“What are they like?” one woman yells, with tears streaming down her face. “Let me touch you!”
The last out of the limo are the sacrifices from Slum 3, whose citizens are known for their proficiency at practical jokes. The girl, whose name isn’t announced for some reason, points towards the chest of a man in the front row, as if there’s something on his shirt. When he looks down, she pulls out a bat and whacks him in the side of the head. The boy, P’rank, has a cap gun loaded with fart-caps. Every few seconds, he puts it near his butt and pulls the trigger, to waves of rapturous laughter.
They are shown to their seats, a set of six golden thrones. Next to each throne crouches an attendant holding grapes to dangle into the occupant’s mouth. They sit down, Glamorrhea has her chauffeur spit into her grape dangler’s face for good measure, and then the lights dim.
The stadium goes silent as a drumroll begins, before ending spectacularly with the appearance of Nero Flickabooger, the storied Hunger But Mainly Death Games Interrogator.
On the gargantuan Jumbotron video board which, from where I’m sitting, is about the size of quarter, I can see him begin his routine.
“Good evening, ladies...” he says, whipping his head dramatically, splashing everyone in the first few rows with makeup, “…and gentlemen. And welcome, welcome, to the 74th—”
“Do the head thing!” someone shouts.
Nero seems tickled. “Oh, surely you don’t want to see me do the head thing!”
“YES! YES WE DO!” come agitated cries from throughout the stadium.
“If you insist!” he says, and then rips his head off of his shoulders and starts juggling it along with several Vidalia onions.
“Hey, Nero!” the head calls out as it sails through a flaming hula hoop, high in the air. “What did the sacrifice say to the other sacrifice?”
Nero’s body shrugs and taps its foot impatiently.
“Help! I’m dying! Because you killed me!” the head replies, landing back on Nero’s neck.
A laugh track plays as a metallic voice booms over the speakers, “LAUGH NOW.”
The audience breaks out into uncontrollable laughter.
“LAUGH STOP,” the voice says. And just like that, the Interrogations have begun.
“Darling, you are simply fantastic!” Nero belts out, before Glamorrhea can even get out of her throne to come to the stage.
She takes this as her cue and saunters over. Nero kisses her on both cheeks, and then both cheeks of her face, too.
“Hiiii, Nero,” she brays. “And helloooo, Pandumb!” The crowd roars its approval.
“Why is it that you’re so beautiful and perfect?” Nero asks.
“Probably because my dad got me this sick boob job for my sixteenth birthday.”
“Parents are so important, aren’t they? Now, tell me, what’s your strategy for winning the Hunger But Mainly Death Games?”
“I’m going to be an evil, catty bitch to anyone I don’t like.”
“How wonderful, dear!” Nero beams. “How wonderful and honorable. Do you have anything you’d like to say to the crowd before you go?”
“You’re all ugly and you’ll never find husbands.”
“Glamorrhea, everyone!” Nero shouts. “The beautiful, incandescent Glamorrhea!”
As soon as she’s offstage, everything goes black, and a song with a thundering bass line begins to play. A spotlight locks onto Scar, who walks onstage rapping: “You are now watchin’ the throne, don’t let me into my zone!”
Behind him, a video screen unfurls from the rafters. In between images of volcanoes erupting and lightning crashing, we see flashes of Scar. There he is, dunking a basketball and smashing the rim onto the fans behind it; knocking a soccer ball through the goalkeeper on a penalty kick; hitting a massive grand slam that causes the stands to collapse; and helping out at a local soup kitchen, but still managing to look pretty tough.
“You are now watchin’ the throne, don’t let me into my zone! Don’t let me into my zone! I’m definitely in my zone!”
“Oh, no! Don’t do it, folks!” Nero yells theatrically. “Don’t let this unstoppable killing machine into his zone!”
But it’s too late, I guess?
“RAAAAAA!” Scar screams. “I am in my zone! Do you hear that? RAAAAAA!”
Then the music cuts out, the lights come back on, and Scar plops down in his Interrogation chair.
