I woke up to a stream of sunlight hitting my pillow and bouncing onto my eyelid, teasing me, telling me to wake up. I groaned and flipped over hoping that I could escape once more into sleep, where my problems seem to vanish if only for a few hours, if I'm not plagued with my recurring nightmare. "Katniss! Wake up!" Prim said as she bounced into my room. Ugh, sometimes I wish that I was old enough to move out and live on my own, where I could sleep in as long as I wanted. I pulled the cover over my eyes and hoping she would go away, but I knew that she wouldn't. Prim tried to pull the blanket from my face, but I held on for dear life. It was better being under here, warm and safe than it was being out there, cold, hungry, scared. "Katniss! We're gonna be late for school if you don't get up soon!" she whined, using the voice that she knows I can't resist. She sounds so pathetic when she talks to me that way, that I can't help but lift the cover and throw it on the end of my bed, laying a thick icy sheet of coldness on my body.
Prim is a very delicate looking creature. Her face is so pale, it looks as if you could break it with a feather. Her golden hair cascades off of her head like little wispy clouds that curve around her angel like face. Her face carries light blue eyes that are small but open and can swallow you up whole with once glance. Prim is small for her age of twelve, so she looks even more of a tiny angel when you look at her from a distance. It's a wonder how she's alive with how skinny she is. If you were to grab ahold of her arm you would only feel bone. Prim gave me a look of curiosity that broke me from looking at her features.
I wrapped my arms around my torso in a failed attempt to transfer a small amount of heat into my body, while Prim scurried out of my room saying," Hurry up, or you won't have time to eat breakfast before we go!" "If you can even call it that for how little of a breakfast it is." I said curtly, but then I glanced around in hopes that no one had heard me, at least no one that would get me in trouble, that is. I dressed quickly in hopes that what little heat I had stored would not be lost to this cold weather. I braided my wavy auburn hair into a long, thick braid that wrapped around my head and hangs down my left shoulder. I always wear my hair this way. It's the easiest thing I can do with it, that will stay all day.
I walked into the kitchen, which also served also as, what rich people would call, a family room. I sat down at our table which is placed in the middle of the square. The table looked like it was going to fall apart at any moment, but it's better than what most people have, which is nothing.
At my place was a small mound of goats cheese, and a small loaf of bread, made out of grain from tesserae, was set in the middle of the table to be divided between me, Prim, and my mother. We finished it off in about five minutes, and washed it all down with some milk from Prim's goat. We walked out the door to head down the path, to the broken down building that we call a school, when my mother stopped us. She walked outside, for the first time in months, and kissed both me and Prim on the cheek. "Have a good day at school" she said shooing us off in the right direction. Both Prim and I did not move, when she told us too. We stood staring at her like a kid in District 12 would in front of a candy store, if they were from the Seam. "Go" she said a final time with a strange look on her face, breaking me and Prim from our trance.
Ever since my father died in a mine explosion five years ago she has been stuck in a little trance. She will get up from her bed and move around the house, tidy things up, make dinner out of something that I bring home from scavenging, but once she is done with her little chore she will collapse into her chair or on her bed with a puzzled look on her face that asks," what am I doing?" she has had basically no place in this household for the past 5 years, other than being the thing that she is best, a statue in the corner while her two precious babies, or at least that's what we were, starve to death, unless I bring something home for us to cook.
The way our neighbors are looking at my mother was the same way Prim and I were looking at her when she came outside. Everyone knows that she does nothing but sit in her little rocking chair in the corner of the house, waiting for my father to be raised from the dead and walk through the door of our house. I can tell every time that I look at her, that she misses him, deeply. I do too. When I go to bed at night I pray that I won't be given the same dream that I have been cursed with for the past five years.
I see him, my father, being lowered into the mines, along with other men. I'm standing in front of him, screaming, but he can't hear me. I'm being blocked from him by some invisible force. He can't even see me, than I am being dragged to my house, but I don't go without a fight. I'm kicking and screaming at him, telling him it's not safe, that if he leaves, he's gonna die, but he doesn't listen to me, and he keeps going lower and lower into the earth, and then I hear it, the sound of earth caving in, the sound of my father's body being crushed under tons of rock and dirt. I wake up screaming every time. Prim is always there to comfort me though. She crawls next to me, curls her body around mine, tucks her little head on my shoulder, and holds me while I cry for our father. I should be the one to comfort, but it's Prim instead who comforts me, and makes my fears leave me, at least for a little while.
I started walking down the small dirt road to school slowly, looking at the houses that were scattered along its side. They are much like ours, some are better some are worse. The road hit a fork, the left lane took us to school, and the right lane took us to town square, where all of the merchants, and dignitaries lived, basically the wealthy of District twelve. I looked down the road, wondering what it was like to live down there, where you knew where your next meal was coming from, where you would never have to go out scavenging in the forest for food because you were a day away from death, where you would never have to take tesserae for you and your family, which puts you at a greater chance of getting your life ripped away from you.
