The Hunger But Mainly Death Games: A Parody Page 4

  My mom may hook up with bread, but she has a point. And for the first time, I start to feel terribly sad about leaving these two behind. My mother must realize it, because she pockets her knife and opens her arms. But when I go in for a hug, I lean too far forward, and the slice of bread falls out. Oh shi—

  “WHAT is my husband’s severed hand doing on the floor!?” she shouts, shaking the bars of my cage. “MURDERER! You murderer!”

  The ‘Peace’keepers come to grab her, but she’s too strong for them, and bursts free. Fortunately, their highly trained anti-mom gorilla is stronger. “I want my husband back, you bread-racists!” she shrieks through Koko’s thick fur, as he carries her out.

  I’m left alone with Pigrose. Here, in the few moments I have left with precious little Pig, I need to sum up all my older sisterly knowledge into a few parting words. As I gaze at her, she still seems so small, so vulnerable. But she was right this morning. She’s not a baby anymore. And now, she’ll have to fend for herself entirely. All I can do to help is speak from the heart.

  I grab her by the cheeks, force her face between the bars and say to her, “Cow says ‘moo,’ Pig. ‘Moooo.’”

  Pita’s cage has been set down next to mine, and he’s saying goodbye to his parents, Clark Malarkey and #0432, a mom-bot.

  “Watch out for bugs, kiddo!” says Clark, slapping a can of bug spray into Pita’s palm. “And, remember that old saying: ‘if it’s leaves of three, that’s just for wiping pee.’ Or maybe it’s ‘when leaves is four, yo’ butt’s gon’ be sore…’”

  Clark pauses, deep in thought, before saying, “You know what, to be safe maybe just wipe your butt with rocks.”

  “Hello Pita,” says #0432, clamping her metal pincers onto Pita’s shoulder. “I am your mother. Birthing and breastfeeding equipped. Enjoy consumption of graham cracker, choc-o-late and marshmallow dessert sandwiches with the other hu-mans.”

  “Wait,” says Pita. “You guys realize this isn’t camp I’m going to, right?”

  “Here, son,” says Pita’s dad, handing him a plastic bag through the bars of the cage, “I brought some swim trunks and your sun tan lotion. But you know how sensitive your skin is, so don’t push it. If you think you’re getting a burn, stay indoors at all times. The counselors will understand, and the other boys will respect you.”

  The Malarkeys are ushered out and Pita and I are left alone. “Whew!” Pita exclaims as the door slams shut, “I thought those totally lame bozos would never leave us alone!”

  Oh my God. It’s already begun. Does anybody know if there’s some way to turn off your hearing? Like, I don’t know, a secret button you can press on your head, or some kind of meditation?

  Pita’s tone softens. “I…look, I know I’m a real idiot sometimes, so I’ll shut up now. But I need to tell you something: I appreciate what you did out there today, all right? And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that our first day of going out has to be this way.”

  “Pita, listen to me: that was not—”

  “Shh, shh,” he says. “You don’t have to hide it. Neither of us has to, anymore. We’re in love.”

  “No, we are not!”

  “Say what you want, Bratniss, but your actions have spoken louder than a trillion words. And I want mine to do the same: so I’m giving up my former ways. I know you see me as a dangerous man, something of a playboy. But I’m ready to leave all of that behind for you. I’m sorry you had to do something so drastic to get me to realize that.”

  Before I can answer or vomit, the doors are flung open and we’re carried out to the train that will take us to the Capitol. A small crowd has formed to watch us go, and there, at the front, struggling to break through a line of ‘Peace’keepers.

  “Bratniss!” he calls, “Bratniss!” But he can’t get through. Before the doors of the train slide shut, I can hear his final message to me. “Always remember, it doesn’t matter if you die, because this is all probably just the dream of some dinosaur, anyway!

  The moment I step inside, I have to cover my eyes from the unbearable brightness. As it turns out, Capitol folks live by the light of stuff other than fire. The Capitol lights its rooms with tiny glass beads filled with distilled light-juice, which are powered by a colony of inch-long bunnies that live in the walls. At least that’s what Oofie tells me. I don’t have a clue why she’s laughing so hard, but I can’t think of a better explanation.

