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I'm woken up by my annoying brother, Rye, hitting me in the face with a pillow.

  "wake up weirdo." he says while putting on his socks. I groan throwing my legs over the edge of my bed and getting out of it. "come on." he says pulling out the 'o'

  "Rye. Today is a reaping day, our death could be proclaimed today." I say picking out a simple outfit.

  "Peet listen to me. Every boy in our family has got through the reaping with out being picked. The Mellark's, we're safe. Dad did it, Josh did it. I'm going to do it this year and you in two years time." He promises me, but something inside me doesn't believe him.

After we're dressed we sit in silence waiting for our Mother to call us. We may not have school today, but the bakery is still open and every year we help our parents out with it.

  "Alright you good for nothing weasels! Get down here right now!" Mother shouts breaking the silence as her voice echos through out the house.

Rye and I exchange a worried look before getting up and walking out of our room.

Mother isn't bad all the time just when she is under pressure or someone makes her angry. One time I did something that she classified as 'evil' so she slapped me.

I walk down the stairs Rye close behind me and Josh behind him to.

  "Good morning boys." Mother welcomes us when we enter the bakery's kitchen.

  "Good morning." We all chorus before going off to help. I go to decorate the cakes. I have the steadiest hands in the family so I have been decorating the cakes since I was seven. I've gotten better as the years have gone on, but every reaping morning since I was twelve my hand isn't just as steady and the cakes show it.

My family always tell me that I'm fine and that 'the odds are in my favour' but they don't know that for the past two months I have been taking tessera and giving it to the poor.

Tesserae is another fair/un-fair system that the Capitol has. Say you're poor and starving, you can opt to add your name more times in the reaping in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera can supply one person with enough grain and oil to last a year. So the more in your family the more time your name is entered in the reaping. I felt bad for poor people who have no children old enough to apply for tessera so I helped them out. Stupid choice, but  being nice is all I have ever wanted to be, not rich, not famous just nice. Some people snapped at me saying they didn't need my charity and others snapped it up with out having to be asked twice. The fact that I don't need to apply for tessera but do -even if it's for others- sets people off.

Gale Hawthorne, an eighteen year old seams boy, walks into the bakery and over to my father.

The 'seam' is the nickname given to the poorer part of district 12. It's mainly made up of coal miner but it also has one extraordinary family. The Everdeens, Mrs Everdeen is an apothecary our healers considering district 12 is to poor to afford doctors. Primrose Everdeen a young bubbly twelve year old who takes after her mother in many ways. I see her by the bakery's window sometimes with her older sister, Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss has brown hair that is almost always in a braid, she has grey eyes and is easily the most beautiful girl I have ever set eyes on. She is in my class but I don't think she has ever really noticed me even though since we were five I have set right next to her.

  "Good morning Mr. Mellark," Gale say. "I have a squirrel for you today." He whispers because he know my mother is around.

  "I'll give you a bread roll for it." He whispers in reply. Gales' eyes widen in shock, even I agree a whole bread roll for ONE squirrel. He must be feeling sentimental this morning.

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⏰ Last updated: Mar 01, 2015 ⏰

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