EDIT: Hi, guys :) Umm... I just wanted to encourage you to review, it's really the only way that I know people are reading the story (well, other than traffic stats). It's the only way I know people are enjoying the story :) So, I'll love you times a million and I'll give you cookies if you leave me reviews. Crazy long ones, crazy short ones, I don't care, I like them all :D So, you THANKS!
A/N: Hello. Well... This is my second Hunger Games story. The first one was kind of a flop :/. Oh well. I hope you like this one, it was a breeze to write and really fun! I love the Hunger Games. I know Peeta's POV is not a new concept, but I'm trying to give Peeta his own distinct inner-voice, like Katniss. This chapter doesn't really display that very much, but it's only the begining! So review, please! And subscribe, I have several other projects I'm working on. I didn't mean to steal any names or plotlines from anyone else's stories, I'm trying to be original, so sorry if I did.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Hunger Games. There are quite a few quotes from the book in this chapter. All the credit for the characters goes to Suzanne Collins.
I wake to the sound of the mockingjays calling outside my window. Today would be beautiful – if it weren't so ominous. It's a bit deceiving, the warm rays of the rising sun slanting through my open window, the scent of bread wafting up from the bakery, and the mockingjay melodies. None of these things can make me forget that it's the day of the reaping.
My mattress creaks as I attempt sitting up and consider going back to sleep. If there was ever a day to stay in bed. But all the citizens of District 12 – all the citizens of Panem – are required to drag themselves out of bed today. All the citizens, that is, except those in the Capitol.
I shiver as my feet hit the cold, polished bedroom floor. My brother is still snoring in the opposite corner of the room. Though I know my family is among the more privileged in our district, I can't help feeing especially unlucky today. I know I have little to fear during the reaping; my name is only being entered four times, and yet the Games still plague my nightmares. But I know the kids and parents from the Seam are going though hell and back. They do every year. I can't believe that there are children who have to take out tesserae in order to just barely scrape by, while my family, here in town, lives in relative comfort.
After I comb my hair and put on some clothes reasonable for reaping, since all prospects have left me, and I find my self padding down to the bakery.
I'm watching the sunrise though the big display window while my father pulls warm loaves of bread from the ovens, when the bells on the door jingle. Gale Hawthorne from the Seam steps in.
"Gale," my father greets genially, no trace of weariness in his voice. I know he's been up for hours, anxious for his sons. Only two of us are still eligible for the Games – Aaron is nineteen, but Cole is eighteen. At sixteen, I am the youngest.
"It's a bit early for a trade, son," my father continues.
"I figured you'd be up, sir," Gale replies coolly. "You always are on –" Gale cuts himself off. The reaping in something of a forbidden topic in Twelve.
"Yes, I suppose I am. What have you got for me?"
Gale holds up a squirrel. It's not shot through the eye, like usual, but through the temple.
My father points this out. Gale smiles tightly. "This is my kill, not Katniss's. I'm not as much of a shooting whiz as her."
Katniss. My heart speeds a little at her name. Sometimes she accompanies Gale, or comes by herself to trade with my father, like she has for years. Gale is constantly complimenting her. I feel a twinge of jealousy, though I know it's silly. I've had a crush on Katniss ever since that day five years ago.
It was raining and bitterly cold that day, so I was holed up in my room, playing with Cole. I heard the clanging of the metal garbage can lids outside my window for the second time that day. So I looked down and saw a sickly skinny girl, peering into the empty can. The trash had been collected only a few minutes before. I heard the bakery door fly open and my mother came into view, beating at the bony girl with a broom, screaming things I cringed at. Seam brat. Scum. Sludge.
Cole came over to the window and stood beside me. His brow crinkled. "I wish mom wouldn't do that; I don't think that girl was hurting anything." My brother and I shared the same soft spot for Seam kids.
I stepped away from the window, and stormed down the stairs. I'd always thought about standing up to my mother one day. Today would be as good as any.
But standing the stairwell, I lost my resolve. My mother had just reentered the bakery, red patches on her cheeks, her breathing erratic. She looked horrifying.
"Peeta," she snapped, "get that bread of the oven."