  I am taken to my room, which is actually just a larger cage for my cage to be locked into. It’s filled with the strangest objects, and Oofie can tell I’m confused.

  “Do you know what any of this is?” she coos.

  “Not exactly.”

  She points to a stack of big, cushiony chairs and says, “Let’s start simple. Massage chairs. With a special massage chair massage chair on the bottom to massage the massage chairs. Keeps ’em happy and healthy. Makes sense now, right?”

  Kind of. Well, not really. Why would they need multiple massage chairs? And what the heck is a massa—

  “Cat got your mouthsnake?” Oofie says, handing me a tin can. “Let’s start even simpler. Look. A watch in a can. Now, you see the genius of it all.”

  “But why do you need these things?” I ask.

  “Why does anyone need anything?” Oofie replies breezily. “You own things so you can have them. Then you don’t need them anymore.”

  She has me there, I guess. Wait, no she doesn—

  “Let’s level with each other, Brat,” Oofie says. “We both want the same thing here: Dumbbuxx®. I’m your agent, and I get you sponsors. Sponsors get you and me money. And Dumbbuxx® buys us stuff like hovercars and pocketdogs.”

  “No! What I want is to not die in the arena!” I pause. “And maybe a pocketdog or two if I survive,” I add.

  “You’re not listening, beb. Think of it this way. Some rich benefactor sees you in the arena and takes a shining to you. He likes your moves. He digs your style. ‘Hey,’ he thinks to himself, ‘I’m going to spend one billion dollars to get that little missy a toothbrush.’”

  “But I brought my own toothbrush,” I say. “And, anyway, a toothbrush isn’t going to help me win the Hunger But Mainly Death Games.”

  Oofie’s eyes narrow. “That attitude is gonna get you killed. And even worse, prevent me from getting my bonus. So when I say jump, you jump. And when I tell you that Dr. Doolittle 7: Rise of the Planet of the Hermit Crabs is a good idea, you throw on your animal doctor lab coat, and goddamnit, you learn how to talk to hermit crabs. So you’d better listen to me when I say you need sponsors to survive. Now why don’t us girls do some window shopping?” she says with a conspiratorial air, handing me a catalog.

  On its cover is an illustration of a man in a mirror tuxedo throwing a lavish party on the roof-deck of his hot air balloon yacht. Far below, you can see innocent children struggling to survive in the Hunger But Mainly Death Games. Disgusted, I flip past the cover and open to a random page:

  “Two pine needles,” it reads. “Who KNOWS what a resourceful sacrifice could do with these rascals! Just thinking about it fills us with wonder and amazement. $20 billion.”

  I flip to the next page.

  “Water! The most vital substance on Earth (at least for those poors outside the Capitol who don’t hydrate using Water 2: Sprite®). Any sacrifice who doesn’t have it is sure to die. So send them some of this thirst-quenching liquid and watch them rise to the top! You can also just buy it and throw it out, so that the sacrifice will be more likely to die of thirst. Either way, you will get a tax deduction. $1 trillion per bubble wrap bubble-worth of water (bubbles may include large portions of air).”

  I keep flipping, trying to find something, anything, that could be useful to me. One ‘gently-used’ earplug? The dust from a moth that flew into a windshield? Suddenly, I realize something:

  “Oofie, these all suck.”

  “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself, Bratniss!” she says briskly.

  “You don’t need to help me. I don�
�t want any of this. Bye,” I say, as I dramatically turn and walk into the bars of my cage.

  Later that evening, I’m let out and escorted down to the dining room. After I’ve been given my rabies vaccine, and the standard “You start foaming at the mouth at the table then we put you down, girlie” talk, we’re seated. Our group consists of me, Pita, Oofie, Hagridmitch, several of the technicians who tend to our cages, and a few Xeroxes. Xeroxes are the poor souls who have been sentenced to a life of servitude in the Capitol for committing some trivial crime back in the Slums. According to the company handbook, they’re referred to as “personal assistants,” but if you ask me, they’re little more than slaves.

