第29章
i ask.
“say if you had a secret skill you might not want the other
to know about,” says haymitch.
i exchange a look with peeta. “i don’t have any secret
skills,” he says. “and i already know what yours is, right? i
mean, i’ve eaten enough of your squirrels.”
i never thought about peeta eating the squirrels i shot.
somehow i always pictured the baker quietly going off and
frying them up for himself. not out of greed. but because town
families usually eat expensive butcher meat. beef and chicken
and horse.
“you can coach us together,” i tell haymitch. peeta nods.
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“all right, so give me some idea of what you can do,” says
haymitch.
“i can’t do anything,” says peeta. “unless you count baking
bread.”
“sorry, i don’t. katniss. i already know you’re handy with a
knife,” says haymitch.
“not really. but i can hunt,” i say. “with a bow and arrow.”
“and you’re good?” asks haymitch.
i have to think about it. i’ve been putting food on the table
for four years. that’s no small task. i’m not as good as my fa-
ther was, but he’d had more practice. i’ve better aim than
gale, but i’ve had more practice. he’s a genius with traps and
snares. “i’m all right,” i say.
“she’s excellent,” says peeta. “my father buys her squirrels.
he always comments on how the arrows never pierce the
body. she hits every one in the eye. it’s the same with the rab-
bits she sells the butcher. she can even bring down deer.”
this assessment of my skills from peeta takes me totally by
surprise. first, that he ever noticed. second, that he’s talking
me up. “what are you doing?” i ask him suspiciously.
“what are you doing? if he’s going to help you, he has to
know what you’re capable of. don’t underrate yourself,” says
peeta.
i don’t know why, but this rubs me the wrong way. “what
about you? i’ve seen you in the market. you can lift hundred-
pound bags of flour,” i snap at him. “tell him that. that’s not
nothing.”
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“yes, and i’m sure the arena will be full of bags of flour for
me to chuck at people. it’s not like being able to use a weapon.
you know it isn’t,” he shoots back.
“he can wrestle,” i tell haymitch. “he came in second in our
school competition last year, only after his brother.”
“what use is that? how many times have you seen someone
wrestle someone to death?” says peeta in disgust.
“there’s always hand-to-hand combat. all you need is to
come up with a knife, and you’ll at least stand a chance. if i get
jumped, i’m dead!” i can hear my voice rising in anger.
“but you won’t! you’ll be living up in some tree eating raw
squirrels and picking off people with arrows. you know what
my mother said to me when she came to say good-bye, as if to
cheer me up, she says maybe district twelve will finally have
a winner. then i realized, she didn’t mean me, she meant
you!” bursts out peeta.
“oh, she meant you,” i say with a wave of dismissal.
“she said, ‘she’s a survivor, that one.’ she is,” says peeta.
that pulls me up short. did his mother really say that about
me? did she rate me over her son? i see the pain in peeta’s
eyes and know he isn’t lying.
suddenly i’m behind the bakery and i can feel the chill of
the rain running down my back, the hollowness in my belly. i
sound eleven years old when i speak. “but only because
someone helped me.”
peeta’s eyes flicker down to the roll in my hands, and i
know he remembers that day, too. but he just shrugs. “people
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will help you in the arena. they’ll be tripping over each other
to sponsor you.”
“no more than you,” i say.
peeta rolls his eyes at haymitch. “she has no idea. the ef-
fect she can have.” he runs his fingernail along the wood grain
in the table, refusing to look at me.
what on earth does he mean?