Chapter 2: Thank You….?

I am standing in the school play-yard the following afternoon, shifting on the cobblestones and keeping a trained eye on the schoolhouse door. I used to wait here before and after classes, with and for Prim. Honestly, it was the worst part of my days in education, standing about with the other kids in my blue Reaping dress and looking conspicuous. While I was an excellent student, I never particularly enjoyed school, least of all the social aspect in which the only 'friend' I managed was Madge Undersee, now the Mayor. I was happy to graduate, mere days before my final Reaping for the Hunger Games at 18.

The bell chimes and within seconds, there is a steady stream of children pelting out the door and across the courtyard. I crane my head over the bobbing crowns of the little ones, keeping a huntress's eye peeled. Though the analogy is not exact and rather crude in this context, I know how to lie in wait for my prey…

Partially because I have a rough idea of what she looks like, and without Peeta having to tell me.

I finally spot her, head bowed and with a schoolbag slung over her shoulder. She's in a pretty sundress. Her curls are the color of russet-brown, with an almost auburn tinge to some strands. The Baker's young daughter is just about to me, and nearly past me, when I call out her name:

"Enola."

She turns, and I nearly lose my breath at the absolutely…. melancholy aura about her, though this quickly hardens into a guarded glare. "Yes?"

I exhale a shaky breath and take one step towards her. "My name is Katniss Everdeen. Your father sent me to pick you up."

Enola looks truly baffled, and I can't say I blame her in the slightest. "He sent the lady who trades him squirrel out back to… pick me up?" She shies away, wincing. "Why?"

"Well… I am to be your governess."

Enola's face drops like a curtain into an emotionless mask. "I don't need a governess." She shoulders her bag and begins to stride off without me. I cringe but doggedly launch into a brisk walk to keep up. I have to lift the skirts of this hand-me-down frock of Mother's, one that makes me far older than the cusp of 30 – actually, 29 – and that Prim about ordered me to don.

"Nevertheless, your father has left me responsible for you…"

"Daddy doesn't know what I need!" Enola rounds on me, fierce, a baleful glare clouding her features.

Snow, grant me patience…. I summon all the moments I can think of when Prim was difficult, both on the brink of adolescence and beyond (though these are decidedly few, yet perhaps all the more notable because of it).

"And you do?" I'm careful not to make my tone challenging. In fact, I levy the query the way I might speak to an adult. Enola studies me for a moment, clearly wary.

"I know that I'm ten years old, and I don't need a governess."

"You're right." She blinks, clearly thrown, and I refrain from smiling the way I might when springing a good snare.

And then, just as soon as I have her good and trapped, the damn metaphorical snare breaks. "You need a mother."

Enola lets out a gawking, disbelieving laugh. "Oh, so that's what you are, then?"

"No! No," I try to backpedal too late. "That's not what I meant…"

"Really? And here I was naïve to think you and my father were only trading squirrel down below my bedroom window. Was it tongue and kisses in exchange for raw meat? Maybe not the fairest trade." She appraises me up and down. "You didn't make out with him in that, did you?"

I should feel offended, and I am, at least enough to deny as vehemently as I know how, "Your father and I are only friends. That's it." Though this is barely the truth – I've only gotten to know Peeta in piecemeal increments, accumulated over years. "We… we were classmates when we were your age. But we didn't even speak to each other."

Enola looks deeply skeptical.

"But I did know your mother. She… she was a friend."

A long silence as the Baker's daughter considers this. Finally, she casts her eyes down to her shoes, scuffing them on the cobblestones. "I've never been very good at making friends…" she mumbles.

"Well, you're preaching to the choir there. I only got to know your mother because she sat at my lunch table and wouldn't stop talking…"

We've actually managed to fall into a…. not-quite companionable step-for-step enroute for the Bakery, which now sways to a halt as Enola freezes. "Leave my mother out of it….." A beat and then, to my shock, she addendums, "Please. …. She's dead."

