't tell exactly what it is- an eye problem? The too long at sea thing?
I backtrack on the matter of what I'd like to say. Beto has a strange way of talking that isn't entirely consistent with the district accent (he never tended to speak overmuch on air), but he seems to think pretty much the same of mine. I don't think it's just speaking too fast on my part, but slowing down could help. …I begin to wonder if he's understood much of what I've said to him since getting here at all.
"How's life?" I try.
"I'm trying to become Dr. Frankenstein," he says. His weird eyes stay weird as he fixes them on me, hoping that I will glean something of…importance? Something meaningful, at least, from his statement, but…I have no idea what that means.
"You…want to be…who?" I really don't want to come off rude about the whole thing. I do want to understand him, but I must be missing a significant piece or two in this equation. It has something to do with the culture of District 3, maybe. A person Beto knows that I don't, here or in the Capitol. A song maybe. A story.
"If you don't know, you don't know. You wouldn't understand," he sighs.
"Sorry," I say. What else can I say?
"Not your fault," is the kindest that Beto can offer me.
He doesn't say anything to me for the rest of the meal, but he doesn't say anything more than "yes" or "no" to anyone else either, so this hardly counts as some terrible snub.
Instead I talk to the other district people who, via whatever available luck or favor, snagged the seats closest to me, breaking up my team around the strangely-shaped black table. There are black place settings that I initially take as abalone-set, but turn out, on further inspection to be studded with tiny bits of electronics. Do they do something or are they just decorative?
Fez Merritt, the brother of the mayor, tells me about the girl who designed them. They were intended as a clever way of recycling some of the pieces that didn't contain any hazardous components. Their designer died in the Ninth Games. She was eighteen. Fez's fiancée.
From the further remarks spurred by this topic, I get the impression that there are population-related troubles in Three. The promise of Hunger Games after Hunger Games without end is at odds with a desire to keep up a population damaged by the war. To a greater or lesser degree, I imagine every district has to wrangle with these issues. The odds are going to be worse for the post-rebellion generation. Less hope, less kids. I can see what the Capitol wants from Kayta and Raisin. Celebrity children from a district, not the Capitol (they already show off Capitol ones- it hasn't been enough).
Eventually Beto speaks up enough to be allowed to beg off from the rest of the meal. Based on the little amount he served himself and all that's still left on his plate, he has barely eaten. Mayor Merritt allows him to leave. The requisite footage has been recorded, I suppose, and he's not the best of company.
"Who's 'Frankenstein?'" I ask Fez, or anyone else who cares to answer me.
"Mad scientist," a bespectacled woman pipes up, "It's a story."
I'm afraid I don't understand the conventions of a "mad scientist" as a character. "Beto mentioned it," I begin to explain and the woman seems concerned by this, but Apple interrupts me to direct my attention to the arrival of dessert, an elaborate cake decorated with tall candles that remind me of sparklers. It's colorful, glittering, and gorgeous. District 3 certainly knows how to put on a stylish little party.
The recorded music they've been playing is interrupted by an old man performing with a strange electronic instrument sporting an antenna- I would never have guess it was a musical device if I weren't hearing it myself. He waves his hand over it and somehow it makes a not unpleasant sound.
"Theremin," Fez informs me.
"Can you dance to it?"
He laughs. "If you want, you can."
It would be good to get up and relax. It's something I can do that is like me. At least that's what I think. It's like the me I've been showing Panem, isn't it?
I get up and offer Fez my hand. "Shall we then?"
"What?" he's surprised and laughs, "Me? …that wasn't what I expected."
"Well, wouldn't you like to?" I think he would. It couldn't hurt him.
Fez takes a deep breath. "Sure," he rises from his seat, "Let's dance."
Of course, I don't know the music and I'm not exactly graceful, but Fez doesn't seem to mind. Aulie gets up and tries to get Apple to dance with him too, but she acts reluctant (her face turns red and embarrassed), so he tries to support us by attempting to clap to the beat of the music. …He doesn't manage much better than I do with my dancing.
"If we get the victor we deserve, apparently Four deserved much better than us," Fez tells me as he walks me back to my seat.
I bite my bottom lip. I can't speak to this. I can't judge Beto. "You never know what will happen next. And the next one is bound to be different."
"It should've been Dasha," he says.