“It’s such an honor to have you here, Scar. We’re all huge fans, and I’m gonna go ahead and ask you what everyone is wondering right now: what are your plans for after the Games?”
“Well,” Scar begins, taking a big bite out of a protein bar, “I’d like to take some time to give back to the community that made me so strong and bloodthirsty. That’s why I’ve started The Scar Foundation. It’s all about leveling the playing field, and, let’s be honest, it’s going to look amazing on a college application. We focus on underprivileged rich kids.”
“That is simply amazing. It’s so rare to find a young man who—”
“Hate to interrupt you, big guy,” says Scar, rising from his chair. “But I’ve got a 7PM. Golf lessons.”
“Oh, of course, of course, don’t let us keep...oh, okay, so he’s already gone! Scar, everybody!”
Nero looks down at a notecard. “Next, we have the sacrifices of Slum 2. They say they’d like to be interrogated together, and that...only a hero can save us? I’m not sure what that means, and I don’t think a dual interrogation is necessarily allowed by—”
But Nero is cut short by the opening chords of Nickelback’s “Hero,” which Emily and Dylancobra sing soulfully as a montage of pictures of themselves with Glamorrhea and Scar rolls behind. Looking closely, I can see that some of the pictures are just of Glamorrhea and Scar with Emily or Dylancobra photoshopped into the background.
After it ends, the stadium is eerily silent, until Nero starts clapping firmly.
“Bravo, bravo,” he says, wiping away a tear. “I think I speak for all of us when I say, that was stunning. It really brought the tragedy of all of this home, the tragedy that both Glamorrhea and Scar can’t win. If only we had some delightful merry pranksters to alleviate this pain.”
Nero is in luck, because up next is the girl from Slum 3, who regales the audience with the story of the time she got her hands on three pigs, numbered them 1, 2, and 4, and set them loose in her school, while she shot everything up with an assault rifle. The crowd can’t get enough of it, and a steady stream of laughter-induced pee flows down from the seats. She continues by describing an “old party goof” of hers: when people pass out at parties, she takes a sharpie and draws a dotted line around their neck to make cutting their head off easier.
The pee flows faster and harder, so much so that the stadium enema man slips on the pee and tumbles down the steps, cracking his skull open. This only increases the laughter, and more and more pee gushes down, turning his body this way and that. As the girl from Slum 3 leaves the stage, she is treated to a rousing standing ovation. But when she sits down, she surprises everyone by letting out an ear-shattering fart. Her face turns crimson, and she reaches beneath her seat and pulls out a fart machine.
“Aww, yeah!” shouts P’rank, popping up in the back of the stadium, holding a remote control. “PRANKBOY IS IN DA HOUSE!”
He runs through the aisles getting high fives. If there’s one thing the citizens of the Capitol find funnier than horrible violence, it’s fart noises. No one has any pee left, so they switch over to poop instead. P’rank masterfully poopboards onstage and takes the opportunity to show off his entire repertoire, which includes, among other fart-things, running around in a pair of shoes that make farting noises with every step he takes, a fartkazoo, a small jar of fart putty you must smush your fingers into just to make it stop farting, a Fart Boy portable gaming console, and a clay model of a butt into which P’rank pours vinegar and baking soda.
Nero is on his knees by the end of it. “Ooh! Ooh! Stop, please stop!” h
e begs, pounding the ground with his fists.
P’rank steps up, slides the mic out of his hand, and then looks around slyly. He raises it to his lips and says, “Fart.”
Several people in the crowd instantly drop over dead. Amongst the surviving laughers is a red-faced Nero, who finally manages to snatch the mic away from P’rank and gasp out, “Well there you have them! This year’s Hunger But Mainly Death Games sacrifices! Good night, everyone!”
Streamers cascade down from the ceiling as a guy with a headset rushes out from backstage and whispers something into Nero’s ear. Nero rolls his eyes and mutters, “We have to do all of them?”
The guy with the headset nods.
“Oh, fine. Line ’em up.”
