Run doesn’t move or make any noise. Her whole body has sunk into the pillow. She is so deep in thought, she isn’t even breathing.
“Besides, I’m going to die anyway. Everyone knows I’m going to die. As my father once said, ‘Let me tell you something about death, Kantkiss.’ Dammit, my memory is terrible.
“Anyway,” I go on, “you could probably kill me now if you wanted to. You’re probably plotting my murder right now.”
Run remains completely motionless. It’s a genius bit of acting. I don’t know how she’s doing it.
“As I was saying, I think forming an alliance would benefit us both. You can help keep me alive with your cleverness, and I can help you see over the tops of midsized rocks. I know you’re shy and you want the other tributes to respect you as an independent baby, so I’ll make things easier for you. I’m going to close my eyes and count to ten. If you don’t want to form an alliance, then get away from me before I finish counting.”
I don’t hear a peep as I start the countdown.
“Ten … nine … eight … seven … uh … hm …. six! Just slowing down to give you the time you need and deserve. Five … one … now!”
I open my eyes to find Run right where I left her. Overjoyed by the formation of this new alliance, I lift Run from the goose down for a hug between allies. Run has turned a joyful shade of blue in celebration of our alliance. I’m a bit worried because she is having a violent coughing fit in my arms, but the cameras are loving this motherly moment.
R-i-i-i-p. Our snuggle is interrupted by a ferocious fart. Run may be tiny, but she sure produces a big smell.
“Whoa!” I shout, crinkling my nose.
Run laughs coyly, but the pungent odor emanating from her behind is no joke.
“Heh … eh …” I feel my throat starting to close. I throw my head back, hoping for clean air. Instead I am hit in the face with a stroller. From the sky, diapers, bags, bottles, and teddy bears are parachuting in. It’s a baby shower! The sponsors love us. There’s even a gas mask for me!
I bravely change Run’s diaper. When the job is complete, I pop her into the stroller and head for fresher air. I find a perfect path beside the edge of a pond. Rays of light stream through the trees as I push Run along the water. For the first time since my LSBee experience, I feel at peace. I even wave to Gatsby Rockefeller’s butler, who’s pushing Gatsby up ahead in a luxurious adult stroller. It looks like a regal carriage.
“Halt! Stop this coach immediately!” Gatsby shouts from his seat. The butler obeys. Gatsby draws the curtains and emerges from the stroller’s plush interior. He is pale and thin. He squints in the light. He wears a velvet jacket and flowing silken pants. It’s standard attire for the lucky few residents of the old money district.
The butler presents Gatsby with a golden tray of jewel-encrusted swords. I stand back and draw my bow in defense. Then a strange thing happens. Gatsby falls to his knees in front of me.
“Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!” he yells, now hugging my legs and crying. His skin is even softer than Run’s. While his arms hold me tight, his hands hang limply. He has lost motor function from never lifting a finger in his entire life.
In this moment I feel that Gatsby and I have made a connection. I don’t know if I would call it a love connection, but on a scale from Carol to Pita, I’d rank Gatsby around Carol and a half.
“Allies?” I ask. I bet I could get some really awesome sponsor gifts out of this alliance.
“Yes, I suppose so. Can I … hold it?” he asks. I extend my hand. “No! What are you doing? Jesus Christ, get that filthy thing away from me!” he shouts in a fury. “I meant the baby. I would like to hold the baby. I have never touched one before. Back home, everyone has nannies for that sort of thing.”
Sensing a prime opportunity for a bathroom break, I hand Run over to Gatsby. She’s dazzled by his gold necklace. What a happy little alliance we make, the three of us!
When I return from the woods twenty minutes later, newspaper tucked under my arm, I find a crime scene. Gatsby’s butler is artfully draping yellow caution tape from the surrounding trees. Run crawls toward him and tugs gently on his pant leg. Looking down at the baby, he screams and bolts into the woods.
In the center of the clearing is Gatsby’s pale body, outlined in chalk. His face has turned an elegant shade of silver, befitting of his social status. Something has gone wrong. He is dead. I notice red marks around his neck. He has been choked, but how? We’re all allies here!
Run crawls over to Gatsby. “Daaadaaadaaa,” she whispers softly, grabbing the shiny gold chain around his neck and tugging it violently. Suddenly I understand. Run choked Gatsby to death.
“Run, you’re right. I’m so sorry.” She looks up at me with sad baby eyes. “I never asked you before forming that alliance with Gatsby, and that was wrong. I haven’t been a very good ally today.” She crawls over and sits on my foot. “No, Run—it’s not okay. I should have listened to you. You had every right to kill Gatsby. You never agreed to be his ally. It was a very wise decision. Perhaps you saved both our lives today.” Run bows her head. We share a brief moment of silence.
