As I enter the Seam, Gale appears beside me. He scoops my game bag from my shoulder.
"How'd you do?" He asks as we make our way past our neighbor's houses. Some children are playing a game of tag in the scrubby front yards we share. One of the Maynard children trips, but bounces back up from the ground, hands and knees dark with coal dust. He gives chase to his companions.
"Not bad. Thought I'd find you at home, though," I say giving him a sly look.
He gives me an innocent look, eyes wide, and doesn't fess up. I shake my head and nudge him with my elbow. We walk in silence up to my front porch and sit down to divide the contents of my game bag.
"Turns out the baker's son is a worse trader than his dad even," I say as I take a loaf of crusty sourdough bread from the bag to give to Gale. "Three squirrels for all this."
"Which one?" Gale inquires.
"The youngest one—Peeta," I say. "Mr. Mellark wasn't around."
"Hm." Gale hums thoughtfully and raises an eyebrow at me. "Don't think I would have gotten that trade."
Unsure exactly what he means by this, I continue to sort out the items our mothers asked for. As Gale gathers his items into his own bag and prepares to head home, I grin at him and say,
"Well next time we trade, I'll go to the bakery and you can go to the mayor's. You know, for maximum benefit."
Gale flushes and hangs his head. When he looks up, and I say, "Same time tomorrow? Early? Before…ya know?"
"Same time tomorrow," he nods, not meeting my eyes, and I head inside my house.
Inside our little home, Prim is knitting what is starting to look like a sock in a sunny spot by the window, while her ugly, smush-faced cat, Buttercup languishes, belly-up, at her feet. Through the open back door, I see my mother at the butter churn, sleeves rolled high, sweat glistening on her forehead in the late spring warmth. Prim's nanny-goat, Lady, produced three kids this spring. They'd turned a good profit at the Hob, and we'd had plenty of milk from Lady to turn into cheese and butter.
"Hey! What'd you get today?" Prim greets me. She sets her knitting in the basket at her feet and takes the bakery bag from me. "Oh!" She exclaims and carefully turns out the contents onto the big kitchen table. In addition to the loaf of bread, she pours out three iced sugar cookies shaped like tulips and a lumpy cheese bun that looks like it stayed in the oven about five minutes too long. They must have been hidden beneath the bread. How had Peeta managed to get those past his notoriously frugal mother?
"What did you have to trade for all this, Katniss?" Prim inquires, stroking one of the beautiful tulip cookies. I only waggle my eyebrows at her, and she giggles.
My mother comes in from her work and touches me gently on the arm in thanks as she helps me unpack the rest of my trading haul.
That night for dinner, we tuck into a luxurious meal of pork sandwiches with goat milk butter and greens Prim gathered from her little garden. We split the cheese bun, and I end up trading Prim my sugar cookie for her portion of the cheese bun. We don't always live so richly, but the springtime surely has its perks, as does a beneficial trade with the baker's son. For all of the wonderful things springtime brings, the longer and longer days also signal the approach of the annual Reaping for the Hunger Games. Anxiety begins to bubble deep inside me, and I stuff the last bite of cheese bun into my mouth in the hope it will quell the shadowy fear. I look at Prim, who is taking the smallest nibbles of her cookie, savoring each tiny, sweet bite. I notice my mother is also watching her, and I reach across the table for her hand. She squeezes it and gets up suddenly to clear the table. I, in turn, tug gently on a ringlet of Prim's blonde hair and say,
"I think it's warm enough tonight. Want to put the mattress on the back porch tonight?"
"Oh, mom? Can we?" She asks, hopping up from her chair. Buttercup, who had been resting in Prim's lap throughout dinner leaps to the floor and hisses at me, as though his displacement was my fault. I roll my eyes.
Unable to deny Prim anything, mom agrees, and Prim and I begin to migrate our small mattress and linens out to the back porch. We settle into our cozy back porch nest as the sun makes its final descent beneath the horizon. Prim nestles into me, closes her eyes, and begins to breathe deeply before all the stars are out. As I begin to fade, a shooting star winks across the sky. I wish on it for Prim's safety in the Reaping tomorrow. Despite my mounting anxiety, Prim's warm body and the familiar rhythm of her breathing lull me into sleep.
In my dream, I am running down a long alley way, laughing as the boy in front of me holds my hand, pulling me behind him. From behind, I see a green bandana tied around his neck. The boy pulls me to a stop, and we stand, holding hands, staring at each other, breathless. My eyes don't leave his bright blue ones as he backs slowly against the wall, pulling me gently towards him. His hands leave mine to settle gently on my hips. Emboldened by the smoldering in my chest, I slide my left middle finger into a belt loop at his hip and trail my left hand up to rest over his heart.
"Katniss…" he breathes and leans into me.
