The Hunger Games

Sometimes there is a feast and sometimes there’s nothing but a loaf of stale bread for the tributes to compete for. I wouldn’t go in for the food, but this could be an ideal time to take out a few competitors.
    Claudius Templesmith’s voice booms down from overhead, congratulating the six of us who remain. But he is not inviting us to a feast. He’s saying something very confusing. There’s been a rule change in the Games. A rule change! That in itself is mind bending since we don’t really have any rules to speak of except don’t step off your circle for sixty seconds and the unspoken rule about not eating one another. Under the new rule, both tributes from the same district will be declared winners if they are the last two alive. Claudius pauses, as if he knows we’re not getting it, and repeats the change again.
    The news sinks in. Two tributes can win this year. If they’re from the same district. Both can live. Both of us can live.
    Before I can stop myself, I call out Peeta’s name.



I clap my hands over my mouth, but the sound has already escaped. The sky goes black and I hear a chorus of frogs begin to sing. Stupid! I tell myself. What a stupid thing to do! I wait, frozen, for the woods to come alive with assailants. Then I remember there’s almost no one left.
    Peeta, who’s been wounded, is now my ally. Whatever doubts I’ve had about him dissipate because if either of us took the other’s life now we’d be pariahs when we returned to District 12. In fact, I know if I was watching I’d loathe any tribute who didn’t immediately ally with their district partner. Besides, it just makes sense to protect each other. And in my case — being one of the star-crossed lovers from District 12 — it’s an absolute requirement if I want any more help from sympathetic sponsors.
    The star-crossed lovers . . . Peeta must have been playing that angle all along. Why else would the Gamemakers have made this unprecedented change in the rules? For two tributes to have a shot at winning, our “romance” must be so popular with the audience that condemning it would jeopardize the success of the Games. No thanks to me. All I’ve done is managed not to kill Peeta. But whatever he’s done in the arena, he must have the audience convinced it was to keep me alive. Shaking his head to keep me from running to the Cornucopia. Fighting Cato to let me escape. Even hooking up with the Careers must have been a move to protect me. Peeta, it turns out, has never been a danger to me.
    The thought makes me smile. I drop my hands and hold my face up to the moonlight so the cameras can be sure to catch it.
    So, who is there left to be afraid of? Foxface? The boy tribute from her district is dead. She’s operating alone, at night. And her strategy has been to evade, not attack. I don’t really think that, even if she heard my voice, she’d do anything but hope someone else would kill me.
    Then there’s Thresh. All right, he’s a distinct threat. But I haven’t seen him, not once, since the Games began. I think about how Foxface grew alarmed when she heard a sound at the site of the explosion. But she didn’t turn to the woods, she turned to whatever lies across from it. To that area of the arena that drops off into I don’t know what. I feel almost certain that the person she ran from was Thresh and that is his domain. He’d never have heard me from there and, even if he did, I’m up too high for someone his size to reach.
    So that leaves Cato and the girl from District 2, who are now surely celebrating the new rule. They’re the only ones left who benefit from it besides Peeta and myself. Do I run from them now, on the chance they heard me call Peeta’s name? No, I think. Let them come. Let them come with their night-vision glasses and their heavy, branch-breaking bodies. Right into the range of my arrows. But I know they won’t. If they didn’t come in daylight to my fire, they won’t risk what could be another trap at night. When they come, it will be on their own terms, not because I’ve let them know my whereabouts.
    Stay put and get some sleep, Katniss, I instruct myself, although I wish I could start tracking Peeta now. Tomorrow, you’ll find him.
    I do sleep, but in the morning I’m extra-cautious, thinking that while the Careers might hesitate to attack me in a tree, they’re completely capable of setting an ambush for me. I make sure to fully prepare myself for the day — eating a big