Chapter 3

I'm now dreading the Harvest Festival. It starts tonight, and I've been up since four helping my father and brothers in the kitchen while Mom keeps going on about how we need to sell more than we have in the past six years if we want to get our profits back up. Back up to where, I don't know; she already treats us like we're dirt poor, only allowing us the stale bread that doesn't sell in rationed amounts per day. My brothers and I have started to wonder what exactly she's doing with all that profit she's so obsessed with. Rye smugly suggested that maybe she's paying another man for company, but Graham snorted and said with mother's charming personality, only the wealthiest people in the Capitol would be able to pay someone to sleep with her. I almost feel bad about the way we joke about our mother like this, but now I just think of her exiling Katniss last week and it seems well deserved.

Mother will surely be breathing fire down our necks all night as we work the baked goods stand, which means I'll be lucky to get a bathroom break, let alone time to walk around or see any of my friends. Especially not Katniss…

I try to just get over her, but I only end up distracting myself long enough to forget why I need to. It doesn't help that I'm feeling guilty about the way I've ignored her all week at school with no explanation. On Monday morning, she tried to seek me out, probably to ask if I was okay after my mother's tantrum, but I saw her coming and ducked away into the nearest classroom, hiding like a scared little boy.

I'm starting to think my mother's onto something when she calls me a pathetic coward. After all, I've been sick to my stomach with fear and worry all week because my mother doesn't like one of my friends. I should tell her to go to hell, but I can't bring myself to do it. Maybe it's the fear of knowing she won't hesitate to shut the oven door on my arms if she's moderately annoyed with me.

I'm thinking about all of this when I stumble carrying a tray of cookies to the icing table and a few slide off the tray and onto the floor. Before I can even curse myself, her hand is gripping my collar.

"You stupid boy!" she snaps. "Have you not been listening to me all day? We can't afford any mistakes tonight. We'll have to cut some of the luxuries you boys live with if we don't meet the quota! Do you not care? Do you want to live like those brats in the Seam?"

My blood is boiling and I want so badly to yell back at her, but I know that will only land me with another injury that she refuses to let me see the apothecary about, trying to keep her abuse a secret as if the whole district hasn't seen the bruises. Instead I just move out of her grasp, cleaning up my mess before I place the remaining cookies on the cooling racks.

I try to lose myself in my work for the rest of the day, but still my mind wanders. What if I see Katniss tonight? What if she comes to the bakery stand? What if she tries to talk to me despite my mother's banishment? I can't let that happen. If only there were some way to get a message to her…

Later that evening, I'm working the stand with my brothers when some merchant girls from Rye's year come over to us. Rye's recently turned 12, and his interest in girls is becoming less about teasing and more about hormones. One of the girls who come over is a curly blonde named Laurel whose father runs the woodshop. Rye leans against the stand, trying to flirt with her and despite his quick wit, when his voice cracks the spell is broken. Laurel still laughs, and then once again I'm thinking of Katniss, imagining making her laugh like that.

I'm pulled from my thoughts when Mom comes over, snapping at Rye for fooling around and smacking the back of his head – a mild form of punishment coming from her. After lecturing us all once again, she spots Mayor Undersee and his family and runs off to pester them.

I'm loading a back up with the next order when I hear a shy voice say, "Hey, Peeta." I look up to see Madge Undersee standing there, no doubt escaping from the conversation between her parents and my mother. Lucky girl.

"Hi Madge," I smiled politely. "Is there something I can help you with?"

She eyes the desserts, "Hmm, do you have anything strawberry?"

"Well, it's a bit late in the season for strawberries," the truth is Katniss had brought me the last batch almost 4 weeks ago. "But these sugar cookies are made with strawberry flavored icing," I show her the pink cookies. She asks for 2, and I'm bagging them up for her when she clears her throat and speaks again, making sure no one's paying attention to our conversation.

