第2章

  in the woods waits the only person with whom i can be
  myself. gale. i can feel the muscles in my face relaxing, my
  pace quickening as i climb the hills to our place, a rock ledge
  overlooking a valley. a thicket of berry bushes protects it from
  unwanted eyes. the sight of him waiting there brings on a
  smile. gale says i never smile except in the woods.
  7
  “hey, catnip,” says gale. my real name is katniss, but when
  i first told him, i had barely whispered it. so he thought i’d
  said catnip. then when this crazy lynx started following me
  around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official
  nickname for me. i finally had to kill the lynx because he
  scared off game. i almost regretted it because he wasn’t bad
  company. but i got a decent price for his pelt.
  “look what i shot,” gale holds up a loaf of bread with an ar-
  row stuck in it, and i laugh. it’s real bakery bread, not the flat,
  dense loaves we make from our grain rations. i take it in my
  hands, pull out the arrow, and hold the puncture in the crust
  to my nose, inhaling the fragrance that makes my mouth flood
  with saliva. fine bread like this is for special occasions.
  “mm, still warm,” i say. he must have been at the bakery at
  the crack of dawn to trade for it. “what did it cost you?”
  “just a squirrel. think the old man was feeling sentimental
  this morning,” says gale. “even wished me luck.”
  “well, we all feel a little closer today, don’t we?” i say, not
  even bothering to roll my eyes. “prim left us a cheese.” i pull it
  out.
  his expression brightens at the treat. “thank you, prim.
  we’ll have a real feast.” suddenly he falls into a capitol accent
  as he mimics effie trinket, the maniacally upbeat woman who
  arrives once a year to read out the names at the leaping. “i al-
  most forgot! happy hunger games!” he plucks a few black-
  berries from the bushes around us. “and may the odds —” he
  tosses a berry in a high arc toward me.
  8
  i catch it in my mouth and break the delicate skin with my
  teeth. the sweet tartness explodes across my tongue. “— be
  ever in your favor!” i finish with equal verve. we have to joke
  about it because the alternative is to be scared out of your
  wits. besides, the capitol accent is so affected, almost anything
  sounds funny in it.
  i watch as gale pulls out his knife and slices the bread. he
  could be my brother. straight black hair, olive skin, we even
  have the same gray eyes. but we’re not related, at least not
  closely. most of the families who work the mines resemble
  one another this way.
  that’s why my mother and prim, with their light hair and
  blue eyes, always look out of place. they are. my mother’s
  parents were part of the small merchant class that caters to
  officials, peacekeepers, and the occasional seam customer.
  they ran an apothecary shop in the nicer part of district 12.
  since almost no one can afford doctors, apothecaries are our
  healers. my father got to know my mother because on his
  hunts he would sometimes collect medicinal herbs and sell
  them to her shop to be brewed into remedies. she must have
  really loved him to leave her home for the seam. i try to re-
  member that when all i can see is the woman who sat by,
  blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and
  bones. i try to forgive her for my father’s sake. but to be hon-
  est, i’m not the forgiving type.
  gale spreads the bread slices with the soft goat cheese,
  carefully placing a basil leaf on each while i strip the bushes of
  their berries. we settle back in a nook in the rocks. from this
  9
  place, we are invisible but have a clear view of the valley,
  which is teeming with summer life, greens to gather, roots to
  dig, fish iridescent in the sunlight. the day is glorious, with a
  blue sky and soft breeze. the food’s wonderful, with the
  cheese seeping into the warm bread and the berries bursting
  in our mouths. everything would be perfect if this really was a
  holiday, if all the day off meant was roaming the mountains
  with gale, hunting for tonight’s supper. but instead we have to
  be standing in the square at two o’clock waiting for the names
  to be called out.
  “we could do it, you know,” gale says quietly.
  “what?”