Nothing Personal

District Eleven Interviews

Both of the District Eleven tributes looked shattered. They were used to long hours and exhaustion, but nothing had quite prepared them for the sheer bustling activity of the Capitol. They always needed to be somewhere different, or there was always someone trying to talk to them, or they had to concentrate hard, especially in Skyler's case. She'd found the interview training difficult, even though Oak tried to make it interesting by making sly comments about the various Capitol people who came to visit and gawp at them through the windows. They'd stuck together in training and competed with each other, ignoring almost all the tributes from richer districts. Out of all the pairs, they'd got along best, with only one little disagreement. Skyler had insisted that they should be friends/ allies with the twins; Oak had disagreed because he found them annoying. The matter was settled when they both fell asleep over the meal they'd been eating and had completely forgotten the argument when they woke up.

Skyler yawned as she made her way to the chair, her feet dragging despite all the practice at walking. She tried to stifle it with her hand but she was just so tired that it was like trying to hold back a tornado with an apple tree. Martina noticed, patting the chair with a smile. "It's been a long night, hasn't it?" she said.

Skyler nodded, forcing the fog of her brain to remember what she'd practiced in interview training. "Yes, I suppose it has. But it won't be my last."

"Brave words indeed! So tell me, honey, what makes you different to all these other tributes?"

"Um..." She couldn't think. Her brain just kept reminding her how nice it was to just switch off for once. Eventually she came up with something. "I'm...I'm no more special than any of them. And we've all got our reasons, our skills" - she had to fight back a yawn again - "but we've all got our weaknesses too. Mine are different to everyone else's. So...so that might work to my advantage," she finished lamely. Martina nodded as though she'd found it fascinating.

"I think that's very wise of you," she reassured her. Skyler gave her a small smile, her eyelids starting to droop. Her stylists had done a good job of covering up the dark circles etched under her eyes but there were other signs they could do nothing about, like her head hanging slightly, her eyelids flickering closed and the small yawns that she kept biting back. It was only eleven o'clock.

"Skyler, are you still with us?" Martina laughed. Skyler shook her head to clear it. The fog was getting thicker now and she wasn't thinking straight at all.

"I don't...I'm just so tired. It's been a busy few days," she explained, prodding the bruise on her right arm. She'd got it by accidentally wandering in the way of one of the Career tributes while they were waving a small stick around. Her glasses were perched askew on her small little nose, gleaming in the light and hiding the colour of her eyes. Her hair was fighting its way out from the thin plaits the stylists had forced it into.

"So you've been working hard at training then?"

"Yes, yes, very hard indeed. Show the others we're not just your average Eleven tributes," Skyler murmured, remembering the little phrase that Daisy had suggested. Even to her it sounded ineffective. She was just so tired. The buzz and bumble of the crowd swam before her eyes. She envied little Fiona so much right now; the girl was asleep in one of the back rooms, or maybe already back at the training building.

"That's right, honey, you tell them!" urged Martina, patting her hand. She didn't have the energy to snatch it away although Martina's hand was warm and damp. It was impossible to tell if she was tired or not; her face was plastered with so much makeup that it made her skin look rubbery. Her famous eyeliner was smudged into the small crow's feet starting to cluster around her eyes and her hair was probably almost half of her body mass. And she was small. Skyler reckoned that she would probably reach up to her shoulders. It was disorientating. Martina usually looked so beautiful, so full of life and youth. But she was getting old. Older, anyway.