第20章
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“we promise! you know, now that we’ve gotten rid of all
the hair and filth, you’re not horrible at all!” says flavius en-
couragingly. “let’s call cinna!”
they dart out of the room. it’s hard to hate my prep team.
they’re such total idiots. and yet, in an odd way, i know
they’re sincerely trying to help me.
i look at the cold white walls and floor and resist the im-
pulse to retrieve my robe. but this cinna, my stylist, will sure-
ly make me remove it at once. instead my hands go to my
hairdo, the one area of my body my prep team had been told
to leave alone. my fingers stroke the silky braids my mother
so carefully arranged. my mother. i left her blue dress and
shoes on the floor of my train car, never thinking about re-
trieving them, of trying to hold on to a piece of her, of home.
now i wish i had.
the door opens and a young man who must be cinna en-
ters. i’m taken aback by how normal he looks. most of the styl-
ists they interview on television are so dyed, stenciled, and
surgically altered they’re grotesque. but cinna’s close-
cropped hair appears to be its natural shade of brown. he’s in
a simple black shirt and pants. the only concession to self-
alteration seems to be metallic gold eyeliner that has been ap-
plied with a light hand. it brings out the flecks of gold in his
green eyes. and, despite my disgust with the capitol and their
hideous fashions, i can’t help thinking how attractive it looks.
“hello, katniss. i’m cinna, your stylist,” he says in a quiet
voice somewhat lacking in the capitol’s affectations.
“hello,” i venture cautiously.
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“just give me a moment, all right?” he asks. he walks
around my naked body, not touching me, but taking in every
inch of it with his eyes. i resist the impulse to cross my arms
over my chest. “who did your hair?”
“my mother,” i say.
“it’s beautiful. classic really. and in almost perfect balance
with your profile. she has very clever fingers,” he says.
i had expected someone flamboyant, someone older trying
desperately to look young, someone who viewed me as a piece
of meat to be prepared for a platter. cinna has met none of
these expectations.
“you’re new, aren’t you? i don’t think i’ve seen you before,”
i say. most of the stylists are familiar, constants in the ever-
changing pool of tributes. some have been around my whole
life.
“yes, this is my first year in the games,” says cinna.
“so they gave you district twelve,” i say. newcomers gen-
erally end up with us, the least desirable district.
“i asked for district twelve,” he says without further ex-
planation. “why don’t you put on your robe and we’ll have a
chat.”
pulling on my robe, i follow him through a door into a sit-
ting room. two red couches face off over a low table. three
walls are blank, the fourth is entirely glass, providing a win-
dow to the city. i can see by the light that it must be around
noon, although the sunny sky has turned overcast. cinna in-
vites me to sit on one of the couches and takes his place across
from me. he presses a button on the side of the table. the top
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splits and from below rises a second tabletop that holds our
lunch. chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy
sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and
onions, rolls shaped like flowers, and for dessert, a pudding
the color of honey.
i try to imagine assembling this meal myself back home.
chickens are too expensive, but i could make do with a wild
turkey. i’d need to shoot a second turkey to trade for an
orange. goat’s milk would have to substitute for cream. we
can grow peas in the garden. i’d have to get wild onions from
the woods. i don’t recognize the grain, our own tessera ration
cooks down to an unattractive brown mush. fancy rolls would
mean another trade with the baker, perhaps for two or three
squirrels. as for the pudding, i can’t even guess what’s in it.
days of hunting and gathering for this one meal and even then
it would be a poor substitution for the capitol version.
what must it be like, i wonder, to live in a world where
food appears at the press of a button?