I bob my head in sympathy. "I know," I state softly. "I went to her funeral. My sister pretty much dragged me there…"

"The Healer? Mrs. Hawthorne?" I start to see Enola's eyes shifting up towards me ever so tentatively.

I grin hopefully. "You can call her Prim, you know. Even now, I hear 'Mrs. Hawthorne' and I'll look around for her mother-in-law."

Something that sounds like a giggle trickles out of her, only for her to stop. We're still walking, somewhat aimlessly because I think, despite each of our efforts, we actually are falling into a conversation, albeit one more stilted than this moseying birdwalk.

"She's a nice lady. Your sister. Daddy's brought me by her place now and again, when I've been sick or gotten a scrape…"

I grin in what I hope is an innocently teasing way. "For someone who's never been good at making friends, you've become decently chatty."

"And for someone who readily attested to the same, so are you." Enola sidelong glances at me, her expression unreadable. "I thought you'd be quieter. I never do overhear much when you're down on the loading dock trading with my father." The little minx actually then has the gall to use air quotes on the word 'trade.'

Now it's my turn to sway to a halt, dazed by her. "How old are you?"

"10," she chirps.

"You don't sound like you're ten."

"Thanks," she chirps it, hitting a light stride. "You don't sound like the kind of woman who could seduce my daddy."

My mouth is agape. "…. Thank you?" All I can do is follow her up the loading dock ramp and into the Bakery.

Somehow, I arrive at Saturday, Day 6 of acting as the governess for one Enola Mellark.

She's been quiet, whenever I've picked her up every day this week from school and then stayed in the Bakery to cook supper in time for when Peeta returns with his evening store deliveries.

I guess I never thought to marvel at how often Peeta – the Baker, I correct myself in a rigorous awareness of propriety – needs to replenish his stocks of yeast and flour. Milk from the Town dairyman. It's daily, which I suppose only makes sense given how Mellark's Bakery has always been one of the most successful Merchant businesses, even with how times have fallen hard this fall.

Peeta's trips away late from his store have left Enola and I with plenty of…. uncomfortable time alone together, in close quarters. At this point, she's learned I'm not going anywhere enough that her manners are very nearly impeccable.

"Can I please have some blueberries?" she now asks me from where she's been doing homework at one of the small eating tables by the Bakery's front window.

"May I please have some blueberries?" I softly correct her. It's almost habitual, and for a moment, I fool myself into thinking I'm fourteen again and it's Prim, not this girl, meekly asking me for something. Though Prim would do it far more angelically.

Enola wrinkles her nose. "Who even says 'may' anymore?..." she scoffs, half under her breath.

I decide to pounce, if only to gently use this as a teachable moment. "Well, often, saying 'May' when asking a question can be viewed as being extra courteous." An example falls into my head and I seize on it. "For instance, when my sister wasn't much older than you, her now-husband asked her if he could give her a Reaping Kiss."

I barely hold in a laugh at the disgusted face Enola makes. "Reaping Kisses are gross. And they don't work."

I chuckle. "They've always seemed so."

"What, not work?"

"Gross." I check the timer on the oven and gingerly extract the lamb stew from inside. "As to the Reaping Kiss's efficacy… well, I've had no reason to believe it doesn't work. The Reaping Kiss is supposed to guarantee that neither you nor the person you kiss is Reaped. It protected my sister all seven of her years standing in the Sqaure. Rory, too." I sashay over to the kitchen table and present the lamb stew to Enola with an awkward flourish. "Here you are. Oh!" I reach back towards the counter and get a grip on the smaller bowl. "And your blueberries."

Enola cautiously lifts her eyes to mine. "Thank you." She sounds almost meek.

I give her my kindest smile. "You're very welcome." Retrieving my own bowl of lamb stew, I daintily sit down across from my charge and we eat together in silence.

"…. Have you ever gotten a Reaping Kiss?"

