So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my

features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever

read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only

polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than

trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make

most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I

avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages,

or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat my

words and then where would we be?

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.

“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 arrow

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 almost

forgot! Happy Hunger Games!” He plucks a few blackberries

from the bushes around us. “And may the odds —” He

tosses a berry in a high arc toward me.

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 

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 remember

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 honest,

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

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?” I ask.

“Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we

could make it,” says Gale.

I don’t know how to respond. The idea is so preposterous.

“If we didn’t have so many kids,” he adds quickly.

They’re not our kids, of course. But they might as well be.

Gale’s two little brothers and a sister. Prim. And you may as

well throw in our mothers, too, because how would they live

without us? Who would fill those mouths that are always asking

for more? With both of us hunting daily, there are still

nights when game has to be swapped for lard or shoelaces or

wool, still nights when we go to bed with our stomachs growling.

“I never want to have kids,” I say.

“I might. If I didn’t live here,” says Gale.

“But you do,” I say, irritated.