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Peeta, the Boy Who Was on Fire
Part One - Smoke
The timer dings just as I finish kneading my fourth batch of dough. I wipe the flour off my hands with a damp rag and look over at my brother, Ashtan, who is mixing butter cream frosting; he can't pull the bread. Another bell rings and my mother sighs and slams closed the ledger book she is writing in. She stalks through the kitchen to greet a customer, darting a glance at me when she walks by and looking pointedly at the oven. Her fake, syrupy smile is plastered to her face before she walks through the swinging door to the shop front.
It's not even dawn, and while most of District 12 has the day off, my family has been working for hours. Even on Reaping Day, people need their fresh breads, pastries and cakes. Several of the shops on the square are closed for the day, but the bakery is one of a handful of stores that will be open at all today and the only shop that will close only during the hours of the reaping. Even then, it's only because attendance is mandatory. Because of the lost business hours in the middle of the day, my mother insists that we open for business early on Reaping Day. And she's right; we have customers arriving as soon as our light turns on. Dense, sweet, dark rolls topped with oats, chewy bagels, and flaky croissants, fly off the shelves as fast as my oldest brother, Treyton, can fill the orders.
Before the reaping we are busy preparing the pastries and breads for the day; when the reaping has ended is when we will have our real flood of customers. Many families will have a celebration tonight, rejoicing that their children were spared from the horror of the Hunger Games. Two families will find a basket of "blessings" on their doorstep after the reaping.
It's a tradition that my father started ten years ago, and it's something my mother and him fight about to this day. The "blessing" basket contains a small cake, éclairs, cheese biscuits, two loaves of soft bread and dozens of cookies. Dad called them blessing baskets because that is what families need most after the reaping, and with every item we pack we wish blessings for the family of the child going off to fight to the death. My father insists we save up for the baskets every day, and once a week the whole family goes without dinner to add to the savings. Mother resents that he gives away breads that we cannot even afford to buy for ourselves -let alone the weekly fast- but my father knows that the small baskets are a soothing gesture to a family that is losing so much more than a day of food. For the past 3 years, after having experienced my own first Reaping Day, I've been the one to decorate the cakes and deliver the baskets. I see the value in what my father is doing; my brothers side with our mother.
As I reach into the oven to pull the tray of bread, an errant flame jumps up from the wood below and burns my hand. I nearly drop the tray but correct my grip and only one loaf falls below. I curse under my breath and set the tray aside. Ashtan claps a hand on my shoulder and chuckles.
"You are the clumsiest kid I've ever met." He takes the tray from me and I reach into the flames, ignoring the heat and pulling the now burnt loaf from the hearth. That's when my mother walks in and sees the blackened bread in my slightly cooked hands.
"Peeta! You clumsy lout! Why do you always burn the bread?" She reaches for the switch that she keeps in the kitchen and I tense slightly, preparing for the strike, but the front bell rings again and she releases the stick. "Feed it to the pig and go frost your stupid cakes. Don't go near the oven again." And she disappears again through the door to help Trey.
As soon as she's gone there is a knock at the back door and I see the familiar dark hair of Gale Hawthorne as he pokes his head in to look for my mother. Gale is in the same class as Ashtan in school and while the two of them are friendly, they're not exactly friends. Gale comes from the seam, the part of town at the outskirts where the poorest families live. Most of the families in the seam are coal miners, working the industry of our district. So many of the people in the Seam have similar coloring, Olive skin, black hair and gray eyes; Gale is no exception. Our family isn't rich by any means, but living in town and owning a shop, we are a lot better off than a lot of the others in District 12. The Hawthornes also do fairly well by comparison, because of the illegal hunting that Gale and Katniss do in the woods outside the fence that surrounds our district. Katniss Everdeen is in my class, we've never spoken, and I've loved her since I was five.
"Is your dad around?" Gale asks, holding up a squirrel. A smile breaks across my face, Ashtan grins and hollers for our father. With the money that dad saves for the baskets we rarely buy meat, so when Gale and Katniss come around to trade a squirrel or two we are in for a treat. Mother, of course, thinks that the meat is duck; otherwise she would never even dream of eating it. Tonight, we will have a stew for sure.
"Hawthorne!" My father says genially, though in a hushed tone to not rouse mother's attention. "How are you doing today?"