"Um, Peeta?" she asks and I look up. "Did something happen between you and Katniss?"

I freeze. She's more perceptive than I thought. Katniss and I have been friends, yes, but we don't really hang out with the same crowd at school. In fact, Katniss usually partners up with Madge in our classes, and they sit together at lunch. Maybe Katniss has talked to her about me…

Even though that though excites me, it stings to bring up her name. I realized I haven't answered Madge yet and start to speak.

"Um, it's a long story," I say, trying to convey my remorse with my tone. I'm pretty sure Katniss is upset, or at least confused, by my blatant avoidance of her. I really do owe her an explanation.

Madge nods in understanding, reaching out to place her hand over mine in a comforting gesture. Then, an idea comes to me.

"Madge?" I start, lowering my voice. "Do you… Do you think you could pass a note on to Katniss?"

She looks intrigued, and nods. I quickly turn over to the back of her receipt and scribble out a message:

Kat,

I'm sorry for what happened. Please don't be upset. My parents say I can't be friends with you anymore, or else I'll be sent to the community home. I'm so sorry, Katniss.

-P

I don't write my full name, in some lame attempt to be secretive. I quickly place the receipt in the bag and hand it over to Madge, my heart breaking as I watch her walk away. Why did I think that was a good idea? Now Katniss will definitely think I'm a coward, ending our friendship in a scribbled note on the back of a receipt that I'm not even handing to her myself. Pathetic.

I feel empty the rest of the evening, being much less talkative than usual with the customers and going through the motions, trying not to look around for risk of seeing her. I shouldn't have brought Katniss in the kitchen last week. I knew Mom was home, and I've heard enough of her tirades about the starving seam children digging through our trash to know how she'd react to Katniss. This is all my fault. I couldn't even stand up to her myself – Katniss stepped in to protect me. How can I expect someone that brave to want to be around me? I don't deserve her attention.

The one good thing that comes from Katniss' challenging my mother is that she's more careful about her abuse, in a way. Mom is extremely concerned with what people think of her, so for a few months she tries to restrain herself from hitting us too hard, not wanting to leave a bruise for everyone to see. It's strange to see her attempt self-control with us, but she finds other ways to take out her frustrations. Her arguments with my father become more frequent, she's out with her sister almost every night. Not having her around in the evenings has given my brothers and I the chance to laugh and play and wrestle without worry of getting in trouble. Mom has done her best to try and isolate me from Rye and Graham; I'm the "mistake," the disappointment. I had always thought my brothers believed her on some level before I notice the change in our relationship when she's barely around.

I make sure to stay away from the kitchen on Sundays, not wanting to see Katniss and her father as they stop to trade. It would just be too painful. And humiliating. What does Mr. Everdeen think of me now? That day in the kitchen, he had said nothing as he retrieved Katniss and walked out the door, he hadn't reacted to the look on her face or the way she was calling out to me. Has she told him what happened? Do her parents not want her to see me either?

These anxious thoughts overwhelm me for the first few months, but they come in less frequent bursts as times goes on. It's still hard to look at her at school; I don't even know what she thought of my note. I don't have the courage to ask her, though.

The winter when we're 11, we're sitting at school, quietly doing a test on none other than coal production, when there's a vibration through the ground and a distant BOOM! that must be coming from the mines. I can't help but look to Katniss, and see that her head has shot up like a startled animal, a look of pure terror on her face. The teacher walks out into the hallway, whispering to the other teachers to find out what's going on. Some kids start whispering; a merchant boy jokes about miners being trapped in a collapse, and nearly every seam kid starts to panic. Soon there are students just up and leaving, going to see what happened. Katniss is one of them.

Those of us who remain are dismissed early, and many of the kids rush towards the mines to catch a glimpse of all the commotion. I don't, though; I can't. I have a sinking feeling in my chest, and I suspect that seeing me wouldn't help Katniss in whatever state she's in. I say a silent prayer to the wind, pleading for her father's safety. I know Katniss lives in the poorest part of the district. The last thing she needs is to be left fatherless at age 11, with no income to support her or her family. Surely the world can't be that cruel.

