Hunger. That was all I thought of as I dragged my legs across the cold cobble stones in our town square. My eyes darted back and forth as I searched for any signs of food in the streets. Distress and exhaustion were capturing my mind in a lock even I couldn't break free of. I needed to feed my mother. Prim. We had no food this morning and I could only imagine my little sister's face twisted into a look of pain as her body longed for sustenance.
A shine in the corner of my eye caught my attention in the drizzling rain. I ran over to it and a smile spread across my face. A trash can was looking back at me, the water glimmering on the top of its lid. I took off the lid to begin my ravenous search, when I heard a slight jingle of a bell. My head jerked up and I saw Mrs. Mellark, the baker's wife, come storming out the front door of the shop. Her boots splashed in the rain as she came over to scold the hungry child looking for a meal.
"Shoo!" she yelled, "Get out of our bins, young lady! Don't you have any manners?"
I looked at my feet in embarrassment and she let out a grunt and shuffled back into the warm, dry bakery. The smells worked their way over to my nose and I inhaled deeply. The longing for food overcame me and I sunk to my knees and laid my now soaked head on the muddy stones in despair.
This is it. This is where Katniss Everdeen starves to death and leaves her family with no hope of living through the next winter, I thought. The sound of a hard slap interrupted my ever descending thoughts and brought me back to my sad reality. I ignored the noises coming from the bakery until I heard that little chime signaling the doors opening once again. A boy, who I recognized from school, came out and handed me a burnt loaf of bread. I looked up into his blue eyes opening my mouth to say thank you when I saw a red streak running across his face. That was the slap I had heard. He had burnt the bread to give it to me. But why? He left me lost in bewilderment and returned to the bakery. As he left I heard his mother ask, "You gave it to the pigs right, Peeta?"
He responded, "Yes, Mother." and went back to baking the bread after the door swung shut and I couldn't hear them talking anymore. I watched him work until the hot bread started to scorch my fingers. Quickly shoving the bread beneath my shirt, for fear of it becoming cold, I ran home to feed my family's waiting faces.
When I got there I broke apart the bread and watched the steam pour out of it. I found raisins buried inside the bread's crevices like pieces of treasure. When we ate them the extra sweetness was something special to us all and made that night an occasion not to be forgotten. But while I ate the freshly baked bread, I couldn't stop thinking about the boy who had taken a beating just to feed me. As I tucked in Prim I thought of him, when I sat in bed I thought of him, and when I dreamt, it was of the boy who gave me bread.
xxx
The next day I walked into school and saw my new savior doing his work at a table adjacent to mine. I felt the urge to get up and say thank you, but for some reason, I didn't know how. I had done simple things like, thanking my mother for getting something for me and thanking Prim for finding an item I had lost, but never had I felt that I owed a single person so much. Lying in the rain, I was so close to losing myself and not only my life, but my sister and mother's too. I had absolutely no idea how to express that to him without breaking down and crying, something I regularly did these days.
I caught him sneaking looks at me across the classroom and he saw me doing it too. When the bell rang and ended the school day I walked up behind him to attempt to express my gratitude toward him. I lost the power I had building up all day when he turned around. I turned so he wouldn't see me and walked across the schoolyard, my cheeks flushing red as I went. I stopped when I saw a white puff sticking up in the soft grass. I bent down to get a better look at it. Its gentle strings of white sprung out from the center and blew in the wind. It was so independent, strong, and beautiful. Filling me with hope, the dandelion represented my newfound strength to survive. I picked it and a grin spread across my face. The walk home was spent with me twirling my determination in my hands, heading toward a new day.