“I’ll consider putting it on if you take care of this mess.”
“Deal! Deal deal deal!”
“Deal,” I agree, throwing the costume in the trash and running up the stairs two at a time. But as I shut the door behind me, another thought comes into my mind. What if Pita is doing this as part of some cunning ploy to win the Hunger But Mainly Death Games? Getting our mentor on his side, to help ensure that he is the last kid standing?
It's tough to say. On the one hand, I sometimes have a hard time understanding the intentions of others. I wonder if I might even be a tiny bit autistic. But then the train hits a bump, and I brush any thought of that aside as a box of toothpicks falls and spills its contents across the floor.
"Two-hundred-seventeen," I say.
Anyway, there's a much more likely explanation for Pita's behavior: he's trying to guilt me into liking him. If you've ever been the object of a sort of nerdy guy's love, you know the drill. My guess is that it's, quite literally, the oldest trick in the book. Like, way long ago, a group of young cavemen got together to attempt to solve their biggest problem: lack of girlfriends. They didn't have girlfriends for a number of reasons: they were no good at hunting; they couldn't perform any daring feats of strength and bravery; they were so allergic to pollen, and dust, and bright light, that they had to spend most of their time in-cave. And don't get me started on their little peach-fuzz mustaches that they were too clueless about to get rid of.
Anyway, these caveboys came up with a plan to overcome all that: they would become personal martyrs for the cavegirl they liked, in the hopes that, eventually, she would have no choice but to return their love. Some would do it by always letting the girl copy off of their cavekid homework. Others would do it by becoming a sort of sisterly friend—gossiping with their crushes about other girls in the cavegrade, talking about caveoutfits, even sometimes going so far as to help set up their crushes with a cavejock, in the hopes that he would be sorta douchey to her, and that after about their fifth breakup, the crush would realize that her true love had been there all along, and that his obsession with playing games on his caveTI-83 graphing calculator was actually extremely cool.
Of course, it's never worked, even once. But that hasn't stopped the boys from trying. It shouldn't be a problem, right? Having some boy head-over-heels in sorrowful love with you should be, at worst, an ego boost; and at best, the closest you'll ever be to getting that trick-performing, talking monkey pet you've always dreamed of.
Unfortunately, it's never that simple. Because the guys who do stuff like that actually want you to be a talking monkey pet of their own, whose "trick" is being all relationship-y with them.
All of this is especially true of Pita. Case-in-point: one year, he gave me a valentine with a drawing of a frail elderly couple on the front and a message inside that read, "My idea of a perfect relationship is an old man gently tending to his wife as she slips into Alzheimer's."
"I hope I can care for you like that one day," he had written below.
But if Pita thinks any of it’s going to sway me, he's mistaken. I don't owe him a thing. When I reach the hallway of the train, I'm surprised to find that, once again, there isn't a soul in sight. Not my cage technician, not my head-cage technician, not my leg-cages technician, not even the child from the Capitol whom they have follow me around and do stuff like play hopscotch everywhere in order to remind me how crappy my situation is. I soon find out why: "ATTACK IMMINENT! ATTACK IMMINENT!" booms a voice over a loudspeaker. The sliding doors at the end of the corridor fly open.
"Take this!" Oofie shouts, tossing me a ray gun. She flips a nearby table on its side and pulls me behind. "They're coming!”
"Who's coming?" I ask.
At that moment, we hear the screeching sound of the metal door being torn off. A horrifying, reptilian creature bursts in.
"GROK!!!" it roars. No time to think. I blast it straight in the head, which explodes in a cloud of green blood. Oofie and I slump back against the table.
"That thing, it was an alien, wasn't it?" I ask, breathlessly. "Aliens attacked, didn't they? Humanity is going to have to band together to defeat the alien horde! Forget about things like the Games, we need to band together!"
"What? That was just another sacrifice. Her body had a bad reaction to the tracking device implantation."
I'm speechless. So, that thing was my first victim of the Hunger But Mainly Death Games. It's an odd feeling. I'm lucky that the situation fits the rules I've secretly laid out for myself: only kill another Sacrifice if they’re clearly very evil and trying their hardest to murder you.
