Knock knock knock. I jolt awake. Disoriented and confused, a sweaty patch on my back. As the fog of sleep clears from my brain it all comes back in one horrifying flood of memory. Where I am, why I'm here.
"Rise and shine, Jackie, dear! We're about to arrive in the Capitol! Oh, I can't wait 'til you see it!" I hear Blaustein sing, before taking off down the hall skipping and clapping his hands. I groan and wipe a lazy hand across my brow, covering my eyes from the artificial light streaming in through the crack beneath the door. About to arrive in the Capitol? Surely not. I feel like I've only blinked since I went to bed. I quickly give up attempting to calculate my hours of sleep on the clock—I'm atrocious with time mathematics, especially at this hour of the morning. I briefly fantasize about staying in this warm, comfortable bed forever. No one noticing. Just travelling, letting the train rock me into a dreamy trance. But right now, I'm one of Panem's twenty-four most important citizens. They would never miss my absence.
After I've gotten ready—brushed my teeth, washed my face, smoothed down my unruly bed hair—I enter the dining carriage in brown corduroy pants and a striped woollen sweater. The sort of thing Meemaw would say makes me look like her dead husband. Once again, I'm the last to the table. 'Babyface,' Musketta acknowledges me as I sit. Breakfast is scones and pancakes and a sweet porridge-like substance that Tim explains to me is 'granola.' I'm startled by the sudden darkness, before Blaustein clarifies we're just in a tunnel.
On the other side is something I've only ever seen on television. Buildings and billboards reach high into the air, higher than imaginable, all sparkling with lights. Combined with the muddy, barren look of the sky, it looks as if President Snow has stolen the stars themselves, and made his city of them.
Outside is colder than I'm used to and we're once again bombarded by people. This time, though, instead of just oversized microphones and great metal cameras, regular civilians crowd around the train, peering at us with irregular-coloured eyes.
Their outfits, like the glistening towers, are even more shocking in real life, all frills and fancy hats and flamboyancy. I've never been in the ocean, of course, but I've heard of coastal people diving in reefs with goggles, and I think this is what it must be like, surrounded by alien creatures in a place that is not your own. I wonder if anyone here has ever gone hungry.
It astounds me that so many people would get up this early just to catch a glimpse of underfed kids who'll die in a week max. If this is it, I can't even imagine how much fanfare the district One, Two and Four tributes must have received. I smile and wave at a few of the crazy alien fish people, trying my best to be sweet. But it's hard. Because the truth is, though I'd consider myself a genuinely kind person, ethics will always trump mere diplomacy in my books. And there's nothing that screams 'unethical' more than this city and what it wants to do to me. Well, like Tim said, I guess I'm going to have to put my morals aside if I even dream of going home.
At the same time I feel sort of bad, for judging them this harshly: the common people, they don't know any better; it's not like they chose to be born here. And, really the fashion is right charming after—or perhaps because of—its initial shock value. And that's partly why I spend the rest of the morning chatting to Blaustein. Since we got up so early, we aren't seeing our stylists for a good six hours. While Swinnart—wisely—sleeps, and the mentors do who knows what, he and I swap stories of our daily lives. It's interesting, hearing about the Capitol's way of life first-hand. Agonising, of course, but very interesting.
"What are these called again?" I mumble as I plop another of the deep red fruits into my mouth.
"Cherries, dear. You don't seem opposed to them," he laughs.
"Not at all," I respond between licks of my fingers. The juice tastes sweet and stains my skin purple. I choke slightly on the hard seed in the middle as it slides down my throat.
"Well, try not to swallow too many pits, now, you wouldn't want to go killing yourself with the cyanide."
I immediately cough up what's in my mouth. "What?!" I try to splutter. The words get caught with the cherries in my throat, gagging me.
"It's only a joke—oh, dear—oh, dear, here—" he hands me his handkerchief and places a paternal hand between my shoulders, apologising profusely.
The more I talk to this guy, the more he reminds me of the fancy pigeons my neighbours—not El's family, the other ones—used to breed. Fussy and frivolous, certainly, but undeniably gentle, too. Or maybe it's just today's long-tailed coat that drags on the floor behind him. I decide on both. He's honestly beginning to grow on me.
If Oswald Blaustein is a pigeon, my prep team is a flock of peacocks.
