“Bratniss!” she hisses, her face turning bright red. “You’re humiliating me!”
“No need to get fussy. I’ll use some of my mommy magic to get it down,” I say, licking my hand and stretching it out towards her.
“Stop!” she cries. “I’m not a baby, Bratniss!”
I want to protest, but in my heart, I know she’s right.
“Shoot, I’m sorry, Pig. It’s just, you’re my little sister. I guess I can be overprotective sometimes…”
Her frown begins to fade. Stepping forward, she wraps her arms around me and gives me a hug. I lean down to whisper in her ear.
“Now, I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends. But do you want to do a quick diaper check before you go inside?”
“AAARGH!” she yells, breaking free of my grasp and running inside.
The rest of us file in slowly, under the watchful eyes of the group of insane murderers the Capitol uses as a police force—the ‘Peace’keepers, a name so blatantly ironic that they added the quotes themselves. People say that in the Dark Days, our school was a maximum-security prison. Funny. Seems fitting, when you consider that both prisons and schools are known for serving sub-par food and having group exercise yards.
“All right, you worthless pieces of trash!” shouts a ‘Peace’keeper as the thick steel gate clangs shut behind us. “Into your holding cells!”
A muscle-bound guard tosses me into the barbed wire enclosure that surrounds my desk. All around me, I hear the sounds of my classmates slamming into the rough floor, crying out in pain when they accidentally brush against the wire, that cursed devil’s rope, the bane of our existence. I sigh. Back to the grind.
“Hey, Bratniss! How was your summer?” comes a voice to the side of me.
It’s Magma, the daughter of Slum 12’s mayor. Her desk enclosure is right next to mine. Though we occasionally talk, I wouldn’t call her a friend. As the mayor’s daughter, she leads a life of luxury I can scarcely imagine: clothes not made out of briers and tumbleweeds, a water source that only has a few dead horses in it. As a result, there’s little we can connect over.
“Oh, pretty good. I found a new way to scrape rotting hunks of food out of deer intestines. It makes it a lot easier to dry the stomachs and make them into a tough jerky you can gnaw on while you’re hunting.”
From the look on her face, I can tell I’ve said the exact wrong thing. The barf that comes out of her mouth is probably another indication. I struggle to think of how to smooth things over, but never get the chance. The classroom door swings open, and in walks Ms. Woodruff. Tall, blond, and dressed in impeccably pressed rags, she cuts an imposing figure.
“Good morning, students. Let me be the first to say, ‘Welcome back.’ That, and, don’t forget that talking out of turn will result in immediate death by sniper. Now, what do we say to the sniper for giving his time to help us learn?”
“Thank you, Mr. Sniper,” we murmur.
“Have a good year, kids!” he replies with a cheery wave, up in his watchtower. I shake my head. How anyone can feel cheery on the first day of school is beyond me.
We start with history. I open my book to the first page. Like all pages of all schoolbooks in Pandumb, it is nothing but the sentence “Pandumb is great,” over and over. I take out my pen and begin to carefully trace every word, as is required by law. Call me a nerd if you want, but it’s sort of neat that to realize that by the end of the year, we’ll have gotten through this entire book!
As we trace, Ms. Woodruff relates the history of Pandumb, which we’ve heard countless times. How it rose out of the ruined societies of the Dark Days to bring stability and prosperity to the entire continent. How eventually, the government realized that, instead of peace and stability, what people really like is evil and sadness and dying. How a group of traitors rebelled, lost, and were forced to send their children to a yearly death tournament as punishment.
But suddenly, for the first time, something about it seems strange to me. So, when Ms. Woodruff asks if anybody has any questions, I do something that no self-respecting kid should ever do: I voluntarily ask one. The class turns and stares at me (as best they can, anyway, since our neck shackles don’t allow much head-movement).
“I don’t get it,” I say. “Why is that the only way?”
“I have no idea what you mean, Bratniss,” she says.
“Wouldn’t other ways work better? Like, what if they exclusively starved us? If that’s all they focused on, we’d probably be much weaker, and just want to lie around on the dirt all day.”