That's when I notice the creature is holding two neatly wrapped presents. Addressed to me and Oofie.
"Uh, Oofie?" I ask. "That thing was definitely trying to hurt us...right?"
"Oh man, look at the time. Gotta jet," says Oofie, breezing out of the room. A moment later, she comes back in and gently lifts the ray gun out of my hands. "Thanks, doll."
The door then bursts open and Pita enters, dragging Hagridmitch behind him. Pita's wrapped him up in a huge tarp.
"I tried my best," he pants. “He’s just so damn big, almost like he’s a giant’s half-brother!”
From inside the bag, Hagridmitch hollers, "Th' Order of th' Phoenix isn't going ter like this, of that ye can be certain! They're gonna hang ye, just like they hanged old Mrs. Weasley fer poisonin' Fred an' George when she got sick o’ their tricks! They will, I tell ye!" He struggles vainly to get free.
Oofie peeks her head in the door.
"How's everything going in here, lovies? Did you miss me?" she asks. "I've got some wonderful news!"
"You lined up some great sponsors for us?" I ask, excitedly. I know it's silly of me, but for some reason, the idea of surviving the Games is enticing to me.
"Nope," she replies. "Got you some new cage technicians. You're going to love them. They have even more cages than before."
"What happened to our old ones?"
"Nine out of ten people who work in jobs related to the Hunger But Mainly Death Game become terrible drug addicts to deal with the pain, and go live on the streets," she says merrily.
After we’re caged, we’re brought to the multimedia traincar, where we're going to study footage from old tournaments and get advice from Hagridmitch. While the old tapes are loading, we flip through a few of Pandumb's television channels. It turns out that the Hunger But Mainly Death Games is only one of many examples of the Capitol's incessant demand for child-killing entertainment. There's DieCarly, in which a girl and her friends are killed every week. I guess the lead kids all died in the first episode, so they just have to keep recasting. There's also Spongebob Squarepants, in which a child is molded into the shape of a frightening monster known as 'Spongebob' and then thrown into the sea for crabs to eat. In fact, as far as I can see, there isn't a single show that doesn't incorporate child-death in some way. Even the business shows do, by using stock charts whose highs and lows are charted by a steel sword that inches ever-closer to its child victim as the end of trading nears.
"This really brings me back," says Pita. "My girlfriend who lives in Slum 13 and I always used to watch TV when we were talking on the phone."
“How is that possible?” I ask.
“What do you mean? It’s true.”
Hagridmitch pipes up from his pooptarp cocoon. "Sure, Neville, sure! An' I have enough self-control ter keep from eatin' eat a two pound bag a' dry pancake mix e'ry night before bed."
“I’m completely serious.” Pita says.
“Hagridmitch believes ya, lad.”
“Guys, I swear. In fact, she was going to come visit me this week. But then this whole Hunger But Mainly Death Games thing happened, and we broke up. It's so unfair,” he says, shaking his head. “You don't need to worry, though. My broken heart is mending. And I think it’s time to spread my wings. A lot of women would want a guy like me, you know. Kind, loving, full of handy tarp-skills for when there's kissin' to be done.”
"What are you talking about? Why would anybody care about that?"
“When I kiss, Bratniss," he says, raising his eyebrow and giving me a sultry stare, “Things have been known to get...sloppy.”
“That's revolting,” I say. Luckily, the videos of the tournaments begin to play, and my brain can focus on acts of horrible violence instead of the thought of kissing Pita, thereby averting a self-destruct sequence.
We start at the beginning, with the very first Hunger But Mainly Death Games. It's historic, but it's not one of the most exciting tournaments. That's because for a few years after Games were instituted, nobody could believe they actually existed. They just seemed way too crazy and horrible. So, most of the few tournaments is just kids getting together in groups and saying things to the camera like, "Come on, people. This has clearly gone too far," or, "Use your heads, guys. What is all this senseless violence accomplishing?"