"Not bad, considering..." Gale trails off, leaving the comment unfinished. But he doesn't need to finish. We all know how it ends; considering that today is the reaping and the odds are not in Gale's favor. I know he has several siblings and has been signing up for tesserae since he was twelve. By entering his name into the reaping additional times, he has been able to get additional grain and oil for his family. I don't know how many entries he has, but I know it has to be more than Ashtan and I combined. Both Ashtan and I will be entered today, along with Gale, because every child between the ages of 12 and 18 are automatically entered into the drawing. Ashtan is 18 so this will be his last reaping; he will have 7 entries in the bowl. I could have had just 5 entries today, but I have also signed up for tesserae every year since I was 13. We have used some of the tessera rations, but I sell as much as I can to add to my father's baskets. The tesserae are cumulative so this year my name will be in the bowl a total of 25 times, even this pales to the number that Gale must have.
"Ah, yes," my father says, his blue eyes darkening slightly. "What do we have here this morning?" Gale holds the squirrel up again and my father nods, turning to look and see what he wants to trade. His eyes land on the tray of loaves that I just pulled from the oven and he plucks one of the larger loaves. "Here you go." He hands the loaf over to Gale and I can tell that Gale's surprised.
"Are you sure?" Gale asks, looking at the loaf, then doubtfully at the squirrel. "He's not even a very large one, I was just hoping for a couple of the sweet rolls."
My father waves his hand in dismissal and I marvel at the difference between him and my mother. Here he is giving away a perfect loaf of bread and not two minutes before she was yelling at me for burning one. I understand where they are both coming from, my mother, concerned with the money and how we are going to put food on our own table, my father, caring about the community and those who have less than us.
"I'm sure." My father says firmly, taking the squirrel from Gale and handing it to Ashtan to skin. "Now get out of here." He starts to close the door but pauses and calls after Gale, "Hawthorne!" Gale turns back around. "Good luck, son." A slight pause and a dip of his head are Gale's reply and then he is gone.
I step out into the hazy light of pre-dawn and start breaking chunks of the bread and throw them to the pig. My mind wanders back to another time that I fed the pig some bread that I'd dropped in the fire. I was 12, we had two pigs then, it was the spring before my first reaping and that time, I dropped the loaves in the fire on purpose.
I had just pulled a tray of bread from the oven and rested it on the hearth when my mother started yelling at some kid for digging through our garbage. I looked out into the rain to see who she was yelling at and there, in the muddy alley behind our shop, stood a beautiful girl with dark hair and dark eyes. The rain had drenched her braid and she shivered in a jacket that was way too big for her. She had been getting thinner, but to me, she was as beautiful as the day I first saw her. Katniss. My heart raced and my hands started to sweat. Maybe I hadn't built up the courage to talk to her yet, but I knew I had to do something to help her. Moving quickly, I walked over to the tray and tripped myself, landing on the tray and sending two loaves into the fire. The smack from my mother was swift, burning my cheek and sending me reeling.
"Pull them out!" She yelled, "I don't want the shop smelling like burnt bread!" I retrieved the loaves from the fire and she shoved me out the door to the back. "Feed it to the pig you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!" The front bell rang and she stormed away, yelling something to my dad on her way to the storefront and I walked over to the crate containing Lucy and Sally, our two pigs.
The pigs only had a few bites that day though, because as soon as my mother was out of sight I tossed the loaves to Katniss. She scooped them up and ran off. I saw her in school after that, but she never mentioned the bread, neither did I.
I drop the last few chunks of bread to Lucy and go back into the bakery. The reaping begins at two so we will be closing at one so Ashtan and I can get ready, until then there is still a lot of work to do.
By noon I have finished with the cakes that I am doing for the day. My father inspects them and gives his nod of approval. He selects two for the baskets. A small white cake with chocolate filling, white, butter cream frosting and a single sugar flower -a Rue- on top, goes into the first basket. The second basket gets an orange cream cake, the icing a soft yellow and lined with orange and red stripes; it looks like sunset. I gather the breads, rolls and cookies to add to the baskets, ignoring the glare from my mother as I move around the bakery kitchen.
When the baskets are complete I set them aside to be delivered after the reaping, pick up a large burlap bag and pack it with two large sacks of tessera grains and two quart jars of oil.
"Going to the Hob?" My father asks, stopping me on my way out the door.
"Yeah," I say. "The Hob will be busy today. I gotta start making some money to pay for next year's baskets. And I was thinking, maybe we could do a little extra and buy an orange or two to add to them." Adding a single orange would probably cost a second night each week without dinner, but what is that compared to watching your child fight to the death on national television? My father nods slowly.
"I think some fruit would be a nice touch." he says. Then his eyes twinkle and a small smile touches his lips, something I wouldn't expect on Reaping Day. "Not just trying to catch a glimpse of her, are we?"
