Title: The Pageant of Death

Chapter: 12 of 19

Words: 2,518 of 61,217

We keep our sleeping bags in our backpacks, the tent is warm enough and we'll be able to move faster if we don't need to pack up. We sleep on and off in shifts. It doesn't stop raining the next day either. We eat, sleep and rest. We make fish hooks from the bird bones and tie them to pieces of the blunt wire. We've seen a few fish jumping below us in the water that has to be almost seven feet deep. Raw fish is fine to eat as long as it's fresh but we don't catch anything.

I lose track of time. There are no cannons and it never gets fully light or fully dark. It rains continually. The only thing that marks time is the anthem. When it becomes what I think is morning I go out to a different branch and scrub myself in the cold rain. I "go to the outhouse" as people would say in District 12. The Gamemakers won't show that on TV. It's not because it's too private; they don't care about privacy. It's because it's too human. The Games aren't real life — it's all manipulation — and seeing tributes doing something so human would be strange. People in the Capitol, people betting on us, don't want to see us as real people.

We haven't received a gift in a while and I wonder what Haymitch got Rue. I hope it was so good he just can't afford to send us anything for a while. We start to run low on supplies. We start rationing it more carefully and, as we weren't eating large amounts to begin with, we start losing weight. The tent keeps us from getting wet but it's so damp and steamy that we're never fully dry. The stress of doing nothing has us both on edge. We stop talking ceaselessly and sit quietly to avoid fighting.

We've been quiet for hours one day when Gale suddenly says, "I just want to go home, Catnip. Why can't we just go home? We're not even doing anything here. I miss our kids so badly. I want my mother."

"I'm homesick too," I say. "I'd even like to see Prim's hideous cat even though it hates me."

A parachute suddenly lands on the end of my branch. I crawl out, instantly getting drenched, and pull the parachute inside. I hand it over to Gale and wring out my hair. He opens it to see what's inside and gasps. I lean over to see what it is. It's filled with food, fresh and dried. There's fresh meat and dried fruit, crackers, nuts, dried fish and a jar of that peanut butter stuff. The quantities are shocking but that's not what's so surprising.

There is a large block of goat cheese wrapped in bay leaves. The edges are cut square. "Isn't that?" he asks.

"That's cheese from Prim. My sister made this cheese." He hands it to me and pulls out bread wrapped in off white paper. "That's from the bakery. It's the same kind we had for breakfast before the reaping. I still can't believe he gave it to you for one squirrel."

"It was the morning of the reaping. People are always nice to kids the morning of the reaping."

"He's given us good deals for years. I could never figure out why."

He groans, "It's still warm." There's a white box and he says, "Haymitch, please be a good at your job as I think you are." He opens the box and smiles. "Thank you." I can't see what's inside but then he holds out the box, "Have a cookie made by my boy." The box is full of iced cookies and I take one with ivy on it. And, as hungry as I've been, I still savor it.

The last, big thing he pulls out is a metal container. I have no idea what it is but when he takes off the lid the smell hits me. "Is that Greasy Sae's soup?" I ask.

"It looks like it." He tears the bread into four pieces and hands two to me. We dip our bread into the soup and both groan as we taste it. He smiles, "That's definitely her soup."

"Wild dog. One must have gotten through the fence," I say, because the only other time her soup has wild dog is when we bring her one. It's salty, hot and slightly gamey. The meat is soft and it's clearly the second day of the soup. Her soup is always best on the second day. If I shut my eyes I can almost imagine that it's a damp day in the Hob. I can imagine we're surrounded by the people who know us and like us in spite of that.

"This is so good. All the amazing, exotic, food we had in the Capitol: none of it compares to this."

"I wonder if it's actually good," I say, opening my eyes and taking another bite.

"What do you mean? Can you not taste this?"

"No, I mean, we weren't hungry in the Capitol. We only ever have Greasy Sae's soup when we're hungry and cold. By the time we see her we're tired, we've been working all day, it's filling, hot and it costs one squirrel for two bowls. I think that's what makes it the best thing we've ever eaten."

"I don't care why it's the best food in the world it just is. We're weary and hungry now and we have our favorite soup."

"This is amazing," I say between bites. "We should ration everything else but this is too good to let it get cold."

"Agreed," we fall silent as we eat. Gale sighs, "I feel so much better."

"Me too." We finish using our bread as spoons and are left with just juice. We pass the container back and forth as we drink the soup. As I finish the last of it I say, "That was delicious."

Gale rinses the case and dries it with his jacket. He splits the food between our empty containers, careful to make sure it's even in case we need to separate. "If it's one of us and not Rue, we have to pay them back."

"Do you think they paid? You don't think Haymitch just got us stuff from home?"

"If it was the cookies, the bread and the cheese I would think it was Haymitch being good at his job. But if Haymitch was making us a package from home he would have put in the lamb liver from the butcher's that all the merchant kids rave about and that we could never afford in our wildest dreams. He wouldn't send us soup made with dog meat. The soup says they paid for it. Haymitch doesn't know that Greasy Sae's soup is our favorite. Haymitch doesn't spend a lot of time in town. He's never seen us sitting on her counter for hours, without eating, talking with the people we like. He's never seen us go in there and complain about something the kids did and plant ourselves down and eat as many bowls of soup as we can afford. He doesn't know that sometimes when we don't get anything in a day we've brought the kids and she's given us soup for all of us and soup to bring home to our moms on the promise of double payment later. The peanut butter shows he added to it, had outside money, but the stuff from home was paid for by them. They set it up."

