The Hunger Games (20 page)

I’ve left on Peeta’s undershorts because they’re not in bad shape and I don’t want to pull them over the swollen thigh and, all right, maybe the idea of him being naked makes me uncomfortable. That’s another thing about my mother and Prim. Nakedness has no effect on them, gives them no cause for embarrassment. Ironically, at this point in the Games, my little sister would be of far more use to Peeta than I am. I scoot my square of plastic under him so I can wash down the rest of him. With each bottle I pour
over him, the worse the wound looks. The rest of his lower body has fared pretty well, just one tracker jacker sting and a few small burns that I treat quickly. But the gash on his leg…what on earth can I do for that?

“Why don’t we give it some air and then…” I trail off.

“And then you’ll patch it up?” says Peeta. He looks almost sorry for me, as if he knows how lost I am.

“That’s right,” I say. “In the meantime, you eat these.” I put a few dried pear halves in his hand and go back in the stream to wash the rest of his clothes. When they’re flattened out and drying, I examine the contents of the first-aid kit. It’s pretty basic stuff. Bandages, fever pills, medicine to calm stomachs. Nothing of the caliber I’ll need to treat Peeta.

“We’re going to have to experiment some,” I admit. I know the tracker jacker leaves draw out infection, so I start with those. Within minutes of pressing the handful of chewed-up green stuff into the wound, pus begins running down the side of his leg. I tell myself this is a good thing and bite the inside of my cheek hard because my breakfast is threatening to make a reappearance.

“Katniss?” Peeta says. I meet his eyes, knowing my face must be some shade of green. He mouths the words. “How about that kiss?”

I burst out laughing because the whole thing is so revolting I can’t stand it.

“Something wrong?” he asks a little too innocently.

“I…I’m no good at this. I’m not my mother. I’ve no idea what I’m doing and I hate pus,” I say. “Euh!” I allow
myself to let out a groan as I rinse away the first round of leaves and apply the second. “Euuuh!”

“How do you hunt?” he asks.

“Trust me. Killing things is much easier than this,” I said. “Although for all I know, I am killing you.”

“Can you speed it up a little?” he asks.

“No. Shut up and eat your pears,” I say.

After three applications and what seems like a bucket of pus, the wound does look better. Now that the swelling has gone down, I can see how deep Cato’s sword cut. Right down to the bone.

“What next, Dr. Everdeen?” he asks.

“Maybe I’ll put some of the burn ointment on it. I think it helps with infection anyway. And wrap it up?” I say. I do and the whole thing seems a lot more manageable, covered in clean white cotton. Although, against the sterile bandage, the hem of his undershorts looks filthy and teeming with contagion. I pull out Rue’s backpack. “Here, cover yourself with this and I’ll wash your shorts.”

“Oh, I don’t care if you see me,” says Peeta.

“You’re just like the rest of my family,” I say. “I care, all right?” I turn my back and look at the stream until the undershorts splash into the current. He must be feeling a bit better if he can throw.

“You know, you’re kind of squeamish for such a lethal person,” says Peeta as I beat the shorts clean between two rocks. “I wish I’d let you give Haymitch a shower after all.”

I wrinkle my nose at the memory. “What’s he sent you so far?”

“Not a thing,” says Peeta. Then there’s a pause as it hits him. “Why, did you get something?”

“Burn medicine,” I say almost sheepishly. “Oh, and some bread.”

“I always knew you were his favorite,” says Peeta.

“Please, he can’t stand being in the same room with me,” I say.

“Because you’re just alike,” mutters Peeta. I ignore it though because this really isn’t the time for me to be insulting Haymitch, which is my first impulse.

I let Peeta doze off while his clothes dry out, but by late afternoon, I don’t dare wait any longer. I gently shake his shoulder. “Peeta, we’ve got to go now.”

“Go?” He seems confused. “Go where?”

“Away from here. Downstream maybe. Somewhere we can hide you until you’re stronger,” I say. I help him dress, leaving his feet bare so we can walk in the water, and pull him upright. His face drains of color the moment he puts weight on his leg. “Come on. You can do this.”

