Chapter 2: The bakery incident

[Spring in the year of the 68th Hunger Games]

Somehow I found myself thinking of Prim and her family quite frequently during lessons at school on the following days. The Everdeens were a strange family; father and older daughter had the typical Seam features with dark hair, olive skin, and grey eyes, whereas mother and younger daughter had Merchant features with blonde hair, light skin, and blue eyes. Prim was very outgoing and charming and talked and smiled a lot, whereas her older sister usually wore a scowl and did not talk much at all, at least as far as I had observed so far. I did not believe that two sisters could be much more different from each other, but they seemed to be happy together, and none of them had complained about their mediocre living conditions. Well, nobody in the entire district lived in anything which could even remotely called luxury and abundance, of course, expect those in the Victors' Village – at this time, only Haymitch – and, to some extent, the Undersee family.

At school, some of my classmates did not fail to notice that I was lost in my thoughts a few times, and my best friend Tyler teased me about that: "Rye, have you finally found a girl to think about?"

My friends were sometimes making fun of me as most of them already had girlfriends, and some of them had the second or third one already; a few of them even seemed to have a different girlfriend every other week or so. My middle brother Wheat was rumored to have a secret girlfriend at his tender age of 12; he was not telling much as he was really too young, and he was afraid that our parents might find out and stopping this early on. On the other hand I was not known to have a special one at all; so far, not a single girl had caught my interest. Well, now actually I had, in a manner of speaking, but not in the way they had in mind, and I responded: "Tyler, even if I did, I would not tell you guys about it."

"Come on", my best friend Tyler replied, "have you been to the Slag Heap yet?"

Naturally he assumed that I was thinking about a girl close to my own age. I grinned, knowing quite well that the 'Slag Heap' was used by teenagers a lot for hidden kisses, hugs, and more. I had actually never been there with a girl, but was not ready to admit that, and thus said: "Not saying!"

Tyler pouted: "Rye, you are a real spoilsport today!"

I tried to change topics: "Come on, let's walk over to the sports area for wrestling. I have invited my youngest brother, Peeta, today. Coach wants to see if he is built for wrestling, too."

Since a few years ago I had been one of the best junior wrestlers at school, and Peeta had recently shown some interest as well. District administration in the Justice Building had officially endorsed wrestling at school, and of course they were interested in getting strong young men for working the coal mines. It turned out that the coach liked what Peeta demonstrated, and he asked him to come to our weekly training from now on.

I had started to do wrestling at about Peeta's age, when I had noticed that working in the bakery was demanding and required a lot of physical strength, not only for lifting and carrying bags of ingredients around, but also for tasks like mixing and kneading large amounts of dough. We had heard that there were machines powered by electricity helping with that, but we could not really afford to buy one of those; even merchants weren't as rich as some Seam people assumed us to be. In addition, electrical power in our district was very unreliable and sometimes not available for days or even weeks at a time. The only periods of time when electrical power was consistently and reliably available seemed to be the mandatory viewing sessions during the games.

Finally, school was out on Wednesday, and I had not forgotten to pick up Prim today. Thus I deviated from my normal way home and rather than walking towards the bakery building, which had our living accommodations on the upper floor, I walked right into the Seam. Contrary to my usual way home, I paid more attention to my environment, as I had not been in the Seam frequently before. I noticed people looking at me with wary eyes and houses being much smaller than the Merchant ones; in addition, most buildings were wooden rather made of stone. Some houses had small pens around for goats or hen and some rabbits, and the roads were badly maintained. Nature had reclaimed part of the environment, and plants and houses almost seemed to have some kind of symbiosis with each other in some places. If I was truthful to myself, this area somehow looked warmer than the Merchant quarter.

When I approached the Everdeen home, Prim was already out on the porch and started to wave and smile when she saw me. I greeted her with a smile of my own, and Prim started to babble while fidgeting:

"I am so glad that you did not forget me. You know, if was not sure if you would really come today. I mean you said you would, but I still did not know. I could understand if you would not want to meet with me after all, as we are Seam, but I was so hoping you'd come, and well, you are here now, and..."

I was surprised about myself that I did not only not mind her babbling, but even enjoyed listening to her talking like that. However, she did not get a chance to continue that for long, as Mrs. Everdeen came out and stopped her:

"Prim, stop talking for a moment, and let me say hello to our guest, too."

She turned to me and also greeted me, saying: "If Prim is talking too much, do not hesitate to bring her back right away! And now, off with you, and have fun at the bakery!"

