Hunger Games Unedited

Chapter 4: Soggy, Warm Bread Boy, Darn It!

Darn it. Darn it. Why did it have to be Peeta? I don't know him. It doesn't matter. You are The Huntress! Uneffected by Bread Boy! Gosh. Then I think of the only time we ever actually interacted, what he's probably forgotten, but I never will, darn it.

So, it was like, three months since my dad died and it was cold, I mean REALLY cold. And I was heartbroken and well...

We were given enough money for one month, but my mom didn't get a job after that like she was SUPPOSED to. She sat in bed all curled up and just didn't do anything like a log. It was quite depressing.

There was nothing, but I had to make it look like me and Prim were ok because if we didn't we'd be taken to the community home where it was said the adults boiled you alive to make stew. It was probably just a rumor, but I refused to let my sister be turned into stew.

The money ran out and we were starving. Not exaggerating here. LITERALLY starving. If I could just wait til May on my birthday I could do the whole name for food thing, but we had a couple weeks left.

People starve in District 12 all the time.

So, we were eleven and I was starving and Peeta was working.

I'd just tried to sell some old baby clothes in the rain. I'd had nothing but water boiled with mint leaves the past three days which is of course quite useless, but when you're starving you'll do some pretty desperate things.

I couldn't go home with nothing.

I just wandered behind the nicest homes in the District, all muddy and wet.

My thought was to root through some trash, but it'd been taken out already. Such is my luck.

And wouldn't ya know it, they just happened to be baking bread at the bakery and it smelled so good I couldn't move. There was yummy bread like right here and could I have any? NO! NO! NO! NO!

And then the baker's wife called me trash and told me to get out and I was just ready to give up now. There was a little blonde kid behind her, kinda peeking around. Guess who. I didn't know his name since he always hung out with the snobs and friends weren't really my thing. Anyway, they went in and I sat by a barren apple tree unable to stand anymore.

Then from inside I heard yelling and stuff. I was all ready to be yelled at again, but realized the mean lady wasn't coming out. It was the boy.

"Feed it to the pig, stupid! No one wants to eat burned bread." Peeta began tearing off chunks to feed to the pigs while his mother attended to a customer.

He didn't look at me. His mommy had hit him. I couldn't fathom this. How terrible, but then, as I was distracting myself form my hunger, he turned and threw the loaves out toward me and quietly went back inside.

I stared at them a moment and they grew soggy in the rain. They were perfectly good. Were they really mine? All mine? I could go home undisgraced! So I tucked them in my soggy shirt to protect it from the soggy rain, and ran home.

They were still warm too. Soggy, but warm. And we ate and it was yummy.

By the next morning I had convinced myself the boy had burned the bread on purpose.

So we ate bread for a while. I saw the boy at school, but we never spoke, but I felt lighter because there was kindness in the world. After school I caught him staring at me and I got embarrassed and I saw the first dandelion and I was so happy.

And that's how I know Peeta the Bread Boy Mellark. His bread gave me hope to keep living, but I never thanked him. Now we were gonna have to fight to the death. I could imagine it now. "Hey Peeta, I just wanted to let you know that time you don't remember when you threw me burnt soggy bread? Well, it gave me the will to live. Thanks. NOW DIE!!!!!!!!"

And now I have to shake hands with him on the stage, darn it. I think he squeezed my hand. It was creepy.

Then the Panam anthem plays.

I won't have to kill him. I think. Someone else will do it for me! No need to worry.

Sigh. I'm doomed.