Then, by like the fourth Hunger But Mainly Death Games, everyone started getting into it. This led to some of the most memorable Games, like the one in the middle of the ocean, in which the sacrifices were either given an aquatic battlesuit-exoskeleton or a super-intelligent rideable warjellyfish. It turned out that the jellyfish were able to use chemical signals to attract great white sharks and giant squid to come fight, too. For some reason, there were also a ton of beautiful fireworks, and one short portion that took place on zeppelins, high above the Himalayas. It was so cool and beautiful that you almost forgot it was just kids killing each other in front of a green screen.
We also see some of the lesser-known Games, like the twenty-seventh, which were sponsored by Great Britain. Nothing stood out about the tournament itself, but the cover for the official tournament book that came out after was weird and ugly, like all British covers for young adult books.
We watch tournament after tournament, and they start to blur together. The only thread that connects them is that every year, at least one thing seems to go wrong. There was the year when everyone came down with chicken pox, and because of that toddlers were never used again. The Capitol also decided to do away with the in-game nannies. They didn't really make sense in the first place, come to think of it.
The forty-fourth Hunger But Mainly Death Games was Looney Tune-themed. The viewers were pumped when they saw the Cornucopia filled with anvils and the towering Elmer Fudd Destructo-Bots that patrolled the arena, but it ended up being a bust. More kids died that year from being covered in gallons of paint to make them look like cartoon characters than they did from stupidly tying themselves to a rocket, or not understanding that a crate of ACME TNT blowing up does more than cover your face in black soot.
The list goes on: the Capitol flies everybody to a fire planet, but none of the sacrifices know how to fire-surf. They uses shrink-rays to make everybody tiny, and then puts them inside the bloodstream of a living person, and promise the games will be particularly brutal. Instead, the Sacrifices have a lot of fun learning about the human body. Somewhere along the line, the tournament turns into a big, fun flag football game, and the Gamemakers don't have the heart to remind the kids to kill each other.
After watching highlights from all seventy-three games, I realize two things.
The first is that I’ll have to watch out for the sacrifices known as “careers,” which is a loose acronym for “the rich kids from Slums 1-3 who train for the Games from birth and usually win.” You can count on them to be bigger, stronger, better nourished, and have cool Nike Shox.
Second, I realize I’ll have to use some of my free time to go over my rules handbook. Up until now, I was under the impression that every kid except one got to win the tournament.
“So, Hagridmitch," I say. "Now that we're done, what kind of advice do you have for us?”
“Advice? Er, lemme think...Well, don't ever—an' I mean ever—eat a Bertie Bott's All-Flavored Bean that's colored cat-bladder yellow. That's a sure recipe fer—"
“No, I mean about the tournament. What advice do you have about the tournament? The one you fought in and won?”
He looks bewildered.
“What are ye talkin' about? I warn't never in no ‘tournament.’”
“That’s pretty funny,” I say, “Except not to us!” The coffee table is already crashing over his back when I realize, hey, wait a minute, we watched all of the Games but didn't see Hagridmitch once—certainly not standing at the winner’s podium. I pause for a moment, and hear a snatch of what Hagridmitch is muttering.
“...They put a bag over me head...took me away, outta my world...wonder how Harry's doin'...why don' he help me..did he do this to me?”
I'm beginning to think that maybe we should find someone who actually knows about the Games and ask them some basic questions. I mean, when we were watching those videos, all Oofie did was insist that we pay attention to the kids who managed to die in cool ways. But suddenly, the train grinds to a halt. There's a loud bang, and smoke begins to fill the room. The blast has torn apart the side of the car we're in, and a group of armed men and women storm in. A masked man with a rifle steps forward.
“Bratniss Everclean?” he asks.
“That's me,” I manage.
“You're safe, girl. We're with the Pandumb Resistance Front. We're staging the revolt against the Capitol. And we want you to be our leader.”
“Really? Oh my—”
“Just kidding,” he says, pulling off his mask to reveal a face slathered in makeup. “My name is Cinnabon, and I’m here to make you gorgeous, girlfriend.”
R-i-i-i-p!