I understand then. It's not just Beto's personality (or however the Games warped it). It's his fiancée. She died the year Beto won. Who can say whether she could've won in Beto's place- she might have been just as doomed if he hadn't been there. I want to know, but can't ask, if he killed her.
"Well," Apple comments as we are packed up, bringing our night to a close, "You seemed a little apprehensive earlier, but Three turned out all right."
"Mags can get through anything," Aulie avers.
Apple and I exchange an indulgent look. We'll let Aulie think what he wants to think. He gives me too much credit.
"I try," I shrug. A yawn comes out.
"Now you mustn't run yourself into the ground," Apple scolds me a bit, "I don't want you going home to your father unwell." It's funny to know that she's thinking of him. It's impossible for me to imagine Papa being romantically interested in anyone, let alone Apple, but her feelings don't bother me. Papa is a likable person. It's nice to see an adult appreciate him without feelings regarding his lack of overt active participation in the rebellion coloring things. Some people say that everyone in the Capitol hates us, but that just isn't true. Things are more complex than that. The hate goes both ways.
…All ways really. The districts weren't as united as they thought. Within any given district there can be just as many fault lines. How united could anyone consider Kayta Hiro and Temza Bacon? Beto Ernst and Fez Merritt? That Mrs. Mirande is for and not against me is the exception and not the rule. That Kayta and Raisin and Pal and Shy would all befriend me is a deviation too. People are allowed to like me when toleration is the norm.
I can't say I'm understanding all these things correctly, or even thinking right, particularly considering the late hour. Right or wrong, maybe what's most important is that I'm considering them.
Serious thoughts are not in my foremost thoughts when I awake on the train in the morning drooling on the pillow.
There is nothing elegant about me.
This theme continues when I meet up with the rest of my team to find that the presentation of my visit to District 3 that will air tonight is being previewed on "Umbercover," Jack's weekly segment on "Morning Rainbow," a sort of unrealistically chipper news and entertainment program that has become the universally agreed upon thing to watch each morning after breakfast is cleared away and a miscellany of light work and hanging out goes on. I'm not sure "Morning Rainbow" is anyone's favorite program, but apparently it's the kind of thing that's hard to hate.
Jack's "undercover" activity of the week involves "sneaking" into an editing booth and watching some footage of me in District 3. "Ooh, dancing," he says into the camera, then scoots aside a bit so everyone else can see. The half-length black cape and the dark blue skirt of the outfit from my visit there swing and sway about as I awkwardly attempt to move along with the theremin music.
"Surely the most graceful victor of them all," Spring teases me.
Jack tries to copy what I'm doing onscreen a bit, then stops and shakes his head. "I haven't got the D-Three jam," he says like it's something regrettable, but he's quick to brighten, "When she gets to One, though, don't worry, folks, I'll teach that girl a step or two."
It cuts back to the hosts of the main program, who joke about Jack wanting to see me so badly that he can't even wait until tonight to watch the Tour when it airs properly. They move on to interviewing a very young-looking girl with purple-blue eyes who is starring in a movie that's just about to open.
"Lemme do your hair," Irish sits me down and begins work on an elaborate "fishtail" braid style that starts on high on the top of my head. In the end, it will still end up twisted into two buns, one on each side of my head, though. The style team are masters of variations on a theme.
"I've been to District Two before," Aulie pipes up.
"What? Really?" Apple seems surprised.
"As a matter of fact, one of my great-grandmothers was born in Two." He seems kind of proud. "That's where I get my healthy attitude."
It stands to reason that the people of the Capitol have mixed with the districts at some point during the history of Panem, but this is the first time I've ever heard any Capitolite claim district ancestry of any sort. It's interesting. "Is there anything special you want to tell me about Two then?" I ask.
"The mountains are lovely, but nothing special immediately jumps out at me," he shrugs, "I assumed I'd just be leaving it up to Hector and Gerik and whoever's in charge around there these days to show it off to you. …Maybe someone will put a pick in your hands and see if you can manage to mine any good silver out of the rocks." He laughs.
"You'd be better cut out for it than me!" I protest.
"Hold still!" I wince as Irish pokes my scalp with a hairpin. "I've got four more of these to get in there before I'm finished." The pins are silver and end in green jewels shaped like tiny fish.