She shakes her head in exasperation. “You know as well as I do that scientists in the Capitol have proven that nobody ever rebels because of death tournaments. It’s the Fifth Law of Thermodynamics, for crying out loud. And you know that the Rebels themselves agreed to the Hunger But Mainly Death Games when they were invited to help the Capitol draft a new Constitution.”
“If that’s the case, why are the parts the Rebels signed filled with written-down screams of torture?”
“That was back when pens became sentient for a little while. The Rebels were probably squeezing them too hard.”
My blood starts to rise. This is too much! Not every adult can be as insane as my mom. Some of them must like their kids! And for them, the very idea of the Hunger But Mainly Death Games must be infuriating beyond belief! Especially that year when there was no food in the arena, and the only weapons were machines that let you make bacon from humans!
But there’s no time to dwell on it, because then the bell rings and, Woo-hoo! Half day! We rush out happily and run down to the Square, where the Reaming is about to take place. I know it’s stupid for us to be excited - we’re all aware that all half days, like snow days, end in utter misery.
When we reach the Square, we break out into groups and have to try to assign ourselves to the correct holding pen in order of birth month, all without speaking. Then we have to get in a circle and hold hands with people across from us in such a way that we form a “human knot,” which we then have to untangle from without letting go of each other. Neither of these have anything to do with the Reaming—they’re just stupid team-building games the government makes us play in an attempt to calm us down, so that the Square isn’t flooded with nervous pee. After that, the Mayor takes the stage.
“Good afternoon, citizens,” he says solemnly, looking out from the podium in his most formal full-body Uggs. “Today, we celebrate Reaming Day, which is sure to become yet another shining mayonnaise emerald in the exquisite diadem that is Slum 12’s history. As is customary, I will now read a list of your fellow citizens’ greatest accomplishments in the Games.” He pulls out two note cards and begins to read.
“First, we had a winner one time.” He moves on to his second card. “Second, when we died the other seventy-three times, it wasn’t always accompanied by crying and pleading.”
“Thank you,” he concludes. “Now, please give your undivided attention to this message from President Satanman.”
A large screen is unfurled at the back of the stage, and the image of a silver-haired man in a neatly tailored black suit appears on it. He glares out at the audience with his piercing red eyes, softly growling.
“Greetings, Slum 12,” he begins, with a crooked sneer that exposes a row of razor-sharp steel teeth. “Extremely evil greetings. I have one question for you all: Are you ready to die?”
I shudder. For some reason, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something...evil about this man. He licks his lips with his forked tongue and continues.
“You’d better be ready. For, as we say in the Capitol, ‘Garbage men deserve a garbage death, where garbage means painful.’”
With President Satanman done, the Mayor calls up a short, squat woman in a garish pink wig, with a garish living Furbie growing from the side of her head. Her name is Oofie Triptrip, and she is the official agent for Slum 12 sacrifices.
“Greetings, slaves!” she shouts merrily, as she heads
over to the old Powerball machine. Inside, there is a Powerball with each of our names on it. The crowd is getting tense, either because they’re wondering who will be picked, or because they have a vague feeling that even though lotteries no longer exist, they still have a chance to win.
The machine spits out a pink ball. So, a girl has been chosen first. That must be a good omen—I’m a girl, so the odds of them calling both a girl and one named Bratniss must be extremely low.
And I’m right. The name on that pink girl’s ball is not Bratniss.
It’s Pita Malarkey.
Every single person in the crowd bursts into laughter at the gender-based mix-up, as if it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened in Slum 12. Come to think of it, it might be. As you’ve probably noticed, things are pretty grim around here. People have to devote so much of their time to survival that they don’t have much left over to develop senses of humor. I mean, this is Slum 12’s most popular joke:
Q. What is black, filled with trash, and men work in it?
A. A mine.
So, yeah. Top Slum 12 woodchip dollar might be shelled out to put spoiled mustard on the dinner table, but ask a Slum 12 local why the chicken crossed the road and he might beat you up for knowing where a chicken is.
