Catching Fire

that everyone already knows has my name on it. Then she catches Haymitch’s name. He barely has time to shoot me an unhappy look before Peeta has volunteered to take his place.
    We are immediately marched into the Justice Building to find Head Peacekeeper Thread waiting for us. “New procedure,” he says with a smile. We’re ushered out the back door, into a car, and taken to the train station. There are no cameras on the platform, no crowd to send us on our way. Haymitch and Effie appear, escorted by guards. Peacekeepers hurry us all onto the train and slam the door. The wheels begin to turn.
    And I’m left staring out the window, watching District 12 disappear, with all my good-byes still hanging on my lips.

I remain at the window long after the woods have swallowed up the last glimpse of my home. This time I don’t have even the slightest hope of return. Before my first Games, I promised Prim I would do everything I could to win, and now I’ve sworn to myself to do all I can to keep Peeta alive. I will never reverse this journey again.
    I’d actually figured out what I wanted my last words to my loved ones to be. How best to close and lock the doors and leave them sad but safely behind. And now the Capitol has stolen that as well.
    “We’ll write letters, Katniss,” says Peeta from behind me. “It will be better, anyway. Give them a piece of us to hold on to. Haymitch will deliver them for us if . . . they need to be delivered.”
    I nod and go straight to my room. I sit on the bed, knowing I will never write those letters. They will be like the speech I tried to write to honor Rue and Thresh in District 11. Things seemed clear in my head and even when I talked before the crowd, but the words never came out of the pen right. Besides, they were meant to go with embraces and kisses and a stroke of Prim’s hair, a caress of Gale’s face, a squeeze of Madge’s hand. They cannot be delivered with a wooden box containing my cold, stiff body.
    Too heartsick to cry, all I want is to curl up on the bed and sleep until we arrive in the Capitol tomorrow morning. But I have a mission. No, it’s more than a mission. It’s my dying wish. Keep Peeta alive . And as unlikely as it seems that I can achieve it in the face of the Capitol’s anger, it’s important that I be at the top of my game. This won’t happen if I’m mourning for everyone I love back home. Let them go, I tell myself. Say good-bye and forget them. I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cages inside me, locking the doors against their return.
    By the time Effie knocks on my door to call me to dinner, I’m empty. But the lightness isn’t entirely unwelcome.
    The meal’s subdued. So subdued, in fact, that there are long periods of silence relieved only by the removal of old dishes and presentation of new ones. A cold soup of pureed vegetables. Fish cakes with creamy lime paste. Those little birds filled with orange sauce, with wild rice and watercress. Chocolate custard dotted with cherries.
    Peeta and Effie make occasional attempts at conversation that quickly die out.
    “I love your new hair, Effie,” Peeta says.
    “Thank you. I had it especially done to match Katniss’s pin. I was thinking we might get you a golden ankle band and maybe find Haymitch a gold bracelet or something so we could all look like a team,” says Effie.
    Evidently, Effie doesn’t know that my mockingjay pin is now a symbol used by the rebels. At least in District 8. In the Capitol, the mockingjay is still a fun reminder of an especially exciting Hunger Games. What else could it be? Real rebels don’t put a secret symbol on something as durable as jewelry. They put it on a wafer of bread that can be eaten in a second if necessary.
    “I think that’s a great idea,” says Peeta. “How about it, Haymitch?”
    “Yeah, whatever,” says Haymitch. He’s not drinking but I can tell he’d like to be. Effie had them take her own wine away when she saw the effort he was making, but he’s in a miserable state. If he were the tribute, he would have owed Peeta nothing and could be as drunk as he liked. Now it’s going to take all he’s got to keep Peeta alive in an arena full of his old friends, and he’ll probably fail.
    “Maybe we could get you a wig, too,” I say in an attempt at lightness. He just shoots me a look that says to leave him alone, and we all eat our custard in silence.
    “Shall we watch the