"You're all a bunch of firebrands," Tosca enters, unimpressed.
"It's more fun this way," Apple tells her. I get to feel pleased over Apple's response. The stylists, Aulie, Apple, and I all together make a team- between us there is some definite solidarity. Tosca is just here to record things.
"You mind yourself in Two, young lady," Tosca eyes me suspiciously.
"Of course," I answer. I don't plan to make trouble anywhere I go, although I can't claim to be perfectly good and loyal to my handlers' every whim considering how I went off with Raisin and Kayta in Seven. But I don't want to make people upset. I don't want to get in trouble. I want to feel at home in these strange places. I want to make friends. …Did I do something in Three that she didn't like and I just don't realize it? "Is there a problem?"
She twitches her nose. "No, I suppose not." She's still annoyed about something, but I guess she isn't going to tell me about it. Maybe it has to do with something else entirely.
Lunchtime comes before we reach our destination in 2. I get to pick what I'd like to eat and I give one of the Avoxes a very precise description of what I would like on my tuna sandwich, hoping that being so specific doesn't cause them too much trouble and that I don't sound too stuck up either. If the sandwich came back wrong, I wouldn't complain, but it doesn't. It's just as I asked for. Mustard (a kind of fancy type, I think) drips out on my fingers. I have to be careful to avoid getting any on the book I'm borrowing from Aulie. It's an adventure story- a really old one about a boy who gets up to all sorts of shenanigans in the small town he lives in with his friends. Aulie says there was a sequel focused on the protagonist's friend, but it's harder to find copies of because it was considered more controversial at some points.
Aulie reads too, a romance comic printed in dark pink ink. Apple isn't above teasing him over being hooked to a publication that is apparently aimed at teenage girls. She spends her free time playing a puzzle game on her handheld computing device (I still don't know exactly what it's called), then leaves us for her personal compartment to call someone. She says it's her sister, but when she's gone, Aulie tells me he thinks she has a boyfriend now, or at least a crush. He's heard her talking on the phone to a man two times on the Tour when she thought she was alone.
I don't see why she wouldn't tell me about it if she were, but I can't quite discount the possibility that she's been talking to my father. I'm not sure I should run the 'Apple likes my father' theory past Aulie either. The two of them have a tendency to get pretty sharp with their teasing and I don't want Papa drawn into that (not that he would engage in the same pettiness, but he's hopelessly outclassed).
"You're just jealous," Erinne counters Aulie's assertions.
"No, we can't all be so lucky," Spring bats her eyelashes.
Aulie gets huffy, a sign that Erinne's remark has hit home, and sinks lower into his chair, hiding his painted face behind the comic.
"Time to get properly dressed," Spring urges me up away from my book and the final third of my glass of lemonade, so I can change out of my casual personal clothes into whatever outfit they've put together for me to sport in District 2. It turns out to be a gray and green ensemble, complete with gloves and a scarf.
"District Two is going to be one of the colder stops," Erinne notes.
Aside from 11, they've all seemed pretty cold to me, but I suppose the Capitol, being up in the mountains and further north, must be colder on average than 4. …And even regardless of what we're used to based on where we grew up, I could also just be a wimp about the cold. This is probably true.
The style team is happy with me for not managing to mess up my hair to any significant degree in the time between Irish's fixing it and now. They give me one last one over and I go to look out the window and watch our approach into the center of 2.
I missed our passing through the mountains (or maybe we did most of it through tunnels like when you go to the Capitol?), but they still seem huge from where we are. I feel like I could reach out and touch them.
District 2 seems decently built up, but not in the same depressing towering factories style as 6 or 8 and not clinically like 3. It's orderly and exhibits a higher degree of design sense, though I'm not equipped to say quite in what way. It's just decently pleasing to look at. It is not visually oppressive to be in 2. I don't know if their unique involvement in the rebellion has anything to do with that. There don't seem to be as many visible war scars in the general vicinity, though there are some definite bomb pockmarks on some of the mountains.
The welcoming committee that greets me at the train station is organized as neatly at the buildings I've seen. I'm met by a metallic sound, like the ringing of some strange bell. Gerik Rinsai watches my expression as I realize it was him, smacking a metal cane against his metal leg. I think he's purposely dressed so that part of his replacement calf is exposed just because he wants people to see it. He is a tall man. Hector is big too, and bulkier.
