I release tension on the striker as my hand starts to cramp. My head falls back and I breathe in as deep as my lungs will allow. Katniss and I are camping near the pond my father and I found together. Two hours and we haven't even heard a cluck that I didn't make myself. It's December and the water is frozen in some places, but the sun does not want to be forgotten. The air is crisp and smells like burnt wood, I close my eyes and it almost feels like I'm here with my father instead the girl with the bow.
My eyes trail to her position, stationed in the tree across from mine and a few branches higher. Her lips press together so tightly I think they'll turn white. It's not that it's cold, we abandoned our jackets an hour ago and without wind biting at our cheeks I'm comfortable in long sleeves. I promised Katniss we'd get a good haul today but so far we only have what the snares caught overnight- two rabbit and two squirrels. We've gathered greens along the way, snagging the berries near the pond before the turkeys do. That is if they ever show up.
Ylpppppp. The pot call screeches under my frantic hand. I didn't just promise a good haul, I promised a wild turkey. When I look up, Katniss is looking my direction with the hardest face she can muster: angry eyebrows with a scrunched up nose like she smells something awful. She hates the turkey call.
"Sorry." I shrug, tucking the slate stone and stick into my belt. It's not the most pleasant sound. Katniss says it reminds her of one of the boys in her class dragging his nails across the chalkboard. It can attract wild turkeys from miles away. Except apparently not today.
Today might be a good day in another life. The twelfth day of the twelfth month marked a day of observation, for the history of District 12. Annually, it meant miners were given the day off, and every citizen required to attend a viewing of the past, reminders of a rebellion that failed and the rebirth of Panem through the Hunger Games. After the ceremonies those who can pay attend a festival in the square. Merchants then retire to their homes to indulge some more.
"I'm sorry, Catnip." I can seem to meet her eye. She agreed we'd hunt for turkeys and it's not like it's my fault they aren't around. It's not like we're even friends.
"Not your fault." But she's not looking at me either. The pot call replicates the turkey's yelp with superior accuracy, and it almost always works if we've put eyes on the birds.
"Really, Gale, it's not," Katniss insists, forcing me to meet her gaze, "it usually works." A smile sprouts across my face. It is very effective. Katnss' lips twist like she has something else to say but looks away before a smile forms. She never smiles at me. In fact, it took two months before I saw her smile at all. We had come across a gathering of purple flowers, the first time I show her the trail to this pond. She was biting her lower lip, but I could still see the corners of her mouth turn upward, the wideness in her eyes as she picked the delicate stems. That smile came with a name. Primrose. The flower. And her little sister. The only words she shared with me that weren't related to the woods.
"Let's call it. We can mill around the fence where we saw the dogs yesterday," I suggest. If we're lucky, the ravish dogs will still be near the fence behind my house. We'll have to backtrack but if we catch a dog, this morning won't be a total waste.
"I kind of like it up here." I pause and stop preparing to move. "The sun hasn't felt this good in months." Katniss is staring into the sky with her eyes tightly shut.
"Well, don't burn your eyes out." I choke on a chuckle when Katniss lowers her chin in my direction.
"I won't," she snaps softly. My dad always said I was funny. It's taken all year just to make sense of humor's place in life, if at all.
"Why did the sun burp?" When Katniss rolls her eyes, it reminds me of Rory, my younger brother. He freshly nine and convinced he knows everything.
"Come on, Katniss, this one is safe to tell Prim," I try to remember Katniss is only twelve. Sometimes my jokes are too old even for her.
"Why did the sun burp?" This time I can tell she's giving it some thought, although she's blankly staring at me. I tug on my ear, anxious to deliver the punch line.
"Give up?" I ask. Her head slowly shakes once. We may not be friends yet, but in three months I haven't seen Katniss give up once. Haggling with Rooba the butcher for fair asking price on our turkeys, practicing the snare knots over and over again, keeping up when we explore new regions of the woods. That's a friend I want. After a few moments, Katniss rolls her eyes again.