  The Xeroxes are famed for their encyclopedic knowledge, which they obtain in arduous training sessions. Of course, Oofie is as eager to show off her possession’s skills as if they were her own.

  “You two simply must see what the Capitol has been kind enough to train these Xeroxes to do. Siri? Which one of you is Siri? Present yourself!” A young Xerox with flowing blond hair steps forward and curtsies.

  “Good evening, Miss Triptrip. How may I serve you?” she asks softly, her hands clasped together and her eyes turned towards the floor.

  Oofie pokes me. “These freaks know the answer to everything, darling. Go ahead, try her out.”

  “Hmm…” I say, trying to think of something that won’t insult the intelligence of this bright-eyed girl. “Okay. Siri, what is the meaning of life?”

  She responds with a demure smile. “All evidence to date suggests that it’s successfully avoiding suicide.”

  “Ahh-ha-ha, charming, simply charming!” says Oofie. “Who knew that they would have taught you to be so deliciously funny! Well, off to the gallows, Siri. That’s your punishment for failure.”

  “No! Wait!” I protest. But she’s already gone, and dinner is being served. Life, it would appear, is cheap to the Capitol. Or maybe that was already clear from everything else.

  When the first course is placed in front of me, I can hardly believe my eyes: the meat that they’re serving looks nothing at all like roadkill. But, weirdly, this doesn’t appear to be meat at all. It’s a plate of pale green mush with some brown mush on the side.

  “Oofie, what is this?”

  She rolls her eyes. “It’s organic, grass fed, redehydrated Alsatian snow peas with kale sausage. It’ll help you cut some unwanted fat off those bones. Wouldn't want you to die of fat cancer before you started the games.”

  Unwanted fat? Last time I checked, in Slum 12, 4’3” and 64 pounds is perfectly normal. I distinctly remember the girls at school being amazed at how much I could eat on Thursday pizza box lunches. “Eat the cardboard, rat-girl! Eat the cardboard!” they’d chant, cheering me on like the good friends they were.

  Oofie continues explaining the menu. On the train, our food will be “gluten-free vegan,” and is “macrobiotic, probiotic, antibiotic and neurobiotic…”

  I decide against using my spork and tentatively stick my spoonfe into the mush, which causes a yellowish ooze to spill out. Everything smells like mulch.

  “There aren’t any other options on the menu, are there?” I ask with a grimace. To my surprise, the people around me erupt in pained cries.

  “This must be some sick ploy!” shouts one of the cage technicians. “What if she’s trying to give us cancer? Oh my God, I think that just hearing what she said gave my ears cancer. I THINK I HAVE EAR CANCER!”

  Even Oofie looks terrified. “Take it back! Take it back!” she pleads. “You may have nothing to live for, but there’s no reason to sentence us to cancer-death! And eating algae we scraped off the seafloor is clearly the only way to avoid that!”

  “Sheesh! All right!” I exclaim. “I take it back!” These people may be crazy, but Pita has to know what I’m talking about!

  But he doesn’t. Or at least that’s how he acts. I guess the last thing I should expect from the boy who is madly in love with me is for him to stick up for me at a dinner. How totally unreasonable of me. Instead he just kind of sits there, in his chair, like an empty, empty chair—wait. Pita isn’t in his chair.

  That’s when I realize that there’s no way the table leg could have been painting my toenails and blowing on them underneath the table this entire time. I lift up the table cover and sure enough, there he is, bottle of polish in hand, and…well, my nails look really good. One toenail is a little smudged from what appears to be drool but I’d happily give take that in exchange for—No! What am I thinking?! “Get away, Pita!”

  He scurries up from under the table.

  “You know what they say, Bratniss,” he tells me with a grin. “‘If a man can’t handle giving the woman of his dreams an expert mani-pedi, he doesn’t deserve getting lots of kisses from her at the end of their romantic first date!’”

  “This isn’t a date!”

  “Then why has everybody left us alone?” I look around, and he’s right. The room is empty. Then the door slides open and a man in a Hazmat suit steps in.

  “Sorry to break up the date, you two. But this room has been declared a potential Cancer Zone. Something to do with someone speaking negatively about our dining staff’s delicious offerings. I know, I know, it all sounds a bit far-fetched, but to be on the safe side, you’re going to have to vacate immediately.”

