Catching Fire, Chapter 11

[farla]

Last time on Catching Fire, Katniss met people who were more interesting than her, helped them out, then found the fence was electrified.

Katniss immediately jumps to the idea this is the new peacekeeper's doing. So I guess that's another retcon - instead of the fence being on a few hours a day, it's more like a few hours a week or something.

She does remember this has happened occasionally before.

but Gale was always with me. 

You can really see why this book is recommended for such a strong female character.

Back then, her family would know she was waiting for the fence to turn off if she was late. But they won't realize that happened this time.

I thought no one saw me sneak under the fence, but who knows? There are always eyes for hire. Someone reported Gale kissing me in that very spot. Still, that was in daylight and before I was more careful about my behavior. Could there be surveillance cameras?

So Katniss believes there are invisible cameras watching everywhere 24/7 in a town that usually doesn't even have electricity. But it's completely impossible that any of these magic cameras could possibly be on the other side of the fence.

I would insult Katniss for this, but I'm pretty sure she's right, so I guess I'll compliment her for being so bright she's able to work out the nonsense logic her world works on.

She decides she needs to get over the fence, so she's got to climb a tree.

I come upon an old maple that might do.

Wait.

Back up.

You still have maples?

Hey, guys. Anyone ever read the Little House books? Remember how they used maple syrup for everything, and white sugar was this fancy delicacy? That was because if you live around maples, maple sugar is cheap. If maple trees are still around, there should be plenty of sugar too.

Somehow they still have both corn AND maple trees and yet no cheap sugar. Well. Let's see if we can complete the trifecta of incompetence and get a reference to sugar cane too.

Anyway, so now Katniss has to jump from twenty-five feet up. There was ten feet of snow, but it seems that's melted. She says there's a snowbank of unspecificed size, which is probably pretty tightly packed and icy from all the melting. Katniss' life kind of sucks.

There's the sensation of falling, then I hit the ground with a jolt that goes right up my spine. A second later, my rear end slams the ground. I lie in the snow, trying to assess the damage. 

...how can you be smart enough to know about getting over the fence like this and too dumb to know how to land? Even I know you want to fall forward so you don't break your tailbone.

Without standing, I can tell by the pain in my left heel and my tailbone that I'm injured.

And she landed on her heel too? This is ridiculous, how can she be this bad at it?

I need to work up some sort of alibi, no matter how thin. Some of the shops in the square are still open, so I go in one and purchase white cloth for bandages. We're running low, anyway. In another, I buy a bag of sweets for Prim. 

...so, there's food shortages, and sugar is incredibly rare normally, but there's still candy to be bought.

I feel I need to point out that "sweets" have these things called "calories" because they're full of "sugars".

I meant to make a meal at the lake, but once I saw Twill and Bonnie's condition, it seemed wrong to take a single mouthful from them.

What.

Does the book seriously expect us to praise Katniss over this? It didn't seem wrong, it would have been wrong, objectively. They were starving and that food was the only thing they had, while Katniss would be going home to a still well stocked house and a pile of money to buy more. What's next, Katniss demanding praise for not stealing candy from little kids?

I hate this book so much.

By the time I reach my house, my left heel will bear no weight at all.

...you were walking on it this whole way?

So, when I was a little kid I liked to jump into water with my legs straight and one day without thinking I did this on the shallow end of a pool. I was maybe six at the time. Anyway, I landed on my heel and hurt it pretty badly. Do you know what I, using my six year old brain, the one that had me jump into the shallow end of a pool managed to work out? To not walk on my heel. The idea of not standing on something that hurts isn't rocket science.

Anyway, she gets back and there's peacekeepers waiting for her.

“May we ask where you've been, Miss Everdeen?” the woman asks.
“Easier to ask where I haven't been,” I say with a sound of exasperation.

Oh god are we really doing this.

