The Hunger Pains (7 page)

“What the hell were you thinking back there?” Buttitch shouts. “You didn’t cough once!”

“Uh … more to da point,” Effu interjects, “why did ya punch Pita?”

“Because he said he liked me,” I explain patiently, “in front of
people.
” Duh.
Why doesn’t anybody understand where I’m coming from?

“He made ya desirable!” Effu retorts. “Now dat Pita has said he likes you, everybody else will too. Dat’s how relationships work, Kantkiss!”

I am starting to waver. Maybe my team has a point. Maybe I was too harsh with Pita when I punched him in the face as hard as I could.

Just then Pita stumbles into the room, crying. “You … you hit me so
hard
,” he manages between tears.

“I’m sorry, Pita,” I say. “I shouldn’t have punched you.”

Pita cheers up when he hears my apology. “Even though my face still stings,” he says, “my feelings don’t hurt anymore. And feelings are what matter.”

We watch the replay of the interviews over dinner, and my team assures me that my punching gaffe didn’t ruin the starstruck lovers angle. “I thought you were putting a scary mummy love curse on him,” says Cinnabon.

Then it is time to say good-bye to Buttitch and Effu. There won’t be time tomorrow. Effu wishes me good luck in the arena but refuses to shake my hand. “What if one of my high society friends is watching troo da window?” she says.

“Any final advice?” I ask Buttitch.

“Stay alive,” he grunts. Then he leans into my ear and whispers, “And kill Pita on the fourth day with a blunt instrument. You put me in a real hole with that coughing business.”

I promise him I’ll think about it. On my way to my room, I see Pita staring out the window. He looks over the Capital’s skyline, lost in thought.

“What’s on your mind?” I ask him.

“I just hope …” he begins emotionally, “I just hope that all of the tributes will stay friends after the Hunger Games end!”

Groaning, I walk to my bedroom and fall asleep. It’s not easy. I’m pretty nervous about tomorrow, the start of the Games.

Cinnabon wakes me up the next morning and takes me to the roof, where a hovercraft is waiting for us. A Pacemaker tells me to be still and sticks a needle in my forehead.

“Ouch!” I exclaim.

“Shhh … That’s just your tracker,” Cinnabon reassures me, “so that the Capital will know where you are at all times.”

“But they take it out after the Hunger Games end, right?” I ask. “Say that I returned to the Capital as part of a secret revolution … hypothetically speaking, of course. Would they be able to track me?”

“Of course not!” the Pacemaker says, aghast. “The Capital takes your personal privacy very seriously in this one particular case! You have rights, you know.” I breathe a sigh of relief.

As Cinnabon and I board the hovercraft, a Pacemaker walks by with a large cowbell. “We ran out of trackers,” he explains. “One tribute will have to make do with this.”

The hovercraft journey is short. Before I know it, we land and I am ushered to my platform in the launch room. Any minute now I will enter the arena and the Games will begin.

“I almost forgot to give you this,” Cinnabon says, taking out my THE CAPITAL SUCKS! pin and fastening it on my outfit. “It barely cleared inspections because of how sharp it is. You’re lucky. The inspectors declared one tribute’s token a weapon, and he was disqualified on the spot.”

I gulp. “What happened to him?”

Cinnabon shakes his head sadly. “He was immediately sent home. He will never have the honor of competing in the Hunger Games.”

Just then a voice booms over the arena’s loudspeakers, “Errwl halwannn hoanwah wohhhhh!”

“Bear with us, folks,” another announcer’s voice follows. “Greg, our announcer, is a Notalks from our Jobs for Felons program. He was trying to say, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Hunger Games!’”

M
y tube rises into the arena. The golden Cornucrapia lies
straight ahead, its mouth brimming with weapons and supplies. The Varsities will no doubt call first pick on the Hula-Hoops. I can survive by exercising my core with old-fashioned Pilates, but I seethe with jealousy to think of them toning so easily. The inexperienced tributes will go straight for the stacks of old
TV Guide
s, which look great but you can find all that information online nowadays. Buttitch would want me to run for the forest immediately, but that’s just because he fears strong independent women. I refuse to let gender roles decide whether or not I am bludgeoned to death with a pogo stick.