  I rush out, desperate to avoid further “date” time with Pita. It’s not only annoying, it’s also such an insane way to waste time. With the tournament rapidly approaching, I need to stop thinking about anything except how to survive. I need someone who can put things into perspective for me; someone who knows the Hunger But Mainly Death Games, but won’t be insane. If possible, even, someone who won’t be drunk and babble on about wizards and magic. With that in mind, I stupidly seek out Hagridmitch.

  I find him on the floor of the train’s wine cellar, where all the moonshine is kept. But I can’t get him to wake up. I look around the cellar for something that might rouse him. Hey, over there’s a bucket that says “hydrochloric acid” on it. Whatever that stuff is I’m sure it will do the trick. But then I notice the pail of water in the far corner. That could definitely work, too.

  But that’s the far corner. Way too far to walk. Let’s try this acid stuff. I’m midway through tipping the bucket over when Hagridmitch shoots up off the ground—“Deatheaters! Look out, child!” he says as he scoops me up in his massive arms and dives behind a cardboard box.

  “Hagridmitch, what are you—”

  A finger the size of my head mashes against my face. “Shhhh…” he says, nervously glancing over the box.

  Hagridmitch finally begins to trust the silence of the wine cellar and calms down. I figure it’s finally time to get some answers. “Hagridmitch, can you tell me—”

  “O’ course,” he says, and instantly launches into a long explanation of this super weird story. Now, I honestly have no idea what Hagridmitch is talking about, nor do I get what Oofie is so worried about him getting us in trouble for, so I won’t ruin any part of his story, except to provide you with a few details for some general background: Dumbledore dies in the next-to-last book, Snape is a double agent for the good guys, and Voldemort’s soul is in seven different objects that Harry destroys.”

  I’m not going to lie. His story is really crazy. But, as he’s finishing up, I start to get the impression that he’s at least telling the truth. “…and then ol’ Hagridmitch finally had his way with Hermione. And we’re not talkin’ one ‘n done here,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

  “Hagridmitch, listen to me for a second. I need to talk to you.”

  And finally, he stops and listens to me. So I ask him about the Games, and how to survive, and why the title of the games is about food when the games are really just about killing each other, and several other in-Games girl-hygiene related questions I won’t share here (but will post on the book’s official website: www.hungergamesparody.com).

  Hagridmitch considers me sadly for a moment, before bowing his head
. “I can’t help ye,” he says.

  “But why? Why can’t you help me?!”

  “I’m terribly sorry. But thar’s a very good reason ’ndeed.”

  But I think he knows that I deserve an answer. Hagridmitch looks around the cellar, making sure no one is there to hear, before he leans in and whispers into my ear…

  “The reason I can’t tell ye…is that I’m pooping me pants right now.”

  "Quit playing around, Hagridmitch," I say. But, boy oh boy, I realize pretty quickly that this man ain't playin', as I reluctantly become a member of the "I've Seen Someone's Pants Inflate Like a Balloon Club." The force of it has caused Hagridmitch to pass out, so I survey the scene in silence. It's grim, all right. This isn't even the kind of situation where it'd be best to throw the underwear out. I think the only option here might be to throw Hagridmitch himself out.

  Pita pops his head out of a nearby vase.

  "All this hubbub has awoken the Pita-snake from his snake-charming basket!" he says, rolling his shoulders all around and waving his arms up and down.

  "Pita, what the hell are you doing in there?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. "And did you really think those binoculars would work from inside a sealed ceramic container?"

  "Sss!" he says. "You must leave immediately! The venom of the Pita-snake is dangerous; very dangerous indeed! One ounce could fill you with endless love for the first boy you lay eyes on." He wiggles his neck and moves towards me with puckered lips. “Now, let’s spice things up a little,” he says. “Put this on.”

  “No! I am not putting on a neon green leather snake costume! How did you even get it?”

  “That’s not important. The only thing that matters is to not put it on all that convincingly, because I’m really scared of snakes. Maybe put a t-shirt on over it? Or wear one of those hats that looks like a baby rabbit.”