"Because it had too much gas!" Belch. Instead of a roaring burp, a burp my six-year-old brother Vick could have made escapes my breath. This time her eyebrows spring up and I think maybe she'll laugh. Instead she looks away and smirks.
"I'll have to tell that one to Prim."
"What did the triangle say to the circle?"
"I don't know, Gale. What?" She could get this one, if she tried.
"You're pointless!" I cock my fingers like I'm practicing my bow aim.
"Good one, Gale," she quips.
"Today is pointless," Katniss shifts her legs to one side of the branch.
"Maybe." What about tonight's dinner, I think. Doesn't that mean anything to her? "But we get the day off and there's always a little extra from the merchants fancy orders."
"It's like celebrating his death." The words cut through the trees like an arrow off Katniss' bow. Silent and deadly and almost true. The same video blasted over the projectors every year on screens big enough to mask entire storefronts. We are vital to the Capitol's indulgence, we make sure Panem has energy, and that we are nothing without the mines that the Capitol so graciously allows us to work in. Bullshit I want to say out loud. Tell off the Capitol for leaving Katniss alone. And I probably will once I'm alone.
"What if we celebrated his life?" Our fathers died in the same explosion. A months' worth of wages, a useless medal, and careless ceremony provided by the Capitol. Enough to enrage a hatred within me that still simmers.
"I, uh…" she fumbles with the thought. Funerals in the Seam aren't very common. Death plagues everyone, but funerals are for the living. And the living don't have anything to spare on the dead. I tried to sell the medal, but my mother thought we ought to bury it in place of a body. So it's out in the backyard, underneath a bench my father made when I was four or five. She hums and I realize I'm now retelling this memory out loud.
"It wasn't very ceremonial," I continue. "We huddled together and cried while Rory and Vick took turns remembering dad or wailing in our arms. They wore themselves out real quick. We drank tea and laid in the grass till the moon howled." My mother said she wasn't sure about so many children, but my father changed her mind over and over again.
"We're meeting each other's families tonight." If Katniss has a secret weapon, it's deflection.
"Yes, we are," I've been waiting for this all week since Katniss finally agreed. "But you could do it your own way, whatever you think it should be. It's better that way." She accepts my advice with silence.
"So, you do care about meeting my family?" throwing an acorn her direction. She swats it away with ease.
"Of course," she says flatly. Half the time I can barely hear her and the rest of the time I'm not sure if she has any emotion left in that little body.
"It took you forever to say yes..." weeks in fact and now I'm worried she'll bail. "Everyone is excited to meet you."
"They are?"
"Yeah Katniss! When Rory found out Prim was his age, he wouldn't stop talking about how much better friends they'll be than you and me…" I pause. Are we even friends? "And ma will hug you. Like a big hug. She worries about you being out here." Katniss straightens up her stance but keeps my focus.
"Prim keeps asking if Rory will like her."
"Trust me, he will." A gentle breeze lures conversation away. I wonder if I should suggest new hunting grounds. Katniss' bow whips up and for a split second I think the turkeys have finally made an appearance. It registers that there's no game though, she's only practicing her shot. The bow is the larger of two her father made for her; a small one to learn on, a big one to stay alive on. I joke it's as tall as her, but lately I've seen how skilled she actually is.
"If you could shoot any food with an arrow, what would you shoot?" Katniss isn't much for hypotheticals.
"I don't know, a deer," her answers are logical. "We would have as much meat as we wanted and could sell the rest." We? We've only seen deer once together, and Katniss' small bow shot an arrow far too short to matter. She's right, though, a deer could change everything.
"I'd shoot beef stew."
"That doesn't make any sense," Katniss grumbles. This make sense: talking without intention, without making plans or negotiation on the haul, without the deafening cries of starving siblings back at home.
"Sure it does. If I could have any meal, it would be beef stew with cocoa flakes and meat that melts in your mouth." It's my stomach that grumbles next.
"That's not what you asked."
"It's what I meant though." Maybe it's too much effort to be friends. "Vick's would be sweet potatoes covered in cinnamon. We've had it only once but he's convinced it's his favorite."