But he can’t. Not for long anyway. We make it about fifty yards downstream, with him propped up by my shoulder, and I can tell he’s going to black out. I sit him on the bank, push his head between his knees, and pat his back awkwardly as I survey the area. Of course, I’d love to get him up in a tree, but that’s not going to happen. It could be worse though. Some of the rocks form small cavelike structures. I set my sights on one about twenty yards above the stream. When Peeta’s able to stand, I half-guide, half-carry him up to the cave. Really, I’d like to look around for a
better place, but this one will have to do because my ally is shot. Paper white, panting, and, even though it’s only just cooling off, he’s shivering.

I cover the floor of the cave with a layer of pine needles, unroll my sleeping bag, and tuck him into it. I get a couple of pills and some water into him when he’s not noticing, but he refuses to eat even the fruit. Then he just lies there, his eyes trained on my face as I build a sort of blind out of vines to conceal the mouth of the cave. The result is unsatisfactory. An animal might not question it, but a human would see hands had manufactured it quickly enough. I tear it down in frustration.

“Katniss,” he says. I go over to him and brush the hair back from his eyes. “Thanks for finding me.”

“You would have found me if you could,” I say. His forehead’s burning up. Like the medicine’s having no effect at all. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m scared he’s going to die.

“Yes. Look, if I don’t make it back—” he begins.

“Don’t talk like that. I didn’t drain all that pus for nothing,” I say.

“I know. But just in case I don’t—” he tries to continue.

“No, Peeta, I don’t even want to discuss it,” I say, placing my fingers on his lips to quiet him.

“But I—” he insists.

Impulsively, I lean forward and kiss him, stopping his words. This is probably overdue anyway since he’s right, we are supposed to be madly in love. It’s the first time I’ve ever kissed a boy, which should make some sort of impression I
guess, but all I can register is how unnaturally hot his lips are from the fever. I break away and pull the edge of the sleeping bag up around him. “You’re not going to die. I forbid it. All right?”

“All right,” he whispers.

I step out in the cool evening air just as the parachute floats down from the sky. My fingers quickly undo the tie, hoping for some real medicine to treat Peeta’s leg. Instead I find a pot of hot broth.

Haymitch couldn’t be sending me a clearer message. One kiss equals one pot of broth. I can almost hear his snarl. “You’re supposed to be in love, sweetheart. The boy’s dying. Give me something I can work with!”

And he’s right. If I want to keep Peeta alive, I’ve got to give the audience something more to care about. Star-crossed lovers desperate to get home together. Two hearts beating as one. Romance.

Never having been in love, this is going to be a real trick. I think of my parents. The way my father never failed to bring her gifts from the woods. The way my mother’s face would light up at the sound of his boots at the door. The way she almost stopped living when he died.

“Peeta!” I say, trying for the special tone that my mother used only with my father. He’s dozed off again, but I kiss him awake, which seems to startle him. Then he smiles as if he’d be happy to lie there gazing at me forever. He’s great at this stuff.

I hold up the pot. “Peeta, look what Haymitch has sent you.”

Getting the broth into Peeta takes an hour of coaxing, begging, threatening, and yes, kissing, but finally, sip by sip, he empties the pot. I let him drift off to sleep then and attend to my own needs, wolfing down a supper of groosling and roots while I watch the daily report in the sky. No new casualties. Still, Peeta and I have given the audience a fairly interesting day. Hopefully, the Gamemakers will allow us a peaceful night.

I automatically look around for a good tree to nest in before I realize that’s over. At least for a while. I can’t very well leave Peeta unguarded on the ground. I left the scene of his last hiding place on the bank of the stream untouched—how could I conceal it?—and we’re a scant fifty yards downstream. I put on my glasses, place my weapons in readiness, and settle down to keep watch.