I can feel my cheeks heat and I look away, embarrassed. Everyone in my family knows about my crush, it's not really a secret, but I don't think she even knows who I am. I'm sure, by now, she's forgotten about the bread, after all, it's been five years. It's actually sickening. I'm sixteen years old, I'm nearly a man, and I can't drum up the courage to talk to one silly girl? After a minute, I just shrug and head out the door.
The Hob is just the black market, but it is often busier than the shops in town. Set in an old abandon coal warehouse at the edge of the Seam, the Hob is not a place that many merchants frequent. I've never seen any other shopkeepers at there. I have a couple of regulars that I work trades with though, so I've become a somewhat familiar face. As I approach the coal blackened building I can't help feeling self-conscious about the smears of flour all over my clothing. Not that the traders in the Hob will look down on my dirty clothes, but the stark contrast between my white smeared clothes and the black, coal dusted clothing of those inside. I stand out like lamb among a pack of wolves.
I ignore the stares of those who think a boy from the square has no business in the Hob and head straight to my first stop. Ripper. She's not very old, younger even than my mother, but she lost an arm in a mining accident several years back. Since then she's been making white liquor and selling it at the Hob. The tessera grain, while pretty horrible in bread if it's not milled a second time, is perfect for making liquor. She sees me when I approach and her eyes light up.
"Peeta!" She says, smiling at me when I lift the 30lb sack of grain up out of the burlap bag for her to see. "Oh good, you brought extra. I've nearly run out, a lot more people buying spirits this time of year." The smile disappears and pain replaces it. Her son was a tribute three years ago, the year when the only weapons at the cornucopia were spiked maces. Like as not, she'll be drunk tonight too.
"I thought you would need extra." I say and smile lightly, setting the grain down and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. She clears her throat and straightens her back, all signs of sorrow carefully hidden behind the mask that everyone in District 12 wears. Her face becomes placid and she nods sharply.
"Thanks Peeta, I'll get your money." She goes to lift the bag of grains, but it's too heavy for her to manage. Used to lifting 100lb sacks of flour all day, I lift it easily and place it on the cart where she indicates. She hands me a small pile of coins, much more than her usual rate.
"No." I say firmly, taking several coins and placing them back in her hands. "You have a fair rate, I'm not taking more." It's true, over the years I've sold the grains to several and Ripper not only offered the best rate, but I genuinely like her. When it's not Reaping Day she is full of laughter and life. I have the feeling that she would willingly make donations to the baskets if asked. With that in mind I do ask and she smiles again, remembering the basket that she received three years before. She turns to look through the dozens of bottles she has and she selects two of the nicest looking ones.
"You have a good heart kid, good luck today." She presses the bottles into my hands and turns to greet her next customer, a slightly overweight man in his late thirties, with wrinkled clothes, greasy hair, and already completely hammered; Haymitch Abernathy, who is probably her best customer.
I leave Ripper to her business and make my way through the Hob to my next trade partner. The oil is supposed to be for cooking, but I sell it to Tanner, an older man who tans leather and sews moccasins, jackets and other clothes. I don't know if Tanner is his real name, or a nickname, but it's the only thing I've ever known him as. He treats the leather with the oil to keep it supple and smooth. The cooking oil is best for it, but no one who gets tesserae can afford to part with it. No one but me.
"Good afternoon Tanner!" I say, raising my voice slightly. Tanner looks up from the hide that he's painstakingly pressing designs into. His wide, toothless smile answers and he stands, shaking violently with each dragged step. He had a stroke some years back, well before I started coming to the Hob to trade, and it left him unable to speak, with tremors, and a lame leg. His hearing has started to go too, but his leather work is some of the best I've seen. I place the jar in his shaking hands and he tucks it down into his pouch of supplies. When he hands me a couple of copper coins, less than half of the normal amount he shrugs and gives a pained look, gesturing to the mounds of unsold leather goods stacked around him. It hasn't been a good month for him. I smile at him and take the coins. "No problem." I say and I start to walk away.
He touches his hand gently to my arm and I stop, then he wanders over to his table and roots around the items sitting there. Eventually he returns and presses a small object in my hands. I look, and it's a small, circular gold pin. Real gold. Worth well more than a quart of oil. I protest, speaking loud enough that I know he hears me but he pretends he doesn't. He turns, smiles at me again and waves me away.
