Maysilee has already fled the hedge, and I hightail it out after her.
Both of us scream our heads off, running in circles as we try to claw the
things from our skin. Once they’ve attached those tiny hypodermic needle mouths, they’re stubborn as all get-out.
“Pluck!” Maysilee orders me. “Pluck!” She dances in place but has settled enough to be pinching each ladybug and yanking it straight out.
I follow suit. The suckers are dug in deep, akin to those on a really determined tick. If I get a grip up near the head and pull firmly and slowly, they pop out in a spray of blood. Planting my feet on the ground to steady myself, I mutter, “Bug by bug . . . bug by bug . . . bug by bug . . .” as I pluck away at my arms, my neck, my face. I strip off my shirt and pants, but only a few made it beneath the loose fabric. When I’m largely vermin-free,
I go to work on Maysilee, who, sleeveless, has had the worst of it. “Bug by bug . . . bug by bug . . .”
She’s trembling all over and, what do you know, so am I. “Bug by bug . . .” we chant together. “Bug by bug . . .” When all the visible ones are gone, she strips down to her underwear, too. “My back?” Yeah, there’s another half dozen there. I’m light-headed and want to sit down, but I don’t stop until every bug’s dead and gone.
“Okay, you’re clean,” I tell her. “You’re all clean.” We both slump to the ground, pale and drained in our bloody skivvies. Parched, I dig in my pack for the water and insist she drink first. “I’m sorry, this was my fault. Talking big like I knew what was in there. I swear, none of them bothered me yesterday.”
“I don’t think the Gamemakers want us going through that hedge,” Maysilee observes.
I nod. “Message received.”
“How much blood do you think we lost?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe a cup or two?” A rogue ladybug explodes behind my ear, making me woozier. I pull the three beef strips out of the pack and hand them to her. “Here. Get some iron in your blood.”
She divides them in half. “Fifty-fifty.” As we eat, she comments, “Your plan is not sustainable.”
I look at her sawing away at her jerky with her pocket-knife and
homemade fork, and can’t help laughing a bit. “No, it certainly is not.” My head’s too muddled to come up with a new plan. All I can do is stretch out on my back and stare at the perfect azure-blue sky. “I can’t seem to think
straight.”
“Me either.” She rustles in the pack. “Do you like olives?” “No idea. Never had one.”
She holds one out to me. “Suck on it for a bit, get the salt out. There’s a pit inside.”
I place one on my tongue, assessing the smooth skin, the strange rich taste, tangy and metallic. “Not bad.” She deposits two more in my palm. I savor each one, rolling it around my mouth and slowly letting my teeth wear it down to the pit.
Time passes, clouds move in, and rain begins to fall. “The tarps!” I cry. We shakily find our feet and unfold our tarps. Reluctant to place them under the poisonous trees, we drive branches into the ground to form posts and stretch the tarps out, so there’s nothing between them and the sky.
Almost immediately, we get results, and a slow trickle runs off them into the waiting water jugs below.
The rain intensifies and we stand, heads back, washing the blood from our faces and bodies. When we pass for clean, we hold our clothes in the
downpour, laundering them as best we can. After about twenty minutes, the clouds turn off like somebody twisted the faucet.
We dress, letting the thin material dry on our bodies, and pass a water jug between us. “Well, if we weren’t before, we’re blood kin now,” says Maysilee.
“Sure enough, Sis. I think I swallowed enough of your blood to qualify.”
“Did you ever want a real sister?”
“I had two for a short time. Twins like you and Merrilee. They didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.”
“No reason you should. It was before school and all.”
A sad look crosses her face. “I keep wondering, will Merrilee still be a twin, after I’m gone?”
“Always,” I say without hesitation, imagining Sid watching us. I hope he won’t think of himself as an only child.
“This is going to be hard on her,” says Maysilee.
After the Games comes the fallout from the Games. Spreading out like ripples in a pond when you toss in a rock. Concentric circles of damage, washing over the dead tributes’ families, their friends, their neighbors, to the ends of the district. Those in closest get hit the worst.
White liquor and depression, broken families and violence and suicide. We never really recover, just move on the best we can.
Sid’s still so young, too tender for this world. “I worry about my brother, too.”
