Roo leads me to the place where all this fun "sleepover" business is going down: a pitch-black cave that has the unmistakable smell of rotting sacrifice bodies. Roo assures me that it's only rock B.O., so I follow in after her, as she lights the way with a dead lightning bug she got from a sponsor.
“Roo, I think I just stepped on a skeleton,” I say, directing the bug’s single ray of light towards it.
“Nah, that's a stalactite.”
“Okay, but there's definitely a head resting on a pile of intestines next to it.”
“Stalagmite,” she replies. A few minutes later, she stops. "We're here. This is where I was staying before we became allies.”
“It's really nice. But did I just step in a massive pile of bear poop?” Roo doesn't seem to hear me.
She yawns. “I think it’s about time to turn in.” But a question is tugging at me. I decide to ask her. I must.
“Roo,” I say, “why did you keep trying to kill me today?”
She gasps. “You noticed?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “It was pretty obvious, actually”
“Then why did you stay with me?”
“I like you. And, more importantly, you're too tiny and precious to be harmful.” I pause. Why not admit it? “And part of me was hoping that eventually we could transform your murderous energy into niceness, and we could be like those hippo-with-a-bird symbiotic relationships where you hopped around inside my mouth and cleaned my teeth.”
Roo stares at the ground, and then looks up at me with a pained expression.
“I guess I have some things to explain to you. You know I'm from Slum 11, right? The Human Experimentation slum?”
“Yeah. But to be honest, I've never understood what that means.”
“It means that they experiment on us.”
“What's experimenting?”
“You know, that thing people do in science?”
“What's science?”
Roo looks at me in disbelief. "You mean you never had to take People-stretchology or Intro-to-Sewingheadstogether in school?”
I shake my head. Roo pauses to think.
“I guess the easiest way to explain it is that in Slum 11, our basketball teams are really fun to watch, because our players are twenty feet tall and can jump thousands of feet in the air, but most mornings we wake up on operating tables with weird bruises and no idea how we got there. That's what science is.”
I give one of those ‘shut-up-no-they-didn’t’ faces, even though this sounds like a pretty even trade-off.
“Did they experiment on you?” I ask. Roo nods.
“They wanted to make me an unstoppable killing machine. But they weren’t finished when I got chosen for the Games. Now I have the insatiable desire to kill, but not the ability.”
“And what about the other boy from your Slum? Bear? What did they do to him?”
“I don't know," Roo replie. “He never talked about it. All he wants to do is spend his time alone, down by the river, catching salmon in his mouth.” That poor soul. The experiments must have been pretty grim, then. I wonder if it has anything to do with why he looks like a bear.
“I appreciate you sharing this with me, Roo. And that you've decided to stop trying to kill me.”
There's an awkward silence.
“I haven’t. I brought you in here so Bear could eat you. I've done it a few other times.”
She shines the dying lightning bug over to one corner. There are the corpses of the feral twins from Slum 8—one in a pile of Bear's poop, the other in a puddle of his pee.
“Dang it, Roo.”
But Roo doesn’t answer.
“I said dang it, Roo.”
Still no answer. I look over at her. She stares at me with wide eyes. Sticking out of the middle of her chest is the razor sharp tip of an arrow. She sinks to her knees. “Hug me, Bratniss,” she says, “Line the arrow up with your heart and hug me.”
And just like that, she’s gone. Whoever did this is going to pay. I look up and see Dylancobra standing at the mouth of the cave, reloading his bow and arrow.
“You murdered her!” I yell. “How could you!”
“It was easy enough,” he replies. “Do you think that only your precious Scar is powerful enough to kill someone?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I’m sick of being a sidekick, damnit!”
“Dylancobra. Take a deep breath, okay?” I say, trying to calm him down. “Now, does Scar know you’re out here? You remember about the buddy system, right?”
