"The Hunger Games," Chapter 1 Words to Sort

Most of the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the few of us who hunt because they're as hungry for fresh meat as anybody is.

Latecomers are directed to the adjacent streets, where they can watch the event on screens as it's televised live by the state.

This is the day of the reaping.

I try to re- member that when all I can see is the woman who sat by, blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and bones.

In theory, it's supposed to be electrified twenty- four hours a day as a deterrent to the predators that live in the woods -- packs of wild dogs, lone cougars, bears -- that used to threaten our streets.

If not, you'll be imprisoned.

Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas.

Family members line up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another's hands.

Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal and poaching carries the severest of penalties, more people would risk it if they had weapons.

Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol.

But I got a decent price for his pelt.

My father could have made good money selling them, but if the officials found out he would have been publicly executed for inciting a rebellion.

Each tessera is worth a meager year's supply of grain and oil for one person.

I pull on trousers, a shirt, tuck my long dark braid up into a cap, and grab my forage bag.

It's real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations.

He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the en- croaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained.

Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death.

The twenty- four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wastel- and.

The camera crews, perched like buzzards on rooftops, only add to the effect.

Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors.

The predators ignore us on a day when easier, tastier prey abounds.

As reapings go, this one at least has a slight entertainment factor.

Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated.

She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she's just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper vic- tors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation.