BLOGGING THE HUNGER GAMES, pt. 20: A Baby For Pree

Now that Katniss and Peeta are reunited the sex jokes can resume at full force. In this chapter, Peeta has a fever. And the only prescription is for MORE KATNISS. (They'll get better, I promise.) Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 20

Katniss kisses and coaxes Peeta into swallowing (wait for it) the broth, lets him fall asleep, and then attends to her “own needs.” With Peeta sleeping right there? What if he wakes up and catches you in the act? She realizes she can't retreat to the trees and tries not to feel resentful of the way teaming with Peeta has made her weaker. This is a total marriage metaphor, right? Katniss used to be single, now she's “tethered to the ground” and masturbating (maybe) in a cave. But she says she's going to trust whatever instinct led her to him. Hmmmm.

When he wakes up, he tells Katniss to take a nap while he keeps watch. “Are you going to do weird stuff to my body while I sleep?” is what Katniss SHOULD ASK, but instead she just does as he says. And wakes up in the late afternoon, pissed that he let her sleep that long. Why? (“I didn't want to miss all the staring at nothing!”-Katniss) Later Katniss looks at Peeta's wound and realizes it's getting worse.

Other stuff happens: we learn that the nameless girl from D2 is named “Clove,” so okay, that's fine. Then Katniss makes Peeta some soup by heating water with really hot stones that have been out in the sun. OK, nifty! (But the length of the description of said stone soup is out of proportion to my interest in it; it's an escalating problem in this chapter.) Then Peeta asks Katniss to tell him a story. Uh, what? You're an adult, Peeta. The only way this works if if you ask for a sex story. And he doesn't, so Katniss tells the most boring story ever—there is no sex or even making out in it at all!—about how she got a goat for Prim. She shot a deer and traded it and then bought a sick goat and Prim nursed it back to health. That's the whole story, but it takes like fifty pages. I'm exaggerating but I'm not, really.

Then another announcement is made and Katniss walks to the mouth of the cave to look at the sky. The head Gamemaker dude announces that tomorrow, in the clearing where they started, there will be a backpack for each district containing within it something each of them “needs desperately.” Knowing Katniss will go for his sake, Peeta immediately protests and threatens to drag himself there, or try and get killed, if she leaves. More marriage metaphors! Don't go out in the world without me, baby! And she reluctantly agrees not to go, but knows that Peeta will die in a day or two if she doesn't.

AND THEN, oh man, and then. Katniss walks to the stream to wash up and another sponsor gift floats down. She thinks Haymitch somehow gathered the resources for the kind of medicine Peeta needs, but it turns out to be small vial of “sleep syrup.” Um, Haymitch sent her roofies. Katniss realizes she can use it to put Peeta out of commission for a while. But are we sure that's what the sponsors intended it for?

She goes back and tells Peeta she found him some berries for dessert and starts feeding him what is basically “Forget-Me-Now” jelly. He figures out what's happening on the last spoonful and Katniss holds her hand over his nose and mouth and he glares at her as he passes out. Katniss is such a badass! Wait, why do I think this is cool?

And then she (presumably) attends to her own needs again.

Stray Notes & Questions

• This is the not-at-all-charming and totally irritating way Suzanne Collins brings up the Peeta/Katniss romance now: Peeta does something in which he references how much he loves her, and Katniss thinks, “Oh, that's right, we're supposed to be romantic. Boy, Peeta sure is good at faking this.” Repeat x 1000.
• Why “Clove” do you think? Is it because she seems deadly but it's really just an old wives' tale? Or are cloves actually dangerous? I was never clear on that. Is it OK to eat them if you cook them? Is Clove going to burn to death?