LIAR ON FIRE
A/N: Thanks for reading! This is my first fan fiction ever - be gentle. The chapters are chronological, so these first two are rather tame lies of a 5 year old and 11 year old Peeta. Future chapters include:
Haymitch Abernathy, my new best friend / The Careers. / If it weren't for the baby. / I'll be fine.
Other ideas? Send them my way!
Oh yeah, Suzanne Collins pwns The Hunger Games. I just loaf around in here. (See what I did there?)
Chapter 2 - Burning Bread.
I just about jump out of my skin when the back door slams and my mother starts screaming. I start breathing again when I realize she isn't screaming at me.
"I swear to God if one more stinking Seam Rat comes sniffing around our garbage cans, I will bribe a Peacekeeper to shoot them through the skull!"
I try to disappear against the brick wall by the ovens, but she sees me and I forget to breathe again.
"Get out there and make sure every lid is down tight on every one of those cans!" She sees me hesitate as I gauge a path that will lead me to the backdoor without running into her clenched fist (gods, please open her hands), her face and neck turn blotchy red, and she moves toward me so fast I hardly have any room to get past (don't trip, don't trip, don't trip), but I make it out the door before she lays a finger on me.
I lean heavily against the door, facing the yard and alley, pausing a moment to feel the cold rain stinging onto my oven-warmed skin. A fluttering of paper catches my eye. Not paper. Clothes. Paper thin, covering a paper thin girl huddled at the base of a tree. I turn my head sharply to look through the window in the door to locate my mother. Luckily, she's not there. The Seam kid. That was who was digging through our trash. Guaranteed they didn't find much. The cans were just emptied this afternoon.
God, she's thin. She hasn't moved, I'm not even sure if she's seen me. But as I lean forward into the rain, squinting to make out the lines of the almost-person huddled there, she lifts her head and I see the grey flash in her eyes and I know who it is. Katniss Everdeen. My eleven-year old heart cracks in two.
I quickly check over my shoulder one more time to make sure the kitchen is empty, before I head toward the trash cans. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her head has slumped back down on her knees and tucked into her chest. She looks defeated. A flash of lightning and I can see the bumpy arch of her spine down the curve of her huddled back. The bones look sharp, as though they would slice into my fingers if I stroked them down her back to comfort her. Why is she just sitting there, I wonder.
Food. She needs food.
Bread. I have bread.
I head back into the kitchen and not even thinking, I grab one of the large wooden peels I use to pull loaves out of our biggest oven. The current batch was almost done anyway. I've shoved the paddle under the bread when I hear her return and the realization of what I am about to do hits me. My mom will kill me before she lets me give two loaves of fresh white bread away. She'll kill me twice if I give it to anyone from the Seam.
It doesn't really matter what I do. One way or another it always leads to her yelling at me and most of the time it leads to hurting me too. I used to try so hard to do just the right thing so she wouldn't be upset with me, but now I realize that it doesn't matter what I do. I'm worthless as a son and barely better as a baker. It's the main reason I've never had the guts to talk to Katniss. There's absolutely no reason she would be interested in me.
The flames flare up within the oven and the lie presents itself to me like a shining pearl. I can't just walk out with the bread now. My mother won't let me. However, since it doesn't matter what I do... I might as well do what I want, right? Either way I'm getting in trouble.
I pretend I don't hear her come in. As I pull the paddle out of the oven, I turn my wrists just enough to tip the loaves off the peel, over the rack and into the fire. I curse, something I would never do in front of her.
Straightening up as I turn, I try and relax my shoulders for what comes next. She can't know I'm expecting it. If she thinks I did this on purpose she'll probably grab the rolling pin. The back of her hand connects with my cheek as I'm turning. A sound somewhere between a whimper and a growl escapes me. She needs to know it hurt or she'll do it again. At least she doesn't have her rings on.
"What did you do pea-brain? What did you just say?" The blotchy red skin is back and I wonder if maybe she'll die like Sophie's dad, the tailor. He was angry all the time too. Maybe if I irritate her enough she'll just die. It's hard not to smile at the thought.
The tongs are next to the oven and I grab them and pull the blackened loaves out of the fire. "Get out of here!" she screams. "Go feed that pile of ash you call bread to the pigs!" I grab the loaves, ignoring the heat of the bread and the stinging on my cheek as I race out the back door.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I deeply appreciate those who take the time to leave comments. You make my day!
Picture of a baker's peel used to get bread out of the oven: oldandinteresting {dot} com {slash}images {slash} bakerspeel {dot} jpg
