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There’s never been anything romantic between Gale and me.
It makes me jealous, but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.
The odds had been entirely in her favour. But it hadn’t mattered.
It means thanks, it means admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love.
Is he addressing the audience or is he so drunk he might actually be taunting the Capitol?
To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed.
This worked very well for a girl, Johanna Mason, from District 7 a few years back. She seemed like such a snivelling, cowardly fool that no one bothered about her until there were only a handful of contestants left. It turned out she could kill viciously.
In school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once called the Rockies. District 12 was in a region known as Appalachia. Even hundreds of years ago, they mined coal here. Which is why our miners have to dig so deep.
Whatever the truth is, I don’t see how it will help me get food on the table.
I hate Effie Trinket’s comment so much I make a point of eating the rest of my meal with my fingers.
A kind Peeta Mellark is far more dangerous to me than an unkind one. Kind people have a way of working their way inside me and rooting there.
It’s hard to hate my prep team. They’re such total idiots. And yet, in an odd way, I know they’re sincerely trying to help me.
Barbarism? That’s ironic coming from a woman helping to prepare us for slaughter. And what’s she basing our success on? Our table manners?
scents, oils and massaging sponges. When you step out on a mat, heaters come on that blow-dry your body. Instead of struggling with the knots in my wet hair, I merely place my hand on a box that sends a current through my scalp, untangling, parting and drying my hair almost instantly. It floats down around my shoulders in a glossy curtain.
This was my FAVOURITE scene when I was like twelve lol
walk around the room eating goose liver and puffy bread until there’s a knock on the door. Effie’s calling me to dinner. Good. I’m starving.
When we get to my door, he leans against the frame, not blocking my entrance exactly, but insisting I pay attention to him. “So, Delly Cartwright. Imagine finding her lookalike here.”
He’s so sassy I love him so much
I can feel her eyes staring at me, piercing through walls and doors and bedding. I wonder if she’ll enjoy watching me die.
What on earth does he mean? People help me? When we were dying of starvation, no one helped me! No one except Peeta.
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.
It’s OK. My family is safe. And if they are safe, no real harm has been done.
They’re already taking my future! They can’t have the things that mattered to me in the past!”
I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.
“I don’t think it’s going to work out. Winning … won’t help in my case,” says Peeta. “Why ever not?” says Caesar, mystified. Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out, “Because … because … she came here with me.”
“I don’t know how to say it exactly. Only … I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?” he asks. I shake my head. How could he die as anyone but himself? “I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not.”
Then I know. There’s only one good reason Haymitch could be withholding water from me. Because he knows I’ve almost found it.
I have to break several of what used to be her fingers with a stone to free the bow. The sheath of arrows is pinned under her back. I try to roll over her body by pulling on one arm, but the flesh disintegrates in my hands and I fall back on the ground.
Someone’s screaming, a long high-pitched scream that never breaks for breath. I have a vague idea it might be me.
“If he did, it was all probably just part of his act. You know, to make people think he’s in love with me.” “Oh,” says Rue thoughtfully. “I didn’t think that was an act.”
“And the mockingjays spread it around the orchard. That’s how everyone knows to knock off,” she continues. “They can be dangerous, though, if you get too near their nests. But you can’t blame them for that.”
To hate the boy from District 1, who also appears so vulnerable in death, seems inadequate. It’s the Capitol I hate, for doing this to all of us.
Then I remember Peeta’s words on the roof. “Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to … to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games.” And for the first time, I understand what he means.
“You here to finish me off, sweetheart?”
I still sorely miss having the use of my left ear. I don’t know what the explosion did, but it damaged something deep and irreparable.
“Forget it, District Twelve. We’re going to kill you.
Clove sees Katniss not as a person, but as where she’s from, which she has been brought up to hate. This generalisation of people as being simply from a place that’s different is how right wing dictatorships thrive. Interesting little detail.
“He let you go because he didn’t want to owe you anything?” asks Peeta in disbelief. “Yes. I don’t expect you to understand it. You’ve always had enough. But if you’d lived in the Seam, I wouldn’t have to explain,”
“I think we would like Thresh. I think he’d be our friend back in District Twelve,” I say. “Then let’s hope Cato kills him, so we don’t have to,” says Peeta grimly.
And while I was talking, the idea of actually losing Peeta hit me again and I realized how much I don’t want him to die. And it’s not about the sponsors. And it’s not about what will happen back home. And it’s not just that I don’t want to be alone. It’s him. I do not want to lose the boy with the bread.
This is the first kiss where I actually feel a stirring inside my chest. Warm and curious. This is the first kiss that makes me want another.
SCREAMING
No one has held me like this in such a long time. Since my father died and I stopped trusting my mother, no one else’s arms have made me feel this safe.
It would explain another thing, too. Why Peeta took a beating to give me the bread on that awful hollow day. So, if those details are true … could it all be true?
DUHHHH
Haymitch and I don’t get along well in person, but maybe Peeta is right about us being alike, because he seems able to communicate with me by the timing of his gifts.
No more fear of hunger. A new kind of freedom. But then … what? What would my life be like on a daily basis? Most of it has been consumed with the acquisition of food. Take that away and I’m not really sure who I am, what my identity is.
I know I’ll never marry, never risk bringing a child into the world. Because if there’s one thing being a victor doesn’t guarantee, it’s your children’s safety. My kids’ names would go right into the reaping balls with everyone else’s. And I swear I’ll never let that happen.
It dawns on me that I haven’t been very nice to Peeta today. Nagging him about how loud he was, screaming at him over disappearing. The playful romance we had sustained in the cave has disappeared out in the open, under the hot sun, with the threat of Cato looming over us. Haymitch has probably just about had it with me. And as for the audience… I reach up and give him a kiss.
I’m held here both by the hovercraft walls and the same force that holds the loved ones of the dying. How often I’ve seen them, ringed around our kitchen table and I thought, Why don’t they leave? Why do they stay to watch? And now I know. It’s because you have no choice.
they’re taking Peeta but leaving me behind the door. I start hurling myself against the glass, shrieking,
I run for them and surprise even myself when I launch into Haymitch’s arms first. When he whispers in my ear, “Nice job, sweetheart,” it doesn’t sound sarcastic.
I look, very simply, like a girl. A young one. Fourteen at the most. Innocent. Harmless.
He places the first around Peeta’s brow with a smile. He’s still smiling when he settles the second on my head, but his eyes, just centimetres from mine, are as unforgiving as a snake’s. That’s when I know that even though both of us would have eaten the berries, I am to blame