Prim and I started walking towards the Merchant quarter, and Prim actually managed to stay quiet for a few minutes, probably with her mother's words in mind. When we crossed the unofficial border, the houses were larger and better maintained, and we passed a few shops, such as the butchery and the shoemaker. Prim stopped at both for a moment to look into the shopfront windows before getting back to my side. Only once we got close to the bakery she carefully started talking again, somewhat subdued:

"Are you really going to bring me back when I talk too much?"

"Well", I replied, "I guess that I will do that, yes. However, the question is about my definition of 'too much', and maybe we will have to find out what the limit is."

"But how would I know about that?" Prim was showing her concern.

"Don't worry" I told her, "I will let you know before we get there."

My reply visibly helped and she was looking happy again, when we finally entered the bakery through the back door. My father was there and smiled at our visitor:

"Welcome to the Mellark bakery, young lady. I hope that you like it here, and that my son is polite towards you. If he isn't, just let me know about it and I'll take care of the situation."

"Oh" Prim had her mouth open now. She had clearly not expected such a warm welcome, and she probably was not used to being called a 'lady': "Sure – thank you!"

First I took Prim to the front room, where we sold our merchandise. At this time, no customers were in, so that we could take our time. My brother Wheat was behind the counter and also greeted Prim:

"Hi Prim, I am William, but my friends call me 'Wheat'. Good to see you, and I hope that my older brother behaves and does not drag you to the Slag Heap when he gets a chance!"

"What is the Slag Heap?" Prim inquired innocently.

Wheat started laughing and I just told Prim that she really did not want to know. Why did brothers always have to be so embarrassing?

Hearing the laughter, my mother came down the stairs and stepped into the front room. First she started to admonish us about the laughter, and asked if we did not have any work to do. Then she noticed Prim and asked about her. I introduced her properly and politely as Primrose Everdeen, and my mother started to rant:

"What, you dare to bring a child from the Seam here into our bakery? I do not want any Seam sluts here, and..."

At this point I interrupted: "Mom, please do not use words like that. She is an invited guest, and father knows that she is here and approves. She has a right to be here, and we do not discriminate against Seam residents in our bakery!"

My mother did not really want to listen:

"Ryan Mellark, do you dare to tell me what I am supposed to allow? You are my son and will do as I say – throw the Seam slut out right now!

"Mum" I objected, "I will certainly not do this. Primrose is an invited and valued guest!"

Prim was getting scared; she got a little pale and started to hide behind the counter. My mother now got really angry; she picked up a rolling pin and advanced towards me, raising her weapon and trying to hit me. Wheat ran out to get Dad, knowing that my mother's intention was to hit me hard. She had done so in the past for quite a few years, but some time ago I had stopped just accepting my fate, as I was more than strong enough to counter her attacks. When the rolling pin was just above her head and she wanted to swing her arm forward and down, I quickly stepped to the side and grabbed her arm, so that she could not move it any longer. I sternly said:

"Mom, we can always talk and I am ready to listen to arguments, but you are not hitting me any longer – this is going to stop!"

Mother struggled in vain, and now father was coming in. He saw the rolling pin and threatened his wife: "Larissa, stop doing that. I will not tolerate physical violence against my sons any longer. And Rye is absolutely right – Primrose Everdeen is an invited guest in our home and the bakery. You can either accept that or leave!"

Mother realized that she could not pursue her point any further at this time and ran out, hurrying upstairs for now. Father addressed Primrose: "Young lady, my apologies for my wife's behavior. I will try to make sure that it does not happen again, but rest assured that you are always welcome here, and Ryan should be able to protect you if my wife should forget herself again."

Prim was now coming out of from behind the counter, clinging to me, still looking scared. I suggested: "Hey, Prim, would you like to actually bake something?"

Hearing that her face started to lighten up again, and she nodded.

"Well", I said, "what about cupcakes – they do not need much preparation. Let's start getting the ingredients."

This being said, we moved to the big back room, found an empty counter, and I brought the ingredients forward. Seeing that we only had very little flour left, I walked to the storage room and carried a big 50kg flour sack into the bakery. Prim paled a little when she saw that and asked:

"How come you can carry such a big sack and make it look easy?"

I smiled and had to admit to myself that it was a good feeling to have one's strength admired by a girl, even by a very young one. I proudly answered:

"That's all training and exercise. When you start working here in young years and have to carry stuff around all of the time, plus when you are active in sports like wrestling at school, muscles just build up. I guess that this also happens with most coal miners."

