Read Online The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Free Book Online Page A

in the Games,” says Cinna.
    “So they gave you District Twelve,” I say. Newcomers generally end up with us, the least desirable district.
    “I asked for District Twelve,” he says without further explanation. “Why don’t you put on your robe and we’ll have a chat.”
    Pulling on my robe, I follow him through a door into a sitting room. Two red couches face off over a lowtable. Three walls are blank, the fourth is entirely glass, providing a window to the city. I can see by the light that it must be around noon, although the sunny sky has turned overcast. Cinna invites me to sit on one of the couches and takes his place across from me. He presses a button on the side of the table. The top splits and from below rises a second tabletop that holds our lunch. Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions, rolls shaped like flowers, and for dessert, a pudding the color of honey.
    I try to imagine assembling this meal myself back home. Chickens are too expensive, but I could make do with a wild turkey. I’d need to shoot a second turkey to trade for an orange. Goat’s milk would have to substitute for cream. We can grow peas in the garden. I’d have to get wild onions from the woods. I don’t recognize the grain, our own tessera ration cooks down to an unattractive brown mush. Fancy rolls would mean another trade with the baker, perhaps for two or three squirrels. As for the pudding, I can’t even guess what’s in it. Days of hunting and gathering for this one meal and even then it would be a poor substitution for the Capitol version.
    What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?
    I look up and find Cinna’s eyes trained on mine. “How despicable we must seem to you,” he says.
    Has he seen this in my face or somehow read my thoughts? He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable.
    “No matter,” says Cinna. “So, Katniss, about your costume for the opening ceremonies. My partner, Portia, is the stylist for your fellow tribute, Peeta. And our current thought is to dress you in complementary costumes,” says Cinna. “As you know, it’s customary to reflect the flavor of the district.”
    For the opening ceremonies, you’re supposed to wear something that suggests your district’s principal industry. District 11, agriculture. District 4, fishing. District 3, factories. This means that coming from District 12, Peeta and I will be in some kind of coal miner’s getup. Since the baggy miner’s jumpsuits are not particularly becoming, our tributes usually end up in skimpy outfits and hats with headlamps. One year, our tributes were stark naked and covered in black powder to represent coal dust. It’s always dreadful and does nothing to win favor with the crowd. I prepare myself for the worst.
    “So, I’ll be in a coal miner outfit?” I ask, hoping it won’t be indecent.
    “Not exactly. You see, Portia and I think that coal miner thing’s very overdone. No one will remember you in that. And we both see it as our job to make the District Twelve tributes unforgettable,” says Cinna.
    I’ll be naked for sure, I think.
    “So rather than focus on the coal mining itself, we’re going to focus on the coal,” says Cinna.
    Naked and covered in black dust, I think.
    “And what do we do with coal? We burn it,” says Cinna.“You’re not afraid of fire, are you, Katniss?” He sees my expression and grins.
    A few hours later, I am dressed in what will either be the most sensational or the deadliest costume in the opening ceremonies. I’m in a simple black unitard that covers me from