The theme of "organization" carries on into the introductions. I am addressed, names are exchanged, we shake hands: Mayor Gabbar, Hector Auric, Gerik Rinsai, Vice-Mayor Itzel, Head Peacekeeper Cameron, Second-In-Command Peacekeeper Marriz. Hector boasts the most intimidating grip out of all of them. If he wanted, I imagine he could crush my hand.
The only remark that must be unscheduled comes from Gerik. He has pinched, piercing eyes. "You really are that small. Huh," he says to me.
"I looked taller on TV?" I venture.
He shakes his head. I'm not sure if the shaking actually means "no." "You've got some presence."
"Good things in small packages, Gerik," Hector jibes. They fall silent then, going back on script.
We ride through the streets in a pre-decided order. There are three vehicles. There is none of the strange jostling and last minute adjusting that accompanied our visits to pretty much every other district.
I might not be entirely off base to describe this orderliness as…military. It's funny, because I don't imagine 2 actually requires a very high degree of security, but I can see more Peacekeepers here than any other district. Maybe they're not really fully-fledged Peacekeepers. Since this is where they come from, they might still be in training.
District 2 does not bring out the talkative side in me. Gerik and Hector are roughly equivalent in their stoicism. I am sandwiched in-between them in the car. Gerik stares out the window to the left. Hector keeps a casual eye on me, though he's careful not to stare. While most of the other victors are legally adults, Gerik and Hector are the ones who feel the most adult to me. For all the age difference between Kayta Hiro and I, I felt like we were basically the same. I suppose I can't honestly claim to know any of them well enough to judge, but Luna's mature front masks a childish petulance and whether Jack is more playing when he's acting as a thoughtful adult or a goofy kid is anyone's guess. Maybe with victory comes arrested emotional growth. …then again, it's probably just as random and related to each victor's individual personality as everything else.
I am taken to a sculpture garden to give my speech to a select group of District 2 citizens. Half were specifically selected to be present at the event- this number includes the families of the two tributes and other related important parties ("That's my mom," Hector points a woman with long, gray braids out to me)- and the other half were chosen by lottery. Everyone else gets to watch me broadcast live ("There are big screens and stadium seating over at the parade field. Some groups of us go there to watch the Games footage usually," Hector notes. He is more of an explainer than Gerik).
There isn't much need to make any specific personal statements to the families of Padma and Wiley. We didn't interact in the arena. I make a candid remark, expressing my relief regarding this matter, which garners some laughs. I believe the top of my head just barely cleared Wiley's shoulder. I don't want to linger overmuch on the deaths, but there's no doubt in my mind that I owe much of my survival to the stronger players picking one another off while I wandered around the edges of the arena, alone and with Sparrow.
"Better luck next year, huh?" Gerik asks me when I've finished mentioning them.
"Uh," I'm not sure that's what I meant, but it's not not what I meant either, "Yes."
Hector smiles a little, the corners of his mouth twitching and crinkling (I think he's trying not to laugh- at me or Gerik, I can't tell). Mayor Gabbar pins a little gray and silver medal onto and claps me on the shoulder so hard that I stumble and Hector has to grab my arm to keep me from falling off the small, round stage. His grip there is as jolting and tough as his handshake. "Careful with that," he scolds the mayor.
"I'm okay," I assure Hector.
"He doesn't believe in finesse," the victor rolls his eyes.
All (or most) of District 2 listens and chuckles at this remark, snickers mixing with applause as we finish this leg of the show and are whisked off for a whirlwind rush around the salient points they've chosen to expose me to in their district. It's a district that's full of activity. I doubt many people are sitting idle across 2 who have the capability to do differently. I see Peacekeeper trainees going for a very rapid and disciplined run. There are several building projects in evidence. Hector seems to know what all of them are going to be. "Gymnasium," he tells me, "Supply distribution center, foundry, primary school…"
"I only mean this in the most positive way possible," I clarify, "But you seem like you're doing pretty well."
"The Tour's pretty guided propaganda-ish, you know?" Gerik speaks up. The mayor gives him a look, which is pretty much confirmation of this as some level of truth. "But, you know, two victors and all that."
"And they haven't rested on their laurels," Mayor Gabbar takes over for them, "They've done a great deal toward giving back to the community."
