Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.
The girl steps to the side when she turns in the direction of the whistling kettle. This leaves enough space for an unobstructed view of the room behind her (a room which is obviously the kitchen). Hazelle takes in the details in front of her with one sweep of her eyes around the space. She has never been inside the house. (In truth, she has trouble terming it a home inside her head. Everyone in the District knows that during those times of the year when people from the Capitol come to stay, the place is crawling with them. It makes it difficult to picture it as a place where one of the District's families actually lives; it also provides just one more reason for people to keep their distance.) She is, however, very certain that the kitchen is not supposed to look like this (no one's kitchen is supposed to look like what she is seeing).
There is a stepping stool that is pulled in front of the sink - a sink in which she can barely see dishes through the bubbles that look as if the edges can hardly contain them. There is a mop leaning against the counter with the head in the middle of a puddle of water that is directly in front of the stove. A tea tray is laid out on the little table with what looks to be toast ready to be served in contrast to a teapot with the lid off waiting to be filled and shards of what is likely porcelain scattered on the floor beneath. In short, the room looks like chaos - the sort that she knows can happen so easily when well-meaning but lacking in coordination children are determined to help without supervision. She expects an adult to come scurrying into the room to take charge of the situation at any moment, but no one does.
The girl is sliding the step from in front of the sink toward the stove when she snaps out of her somewhat shocked observation and into action.
"Let me get that for you," she says as she steps into the room (her natural inclination to cringe and berate herself for even considering entering without an invitation being overridden by her inability to watch a child that size try to manage a boiling kettle of water while she stands idly by). She picks up a towel from the counter and uses it to grasp the handle while she tilts her head in the direction of the table with its waiting tray. "In the pot?" She asks.
The little girl nods her head almost automatically but looks as if she is about to start to argue in what Hazelle is sure will prove to be the most polite dismissal she has ever received.
"Thank you," the soft voice tells her with a half-smile that sends Hazelle's mother senses tingling in the someone is about to try to fib to her fashion. "I can get it. I just forgot to use the stool before."
The bits and pieces of the girl and room resolve themselves into a clearer picture for her with those words. The girl is short, the kettle is heavy, and the angle would have been awkward. She has burnt herself and likely backed into the table and knocked off the cup when she tried to get away from the scalding water. She's tried to put something on the burns and was in the midst of cleaning up when Hazelle interrupted her. She must have been doing the dishes while waiting for the kettle the first time.
The how of the start of it makes sense to her; she is at a bit of a loss as to why it is continuing. She cannot figure out why no one apparently responded to the noise that must have been made in the process of it all. She knows that the whole incident could not have occurred in silence. The house is large, but the housekeeper ought to be around somewhere close by (even if a not feeling well mother might be at a distance up the stairs that would have muffled the sounds). Why is there no one else in the kitchen? She understands the value of teaching children to clean up their own messes, but this does not appear to be that. It seems, rather, to be a complete lack of supervision altogether.
She wants to ask questions but knows that it is ultimately none of her business. Also, her taking over the kettle seems to be making the little girl uncomfortable. (She cannot blame her for that. A stranger has just stepped into her house uninvited after all.) It would be best if she goes ahead and explains her reason for being here. If Mrs. Undersee is too ill to speak with her today, then maybe she can plead her case to the housekeeper to start. She does not know the current occupant of the position, so she cannot ask for her by name and hopes that does not make her phrasing of the request sound too awkward.
"Since your mother isn't well," she begins as she returns the kettle to the top of the stove, "could I speak with the housekeeper for a moment?"
The little girl bites her lip again as her eyes shift down so that she is staring at the shattered fragments littering the floor around Hazelle's feet. "Miss Worth won't be back," she says. "She'll be at her new house if you need her."
That gives Hazelle a moment's pause. She had a reason for coming here - an important one. She needs work, but it does not seem as if there is anyone available in the house at the moment to offer it to her. She has a list in her head of other places where she intends to offer laundry services, and she needs to get to them (especially if this is an indication of how her day is going to go). She should get going. She looks down at the floor again and sighs. She cannot walk away - not yet. She will not be able to focus on anything else if she does not at least clear up the broken bits before the girl ends up more injured than she already is.
"Is there a broom?" She asks and raises her hand to ward off the protest that immediately comes to the little girl's lips. (It's starting to bother her to keep referring to her as a little girl in her head, but she has no idea what the child's name might be.) "A broom," she repeats in the no nonsense tone she uses when her boys have picked at each other long enough and need to give it a rest. It does not work in quite the same manner on the child in front of her.
"I told Daddy I could do it," she whispers biting her lip even harder. Hazelle realizes in that moment that the chronic biting of her lip is the method the girl is using to prevent any tears from escaping. She does not want to think about why someone that small has already learned such a method for trying to hide her emotions. She was supposed to be helping to alleviate some of her worries with this excursion to the Mayor's today; she feels like she is failing in that endeavor in more than one way.
"I'm Hazelle Hawthorne," she offers - realizing that she never bothered with an introduction and hoping that it will help to put the child a little more at ease. The child in question blinks at her as her teeth visibly bite down even harder on her lip before something in her posture shifts. Her shoulders straighten up, and she holds out a little hand in a graceful and practiced move.
"Madge Undersee," she states as Hazelle gives a soft squeeze to the small fingers. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Likewise, Madge," she replies wondering how many times the girl has been forced to perform a similar ritual with others that have also invaded her house. She shakes off the alien thought to process later and offers what she hopes will be a reassuring smile. "Let's get this cleaned up, shall we? The quicker we do; the quicker we can get your mother her breakfast."
The response tells her that she guessed the purpose of the tray correctly, and Madge appears with a broom almost before Hazelle realizes that she had moved out of sight. She handles the sweeping while Madge tackles the puddle with the mop. They work in silence. The girl does not seem to be inclined toward being chatty, but she cannot decide whether that is the situation or simply the nature of her personality.
She is feeling better about being able to leave without feeling badly when their cleaning is interrupted by someone else knocking on the door - the front one this time.