The Hunger Games

irreparable. Never mind. If I get home, I’ll be so stinking rich, I’ll be able to pay someone to do my hearing.
    The woods always look different at night. Even with the glasses, everything has an unfamiliar slant to it. As if the daytime trees and flowers and stones had gone to bed and sent slightly more ominous versions of themselves to take their places. I don’t try anything tricky, like taking a new route. I make my way back up the stream and follow the same path back to Rue’s hiding place near the lake. Along the way, I see no sign of another tribute, not a puff of breath, not a quiver of a branch. Either I’m the first to arrive or the others positioned themselves last night. There’s still more than an hour, maybe two, when I wriggle into the underbrush and wait for the blood to begin to flow.
    I chew a few mint leaves, my stomach isn’t up for much more. Thank goodness, I have Peeta’s jacket as well as my own. If not, I’d be forced to move around to stay warm. The sky turns a misty morning gray and still there’s no sign of the other tributes. It’s not surprising really. Everyone has distinguished themselves either by strength or deadliness or cunning. Do they suppose, I wonder, that I have Peeta with me? I doubt Foxface and Thresh even know he was wounded. All the better if they think he’s covering me when I go in for the backpack.
    But where is it? The arena has lightened enough for me to remove my glasses. I can hear the morning birds singing. Isn’t it time? For a second, I’m panicked that I’m at the wrong location. But no, I’m certain I remember Claudius Templesmith specifying the Cornucopia. And there it is. And here I am. So where’s my feast?
    Just as the first ray of sun glints off the gold Cornucopia, there’s a disturbance on the plain. The ground before the mouth of the horn splits in two and a round table with a snowy white cloth rises into the arena. On the table sit four backpacks, two large black ones with the numbers 2 and 11 , a medium-size green one with the number 5 , and a tiny orange one — really I could carry it around my wrist — that must be marked with a 12.
    The table has just clicked into place when a figure darts out of the Cornucopia, snags the green backpack, and speeds off. Foxface! Leave it to her to come up with such a clever and risky idea! The rest of us are still poised around the plain, sizing up the situation, and she’s got hers. She’s got us trapped, too, because no one wants to chase her down, not while their own pack sits so vulnerable on the table. Foxface must have purposefully left the other packs alone, knowing that to steal one without her number would definitely bring on a pursuer. That should have been my strategy! By the time I’ve worked through the emotions of surprise, admiration, anger, jealousy, and frustration, I’m watching that reddish mane of hair disappear into the trees well out of shooting range. Huh. I’m always dreading the others, but maybe Foxface is the real opponent here.
    She’s cost me time, too, because by now it’s clear that I must get to the table next. Anyone who beats me to it will easily scoop up my pack and be gone. Without hesitation, I sprint for the table. I can sense the emergence of danger before I see it. Fortunately, the first knife comes whizzing in on my right side so I can hear it and I’m able to deflect it with my bow. I turn, drawing back the bowstring and send an arrow straight at Clove’s heart. She turns just enough to avoid a fatal hit, but the point punctures her upper left arm. Unfortunately, she throws with her right, but it’s enough to slow her down a few moments, having to pull the arrow from her arm, take in the severity of the wound. I keep moving, positioning the next arrow automatically, as only someone who has hunted for years can do.
    I’m at the table now, my fingers closing over the tiny orange backpack. My hand slips between the straps and I yank it up on my arm, it’s really too small to fit on any other part of my anatomy, and I’m turning to fire again when the second knife catches me in the forehead. It slices above my right eyebrow, opening a gash that sends a gush running down my face, blinding my eye, filling my mouth with the sharp, metallic taste of my own blood. I stagger backward but still manage to send my readied arrow in the general direction of my assailant. I know as it leaves my hands it will miss. And then Clove slams into me, knocking me