"She gets it, Dave," Gerik says, "You saw her volunteer for that little girl the same as we did. Two hardly has a lock on community spirit."
"…not everybody's got it so strong though," Hector adds in a very subdued, soft tone.
The victors from 2, I think, have things on their minds that are far more complex and meaningful than I do. But we're on the same page. I'm pretty sure of this. I think they approve of what I did for Faline.
I get to cut the ribbon on a new swimming pool at some sort of special school. The students attending the ceremony there are attentive and polite. None of them address me until Gerik speaks to them. "Who's looking forward to learning how to swim? I don't know how to swim yet myself."
There are lots of enthusiastic yeses returned to us. A small girl reaches out and pulls on my gray tunic. "Is swimming fun?"
"Yes, very much," I nod vigorously.
"No sharks in swimming pools," Hector says with an impressively tough pokerface. I smile. I'm not immune to these jibes. Apple and Aulie are squeezed over on the other side of the pool between some school officials. They look bored. They haven't really gotten the chance to talk to Hector or Gerik, who might at least provide some interest as victors. The District 2 ethos doesn't appear all that compatible with the glitz and gossip that they favor. …I can't say I am quite meant for it either, though Hector obviously has a sense of humor.
"My mom is helping to make our dinner," Hector tells me on the way out, "Some things never change."
The most interesting feature, food-wise, of the dinner is a layered pasta dish. There are noodles, cheese, tomato sauce, spinach, and meat all arranged into one hot and interesting dish. Mrs. Auric, who tells me I can just call her "Romana," explains that it's called lasagna. She turns out to be the most talkative person I've been allowed to interact with in 2. "Mom, Mom," becomes Hector's constant, groaned refrain. Sure, he struck me as a grown man before, but no matter their age, everyone is a child before their mother.
Romana Auric says whatever she wants without regard for Hector's wishes or any of the other people around us. Although some of the group seems annoyed by it, at least no one looks uncomfortable like they're worried for her. Maybe there's some safety in 2 as far as that kind of thing is concerned. She tells me that her husband was a Capitol loyalist and the same went for her oldest son. Her second son and her daughter were rebels. Everyone of them ended up dead. It certainly serves as a good indication of how important Hector must be to her.
"Do you want to have children someday?" she asks me.
"Uh-uh," I shake my head vigorously. It's a frightening proposition as a person in Panem, an extra concerning one as a victor, and an uncomfortable one as just me (or at least it is jumping the gun- I have never even kissed anyone; how can I think about children?).
"I hope Hector will. I want to have grandchildren."
"Your mom is so subtle," Gerik says, wiping sauce off his plate with a scrap of bread. "…I don't know about kids, but it would be great to meet someone. I get tired of being alone when I'm not with you all day."
It's hard to tell if anything about the wanting grandchildren thing bothers Hector specifically. He responds with what seems to be his stock 'cut that out, Mom' attitude. Gerik's personal remarks are what's more interesting to him. "Tabloids are gonna have a field day, Ger," he points at Tosca, who turns away from her obvious listening to us (no surprises there, it's basically her job) to tap away furiously on her tiny computing device.
"You know you're here for Mags, right?" Hector leans over to remind her.
"Let the lady do her job," Romana pats her son's arm and pours me more lemonade.
"I like tall girls with dark hair," Gerik offers Tosca a tidbit. "So," he leans on the table, making my glass shake with the shifting surface beneath it, "Are you going to send that off to Victor Affairs and all the publicity stuff and set me up on some blind dates? I've got to tell you, I would not recommend myself as a candidate for an arranged marriage."
"Oh, goodness, no," Tosca says in a light and haughty voice. It doesn't strike me as particularly genuine, but I'm not sure I've encountered enough sincerity from Tosca Snow to recognize it when I heart it anyway.
"Just going to bait more Capitol women then," he guesses, "Telling them what I like and all. 'Wouldn't you like to undertake the task of taming this wild savage?'"
"And quote," Hector appends to the end of Gerik's statement. He said it, they'll use it, whoever needed context anyway? That's what I'm taking away from all of this. It paints all the coverage of the victors in an interesting light. …Although I am not exactly sure what light that is. I'm not smart enough to juggle all the strange things that now go on around me. I can't understand all the other districts, the Capitol, the thoughts of so many people. I really only have the most tiny and tenuous understanding of myself even.
