The elevator pinged to a stop. No time to think about this now, not that I could do anything about it anyway. The doors slid open.

“Here we go.” I stepped off the elevator.

“Tristan?” A woman with hair dyed the color of a pearl was walking toward us across a hall of elevators. She wore a headset attached to a walkie-talkie and was holding a clipboard.

“Hi. It’s Tris, actually.”

“Oh, Tris, right,” she said super slowly, like she couldn’t care less and wanted me to know it. “I’m Randy. You’ll see a lot of me because I’m the assistant producer responsible for all you contestants. I’m really looking forward to getting to know all of you.” This last part sounded like she was reading off her clipboard. “This is the schedule.” She handed me a sheet of paper. “Of course, it will depend on what happens in the competition.”

She might as well have said, “Like if you choke, you don’t need this at all.”

“So here’s the plan. First, we’ll take you through to hair and makeup—”

“Makeup?”

“We’re not talking beauty pageant makeup. They just make sure you won’t look washed out on camera from all the lights.”

Randy kept talking as she led us through a maze of hallways into a room full of mirrors and people standing around staring at their phones.

“Where are the other kids?” I asked.

“They’re done.”

“Already?” I looked at my phone. Just one minute after nine.

“Yeah, most of them got here around eight. I guess they were just super excited.”

Was this Randy’s way of saying that I must not be super excited because I came at the time they told me to?

“Oh, I’ll take that.” Randy snatched my phone out of my hand. “You can get it back after taping each day.”

“Terrence!”

A tall, thin guy with a headset stretched over a mountain of dreadlocks ran over.

“This is Terrence.” Randy handed him my phone. “He’s our PA in charge of the contestants.”

“PA?” I said.

“Production assistant,” Terrence explained. “Welcome to the show.”

“Thanks.”

Next thing I knew, Terrence whisked me into a chair in front of a mirror so bright, it was like staring into the sun.

For the next half hour, I was poked, sprayed, creamed, and powdered. A lady wearing hairbrushes on a tool belt even cut my hair. She claimed she had to because you couldn’t see my face, but since she basically gave me a whole new haircut, I wasn’t buying it.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, they made me lift up my T-shirt so they could stick a tiny microphone to my bare chest.

When I was finally allowed to stand up, some guy came over to examine all my clothing for logos, you know, like the Nike swoosh. He tried to explain why. I didn’t get everything, but the bottom line is, it’s against the law to show logos on TV unless the company that owns the logo says it’s okay.