"Favorite," Katniss echoes. It's not a word we often use, not much favor in District 12. "I don't have favorites." I lean back against the tree trunk and try to hide my annoyance. If Katniss didn't want to be friends, we didn't have to be stuck up these trees together. The wind continues to nestle the leaves, bringing a tune that cuts through the quietness.
"How do make a tissue dance?" I'm watching two squirrels chase each other on the branches above me that she catches me off-balance. I brace myself with my hand and indicate I don't know. I could guess, but this is more entertaining.
"Put a little boogie in it." I stifle the chuckle in my throat. Funny but her delivery is terrible. Stale and monotone with no expression. And then Katniss looks so serious, I can't stop the laughter from erupting out of my mouth.
"Not bad Catnip. Your delivery needs help though." If we're anything, it's honest.
"Gale, look!" I stare to her as she aims her arrow down towards me. She's five feet higher and I'm dead in her crosshairs, but instinctively I follow the direction of her voice to what she's pointing at. One fat wild turkey trotting out from the brush. Woosh. It's shot dead before I can even process.
"Woo!" I holler before jumping down the tree. I slow my steps when I near the turkey, waiting for Katniss to claim her prize.
"Are you okay?" she asks, kneeling to inspect the gobbler. Long bronze wings that mean it's a male.
"Oh, yeah, the shot was an arms reach from my head." Somewhere along the paths and trails, came a trust for Katniss and her aim.
"I just saw it and released."
"As soon as you lifted your bow, I thought I must said something wrong about your joke!" I'm kidding with her. She stops ruffling the turkey's feathers and flares her nose. "I looked so fast I barely saw you pointing. Straight. At. Me." She sucks in her cheeks. I don't know why she doesn't just do it. Laugh, get it out, off her chest. Like if we can't have anything, not even fathers, then we can't laugh. I don't know. My mother and I make sure Posy is fed well enough to be a happy baby and everything she does is cute and new; and I know even Posy could make Katniss laugh.
"I knew you wouldn't hit me," I admit. Maybe honesty can be our thing. Honesty. Trust. Friendship. Aren't they the same?
"Well I'm glad you knew."
"If you thought you'd hit me, you wouldn't have shot," I consider aloud.
"Maybe." We've given the wild turkey a once over and the size of it is satisying. Thirty pounds I gage. Enough for a feast tonight and profit from the leftovers.
We jog to our spot near the meadow and return the weapons into the hollowed out trees. We decide to drop the turkey off at my house, so my mother and siblings can prep the meat. We'll divide it later
It hasn't been till recently that we go to the Hob together. It only makes sense that we would, but like most things Katniss is apprehensive. We walk alone however and only trade together when it's something we can't spilt, like when The Head Peacekeeper Cray wants a full turkey. I get two eggs for a rabbit and make my way to the back of the Hob to visit Ripper. I need a cup of white liquor. The recipe calls for two teaspoons of vanilla, but I can't trade for that. I have to convince Ripper the alcohol is for a recipe before she takes a rabbit for a cup. Which it is. For a recipe. I've tried it before anyway and I don't quite have a tongue for it yet.
"You went to the Ripper?" Katniss asks as we leave the Hob. Neither of us buy from her often, although we learn she has a need for herbs.
"I sold some of my greens to her." I lie kicking the dirt beneath us as we walk. "We ran out of salt." I feel bad for lying. I'm trying to win her trust with this meal, not lose it.
"Oh, okay," she's unsuspecting, "I don't like going to her alone."
"Me either." Katniss is a foot shorter than me and when I smile at her I have to glance down. Sometimes I see an angle of her that makes my eyes swell. She's older than Rory by two years but barely through her first Reaping, the Games ending a couple of months ago. She's too young to carry the burden of survival. We reach my house first and keep goodbyes short.
"See you at the square, remember five pm for dinner." I shout to her. She turns on her heels and a poof of dust surrounds her boots.
"I know, Gale. You've only told me every day for the last week." I know, Gale. I don't think she has ever said more words to me than she has today. I pop my thumb up and rush inside, I know I can't hide the happiness from my face.
Don't stop at one, read chapter 2 for the complete story!