I hustled over, not really in the mood for a beating, and took the long bread paddle from its hook on the wall and reached into the oven for the bread.
The loaves wobbled and almost fell from the paddle into the flames when I got an idea.
"Peeta, you stupid child!" my mother screeched as I fished the loaves from the bottom of the oven. Though the open door, I saw the girl stumbling away. Then I felt the blow my mother planted on my cheek. It stung and I winced, staggering out the door to escape.
"Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy brunt bread!"
The crusts of the bread were black and scorching hot, but I held fast for them until I reached the back of the house where the girl from the Seam was collapsed.
She flinches when she sees me. I avoided her gaze as I tore the fire-damaged sections from the bread and tossed them in the pig's trough, my hands all but blistering. But I could still tell her eyes were on me. And I recognized those eyes. Katniss Everdeen's.
I'd had my eye on Katniss ever since we were in the first grade, when she sang the Valley Song for the class. She sang like her father; Stephen Everdeen was always singing when he came around to trade with my father. When she sang - when both of them sang - the birds fell silent and listened.
I wasn't sure I would ever forget the day with the bread.
"Oh well," my father smiles. "Peeta doesn't like the heads anyway, do you?" he asks.
I shake my head without out taking my eyes from the window, the sunset.
My father wishes Gale luck and sends him off with a loaf of warm bread.
"Are you in the mood for squirrel?" he asks, shutting the door.
"Not really." It's the truth. My stomach is roiling with guilt. Gale's going to need that luck. His name has probably been entered a hundred times.
"Alright, we'll save it for tonight. I've invited the Cartwrights over for dinner if... everything goes well."
I nod.
"Is there any chance we could invite the Hawthornes over, too?" I ask suddenly. It seems right. "And the Everdeens."
My father looks confused. "I'm not sure your mother would approve. Why?"
I shrug. "I just want to be hospitable."
My mother stomps down the stairs in her usual dark mood. Reaping does nothing to improve her temperament, although I would have thought watching another "seam brat" going into the Games would have put her in a better frame of mind.
"Good morning," I say, in spite of my dark thoughts. She grunts in reply.
I watch my mother, moving around the bakery, and keep well away from her. She speaks to no one. I suspect she's regretting treating her children like pig dung when today, they can be so easily taken from her. But it'll have passed by tomorrow. It always does.
Once my brothers come down, my family sits at the kitchen table in the back of the bakery with a muffin each. It's all we can spare, what with all the sales that will be made today. Every family who can afford it likes to buy a little treat after the reaping. For surviving another year.
Heaving a sigh, I follow my mother out of the bakery. She locks the door behind us. My father and brothers have long since left for the square.
My mother and I trudge along in silence. I resist the urged to hug her, or hold her hand. She does the same. It's not a long walk to the square where I split from my mother. "I love you," she whispers. I think I may have heard wrong, but I reply in kind. "I love you, too." This may very well be the last time my mother expresses any affection for me, Come to think of it, it may be the first, too.
I am herded in the roped off area were the other sixteen-year-old boys are. My friends nod in greeting. Their usual cockiness has evaporated. I know they're all silently calculating their chances of being reaped. I find myself doing the same.
I focus on the boys reaping ball up on the makeshift stage that is set up in front of the Justice Building. We're closer to the stage this year, being older. Suddenly I wish I were twelve and not able to just make out a name written in meticulous handwriting in the transparent ball. Peeta Mellark. It's all the way at the bottom, but that gives me no comfort.
My muffin is threatening to make a reappearance when the clock strikes two. Mayor Undersee stands and approaches the podium on stage.
He makes the usual, required speech about the history of Panem, the reason for the Hunger Games, but I'm not listening. My eyes rove the stage. There are three chairs behind the podium. One is occupied by Effie Trinket who is clad in a spring green suit for the occasion, but the other is empty. Effie glances around nervously, her freakish Capitol hair glinting in the sun. She has it dyed pink this year – or maybe it's a wig.
The mayor reads off the list of victors Twelve has had in the past seventy-four years of Hunger Games. Actually, I'm not even sure you can really call it a list.
"The late Leila Morris and Haymitch Abernathy."
