【饥饿游戏】13

 I’ve been right not to cry. The station is swarming 1 with reporters

with their insectlike cameras trained directly on my
face. But I’ve had a lot of practice at wiping my face clean of
emotions and I do this now. I catch a glimpse of myself on the
television screen on the wall that’s airing my arrival live and
feel gratified that I appear almost bored.
Peeta Mellark, on the other hand, has obviously been crying
and interestingly enough does not seem to be trying to cover
it up. I immediately wonder if this will be his strategy in the
Games. To appear weak and frightened, to reassure 2 the other
tributes that he is no competition at all, and then come out
fighting. This worked very well for a girl, Johanna Mason, from
District 7 a few years back. She seemed like such a sniveling,
cowardly fool that no one bothered about her until there were
only a handful of contestants 3 left. It turned out she could kill
viciously. Pretty clever, the way she played it. But this seems
an odd strategy for Peeta Mellark because he’s a baker’s son.
All those years of having enough to eat and hauling bread
trays around have made him broad-shouldered and strong. It
will take an awful lot of weeping to convince anyone to overlook
him.
We have to stand for a few minutes in the doorway 4 of the
train while the cameras gobble up our images, then we’re allowed
inside and the doors close mercifully behind us. The
train begins to move at once.
The speed initially 5 takes my breath away. Of course, I’ve
never been on a train, as travel between the districts is forbidden
except for officially sanctioned duties. For us, that’s
mainly transporting coal. But this is no ordinary coal train. It’s
one of the high-speed Capitol models that average 250 miles
per hour. Our journey to the Capitol will take less than a day.
In school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once
called the Rockies. District 12 was in a region known is Appalachia.
Even hundreds of years ago, they mined coal here.
Which is why our miners have to dig so deep.
Somehow it all comes back to coal at school. Besides basic
reading and math most of our instruction is coal-related. Except
for the weekly lecture on the history of Panem. It’s mostly
a lot of blather about what we owe the Capitol. I know there
must be more than they’re telling us, an actual account of
what happened during the rebellion. But I don’t spend much
time thinking about it. Whatever the truth is, I don’t see how it
will help me get food on the table.
The tribute train is fancier than even the room in the Justice
Building. We are each given our own chambers 6 that have
a bedroom, a dressing 7 area, and a private bathroom with hot
and cold running water. We don’t have hot water at home, unless
we boil it.
There are drawers filled with fine clothes, and Effie Trinket
tells me to do anything I want, wear anything I want, everything
is at my disposal. Just be ready for supper in an hour. I
peel off my mother’s blue dress and take a hot shower. I’ve
never had a shower before. It’s like being in a summer rain,
only warmer. I dress in a dark green shirt and pants.
At the last minute, I remember Madge’s little gold pin. For
the first time, I get a good look at it. It’s as if someone fashioned
a small golden bird and then attached a ring around
it. The bird is connected to the ring only by its wing tips. I
suddenly recognize it. A mockingjay.
They’re funny birds and something of a slap in the face to
the Capitol. During the rebellion, the Capitol bred a series of
genetically 8 altered animals as weapons. The common term for
them was muttations, or sometimes mutts for short. One was a
special bird called a jabberjay that had the ability to memorize
and repeat whole human conversations. They were homing
birds, exclusively male, that were released into regions where
the Capitol’s enemies were known to be hiding. After the birds
gathered words, they’d fly back to centers to be recorded. It
took people awhile to realize what was going on in the districts, 
how private conversations were being transmitted. Then, of 
course, the rebels fed the Capitol endless lies, and the
joke was on it. So the centers were shut down and the birds
were abandoned to die off in the wild.
Only they didn’t die off. Instead, the jabberjays mated with
female mockingbirds creating a whole new species that could
replicate 9 both bird whistles and human melodies. They had
lost the ability to enunciate 10 words but could still mimic 11 a
range of human vocal 12 sounds, from a child’s high-pitched
warble to a man’s deep tones. And they could re-create songs.
Not just a few notes, but whole songs with multiple verses, if
you had the patience to sing them and if they liked your voice.
My father was particularly fond of mockingjays. When we
went hunting, he would whistle or sing complicated songs to
them and, after a polite pause, they’d always sing back. Not
everyone is treated with such respect. But whenever my father
sang, all the birds in the area would fall silent and listen.
His voice was that beautiful, high and clear and so filled with
life it made you want to laugh and cry at the same time. I could
never bring myself to continue the practice after he was gone.
Still, there’s something comforting about the little bird.