Authors' Note: Hey, guys! We've decided to dedicate this chapter to Elfera, who has been awesome at reviewing and even gave us an idea for a Peeta death! You're amazing! (And we thoroughly approve of your moustache smiley face!)

Fourteen

"Peeta, what the snicklemuffin are you doing now?" Katniss complained, clamping one hand to her one uninjured ear to block out his annoying chatter.

"I'm building a shelter!" he explained, rushing around and picking up small twigs of various sizes. When he had gathered a tiny handful, he began jamming them into the ground around them until the two tributes were standing in a small circle of two-inch-high twig stumps. "There!" he exclaimed happily. "Now we just need a roof!"

Katniss rolled her eyes at him hopelessly. "You are an idiot," she informed him as she began to trudge away. Peeta followed her, pouting. Eventually, the two of them came upon a small steam.

"WAIT!" Peeta screeched as Katniss bent down to take a drink of the pristine and sparkling water. "There could be BACTERIA in there!"

Katniss just glared at him, and then dipped her entire face into the water and took a big gulp of water.

"NO!" Peeta howled, lunging forward to stop her. But he had pretty much no sense of balance, so he naturally ended up tumbling into the stream. "AAAAAHHH!" he yelled, flailing his arms about. Katniss quickly grabbed his arm and fished him out of the water before he could claim that he was drowning (again).

Peeta stumbled to his feet, spluttering, and ran as fast as his little stumpers would carry him away from the dangerous water. When he stopped to take a breath, he almost fell deep into the depths of a small cave that he had almost accidentally stumbled into.

"Hey, Katy-poo!" he called excitedly. "I found a shelter!"

Katniss caught up to him and peered down into the cavern. "I guess you did," she admitted, turning to look at him in amazement. "Now, why don't you go check it out?"

Peeta suddenly looked nervous. "Why don't you?" he asked timidly. Katniss simply shrugged, pulled out her bow, and made as if to crawl inside.

Before she could do so, however, a large red-tailed hawk swooped out and clawed Peeta's eyeballs right out of their sockets.

"TSEEEEEER!" the hawk shrieked triumphantly.

Peeta tripped forward, screaming , and fell through the cave entrance. The cave was actually approximately 5000,000,000,000,000,000,000 feet deep, so he landed with a very deadly and loud "SPLAT".

Katniss glanced up at the hawk, and then down at the distant splat mark. "I'm never going against animal rights activists again," she decided. Grinning, she walked off again, unaware that a small pack of wolves was watching her.

Fifteen

"OOOH! Katniss, did you hear that?" Peeta called excitedly, almost tripping over his own bulky feet before reaching her. Katniss was still listening thoughtfully to the fading echoes of Claudius' announcement, but she turned, irritated, to face him as he approached.

"I'm not deaf, Peeta," she told him grumpily. "Well, not in both ears, anyway."

Peeta was too busy running around in giddy circles to reply. "We're going to a party! We're going to a party!" he squealed happily.

Katniss stuck out one arm to stop him, looking as if she was about to explode with frustration. "It's not a party, Peeta," she explained less than patiently. "It's a Feast. We can go there to get the one object that we need the most."

Peeta's eyes went wide with wonder. "It's like a Secret Santa Thanksgiving!" he yelped joyfully, and ducked under Katniss' arm to continue running around.

Katniss planted her palm on her forehead and glared at him. "Whatever, you idiot," she muttered. Grabbing onto one of his arms, she dragged him back to the (different) cave that they now called home.

The day dawned bright and cold around the place where the elevator-table-thingie would arise the next morning. Katniss, form her hiding place in the shrubs, turned around to face her companion.

"You know the plan, right?" she asked Peeta, who was busy drawing flowers in the dirt with a stick. She confiscated his stylus and glared at him until he responded.

"I'm the decoy!"

"And what do you do?"

"I run around in circles, yelling 'LA LA LA LA LA! Come and get me!'"

"Good." Katniss fidgeted anxiously. "When is the donging table going to come up?" she muttered to herself.

Just then, the donging table came up. On its shiny metal surface rested four backpacks. (The Gamemakers had realized that there wasn't really anything that Rue needed, since she seemed to be doing a pretty good job reinventing the human society in the treetops.)

Nobody moved for a few moments. Suddenly, a small girl ran from the cover of the woods. She was wearing a crude fox mask, and her red hair, which matched the coloring of her fake face, was tangled and knotted. She was grasping a cello bow in her hand.

As soon as she reached the table, she snatched the bag that was labeled "Foxfaced Girl Whose Name We Don't Remember" and quickly unzipped it. From its depths she withdrew a long russet scarf with a white tip. "AHA!" she yelled triumphantly, and quickly tucked one end into the back of her pants. Then she zoomed off again, her new tail streaming out behind her like the trail of a comet going through an identity crisis.

All of the onlookers were stunned for a moment. And then Clove emerged from the woods, brandishing a fistful of Hot-N'-Stylish throwing knives (blade covers sold separately). "THAT ADORABLE PINK BACKPACK IS MINE!" she screeched, and took off for the table as fast as her sparkly purple go-go boots (killer cleat spikes removable) would go.

Predictably, chaos ensued.

Peeta, distracted by the shininess of Clove's footwear, forgot to be the decoy and instead caught her ankles in a flying tackle that knocked her off of her feet. Katniss ran for the table to grab her backpack, upon which was written "The Cool Girl That Shoots Stuff And That Other Loser Guy", only to spot Cato charging at her out of the corner of her eye. And Thresh was flexing his muscles and trying to rip through his t-shirt with them with limited success.

Katniss aimed an arrow at Cato, but missed and accidently pegged one of his two remaining backup singers, who fell to the ground and was trampled by the big blonde boy. Seeing that he would soon be upon her, Katniss gave up and snatched the backpack away before taking off for the woods again. When she reached its edge, she turned around to look for Peeta.

He was too busy being stabbed by Clove to try to catch up to Katniss, so Katniss decided to just leave him to it. Opening the back, she reached in her hand… and removed a bunch of banana cakes.

"WHAT?" she shriek in disbelief. Turning to face Peeta with murder in her eyes, she nocked an arrow and fired it straight through his stupid stabbed-open-by-an-angry-Clove noggin.

"Hey!" Clove exclaimed, miffed. "I was killing him! Spoilsport!" She tossed her perfectly moisturized hair is disgust, and then removed a new bottle of mascara from the pink bag that Cato had delivered to her. "Now, this is what I'm talking about!" she trilled as she put on her makeup.

Pulling out a small hand mirror, she noticed that a drop of Peeta's blood had smeared her eye shadow. "Ugh! You are such a loser," she complained to Peeta's bloody corpse, and gave him one last kick before settling down to "pretty up".