That’s the sound my nervous fart makes, as it shoots straight into the face of Vongoria NiceShoes, who’s tending to me in the prep room. It’s about the seventh time I’ve done it.
“I’m really sorry about this,” I say, blushing. “Sometimes, when I’m anxious, I…you know.”
“Don’t worry about it, dear!” Vongoria pipes merrily, “In the Capitol, what you’re doing is considered polite!”
“Really?” I ask, amazed.
“No, of course not. And if you keep doing it, I’m going to laser your butt shut.”
I sigh. So, my quest to find the one place on Earth where girls don’t have to hold in their farts all the time must continue. For a moment, I wonder if I’m asking too much of myself. Isn’t my plate a little full already? But I banish the thought. I’ve seen too many of my friends explode from compacted fart-gas for that.
Attendants mill about the room. Dressed in the height of Capitol fashion, they’re a strange sight indeed. Working on my toes is Grabulation St. Lil Wayne, whose hair is up in the shape of a fast car. “Vroooooom,” he says, every second. Next to him is Skankdumb Dumbstupid, who has a tangle of fibre-optic cables sticking out of her head, each with a miniature satellite on the end. These are the tell-tale signs of a “Livetweeter,” a person whose body has been modified to allow constant real-time narration of their existence over the Internet. “Now I’m looking at this weird girl and she’s part-creature,” she says. “#lmaopoorpeople.”
On my left is a woman called Crocs. Her name certainly fits—she’s had her head enlarged into the shape of a massive rubber clog, and there are holes all over her face, which show her skull and brain. “Do you want to be like me, sweetie?” she asks. “Do you want to be able to put shoe charms on your face?” She a jams a shiny four-leaf clover pendant into her forehead and falls over dead.
Meanwhile, Vongoria continues her relentless quest to rid my body of hair. All of it must go, she says: my leg hair, my armpit hair, even my thick handlebar mustache. These people, it seems, in their frenzied desire to stand out at all costs, have deemed such things “too normal.” But why must they force me to conform to their twisted standards of beauty? I feel the anger rising inside me.
“I see now!” I shout, “You want me to look like that freak!” I point at a woman who has stripped her body of every single hair. The room falls silent.
“I can’t believe you’d call me that,” the woman says, her lip
trembling. “I have a condition called alopecia totalis. My body is unable to produce hair.”
“Oh, geez,” I say, “Look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t—”
“Don’t you listen to her, Mary!” says a man who rushes up to her and takes her hands. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world!”
She begins to sob into his shoulder, and then he turns a withering eye towards me. “YOU! Get out! Right this instant!”
“Okay!” I say, unable to believe my luck. I’ve just been set free from the Hunger But Mainly Death Games! “Goodbye, now!”
“Yeah, nice try,” says Vongoria, pulling me back down. “Hold still while we shave the hair off your eyes.” Under her breath, she murmurs to herself, “We should really get a doctor in here to see this.”
I have to laugh: “doctor.” Another one of the nonsense words these Capitol-dwellers pepper their conversations with, like “teeth” or “happiness.” No wonder the children of Slum 12 enjoy imitating their odd speech, with its tiny amount of spit and drool, and complete lack of monkey grunts. It’s strange—even though I’ve been observing them for days, I don’t have a clue how they warn the rest of the monkey nest when a bird is stealing some of their food or string.
As they work, I begin to wonder what Cinnabon has in store for me. Whatever outfit he comes up with could be the difference between death and what Cinnabon calls “fashion death.” Who knows, he might even end up being a sort of spiritual adviser, leading me to start thinking about the big things, and, like, questioning the world around me. That’s usually the kind of thing people get into the fashion industry to do.
“Listen closely,” Cinnabon suddenly says from behind me, “the outfits I make you will be worn in all the important events—the most important being the Interrogations. As you can probably guess, these fabrics are worth more than either of our lives, even these practice outfits I’m about to give you. If you so much as rip a single fiber in these garments, people close to you will need to be…erased.”
The Hunger But Mainly Death Games: A Parody Page 5