【饥饿游戏】09

The rain had soaked through my father’s hunting jacket, leaving
me chilled to the bone. For three days, we’d had nothing but
boiled water with some old dried mint leaves I’d found in the
back of a cupboard. By the time the market closed, I was shaking
so hard I dropped my bundle of baby clothes in a mud
puddle 1. I didn’t pick it up for fear I would keel over and be unable
to regain 2 my feet. Besides, no one wanted those clothes.
I couldn’t go home. Because at home was my mother with
her dead eyes and my little sister, with her hollow cheeks and
cracked lips. I couldn’t walk into that room with the smoky
fire from the damp branches I had scavenged at the edge of
the woods after the coal had run out, my bands empty of any
hope.
I found myself stumbling along a muddy lane behind the
shops that serve the wealthiest townspeople. The merchants
live above their businesses, so I was essentially 3 in their 
backyards. I remember the outlines of garden beds not yet 
planted for the spring, a goat or two in a pen, one sodden 
dog tied to a post, hunched 4 defeated in the muck.
All forms of stealing are forbidden in District 12. Punishable
by death. But it crossed my mind that there might be
something in the trash bins 6, and those were fair game. Perhaps
a bone at the butcher’s or rotted vegetables at the grocer’s,
something no one but my family was desperate enough to
eat. Unfortunately, the bins had just been emptied.
When I passed the baker’s, the smell of fresh bread was so
overwhelming I felt dizzy. The ovens were in the back, and a
golden glow spilled out the open kitchen door. I stood 
mesmerized 7 by the heat and the luscious 8 scent 9 until the rain 
interfered 10, running its icy fingers down my back, forcing me 
back to life. I lifted the lid to the baker’s trash bin 5 and found 
it spotlessly, heartlessly bare.
Suddenly a voice was screaming at me and I looked up to
see the baker’s wife, telling me to move on and did I want her
to call the Peacekeepers and how sick she was of having those
brats 11 from the Seam pawing through her trash. The words
were ugly and I had no defense 12. As I carefully replaced the lid
and backed away, I noticed him, a boy with blond hair peering
out from behind his mother’s back. I’d seen him at school. He
was in my year, but I didn’t know his name. He stuck with the
town kids, so how would I? His mother went back into the 
bakery, grumbling 13, but he must have been watching me as I
made my way behind the pen that held their pig and leaned
against the far side of an old apple tree. The realization 14 that
I’d have nothing to take home had finally sunk in. My knees
buckled 15 and I slid down the tree trunk to its roots. It was too
much. I was too sick and weak and tired, oh, so tired. Let 
them call the Peacekeepers and take us to the community 
home, I thought. Or better yet, let me die right here in the rain.
There was a clatter 16 in the bakery and I heard the woman
screaming again and the sound of a blow, and I vaguely 
wondered what was going on. Feet sloshed toward me through 
the mud and I thought, It’s her. She’s coming to drive me away
with a stick. But it wasn’t her. It was the boy. In his arms, he 
carried two large loaves of bread that must have fallen into the 
fire because the crusts were scorched 17 black.
His mother was yelling, “Feed it to the pig, you stupid 
creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!”
He began to tear off chunks 18 from the burned parts and toss
them into the trough, and the front bakery bell rung and the
mother disappeared to help a customer.
The boy never even glanced my way, but I was watching
him. Because of the bread, because of the red weal that 
stood out on his cheekbone. What had she hit him with?
My parents never hit us. I couldn’t even imagine it. The boy
took one look back to the bakery as if checking that the coast
was clear, then, his attention back on the pig, he threw a loaf
of bread in my direction. The second quickly followed, and he
sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door tightly
behind him.