The Hunger Games: Illustrated Edition

by Suzanne Collins

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

“District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety,”

Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you.

So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts.

“Look what I shot.” Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laugh.

But to be honest, I’m not the forgiving type.

“It’s to the Capitol’s advantage to have us divided among ourselves,”

If a girl with a gold pin and no tesserae had not made what I’m sure she thought was a harmless comment.

Anyway, Gale and I agree that if we have to choose between dying of hunger and a bullet in the head, the bullet would be much quicker.

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.

Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors. In seventy-four years, we have had exactly two.

But in District 12, where the word tribute is pretty much synonymous with the word corpse, volunteers are all but extinct.

I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence.

But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim’s place, and now it seems I have become someone precious.

It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.

No, the odds are not in my favor today.

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

The words were ugly and I had no defense.

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.

Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won’t seem sincere if I’m trying to slit his throat.

Perhaps it is a sickness, but it’s one we can’t afford.

But whenever my father sang, all the birds in the area would fall silent and listen.

A kind Peeta Mellark is far more dangerous to me than an unkind one.

Plants are tricky. Many are edible, but one false mouthful and you’re dead.

So I let the train rock me into oblivion.

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.

“With all that alcohol in him, it’s probably not advisable to have him around an open flame,”

Katniss. The girl who was on fire.

Barbarism? That’s ironic coming from a woman helping to prepare us for slaughter.

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

You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.

I wonder if she’ll enjoy watching me die.

I try to animate my face as I recall the event,

Peeta laughs and asks questions right on cue. He’s much better at this than I am.

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.

“Well, try and pretend!” snaps Effie. Then she composes herself and beams at me. “See, like this. I’m smiling at you even though you’re aggravating me.”

I want the protection of this girl, even though she never had mine.

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

Effie can be tiresome and clueless, but she’s not destructive like Haymitch.

In District 12, looking old is something of an achievement since so many people die early.

But I know better.

do you?

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

The more anxious I am to find sleep, the more it eludes me.

I want to see the sky and the moon on the last night that no one will be hunting me.

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,” says Peeta.

“I do. I mean, what else am I allowed to care about at this point?”

Wouldn’t want to lose a tribute.

And I will not end up with the unpleasant task of killing him.

Stupid people are dangerous.