But the idea of suggesting that someone is the opposite gender is so earth-shatteringly hilarious to the townspeople that they can’t help but laugh and laugh. It’s a sound I’ve heard so few times before in Slum 12. And despite the joy behind it, to me the sound brings a sort of heartache. For this is the laughter of the destitute, the malnourished, and those mysteriously fat people that Third World societies always seem to have. These laughs are pained and shallow, interspersed with high, lonesome yips and barks followed by panting and sniffing, and then back to the bark—Wait a second! Get out of here, hyenas! Shoo! Shoo!
The hyenas flee down the street. In the Square, their laughter has been replaced with shrill Pita-shrieks. “I’m not a girl!” he cries. “Wait, I mean, don’t make me go to the Games!”
But the crowd is having none of it, and has begun chanting at him:
Pita is a girl,
Pita is a girl,
Rah, rah, shish-koom-ba,
Pita is a girl.
But not everyone in Slum 12 is so mean-spirited. Some of them chant something moderately encouraging:
Pita is a girl,
Pita is a girl,
We hope you do well in the tournament, Pita,
But still you are a girl.
One man begins to belt out something a little different…
Party rock is in the house tonight,
Everybody just have a good—BZZZZZT
BZZZZZT BZZZZZT BZZZZZT
…before a line of laser beams quickly cuts him down. The ‘Peace’keepers are stridently anti-LMFAO. Of course, they’re also anti-laughter. But the politicians would never ban laughter outright, since they enjoy laughing at people who are worse off than they are. After the lasering, the ‘Peace’keepers make their way through the crowd, showing anybody who’s laughing sad pictures, like of puppies stranded in the rain and that sort of thing. Gradually, there is silence, aside from a group of boys in my class high-fiving each other to celebrate their successful pranking of Pita, and, in the distance, the gentle drizzle of hyenas peeing on our buildings.
Up onstage, Pita looks more helpless and pee-pantsed than ever. The Malarkeys are bakers by trade, not scariness-of-being-selected-for-a-death-tournament-ignorers, and Pita is no exception. In fact, he might be the most unsuitable choice for the Games in Slum 12 history. Ah, wait, what am I talking about? That’s always going to be that boy who was born without bones.
But Pita might be a close second. How close? Well, he’s so afraid of bees that he won’t even spell the word. Instead, he writes it as “b - -”, which doesn’t solve anything, because as soon as he sees it, he remembers that the letter and the word sound the same, and he starts screaming because, “Ahh! It’s a bee shooting its stingers at me!”
Another example: you’ll often see him walking around the Crack carrying a seatbelt. No, there aren’t any cars in Slum 12. He uses that seatbelt to strap himself into regular seats. Ask him why and he’ll solemnly explain that “a chair is unsafe at any speed.”
So, does that clear things up for you?
As he stares out at the crowd in terror, our eyes meet for a moment. I quickly avert my gaze. Not because I can’t stand to see him like this. But, because, well…there’s one little thing I forgot to mention about Pita. He’s in love with me. Madly, insanely, stalkerishly in love with me. And it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.
I think back to the first day of nursery school. When my father dropped me off that morning, I had cried and screamed: I was worried that it might disrupt my plans to hunt one million percent of the time, and, of course, I was correct. Even worse, it was clear that none of my classmates shared my interests. They were way more interested in learning the alphabet or whatever than they were in learning how to rip a moose in half with their bare hands. Then make a helmet out of its skull. Then to use that helmet to help kill more moose. Collect the skull helmets. Combine. Assemble. Super moose skull helmet. Infinite power.
But shortly after I arrived, I saw a dress-up chest in the corner. My spirits rose: I could hurl it through one of the windows and escape! I rushed over. When I picked it up, though, its top flew open, and a boy popped his head up out of the layers of clothing.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Pita.”
“Why are you wearing a tiara?” I asked.
“Because when I grow up, I’m going to be the prettiest prince in all the land! And you,” he said, hopping out, “Will be my pretty pretty Princess!”
“Nuh-uh,” I said, astounded.
