I don’t know what the explosion did, but it damaged something deep and irreparable. Never mind. If I get home, I’ll be so stinking rich, I’ll be able to pay someone to do my hearing.

Just give him the medicine!" I scream at her. "Give it to him! Who are you, anyway, to decide how much pain he can stand!

And we must fight back! President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that? Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!

Because it doesn't matter anymore, and because I'm so desperately lonely I can't stand it.

Well, I knew that goat would be a little gold mine," I say. Yes, of course I was referring to that, not the lasting joy you gave your sister you love so much you took her place in the reaping," says Peeta drily.

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

It sends out a very clear message: "Mess with us and we'll do something worse than kill you. We'll kill your children.