Catching Fire #26

Catching Fire

Pg.368-379

5/22/11

Summary: The arena shows nine at night making it the time to set up Beetee’s plan. Katniss and her gang scurry over to the lightning tree; they have no time to spare. Beetee tells Katniss and Joanna to run the wire down to the sea after it is securely tied to the tree, but Peeta insists that he must go with Katniss to be a lookout. However, due to Peeta’s leg injury, he wouldn’t make it to the other side of the arena before the lightning storm at midnight. Katniss says goodbye to Peeta, and she alongside Joanna head for the sea. Although, things don’t go quite as planned, for when Katniss and Joanna are about half way down the jungle, somebody cuts the wire and Katniss finds herself stuck in what seems like a planned trap. Unfortunately for Katniss, this was a planned trap and as soon as she tries to get out of the coil, a metal cylinder finds the side of her head, and Katniss falls to the ground. The next Katniss remembers is waking up and Joanna is yelling at her to stay down. This is when it clicks to Katniss that there was a plan inside the lightning plan, and more importantly, Peeta is in danger. Once Joanna and two other blurred figures leave Katniss’s sight, she attempts to walk and save Peeta. Even though Katniss is moving very slow and acts as a big target, she manages to stumble her way to the lightning tree where she finds Beetee half dead laying on the ground. Katniss blacks out again, and this time she is awakened by loud footsteps coming straight for her. Katniss makes out the two figures to be Finnick and Enobaria and she uses the rest of her strength to load her bow and arrow. Katniss can hear Peeta screaming for her, but she screams even louder to keep Finnick and his new teammate coming for her, and not Peeta. However, instead of shooting the boys, Katniss shoots her arrow at the force field as the lightning bolt strikes the tree and for a second the whole arena dome burns a dazzling blue. Then Katniss is thrown to the ground and is paralyzed, unable to reach Peeta, and finds a beautiful star right before the explosion!     

Catching Fire #25

Catching Fire

Pg.355-367

5/19/11

Summary: Katniss wakes up from her long rest in a very joyful mood which is unique for her. Unfortunately, Katniss’s dream land doesn’t last long as she is snapped back into reality when thinking of how long this alliance can last. Katniss comes to the understanding that she really doesn’t know why she and Peeta are teamed with these tributes. Katniss decides to tell Peeta about her new plan to split up from their alliance, but Peeta believes that they have to wake until the rest of the Careers are dead, otherwise he and Katniss would have two groups of tributes trying to kill them. Katniss agrees, partly because this is Peeta’s turn to win the Hunger Games, and because life is going well with her alliance. To make things better for the pack, Beetee has a plan to take out the two remaining Careers. After many hours a working with some wire, Beetee has the idea of tying his wire to the tree that always gets hit with a lightning bolt at noon/ midnight and having the electric current run down into the ocean where Beetee suspects the two other tributes to be. Although Beetee’s plan is brilliant, it does come at the cost of losing the sea as a source of food by electrifying all of inhabitants that live in the water. However, even though the loss of food will impact the gang, Katniss has also found an abundance of food in the jungle. In addition, even if Beetee’s plan doesn’t kill the remaining Careers, the two Careers will also loose the sea as a source of food. The alliance all agree on using Beetee’s plan and don’t waste any time getting to work. Katniss and the rest of her alliance walk to the same tree that repeatedly gets struck with lightning where Beetee checks out the tree. However, time is running out, and Joanna is starting to get worried that they won’t get out in time, but Katniss assures Joanna everything will be alright. Just as Katniss insisted, the pack gets out of the noon time zone with plenty of time to wait across the arena for noon where either Katniss and her alliance will be the only tributes left, or the plan doesn’t work, and the alliance will give away their location!          

Catching Fire #24

Catching Fire

Pg.348-354

5/16/11

Summary: Katniss sprints towards her sister, Prim’s, scream. She is getting closer and closer but doesn’t see Prim. Katniss reaches a tree where her sister’s scram is coming from; however, when she looks up in the tree, Katniss only finds a small jabberjay. A moment later, there is another scream that instantly wakes Finnick up, and he goes on a run searching for his loved one before Katniss can convincel Finnick the scream is only a Jabberjay.  Finnick runs at least a half mile away from camp, only to find yet another Jabberjay. After, “At least a hundred Jabberjays”, as Katniss recalls, start screeching at the top of their lungs, scaring the heck out of Katniss and Finnick as the go into the fetal position waiting for the horror to pass. The cannon fires, signaling another death in the arena, and there is a sense of relief that brings the alliance back together after a long hour of horror. However, the pain was worth it, for now Katniss and her gang have a whole twelve hours to relax before the clock ticks back to four. In the time being, Katniss and Peeta have a very long talk about their futures. In summary of the long conversation, Peeta is trying to make it clear to Katniss that she is better off being the winner of the Hunger Games, for she has more people that depend on her back at home. It finally clicks to Katniss that she should be fighting for herself, rather than for somebody else life out in the arena. After the conversation, Katniss goes into a deep sleep about what life would be like without the Hunger Games.