“Yes-huh,” he replied. “Maybe you aren’t ready yet. I get it. This is a new situation, you want time to explore it, play with a block or two, eat some Play-Doh. I get it. Go wild. But one day, I’m going to make you mine.”
I couldn’t believe the audacity of this tiara-wearing three-year-old boy. Who was he to talk to a three-and-a-half-year-old this way?
“You’re wrong!” I shouted. “I’m never going to be--”
The next thing I knew, Pita smashed through the very window I had been planning to escape from.
“Aaah!” I could hear him shouting as he ran out deep into the woods, “Bee! Beeeeeeeeeee! BEEEEEEEEEEE! BE-e-E-e-EEE-e-E-eeee!”
Since that day, Pita Malarkey has pursued me relentlessly. He’s tried to snare me with gifts, like the time in second grade that he got me a Barbie, which is this kind of prehistoric doll my father would occasionally dig up and give to me to show how fat people used to be.
When gifts failed, he tried to snare me by becoming a sort of platonic best friend, which he hoped would eventually lead to me falling in love with him, after we became close enough for me to see “the real Pita.”
“Who are the hot boys? Dish it, sista!” he would say, “Let’s rollerblade over to their houses, so you can flirt!”
All of this is bad enough, but recently, there’s been a development that’s even worse: I think Pita might be getting a bit…stalkery. I can’t be sure, but there was an incident a few months ago that got me thinking. Thinking that maybe, Pita was trying another route to my heart. One through my father.
Or rather, by replacing my father. Because one afternoon, the doorbell rang, and there on our doorstep sat a massive loaf of bread in the shape of a human, with a big nametag that read “Loaf Erickson.” My mom looked the crusty Nordic breadfellow over and screamed with joy, “I am instantly in love with you!
Like any stepfather made entirely of bread, Loaf had some curious habits. He would lie completely still for incredibly long periods of time and, each week without fail, he would grow what I had to swear was a full-body mold beard. But that didn’t matter. He was warm, soft, and smelled of butter. My mother swooned. Meanwhile, I noticed that one of Loaf’s eyes was a video camera.
I also noticed that inside Loaf’s stomach was a sound recorder, that one of his feet had a vacuum in it that collected hair, and that higher up, in the calf, was a hair-doll maker. Loaf’s right eye had what appeared to be an infrared camera. For a supposedly normal bread-stepdad, he had a lot of stalking gadgetry baked inside him. In other words, Loaf Erickson stunk of Pita.
I sent Loaf to bread hell on a stormy night. “What are you doing?!” shouted my mother when she walked into the kitchen to find me assembling knives, cups of water and other bread-unfriendly weapons. But before I could explain that this was a routine surgery and that no, no, nothing to see here, move along please, ignore any yeasty screams, she had brandished a blade from her mom cane, and told me that whatever I did unto Loaf would befall me, except tenfold.
“Why are you suddenly speaking in biblical terms, mo—”
“Layeth thou one fingereth on my Loaf, and thou shalt die, daughter of thine.”
“Mine. You mean mine.”
“Whatever. Also no allowance for one week.”
“Mom, you’ve never given me an allowance.”
“I’ll kill you!”
So it came down to a simple choice: kill Loaf and be killed by mom, or let Pita spy on me. The choice was simple.
It’s incredible how easily a wet knife slides through a bread-man’s neck. I’ll never forget the sound of my mother’s hatchet scraping against the walls as she methodically pursued me that night. “Bratniss, Bratniss, come meet your new daddy. He’s long and hatchet-y, and he can’t wait to meet you,” she sang out.
I’m pulled back to the present by Pita’s shrieks. “No! I am not a girl!” he wails through his shirt, which he has stretched over his head in an attempt to hide his tears. He’s crying so hard now that he’s getting that fat kid in a white t-shirt at a pool look. “How can this be happening to me? Mr. Bear, what are we going to do?” He glances down at his side, and his face turns white. “Oh my God. Mr. Bear, where are you? Are you hiding behind my bed again? This is no time for your silly bear games! I need you right now!”
The Hunger But Mainly Death Games: A Parody Page 2
