"How was school?" I ask Prim as we walk out of the school building. I can tell she is in a visibly bad mood.

"Fine," she says as brightly as possible.

"Do you wanna look at the cakes?" I say, attempting to cheer her up. She always loves to look at the cakes down at the bakery.

"No." Prim says, "Let's just go home."

"Okay," I say, "So what'd you do today?"

"Just the usual useless stuff." She sighs.

I nod, and I don't attempt to make conversation all the way home. I notice that she leads us through a short cut to the Seam, that involves less of a walk through town.

"Why are merchant kids so great anyway?" She says suddenly, with a certain bitterness in her voice.

"What?" I say, shocked.

"I mean, just because we're not... you know, as... well fed and... as..."

"Prim, what's this about?" I stop and look at her.

She looks up me with sad eyes and I can see the poor innocent little girl behind them. "Well, I look just like them. I don't see how where we live effects us. I just hate merchant kids. They're all stuck up."

"Well, not all of them. Some are nice," I offer, "What about your friend? Allise? And the girl in my grade. Madge, the mayor's daughter, she's nice."

"Okay," Prim says, "Two nice merchant kids. Can you name any more?"

I think of the baker's son, and how he tossed me the bread five years ago. But I don't say it, because for all I know he could be cold and nasty. Instead I say, "What did the merchant kids do?"

"Nothing," Prim says. So I drop it for a minute, but she continues, "There were these merchant boys, I think they're your age. Maybe not, but they were at least fifteen. They were just being mean."

"To who? To you?"

"To everyone," She says bitterly, "to all of the Seam kids. Calling them mean things. Like Seam trash. And saying that we would do anything for a few crumbs. That we would pay anything. Then one of them told a girl to sell herself to them so she could eat. It was so awful."

I knew that it isn't an appropriate time to do so, so I hold in a laugh. I know that it's upsetting her to see people treated that way, pure little innocent Prim. Even if they weren't speaking directly to her, I know that Prim wouldn't hurt a fly, and would get upset if she saw someone else hurt a fly. But I admit, the situation is funny. Not that Seam kids were being picked on, but because of the merchant boys' behavior. They're so self-claimed superior, and I know the exact smirk that was probably on their faces as they taunted Seam kids. I've encountered it all too many times, and it doesn't bother me like it used to. I've come beyond the point of caring. The only concern I have is whether they targeted my little sister, the only person who I really love.

So I ask, "But were they being mean to you? Directly to you?"

"Well, at one point I just told them to stop and I started to drag my friend away, who they were targeting at the time," she says, "And they started talking to me in a taunting voice. At first not anything mean, but then they started saying the same things that they were saying to the other kids."

"What did they say to you?" I ask, getting fired up. How dare they even glance her way?

"I don't know. They didn't get to say much," she shrugs, "We started to walk away and another merchant boy came to stop it. I think it was one of the baker's sons. The older one, maybe? I don't know."

I sigh. It seems like I will never stop owing the Mellark family.

A/N: Hi, sorry it took so long to update. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter... I'm not very confident about it. What do you think? Review?

~LilyFreakingPotter