"You're so plain!" they caw, pecking and preening at my naked body. "But don't you worry—we'll make you beautiful in no time!"
I soon find out this involves burning off my pimples with a stinging cream, deep-cleaning beneath my nails, exfoliating my skin until it's pink, and even stripping the hair from my body.
"It's called waxing!" one of them squawks as they tear another strip of cloth off my armpit. I yelp. "I know it hurts a bit now! But it actually permanently damages your hair follicles so it'll never grow back as thick!"
I can tell, I want to say.
But the rest is honestly quite enjoyable. My nails are painted rosy pink and I'm slathered in at least five different lotions that soothe and soften my raw skin. As they wash my hair and massage my scalp they make small talk with me, evidently trying to put me at ease.
"You have such a funny accent! Even for a district ten kid!"
I wonder if they know how the 'district ten kids' mock their hissing, clucky accents.
"You don't look like a cowgirl!" onw of them wails, dumbfounded, when I tell him about the ranch. I'm so caught off guard that I actually laugh.
"What does that mean?"
"Cowgirls are blonde! Everyone knows that! Right team?" The declaration is met with emphatic nodding. I'm not exactly sure where they all got that idea from, being pretty inexperienced with cowgirls themselves, but I think it's funny. That is, until they bring up bleaching my hair.
"Bleach?" I ask dubiously. I know I'm supposed to be extra nice and everything, and they clearly know a lot more than me about cosmetics. But I can't help being more than a bit skeptic al.
"Like, the stuff you use to clean bathrooms?"
"Is it?" They all laugh.
Fortunately, my hair stays cleaning-agent-free—for now. Though I'm not convinced it isn't because the stylist chooses this moment to enter the room, shooing out her pets.
She's insanely tall. She already would be even without the hot pink rubber heels that look more like stilts than shoes, and her stiffly upright posture. I wonder if she's had some kind of surgery to make her taller. She's definitely had some on her face: white-powdered cheekbones a little too sharp, painted lips puffy with injections. A long, sleek orange dress fits tight to her torso, with a contrastingly floaty skirt that flows down to her ankles. A bright pink hoop of spikes encircles her waist, like some comical belt. The prongs are so large I'm not sure if she'll be able to get within two feet of me. On top of all that—literally—is a giant mound of hair so bright it looks as if it's made of the same sheeny plastic as the rest of her getsup. Overall she gives the impression of some kind of spiked balloon animal. Or a collared flamingo, if you're taking the bird route.
"Attractive, right?" she says with a wave of the hand, evidently referring to her look.
"Oh, lovely, miss…
"My name's Goneril. Jackie," she nods with a sharp artificial smile. I smile back, not knowing what to say.
A stooped figure rushes in with a black fabric bag. An avox, I think. I've heard of those: when the Capitol wants to punish someone, they decide to make some use of it, cutting off their tongue and forcing them to live as a slave. Goneril snatches it off him and declares, "this is your parade outfit. It's cute, you'll like it."
The cute parade outfit turns out to be what I can only describe as a cowhide bikini. It hardly covers my crotch and breasts, which are liberally taped "to avoid accidents." Speaking of my breasts, Goneril makes a huge fuss of them.
"Why are they so small? They said you were well fed. I can't even pad them, the top's too little!" She eventually manages to somewhat console herself with the notion that though decidedly "unsexy", my small chest apparently makes me look more childish, which is what the mentors want after all.
"And your arms are so manly," she tuts as if I have any control over that. "If I'd known my tribute's body looked like this I would have designed something to cover it more! And no waist either…"
That's rude. Her body couldn't do a day's work, but I decide not to say so. It probably wouldn't mean a thing to her anyway.
"Well, what do you think?" Goneril turns me roughly by the shoulders to face the mirror once she's finally finished my makeup. In addition to the bikini, I've got on matching cow ears all fitted out with bells and bows. A fake septum piercing is clipped onto my nose, clearly reminiscent of a cow's, there's another bell hanging from my neck, and my feet are stuffed into dark, rounded clogs supposed to be hooves. I've even got a tail that sways when I walk.
I guess it's alright. No, it's not. It could be worse, but it's forgettable and skimpy and a little unsightly, and my face is so caked with makeup it'll be a surprise if I'm recognised in the arena. At least she let me wear my sickle moon.