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"They arrest you or so?" I ask
"They whip you and make everyone else watch," says Rue "The mayor&039;s very strict about it"
I can tell by her expression that it&039;s not that unco in District 12, although occasionally one occurs Technically, Gale and I could be whipped on a daily basis for poaching in the woods - well, technically, we could get a whole lot worse - except all the officials buy our e&039;s father, doesn&039;t see the least prestigious, poorest, es Such as, being largely ignored by the Capitol as long as we produce our coal quotas
"Do you get all the coal you want?" Rue asks
"No," I answer "Just e buy and whatever we track in on our boots"
"They feed us a bit extra during harvest, so that people can keep going longer," says Rue
"Don&039;t you have to be in school?" I ask
"Not during harvest Everyone works then," says Rue
It&039;s interesting, hearing about her life We have so little communication with anyone outside our district In fact, I wonder if the Gah the information seems harmless, they don&039;t want people in different districts to know about one another
At Rue&039;s suggestion, we lay out all our food to plan ahead She&039;s seen most of mine, but I add the last couple of crackers and beef strips to the pile She&039;s gathered quite a collection of roots, nuts, greens, and even soers "You sure this is safe?"
"Oh, yes, we have the the a handful in her ood as our blackberries Taking Rue on as an ally seems a better choice all the time We divide up our food supplies, so in case we&039;re separated, we&039;ll both be set for a few days Apart froshot, and an extra pair of socks She also has a sharp shard of rock she uses as a knife "I know it&039;s not et away froht," I say When I spread out lasses
"How did you get those?" she asks
"In my pack They&039;ve been useless so far They don&039;t block the sun and they
"These aren&039;t for sun, they&039;re for darkness," exclaiht, they&039;ll pass out a few pairs to those of us highest in the trees Where the torchlight doesn&039;t reach One time, this boy Martin, he tried to keep his pair Hid it in his pants They killed hi these?" I say
"Yes, and everyone kneas no danger Martin wasn&039;t right in the head I mean, he still acted like a three-year-old He just wanted the glasses to play with," says Rue
Hearing this makes me feel like District 12 is some sort of safe haven Of course, people keel over froine the Peacekeepers irl, one of Greasy Sae&039;s grandkids, anders around the Hob She&039;s not quite right, but she&039;s treated as a sort of pet People toss her scraps and things
"So what do these do?" I ask Rue, taking the glasses
"They let you see in cooes down"
I give Rue some matches and she s flare up again We extinguish our fire and head upstreahtfall
"Where do you sleep?" I ask her "In the trees?" She nods "In just your jacket?"
Rue holds up her extra pair of socks "I have these for hts have been "You can shareif you want We&039;ll both easily fit" Her face lights up I can tell this is h in a tree and settle in for the night just as the antheins to play There were no deaths today
"Rue, I only woke up today How hts did I miss?" The anthem should block out our words, but still I whisper I even take the precaution of covering my lips with my hand I don&039;t want the audience to knohat I&039; a cue froirls from Districts One and Four are dead There&039;s ten of us left"
"Soht have been the tracker jacker venos," I say "You know the boy from my district? Peeta? I think he saved my life But he ith the Careers"
"He&039;s not with them now," she says "I&039;ve spied on their base camp by the lake They ers But he&039;s not there Maybe he did save you and had to run"
I don&039;t answer If, in fact, Peeta did save ain And this can&039;t be paid back "If he did, it was all probably just part of his act You know, to make people think he&039;s in love with htfully "I didn&039;t think that was an act"
"Course it is," I say "He worked it out with our oes dark "Let&039;s try out these glasses" I pull out the glasses and slip the froh the bushes a good fifty feet away I could kill it from here if I had a mind to I could kill anyone
"I wonder who else got a pair of these," I say
"The Careers have two pairs But they&039;ve got everything down by the lake," Rue says "And they&039;re so strong"
"We&039;re strong, too," I say "Just in a different way"
"You are You can shoot," she says "What can I do?"
"You can feed yourself Can they?" I ask
"They don&039;t need to They have all those supplies," Rue says
"Say they didn&039;t Say the supplies were gone How long would they last?" I say "I ht?"
"But, Katniss, they&039;re not hungry," says Rue
"No, they&039;re not That&039;s the probleree And for the first time, I have a plan A plan that isn&039;t ht and evasion An offensive plan "I think we&039;re going to have to fix that, Rue"