I was not so sure about the latter, actually. While I had seen some strong miners, most of them did not have that many muscles. Properly they did not have access to proper nourishment – mine wasn't the best either, but probably better than what most Seam people had.

When the basic ingredients for the cupcakes were in a big bowl and need to be mixed, I asked Prim:

"Would you like to do the mixing, Prim?"

She smiled and nodded; I got a high stool for her to sit on, and she started stirring. Naturally, this was slow progress, as her strength was by far not sufficient, but she tried nonetheless. A few minutes later she started to sweat and gasped:

"This is more strenuous than I thought; how much more stirring and mixing does this dough need?"

I relieved her and replied:

"A lot more, actually. Some people believe that being a baker is a fun job and easy. Yes, it can be fun, and I certainly prefer it over coal mining, but it is a demanding job as well and requires strength and stamina at least for some tasks."

Before I continued the stirring, I picked up Prim and placed her to sit on the countertop to watch further. Quarter of an hour later the dough was ready to be filled into the baking pans, and this was something I again allowed Prim to do. She worked slowly and carefully, but she managed, and when she had filled one baking pan, I quickly completed the others. I had prepared as many trays as I could fit into the oven and moved the pans into the oven now, carefully avoiding to touch the hot areas.

Now we needed to wait for twenty minutes or so, and Prim said that it looked like I knew exactly what I was doing here. I laughed and replied:

"You know, I started working here almost ten years ago, when I was little older than you are now. I should really better know what I am doing. However, for me this is just some work, whereas for my youngest brother Peeta this is a calling and hobby as well. Despite his young age he has already surpassed Dad in decorating cakes, and he really is a born baker."

I did not mind at all telling her that Peeta was the best. Despite his age of just nine years, father and I already knew that he was a dedicated baker and that he was eventually going to be better than all of us together. Normally I'd expect to inherit the bakery at a later time, but I already knew that Peeta should really get it, and I was prepared to find another occupation.

We continued to chat for some time, when finally the time was over and I pulled the baking pans out of the oven, placing them on the counter. Carefully removing each cupcake from the pans, each was was placed into a small paper cup and on a tray; most of the cupcakes would be available for sale in the afternoon, and we hoped that we could sell them all. Four of them, though, I placed into a small paper bag, handed the bag to Prim and said:

"Let's put this bag on the side; this is for you to bring to your family when you go home later on – one for each in the family!"

Prim asked: "Are you serious?"

"Of course I am" I said. "Those are yours for sure!"

Prim beamed and jumped into my arms, hugging me. I had to admit that I started to like and enjoy her affectionate behavior; this was almost like getting a little sister. Now we could see the sun getting lower, and I walked a happy Prim back to her home, where her mother awaited us. Mrs. Everdeen was also quite happy to learn that Prim had had a wonderful time at the bakery. I decided to use the opportunity to ask a question which bothered me a little:

"If you don't mind me asking, Mrs. Everdeen, how come that you simply allowed your daughter to come to the bakery with me? Most Seam people I have met so far seem to be somewhat reluctant to mingle with merchants and wouldn't even allow their children to play with merchant children?"

"I understand that question well", Mrs. Everdeen replied, "and I might think like that as well, but, you see, I was born as a Merchant and married into the Seam. Since I got married, our family has always tried to not enforce that artificial division into Seam and Merchant. That is, Katniss thinks different, I have to admit."

Over the next weeks and months Prim and I saw each other quite a few times. I made it a habit to pick her up every other week or so, usually on Wednesdays. Sometimes we worked in the bakery, and a few times we watched my youngest brother Peeta decorating a cake. When a particular big and delicious cake was prepared, Prim almost drooled and said:

"You are so lucky that you can eat cake every day!"

I chuckled and told her: "Prim, this cake is not for us, but it has been ordered by Mayor Undersee for a family celebration. Our family rarely gets to eat what we bake, and mostly it is leftovers or what we fail to sell. Our bakers' life is not as glamorous as it looks at all!"

Sometimes Prim also went up to my room with me and watched me doing my homework for school. I found a few old picturebooks in a closet and got them out for her, and she spent hours browsing them, lying on my bed or on the floor while I was focusing on homework at my desk. Sometimes she asked about items shown in the books, and she was specifically curious about plants and animals. When I noticed that, I went over to Peeta and asked him if he had his basic book on plants around which they had used in the first few years in school, and he dug it out from a heap of books in one of this cupboards. The book was called 'Panem Flora Illustrated'; it showed plants in multiple districts, including ours, and had many illustrations. When I brought it over to Prim, she was almost enthusiastic, and I was happy to let her know that she could browse the book anytime she came to visit me.