Catching Fire #23

For 5/12/11 when Blogger was down

Catching Fire

Pg.326-339

5/12/11

Summary: Katniss comes to the understanding that the arena is a clock, and at every hour a new horror takes place. Katniss hurries to wake the rest of her team up in order to flee from their next “horror” which is only about a half an hour away (according to the arena). Nobody in Katniss’s alliance has any really good ideas, and therefore, they all decide to head down to the Cornucopia, or the center of the arena/ clock. When they arrive, Katniss takes a peak at the remaining supplies and weapons left at the Cornucopia from other tributes after day one. Katniss doesn’t find anything useful, but Beetee on the other hand finds a wire that helped him win his first Hunger Games. Katniss and her gang try to get some rest for they have a few hours before the horrors will reach their location, but during their first moment of silence, Katniss can sense something is wrong. She loads her bow and arrow, and turns around to find Wires dead with her throat sliced open. Katniss and her alliance scurry to get their weapons ready and find themselves in a battle with some of the Career tributes. Fortunately, other that Wires, nobody is killed on Katniss’s side, and only Finnick suffers from taking a knife to the leg while protecting Peeta. On the other hand, Katniss and her tribe kill two tributes, and are now ever so closer to wining their second Hunger Games. However, once the rest of the Careers scurry off, the whole arena starts to spin. The arena isn’t slowly spinning, but it spins to the point where objects are flying all around, and Katniss has to cling into the sand to avoid being catapulted across the arena. However, the spinning stops before anybody is hurt, but now Katniss and her alliance have no clue where they stand on the clock, and which direction leads to the noon part of the arena. Joanna decides to just pick a random direction in hope that she is right, and the others of the gang following her footsteps. They travel until they reach the forest, where they split up to get water and to set up a small camp. However, as Katniss and Finnick are filling up their canteens with water, Katniss hears a scream. Katniss drops everything and starts running towards the sight of the scream that sounds ever so familiar, like her little sister Prim’s scream!

Catching Fire #22

Catching Fire

Pg.311-326

5/9/11

Summary: Katniss jumps out to save Peeta from the mutant monkey morphling. Katniss is successful and bats the morphling away leaving Peeta to come over and stab the creature multiple times. Katniss loads her bow and arrow, turns around and is ready to kill more of these strange monkeys, but finds all of the morphlings to be fleeing away. Then the strangest thing happens; the half dead morphling starts to talk as if the Capital didn’t fully erase the human side to this creature. Katniss tries to save this poor human/ creature that only moments ago was trying to kill, but unfortunately, the morphing doesn’t make it out alive. However, Katniss has other things to worry about like the spots where the “fog” hit her skin for they have stopped hurting, but now itch beyond belief. Katniss tells her teammates not to scratch but has a hard time lessening to her own command. Katniss prays to Haymitch for something to help ease the pain, and in seconds she has some cream for the whole gang that stops the itching and causes the wounds to scab. Katniss wants to get out of the jungle, for she now thinks it is just a death trap, so she, Peeta and Finnick head down to the Cornucopia which is located by the ocean in the middle of the arena. However, Katniss finds that she isn’t the only one who wants to get out of the jungle for Johanna Mason, a District 5 tribute, Wiress and Beetee, “nuts” and “volts”, are at the Cornucopia as well. Both alliances don’t end up trying to kill each other, but rather end up joining forces because apparently Finnick and Joanna are good friends. Although Finnick is happy, Katniss and Peeta on the other hand would have preferred the two alliances didn’t join forces, mostly because Wiress and Beetee are “messed up” at the moment. Out of nowhere the two of them, Wiress and Beetee, would start repeating “Tick tock, tick tock” as if they were brainwashed. However, when Katniss is on guard later that night, it clicks to her why Wiress and Beetee are saying “Tick tock”. The arena is a circle, and Katniss realizes that the “fog”, morphlings, and thunder storms only happen in certain parts of the arena at certain times, always the same order, meaning that the whole arena could be a giant clock showing you the time of day!        