I was about to turn away and head down the right path, when I heard a woman's high pitched screaming. It was coming from a bakery that was about two houses down from where I was standing. Suddenly a boy was flung from the door, landing on the rough dirt ground. The woman was at the door, screaming at him, about how he was a worthless pig, and how she wished she had been blessed with a daughter, because she would obviously be better than having a clumsy ape that burned bread, and broke precious bags of flour on the floor probably on purpose. She grabbed some books that had fallen on the porch, ran down the steps, and flung them at him while he was getting up. He bent over and picked the books up. When he brought his face up to look at her, she slapped him so hard that he staggered back a few steps, and dropped his books. "Get out of here you ungrateful little wretch!" she said walking back inside and slamming the door. He sighed, picked up his books again, and turned to face me.
That was all it took, one look, and I was taken back to that poor scene, five years ago.
It was right after my father had died. My mother was supposed to get a job after a month of mourning, but she didn't. She sat around and basically watched her children starve to death. So I went out with some of Prims threadbare baby clothes one day to try to trade them for some food, or something we could trade for food. I went door to door, but no one was willing to trade anything for them. I was tired and hungry, and just wandering, not wanting to go home empty handed, when it started to rain. The clothes that I had been holding slipped from my hands into a mud puddle. I was too afraid that I would keel over and die if I bent over. Besides, no one wanted them, neither did I.
I continued wandering until I realized that I was headed into the square. I was outside of a bakery and decided to look in the trash bin, to see if there was something to eat. Something only me and my family were desperate enough to eat, but it was bare. I could even make out my own reflection in the bottom of the bin. That's when a woman from inside started screaming at me, asking me if I wanted her to call the peacekeepers, and that she was so tired of the ratty kids from the seam pawing through her trash. I walked over to an old maple tree that was next to their chicken pen. That's when I heard her voice again, but this time she wasn't talking to me.
She was yelling at her son, Peeta. He staggered outside with two loaves of burnt bread cradled in his arms. He has ashy blond hair that staggered into his large blue eyes, which at the moment were full of concern. He was built, being a baker's son you have to haul 100 pound bags of flour and trays of baked goods, but it's not like a steroid type of built. It's more like nicely toned. He walked over to the chicken pen, glancing nervously in my direction, while tearing off chunks of the burned part of one of the loaves of bread. He looked behind him quickly to make sure that no one was watching, and then threw the loaves at me, than ran inside.
I stared at the ovals of heaven, looked quickly to the bakery, and shoved them under my shirt, while keeping my eyes still trained on the house. That day we dined on a loaf of hearty cinnamon raison nut bread for dinner, and for the first time in months we went to bed with our stomachs full.
As he walked towards me, down the road, brushing his blond hair out of his eyes and staring at me, it all came flashing back within seconds. When he got to me, he ducked his head and muttered, "Hello Katniss." He glanced up at me, and when he caught me staring, he ducked his head quickly and walked away, but not quick enough so that I couldn't see a little whisper of pink starting to stain his cheeks. I followed him, towards the school. He glanced back a few times, and every time he saw I was fallowing him, and every time he saw that I was smiling at him, his face turned a new shade of pink.
I smiled the entire way there, until I caught sight of the ratty old building. Its outside is covered in gray, with spots of red here and there from what used to be red paint that covered the entire school. It now holds a dark shade of gray, from worn in coal dust from the mines, and from the actual color of the bricks from the walls of the school. Its brick through and through, the walls are brick, the columns that hold up the school are brick, the steps are brick, so when you fall down the stairs you are guaranteed a trip to the local hospital. I know, I was tripped down them once because I stood up to a bully. I was in the hospital for a few weeks, but the person who tripped me was never punished. I never told anyone who did it.
There are always some of the more popular kids outside, chatting, screaming, chasing each other around like they were in elementary school. The ground around the school, basically dirt, with a few weeds and some dead grass scattered around. I walked inside, making sure to steer out of everyone's way and not holding glances with anyone other than Prim, like I usually do. I walked directly to my class, basically with my eyes on the ground.
My classroom is very bland. The same color pattern of gray is worked into everything, the desks, the walls, the chairs, the blackboard, even my teacher. He is a paunchy old middle aged man, with a very quick temper, with a scowl always on his face. I've noticed that he likes to pick on the more wealthy kids, him being from the Seam like me. I can tell because of his dark hair and gray eyes, that all of us from the Seam seem to have. He seems to like me. He never calls on me to do a problem in class; he doesn't really even look at me at all, unless I arrive late. He probably likes me so much because I was probably at the same place that he was when he was my age, and I'm one of the best students in his class.
The day goes by pretty much the same way, every single time I go to school. Most days, I don't see Peeta Melark, at all, except a few glimpses in the hallway, but today as I walked into my classroom, there he was, sitting right next to my desk.