Before we begin, I take a look at my surroundings. All things considered, I lucked out on location. There’s a lake for water, a forest for cover, and a synagogue for prayer.

During the training period, I overheard horror stories about the Forty-Fourth Hunger Games. They say it took
place in an Arby’s. Those who weren’t killed by the other tributes willingly starved to death. Other years were no better. An abandoned coal mine, a nonabandoned hippie commune, inside a whale: I could be a lot worse off.

The voice of Greg the Announcer booms over the intercom. “Leh ah sebity fawb Ugga Gaes bega!”

For a moment, all is silent. “Um, what?” asks a visibly confused Pita.

“Ah se, leh ah Gaes bega!” repeats Greg.

A few of the tributes look at each other and shrug. Suddenly a brighter, clearer voice comes over the intercom. “Hey, great job there, Greg. This is Greg’s supervisor again, and just to reiterate, ‘Let the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games begin!’”

The intercom clicks off, and I begin counting down the sixty seconds until I can move. Until then, we’re bound to our starting discs by a strict honor code (the television broadcast is at a commercial break).

I stare at the Cornucrapia and weigh my options. The Blu-ray player thirty yards in will be useful if I find any
Will & Grace
box sets, but a pristine pair of Hulk Hands lies twenty yards to its right. About ten yards off I spy a pot lid, glimmering in the sunlight. People tell stories in the Crack about a boy winning the Hunger Games with just a pot lid, although back then they took place in Japan and were referred to as
Battle Royale.

Past the Cornucrapia, I spot an ugly tribute from District 5, who looks a lot like a dog. I cleverly decide to nickname
her Dogface. Right now she’s staring into space absentmindedly, picking her nose.

My best plan looks like taking the Ouija board right in the Cornucrapia. Ghosts make powerful allies. I’m all set to go for it when I see Pita waving to get my attention. “Kantkiss,” he yells, “don’t go for the Cornucrapia. Go to the woods. For God’s sake, please go to the woods. Going to the Cornucrapia is something an idiot would do.”
What does he mean? Does he want me to go to the Cornucrapia or not?

I’m still trying to figure him out when the cannon goes off, and the other tributes leave me in the dust.
Stupid Pita! Why did you rush me at the listening comprehension station?

It’s too late to snag the goods in the Cornucrapia. Gatsby has taken all the Dijon mustard, and Dogface is eating the baseball I was eyeing. There are still plenty of roast turkeys left, but after all the braised peacock I ate in the Capital, I’m not ready to go back to peasant food just yet. Everything else is being snatched up right in front of me. The tree I could hide in? Smash is hugging it. The bathroom scale I could throw? A fat tribute is standing on it. The automatic rifle I could shoot? It’s right next to me, but I’m afraid I’ll appear desperate.

Not wanting to leave empty-handed, I grab a black backpack five feet in front of me. I know this backpack will stick out like a sore thumb against any pumpkin patches or traffic cone sculptures I run into, so I grab a can of orange paint for camouflage. I’m about to make a break for the woods when I feel something tug at my pack. It’s one of the other tributes! I knew I should have painted the bag immediately.

“Give me that!” he shouts. He’s about to pull it clear off my back when he goes stiff, like a cow the second before you punch it.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. He just stands there, blindly clutching for his own back. “Suddenly my backpack isn’t good enough for you?” I rail on. He stumbles sideways and starts coughing blood like a holier-than-thou jerk, mocking my equipment in what must be the traditional mockery dance of his district. He’s trying to psych me out, make me feel inadequate about my gear. He finally falls over and I see the knife sticking out of his back. I guess I wouldn’t want a backpack either if I had a knife.