The rest of us are hustled down to the stage, where Nero sits scowling. Crap, I was really banking on getting a detailed understanding of each of my competitors here. What was I thinking when I skipped those mixers where “Get to know your fellow sacrifices” mixers, where everyone got together and explained their weaknesses? I’ll have to try my best to glean what I can from their appearances.
But it’s difficult, since Nero manages only a few perfunctory words to each of them.
“Hello. Goodbye.”
“When I was your age...well, never mind. Next!”
“Cool wheelchair, kid.”
Okay, I’ll have to focus on a handful of sacrifices and hope that they’re somehow the ones who end up playing an important role in the Games. Let’s see:
There’s the girl from Slum 5, who has a fork cleanly lodged in her head. I miss her name, but I’m pretty confident that it’s “Forkface.” And something tells me that this girl is smart. I’m not sure what it is. It’s definitely not the song she keeps singing: “Take fork out, put fork in! That’s how me me Forkface win!” But there’s a spark in her small, dull eyes that you can’t miss.
Then there are these feral kids from Slum 8, who were raised by wolves, and whom I’ve got this weird feeling about. I don’t know, there’s just something about them that tells me they are going to be supremely important down the line.
There’s also Roo, a tiny sacrifice from Slum 11, who, from what I can tell, was born with a tiny pouch on her stomach for carrying her young, and little velvet flaps under her arms that let her glide from tree to tree. She’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. “I can roll into an armadillo ball, so don’t count me out!” she says to Nero’s back.
Her male counterpart, Bear, doesn’t share her bubbly personality, but wows the crowd with his thick, black pelt, his lumbering frame, and his ability to balance a ball on top of his nose.
And then, just like that, it’s my turn. As Nero walks toward me, I look down at my felt utility belt and my cardboard batarangs. And suddenly, I think that maybe, just maybe, Cinnabon knew what he was doing. After all, who is Batman, anyway? He’s the Dark Knight! The Caped Crusader! The only ray of light in the darkness that is Gotham! And he’s just the superhero to show these people, every last one of them, that Bratniss Everclean is not a name to be taken lightly.
I step into the spotlight, and face the crowd.
“WHERE’S JOKER!” I growl.
“Oh,” Nero says, backing away from me. “Disgusting. Dear God, please get off the stage.”
I’m strapped down to a gurney and carted away immediately. That could have gone better. As I’m being wheeled away, I catch a glimpse of Pita dropping something as he walks past Nero. As soon as it hits the floor, he rushes to grab it, but Nero gets there first, and holds up a small notebook for everyone to see.
“Now, now, what do we have here?” he crows.
“Not my diary!” Pita gasps. “I mean, not my journal! It’s a journal!”
“That’s odd,” says Caesar, pulling a thick shiny book from his pocket. “Then why is it called “Lisa Frank’s My First Diary?”
“It doesn’t matter what it’s called. I write journaly things in there. Whatever, you’ll never guess my password!”
Caesar types something into a little keypad on the front of the book.
“Is it…HORSES?” he asks.
“Darnit!” Pita says, as the diary flies open.
“Ooh, la la! Today’s entry! How delicious!” Nero says, and then begins to read: “‘Dear Diary, Today was the best day of my life. Because today is the day I started dating Bratniss Everclean.”
What. The. Heck. Is. Going. On. I. Might. Have. To. Murder. Pita. Right. Here. And. Now.
Damage control, damage control. I have to do something to divert attention from Pita’s insane lie, and fast. I can’t let everyone think we’re an actual couple. And not because it’s embarrassing. I don’t care what these people think about me. But I do care about what Pita thinks. He’s already proven himself to be nothing short of insane when it comes to liking me. Mix in a little positive reinforcement here, a few mixed signals there, and toss us both into the Games, and who can predict how he’ll act?
It’s too late, though. The crowd roars its approval. One Capitol man screams out, “This is the cutest, most adorable thing everrrr!”
Some woman yells, “High school couples are meant to be together forever!”
Another woman says, “Soon you will have a baby!” More faceless voices join in.
“The baby comes from inside you!”
“Have you seen that movie Alien?”
“You are with the boy you love FOREVER now!”