“He comes in the shop sometimes. Loves his taffy. Sid, right?”
I’m touched she knows his name, remembered this detail about him. “Yeah. Sid.”
The cannon sounds twice, startling us.
“I guess it’s too much to hope it’s Silka and Maritte,” I say.
“I don’t know what to hope for. That would leave only us Newcomers.
And then what?” says Maysilee bleakly.
Then what, indeed. “Another meeting, like you said in the Capitol.” “And if we agree to stay true?”
“More mutts,” I say. “Another volcano eruption.”
“Hunger.” She rubs her stomach. “So, can we go back now to the Cornucopia? Look for food?”
“It’s probably a six-mile hike. Should we try to recover a bit more?” “What food do we have left again?”
I check the pack. “Sardines, olives, and two potatoes.” “We better try for the Cornucopia,” she says.
Truth is, I’m so wiped out, I’d rather sit here and hope for food to drop from the sky, but I owe it to her to try her idea. Besides, the longer the Games go on, the pricier it becomes to send us anything, and our sponsor
donations may be depleted. We pack everything up and head south.
We trudge along for a couple of miles before Maysilee stops and raises her head. “Listen.”
I strain my ears, but they’re still not so good as normal, with the blast and all. Things sound kind of muffled and partial, like I’ve got bits of cotton wool in my ears. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Shush!” she whispers urgently. “Over there.” She points off to our right, to the west.
I cock my head for better reception, and this time I do pick up something. “Is that a baby?” My brain starts spinning images of ravenous babies designed with superhuman strength crawling around the woods, crying for us to help them, but really looking to swarm us and pick our
bones clean as a wishbone with their chubby little fingers.
“I thought so at first, but there’s an animal sound to it, too. Kind of squealing and mewling . . . like a goat or a kitten.”
My mind adds horns and fluffy tails to the mutt babies. “Let’s keep clear. Whatever it is doesn’t need our help.”
An agonized scream echoes through the trees. Definitely from a guy.
“But he does. All the male Careers are dead, Haymitch.” Maysilee loads her blowgun. “That’s either Hull or Buck.”
I pull my knife and my ax. “Let’s go.”
I ditch my pack in a patch of katniss and we take off toward the disturbance. I can’t shake the image of those baby mutts from my mind, but I forge ahead, already thinking of protecting my kneecaps. The weird baby noise becomes more distinct and less recognizable, but it’s overlaid by
some very familiar moans of human pain. Suddenly, Maysilee yanks me to the ground and I’m peering through the bushes down a small slope into a clearing.
About fifteen feet away, Buck and Chicory lie writhing on the ground.
Long metallic spikes that resemble knitting needles protrude from their flesh. They paw at them with clumsy hands, as if they’ve got really bad
frostbite or something’s disabled their fingers. I’m trying to make sense of the scene — does Silka have a weapon that shoots projectiles? Did they run into a pine tree with detachable poison needles? Is there an army of mutt
wasps with wicked stingers? The mutts so far have come in droves, be it butterflies, bats, squirrels, or ladybugs, so I’m thrown when the lone source of the attack waddles into view.
Porcupines inhabit the hills around 12. Lenore Dove has an affection for the ones back home — quill pigs she calls them — saying they’re
misunderstood. They can’t shoot quills like people think; you have to come in contact with them, especially their tails, and if you leave them be, they
leave you be. But even she would have trouble loving this massive mutant beast. It’s the size of a bear — in fact, it might have been crossed with one in the lab, given its claws and teeth. Like everything in the arena, it’s striking in its way. The rows of pure gold, silver, and bronze quills adorning its back, sides, and tail gleam in the sunlight. But I’m long over being seduced by the arena’s beauty.
Distorted baby sounds continue to stream from its mouth as it snuffles around the clearing. Hull, who has a half dozen quills dangling from his swollen face, hollers as he lunges at it with a pitchfork. The porcupine
responds by backing toward him, its deadly rear raised and bristling. Hull could run away, but he’s trying to get to his allies. Hoping they might be only injured, instead of dying.
“We need some kind of shield,” Maysilee whispers, sliding off her backpack and pulling out our tarps.