Shocked at the generosity of my fellow traders in the Hob, I drop the pin into my bag and turn to leave. That's when I see her. She's with Gale, as usual, and she's laughing at something he's said. They stand at Greasy Sae's stall, trading some fish. My heartbeat thunders in my ears and I freeze momentarily. I've seen Katniss at the Hob several times, though I don't think that she's ever seen me since I always leave as soon as I see her. For that I'm grateful, it is one thing that we catch each others eyes at school every so often, but if she started to notice me at the Hob, she might think I'm stalking her. She probably wouldn't scorn me, like some of the traders, who resent a Townie mingling among them, but she would definitely wonder why I was there. My world pulls back into focus, my heartbeat calming down enough that I once again hear the din of the Hob and I notice my palms are getting moist. I wipe them on my jeans, making a damp paste with the flour that cakes me. Suddenly aware of how I look, I duck out one of the large warehouse bay doors and head back to town. I have one final stop to make.
As I near the mayor's house on my way back, I run into my friend Madge Undersee, who is carrying a small bag of croissants. I like Madge; she's quiet, and solitary, which I suppose reminds me of Katniss in a way, but that is where the similarities end. Katniss, with her classic "Seam" coloring, Madge with the light coloring and high, arched cheekbones that many of the Townie kids have. With her blue eyes and blonde hair, she could be my sister. She is also friendly, if you get into a conversation with her, and I have no idea if Katniss is friendly or not, since we've never spoken. The other difference is, that I can talk to Madge without stammering, without my heart rate going crazy, without feeling like an idiot.
"Peeta!" Madge smiles at me and I fall in step next to her walking her up the steps to her door.
"Hello Madge, it's a little late for breakfast isn't it?" I nod at the croissants and her smile falters a little.
"Well," She chews her lip and looks at the ground, "Mother had a rough morning so I didn't get out as early as normal. I hope she can keep this down." Madge's mother has some disease that has taken its toll on the family. Madge doesn't talk about it much, I wouldn't even know about it if I hadn't happened upon her crying in the hallway after school a week ago. She was on her way to sign up for tesserae and felt so ashamed about the mayor's daughter having to sign up. I offered to go with her so she could act like she was just keeping me company and on the way, she told me about the Capitol doctors that have been coming to visit and how she has to watch her mother die slowly. Sometimes she spends her evenings reading to her mother, helping to bathe her, sometimes having to clean up after her mother gets sick. With the medical bills climbing, they have started selling some of the things that hold value, in order to stay afloat.
"I'm sorry to hear." I say, feeling awkward for a moment. We climb the steps in silence and when we reach the door she turns the knob and starts to say goodbye. "I have some things for you." I say, stepping through the open door without invitation.
"Um, uh- okay" she says, turning back to close the door, then changing her mind, then deciding to close it after all. I get the feeling that she doesn't have house guests very often. I set the burlap sack on the entry table, pull out the bag of grains and set it down, then reach back in for the oil.
"Where did you get this?" She asks reaching for the bag of grains. I glance at it confused, then I see the gold pin that I got from Tanner.
"In a trade down at the Hob." I say dismissing the pin and setting the oil on the table. Then I start to fold up my burlap sack.
"This was my grandmother's, she called it a good luck charm." She says quietly, and I turn my attention to her. "It was supposed to pass to the first born daughter, but after Aunt Masilee died, it was set aside for me. Father sold this months ago."
"You sold it to the leather guy?" I ask, incredulity in my voice as I try to picture Madge or the Mayor down at the black market hawking family heirlooms.
"The leather guy?" She asks, confusion in her voice. "No, father sold it to Cray." Cray is the head Peacekeeper; the local law enforcement, employed by the Capitol. Ostensibly to keep the citizens in the district safe, but really, they're here to keep us in check. I'm surprised that a Peacekeeper could make enough money to buy a gold pin. Then Madge continues. "He didn't even get very much for the pin; just a few coins."
Now I really look at the pin in her hands. There is a small bird affixed to the circle and I immediately recognize it. It's a Mockingjay, which makes me smile because I can't really picture Madge's grandmother as a rebel, and having a Mockingjay on a pin is definitely like sticking your tongue out at the Capitol.
During the uprising, the Capitol bred a new type of bird, called a Jabber-Jay, which was capable of mimicking human voices, and even repeating whole conversations. The Jabber-Jay was just one of many creatures, called Muttations, bred in the Capitol labs. The idea was that they would release the birds into the districts to gather intel. It didn't work for very long though, eventually people figured out the purpose of the birds and fed them lies. After that, the program was shut down and the birds were released into the wild. They mated with Mockingbirds and a new species was born. Mockingjays are now an ever-present reminder of a failure on the part of the Capitol.
