"Honey what's wrong?"
Her daughter simply didn't reply. She turned her head toward the wall, stony faced.
Katniss knew that glare; it was the infamous 'scowl' she'd inherited from her. Except that a scowl meant something was wrong and she didn't want anyone to know what was going on. Katniss waddled inside of the room. "Okay kiddo, I'm not intimidated by that look."
Her daughters face crumbled, her lip quivered and her large blue eyes watered up. She fought valiantly to keep her emotions bottled up.
Katniss put her arms around her daughter. Her baby girl had recently started school, and it was challenging for the talkative outgoing child. Her daughter could talk and wore her heart on her sleeves. Within moments of being in her arms, her daughter began to weep.
"What's wrong?"
Her daughter's words came rushing out without stopping, jumbled up between hiccups, groans, and tears. "Why don't they like me? I've tried to be nice, I talk to them, bring them snacks and they're still mean to me mommy?"
Katniss panicked for a minute. She didn't know what to do. The old fears of not being able to protect her child came roaring back. She swallowed thickly, and her blank mind tried to think, she blurted, "Sometimes people don't like you. There's nothing you can do but to walk away and find people who do."
Her daughter frowned.
"It sounds silly, but not everyone is going to think you're great, and that's okay." Katniss thought of Joanna, there was a time Jo despised her.
"But I want people to like me, I'm a nice girl, a good girl…" Her daughter mumbled her blue eyes were impossibly wide on her face.
"You are a nice and good girl and if they can't see that, then tough on them. I bet you, if look else where you'll find a friend for life."
"Like daddy?" Katniss could see her daughter's agile mind quickly spinning.
"I'll let you think about that," Katniss stood from the bed and walked away, she placed her hand on her belly and hoped that raising this one would be easier.
