Peeta's POV:
It was the first day of school when I first saw her. The little girl with the two long, dark braids, red dress, olive skin and big piercing, silver eyes. My father pointed her out when he saw that me gazing at her, he chuckled and bent down ant whispered in my ear,
"See that girl over there?" he said pointing at her "I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner."
I looked up at my father, he just sighed and I looked back at the girl she was standing with a thin woman who had long, pale blond hair and a little toddler in her arms, was beautiful. I was confused and wondered why a merchant would want to marry a coal miner instead of a baker.
"Why? Why did she marry a miner and not you?" I asked my father
"Because of his voice, when he sings the birds stop to listen." he says simply.
I stare back at the girl, yes her mother was beautiful, but she was something more, something different than I have ever seen, something about her was drawing me in.
"Come along boy I'll introduce you to her." He said standing up and giving me my lunch and guided me over to the blond woman with the little child in her arms and the little girl in the red dress. We come to a stop in front of them, the girl looked up at me with her big eyes and she looked like she was judging weather I was a threat or not. Her face turned from defensive to curious as she studied me.
"Why hello Lillian, it's good to see you again, it has been a while," says my father giving the girl's mother a genuine smile "is it little Katniss's first day too?" he asked looking down at the little girl. Katniss. That was her name, I liked it.
Katniss took her eyes of me and looked up at my father and gave him a stiff nod and turned back to looking at me.
"Farl, it has been too long. How have you been how is your wife Mera?" the blond woman asks.
"Fine, how are Eric and the little one? What's her name again?" he asks adoringly as he studies the little child in its mothers arms and waves at it, I know he always wished for a daughter and not all sons.
"Oh they are good, here is little Primrose we thought it match her with her light hair. She's one." says the woman as she looks down at her child in her arms her eyes expressing so much love. I don't think my mother ever looked at her children like that.
I don't pay much attention to the rest of their conversation; I'm too focused on the girl in front of me, studying her appearance as I assume she is doing to me. She meets my eyes, hers staring right into me, her eyes are so intense in a good way I don't want to stop looking, I can't. I like her eyes best. She looks as if she is going to smile at me for a second, but suddenly she turns away grabbing her bag, hugs her mother and walks off. This makes me sad. Then I feel pressure on my shoulder I look up snapping me out of my trance. My father is pushing me along the hall.
"Come on son, the bells went you don't want to be late the first day!" my father say in a booming voice. I start off but then think of something and turn back.
"Dad, I want to marry her one day!" I say to him with a grin on my face. I do, I do want to marry her one day I want her to be my wife and I her husband, I want to be able to look at her beauty everyday for the rest of my life. With one look I want to marry that girl. Katniss, she is not pretty or beautiful she is as radiant as the sun. As I run off to class I realize I am a goner.
Katniss POV:
The boy was looking at me funny with his crystal blue eyes so deep I can't look away from them. His blond curls that look like they were attempted to be combed back but fall onto his forehead. He is taller than me, I'm about up to his nose which is small and round so unlike my father's which it is large and pointed. He is wearing brown pants that look like they were handed down from his brothers and an off white button down shirt. He has big hands and a goofy smile on his face that almost makes me laugh. I feel the edges of my lips start to tug up before the bell snaps me back to reality I turn hug my mother's leg quickly and say a quick and quiet goodbye to little prim and walk quickly down the hallway leaving the goofy smiling blond boy behind me.
I find my way to class easily the school is pretty small. I walk into a room where the blond haired blue eyed children are separated from the dark haired gray eyed ones. The merchant children eyeing the Seam kids with disgust and turning back to their friends and whispering, they do the same to me when I walk in. I don't care though, I just go sit at the back by the window and look out of it.
A little blond girl with ringlet curls down her back walks in anxiously with her head down and walks up near me and looks up at me.
"I-ca-can I sit next to you?" she asks in a quiet voice and looks over to the other merchants that are staring at her and whispering even worse than they did with any of the seam kids. I give her a quick nod and she sits down "Um hi I-I'm Madge, Madge U-Undersee." She says hesitantly.
She must be the mayor's daughter. I don't understand why the merchants are eyeing her she's one of them. They must be jealous of her, thats why.
"Hello, I'm Katniss Everdeen" I try to say in a formal voice that just makes her look sad.
"Please, Please don't treat me differently like that" she says almost pleadingly.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Ok then Madge" I say. She looks up and gives me a little smile and looks back down.
I look around the room just as the baker's boy comes in the room with a plump little blond girl with a smile on her face. They also don't go over to the merchant kids they just take their seats up the back near us on Madge's side. The boy's eyes on me the whole time as the girl next to him talks, he gives me a small smile and I return it and look back to the window as the teacher comes in.