"Take it." I say, folding the bag the rest of the way. "I was just going to trade it again for something else." I lie smoothly on my way to the door. I wasn't going to trade it; I was going to sell it and help finance the baskets.
"Are you sure?" She asks, trailing after me.
"Yeah, it means more to you than it ever will to me." I barely finish the words before Madge's arms wrap around me. I'm surprised by the embrace, but after a second I hug her back.
"Thank you, Peeta." She whispers into my shoulder. "If they draw my name, I'm wearing this into the arena. It can be my district token."
I pull away from her and hold her at arm's length. "Hey, hey. Come on. It's your first year of getting tesserae; the chances of Effie calling your name are so low you should have nothing to worry about."
Madge smiles and wipes a tear from her eye. "I better go get dressed." She glances down at the drab school clothes she's wearing and sees smears of flour that transferred from my clothes to hers. Then she looks, for the first time, at my clothes. "And you better get dressed too. Look how hideous you are!"
We laugh and I head out the door and back to the bakery.
All of the shopkeepers live above their shops so when I get back, I head in through the back kitchen door and up the stairs on the right. I bathe quickly and don my Sunday best.
When we arrive at the square, my father gives Ashtan and I long hugs, my mother gives us each a brief kiss, and Treyton claps us each on the shoulder.
The flags for Panem and District 12 are flapping in the wind, high above the Justice Building. As I walk to the roped off area for the 12-18 year olds, in front of the temporary stage that's been erected in front of the building, I look up at the flags and watch a mockingjay fly by. I cluster near a group of other 16 year old boys and look over at the girls' side. Katniss hasn't arrived yet. Madge is already there, in a pretty white dress, her blonde curls held back with a pink ribbon, she looks like she's been crying. I see the pin glinting in the sunlight.
Peacekeepers surround the stage and spread out around the square, dispersing among the crowd. I hate when the square is packed like this, the crush of bodies, the noise, it's so jarring and harsh. It doesn't help that the square sits right outside my bedroom window, so any time there is a street fair or public market I can't escape the noise.
Finally, I see her. Katniss drops her sister off with the other 12 year old girls and goes to stand with the 16s. She looks broody, distracted and aloof, like she always does. She is wearing a dress I've never seen before, it's a soft baby blue that hugs her shape at the top and flares out just above the knees. It's modest but ultimately alluring, and the ornate braid in her hair looks sophisticated and classy. My heart starts to do its funny little dance and I barely hear the Mayor as he starts his annual speech about the history of Panem and how the Hunger Games came to be. I've heard the speech enough times that I could recite it by heart so I tune him out. I don't care about the famines, the floods or the fires. I don't care that they destroyed District 13 and defeated the other twelve. What I care about is the dead children at the hands of our government. With this being the 74th Hunger Games, the Capitol has murdered over 800 children in less than a century, all to keep its citizens controlled by fear and hunger.
Mayer Undersee announces the name of our only living victor, Haymitch Abernathy, and he stumbles drunk on stage, landing in one of three chairs that were set up. I'm not surprised that he's even more plastered than when I saw him just two hours before. There is some scattered, half-hearted applause from the crowd and Haymitch leans over to Effie, the pink haired, white-faced, Capitol escort who will be taking the two tributes to the Games. Effie scoots as far over in her chair as she can while Haymitch tries to hug her, but the tight, green dress she's wearing is hampering her movements.
Annoyed and frustrated with the debacle that Haymitch is making of the ceremony, the Mayor announces Effie Trinket, who gratefully jumps up off her chair and scurries to the podium. Despite being mauled by a drunk, Effie manages to plaster a smile on her face and calls out in her chirpy Capitol accent "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" When she says this, I hear the boy behind me mimicking her words. Like the Mayor's speech, it's something we've heard once a year for our entire lives; in the same effervescent voice, with the same sparkling smile.
I try to pay attention to what she's saying but my focus keeps drifting to the right, where the girls stand. Where she stands. A light smile touches her lips and I don't think she even knows it's there. I follow her gaze and see that Effie's wig is slightly off-kilter from the aggressive hug. She holds it in place with one hand and with the other, starts digging into the bowl with the girl's names. I glance at Madge, who is standing stiff as a board, her eyes wide with terror. Then I look at Katniss, whose face is as white as Effie's, and I can see her lips moving in silent blessing. I find myself lifting a blessing of my own. Not Katniss Everdeen.
Effie walks up back to the podium and holds up the small piece of paper. Leaning close to the microphone she speaks loud and clear. "Primrose Everdeen."