suzanna-kollinz-acliq-oyunlari-1-hisse-eng

other things to buy, soap and milk and thread. What we didn’t
absolutely have to eat, I began to trade at the Hob. It was
frightening to enter that place without my father at my side,
but people had respected him, and they accepted me. Game
was game after all, no matter who’d shot it. I also sold at the
back doors of the wealthier clients in town, trying to remember
what my father had told me and learning a few new tricks
as well. The butcher would buy my rabbits but not squirrels.
The baker enjoyed squirrel but would only trade for one if his
wife wasn’t around. The Head Peacekeeper loved wild turkey.
The mayor had a passion for strawberries.
In late summer, I was washing up in a pond when I noticed
the plants growing around me. Tall with leaves like arrowheads.
Blossoms with three white petals. I knelt down in the
water, my fingers digging into the soft mud, and I pulled up
handfuls of the roots. Small, bluish tubers that don’t look like
much but boiled or baked are as good as any potato. “Katniss,”
I said aloud. It’s the plant I was named for. And I heard my father’s
voice joking, “As long as you can find yourself, you’ll
never starve.” I spent hours stirring up the pond bed with my
toes and a stick, gathering the tubers that floated to the top.
That night, we feasted on fish and katniss roots until we were
all, for the first time in months, full.
Slowly, my mother returned to us. She began to clean and
cook and preserve some of the food I brought in for winter.
People traded us or paid money for her medical remedies. One
day, I heard her singing.
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