Chapter 1

I didn't ask for any of this to happen to me. I never expected to be someone special. I stopped dreaming of happy endings and where life would take me years ago. Those kinds of thoughts were reserved for my sister. With such a kind, warm heart, she deserved everything she wished for. The only thing I dreamed about was being able to give her that opportunity.

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I live in a small house in Minnesota not too far from the borders with the Dakotas. I am Dakota – as in, an enrolled member of the Sioux Nation.

I don't live on a reservation. My family left the rez when my mother was a teenager. My father grew up in poverty on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota. He was the bravest, strongest, kindest man I ever knew. He left the rez when he turned 18 to join the military so that he could afford an education at NDSU. He worked as a pilot and cartographer, and enjoyed the chance to travel to new and exciting places and learn about different people and their cultures. He met my mother when he was 29 years old at a powwow in Minneapolis, and when she saw him dance and heard him sing, she knew she was a goner. They married about a year later, and a few years after that, they had me.

My sister Prim came 4 years later. I know some kids become jealous when they have to welcome a new baby brother or sister and share the attention, but I couldn't be happier. My sister was my best friend before she could sit up or even rollover. As she grew, my opinion of her only increased. She looked more Indian than me – beautiful dark brown almond eyes and soft, straight hair that she always wore in two braids, perfect smooth skin. Our mother was a halfbreed – her father was a white man with pale skin, pale eyes, and dusty blond hair. My mother didn't look much like him except for her skin that was a couple shades lighter than most of ours.

The thing that made me stand out, that I used to wish away all the time as a young girl, were my big grey eyes. Against my dark hair and skin, they stood out easily, they gave away that I wasn't fully native; I wanted brown eyes like the rest of my family. I expressed this once when I was about 9 years old to my sister while she was braiding my hair before bed, and she spent the next half hour talking about how much she admired my unique eyes. After that, I slowly learned to accept all of myself, just as I am.

And perhaps the biggest part of me was my connection with nature – wakan Tanka – the creator. From a young age, my father would wake me up early on Sundays and we would drive to the lake to pick up my grandpa. My grandpa would begin the day by telling me a story or a joke, or a mix of both, that didn't always make sense to me and that he'd never explain when I asked. He'd quiz me on the different trees and animals and what they could do. Most times, we would go fishing until Grandpa started nodding off in the boat and snoring (loudly). I would always whistle really loud and he would wake with a start, all confused, and my father and I would laugh and laugh as we headed back to the shore. These were some of my favorite childhood memories.

The best day though, was when it was starting to get cold out the year of my 8th birthday. Grandpa said he had a surprise for me, and when I asked what it was he responded with some kind of riddle about a snake and an eagle that I didn't understand. It turns out, they were taking me hunting – hunting! – with a bow and arrow. They said before I could actually hunt, I needed to learn how to handle the weapon and practice on my aim. They taught me the meaning of the activity that our people had thrived on for generations before the wasicu came and tried to kill all of the buffalo. Over the next several weeks I grew more comfortable with the bow and Grandpa and Father decided they'd take me hunting for real. When my father shot down a deer, we carried it back to the truck and off to an old man they called Ripper to "dress" it. It turns out, that meant skinning it, preparing all the meat and making us a big bag of jerky that a salty snack we enjoyed throughout each winter.

My first encounter with racism was when my school friend, Madge, invited me to her birthday party. Madge had beautiful curly blonde hair and eyes as blue as the summer sky. She had invited all the girls from our class to her house to play games in her backyard jungle gym and have cake and ice cream. The other girls started to play a game where one girl, Maddie, proclaimed herself the queen of the jungle gym and dubbed Madge and another girl her beautiful princesses. She started handing out titles to all the other girls, and when she got to me she said "slave." I didn't understand why I had to be the slave, and I said so. Maddie turned to me and said "my mama says dirty Injuns aren't smart enough to do anything more than drinkin' and causin' trouble. Savages don't get to be princesses." I stood there shocked; no one had ever so blatantly made me feel different, had told called me a savage just because I looked different from them. Madge then spoke up saying this was her party and she wants me to be a princess with her. Maddie scoffed and whispered (loud enough for me to hear) that Madge was too good to be friends with a redskin.

After that I didn't try to fit in with the other white girls at school. Madge stayed persistent and refused to stop being my friend no matter what Maddie or her friends said about it. And we grew up like that, slowly weaning away from the other girls our age and just being us, best friends. Madge was different from me – girlier, afraid of bugs and snakes and stuff, but I didn't mind just as she didn't mind about who I was. She helped keep me from getting too resentful of the other more fortunate kids all around us.