I glance up to see Enola studying me with puzzlement. I gasp out a chuckle awkwardly.

"Did I not make that clear? I've never been kissed, for a Reaping or otherwise."

Enola's eyes bulge and shift sidelong. "I can see why…"

I sigh, setting down my spoon. "Look, Enola: this isn't easy for me either. I've never really been around children before, and the one time I was, she was my sister who hasn't been anything remotely close to a child for at least twelve years. If you can stop looking at me like you're wounded, then I can quit acting like it…. and maybe, we have a shot at being friends." A beat, and I add to drive the point home, tenderly. "…. which I think is more than anything what you need."

To my shock, I'm actually the one squirming uncomfortably in this chair for how Enola is now staring at me. I realize painfully that Peeta has sometimes stared at me like that. Though this stare has a markedly different tenor.

"…. What?"

Enola shakes her head. "…. You're not what I was expecting," she gets out at last.

"And what were you expecting? Effie Trinket?" I wittily throw out the name of our dreaded Hunger Games escort from the Capitol.

She can fight it all she likes. It does no good: Enola's expression lifts into the brightest I have seen from her all week. "Yes, actually."

I lean back in my chair expectantly, sensing she has more to say and willing her to go on. The gap makes her squirm a little shyly.

"I mean, you don't dress as outlandishly as her, but you do speak like her."

I smirk, letting out a curious hum as I demur. "I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult." And I don't. If I had ever been made aware that I spoke like a Capitolite in even a casual context, I think I would shoot the messenger through with my bow.

Enola shrugs. "Take it however you like." She paws at her lamb stew. "I really never have seen a frock like that before."

I turn inward, oddly flushing at this little girl's scrutiny. "It was my mother's," I state softly.

Enola is still studying my choice of dress. "I've never had anything of my mother's," she murmurs. For a moment, she seems to be floating outside of herself in a glimmer of vulnerability, before she tosses her head like she's dislodging a fly. "It doesn't matter. Ex….except my mother would have probably worn a frock just like that. It looks Merchant."

I grin softly. "You wanna know a secret?"

Enola scrutinizes me for a moment, and though she pretends not to be, I can tell she's intrigued. "Yeah. OK…."

"My mother was born a Merchant. Like you. And your daddy. But she ran away for love, to get married to my Daddy, who was born in the Seam."

A shining in Enola's eyes belies the disgust on her face. "That sounds…. silly." Though I have the strangest feeling she resisted wanting to use a different word.

I let out a shaky breath. "When…. when I wasn't much older than you, I would have said the same thing."

"Why?" she cheeps it.

I sigh deeply. "When… when my father died in… in the mines, my mother shut down emotionally. She was depressed. Withdrew. That's why I had to raise Mrs. Haw – Prim…. largely by myself."

I am a little disturbed by how enraptured Enola seems to be. I don't believe she's even aware how piqued her interest is. "How…. how old were you?"

I purse my lips grimly. "11. I had to hunt to feed my family. Trade where I could." I laugh ruefully. "It wasn't easy, but I did it."

"Wow," Enola breathes, though it's not exactly directed at me. "And somehow you're still so pretty."

I blink. "… Thank you, I guess?" My face is oddly red. I squint at her in bemusement. "What do you think goes on in the woods anyway?"

"You'd get dirty, probably, if you didn't get eaten first. Daddy says not to go into the woods. I'm never supposed to go beyond the Meadow."

I tilt my head. Well…. that is intriguing. True, I've never known a Merchant to brave the trees beyond the district fence, but to hear Enola tell it, she makes it sound as though Peeta is afraid of the woods, if not necessarily afraid of what I bring to trade from them.

"Well… in my experience, the woods are not scary. Maybe…. someday, I could show you."

I'm taken aback by how Enola's eyes gleam a little, hopeful. "I'd like that… Miss Everdeen."

My grin at her broadens. "It's Katniss."

After a moment, she nods, and we both duck our heads back into our bowls of lamb stew.