But it is. I feel numb when I hear the news, mother actually snorts, saying the seam is overpopulated as it is and we could use a little accident like this to balance out the numbers. I'm appalled at her disregard of human life; I can't control my temper and surprise everyone with my strength when I flip the dinner table and stomp out of the house before my mother can put her hands on me. Without realizing it, my feet take me to the fence that locks us in from the forest outside. They tell us that the fence is electrified and I've never felt a reason to doubt that. In my anger, I toss the biggest rock I can find at the fence with all my might, and then another, and another. When I'm finally winded, I sit down in the grass and take in the damage I've done. My frustration turns to curiosity when I look up and see I've bent part of the wire with one of my rocks, creating an opening about three feet tall and three feet wide. In the setting sunlight, my first reaction is to worry that someone saw me, but there's no one around. Everyone's huddled away, mourning the tragedy. Then, I start to fear that some wild beast could make it through the whole, and I'm staring at it trying to figure out how to fix it when a bunny rabbit sprints passed me and into the woods.

If a wild rabbit seems to fear no predators… Maybe the horror stories of attacks from wild animals is just more Capitol propaganda. I'm considering dashing through the fence myself when I hear a rustling near by, and reflexively turn and run towards home. The sun has set by the time I get there and the house is quiet, thankfully. I really don't feel like speaking to anybody right now. When I lay in bed that night, I start to wonder what kind of possibilities I've opened by my revelation about the fence.

The winter is long and harsh. There are more starving children than usual begging in the alleyways, digging through the trash cans. On a particularly cold and rainy night in March, I'm baking some bread in the kitchen in silence while my mother works on the books. We've started to notice her sense of hearing is going; she talks loudly all the time and asks us to repeat ourselves often, whining about our constant "mumbling."

It's because of this that when I first hear the trashcans being shaken around, I have a head start to see who it is out there before my mother comes and scares them away.

My heart stops as I see the familiar dark braid, soaking in the freezing rain as her bony limbs struggle to find any form of sustenance among the rubbish. I almost open the door to call out to her when my mother finally comes over to see what I'm looking at.

Instantly furious, she storms out the door with a broom in hand, screaming at the girl to go back to the rat hole she came from, luckily it's so dark that she doesn't make out the face. Who knows what she would've done if she'd realized the starving child is Katniss.

I'm still staring out the window, shocked and hurt at the sight before me when my mother comes back in and snaps at me to get back to work. I have never wanted her to disappear more than I do at this moment. I make a rash decision then, going to put the hearty loaves I've been kneading into the oven. I set the timer a bit longer than is necessary, and the outcome is exactly what I'd hoped. Even though her hearing may be going, my mother's sense of smell still works fine, and when she gets a whiff of the burning scent she rushes to remove the hot bread from the oven. I'm not surprised at all when she comes at me with the rolling pin, but I pay no attention to the pain. She reacts exactly as I'd predicted, bitching about what a reckless imbecile I am and commanding me to feed the burnt bread to the pigs. I resist the urge to smirk as I remember the desperation of the girl out back, slumped under the apple tree and nearly lifeless.

My mother walks out of the room and I opened the door now that the coast is clear. I don't want Katniss to get caught after all of this. As I step out, I break of the blackest pieces and toss them to the pigs before I turn to her and our eyes meet. I look back into the kitchen once more before I dash out to the tree, shoving the loves into her arms.

She looks at me, eyes wide in confusion and shock. "Take them," I say. When she doesn't move I speak more urgently. "Hurry! Take them! Get out of here before she sees!" After another moment she does as I say and I run back inside and turn to watch her figure disappear in the darkness.

I may be a coward. I probably am a disappointment. But at least I know that Katniss will have something to eat tonight.