My other best friend was a boy I met on the rez named Gale. Gale's father was on some kind of committee and knew my father from when they were young. Sometimes my father, grandpa, and I would join him and his father on Sundays to fish or hunt. Afterwards, grandpa would insist that we go to Denny's for a big breakfast and let me get a big stack of pancakes. Gale's father and mine would discuss the current goings-on of the tribe while Grandpa would tell Gale and me stories that never seemed to have real endings. He would always stop in what seemed like the middle and nod to himself like he'd spoken something profound while Gale would roll his eyes and I would pester him that there must be more. He would just laugh at me and say I was just like my Grandmother. I never met her, so I didn't know if that was supposed to be a good thing.

Once, when we were 15, I brought Madge with me to a spring powwow where they were making lots of frybread and buffalo chili and even had a whole tray of peanut butter cookies. When we got there, Gale looked at Madge like she had just kicked his grandmother. I shrugged it off and led Madge to the cookies. A little while later, Gale pulled me aside and asked me "why the hell" I brought a white girl to the rez. I explained to him that she was my friend and I didn't care if she was white and he snapped at me white people were only nice to Indians out of pity. He said they'd pretend to be nice and then when you trusted them they'd take everything from you. I told him Madge wasn't like that and he called me naïve. He rolled his eyes and ran away to play basketball with the other boys while I stood there wondering how Gale could say those things about her when he didn't even know her.

A few months later, my dad was out bartending at a little place a couple miles away that was mostly frequented by other Indians and a few friendly white locals. Around this time, the fracking industry was really taking off in our area in the northern plains. This mean a lot of white folks from places like Texas and Louisiana were moving to our town to work for the oil and gas companies looking to make a lot of money off of the resources. On this particular night, a group of these guys decided to check out the restaurant where my dad was working. They sat down at the bar with a haughty air about them and started shooting whiskey. Somehow a fight began between them and my father suffered a blow to the head the killed him. At least that's what the police told us a few days later when my mother was worried sick waiting by the phone for Dad to call.

I was devastated. My dad seemed unbreakable to me. I couldn't believe he had died from a fight – or that he would even be in a fight like that. I missed school for two weeks after that, spending most of it crying, not even bringing myself to go outside to my favorite tree or sit by the creek.

My mother took it even worse. When Prim asked questions about how and why this happened, she would give vague answers or not respond at all. She spent most of the time lying in bed, staring at the empty space beside her and not moving. I grew worried that she was sick too; Prim and I tried to coax her out to eat something but she wouldn't budge. Prim just kept bringing her peanut butter sandwiches and crackers and tea and fed them to her while she stared blankly at nothing in particular.

I started to grow angry with her. Why wouldn't she get up? Why didn't she try to take care of us? Why did she act like she didn't hear me? One afternoon I snapped and started yelling at her until there were tears in my eyes. I ran out of the house and to the abandoned barn that was near the tree I loved to climb. I slumped to the ground and cried with my head tucked into my knees. I don't know how much time had passed when I heard something moving next to me. I immediately looked up and saw what had to be the world's ugliest, dirtiest cat sitting there. I scoffed and made to shoo it away when a thought came to me; Prim adored animals and if I brought one home it just might give her something to do to cheer her up. So I took off my sweatshirt and snatched the thing up in it and brought it home to her. She squealed and a few tears came to her eyes as she whisked him away to wash him. Within a week she had that thing looking like a picture of health. Prim had a gift that way.

With time my mother started coming out of her room to eat more. One afternoon, we were all sitting at the table while Prim and I played checkers, and she suddenly said that she was going to start working as a nurse at the hospital. I was skeptical she would follow through with it but helping others heal seemed to give her a reason to get up each day. Prim welcomed her back with open arms; I was hesitant. I didn't know why she wouldn't give us any answers about what happened to Dad and was mad that she seemed to give up on us. I started working at the grocery store and kept up with the Sunday hunting with my Grandpa until he gradually became too tired to do it every week. I think losing a son took some of the energy out of him too, but he never spoke much about what happened either.

We rarely went to the rez after that. My mother didn't seem to want anything to do with her Indian side anymore. I couldn't understand why she would give up the part of her that had been my father's source of pride. Maybe it was too painful to remember him. I didn't see how that could make you turn your back on your own culture though.

