The Girl Who Was on Fire by Diana Peterfreund, Carrie Ryan, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Leah Wilson, Terri Clark, Blythe Woolston Read Free Book Online Page B

of Panem is held in thrall by the Games and the terrible ritual of the reaping, where the child-tributes are ripped from their homes and families in order to kill each other.
    Survival in such circumstances is difficult at best, but after Katniss’ father dies in a mining accident, survival for her and her family means constant negotiation of a maze of lies, pretense, and deception. The alternative: death by starvation, or an even worse fate than death. Rendered totally dysfunctional by grief, their mother couldn’t care for her children’s most basic needs, but if they look too disheveled, or grow weak and sick, Prim and Katniss would be taken by Peacekeepers to the Seam’s community home—an institution masquerading as a refuge. Community home kids arrive at Katniss’ school black and blue and battered. 5 Katniss refuses to let Prim suffer this fate. But she has no “legal” recourse to stop the downward spiral of their existence. All she has are the forbidden hunting skills her father taught her. Though only eleven at the time, she braves the predatorfilled wilderness beyond the fenced-in borders and retrieves
her bow and arrow to provide her first meager meal for her family.
    The electrified perimeter fence Katniss breaches to reach the forest serves a dual purpose: it keeps dangerous predators out, but it also keeps residents in. Katniss, like most residents of the Seam, knows the fence is a sham. Current hasn’t run through it for years. Yet everyone pretends the fence is operational. That touching it will kill you. It’s also in need of mending, which is what allows Katniss to crawl underneath.
    The defunct fence is one reason Katniss and Gale can ignore laws with impunity while feeding their families and bartering their daily catch for needed goods in the Hob, the District’s informal trading and black market hub. The other reason is the district’s powers-that-be, who with a wink and a nod condone not only the black market machine itself but also Katniss and Gale’s contribution to keeping it well-oiled and functioning. The Mayor is Katniss’ best customer for strawberries harvested beyond the fence. Even the Capitol’s Peacekeepers enjoy the illegal fare.
    Both the thriving black market and the dysfunctional perimeter fence benefit everyone who lives in the Seam—rich or poor. The black market allows those who are better off access to delicacies available only to the Capitol’s residents and lets enterprising poor like Katniss survive. To acknowledge the fence is broken or that illicit trading is going on is to invite a crackdown from the Capitol, and District 12 is used to being left alone.
    District 12 is so impoverished that until Katniss’ and Peeta’s return as victors, the Capitol has little interest in the local law enforcement. The residents are too weak and underfed to create much trouble—as long as the Seam continues to produce enough coal to fuel Panem’s energy needs, the Capitol is content to ignore it.

    Of course, taking advantage of that neglect still requires Katniss to play her own game of Let’s Pretend—to constantly conjure up her own version of smoke and mirrors. She must go to the Mayor’s backdoor to sell her strawberries because she can’t afford “to be seen” doing so, even though the Mayor himself is her customer. She trades the meat she gets with Peacekeepers, but she must stow her bow and arrow in a hollow log inside the forest, much as her father did. Being caught with weapons is a capital offense in Panem. So Katniss adheres to the letter of the law, careful never to be seen with a weapon, even though her customers know she must use one to hunt.
    Katniss has also mastered the art of masquerade, at least in terms of her feelings. To keep her family alive and safe, Katniss continually masks her resentment toward the unjust system that keeps everyone hungry, weak, and dependent on the corrupt Capitol. Keenly aware of the long arm of the Capitol, never knowing