I look up and see a girl staring at me about twenty feet off, wearing a belt filled with knives.
How does everyone have a knife but me?
I think maybe I can barter one for some of my paint, but before I even ask her, she helpfully tosses one at my head. It misses and flies off into the woods. I toss her the grenade lying next to me as thanks, though I keep the pin for my collection. I smile as I skip over to the tree the knife is lodged in. From behind me I hear her scream,
“Nooo—!”
but I really don’t mind walking over to get the knife. I’m glad to have a new friend. I turn around to thank her, but all that’s left is a leg and a blood smear.
Hm … I wonder where she went. These games can be so unpredictable.

I know I should escape into the woods, but I decide to take one last look at the battlefield the Cornucrapia has become. The bodies of fallen tributes haven’t been collected yet. The Rainmakers usually wait until the initial bloodbath
dies down so that tributes can still trip hilariously over the corpses.

Only a few living tributes have stuck around the battlefield. The theater district tributes are using bodies to re-create a tableau from
Les Mis
, and the boy from the moral qualms district is debating whether he should help the one tribute he has an 80 percent chance of saving or the four tributes he has a 20 percent chance of saving. I don’t see Pita anywhere, but that means he’s still alive, or at least died in a cool enough way not to leave a body.

When I turn to leave, a sound blares over the intercom.
BWOMMP BWOMMP.
It’s the sad trombone used to announce the deaths of the tributes.
BWOMMP BWOMMP. BWOMMP BWOMMP. BWOMMP BWOMMP.

I count eleven sad trombones before they finally stop. If there’s one trombone for each dead tribute, and there were twenty-four tributes when we started, and twenty-four hours in a day, and the Games have been going on for less than an hour, and there are sixty minutes in an hour, and it’s taken me two hours to get this far in my equation, then there must be at least forty tributes left! Competition is heating up fast.

As I hike into the woods, it becomes clear that I need to find something to drink. My backpack only contained saltines and a slab of pound cake, which I ate immediately to lighten the load. I think back to the gourmet root beer and artisanal sodas I had in the Capital and nearly collapse into the river I’m walking in.
Buttitch, why won’t you send me something? Is it because you hate me? Or … or is it because
you know I’m right near something I can use?
Oh my God! The river! I can use water from the river to make single-batch root beer!

I set up a camp next to the river and start constructing a rudimentary still out of rocks and twigs. Now that I have water, all I have to do is find sassafras, cloves, honey, cinnamon, vanilla, cherry tree bark, and the other twenty-four flavors. My artisanal root beer is so close I can almost taste it, but the sun is setting and I need my rest. I’ll have to sleep first. I camouflage my still with some leaves and climb up into a tall tree to sleep. When I’m about thirty feet up, I loop my belt around the branch and then around my neck, so if I fall out, I won’t live to experience the shame.

Just as I’m about to nod off, the Peaceland emblem lights up the sky and smooth jazz pipes over the intercom. Of course! How could I forget the evening announcements? Each night, the Capital informs the tributes about who died that day and other pertinent information.

The smooth jazz gets softer as a sonorous DJ chimes in. “Hey there, this is your old pal Rusty Jams, and you cats are in the Hunger Games. This song is going out to my main man Archie, who’s taking it easy with a couple of his closest friends and a beautiful lakeside view. Damn, Archie. You know how to live it good.”

I bite my lip with nervousness at the thought of finding out who died. What if something happened to Pita? What if I died but don’t realize I’m a ghost? I whack my head a few times to make sure it’s solid as the saxophones play on.

“That last one was for my girl Sarah from District Nine, who’s already catching some Zs, and who can blame her? She sure does look sweet tucked away in that mulberry bush near the distinctly triangular rock by the lake. She doesn’t even seem worried that the Varsities have set up camp only thirty feet from her, much less that she’s directly visible from where they are standing. That girl’s tough as nails.”

Another smooth jazz song plays for about twenty seconds before it’s interrupted by the
BWOMMP BWOMMP
of a sad trombone. An audibly startled Rusty Jams comes back on the intercom. “That uh, was in memory of my girl Sarah, who uh, really knew how to live. No more smooth jazz tonight.”

His microphone cuts off, and they start projecting the images of the fallen tributes. First up is a boy I don’t recognize, then the girl with the knives. More tributes are shown before a little placard saying In Memoriam flashes across the sky and a thoughtful Yo-Yo Ma cello piece begins playing. After the initial tribute announcements, Peaceland honors film and television celebrities who died during the year.