As Grandpa stopped coming out with me on Sunday mornings, Gale started too. His father seemed to be more and more busy with his job on the rez and travelled a lot more. Hunting and fishing with him was comfortable; I didn't like to do much talking anymore and he didn't seem to mind. Afterwards we would split our spoils to take home from Ripper. I found that all the things Grandpa used to quiz me about came in handy as the responsibility of feeding myself and Prim seemed to fall on my shoulders; mother seemed to always be at work in the evenings.

The next couple of years went by like this. Most of my energy was focused on keeping Prim and I fed and healthy and working and going to school. As Prim grew older it became increasingly apparent that she could have a future as something like a doctor or a veterinarian, and I wanted to be able to put her through all that schooling. She deserved it. So I used that as my drive to do well in school and save up money for her college fund.

My senior year of high school, Gale had invited me to a party with his friends the day after Thanksgiving. Among the indigenous community, Thanksgiving is kind of a sour reminder of the long history we had of helping the white man only to be betrayed in return. I always couldn't wait for it to be over, it seemed bad things always happened on Thanksgiving and I never particularly enjoyed the day. Well, that night, Gale picked me up in his old pickup truck and drove to some shack he said belonged to his friend Thom. The place was little more than four walls and a roof, and inside were a bunch of people with cheap beer in the hands and probably in their bloodstreams as well. I didn't particularly care for beer, but I accepted a couple anyways. I was sitting on the couch when Gale plopped down next to me. He was sitting a little too close for my liking, with his left leg nearly on top of my right one. I jumped when he set his hand down on my knee and sighed heavily.

"Um… yes?" I looked at him with a look that I hoped said get out of my personal space, buddy.

He sighed again. "Katniss, I'm tired of just hooking up with a different girl every week. It's not as fun anymore."

"Then maybe you should stop?" I said giving him a strange look. Why would he tell me about that? I had no interest in hearing about that part of his life.

"Yeah, I think I might. I think I should start something steady with a girl I actually feel like I know, ya know?" he looked over at me and I suddenly felt nervous.

"Okay…" I said as he looked at me expectantly.

He sighed again, this time sounding frustrated. "I'm talking about us. You, Katniss. Don't you think it would make sense for us to date? We're pretty much the same, I already know everything about you."

I was starting to feel like gravity was increasing on me. I stuttered for a few moments before I got out "Um… I, well… I don't really… I don't think of you like… Ugh. I'm not really interested in dating anyone."

I noticed his nostrils flare slightly. "What do you mean? You're seventeen, Katniss, don't you think it's about time you gave it a shot? I mean, what are you gonna do when you get out of your mom's house? Don't you think you ought to entertain the idea of finding someone stable to be with? To take care of you?"

Now I was getting irrated. "No, I don't think I ought to," I spat. "And I'm pretty confident in my abilities to take care of myself."

"Fuck, that's not what I meant. You know I don't-"

"Yeah? Well that's what you said. And if you knew me so well you wouldn't be so stupid as to say suggest I need a man to take care of me. I'm not interested in dating, Gale. I'm just not. Why did you have to do this? Take a perfectly good friendship and make it awkward?"

He leaned his head back against the couch and he sighed "I just thought I'd put myself out there for a moment, Katniss. Clearly that was the wrong thing to do." His tone made it obviously he thought he was in the right, as always.

"Gale," I huffed. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm sure it takes balls to admit your feelings to someone like that, but I thought I'd made it clear through these past few years that dating was just not on my radar. I mean, I've told you about what I want to do before. What did you think would happen when you said this to me? That I would suddenly swoon and change my mind?"

"Nevermind, Catnip," he mumbled. Using that old nickname for me again.

I stood up. "Can we go home now? I want to go home."

He stared at me. "Fine, whatever," he groaned. We didn't speak again on the five-minute ride home or when he parked in the driveway and I let myself out. I practically ran up to the front door, and as I was closing it behind me I saw him still sitting there, watching me, unmoving. He must have noticed the look on my face, because then he snapped out of it and drove off.

Ugh. Why did people always have to turn the good things complicated? I felt a little sad as I wondered if this meant our friendship was over, but I knew that was silly; he just needed some time and we would be back to normal and could forget about this. Besides, I had more important things to think about, like where on earth I was going to school next year. I was starting to realize I wanted it to be far away from this place and all the confusion and bad memories it held.