We eat another layered concoction for dessert, some sort of parfait with strawberries from a can laid on top of granola with something like ice cream, but not quite, over and under that, and whipped cream and sprinkles on top.
"I like doing things with girl victors," Hector comments to Gerik, "Let's get a girl next time."
It's not as if either of them has much control, if any, over it. This is just yet another exercise in black humor, but it does tell me that Hector likes me. There isn't anything special drawing me and the men from Two together, but we can get along (after Beto, I am practically glad from the mere fact of their being able to understand me when I speak). For all that many other people have been interested in and kind to me after surviving the Games, as far understanding of the topsy-turvy world victory transports you to, no one can compete with my fellow victors.
I hope that they can tell I appreciate making their various acquaintances (Pal could, Kayta could, Shy could, it's harder to speak to even my best guesses toward the thoughts of some of the others). I make sure and tell Hector that I liked meeting his mother before I leave. As a group, the victors seem even more bereft of family than the average citizen. Hector is lucky to have her. I tell Gerik I hope he finds the right someone. They know it isn't far from here to One (although my visit will be spaced a certain amount of hours into the day as they generally seem to be, instead of One having to feed me my breakfast too), and both instruct me to "Give Jack a hard time," which I cannot quite promise myself to.
"He's too quick for me," I say, not wanting to get their expectations too high, "He knows what to say to play the game."
"Just do the best that you can," Gerik allows.
"I'll be happy to do the best I can, " I agree.
"He might let her get one or two over on him," Hector suggests, then turns to look back at me, "I guess you know he kind of likes you? But, hey, if he ever gives you a hard time, just call me up and I'll think of some way to put him in his place. He can be a first class jerk sometimes, let me be the first to warn you."
"He always wanted a kid sister," Gerik shakes my hand as Hector hassles Aulie to take down his phone number for me.
I can see the two of them on the platform waving at me before we gain enough speed that they disappear, just a blur in the dark.
They're very grounded. Not, like Emmy, afloat and adrift from a world that sent her flying against her will possibly never to land again, and not, like Jack, aloft and fluttering, loosed from mundane things by some sort of choice of his own- some belief that it's best to live lightly, like the people who have adopted him as one of their own?
But so far they've all survived, all in their own ways- Emmy and Gerik and Hector and Jack and the rest (though I've worried more for some of them than others). And then there's me. On some level, the answer to the question I'm about to ask is, clearly, whatever it takes. I didn't fight Haakon in the arena to give up now. That was my last chance to turn back. I could've let him kill me.
…But everyone has limits. Everyone hits up against something they're not willing to do someday if life keeps on pushing them.
The only one left to see in his own environment is Jack (though it might be possible to argue that by seeing him both onstage and backstage, I've already gone a fair distance toward seeing him in his natural habitat). I have compared and compared and compared. Now how will I live?
I take a shower, able to hear the vague sounds of the television through the wall. I think my team is finally over their disappointment that they can't watch much of the official Victory Tour programming during its initial airing since we're busy at the next stop doing things to make up each new episode of the "Mags takes in the local color and says awkward things" show.
I dream that Haakon Erikson and I are together in a rowboat. There is no land in sight. There are no oars. The boat springs a leak and water that looks like blood (maybe it is blood?) begins to flood in. We don't try to stop it. He asks about my dad. I ask about his sister.
I wake up before this dream has crept to any meaningful conclusion, leaving behind the image of the two of us facing one another, the blood-water nearly up to our knees.
I take another shower. It's five in the morning. My team is still sleeping. I put on a green shirt and a pair of pants out of my own clothing. I go and sit on the couch in the sitting room- err, car. One of the Avoxes, one of the men, peeks in at me. He makes a gesture that I interpret as "Do you need anything?" I shake my head. "I'm fine, thanks."
He points out the window. My curiosity is piqued. I come over to look and see that the sun is slowly creeping over what is presumably District 1, considering how gentle and slow our progress continues forward. In the midst of miles of rolling hills and shrubby fields dotted with rock formations is a tall city. "White city," I whisper.
The Avox points at himself.
"Is that where you're from?"
He nods.
"It's beautiful," I tell him.
He nods again.
We watch a while then go our separate ways.