The Baker's Boy
The sound of my father's feet hitting the floorboards upstairs startles me. Usually, it is his voice that is my wake-up call each morning, but I have already been awake for hours. I pound my fist into the dough that I have balled up before me and then wipe the beads of sweat that have started to form across my forehead off on the back of my arm. I cut the dough into four equal slabs and set them on a metal sheet before placing the lot into the oven to bake. I listen as another set of feet move above my head and then I hear her speak. The shrill edge of my mother's voice sends a chill down my spine and it has ever since I was a child. I quickly clean the flour residue from my work space and then hurry outside to the animal pens to feed the chickens and the hogs.
Today is Reaping Day and my brothers have both decided to sleep in, but I was awake before the sun. Paul, at two years past prime reaping age, has no need to be anxious and I don't blame him for taking advantage of the time. Parker however, is eighteen and has just as much to fear as I do. How he remains in bed while my mind churns with thought, I will never understand. I don't know why, but I have a wary feeling that something monumental is going to happen today. Actually, I've had the feeling a while now and I just can't seem to shake it. It seems ludicrous, but I'm somewhat looking forward to the gathering of people in the town square this afternoon at two. At least then I know I will get to see her.
I throw the last handful of grain into the trough and then go back inside to remove my loaves from the oven. After setting them out of the way to cool, I pick up a tube of soft orange frosting and move into a small room off the main kitchen to ice one of three tiered cakes my father baked the day before. The work relaxes me and I can feel the tension drain from my shoulders as I perch on the edge of an old wooden stool to better reach my canvas of sorts. I get so wrapped up in my work that I don't realize how much time had passed until I feel a puff of hot breath against my neck. I straighten my posture and turn to see a perplexed expression on my father's face. He has never understood my art, although he keeps his commentary to himself unlike my mother, who uses every possible opportunity to tell me to quit wasting my time and focus on more important aspects of our trade. I do not take her words to heart; instead, I simply smile and nod my acceptance of her condemnation because that is what I have been taught to do. I doubt she'd take a hand to me now, but that's only because I have surpassed her in both size and strength.
When the cake is finished, I walk to the front window and look outside the window which makes up most of the front wall of the bakery. The streets are teaming with peacekeepers and I can see the camera towers being hoisted into the early afternoon sky. I start to turn away, to go back inside and make my way up to our living quarters above the bakery, but a flash of dark hair catches my eye. I move outside to our wooden porch and try to find her in the sea of white clothing, and I do. I try to stifle a groan when I see that she is with him, but it's no use. I can't hold it in. The two of them, the girl from the Seam that I have been watching from a distance since the very first day that I saw her and the boy that I can only hope is some sort of relative. She is in my year at school, but he is older. The same year as Parker and at the final age of eligibility for the Games. I watch them from my position on the porch as they make their way past the shops and head in the direction of Mayor Undersee's home. What it must be like to stroll through town by her side, or to slip underneath the jagged edges of the fence and spend days on end filling the space between us not with our words, but with only our presence. Hunting in the woods is illegal in District Twelve, punishable by death, but there is not a law written in the books that I would not hesitate to break if it was her that did the asking. When she and her hunting partner are at too great of a distance for me see, I go inside and make myself a small meal of stale bread crust and an egg from one of the hens out back.
Upstairs, I find that Paul has been allowed to stay in bed all morning, leaving the rest of his chores for me to do when I return home from the Reaping, if I am to return home. Parker is already dressed in a pair of Paul's hand me down slacks and one of his nicer shirts. He is positioned in one of the chairs in our sitting room and watching mind numbing videos broadcasted all day by the good people of the Capital. I see President Snow's bleak, bearded face and turn away, hoping to take my turn in the washroom. The water in the metal tub is still lukewarm so I strip out of clothes leaving them in a pile on the floor. But just as I am about to stick in my first foot, I am grabbed roughly under the arm and yanked clear across the room.
"Not so fast, little brother," Paul says looking down at me with the same clear blue eyes I see whenever I stop to look at myself in the glass. "Haven't you learned your place? You belong at the end of the line."
Paul steps into the tub of water and leaves me standing to the side with nothing to cover myself but my hands. I go back to our room to wait for my turn and find myself lying back on the stiff canvas cover of my pillow. I have been awake nearly a full day already and my eyelids become heavy without even trying. The next thing I remember, I am being shaken awake by the hands of my mother. She tells me that I have been asleep too long and I no longer have the time to bathe. Quickly I step into the outfit that has been picked for me. A plain white button down shirt that has clearly seen better days and a pair of Parker's old slacks that he must have outgrown quickly because they appear to be almost new. In my hurry to make it to the square on time, I simply dip my hands into the now ice cold water from the basin and splash it across my face before smoothing my hair back with it as well. After I have cleaned my teeth, I walk downstairs to find that my family has left without me, but I don't mind. I'd rather make the walk alone. It seems less ominous in solitude.
After my finger is pricked and my identity is proven, I take my spot between the ropes with a clump of other sixteens. My eyes search the crowd for her as they always do, but they come up short. As I stand in the sun, both waiting for the Reaping to begin and simultaneously wishing it was over, I am started when someone to the right slips there hand into mine. I look over and see the girl. Mildred Harlow. She is my age and lives among the merchants from District Twelve as I do, her family owning some typing of clothing shop not more than a few doors down from the bakery. She smiles at me and tucks a strand of pale hair behind her ear with her free hand. "I'm sorry," she says, capturing my full attention. "I didn't mean to startle you. It's just that I'm so nervous. If I didn't find something to hold on to, I'm afraid I may lose my balance altogether and topple over."
"It's fine," I tell her, "I don't mind." Although I do; but who am I to turn her away now? Why be unnecessarily cruel to her at this moment when all of our emotions are running high. We stand together as Mayor Undersee takes his place on stage and the Treaty of Treason is read in its entirety, as it is every year. Then we watch the one living victor from District Twelve take his place and make an even bigger spectacle of himself then he did the year before. Haymitch Abernathy. What a ridiculous lush. What it would be like to hear the thoughts that roll around in that man's head, if there are any intelligible thoughts to be had. He spends his days in such a stupor, I find myself wanting to give him a round of applause for managing to dress himself and make it to the Reaping at all.
When he has successfully knocked himself unconscious, the escort from the Capital takes her place in front of the two glass balls; one for the boys and one for the girls. "Ladies first," she says as she has done every year since I can remember and sticks her hand down, pulling out the first slip her fingers touch. I feel Mildred clutch my hand tighter as the woman dressed in ghastly clothes calls out the name of this year's female tribute. My eyes again search frantically through the crowd for the girl that holds my heart but may not even know my name. Don't let it be her, don't let it be her. I chant silently to myself. And it's not her. It's her twelve year old sister. Primrose Everdeen. A girl so sweet and so small that I can hardly believe that she is actually twelve. I watch as she shuffles slowly toward the stage, her big blue eyes starting to brim over with tears that she is willing not to fall. And then she stops and the sound of her sister's voice, and my heart stops beating in my chest as well. Katniss Everdeen is volunteering as tribute.
I feel both a rush of fear and panic sweep over me and I drop the hand of the girl next to me, whose feelings no longer matter. I can't let her do this. I can't let her die, but I know I am powerless to stop it. Except there is one thing I could do. No matter whose name they call when the male tribute is chosen, I can volunteer to go in with her. I can make it my dying mission to keep her safe. To keep her alive. And that's what I will do. I will be the male tribute from District Twelve in the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games.