Chapter 4

For a few moments, Peeta and I take in the scene of our

mentor trying to rise out of the slippery vile stuff from his

stomach. The reek of vomit and raw spirits almost brings my

dinner up. We exchange a glance. Obviously Haymitch isn’t

much, but Effie Trinket is right about one thing, once we’re in

the arena he’s all we’ve got. As if by some unspoken 

agreement, Peeta and I each take one of Haymitch’s arms and 

help him to his feet.

“I tripped?” Haymitch asks. “Smells bad.” He wipes his hand

on his nose, smearing his face with vomit.

“Let’s get you back to your room,” says Peeta. “Clean you up

a bit.”

We half-lead half-carry Haymitch back to his compartment.

Since we can’t exactly set him down on the embroidered 

bedspread, we haul him into the bathtub and turn the shower 

on him. He hardly notices.

“It’s okay,” Peeta says to me. “I’ll take it from here.”

I can’t help feeling a little grateful since the last thing I want

to do is strip down Haymitch, wash the vomit out of his chest

hair, and tuck him into bed. Possibly Peeta is trying to make a

good impression on him, to be his favorite once the Games

begin. But judging by the state he’s in, Haymitch will have no

memory of this tomorrow. “All right,” I say. “I can send one 

of the Capitol people to help you.” There’s any number on the

 train. Cooking for us. Waiting on us. Guarding us. Taking care 

of us is their job.

“No. I don’t want them,” says Peeta.

I nod and head to my own room. I understand how Peeta

feels. I can’t stand the sight of the Capitol people myself. But

making them deal with Haymitch might be a small form of 

revenge. So I’m pondering the reason why he insists on taking

care of Haymitch and all of a sudden I think, It’s because he’s

being kind. Just as he was kind to give me the bread.The idea 

pulls me up short. A kind Peeta Mellark is far more dangerous 

to me than an unkind one. Kind people have a way of working 

their way inside me and rooting there. And I can’t let Peeta do 

this. Not where we’re going. So I decide, from this moment on, 

to have as little as possible to do with the baker’s son.

When I get back to my room, the train is pausing at a platform

to refuel. I quickly open the window, toss the cookies

Peeta’s father gave me out of the train, and slam the glass

shut. No more. No more of either of them.

Unfortunately, the packet of cookies hits the ground and

bursts open in a patch of dandelions by the track. I only see

the image for a moment, because the train is off again, but 

it’s enough. Enough to remind me of that other dandelion 

in the school yard years ago . . .

I had just turned away from Peeta Mellark’s bruised face

when I saw the dandelion and I knew hope wasn’t lost. I

plucked it carefully and hurried home. I grabbed a bucket and

Prim’s hand and headed to the Meadow and yes, it was dotted

with the golden-headed weeds. After we’d harvested those,

we scrounged along inside the fence for probably a mile until

we’d filled the bucket with the dandelion greens, stems, and

flowers. That night, we gorged ourselves on dandelion salad

and the rest of the bakery bread.

“What else?” Prim asked me. “What other food can we

find?”

“All kinds of things,” I promised her. “I just have to remember

them.”

My mother had a book she’d brought with her from the

apothecary shop. The pages were made of old parchment and

covered in ink drawings of plants. Neat handwritten blocks

told their names, where to gather them, when they came in

bloom, their medical uses. But my father added other entries

to the book. Plants for eating, not healing. Dandelions, 

pokeweed, wild onions, pines. Prim and I spent the rest of the 

night poring over those pages.

The next day, we were off school. For a while I hung around

the edges of the Meadow, but finally I worked up the courage

to go under the fence. It was the first time I’d been there

alone, without my father’s weapons to protect me. But I 

retrieved the small bow and arrows he’d made me from a 

hollow tree. I probably didn’t go more than twenty yards into 

the woods that day. Most of the time, I perched up in the 

branches of an old oak, hoping for game to come by. After 

several hours, I had the good luck to kill a rabbit.

I’d shot a few rabbits before, with my father’s guidance. But

this I’d done on my own.

We hadn’t had meat in months. The sight of the rabbit

seemed to stir something in my mother. She roused herself,

skinned the carcass, and made a stew with the meat and some

more greens Prim had gathered. Then she acted confused and

went back to bed, but when the stew was done, we made her

eat a bowl.

The woods became our savior, and each day I went a bit

farther into its arms.