I guess this is what happens when a society replaces all of its universities with state-sponsored Us Weekly Re-Education Centers.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. When you get your first boyfriend, it’s supposed to be a magical experience. Birds are singing, harps are playing, and the Internet is running smoothly so that he can ask you to be his girlfriend through whatever instant messaging program you’re using. But this? Having someone crazy try to make me their girlfriend by lying on national television? (And, yes, I promise he’s lying. I’m not being an unreliable narrator, here. I haven’t been holding anything back from you. Except for the bathroom scenes.)
“Well, that’s all the time we have,” Nero says, as he reaches out to shake Pita’s hand. But he stops, looks at his watch and pulls his hand back. “Whoops, running late. Silly me.”
“No worries,” Pita begins, beaming, “It’s been great speaking with you, Mr.—”
SHOOMPF. Pita falls through the trap door beneath him.
And with that, the Black Eyed Peas are immediately teleported back on stage.
But I’m not interested in listening to that quiet Native American one sing his new solo album. My mind is on one thing, and one thing only: finding Pita and putting an end to this. And then checking my Facebook profile to make sure he hasn’t hacked in and accepted his own Relationship request.
But when I get back to the training center, I can’t find him anywhere. I’ve really got to make this quick, so I can do some solemn reflecting about the Games. After all, this is the night before the tournament. I’ll definitely need to start planning that escape I’ve been meaning to make for weeks. But I think finding Pita and having a fight with him will really help me stop procrastinating about it.
I search and I search. I look underneath beds, in ventilation shafts, and I even check inside a few of those comically large birthday cakes lying around. I’m running out of time. But as night turns to day, I still haven’t found Pita, and I have no choice but to give up. I walk back into my room and angrily kick a pillow off the top of a pile. Strange light pours out, and I can hear the muted beeps of a sonar machine. I poke my head in. Maybe the submarine commander who must be inside can use that sonar to help me locate—oh, it’s a pillow-fort stalking command center. And you can probably guess who’s captain of this ship.
“PITA!” I shout, kicking aside another pillow.
“Hey! That’s one of my…uh, learning center’s main structural supports!” he shouts back, while trying to obscure the hand-drawn map he’s working on, labeled ‘Where Bratniss Is.’ �
�What are you trying to do, have all these blankets and maybe a couch cushion fall on me?”
“What do you think you were doing during the Interrogations?” I yell. “You had no right to say that!”
“It’s okay, sweetyboopkins. Pitabear is sorry to have revealed our little secret, but it’s time for us to be brave. Time for us to stand up to the culture that won’t let us declare our love. I know it seems wrong, a boy and a…girl.”
“No, you idiot! You had no right to say we that we’re dating! If you want me to be your girlfriend, you have to ask me! And I have to say yes!”
“Oh!” he exclaims, his eyes lighting up. “Bratniss, will you be my—”
“No! No, I won’t! Because I don’t like you! And even if I did, I wouldn’t date you because we’re about to be in a death tournament! We may have to kill each other! Has that not registered in your brain yet?”
He adjusts his pants uneasily. “Hmm, kind of regretting the decision to wear whipped cream boxers right now…”
“Listen to me!” I snap. “Drop all of this right now, and let me focus on the Games!”
He looks up at me ruefully. “Bratniss, what you’ve shown me is that your teenaged brain still isn’t fully-developed. In fact, you’d probably rather be with some vampire, or something. But he won’t treat you the way I will, Bratniss. And, were I a lesser boy, I’d let you learn that the hard way. But I can’t. I can’t let you get your heart broken right in the middle of the Games.” He stands up, his voice growing stronger. “So, no! I won’t stop!” He looks down at his watch. “Look at the time! 12:10PM! Happy one day and thirty-five minute anniversary, baby!”
12:10? That can’t be right! If it’s past noon, that means the Hunger But Mainly Death Games started ten minutes ago! Oh, when will these terrifying twists stop wreaking havoc on my life?
But before I can do anything, Oofie bursts through the roof access and yells, “COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO DIE!”
The Hunger But Mainly Death Games: A Parody Page 8