Mrs. Philips just gets us to introduce ourselves and do drawings the whole class. Mine are terrible, I tried to draw the woods and my father and I's special place. As soon as the bell rings for morning break I screw it up and chuck it in the bin and walk out the door with Madge.
Peeta's POV:
I find Delly in the hall as I walk to class she runs up and hugs me. Me and Delly have always known each other and have been friend forever. We continue walking to our first class when we walk in the room I instantly find her. Katniss, just thinking her name makes me smile. Delly keeps going on about what the classes will be like but I'm too fixated on Katniss to care what they will be like. As we walk to the back where there are seats I give her a smile and she actually smiled back! This I loved.
The teacher asks us to introduce ourselves. I wait for Katniss's turn since I don't know her last name.
"Katniss Everdeen." She says and I realize it's the first time I've heard her voice. I love that too.
After that we got to draw for the rest of the time. I look at what Delly's drawing, it's a horse in the meadow near the fence and it's pretty good. Then I look at Katniss who looks frustrated at her work. She scowls, this is the thing I think I like the least, she looks more pretty when she smiles. That's what I want to draw.
When I'm almost done Delly looks over at my drawing and then at Katniss and smiles, "It looks just like her, Peeta." She says nothing more. Then the bell rings, I start to grab my stuff when I look up to see Katniss almost at the door scrunching up her drawing and chucking it in the bin and walking out the room with the mayor's daughter.
I frown as I walk past the bin. I ask Delly to wait for me and go back and dig around the bin for her drawing. I find it a crumpled mess, so I unfold it. It's the woods beyond the fence and there's a log cabin and a lake it isn't exactly a perfect drawing but it makes me want to know if this place is real. I flatten the piece of paper a bit more and gently put it in my bag and catch up to Delly.
...
The day's gone by like a blur when I see Katniss she is always either with Madge or by herself. But I don't have the guts to go up to her so I just hang out with Delly and a couple other merchants like Benson Cert he is the grocers son he has dirty blond hair and a skinny build, Peppy Sunder she's the florist's daughter and has yellowish frizzy curls that go to her shoulders and seems to get on well with Delly since they are both quite easy to please, Mart Capers he is the butchers nephew and has a very stocky body and freckles and Jeneal Pierce who is the tailors daughter she wears fine clothes and has her long strait pale blond hair in a ribbon, I don't like her much she's a bit mean but she keeps talking to me and trying to hold my hand.
After lunch we have some music thing I just follow Delly. The music teachers name is Mrs. Trester she has pale blond hair that sits on top of her head fanning out in crazy directions. She is very curvy and wears colourful clothing. Her excited and strange voice reminds me of some of the capitol people.
"So does anyone here know the Valley Song?" she says excitedly. Everyone knows this song but know one want to sing out loud to the rest of the class especially not me. But on hand shoots strait up from the corner of the room. Its Katniss, I smile to myself, happy that I get to hear her voice again. She stands up confidently and makes her way up front to the stool and sits down and starts to sing.
I have never heard a more beautiful voice in my life, her voice is sweet and high but powerful at the same time. I am mesmerised by it, I don't want it to end, but it does. Everyone is silent even the birds outside not a sound for several seconds until Mrs. Trester asks everyone to give her a clap for her singing. I clap immediately and loudly and so does Delly, Madge has a genuine smile on her face and is clapping softly and others clap quietly too but almost all the merchant girls just stare at her with jealousy and anger. Katniss doesn't pay much attention to them but looks at me with a quick smile, one that if you blinked you would have missed it and sits back down next to Madge who still has a little smile on her face. Then the bell goes and the days over.
I make my way to the school gate with my eyes on Katniss who is about twenty meters in front of me when she breaks into a sprint. She runs to a tall stocky man covered in coal dust, he scoops her up and puts her on his shoulders and they start to head for the Seam.
I see my father just outside the gate with my two older brothers I make my way to him and we start home.
"Did you talk to her today at all son?" my father asks me referring to Katniss.
"No, but she smiled at me and I drew a picture of her smile." I say now sad that I actually hadn't spoken to her. He just smiles and takes my hand and leads me back to the bakery and sneaks me a cookie under my mother's nose.
I go up to my room with the two drawings wondering where to put them where my mother won't see them because she would be angry, she doesn't like people from the Seam . I decide to pin then on the bottom side of my bed so I can look at them when mothers angry because that where I go when she is. I go back down to help with the bakery where my mother isn't in a very good mood at all.
That night I grab my blanket and pillow and put them under my bed and sleep there for the night looking up and the drawing of the woods with the cabin and lake and the drawing of Katniss I drew and whisper goodnight and drift into a peaceful sleep.