“So where haven't you been?” says Haymitch in a bored voice.
“Well, I haven't been talking to the Goat Man about getting Prim's goat pregnant, because someone gave me completely inaccurate information as to where he lives,” I say to Prim emphatically.
“No, I didn't,” says Prim. “I told you exactly.”
“You said he lives beside the west entrance to the mine,” I say.
“The east entrance,” Prim corrects me.
“You distinctly said the west, because then I said, 'Next to the slag heap?' and you said, 'Yeah,'“ I say.
“The slag heap next to the east entrance,” says Prim patiently.
“No. When did you say that?” I demand. “Last night,” Haymitch chimes in.
“It was definitely the east,” adds Peeta. He looks at Haymitch and they laugh. I glare at Peeta and he tries to look contrite. “I'm sorry, but it's what I've been saying. You don't listen when people talk to you.”
“Bet people told you he didn't live there today and you didn't listen again,” says Haymitch.

AND THEN THE PEACEKEEPERS IMMEDIATELY ARREST HER BECAUSE HOW MUCH MORE OBVIOUS CAN YOU GET.

Do you know what you don't do when the jackbooted thugs show up? Chat casually with your little sister. Unless, of course, you're desperately trying to convince them that you have no idea they'd be mad at you, which you'd only do if you were very guilty, since they're the jackbooted thugs, they're always fucking mad at you.

Naturally this works perfectly because apparently the capital doesn't bother to train anyone and find nothing suspicious about her act or the idea she wouldn't know where major landmarks or a well known person are in a small town she'd spend her whole life in.

The peacekeepers get her to empty her bag in the hopes there's game, because apparently they need actual evidence to arrest her. I'm sorry, do you think this is a democracy? That you're held accountable to some sort of fair justice system? Just fucking arrest her!

They tell her the power's on at the fence and Katniss pretends surprise about how she thought it always was on, because pretending to not know something everyone knows isn't suspicious AT ALL (what she should have done was say she was glad it'd keep out the scary death animals), and then leave and her mom checks her injuries. She thinks the heel might be broken and the tailbone bruised. As I managed to fracture my tailbone in a fall of about a foot, this strikes me as backward. Your feet are designed to handle force. Your tailbone is not.

Naturally, her mom does a bunch to treat her foot and the tailbone is pretty much fine despite it being attached to her spine. She then gives Katniss tea with sleep syrup which apparently makes you "uninhibited" so Katniss ask Peeta to stay there while she falls asleep.

I know I have to control my tongue. But I don't want him to go. In fact, I want him to climb in with me, to be there when the nightmares hit tonight. For some reason that I can't quite form, I know I'm not allowed to ask that.

FEMINISM: because you're still a slut even if you're not having sex, slut.

Anyway, she's got bedrest from her injuries, so she and Peeta work on adding new plants into the book. Katniss likes watching this.

I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes, which ordinarily you don't notice much because they're so blond. But up close, in the sunlight slanting in from the window, they're a light golden color and so long I don't see how they keep from getting all tangled up when he blinks.

So given she's a slut if she's interested in the wrong boy, she ends up with Peeta? She spends more time staring at him and sexual interest is evil outside of your future husband so.

You know, I think I just found why heroines have to end up with the first boy.

Katniss also watches TV, hoping to see the mockingjay in District 13.

My first sighting is in a news story referencing the Dark Days. I see the smoldering remains of the Justice Building in District 13 and just catch the black-and-white underside of a mockingjay's wing as it flies across the upper right-hand corner. That doesn't prove anything, really. It's just an old shot that goes with an old tale.
However, several days later, something else grabs my attention. The main newscaster is reading a piece about a shortage of graphite affecting the manufacturing of items in District 3. They cut to what is supposed to be live footage of a female reporter, encased in a protective suit, standing in front of the ruins of the Justice Building in 13. Through her mask, she reports that unfortunately a study has just today determined that the mines of District 13 are still too toxic to approach. End of story. But just before they cut back to the main newscaster, I see the unmistakable flash of that same mockingjays wing.

HOW DID YOU MISS HOW IT'S STILL FUCKING SMOLDERING AFTER A CENTURY YOU FUCKING MORONS WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU HOW CAN YOU BE SO FUCKING STUPID I HATE THIS BOOK I HATE IT SO MUCH.

You know, I keep seeing references to people saying they read the book in a day. I can really understand that.