I come to with eyes wide open, and my mind begins to unwind my dream from the reality around me. The sun peeks tentatively over the horizon at the far side of the meadow. The morning air is cool, and a low fog floats lazily at the tops of the tall grass. All is quiet, save for a mourning dove's call that cuts through the fog. Prim's breathing grounds me in the present, but I swear I can still feel his hands at my hips, the low heat of anticipation in my core that makes it hard to breathe. I shake my head and rise, slipping gently from the mattress and gather my hunting jacket and bag.
As I jog towards the woods, my dream hangs over me. The low morning light and the fog do nothing to untangle the dream from my senses. I almost expect to dip under the fence, only to remerge in the alley, being pulled behind the boy with the green bandana. Peeta, my conscious mind corrects me. The boy in my dreams was Peeta, pulling me down the alley, into him. I don't know why I dreamed of him. I remember my mother telling a patient once that dreams are our mind's way of solving a problem or working through a puzzle. I was not sure what kind of puzzle my mind was trying to solve, but I feel more confused than before. A pretty dream to forget or just remember sometimes. So wrapped in my confused, delicious reflection, I don't see Gale until I almost run into him.
"You sleepwalking, Catnip?" He asks.
"Must be," I laugh. "Had some pretty weird dreams last night."
"Me too…didn't sleep much at all, which makes sense considering the holiday," he says holiday in a Capitol accent.
"May the odds be ever in your favor," we say together and laugh mirthlessly.
This moment sobers me, thoroughly washing the dream from me, as my mind prepares for this waking nightmare. This year, two members of my small family are at risk of being thrown into the arena. The odds are never in our favor, especially not here in District Twelve. I think of the past skinny, sallow-cheeked tributes from Twelve. The only advantage we ever have over the other tributes is that we know how to be hungry. Just as we've finished our strange half-grieving for lost neighbors, half-celebration our own family hadn't been Reaped, we prepare for another year of the Games. Another year when what's left of my childhood and the things it is supposed to contain could be stripped from me. Any one of my 20 entries could steal the rest of my schooling from me, my Sunday trips into the woods with Gale, my first kiss…
Anger froths in my stomach as I imagine the childhood I feel entitled to being sacrificed to the arena. I move to take my bow and arrows from their hiding place, but they are stuck. I grunt in frustration and tug harder, but they're caught. Before I can try again, Gale stops me and gently untangles the strap of my quiver from a root and hands them to me.
"What did they ever do to you?" Gale chirps playfully.
I take them from him, and we begin to hike up a hill towards our snares. We hike in silence for a while, and even though the woods usually pull me from any mood, I'm still steaming but have no outlet of consequence, so I turn on him and ask,
"Why did you lie to me yesterday?"
Gale pauses and he holds out his hand in a kind of surrender.
"I don't know, Katniss. I didn't think you'd understand, or that you'd be mad or something, but I really didn't think it was that big of a deal." he explains. I watch his face, frowning, waiting for more. When he doesn't continue, I reply,
"It isn't a big deal, so I don't understand why you lied about it. You can make out with Madge— hell, you can make out with whoever you want wherever you want! I just…"
But I don't know why exactly I feel so upset. Am I really angry at Gale, or am I just taking out my Reaping day feelings on him? I turn and keep hiking. Gale trails a few steps behind.
"I'm sorry I lied. I just thought maybe you'd be mad. And you kind of are," he says.
"I'm not mad!" I yell, unconvincingly. "I just—ugh forget it; it's stupid."
"No—c'mon, what? You just what?" He speeds up to walk beside me. When I shake my head, he steps ahead of me to block my path. We stand at a stalemate. I glower at his worn hunting boots and feel Gale's eyes on the top of my head as he waits for me to answer.
"Katniss?"
I sigh in exasperation and tamp down my embarrassment.
"I thought you trusted me with stuff. And here I am doing the trades—for you and your family, by the way—and you're off making out in alleys with the mayor's daughter." I take a breath and plow ahead, "and here I am wondering how many girls you've kissed and feeling cheated because I'm going into another Reaping without even having one kiss."
We stand in silence for a moment. Finally, I look up from his boots to his eyes. I'm not sure what I expected, but he's smirking at me.
"You think about me kissing girls often?" he says. I scowl and push past him. He grabs my arm gently and turns me back around to face him so that now I am uphill.
"Wait, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I lied and then made fun of you," he says seriously.
"It's fine," I say and we stand there for a moment, just looking at each other. Perhaps it's the lingering effects of my dream; perhaps it's the desperation of the day; or perhaps it's just Gale's warm hand still on my arm, but I step forward and press my lips to his. I stay there long enough to take in the feel of his lips, a little chapped, but full and warm. Gale moves his hand from my arm to my waist and presses his lips to mine in response. It isn't a long kiss, but I feel a flurry of excitement in my chest. My first kiss. We pull away from each other, and I look at him to gauge his response. His eyes hold a mixture of surprise and…sadness? Regret?
"What? That bad?" I ask and laugh, hoping to brush it away. He takes a deep breath before responding.
"Katniss…" he begins. "Madge is pregnant."