Read Online The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Free Book Online

stripped of the stuff, leaving me like a plucked bird, ready for roasting. Idon’t like it. My skin feels sore and tingling and intensely vulnerable. But I have kept my side of the bargain with Haymitch, and no objection has crossed my lips.
    “You’re doing very well,” says some guy named Flavius. He gives his orange corkscrew locks a shake and applies a fresh coat of purple lipstick to his mouth. “If there’s one thing we can’t stand, it’s a whiner. Grease her down!”
    Venia and Octavia, a plump woman whose entire body has been dyed a pale shade of pea green, rub me down with a lotion that first stings but then soothes my raw skin. Then they pull me from the table, removing the thin robe I’ve been allowed to wear off and on. I stand there, completely naked, as the three circle me, wielding tweezers to remove any last bits of hair. I know I should be embarrassed, but they’re so unlike people that I’m no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet.
    The three step back and admire their work. “Excellent! You almost look like a human being now!” says Flavius, and they all laugh.
    I force my lips up into a smile to show how grateful I am. “Thank you,” I say sweetly. “We don’t have much cause to look nice in District Twelve.”
    This wins them over completely. “Of course, you don’t, you poor darling!” says Octavia clasping her hands together in distress for me.
    “But don’t worry,” says Venia. “By the time Cinna is through with you, you’re going to be absolutely gorgeous!”
    “We promise! You know, now that we’ve gotten rid of all the hair and filth, you’re not horrible at all!” says Flavius encouragingly. “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 impulse to retrieve my robe. But this Cinna, my stylist, will surely 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 retrieving 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 enters. I’m taken aback by how normal he looks. Most of the stylists 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 applied 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.
    “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