“Oh, I remember it, all right,” he says with a hollow laugh. “How could I forget? All my life, I’ve been trained to be a sidekick. When I was little, they would tie me down in front of a TV and make me watch hours of footage of Robin and Scottie Pippen! They made me practice getting second place. Practice it! I had to learn how to lean away from the tape at the end of races. How to leap in front of the basketball hoop at just the right moment, so that I’m the guy who gets the dunker’s nuts in my face. Do you know what that does to a kid? Well, it doesn’t matter. Because with every kill I get, I’m one step closer to not being a sidekick. I’m sorry I have to do this to you, Bratniss, but there’s no other way.”
“You’re wrong, Dylancobra! The key to not being a sidekick is in your heart! You’re a perfectly good and scary sacrifice on your own, you just need to accept that!”
“Huh,” he says, letting the bow drop to his side. “I guess you’re right. Okay, then,” he continues, swinging the bow back up. “I guess this is just to win the Games, then.”
Damnit!
Just then, I hear a twig snap. I spin around. Bear!
“Thank God you’re here. Bear!” I cry out. “Dylancobra just murdered Roo!”
Dylancobra sneers, his arrow still cocked. “That’s right. And I suggest you stay where you are, unless you want to end up like your puny friend.”
Bear considers him for a moment, and then continues lumbering forward. I guess he’s grieving so deeply that he no longer wants to live. And Dylancobra is more than happy to oblige him.
“You should have listened to me!” he shouts, letting an arrow fly. It lodges in Bear’s shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to notice, and starts eating some raspberries from a bush. Raspberries, the grim fruit of the mourning.
“That’s right, let the arrow, uh, kill you slowly,” Dylancobra says uncertainly, loading up another. Just then, we hear the loudspeaker switch on.
“Attention, sacrifices,” comes the voice in the sky. “Due to an oversight, it seems that we have accidentally selected a bear instead of a boy for one of the slum's sacrifices.”
All three of us gasp, except Bear, who’s scratching his back against a tree.
“We're going to do all we can to get the situation under control,” the announcer continues, “But until then: for the love of God, avoid the sacrifice you’ve been calling, let me see, here…”
We listen intently.
“Here it is,” he says. “‘Bear.’ Thank you.”
All three of us scream, except for Bear, who does more of a roar, grabs Dylancobra in his jaws, and carries him off into the forest.
I return to Roo, and the tears begin to fall. She looks so precious, lying there. And that’s when I realize: it’s almost as if…as if this is a scene from a movie. A beautiful, heartrending scene in a movie. The kind of scene that teaches us about dignity and compassion and love, and the indomitable human spirit.
It’s too beautiful not to start singing a haunting song:
Oh, hey, everybody, don't you think this would be,
A lovely scene, in a popular movie?
Sit back, relax, enjoy the show,
And doesn’t Roo’s death make you want Coke?
Here is a scene, so moving and gorgeous,
That the Teen Choice Awards, whatever those are, will surely take notice.
If you’re kids making out, can you please stop?
First of all, this isn’t roman
tic, and second of all I can see you from inside the screen and it’s gross to watch.
I end my song, but the violinbirds (a hybridation I forgot to tell you about before) continue to play—mournfully, but in a way that is also very dramatic, while the arena’s set designer carefully arranges a bed of flowers for Roo.
There’s nothing left for me to do here, I realize, except flush Roo down the toilet.
I gently carry her body over to the nearest restroom, and fling open the door.
Inside, the temperature is oddly stifling, and everything is covered in an orange glow. I peek down into the bowl and see why: whoever used this last must have eaten a ton of lava. That is, unless this stuff in the toilet is…actual lava. But if this stuff is really lava, then how come my finger I just put in the toilet hasn’t—oh, wait, yep, half the finger is missing ohmygodohmygod THIS IS HOT LAVA!!!
Sure enough, just as I notice the lava, it notices me, in that way dangerous forces of nature do in dramatized accounts. The lava oozes out of the toilet, edging closer and closer to my Hello Dead Kitty socks. “C’mere, yummy girl,” it bubbles in sleazy Lavanese.