Prim being a visitor at the bakery was becoming a regular event a few times a month, and although my mother tried to intervene a few times, I was always able to stop her without getting anybody hurt.

On a particularly nice early summer day I packed stuff for a picnic, like water and juice, sandwiches, bread and a few pastries, and of course a blanket. I had learned from Mrs. Everdeen that today, May 11th, was Prim's birthday, and I wanted to make that day a special one for her. There was going to be a celebration at home in the evening, when Mr. Everdeen was going to be home from the mines, and I had been granted permission to take Prim out in the early afternoon.

After picking up Prim from her home, I just picked up the prepared picnic basket from my room and guided her to a nice meadow Peeta and I had found some time ago. He came here frequently to draw and do sketches, and I joined him sometimes to either relax or read a book. Peeta was already here, taking advantage of the nice and sunny day and using his color pens on a larger canvas today. Prim saw him draw for the first time, and she was quite in awe seeing how good he already was, at his tender age of 10 years. As a matter of fact, his drawing skills were much better than his writing; his handwriting was beautiful, but spelling and grammar lacked somewhat.

When we were all settled and had the blanket spread out on the grass, Peeta and I wished Prim a 'Happy 6th Birthday'. Peeta gave her a small sketchbook with a few drawings of him, showing some houses and plants in the district, including one portrait of her. I had a small bowl with primrose flowers for her, and a few small pieces of sweets were hidden between them. Prim was happy about both presents and smiled widely; it did not take very much to make her happy – she was such a sweet and lovable girl.

Afterwards I distributed the food on the blanket, and soon all three of us were happily eating and drinking. Peeta and Prim soon also chatted about various topics, and I was glad to see that they also liked each other. Later on, Peeta got back to his drawing, and Prim, getting curious, asked him about particular colors. Peeta patiently answered her questions, and finally the young girl asked:

"Peeta, if you were to paint my face in full color, which color would you use for my eyes?"

I looked up, considering that an odd question, but Peeta nodded and replied, while closely looking into her eyes:

"This is actually a very good question. You have blue eyes, but they have a shade of green, too; I would call that almost turquoise. Thus I would have to use a mix of mostly light blue and a little bit of green."

Prim nodded and told us: "Yes, when I look into a mirror, I also think that my eyes have a little bit of green in them. Thank you, Peeta, for confirming that."

I had to admit that I had not realized that; I had considered her eyes to be just blue. On the other hand, I had not really been looking as close as Peeta just had, and he had a perfect sense for colors.

Later on, when Peeta had left for home already, I took advantage of the big blanket to rest, lie down, and watch the sky and the few clouds. Prim placed herself next to me, so that I could feel her warm body touching mine, and she said:

"Being here in this meadow is really nice. You can almost forget the daily trouble and the Hunger Games and all of that. Rye, did you know that I have had occasional nightmares about the incident at the train station?"

"No, I did not know – bad ones?" I was somewhat surprised about her sudden change of topic.

"Yes and no" Prim replied. "They always start bad of course, make me falling down on the tracks. I see the train coming closer and closer. My legs refuse to move and I realize that I am going to die. Suddenly you come, I see your face for a very short moment, and just before I faint in the dream and wake up I know that everything is fine."

"I understand that this is quite some memory you need to carry around with you" I replied, "and I hope that the dreams get better with time."

"They do get less frequent, yes" she told me, "but the main point is that I always wake up feeling happy, because the last part of the dream is always getting rescued by you."

I was unsure on how to respond to that and thus tried to make some kind of joke: "I am honored to be of service in your dreams!"

Prim laughed and said: "Yes, and I am glad that you're not just in my dreams, too!"

We chatted a little more, and just before it was time to leave, I suggested: "Tell you what – when you are in school and the day is nice and warm, we can sometimes meet here and do our homework together – what do you think? Would you like that?"

Prim beamed and nodded, so that her braids were jumping up and down: "Yes, I would like that a lot!"

[Author's Notes: In my story Prim looks more like in the books, with light blonde hair rather than light brown in the movies, and blue eyes – the slightly turquoise like eye color is my idea. I also imagine her to be quite skinny, mostly due to lack of proper nourishment. The book 'Panem Flora Illustrated' is a reference to the book 'Tamriel Flora Illustrated', which is part of the 'Vilja' mods for the 'TES IV: Oblivion' and 'TES V: Skyrim' computer games.]