The temperature drops rapidly and soon I’m chilled to the bone. Eventually, I give in and slide into the sleeping bag with Peeta. It’s toasty warm and I snuggle down gratefully until I realize it’s more than warm, it’s overly hot because the bag is reflecting back his fever. I check his forehead and find it burning and dry. I don’t know what to do. Leave him in the bag and hope the excessive heat breaks the
fever? Take him out and hope the night air cools him off? I end up just dampening a strip of bandage and placing it on his forehead. It seems weak, but I’m afraid to do anything too drastic.

I spend the night half-sitting, half-lying next to Peeta, refreshing the bandage, and trying not to dwell on the fact that by teaming up with him, I’ve made myself far more vulnerable than when I was alone. Tethered to the ground, on guard, with a very sick person to take care of. But I knew he was injured. And still I came after him. I’m just going to have to trust that whatever instinct sent me to find him was a good one.

When the sky turns rosy, I notice the sheen of sweat on Peeta’s lip and discover the fever has broken. He’s not back to normal, but it’s come down a few degrees. Last night, when I was gathering vines, I came upon a bush of Rue’s berries. I strip off the fruit and mash it up in the broth pot with cold water.

Peeta’s struggling to get up when I reach the cave. “I woke up and you were gone,” he says. “I was worried about you.”

I have to laugh as I ease him back down. “You were worried about me? Have you taken a look at yourself lately?”

“I thought Cato and Clove might have found you. They like to hunt at night,” he says, still serious.

“Clove? Which one is that?” I ask.

“The girl from District Two. She’s still alive, right?” he says.

“Yes, there’s just them and us and Thresh and Foxface,” I say. “That’s what I nicknamed the girl from Five. How do you feel?”

“Better than yesterday. This is an enormous improvement over the mud,” he says. “Clean clothes and medicine and a sleeping bag…and you.”

Oh, right, the whole romance thing. I reach out to touch his cheek and he catches my hand and presses it against his lips. I remember my father doing this very thing to my mother and I wonder where Peeta picked it up. Surely not from his father and the witch.

“No more kisses for you until you’ve eaten,” I say.

We get him propped up against the wall and he obediently swallows the spoonfuls of the berry mush I feed him. He refuses the groosling again, though.

“You didn’t sleep,” Peeta says.

“I’m all right,” I say. But the truth is, I’m exhausted.

“Sleep now. I’ll keep watch. I’ll wake you if anything happens,” he says. I hesitate. “Katniss, you can’t stay up forever.”

He’s got a point there. I’ll have to sleep eventually. And probably better to do it now when he seems relatively alert and we have daylight on our side. “All right,” I say. “But just for a few hours. Then you wake me.”

It’s too warm for the sleeping bag now. I smooth it out on the cave floor and lie down, one hand on my loaded bow in case I have to shoot at a moment’s notice. Peeta sits beside me, leaning against the wall, his bad leg stretched out before him, his eyes trained on the world outside. “Go
to sleep,” he says softly. His hand brushes the loose strands of my hair off my forehead. Unlike the staged kisses and caresses so far, this gesture seems natural and comforting. I don’t want him to stop and he doesn’t. He’s still stroking my hair when I fall asleep.

Too long. I sleep too long. I know from the moment I open my eyes that we’re into the afternoon. Peeta’s right beside me, his position unchanged. I sit up, feeling somehow defensive but better rested than I’ve been in days.

“Peeta, you were supposed to wake me after a couple of hours,” I say.

“For what? Nothing’s going on here,” he says. “Besides I like watching you sleep. You don’t scowl. Improves your looks a lot.”

This, of course, brings on a scowl that makes him grin. That’s when I notice how dry his lips are. I test his cheek. Hot as a coal stove. He claims he’s been drinking, but the containers still feel full to me. I give him more fever pills and stand over him while he drinks first one, then a second quart of water. Then I tend to his minor wounds, the burns, the stings, which are showing improvement. I steel myself and unwrap the leg.