This burial is hardly going as planned. Yes, I want to flush Roo, but I want to do it respectfully, with proper toilet water. Not with the filthy melted contents of the Earth’s core. But the only other toilet is miles away, thanks to the cruelty of the Gamemakers.
That’s when I realize: this is exactly what the Gamemakers want. They want us to turn on each other. They want us to throw our friends into lava!
“Well, what are ya gonna do?” I think, as I toss her into the bowl and get the heck out of there.
From outside, I hear her screaming stop almost instantly—replaced with snaps, crackles and pops. Either her body is burning quickly or there’s a fresh bowl of Rice Krispies and milk in there and her body is just burning normally. I’m not entirely sure why she was screaming though. Dead people do the weirdest things sometimes.
I turn away from the door of the port-a-potty behind me, and almost trip over a cardboard package. I pick it up to inspect it. Stamped on it is the silhouette of a man swinging a snake like a baseball bat against a metal fence, as a chorus of skunks cheers him on, and a bird flies in the sky. This is Slum 11’s official emblem, and it represents the harmony of man and skunk through mutual hatred of the snake, and also birds exist. It’s nice, but Slum 12’s official emblem of a man stuffing his mouth with poop is more regal.
But why is District 11 sending Roo a package right now? This is ridiculous. How does Slum 11 not know that the proper way to contact a dead person is by writing on their Facebook wall?
But maybe I’m getting this wrong. Maybe this package isn’t for Roo. Maybe it’s for someone else—someone who was close to Roo, but is still alive, and is in this tournament, and judging by the pink bow and name sticker on this box is a girl named Br…Bra…
Like I have time to sounds things out right now. I’m stumped. And I can’t possibly bring myself to open someone else’s package. “That would just be crazy,” I whisper to my knife, Betsy, who totally agrees. But just as I’m about throw my hands up in the air, all I-give-up-like, I realize: hey, Bratniss you dummy, this isn’t a gift for Roo. This is a gift for you! The people of Slum 11 must have seen how good friends you and Roo were for the like 15 minutes that you knew each other and now of course they want to spend millions and billions of dollars they don’t have in order to send you a gift!
I untie the bow and I can hardly believe what I see: a freshly baked slice of poisoncake! How thoughtful of those sickly, disgusting little Slum 11 people! I lift the poisoncake to my nose and take in its earthy, outdoorsy, bathroomy scent. Almost instantly, the insides of my nostrils start burning and I go blind in one eye. I think I’ve lost control of my bowels but I can’t check.
Ooh, I can tell this cake is gonna be rich.
Slum 11’s kindness astounds me. These people have somehow found the time to make me this delicious slice of cake and…and that’s when I see that they’ve really outdone themselves, because beneath the poisoncake is a second gift! It’s a timer with various, colored wires running into it. Its digital timer is counting down and the entire thing smells like gunpowder.
They’ve given me a watch—a watch that I can use to tell the time! As soon as I learn my numbers! I can’t imagine what they had to go through to make me poisoncake and a watch or even what possibly could have motivated them.
Although I have to admit, there’s something peculiar about the packaging. The name is also kind of weird too. Poisoncake. Hmm, poison...cake. There’s just something suspicious about that word… “cake”…and…and now that I think about it, the watch is bizarre, too. It’s a little, well, big. Plus there are all those wires. And the watch batteries being two sticks of dynamite is a peculiar choice as well.
Then I realize: whoa, check yourself, Bratniss. A week in the Capitol, and you’re already starting to judge gifts. What’s next? Turning your nose up at a steamed licedog? “Too spicy for me, Mr. Grilled Lice Sausage Vendor.” Come on, Bratniss, don’t forget your roots. These are wonderful presents from wonderful, stinky people.
But this isn’t just a gift. This is a showing of unity. It shows that Slum 11 and I are in this together now. We are the 99%, or something. This new feeling of community as well as the feeling of the poisoncake burning through my hand brings tears to my eyes. I open my mouth to sink my teeth into the yummy treat when BOOM.