First up is Tom Piper, host of the hit series
Notalkses Say the Darndest Things.
Next is Oscar Powell, the legend who directed
Dude, Where’s My Hovercraft?
From a distance, I hear the unmistakable sobbing of the theater district tributes.

I wake up a little before dawn. It’s not quite light out, but something is going on below me. I shift on my branch to take a look around, but there’s no one in sight. Then I hear it:
DONG! DONG! DONG!
It’s the tribute with the bell around his neck. I had thought the Rainmakers would slip
him a subdermal tracker when they got another shipment, but I guess those things are pretty expensive. The tribute runs out of some bushes and makes a panicked beeline for my tree, grunting and straining against the heavy weight of the cast-iron bell strapped around his neck.

That’s when I see the Varsities behind him. I can only make out Archie’s outline in the darkness, but I know there must be four or five of them. In one fluid motion, Archie winds up and throws something at the bell tribute. It spirals perfectly through the air before connecting with the tribute’s head. As I watch in horror, the bell rolls into a patch of moonlight, followed by the bloody steel football that Archie threw, and then finally the tribute’s severed head. “Bro,” one of the Varsities says to Archie, “sick.”

BWOMMP BWOMMP.
I can hardly believe what I’m seeing. Archie has taken the great game of football and made it a vehicle for violence. The other Varsities all chest-bump with Archie. “Bro, that was so tight,” one says.

“Archie, you’re so strong!” fawns Mandy, who can somehow check her clothes, boobs, and makeup in one fluid motion.

“Let’s get out of here, guys,” says one of the pack, but there’s something about that voice that throws me off. The husky tone, the rhythmic clapping of chins, the gentle hints of dough and French bread … Pita!

“Look, breadboy, this isn’t just about killing people,” shoots back Archie. “It’s about going out and giving one hundred ten percent, never saying never, and not throwing in the
towel when the chips are down. Other people will never have the opportunity to smell a severed head or hear the sound a rib makes when you hit someone in the brain with it. Stop being so afraid of new experiences, sissy.”

One of the taller Varsities slaps Pita in the boobs and adds, “Yeah, you’re as bad as your
girlfriend.
”

With that, Archie picks up his football and says, “All right, let’s find another loser.” They do a quick huddle to get amped up and then chug some Muscle Milk.

They’re gone as soon as they appeared, leaving me with more questions than answers.
Pita, what were you doing with those guys? Are you really playing this thing to win?

I want to be worried, but smelling Pita has made me so hungry, it’s hard to think of anything else. As I wait to make sure they’re gone, I watch as a hovercraft appears in the sky above the body. Each time a tribute dies, a hovercraft shows up to remove the body. As it descends, the craft’s door slides open. Two voices are faintly audible from inside.

“So I probably won’t open the restaurant until Becky’s out of school.”

“That’s fair. She needs a dad, not a manager.”

“Of course Jennifer wants me to stick with this hovercraft thing awhile longer. Says it’s reliable money.”

“Well, what’s reliable about it the other eleven months of the year?”

“Tell me about it. This guy got a head anywhere?”

“Oh yeah, by the stream.”

“Great, got it. Hey, you know any good trout recip—”

The doors slam shut and the hovercraft floats off. Now that it’s finally safe, I undo my belt and fall thirty feet out of the tree to the ground below. When I come to, it’s midafternoon, and I’m even hungrier than before. I barely manage to choke out a message to Buttitch: “Please, send designer sushi … root beer …” I’ve given up on trying to make my own food or trying to climb ten feet to the gift of roast quail and sparkling cider that has gotten caught on a branch above me in a parachute.

It’s time to throw myself on the mercy of the sponsors. “Please,” I beg to whoever is watching me, “please don’t let me die like this. I could die so much more violently.” A few moments pass, and I’m delighted to see a package fall right next to me. Swordfish and pomegranate spritzer! And a flamethrower. These sponsors are sharp.