My heart drops into my stomach. It’s worse, much worse. There’s no more pus in evidence, but the swelling has increased and the tight shiny skin is inflamed. Then I see the red streaks starting to crawl up his leg. Blood poisoning. Unchecked, it will kill him for sure. My chewed-up leaves and ointment won’t make a dent in it. We’ll need strong anti-infection drugs from the Capitol. I can’t imagine
the cost of such potent medicine. If Haymitch pooled every donation from every sponsor, would he have enough? I doubt it. Gifts go up in price the longer the Games continue. What buys a full meal on day one buys a cracker on day twelve. And the kind of medicine Peeta needs would have been at a premium from the beginning.

“Well, there’s more swelling, but the pus is gone,” I say in an unsteady voice.

“I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss,” says Peeta. “Even if my mother isn’t a healer.”

“You’re just going to have to outlast the others, Peeta. They’ll cure it back at the Capitol when we win,” I say.

“Yes, that’s a good plan,” he says. But I feel this is mostly for my benefit.

“You have to eat. Keep your strength up. I’m going to make you soup,” I say.

“Don’t light a fire,” he says. “It’s not worth it.”

“We’ll see,” I say. As I take the pot down to the stream, I’m struck by how brutally hot it is. I swear the Gamemakers are progressively ratcheting up the temperature in the daytime and sending it plummeting at night. The heat of the sun-baked stones by the stream gives me an idea though. Maybe I won’t need to light a fire.

I settle down on a big flat rock halfway between the stream and the cave. After purifying half a pot of water, I place it in direct sunlight and add several egg-size hot stones to the water. I’m the first to admit I’m not much of a cook. But since soup mainly involves tossing everything in a pot
and waiting, it’s one of my better dishes. I mince groosling until it’s 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’ faces.

The butcher, a short, chunky woman named Rooba, came to the back door when we knocked. You don’t
haggle with Rooba. She gives you one price, which you can take or leave, but it’s a fair price. We took her offer on the deer and she threw in a couple of venison steaks we could pick up after the butchering. Even with the money divided in two, neither Gale nor I had held so much at one time in our lives. We decided to keep it a secret and surprise our families with the meat and money at the end of the next day.

This is where I really got the money for the goat, but I tell Peeta I sold an old silver locket of my mother’s. That can’t hurt anyone. Then I pick up the story in the late afternoon of Prim’s birthday.

Gale and I went to the market on the square so that I could buy dress materials. As I was running my fingers over a length of thick blue cotton cloth, something caught my eye. There’s an old man who keeps a small herd of goats on the other side of the Seam. I don’t know his real name, everyone just calls him the Goat Man. His joints are swollen and twisted in painful angles, and he’s got a hacking cough that proves he spent years in the mines. But he’s lucky. Somewhere along the way he saved up enough for these goats and now has something to do in his old age besides slowly starve to death. He’s filthy and impatient, but the goats are clean and their milk is rich if you can afford it.

One of the goats, a white one with black patches, was lying down in a cart. It was easy to see why. Something, probably a dog, had mauled her shoulder and infection had
set in. It was bad, the Goat Man had to hold her up to milk her. But I thought I knew someone who could fix it.

“Gale,” I whispered. “I want that goat for Prim.”

Owning a nanny goat can change your life in District 12. The animals can live off almost anything, the Meadow’s a perfect feeding place, and they can give four quarts of milk a day. To drink, to make into cheese, to sell. It’s not even against the law.

“She’s hurt pretty bad,” said Gale. “We better take a closer look.”

We went over and bought a cup of milk to share, then stood over the goat as if idly curious.

“Let her be,” said the man.

“Just looking,” said Gale.

“Well, look fast. She goes to the butcher soon. Hardly anyone will buy her milk, and then they only pay half price,” said the man.

“What’s the butcher giving for her?” I asked.

The man shrugged. “Hang around and see.” I turned and saw Rooba coming across the square toward us. “Lucky thing you showed up,” said the Goat Man when she arrived. “Girl’s got her eye on your goat.”

“Not if she’s spoken for,” I said carelessly.

Rooba looked me up and down then frowned at the goat. “She’s not. Look at that shoulder. Bet you half the carcass will be too rotten for even sausage.”

“What?” said the Goat Man. “We had a deal.”