I run my fingers over the thick canvas, coated with something to make it waterproof, though not necessarily quill-proof. “Maybe if we double them up?” I suggest. Layered together, they feel a bit more secure. “Okay, what’s the plan? I think we’re safe if we keep our distance. It has to make contact to quill us.”
We weigh our options. Maysilee decides, “I can try the darts if we’re a bit closer, but I’m afraid they’ll have trouble getting through to its skin. You think you could get a knife in it?”
“Not sure. It does look pretty well protected. Maybe if we flip it on its back? Get the underbelly?”
“Flip it with what?”
I spy a sturdy tree limb on the ground. “Branch might work.”
Just then, the porcupine twists its hindquarters and drives a slew of quills into Hull’s thigh. He cries out in agony and sinks to the ground. I
retrieve the branch and start snapping off the smaller shoots to streamline it into a staff. The sound draws the attention of the beast and it begins to clatter its teeth together. As it shifts in our direction and approaches, a stench of musk and roses washes over us, making my eyes water.
Maysilee hoists the double tarp in front of us and we peer over it. “I don’t have a lot of confidence in this flipping thing,” she says. “And it’s still too far for darts. What about your ax? Can you throw it?”
With the amount of kindling the world’s required of me, chopping wood for white liquor and laundry, I’ve messed around with axes plenty. This one’s on the long side and I’ve never practiced with it, though it’s not dissimilar to one I threw with Ringina back in training.
“I can try,” I say. “But you better have those darts ready.”
I shove my knife in my belt and get a double-handed grip on my ax, the way they said was best in the gym. “Okay, now.” As Maysilee lowers the tarps, I drop the ax back behind my head and then launch it at the
porcupine. It makes one rotation before the blade buries itself in the beast’s side.
A squeal of pain and indignation rings out. The mutt puts us squarely in line with its butt, but I’m not too worried because we still have ten feet between us. Then it begins to demonstrate some unusual behavior, quivering at first, which leads to it shaking like a wet dog. The quills shoot out in a sunburst, and Maysilee barely has time to yank the tarps back up
before a dozen pierce them. One sticks the bulb of my nose and another
comes a hair’s breadth from my pupil, dangerously close to blinding me. I jerk back and rip the quill from my nose. Tiny bits of my flesh cling to the barbed end, leaving a raw, stinging wound.
Still keeping the tarps aloft, Maysilee removes a spike from her cheek with a wince. “Once again, you were misinformed.”
“I’m sorry. Nothing behaves naturally here.” She turns the tarps ninety degrees to get the quills away from our eyes, and we peek over the top. I spot my ax lying on the ground, freed by the mutt’s shaking. “Think my ax did any damage?”
“Hard to tell,” she says.
The porcupine goes on the rampage, stamping its feet and fussing like a toddler having a meltdown. Only, I know it’s nobody’s baby, just an abomination whipped up in a test tube to murder us. It begins to shake again. We duck below the tarps for cover as another round of quills peppers us.
A cannon sounds, and I know one of the Newcomers has gone. Two remain alive. I don’t know what poison the quills carry, but my nose has swelled up like a ripe strawberry. If we give them the antidote, could they recover still? Should I drink some now? Is one quill enough to kill you?
“We need to get to them,” I tell Maysilee. “Try the antidote.”
“Yes, but I don’t think your stick’s going to be of much use,” she says. “I don’t think anything’s going to be of much use since it can shoot
those quills.” I watch the creature continue its tantrum and think of Sid when he was a little one. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe we should try soothing it.”
“Soothing it?”
“Yeah, like when you try to calm down a baby. And then just get it to move on.”
“Sing it a lullaby maybe?” Maysilee deadpans. “Maybe,” I counter. “Or give it a pacifier.”
“I guess you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Maysilee unearths the cans from her pack. “Olives or sardines?”
“Well, the olives are easier to throw.” I pull one out and chuck it in front of the porcupine, which ignores it. I bounce a few more off its nose. The cries mellow to whimpers as it runs its snout along the forest floor, snarfing up the olives. “Who doesn’t love salt?” I lob another one a couple of feet ahead of the mutt, and it lumbers after it. Then another and another, stretching the distance each time, until I’ve got it ten yards outside the clearing. Out of olives, I throw the empty can as far into the woods as my
strength allows and hear the porcupine crashing through the trees like a dog after a bone.