I'm just thinking maybe Haymitch should be seated in that third chair, when he clambers up on stage and collapses unceremoniously into it. He's drunk. Very drunk. But the crowd applauds anyway. He looks confused for a moment, and then tries so give Effie Trinket a hug. She squeals and fights off his hands.
Haymitch, trying to direct attention elsewhere, introduces Effie Trinket, who flounces up to the podium.
"Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" Effie says this every year. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be humorous. I'll bet they're rolling on the floor in the Capitol. The funny thing is that Effie's hair is slowly slipping off her head. No one is laughing.
Effie goes on to say what an honor it is to be here, drawing kid's names from the reaping ball, sending them to almost certain death. Her speech is very superficial, barely differing from the one she gave last year.
There is a collective intake of breath as Effie heads over to the girl's reaping ball. "Ladies first!" she announces. She claws around in the bowl for a while before she settles on a suitable slip.
It's silent as the grave as Effie Trinket smoothes the slip of paper. "Primrose Everdeen."
My stomach does a flip. Then another. Then another. Not Primrose. Not the little girl who comes by the bakery with her sister to gaze at the cakes I've iced.
Looking more delicate than ever, Primrose walks stiffly up to the stage. She's only twelve. She's only twelve, I think. But she's from the Seam. She might not look it, with those blue eyes and blonde hair like the merchant kids, but she's from the Seam. She couldn't be protected.
The crowd's murmuring angrily, when soundly a someone cries out. "Prim!" The crowd parts like the red sea for Moses. Katniss strides through the gap, barring her sister's way with her arm just before she reaches the stage. My stomach does another somersault, along with my heart.
"I volunteer!" Katniss gasps. "I volunteer as tribute!"
There is unconcealed confusion on stage. No one's volunteered as tribute in Twelve for so long, the particulars of the protocol have been long since forgotten.
"Lovely!" exclaims Effie Trinket. "But I believe there's a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um…" She trails off looking to Mayor Undersee.
"What does it matter?" he says. He's looking at Katniss with a pained expression. "What does it matter?" he repeats. "Let her come forward."
Prim is being silent about her sister's intervention, not does she approve of it. She's shaking uncontrollably, sobbing and shrieking, and has latched onto her sister's leg. "No, Katniss! No! You can't go!"
"Prim, let go," I hear Katniss command. Her expression is even, though it's easy to tell she's fighting back tears. "Let go!" she says more firmly.
Gale comes up behind Katniss and pries Primrose off her sister. Gale murmurs something unsteadily to Katniss. Prim is still thrashing in his arms as he makes his way toward Mrs. Everdeen.
"Well, bravo!" Effie exclaims as Katniss mounts the steps. "What's your name?"
"Katniss Everdeen."
"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we?" This is sick. "Come one everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!"
No one claps. No one is sick enough to. The only sound to be heard is Primrose, sobbing in her mother's arms.
Someone raises three middle fingers to their lips. Then the whole crowd is imitating this gesture. They hold their hands out to Katniss. This gesture is barely used in our district. It means good-bye to someone you love.
In the midst of this, Haymitch comes staggering across the stage. "Look at her. Look at this one!" He shouts. He swings an arm around Katniss's shoulders. "I like her! Lots of… Spunk!" More than you! More than you!" Haymitch shouts this directly into one of the television cameras.
He's taunting the Capitol. Sure there would have been severe consequences, but just as Mr. Abernathy is opening his mouth to continue, he takes a step off the stage and falls, knocking himself unconscious.
Haymitch is removed on a stretcher and Effie tries to get things back on track. "What an exciting day!" she gushes. Her wigs is completely askew. "But more excitement to come! It's time to choose out boy tribute!" She crosses the stage to the boys' reaping ball, on hand on her head, and pluck the slip from the top of pile. Before my heart had time to speed up, she's reading the name.
"Peeta Mellark." My heart drops to my feet.
Yeah. That's it! For now... I kind of complied chapters 1 and 2. I hope you liked it a lot! I'll update as much as I can! Review, please! Even if you just want to insult me, it's welcome! XD
NOW YOU WILL REVIEW YOU THE CRAZY REVIEWMONSTER WILL EAT YOUR COOKIES! AND THEN YOU!
-Seastar