The sound Katniss dreaded echoed through the house in the morning air. Water sloshed on the metal of the tub. The little girl ran down the hall in a mess of unsteady legs. She let out a high pitched screech.

"Katniss, calm down it's okay. It's only a bath," sighed an exasperated Mr. Everdeen.
He chased after a bobbing head of brown scraggily hair. She turned around to see how close her current enemy was and tripped on a rug.

"Ouch," she commented. The big man scooped her up in his arms and she giggled and squirmed. A mixture between a pout and smile played on her lips.

"Daddy I don't like baths," the fussy child complained.
"I know sweetheart, but today's a very special day and you know that."
"Humph."

The girl slid out of his warm arms and landed on the floor.
She strutted into the bathroom as her father helped her out of her little blue nightgown. She climbed in the tub with a grimace on her face.

"That's my girl. So brave!"

She answered him with a glare that seemed to make no impression on her small face.
The man sighed and ran his fingers through his ever aging hair.
"Tell you what Katniss, if you finish this bath, in good spirits mind you, we'll go down to the bakery for a loaf of bread and some jam for breakfast," he said. In truth, he had already been planning to do that, but he left that part out.

At those words, Katniss's face lit up and her gray eyes sparkled. "Really?" she yelled at an alarming level.

"Really," he said.

The girl scrubbed her body while her father soaped her hair. He had no patience, but for his daughter he had all the time in the world. He worked his fingers through the jumble of knots she called her hair, and within ten minutes she was clean. She stumbled out of the tub where her father was waiting with a warm, dry towel. Katniss rubbed her face and was tingling from her recent scrub down. She ran to her bedroom where her mother had set out a lovely, little dress for her to wear today. She slipped it on and admired the blue patterns of flowers and leaves intertwining on her dress. The white blouse underneath and the black dress shoes polished her look. She scurried into the kitchen and greeted her mother.

"Hi, Mommy. Father says you have to braid my hair before we can go get bread. I don't like this dress, it's pretty, but I can't move." she said. Her mind rambled and she spoke whatever she thought.

"Very well. Sit down, Katniss." Katniss sat on the wooden chair in the kitchen while her mother stood over her and pulled her head this way and that. Her hair was in a tight braid and she rubbed her scalp. Katniss muttered something about not to needing to pull as hard as she walked to her father's room.

"I'm ready!"

"Very good. Shall we go to the bakery?" The two walked out the front door into the crisp September air. The cobblestone streets made clacking noises and her shoes slapped the ground. They approached the bakery and as they walked through the door, a sweet, small chime went off. A woman her mother's age greeted them and asked what they wanted. Their voices went into muted fuzz because she was looking at something else. A boy was sitting on the bench inside the shop and looking at his feet, swinging them back and forth. He was dressed in similar attire to her. He wore gray pants and a button up blue shirt. His head was a momentarily tamed mess of beautiful, blond curls. One sat just above his eye and it bothered Katniss. It was out of place. She walked over to him and pushed it back to its righteous spot. He jumped from her touch and looked at her with his bright, clear, blue eyes. She took note of them and decided they were very pretty. She would like to have eyes like his. She turned around when she heard her father walking back out the door and ran after him. She was still caught up in his blue eyes, but now she had to prepare herself for the biggest event in her life so far: School. She dreaded it, yet she looked forward to it. But either way, it was coming. Little did she know that those blue eyes that had captured her attention so easily would be looking at her once more in eleven years, this time with expressions of worry, pain, and most of all: fear.