Everything goes black.
When I finally come to, I’m disoriented and confused. How long was I out for? Did I just do that thing where I pass out in order to skip ahead to the next big scene?
Please, not another instance of me passing out for the cheap effect of drama. There’s no way. There’s just no way a writer would have a main character do this so many times. Not unless...it happened in separate books...so readers wouldn’t catch on to the trick.
But enough of playing with the fourth wall for now, because I then realize there’s a voice over the intercom, announcing something.
“Attention, remaining sacrifices and bear. Please make note of the following, super-special rule change. This year, there will be zero winners of the Hunger But Mainly Death Games.
The words echo through my head. No! They can’t do this! They’ve given all of us a death sentence! I’ve played along with their little Games so far. I’ve done everything they wanted! Now, I have no choice but to take a stand! And nothing will teach them a lesson like me killing myself.
“Huh? what’s that, Bill?” the announcer whispers, “Two? What do you mean TWO SACRIFICES? Then why does it say ZERO on my CUE CARD, you IDIOT!
That’s when the spanks start.
SPANK. “You like that, Billy boy? Huh? You gonna fudge the numbers again?” SPANK. “Go ahead, fudge ’em! This hand loves it some intern butt! Take ’em! Take the spanks!”
Finally, the announcer clears his throat. “My apologies for the mix-up, everyone. Okay, here we go: this year, the last two remaining sacrifices will be crowned champions of the Hunger But Mainly Death Games. So, yes, two sacrifices can win this year. Two of you can live. The rest have to die.”
That’s not so bad, I guess. At least it’s not as if you have to be in a relationship with your partner in order to—
“Oh, gosh, sorry, folks, I almost forgot. To take advantage of the rule change, the two winning sacrifices have to be dating. We thought it would be a neat way to gives these Games that cool teen spin we talked about earlier.”
These Games are getting weirder and weirder by the second.
“Oh and we replaced the toilet water with lava thanks so much bye.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not the first time the tournament has had a rule change. One year, there was Bring Your Dad to the Tournament Day, which ended in a ton of awkward “my dad can beat up your dad” type stand-offs. Then there was the time they announced, “All the air is now poison air!” before quickly having to restart the tournament with 24 new sacrif
ices. And who can forget the year the tournament was played “Baseball Style,” where you could only kill someone if you were wearing a hat?
But those were stupid little things: dads, hats, killing every single sacrifice in a matter of seconds, etc. Now the adults have gone and changed the number of winners and added a weird romance angle.
Well, it’s probably best that I lay low, keep hydrated, and give myself some time to sort this all out.
But first, yelling for Pita. “PITA! PITA PITA PITA PITA PITA!” I yell, emptying my water bottle on the ground.
I have to tell him that, even now, we’re not going to date. No crazy new stunt of his will change this fact. For me, it’s a purely pragmatic decision. I’m one of three girls left for the remaining three boys, and Pita is the weakest of all of them. We’ve had a weird history, Pita and I, but I still think I should explain my decision to him. I bet he’ll be pretty reasonable about it.
So, I continue calling out. But no matter how long I call, or how loudly and joyfully I play my steel drum, he doesn’t come. There’s not even a single catcall from within the forest. What’s wrong with him? He invades my privacy night and day, for weeks on end, but the second I need him around to preemptively break up with him, he’s nowhere to be found.
But I’m wasting time. Maybe it’s more important for me to go out and find the person I do want to date. I’ll have to head to the careers’ encampment.
As I make my way there, I run over the possibilities. Forkface, Emily, and I are the only three girls left, and Pita, Scar, and P’rank are the only three boys. Emily has been in with Scar and P’rank since the beginning, so it’s probably too much to hope that she isn’t with one of them. That leaves Forkface.
For some reason, I’m not too worried about her. Because I’m beginning to wonder if Forkface might not be as smart as everyone seems to think. Like, if she’s so smart, why does she keep getting stuck in that trap I built for hedgehogs? All the hedgehogs have been able to avoid it.
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