The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, #1)

by Suzanne Collins

“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.

“I almost forgot! Happy Hunger Games!”

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.

Tonight. After the reaping, everyone is supposed to celebrate. And a lot of people do, out of relief that their children have been spared for another year. But at least two families will pull their shutters, lock their doors, and try to figure out how they will survive the painful weeks to come.

“You look beautiful,” says Prim in a hushed voice.

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch – this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy.

To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.

“But there are still thousands of slips,” I wish I could whisper to him.

It’s Primrose Everdeen.

There must have been some mistake. This can’t be happening. Prim was one slip of paper in thousands! Her chances of being chosen were so remote that I’d not even bothered to worry about her. Hadn’t I done everything?

One slip in thousands. The odds had been entirely in her favour. But it hadn’t mattered.

“I volunteer!” I gasp. “I volunteer as tribute!”

Prim is screaming hysterically behind me. She’s wrapped her skinny arms around me like a vice. “No, Katniss! No! You can’t go!”

Starvation is never the cause of death officially. It’s always the flu, or exposure, or pneumonia. But that fools no one.

It didn’t occur to me until the next morning that the boy might have burned the bread on purpose. Might have dropped the loaves into the flames, knowing it meant being punished, and then delivered them to me. But I dismissed this. It must have been an accident. Why would he have done it? He didn’t even know me. Still, just throwing me the bread was an enormous kindness that would have surely resulted in a beating if discovered. I couldn’t explain his actions.

Oh, well, I think. There will be twenty-four of us. Odds are someone else will kill him before I do. Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late.

I can’t win. Prim must know that in her heart. The competition will be far beyond my abilities. Kids from wealthier districts, where winning is a huge honour, who’ve been trained their whole lives for this. Boys who are two to three times my size. Girls who know twenty different ways to kill you with a knife. Oh, there’ll be people like me, too. People to weed out before the real fun begins.

He sees me staring at him and shrugs. “Who knows?” he says. “One of them may be rich.”

All of the pieces are still fitting together, but I sense he has a plan forming. He hasn’t accepted his death. He is already fighting hard to stay alive. Which also means that kind Peeta Mellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me.

Don’t be so stupid. Peeta is planning how to kill you, I remind myself. He is luring you in to make you easy prey. The more likeable he is, the more deadly he is.

But because two can play at this game, I stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. Right on his bruise.

Good. I’m starving.

Presenting ourselves not as adversaries but as friends has distinguished us as much as the fiery costumes.

To tell or not to tell?

I wonder if she’ll enjoy watching me die.

“What about you? I’ve seen you in the market. You can lift fifty-kilo bags of flour,” I snap at him. “Tell him that. That’s not nothing.” “Yes, and I’m sure the arena will be full of bags of flour for me to chuck at people. It’s not like being able to use a weapon. You know it isn’t,” he shoots back.

She says maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner. Then I realized, she didn’t mean me, she meant you!” bursts out Peeta.

Poor guy

“She said, ‘She’s a survivor, that one.’ She is,” says Peeta.

“She has no idea. The effect she can have.”

Suddenly I am furious, that with my life on the line, they don’t even have the decency to pay attention to me. That I’m being upstaged by a dead pig.

My heart starts to pound, I can feel my face burning. Without thinking, I pull an arrow from my quiver and send it straight at the Gamemakers’ table. I hear shouts of alarm as people stumble back. The arrow skewers the apple in the pig’s mouth and pins it to the wall behind it. Everyone stares at me in disbelief. “Thank you for your consideration,” I say. Then I give a slight bow and walk straight towards the exit without being dismissed.

But instead I stalked out of the place in the most disrespectful manner possible.

say. “Without being dismissed?” gasps Effie. “I dismissed myself,” I said. I remember how I promised Prim that I really would try to win and I feel like a tonne of coal has dropped on me.

“More likely they’ll make your life hell in the arena.”

dig my fingernails into my palms as my face comes up, expecting the worst. Then they’re flashing the number eleven on the screen. Eleven!

“Peeta has asked to be coached separately.”

Betrayal. That’s the first thing I feel, which is ludicrous. For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first. Between Peeta and me.

“Just remember, Katniss, you want the audience to like you.”

“I give up, sweetheart. Just answer the questions and try not to let the audience see how openly you despise them.”

I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.

“Well, there is this one girl. I’ve had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was alive until the reaping.”

omg its katniss eeee

Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out, “Because … because … she came here with me.”

Omg hes such cutie i love him omg

“He made you look desirable! And let’s face it, you can use all the help you can get in that department. You were about as romantic as dirt until he said he wanted you. Now they all do. You’re all they’re talking about. The star-crossed lovers from District Twelve!” says Haymitch.

Wait so he lied ughhhhh so annoying

He has done me a favour and I have answered with an injury. Will I never stop owing him?

Peeta actually is charming and then utterly winning as the boy in love. And there I am, blushing and confused, made beautiful by Cinna’s hands, desirable by Peeta’s confession, tragic by circumstance, and by all accounts, unforgettable.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!”

I’m relieved Peeta’s alive. I tell myself again that if I get killed, his winning will benefit my mother and Prim the most. This is what I tell myself to explain the conflicting emotions that arise when I think of Peeta. The gratitude that he gave me an edge by professing his love for me in the interview. The anger at his superiority on the roof. The dread that we may come face to face at any moment in this arena.

The tip of my nose is icy cold.

Thats so real

“We’re wasting time! I’ll go finish her and let’s move on!” I almost fall out of the tree. The voice belongs to Peeta.