The Hunger Games

practically mush and mash some of Rue’s roots. Fortunately, they’ve both been roasted already so they mostly need to be heated up. Already, between the sunlight and the rocks, the water’s warm. I put in the meat and roots, swap in fresh rocks, and go find something green to spice it up a little. Before long, I discover a tuft of chives growing at the base of some rocks. Perfect. I chop them very fine and add them to the pot, switch out the rocks again, put on the lid, and let the whole thing stew.
    I’ve seen very few signs of game around, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving Peeta alone while I hunt, so I rig half a dozen snares and hope I get lucky. I wonder about the other tributes, how they’re managing now that their main source of food has been blown up. At least three of them, Cato, Clove, and Foxface, had been relying on it. Probably not Thresh though. I’ve got a feeling he must share some of Rue’s knowledge on how to feed yourself from the earth. Are they fighting each other? Looking for us? Maybe one of them has located us and is just waiting for the right moment to attack. The idea sends me back to the cave.
    Peeta’s stretched out on top of the sleeping bag in the shade of the rocks. Although he brightens a bit when I come in, it’s clear he feels miserable. I put cool cloths on his head, but they warm up almost as soon as they touch his skin.
    “Do you want anything?” I ask.
    “No,” he says. “Thank you. Wait, yes. Tell me a story.”
    “A story? What about?” I say. I’m not much for storytelling. It’s kind of like singing. But once in a while, Prim wheedles one out of me.
    “Something happy. Tell me about the happiest day you can remember,” says Peeta.
    Something between a sigh and a huff of exasperation leaves my mouth. A happy story? This will require a lot more effort than the soup. I rack my brains for good memories. Most of them involve Gale and me out hunting and somehow I don’t think these will play well with either Peeta or the audience. That leaves Prim.
    “Did I ever tell you about how I got Prim’s goat?” I ask. Peeta shakes his head, and looks at me expectantly. So I begin. But carefully. Because my words are going out all over Panem. And while people have no doubt put two and two together that I hunt illegally, I don’t want to hurt Gale or Greasy Sae or the butcher or even the Peacekeepers back home who are my customers by publicly announcing they’re breaking the law, too.
    Here’s the real story of how I got the money for Prim’s goat, Lady. It was a Friday evening, the day before Prim’s tenth birthday in late May. As soon as school ended, Gale and I hit the woods, because I wanted to get enough to trade for a present for Prim. Maybe some new cloth for a dress or a hairbrush. Our snares had done well enough and the woods were flush with greens, but this was really no more than our average Friday-night haul. I was disappointed as we headed back, even though Gale said we’d be sure to do better tomorrow. We were resting a moment by a stream when we saw him. A young buck, probably a yearling by his size. His antlers were just growing in, still small and coated in velvet. Poised to run but unsure of us, unfamiliar with humans. Beautiful.
    Less beautiful perhaps when the two arrows caught him, one in the neck, the other in the chest. Gale and I had shot at the same time. The buck tried to run but stumbled, and Gale’s knife slit his throat before he knew what had happened. Momentarily, I’d felt a pang at killing something so fresh and innocent. And then my stomach rumbled at the thought of all that fresh and innocent meat.
    A deer! Gale and I have only brought down three in all. The first one, a doe that had injured her leg somehow, almost didn’t count. But we knew from that experience not to go dragging the carcass into the Hob. It had caused chaos with people bidding on parts and actually trying to hack off pieces themselves. Greasy Sae had intervened and sent us with our deer to the butcher, but not before it’d been badly damaged, hunks of meat taken, the hide riddled with holes. Although everybody paid up fairly, it had lowered the value of the kill.
    This time, we waited until dark fell and slipped under a hole in the fence close to the butcher. Even though we were known hunters, it wouldn’t have been good to go carrying a 150-pound deer through the streets of District 12 in daylight like we were rubbing it in the officials’