I blink, "When do you think they set it up?"

"Considering it came the second we admitted how homesick we are?" He seems to consider the question before speaking. "Days, maybe since the minute we got into the arena but Haymitch waited until we really needed it."

"I really needed it."

"Me too… best soup we've had in weeks."

I shake my head, thinking of how much a gift costs, even the cost of contributing to a gift. "We're never going to be able to thank them enough."

"Whoever gets home gives everything we snare or shoot to the people who've helped us. We can't pay them back, no amount of money would cover it."

"Agreed," I say.

We fall silent but it's not a sad silence like before. Then Gale says, "I know about the bread, Catnip."

My blood turns cold. There's no doubt in my mind what he's talking about. I know that it's a story the people watching in the Capitol will love but I don't want to talk about it. "Oh."

"Peeta told me."

"He told you?" I feel horrified.

"Not like that, not on purpose. He didn't know that it was a secret."

"That was maybe the biggest lie I told Caesar. It wasn't okay when his name was drawn. I was screaming inside. I just thought, I might kill the boy with the bread. If he attacks me, I might kill the boy with the bread. And then you volunteered and made it worse."

"Sorry," he says.

"How did it even come up?"

"He asked me why you don't like him. I told him that you're not friendly but that doesn't mean you dislike him. I asked him if you even know each other. And he said that, every time he smiles at you, you look away as quickly as possible. That didn't sound like you. He said the only time you'd ever interacted was a couple of months after our fathers died. That you were painfully thin and you were so desperate for food you were looking in his trash cans. And his mother screamed at you so he purposefully burnt some bread and she beat him but he didn't care because he gave you the two loaves."

I feel the blush spread over my whole body. The idea of anyone, but especially Gale, knowing made me feel ashamed. "He told you that? What did you say?"

"I felt appalled that he'd told me; that's not something he should tell anyone: not even me. And I was shocked that he thought you would ever be able to look him in the eye. I told him you would always be in his debt unless you could someway to save his life. He said that you could always pay for the bread but that as it was burnt it wasn't worth anything. And I said, 'Okay but how much is you getting beaten worth? Katniss is a proud person so if she was going through the garbage she wasn't doing it for herself so how much are the lives of her mother and Prim worth? Do you have a formula to figure out how much that's worth?'"

I groan, "It's worse than that."

"Really?"

"When he gave me the bread I was coming from trying to trade Prim's baby clothes. I thought I needed money to feed them. When I saw him the next day I looked away because he had a black eye and bruised. I saw a patch of dandelion and realized I didn't need money to get food: I have a slingshot and know edible weeds."

He smiles, but it's not a happy smile. He reaches out and takes my hand, "It's worse than that."

"How can it be?"

He sighs and leans back on his branch, making himself more comfortable. "I didn't know Peeta, he was younger and a merchant. I wasn't trading with his dad yet. I saw him at school, with a black eye, watching me in the hall. I was with some boys in my year and I was afraid of what he might say. Merchant kids can be so rude to kids from the Seam and I didn't want him to say whatever he was going to say in front of the others. So I went to him and asked him what he wanted. And he said, 'Katniss Everdeen is starving to death. Your dad just died too and you're not starving. You can see her ribs. You need to show her whatever you've been doing.'" I groan again and he nods. "And then I saw you looking at my snare. I was so angry. I don't care how hungry you are you can't steal. I had two little brothers and a mother who was pregnant with a dead man's baby. She was three weeks pregnant when he died. And when I shouted at you, you were so scared and I realized you weren't stealing; you were trying to figure it out. And I asked you your name because I didn't want you to know that I had been talking about you. And you said Catnip-"

"I didn't!"

He nods, "Yes, you did. And what struck Peeta was that he could see your ribs but what I saw was that your hair was falling out."

"So I owe our whole friendship to him?"

Gale thinks about it for a minute and shakes his head. "No, you owe the snares to him, maybe, but you taught me to shoot and you taught me what plants I could eat. Maybe, I wouldn't have been paying attention to how painfully thin you were. But you're my best friend, not because some kid told me you were starving: you're Catnip. Who else would put up with me? Not the girls who follow me around in groups, that's for sure. If I talked to them for a half hour they wouldn't be interested in talking to me for a second half hour." I say nothing and he says, "Aren't you going to disagree?"

"No," I say and we both laugh. "I'm just the same though."

"I'd say you're more likable than me. You're just not friendly."

"Except with fictional Peacekeepers. Fictional Peacekeepers adore me because I'm so friendly." Gale laughs. "And the boys who're asked you if they can ask me for a walk."

"They're too intimidated to follow you in groups. Other than being tall I'm not intimidating. But you, you don't talk to people at school, you're a mystery to the boys who want to ask you for a walk. I say they can ask you but they don't know you and I always assume, and sort of hope, you'll say no. They don't know you and they're not asking you to go for a walk they're asking a girl with breasts, big eyes and great hair. They have no idea who the real you is… except to the Peacekeeper. I'd be glad for you to say yes to him." I hear a rustle outside and Gale hears it too. He reaches for his bow and gets an arrow poised as he casually says, "I think he would make you happy." I pull back the tarp and duck out of the way to give him a clear shot. He pulls back the string but then slowly releases the tension from the wire, taking the arrow from the string. "I almost shot you." I turn and see Rue in the pouring rain.