Third Quarter Quell
Chapter Three
Katniss and Peeta were in the forest. "Did you get an invitation too?"
"Yes," he said.
She reread hers.
Katniss Everdeen, you are personally INVITED to the 75th annual Hunger Games, the third Quarter Quell. You can choose not to attend, but your Peacekeeper privileges will be revoked.
"They can't revoke out Peacekeeper privileges, can they?"
"I wouldn't know," Peeta said, looking worried. "But I don't want to go through the Hunger Games again."
"Me either." They both looked out at the vast trees, with nature making her usual sounds. Chirruping and hooting and deer scuffling through the bushes.
Later, in the hut where the Peacekeepers lived in their own District when they weren't on duty in the Capitol, Katniss asked Haymitch the same question she had asked Peeta.
"I think they can," Haymitch said. "I told you before, they are really angry with you. I heard that Senecra Crane was assassinated. And I'm certainly President Snow was behind it."
"President Snow wouldn't actually kill someone personally, would he?" Peeta asked.
"No, but he'd pay someone to do it. And ensure it's not traced back to him."
"I don't want to do it," Katniss said.
"It will be a lot of pressure, going through that again," Peeta said.
"You have no choice! Don't you guys understand? They want to punish you, and they think that this is a way to accomplish that. You have to show them that you are not to be trifled with."
"But all we're showing them by accepting is that we are willing to give into their demands," Katniss said. "And we aren't."
:"Win again, and you'll show them they can't mess with you," Haymitch said.
"I don't want to win again. I don't want to play again."
"Why not? You've one once. You can win again."
"Yeah, Kat. Just twenty-two Tributes to take out and we'll be all set."
"Um, about that," Haymitch said. "You won't be facing only twenty-two Tributes."
"Why not?" Katniss asked.
"Because this is the year of the Third Quarter Quell, the 75th Hunger Games. I participated in the 50th a quarter of a century ago. They always take four from each district during a quarter quell. Two boys, two girls. That adds up to forty-eight Tributes."
"Wait, are you saying that there's going to be another reaping for District 12, even if we join?"
"There's going to a reaping for District 12 whether you join or not. But if you don't join, there will be two girls and two boys chosen."
Katniss' face turned puce. The thought of Prim having twice as much chance of being thrust into the Hunger Games made her sick.
"Okay, we're doing it, but only because I need to protect my sister."
"There's no way your sister will be a Tribute," Haymitch said. "Unless…"
"Unless what?"
"Unless the reapinjg is rigged." Then, seeing the appalled expression of Katniss' face, Haymitch said, "Well, you did make the president angry. He might want to make you angry too."
"Not like I was going to kill my lover," Katniss said, laying her head on Peeta's shoulder. He patted her hair. She had to make it seem like she liked him to him, even though in reality she wasn't in love with him…she had wanted to defy the Hunger Games makers by killing him. She needed one less person to die. She did like him as a friend, but the love thing was just a show for TV, and so that their fans would believe that love is what drove her to spare Peeta's life.
If Peeta knew, he might be furious with her. So she had to keep up the façade, for both him and their fans.
"Well, I can avoid attending the reaping, at any rate, since I'm already participating," Katniss said. "But I will raise hell if my sister is a Tribute."
"You do that," Haymitch said. "But not where they'd punish you. Having to participate in the Games again is punishment enough."
Suddenly Katniss jumped up. "I haven't even practiced shooting a bow in a year! I might be out of mmy game!"
She ran from the hut before anyone could stop her. She grabbed her bow and quiverful of twenty-eight arrows before dashing off into the forest.
District 12's young people from ages twelve through eighteen trudged in troop fashion to the center of the pavilion, where they were forced to have their fingerprints taken and placed on thin strips of paper in a jar. The Magnefier Transmitter—a gray machine that looked like an ink-jet printer with a stapler and microscope glued on. This machine would turn the fingerprints into the names of the children since it had fingerprint recognition of every child in District 12.
"This year," said the woman in pink on stage, Effie Taffet. "is the year of the Third Quarter Quell, meaning that there will be two boy and two girl Tributes from each district. Katniss Everedeen and Peeta Mellark have kindly agreed to fill in for two of the Tributes. As you all know, they won last year's competition. So that just leaves two more Tributes to be selected."
She paused and let that all sink in. Then she nodded at one of the men on the security personnel, who said, "And now, let the reaping begin!"
"Now to find out who this year's female Tribute from District 12 will be," Effie said. She reached into the container with the names, shuffled them around, and pulled out a thin strip of paper. Then she removed the black marker covering the name.
"Oh goodness me," she said, from shock. "I think I've seen this name before."
Peeta was glad Katniss had not come to see this. She would be raging because there could only be one girl there whose name Effie had seen before.
"Primrose Everdeen, identify yourself."
Of course, everyone knew what Prim looked like, because it was her name drawn the year before when Katniss had volunteered.
Primrose went up toward the stage shakily. She fainted just as she was about to march up the steps.
There was one boy who looked more than mildly upset by this. Peeta thought it was wrong because he loved Katniss and any wrong done to her was a wrong done to him. But this other guy seemed to take a more personal interst in Primrose. As if the possibility of her dying was enough to make him stab himself in the heart.
"Now for the boys," said Effie. She reached far into the mass of slips with the names of each District 12 boy on it and finally pulled one out.
She pulled out a slip of paper and removed the black strip again, just as she had before.
"Gale Hawthrone!" Effie called.
Peeta gasped. It was the boy who had been looking at Prim in that way, who stepped forward.
The security personnel ensured that Gale would not be leaving. Gale didn't seem to want to leave, because he was up there with Prim.
"May the odds be ever in your favor," Effie said. The same thing she had said to Peeta and Katniss the year before. And now,, will the returning champions, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark please approach the platform?"
Peeta went up slowly, to by time before they realized that Katniss was not there.
"Katniss Everdeen!" Effie called, once she had Peeta up on stage. "Where are you?"
Everyone looked about trying to find her. But she wasn't there.
Effie directed the security personnel to go in search of her. "No one is leaving until Katniss gets up the stage," she said to the crowd at large, which made many people upset. Gale and Prim looked at each other. Peeta's suspicions were confirmed. They were lovers, or as much as a thirteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old could be lovers.
He just hoped that Effie wouldn't yell too much about Katniss' manners when his own girlfriend showed up.