Why doesn'y my Mommy love me?

I try to be a good boy and help in the bakery, but she just gets mad. Her and daddy are always yelling, and she hits me a lot. She hits my brothers too.

''Rye, does Mommy love us?'', I ask my brother because I suely can't ask my mother.

''Sometimes she loves , remeber when Wheat baked five bread loafs in one sitting, she gave him a hug.''

''So we have to bake lots and lots to get Mommy to love us?'' My eight year old logic came up with this.

''Yeah, I guess so.'', my brother replies, dejectedly.

I start thinking of ways to make Mommy happy. I could start baking more bread, yeah that's it, I'll bake more bread.

I make my way down to the bakery, mentally crossing my fingers that this will work.

Getting out the ingrediants and putting them on the counter, I heat up our oven. When the dough is rolled to perfection, I put it in the oven carefully. Only, it must not have been to carefully 'cause the door jurks and I end up with a bad burn.

I run off to find my father, but find my mother.

''Oh, what have you done this time you little brat?'' , she says, seeing the tears in my eyes and streaming down my cheeks.

In response I hold up my burned hand. It has a blister and is really red.

''Great, now we're going to have to get burn medicine, which we can't afford, to treat your hand. How can you be so selfish? You burn your hand to get attention, and don''t even think about the repercussions.'', she says.

Then she does domething that, honestly, I was expecting. She hit me. Hard. So hard it brought tears to my eyes. It probably gave me another black, right when I was finally getting over the one from last week.

''What's going on?'', my father asks as he turns the corner and sees my tear streaked face. '' Did you hit him again?'' Now he sounds mad.

''He burned his hand.''

''And you hit him?'', I can see the vein popping out of my father's forehead as he keeps yelling at my mother about how terrible she is.

I let their screaming match continnue while I go find my brother. He'll make my hand, and me, feel better.

''Wheat, will you help me?'' I ask in my little eight year old voice still sniffling from crying.

''What's wrong, Peeta?''

''I burned my hand.''

After Wheat helps me with my hand it's time for bed. As I lay there I just keep thinking about how my mother hit me again because I was trying to get her to love me. My Daddy would say it's ironic. A s I drift off into sleep I let a few tears leave my eyes.