In chapter 7, Katniss meets Gale out in the woods by a lake. She tells him how President Snow personally threatened to have him killed and both of their families and asks him to run away with her. He says he will and he tells her he loves her. She is totally taken back by this and says “I know,” and then tells him that she can’t think about anyone that way now because she is too afraid. She says that maybe if they could get somewhere safe, she would be different. He is disappointed, but still agrees to run away. Then, she accidentally says something about the uprising in District Eight. Gale is affected immediately and thinks that they have to join the fight. He has always hated the Capitol and has always wanted there to be a rebellion. Now that it’s finally begun, he refuses to go with her. They get into an argument and he leaves. When Katniss gets back to the town, she runs into Peeta. She asks him if he will run away with her. He says that he will go, but he doesn’t think that she will. They are talking when they hear a strange noise coming from the square – a whistling, the sound of an impact, the intake of breath from a crowd. When she breaks through to the cleared space in the square, she sees Gale. His wrists are bound to a wooden post and the wild turkey he illegally shot in the woods hangs above him. He is being whipped by a man in the Head Peacekeeper uniform who is new to District 12.
In chapter 8, Katniss cries, “No!” and throws herself directly between the whip and Gale. She takes the full force of the whip across the left side of her face. Haymitch yells, “Hold it!” and trips over a Peacekeeper lying on the ground. It’s Darius, a Peacekeeper who was always friendly to Katniss. He is knocked out with a huge lump on his forehead. Haymitch yells at the new Peacekeeper and tells him that she has a photo shoot next week modeling wedding dresses. The man recognizes her, but says that she interrupted the punishment of a confessed criminal. Haymitch tells him that it is a huge problem and that he will be calling the Capitol. When he asks what business is it of hers, Peeta tells him that Gale is her cousin and she is his fiancée, so if he wants to get to Gale, he will have to get through both of them. The villagers around tell him that, for a first offense, the required number of lashes has been dispensed – unless his sentence is death, which they would carry out by firing squad. He lets them go and they take Gale to Katniss’s mother, who is a healer. There, Gale’s crewmates Bristel and Thom piece together the story of what happened. The new Head Peacekeeper is Romulus Thread. By the time Katniss showed up, he’d been lashed at least forty times. He passed out around thirty. After about twenty lashes, Darius stepped in, saying that was enough. He grabbed Thread’s arm and Thread hit him in the head with the butt of the whip. Katniss’s mom fixes Gale up. Katniss does some rethinking and thinks that the people in the district may be right to rebel. When he comes to, she tells him that she’s not going anywhere. She’s going to stay right there and cause all kinds of trouble. Gale says, “Me, too.”
In chapter 9, Peeta wakes her up and says that he’ll look after Gale. She starts saying, “About what I said yesterday, about running…” and he says, “I know. There’s nothing to explain.” He tells her to go the bed. When Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch meet up, Katniss says that she wants to start an uprising. Haymitch tells her that it won’t work. They come to the square and see that a lot has changed. Peacekeepers, in white uniforms, march on the cleanly swept cobblestones. Along the rooftops, more of them occupy nests of machine guns. And an official whipping post, several stockades, and a gallows are set up in the center of the square. They can see some streets away the Hob burning and going up in smoke. They go check on their families. The woods, of course, are absolutely forbidden, but one morning Katniss decides she has to get out for a few hours. She makes it to the lake and hears an unmistakable click of a weapon behind her. She spins around drawing back an arrow when the woman in the white Peacekeeper uniform drops her weapon, cries, “Stop!” and holds something out to Katniss in her hand. It is a small while circle of flat bread with an image clearly stamped in the center – it’s her mockingjay.
In chapter 10, Katniss asks what it is and what does it mean. A second woman appears behind her and says “It means we’re on your side.” The two women are Twill and Bonnie from District Eight. They stole the uniforms from the factory. They are headed for District Thirteen. Katniss is confused because District 13 got blown off the map, but they tell her that it got blown off the map seventy-five years ago. Katniss takes them into the little cottage by the lake and cooks them some food. Then they tell their story. Katniss asks what they expect to find in District 13. Every year the Capitol shows footage of District 13 which is nothing but rubble. They say that the Capitol has been using the same footage for as long as anyone in District 8 can remember. They say that if she looks very carefully when they show the Justice Building, up in the far right-hand corner there is a glimpse of a mockingjay as it flies by – the same one every time. Back home, they think that the Capitol keeps reusing the old footage because it can’t show what’s really there now. They think the people moved underground when everything on the surface was destroyed and that the people of District 13 managed to survive. They think that the Capitol leaves them alone because, before the Dark Days, District 13’s principal industry was nuclear development. When Katniss leaves, she thinks about what has happened. “It means we’re on your side.” That’s what Bonnie said. Katniss questions what side, if she is unwittingly the face of the hoped-for rebellion, if the mockingjay on her pin became the symbol of resistance. She stashes her weapons and then finds that the fence is alive with electricity.
In chapter 11, she climbs a tree and is able to jump over the fence, but she hurts her left heel and tailbone. When she gets home, two Peacekeepers are standing in the doorway to her kitchen. The woman remains impassive, but Katniss catches the flicker of surprise on the man’s face. She is unanticipated. They know that she was in the woods and should be trapped there now. They say that Peacekeeper Thread sent them with a message for her and her mother adds that they’ve been waiting for hours. Katniss knows they’ve been waiting for her to fail to return – to confirm she got electrocuted by the fence or trapped in the woods so they could take her family in for questioning. They ask where she has been. She crosses into the kitchen, forcing herself to use her foot normally, and says “Easier to ask where I haven’t been.” Haymitch and Peeta are there playing chess and ask where she hasn’t been. They have a little chat. When she looks over at the Peacekeepers, the man’s smiling but the woman is unconvinced and asks what’s in her bag. She is hoping for game or wild plants, but Katniss bought bandages and candy before she got home as an alibi. She talks with her family and then looks at the Peacekeepers as if she’s suddenly remembered they’re there. She asks what the message is for her. The woman says that Head Peacekeeper Thread wanted Katniss to know that the fence surrounding District 12 will now have electricity 24 hours a day. Katniss asks, “Didn’t it already?” None of this has gone as planned for the Peacekeepers, but they have no further orders so they leave. She tells her family that she was injured because she slipped and fell on some ice. Her mom fixes her up and then Katniss talks to Peeta. She takes some sleep syrup and then before she falls asleep, she asks Peeta to stay with her. She hears him whisper a word back, but she doesn’t quite catch it. For the next few days, she gets to relax. Peeta comes everyday and begins to help her work on her family book of herbs. It’s composed of page after page of ink drawings of plants with descriptions of their medical uses. Her father had added a section of edible plants that was Katniss’s guidebook to keeping her family alive after his death. The quiet, absorbing work helps take her mind off of her troubles. One day, on the TV, 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. But just before they cut back to the main newscaster, Katniss sees the unmistakable flash of that same mockingjay’s wing. The reporter has simply been incorporated into the old footage. She’s not in District 13 at all – which begs the question, What is?
Sorry, that was a lot. But a lot of important things happened in those chapters. I think it’s really cool that District 13 is coming into the series. It was just barely mentioned in the first chapter of The Hunger Games, so I never really thought much about it until now. The new policies and new Peacekeepers definitely show the change that is happening just because Katniss defied the Capitol. I think it is cool that the Mockingjay is a symbol of hope now. Although, that puts a lot of pressure on Katniss. Whatever she does will affect the nation now. I can’t wait to see where this is going.
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