Catching Fire #21

Catching Fire

Pg.298-310

5/4/11

Summary: Katniss is running as fast as she can away from the “fog” with her startled teammates who are still in the process of waking up. However, the pace Katniss and her alliance were running isn’t quite fast enough for “fog” is staring to gain on them. In addition, when Katniss looked back at Peeta to see how he was doing, she learns that the “fog’s” only side effects isn’t just blistering, but rather after its initial impact, the green “fog” burrows down your skin to your nerves and causes uncontrollable spasms. To make matters worse, the “fog”, which Katniss now refers to as poison, causes you to stumble and trip, making you slower and a bigger target to the fog as it starts to get to your legs. Peeta and Mags are in the back of the pack, and Katniss knows she has to do something in order for them to survive so Katniss carries Peeta while Finnick carries Mags as they try their best to keep ahead of the poison. Unfortunately, Mags has had enough with the slow but painful affect the poison has on her body, so she gives up and runs directly into the “fog” instantly committing suicide. At this point in time, Katniss, Peeta, and Finnick are pushing the limits of what their uncontrollable limbs and bodies can take, but they are getting closer and closer to the Cornucopia, the place of safely where they can jump into the water and avoid the poisonous fog. It takes all of their strength, but Katniss and her team managed to literally crawl their ways down the mountainous jungle and into the salt water alive. The salt water stings, but their wounds slowly start to heal, and after a while, Katniss and Peeta have gained enough strength to help revive Finnick. However, just when Katniss thought all of the Capitals tricks were over, there is yet another problem in their way of getting back to their camp. Apparently, while Katniss, Peeta and Finnick were regaining their strength by the Cornucopia, monkeys silently crawled out onto the branches of trees and were awaiting an attack on Peeta. Katniss and Finnick see the monkeys in advance, but fail to tell Peeta not to make eye contact with the monkeys. In a split second the monkeys, which are actually robots of the dead tributes that the Capital made to look like monkeys, jump out of their trees and are diving towards Peeta. There is only one thing Katniss can do to save Peeta, jump in fount of the monkeys and take the dead on hit!        

Catching Fire #20

Catching Fire

Pg.288-298

5/2/11

Summary: Katniss rushes over to aid Peeta as he falls to the ground. She screams his name over and over but gets no response. Finnick comes over, pushes Katniss a side, and starts CPR. In no time, Peeta is back on his feet and Katniss is grateful to have Finnick on her side. Even though Peeta is weak, the pack decides to keep moving near the force field for water. They walk and walk until Mags, the elder in their alliance, needs a break. Durring their break, Katniss decides shimmy up a tree, one that is just a bit taller than the rest, to get a feel for how close they may be to a source of water. But when Katinss comes back down from the tree, she only has bad news for her friends; the arena is a circle and they have just been walking around and around spots they have already been through all day. Unfortunately when Katniss is ready to keep moving inland, everybody is so tired and decide to set up camp for the night. The alliance splits up to fetch some supplies and in no time they have set up a decent size camp. In addition, Mags weaved some beads and pillows out of palm tree leaves that will add nice comfort for a nights rest after a long day. Later in the day, Katniss receives a gift from Haymitch. There is only one problem, Katniss and her gang don’t have a clue what this hollow piece of metal is. Luckily, Katniss vaguely remembers her father having many of these contraptions in her back yard, and finally, she comes to understand that her gift is a “spile” (a device used in maple trees to remove the sap for maple syrup). Katniss is unaware why Haymitch gave this gift to her, mostly because there aren’t any maple trees in this jungle, but decides to try the spile out on the nearest tree. Haymitch is one smart man for her was able to figure out that the only fresh water in the arena was in the trees, and in no time Katniss and her alliance have a bucket full of water. With the relief of now having water, Katniss goes hunting and brings back some meat for a well-deserved meal. After Katniss’s feast, the anthem comes on and after the first day eight tributes were killed from the battle at the Cornucopia. After the anthem, night rolls in and Katniss, along with her partners in crime, fall right to sleep. However, Katniss is awoken early by a thunder storm, followed by a strange green “fog” which isn’t fog at all. This “fog” turns out to be some poison that when made contact with the human body causes blistering, and just when Katniss thought she would have a nice evenings rest, she finds herself, along with her alliance, running for their lives!