GALE'S POV

"Well, nice seeing you, Mr. Mellark. Oh, yeah, and thanks for the bread," I said as I waved the baker goodbye. I could see his son, Peeta, glaring daggers at me from further in the house. Ha.

I jump the fence and make my way to the Hob. The Hob is a run-down coal mine that just never made it off the ground. Hardly any coal was found there, and it has been abandoned since. Well, that's what some District 12 residents think. Really, it's a thriving black market.

I walk the beat-down path that weeds threaten to take over, to the rusty iron fence. I crawl through a hole somebody has cut, into the yard of the abandoned coal mines. The mines are off to my right, the opening to the mines closed off. Actually, not closed off. It just looks all boarded up, but really there is a couple loose boards that people could shift to get into the mines and hide from the Peacemakers, if the Peacemakers ever found the black market.

The coal mining building, itself, is pretty stable. The rusty metal roof is brown-ish red, and peeling. The old wood walls have random holes about the rotting, paint-peeling, stained surface. The door sputters open as I walk in, the door sometimes getting stuck in the mud and weeds on the ground. I greet Katniss by the sluice (old rectangular wooden boxes that water would fill up in for miners to sift through), which is close to the door but not too far into the Hob. She smiles.

"Guess what we caught in the snares?" Katniss asked. She was bouncing and shifting from foot to foot so I knew it was something good. I raised an eye brow.

"Rabbits?" I guess. Katniss sighed.

"Well, yes. Don't we always catch rabbits? But guess what else!" Katniss replied, growing impatient.

I laughed and said, "I don't know, Katniss. I give up." Katniss holds up a bobcat from behind her back. My eyes widen.

"A bobcat! We haven't caught one of those since… since I first met you." We both smile at the memory: Katniss saying her name so quietly that I thought it was Catnip. Then once a bobcat started following Katniss around, and she had to kill it because it was scaring the prey, Catnip became my nickname for Katniss. "Come on, Catnip, lets go see what Rob has for us," I say, motioning to her.

Rob, an elderly man with a balding head, was behind the old-fashioned counter, helping another customer. This room used to be the saloon for the miners, and the shelves that once held booze and beers now holds the different items that Rob is willing to trade with you. A ladder with wheels sits in the corner, that helps Rob when he needs to reach a tall shelf.

I look around the homely-feeling room: a big old stained couch that is starting to rip, a dusty fireplace that's only lit on cloudy or foggy winter days, and high tables and stools for customers wanting to trade their goods with other people and not Rob. There are only about 25 more people in the room, which is kind of empty for a warm summer morning.

"What can I do you guys for?" Rob asks us. Katniss and I set our 2 fish, one bobcat, and 3 rabbits on the counter. We are saving 3 more fish and 2 more rabbits for trading at our table (each customer gets their own table for trading after they have traded a certain amount of items with Rob). Rob nods and smiles, looking over the merchandise. He rubs his hands together.

"How does a kit of medicinal herbs sound for the bobcat, Katniss?" Rob asks. Katniss beams.

"Sure! That'd be great." So Rob gets the ladder and climbs to the 14th shelf (the higher an item is placed on the shelves, the higher it's going to cost) to grab a first-aid-looking kid, with a big drawing of a green leaf in it. But then when he's climbing down, he grabs another smaller white box, too. On the front of this one, it has a drawing of a bowl and spoon. Hmm.

He puts the boxes on the counter, flips them open, then he turns them to show them to me and Katniss. "The medicinal herbs box has specially collected herbs of the best quality: yarrow, wormwood, sweet sagewort, rue, marijuana, hawthorn, chamomile, feverfew, poppy seeds, peppermint, pokeweed, and blue mountain sage. It also comes with a stone pestle and mortar for grinding up the herbs into paste," Rob recited. He shuts the case and starts talking about the other white box.

"This one is for basic cooking. I figured I should get you a box for the bobcat's pelt and meat. Anyway, here's the cooking spices this one has: allspice, aniseed, basil, bay leaf, caraway seed, cayenne pepper, celery seed, chervil, chili powder, chives, cilantro, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, curry powder, dill, fennel, garlic, ginger, juniper berries, mace, marjoram, mint, mustard, nutmeg, oregano, paprika, parsley, rosemary, saffron, sage, savory, and others. This case also has salt, pepper, lard, butter, and a bit of flour and yeast," Rob listed. "Interested?"

Katniss's eyes were huge. "I'll take it!" she exclaimed. She slid the bobcat over to Rob and took the boxes. I smiled. Katniss looked so happy… And she's beautiful when she's happy.

"Now what can I get you, Gale?" Rob asked me.

"Well, what do you want?" I asked back.

"I will take the 3 rabbits for… Hmm… A squirrel call, and a bird call? These two inventors in District 6 invented calls for calling animals. What do you say?" Rob offered. I grinned and nodded. Rob reached under the counter (where all the just-came-in items are) and pulled out two whistle-shaped objects with the picture of a squirrel on one and a deer on the other.

"You see," Rob explained, "You just whistle into one of these, and in a little while, the animal should wander by. You interested?" I nodded, and traded the rabbits for the calls, which I stuck in my pockets.

"Now what about the 2 fish?" I ask. Rob scratches his chin.

"Your mother is a seamstress, right?" he asks, and I nod. "Well, we have another one of those white cases for sewing…"

"I'll take it!" I agree, and Rob goes up the ladder again to get a white box with a needle and spool of thread on it. He opens it up, and shows me the contents.

"20 sharpened needles along with spools of thread, thread 5 yards long wrapped up on one spool. The thread comes in colors of red, green, blue, orange, yellow, purple, navy, white, black, brown, pink, gray, tan, and a new color: clear," Rob rattled off. I smiled.

"Deal!" we swapped merchandise.

"Thanks, Rob!" Katniss called as we walked off to our table, where I took the key from the string around my neck. I slipped the key into a lock on the table top, and opened a compartment. This is where Katniss and I can keep our merchandise we want to sell locked up, without having to sell it right away or leave it in the open.