The Hunger Games Chapter 13 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Fire?! Yes, FIRE. Katniss unbuckles herself from the perch in the tree and high-tails it out of there. She runs from the heat and smoke along with the rest of the fleeing woodland creatures.
  • Katniss realizes that the fire is no accident: it must be a ploy by the Gamemakers to flush out the scattered tributes and bring them all together. Why? For action, of course. There's an audience watching at home, after all.
  • Katniss's jacket catches half on fire (she stomps it out), then her throat starts burning, and the next thing you know, she's puking her guts up. She gives herself a minute to rest.
  • Katniss's head gets hazy as she decides what to do next. She's putting together a plan to return to the pond when BOOM! A fireball crashes into a rock right beside her. Yup, you read that right: A FIREBALL.
  • Katniss dodges the FIREBALLS that are probably being shot by a Gamemaker in a control room somewhere. Abandoning her plan, she just runs for her life.
  • Katniss pukes again, more fireballs, and then her right calf gets scorched. She figures the Gamemakers are having a nice big laugh about "the girl who was on fire" (13.15).
  • The attack over, Katniss stumbles across the pond and gets some instant relief from her burns. Katniss hates burns. She remembers her mother and Prim treating burn victims from the mine back in the Seam.
  • She examines her injury (reluctantly), and it's not completely terrible. (You can't see the bone, after all.) She soaks it in the pool.
  • Katniss arranges her gear, her leg still in the water. She knows she should get up and move on, but drowsiness hits her. She eats and then falls asleep by the pool.
  • Katniss hears feet and wakes instantly. She runs and climbs up a tree. The pack of Career Tributes (including Peeta!) has her cornered.
  • One of the big boys, Cato, comes up the tree after her, but she climbs far up away from him, and he's too big to pursue her. The big doofus falls to the ground.
  • One of the girls, Glimmer, tries next. She gets up in the tree and tries to shoot Katniss with the bow and arrow. She's a horrible shot and misses. Katniss grabs one of the arrows stuck in the tree, hoping she'll get her hands on the bow soon enough.
  • Stuck in the tree and totally in pain, Katniss settles down for the night. That's when she notices a pair of eyes in a neighboring tree. A possum? No. Katniss realizes it's the little girl from District 11: Rue.