A second cannon fires. Maysilee’s in the clearing in a flash, trying to tip the antidote between Hull’s lips. I check for Chicory’s and Buck’s pulses, just in case those cannons were for some unfortunate tribute elsewhere. Nothing. I join Maysilee, who’s managed to coax some of the syrup down Hull’s throat, and begin plucking quills from his leg to reduce the poison.
“Come on, Hull,” she tells him. “You’ve got to drink this down. Come on, now.” He’s trying, his throat muscles rippling with the effort, but the antidote’s bubbling back and spilling down the side of his face. We continue, her coaxing, me plucking, until the cannon sounds, and even then,
for a few minutes more because maybe someone as young and strong and deserving of life as Hull might find his way back to it. But he doesn’t and so, finally, we give up.
The hovercraft approaches, a vulture hungry for the remains of our allies. From deep in the woods comes the sound of the porcupine chomping on the olive can, its targets long forgotten. Evening air cools my cheeks and diffuses the creature’s musk. Maysilee passes me the bottle and I take a swig of the antidote. I don’t know how much poison one quill delivers, but why take a chance? It tastes like somebody mixed chalk bits in buttermilk and forgot to stir it.
Maysilee and I go around and shut each of the dead tributes’ eyes and try to arrange their bodies properly so their families’ last image won’t be of their contorted limbs. On our way out of the clearing, we collect the ax, our tarps, and their supplies. The claw begins its descent as we reach my backpack. We sit smack down in the clump of katniss, side by side, completely done in.
I can barely hear her whisper. “One of us has to win this thing.”
My eyes travel up the long stems to the arrow-shaped leaves, the
white petals, concealing us from Capitol cameras. “Why’s that?” I whisper back.
“One of us has to be the worst victor in history. Tear up their scripts, tear down their celebrations, set fire to the Victor’s Village. Refuse to play their game.”
Reminds me of Pa. “Make sure they don’t use our blood to paint their posters?”
“Exactly. We’ll paint our own posters. And I know just where we can get the paint.” In a gesture I remember from the schoolyard long ago, she extends her pinkie. “Swear it.”
I encircle it with my own and our pinkies lock tight. They will never let me be a victor, not after my attempt to break the arena, but I can swear to try to keep her alive. “One of us paints the posters.”
She rises and pulls me up. “Let’s check the supplies.”
Our allies must have recently received a parachute, because one pack holds crackers and baked beans and an unexpected treat, raisins mixed with nuts and candy. There’s a blanket, too, and some more water jugs, one half- full. We decide to save the Cornucopia for tomorrow, so I start a fire.
Maysilee heats up the beans, which we dine on in our own fashion, by fork or cracker, and then eat our treat, one morsel at a time.
The anthem plays, and Ringina and Autumn appear, followed by Buck, Chicory, and Hull.
“Five gone, five left,” I report.
“You, me, Silka, Maritte, Wellie.”
Wellie. Out there as night falls, dealing with all this alone. “We’ll find Wellie tomorrow.”
“Right. We’ll find her,” says Maysilee. “It could work for her to win, too. You sleep first, Haymitch. I’ll keep watch.”
No point in pretending I’m not running on empty. I wrap the blanket around her shoulders, make a hammock bed, and curl up in the mesh. “I
sure could use that lullaby right about now.”
She gives a surprisingly unladylike snort. “You don’t want to hear what’s running through my head. Started in the maze and just won’t quit.”
“Got you an earworm, do you? Well, only cure for that is to pass it to someone else.”
“Okay, then. You asked for it.” She begins to sing in a low voice.
Ladybug, ladybug fly away home.
Your house is on fire, your children are gone. All except one, who answers to Nan.
She’s hiding under the frying pan.
A grin crosses my face at the silly song from our childhood. “Well, I guess I brought that on myself. Good night, Sis.”
I try to fall asleep, but Maysilee’s earworm has given me a
brainworm . . . ladybug . . . fire . . . the flint striker . . . no, the blowtorch . . . fear . . . fly away The pieces spin around in a tornado, then cling
together like long-lost lovers.
And I know exactly how we’re getting through that maze.
