【饥饿游戏】36

 until I’m literally 1 spitting out answers at him.

“All right, enough,” he says. “We’ve got to find another angle.
Not only are you hostile, I don’t know anything about you.
I’ve asked you fifty questions and still have no sense of your
life, your family, what you care about. They want to know
about you, Katniss.”
“But I don’t want them to! They’re already taking my future!
They can’t have the things that mattered to me in the
past!” I say.
“Then lie! Make something up!” says Haymitch.
“I’m not good at lying,” I say.
“Well, you better learn fast. You’ve got about as much
charm as a dead slug,” says Haymitch. Ouch. That hurts. Even 
Haymitch must know he’s been too harsh because his voice 
softens 2. “Here’s an idea. Try acting 3 humble 4.”
“Humble,” I echo.
“That you can’t believe a little girl from District Twelve has
done this well. The whole thing’s been more than you ever
could have dreamed of. Talk about Cinna’s clothes. How nice
the people are. How the city amazes you. If you won’t talk
about yourself, at least compliment the audience. Just keep
turning it back around, all right. Gush 5.”
The next hours are agonizing 6. At once, it’s clear I cannot
gush. We try me playing cocky, but I just don’t have the 
arrogance 7. Apparently 8, I’m too “vulnerable” for ferocity. 
I’m not witty 9. Funny. Sexy. Or mysterious.
By the end of the session, I am no one at all. Haymitch
started drinking somewhere around witty, and a nasty edge
has crept into his voice. “I give up, sweetheart. Just answer the
questions and try not to let the audience see how openly you
despise them.”
I have dinner that night in my room, ordering an outrageous 10
number of delicacies 11, eating myself sick, and then taking out 
my anger at Haymitch, at the Hunger Games, at every living 
being in the Capitol by smashing dishes around my room. 
When the girl with the red hair comes in to turn down my bed, 
her eyes widen at the mess. “Just leave it!” I yell at her. “Just 
leave it alone!”
I hate her, too, with her knowing reproachful eyes that call
me a coward, a monster, a puppet of the Capitol, both now and
then. For her, justice must finally be happening. At least my
death will help pay for the life of the boy in the woods. But 
instead of fleeing the room, the girl closes the door behind
her and goes to the bathroom. She comes back with a damp cloth 
and wipes my face gently then cleans the blood from a broken 
plate off my hands. Why is she doing this? Why am I letting her?
“I should have tried to save you,” I whisper.
She shakes her head. Does this mean we were right to stand
by? That she has forgiven me?
“No, it was wrong,” I say.
She taps her lips with her fingers then points to my chest. I
think she means that I would just have ended up an Avox, too.
Probably would have. An Avox or dead. I spend the next hour 
helping 12 the redheaded girl clean the room. When all the garbage 
has been dropped down a disposal and the food cleaned away, 
she turns down my bed. I crawl in between the sheets like a 
five-year-old and let her tuck me in. Then she goes. I want her 
to stay until I fall asleep. To be there when I wake up. I want the 
protection of this girl, even though she never had mine.
In the morning, it’s not the girl but my prep team who are
hanging over me. My lessons with Effie and Haymitch are
over. This day belongs to Cinna. He’s my last hope. Maybe he
can make me look so wonderful, no one will care what comes
out of my mouth.
The team works on me until late afternoon, turning my skin
to glowing satin, stenciling 13 patterns on my arms, painting
flame designs on my twenty perfect nails. Then Venia goes to
work on my hair, weaving strands 14 of red into a pattern that
begins at my left ear, wraps around my head, and then falls in
one braid down my right shoulder. They erase 15 my face with a
layer of pale makeup 16 and draw my features back out. Huge
dark eyes, full red lips, lashes 17 that throw off bits of light when
I blink. Finally, they cover my entire body in a powder that
makes me shimmer 18 in gold dust.
Then Cinna enters with what I assume is my dress, but I can’t 
really see it because it’s covered. “Close your eyes,” he orders.
I can feel the silken inside as they slip it down over my
naked body, then the weight. It must be forty pounds. I clutch
Octavia’s hand as I blindly step into my shoes, glad to find
they are at least two inches lower than the pair Effie had me
practice in. There’s some adjusting and fidgeting. Then silence.
“Can I open my eyes?” I ask.
“Yes,” says Cinna. “Open them.”