Disclaimer: I own only my own thoughts and words. Suzanne Collins has all credit for the HG and the characters she so wonderfully created.

Chapter 5

"Freaking Dessert!" I mumble under my breath as I walk off, leaving Madge to pick up her spilled groceries. She was buying freaking dessert. I'm struggling to put food on the table for not one but two families and she's out blowing money on sweets. Unbelievable how some people have it so easy in life. Madge Undersee, the mayors daughter was the most pampered, spoiled person in all of District 12. Not that it was exactly her fault or anything, but it annoyed the hell out of me. Why should she get such a great life?

"Gale!" Posy shrieked and leapt into my arms as soon as my feet crossed the threshold. She was only 5 years old but could melt my bitter mood just by saying my name.

"Hey there Pose." I reply, spinning her around in the air as she fell into a fit of giggles. I set her down at the dinner table and pat the top of her head. She grins up at me and then goes back to playing with her rag doll.

"Dinner ready?" I ask my mom who is leaned over the wood burning stove, stirring something.

"Just about. Can you get washed up and round up your brothers for me?" She replies, looking back over her shoulder, tired smile across her face.

"Yep. " I head out back and find Rory and Vick, my two younger brothers pulling clothes down from the line where they've been drying. My mother has been taking in laundry for years, ever since my father died. She works so hard just to make ends meet. If I wasn't able to hunt and do some trading at the Hob we wouldn't be alive. It takes both my efforts and her laundry work just to scrape by each day. I will always, always be grateful that my dad had sense enough about him to teach me how to hunt before he died. He'd been sneaking me out into the woods with him every Sunday for a year or two before the explosion in the mine happened.

"Dinners almost ready guys. Ma said to get washed up."

"Okay. Hey Gale? We've gotta do something bout my shoes. The sole fell off again today while I was at school and Mrs. Davies had to staple it back on. That fixed it for a little while but it fell off again on the walk home."

I look down at Vick's feet and see he is completely barefoot. It isn't his fault that he needs new shoes. The one pair he currently owns was worn by me and then Rory before finally being handed down to Vick. Poor kid never once had anything that wasn't already worn out before he got it.

"I'll figure something out Vick. In the meantime we'll have Ma make another poxy for them and try to reattach the soles for school tomorrow. Course that means you can't wear them to the viewing tonight because the poxy will need to harden all night."

Vick just nods his head once and starts off in the direction of the rain barrel behind our house to wash up for dinner. I can tell he's trying to be grown up about the situation but he's so young and this shouldn't be something he has to deal with. If he needs shoes, he should be able to just go out and buy a pair of damn shoes. I mean, shoes are a simple necessity, not a luxury.

It's a terrible time for him to need shoes though. With Katniss gone I've had to take on the responsibility of feeding and caring for her family too, which is all the more difficult without my hunting partner. I won't be bringing in nearly as much as the two of us get on a run and now I have to stretch my game and trades even further than normal. I'd skipped school today so I could set up extra snares out in the woods.

My promise to Katniss when she left was that I would make sure her family didn't starve. I'd been the first one to see her at Justice Building before she left. Most people hadn't even arrived for the visitation yet. I kept it short, not wanting to steal any of her precious visiting time. I knew she'd want to save that for Prim. So I'd quickly gone in, hugged her, reminded her that she was a hunter whose skills were unmatched, reminded her to fight hard and come home to us. She seemed terrified but I know my Katniss. She's a fighter. She does have a chance. She has to have a chance. We need her to come back. I know why she volunteered and I wouldn't have expected anything different. Prim wouldn't have lasted. To young, to small and frail. Too kind to do the things that the brutal game would require of her. And if it had been Rory who was reaped I'd have been up on that stage to replace without hesitation. And Katniss would've taken on the role of provider for my family while I was gone. We look out for each other, it's what we do best. I met Katniss while hunting in the woods after our father's died in the mines. Turned out we both had families too feed and the hunting skills to do it. So we made a good team us too. We'd become best friends over the years. We spent all our time together. It wasn't romantic relationship, more like a deep friendship but most people assumed we were a couple. I always let people think that, it didn't bother me. I still had my fair share of admirers following me around the school that I enjoyed flirting with.

"Hey Vick, don't worry about tonight. I'll go barefoot too." I tell him, following him to the rain barrel.

"No it's ok. You don't need to do that." He shakes his head in disagreement with my idea.

"Nah, I want to. Hot as it's been lately it'll feel good to let my feet breath a little, ya know?" I reassure him and he almost smiles in relief.

Truthfully I do not want to go to the viewing sans shoes but there's no way I'm letting my little brother be the only one who doesn't have shoes tonight. I dip my hands into the rain barrel and splash water on my face to wash up. We don't have indoor plumbing in the Seam. We do have a washtub inside that we take baths in but it's such a pain to heat the water on the wood stove that I usually bathe in the steam when I'm out in the woods. Wintertime is the only exception to that. Hell we rarely even had electricity in the seam, most often it was turned off. That was somewhat fine by me though because I don't think we could afford to have electricity year round. Still, it made me angry whenever I thought about all the merchant kids in town with their indoor plumbing and uninterrupted electricity.

Dinner is a soup of some sort. It is really more of just a broth than an actual soup but my mother has done her best to dress it up with herbs and it actually has a nice flavor to it. Just won't be very filling. Then again, what meal in the Seam is filling?

After dinner, my mother mixes up a poxy using some tree resin and sap for Vick's shoes and I spread the sticky goo on the sole as best I can. As I'm doing it, I know it won't hold very long. I'm buying him maybe a day or two until it falls off again. How in the hell am I going to buy shoes? I shake my head to myself as I play over in my mind the fact that I have no extra money and no ideas on how to make some fast.

Rory and Posy decide to go barefoot to the viewing tonight as well. Us Hawthornes do know how to stick together, that's for sure. So, little Posy in my arms and my barefoot brothers at my side, we head off towards town for tonight's mandatory viewing.

Authors Note:

A big thank you to all of you who have read my story and especially Junebugz21 and Kinkajous17 for their kind reviews! I'm so happy that you're enjoying my story so far and hope you continue to do so! I'm hoping to get a couple more chapters up this weekend so keep a lookout for them!