"Excellent," he says.
I crouch down beside him. No matter what happens, I tell myself, don't stop until he's in the water. "On three," I say."One, two, three!" I can only manage one full roll before I have to stop because of the horrible sound he's making. Now he's on the edge of the stream. Maybe this is better anyway.
"Okay, change of plans. I'm not going to put you all the way in," I tell him. Besides, if I get him in, who knows if I'd ever be able to get him out?
"No more rolling?" he asks.
"That's all done. Let's get you cleaned up. Keep an eye on the woods for me, okay?" I say. It's hard to know where to start. He so caked with mud and matted leaves, I can't even see his clothes. If he's wearing clothes. The thought makes me hesitate a moment, but then I plunge in. Naked bodies are no big deal in the arena, right?
I've got two water bottles and Rue's water skin. I prop them against rocks in the stream so that two are always filling while I pour the third over Peeta's body.
It takes a while, but I finally get rid of enough mud to find his clothes. I gently unzip his jacket, unbutton his shirt and ease them off him. His undershirt is so plastered into his wounds I have to cut it away with my knife and drench him again to work it loose. He's badly bruised with a long burn across his chest and four tracker jacker stings, if you count the one under his ear. But I feel a bit better. This much I can fix. I decide to take care of his upper body first, to alleviate some pain, before I tackle whatever damage Cato did to his leg.
Since treating his wounds seems pointless when he's lying in what's become a mud puddle, I manage to prop him up against a boulder. He sits there, uncomplaining, while I wash away all the traces of dirt from his hair and skin. His flesh is very pale in the sunlight and he no longer looks strong and stocky. I have to dig the stingers out of his tracker jacker lumps, which causes him to wince, but the minute I apply the leaves he sighs in relief. While he dries in the sun, I wash his filthy shirt and jacket and spread them over boulders. Then I apply the burn cream to his chest. This is when I notice how hot his skin is becoming. The layer of mud and the bottles of water have disguised the fact that he's burning with fever. I dig through the first-aid kit I got from the boy from District 1 and find pills that reduce your temperature. My mother actually breaks down and buys these on occasion when her home remedies fail.
"Swallow these," I tell him, and he obediently takes the medicine. "You must be hungry."
"Not really. It's funny, I haven't been hungry for days," says Peeta. In fact, when I offer him groosling, he wrinkles his nose at it and turns away. That's when I know how sick he is.
"Peeta, we need to get some food in you," I insist.
"It'll just come right back up," he says. The best I can do is to get him to eat a few bits of dried apple.
"Thanks. I'm much better, really. Can I sleep now, Katniss?" he asks.
"Soon," I promise. "I need to look at your leg first."Trying to be as gentle as I can, I remove his boots, his socks, and then very slowly inch his pants off of him. I can see the tear Cato's sword made in the fabric over his thigh, but it in no way prepares me for what lies underneath. The deep inflamed gash oozing both blood and pus. The swelling of the leg. And worst of all, the smell of festering flesh.
I want to run away. Disappear into the woods like I did that day they brought the burn victim to our house. Go and hunt while my mother and Prim attend to what I have neither the skill nor the courage to face. But there's no one here but me. I try to capture the calm demeanor my mother assumes when handling particularly bad cases.
"Pretty awful, huh?" says Peeta. He's watching me closely.
"So-so." I shrug like it's no big deal. "You should see some of the people they bring my mother from the mines." I refrain from saying how I usually clear out of the house whenever she's treating anything worse than a cold. Come to think of it, I don't even much like to be around coughing. "First thing is to clean it well."
I've left on Peeta's undershorts because they're not in bad shape and I don't want to pull them over the swollen thigh and, all right, maybe the idea of him being naked makes me uncomfortable. That's another thing about my mother and Prim. Nakedness has no effect on them, gives them no cause for embarrassment. Ironically, at this point in the Games, my little sister would be of far more use to Peeta than I am. I scoot my square of plastic under him so I can wash down the rest of him. With each bottle I pour over him, the worse the wound looks.
The rest of his lower body has fared pretty well, just one tracker jacker sting and a few small burns that I treat quickly. But the gash on his leg ... what on earth can I do for that?
"Why don't we give it some air and then ..." I trail off.
"And then you'll patch it up?" says Peeta. He looks almost sorry for me, as if he knows how lost I am.
"That's right," I say. "In the meantime, you eat these."I put a few dried pear halves in his hand and go back in the stream to wash the rest of his clothes.
When they're flattened out and drying, I examine the contents of the first-aid kit. It's pretty basic stuff.
Bandages, fever pills, medicine to calm stomachs.
Nothing of the caliber I'll need to treat Peeta.
"We're going to have to experiment some," I admit. I know the tracker jacker leaves draw out infection, so I start with those. Within minutes of pressing the handful of chewed-up green stuff into the wound, pus begins running down the side of his leg. I tell myself this is a good thing and bite the inside of my cheek hard because my breakfast is threatening to make a reappearance.
"Katniss?" Peeta says. I meet his eyes, knowing my face must be some shade of green. He mouths the words. "How about that kiss?"
I burst out laughing because the whole thing is so revolting I can't stand it.
"Something wrong?" he asks a little too innocently.
"I ... I'm no good at this. I'm not my mother. I've no idea what I'm doing and I hate pus," I say. "Euh!" I allow myself to let out a groan as I rinse away the first round of leaves and apply the second. "Euuuh!"