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CATCHING FIRE -- CHAPTER 7
Although in the previous chapter Katniss was at the mayor’s house, some time has passed since then. It is now Sunday, the day in which Katniss usually meets up with Gale. Katniss is now in the forest, heading towards the lake. She has left some goods for Gale at their normal meeting spot, including some sticks that point towards the lake. By following her clue, she hopes that Gale will be able to find her.
Katniss takes a moment to flashback into the recent past. In her flashback, she describes what happened at the mayor’s house. After looking around for Madge, she found her and they got to talking about the mockingjay pin. Apparently, the mockingjay symbol has become the new craze of the Capitol.
The girls also discussed the origins of the actual mockingjay bird. The jabberjay was a mutated animal, a muttation, made by the Capitol that was able to listen in on rebels, memorize their words, and repeat the gathered information to the Capitol. These muttated spies were eventually used by the rebels to send back misinformation to the Capitol. The Capitol got rid of the birds accordingly; however, some of the birds had babies with actual mockingbirds thus creating mockingjays.
Katniss flash-forwards back to the present time. She makes her way to an old, tiny house at the shores of the lake where she starts a fire in the fireplace, and she waits for Gale. Gale finally comes and Katniss realizes how much pain and anger he must be feeling about her proposal to Peeta. Katniss explains to him how their lives and their family’s lives are in jeopardy.
Katniss then stuns Gale with her plan to stay safe: they run away. Gale is quick to agree to her idea. He then comes in close to her and stuns Katniss with his own tidbit of information: he is in love with Katniss. Katniss doesn’t know how to react. She reveals that she isn’t ready to love anybody with everything else that she had to deal with right now; yet, she does give Gale some hope by letting him know that if she runs away and is safe, then maybe she will be able to focus on love.
The mood in the house has turned awkward. Their attention quickly focuses on the friends and family they’ll have to convince to come along if they were to run away. Gale is unhappy with the thought of Haymitch and Peeta coming too. Over it, they both know that Peeta’s family won’t be convinced to join the expenditure. Katniss admits that if it came down to it, she’d be okay with going without Peeta since her own family comes before Peeta and his family.
Gale begins to focus on the “what-ifs,” which infuriates Katniss. She knows that the only way to stay safe is to get away. Fueled by emotion, she lets her knowledge of the rebellion in District Eight slip out of her mouth.
Katniss expresses regret for not just killing herself during the Hunger Games, thus preventing any uprisings. Gale, however, seems happy at the news of rebellion. In fact, he suggests that a rebellion should start in District Twelve too. All of a sudden, he is not interested in running away with Katniss; instead, he suddenly wants to help those people who don’t have the option of running away through a rebellion. He tosses a gift that Katniss gave him, a pair of Cinna’s gloves, and runs off leaving Katniss only with his final words: “I don’t want anything they made in the Capitol.”
Katniss plans to go to talk to Hazelle, Gale’s mother, before the night ends in order to appeal for her help. Hazelle, maybe, can talk some sense into Gale. Maybe they can stop Gale from pushing for a rebellion.
Before she speaks to her, though, Katniss decides to talk to Peeta about running away. She meets up with Peeta and she convinces him to go away with her, but he doesn’t see her actually going through with the plan.
Suddenly, a large sound comes from the square and the two of them go to check it out. Peeta is able to get atop a box to peer over a crowd, and after catching a glimpse of what’s occurring he hastily tells Katniss to go home. Others in the crowd also tell Katniss to go home, but she is curious and pushes forward to see what is going on.
The scene she finds is disturbing. Gale is being punished with a harsh, torturous whipping by somebody wearing the attire of the Head Peacekeeper.
by Suzanne Collins
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