The Hunger Games: The Bread Scene in Peeta's point of view.
I wake up to the smell of warm bread rising in the oven. This was one advantage at working in a bakery; the wonderful smells that flood through the whole house. I position myself from my warm bed in the corner to the long mirror near my door. It was hard to see my reflection over the dark hue of dawn. I run my hard fingers through my hair and notice a layer of dust and coal on my blonde hair, almost appearing it to look brown. I am used to seeing my reflection like this: dirty and strong. I live in District 12, the coal-mining district. There are a total of 12 districts in Panem, the country I live in. Each District is assigned a specific role in helping the Capitol, the area that runs all of Panem maintain an extravagant life style. In history class we found out that we live in an area once called North America. It used to be an ordinary place where The Hunger Games were nonexistent. This thought shakes me; it almost seems impossible that District Twelve could have been wealthy. District Twelve is the laughing stock of the Capitol because we are the poorest District in Panem and never win the Hunger Games, a fight to the death that takes place every year. I am one of the fortunate ones who gets a privileged life of being a baker's son. But people who live in the Seam, the poorest part of town, struggle to survive everyday. I have witnessed too many people collapse from hunger on the streets and pass out from exhaustion. I have seen people do whatever they can to keep their families alive.
Memories invade my mind of the girl from the seam. Brown hair in a side braid, a very thin frame with the most beautiful brown eyes popping out of her hollow face caused by starvation, all curled up in a corner of my backyard under the big oak tree to protect her from the rain. It had been a long day at the bakery, it was around spring and people weren't buying as much bread because we had to raise the prices. My family was constantly working to try to afford more flour to keep the business going, there was no room for mistakes. I remember lugging around bags of flour and rolling dough with constant shouts from my parents in the other room. As soon as the sun went down it started to downpour. I looked out the window and a girl digging through the trash caught my eye. I couldn't help but notice how drenched she was while, in contrast, I was in a house very content and warm. I watched the girl from the seam for very long. She came closer to the house so I looked away. Then I heard screaming from the front window with a voice that belonged to my mother.
"Get out of our trash you street rat!" I quickly turned in disbelief and saw the emaciated girl hide back her tears and move on. In her last attempts at life she stumbled into my backyard under the tree. She was dying. Observing her bury her face into her hands I finally remembered who she was. The girl from the seam was Katniss Everdeen. Her dad died of a mining accident last year and things have never been the same for her. Her mom went into a spiraling depression, which left her to fend for herself while taking care of her only sister Prim. She seems sad, like a part of her was taken away from her when her dad died. I had seen her sister before in school, always cheery, or maybe it's a mask to keep her sister from worrying. I recall the first day of school, when I first laid my eyes on Katniss. The teacher asked who knows the valley song and her hand shot straight up. When she sang even the birds stopped to listen, just like her father. I have been keeping up with the girl from the seam. Suddenly I was imagining life without Katniss Everdeen. The want, the need, to help this girl had overpowered me. I quickly pulled the two loaves of bread that had been cooking for a while deeper into the flames. I pulled it out until it was burnt enough not to sell. I could hear my mother's frustration as she walked in.
"PEETA! How could you have burnt this bread? Do you know how much this costs?" she screamed in my ear. Her harsh hand slammed against my chest and I was hurled across the room. Pain took over my body when I crashed into the wall. In fright I covered my face but she didn't hit again.
"GIVE IT TO THE PIGS! You will have no diner tonight!" I moved my big steel swollen legs to get up and I immediately put my head down trying not to meet her gaze. I walked out and saw Katniss curled up in a ball accepting her fate. I ripped up the bread and threw it in her direction. She looked up at the bread confused. Then she looked up at me. Her beautiful eyes glancing with tears she was trying to hold back.
"PEETA! Hurry up!" My mother called. I looked down at the floor and started to walk back into the house. I took one last look over my shoulder to see that she had taken the hint. The girl ran away with the buns in her jacket. The only other time that I have ever talked to her is when she glanced at me a day later at school. She looked up with longing eyes, but not filled with tears this time, with hope. I tried to say something, but nothing came out. She immediately looked down and smiled down at a dandelion. I remember how beautiful she looked with the wind bowling through her hair. She then left with her sister Prim to go home, she never realized I hadn't stopped my gaze. Even though we were only eleven I have loved Katniss Everdeen ever since.