The hovercraft circles above us. When the door slides open, again I can hear two voices from inside.
“Can’t this weekend. It’s Jennifer’s birthday.”
“What are you two doing?”
“Made reservations at a bed-and-breakfast up on Lake Champlain.”
“Nice.”
“It’ll be a working vacation for me. Trying to hire a maître d’ is proving to be more work than I thought it would be.”
“You know, my cousin is a maître d’. Maybe the two of you could—”
The conversation becomes inaudible as a mechanical ladder is dropped from the hovercraft. Several of the world’s most beloved heirs and heiresses begin to descend one by one. The elites of District 6 have come to pay their respects to Gatsby. Stepping onto the dirt ground is the least dignified thing any of them has ever done. I watch as the likes of Goldman Sachs LXXXI, William Gates LV, and Paris Hilton XLV pay their final respects to Gatsby while jazz legend Duke Ellington LI performs sad trombone live. The last mourner is Jesus II, who says a nice prayer. The ceremony leaves me feeling unusually tender.
“You know, Run, I think we make a great team.”
“Greauuuooo,” says Run. I assume this is slang for “yes, of course” in District 11.
“Greauuuooo to you too, Run. What should we do now?”
Run sits up and begins shoving dirt into her mouth. “Diiiirrrrr,” she says, which is District 11 slang for “Varsity pack.”
“No … really? Do you think we could?” Run tumbles forward. She is playing dead. “You are truly a fierce competitor, Run. This is a very ambitious plan.”
Run has just suggested that we kill the Varsity pack. It’s a bold move. Suddenly, I wish Pita were here. I am craving a snack. I’d even accept whole-wheat bread at this point. But could I break bread with the enemy? Anyway, I have to listen to the rest of Run’s plan.
Run is shoving more dirt into her mouth. “Good idea,” I say. “The way to weaken the Varsities is by targeting their food supply. But how can I get to it? It must be heavily guarded.”
Run looks up at me. Our eyes lock. “Eyes,” I say. “You want me to use my eyes. Brilliant! I will survey the area for booby traps. You can keep a lookout here.”
Run starts to cry. “Yes, I understand, we definitely need a signal. How about this: If you’re ever in danger, take these baby wipes and climb up this tree. When you’re at the top of the tree, sew all the wipes to make a flag. Remember, I need to be able to see this flag from several miles away. As long as the flag is green-and-white-striped, I will know you are safe. If I see a yellow-and-red-checkered flag, I’ll know you’re in trouble.”
Run giggles and lets out an earth-shaking fart. This is my cue to leave. I head toward the center of the arena, where the Varsities are stationed with their massive food supply.
> When I reach Camp Varsity, I hide behind a heavily padded field goal post and survey the area. It’s the size of a football field and looks just like one. Plastic cups are littered about midfield, left over from Archie’s birthday kegger. He and the others are running hundred-yard sprints. I look over toward the food stash: it’s piled high with delicious rations. It sits in front of a large white house with a patio. Above the front door, hung crookedly, are the Greek letters IIKA.
I gasp. Someone is already going after the food supply. Dogface! Surely the food must be heavily protected, yet she hops and skips right toward it in plain sight. Dogface makes it to the food pile unscathed. The Varsities are too engaged in their games to notice. She grabs a single stick of gum from underneath a bunch of bread, cookies, and water, then meanders into the woods.
I’m thinking through my plan, when Broadway show tunes begin to drown out the Varsities’ chill John Mayer playlist. The theater district tributes must be near. I hear them singing a song to the tune of “Gee, Officer Krupke” from West Side Story:
Deeeeeeear kindly land of Peaceland, you gotta understand
These games work when you plan ’em, but now they’re out of hand.
Archie’s got a football, none of us have food.
Goodness gracious, everybody’s screwed.
Dear good land of Peaceland, we’re down on our knees
Because of neurotoxin from those damn LSBees
Our vision is hazy, our mouths taste like tin.
Gee, good land of Peaceland—you win!
The song distracts the Varsities from their afternoon workout. Archie grabs his steel football and beckons the others to follow. They set out with murder on their minds.
With Camp Varsity vacant, the coast is clear for me to make my move. I sprint the length of a field, pausing only for a small victory dance when I enter the end zone.
BWOMMP BWOMMP. BWOMMP BWOMMP. I count two sad trombones in the distance, signaling the death of the theater district tributes. I flash a smile at the nearest camera and say, “There won’t be any encore for them tonight.” Then, pleased with myself, I also say, “That show’s run is over.” Before moving on, I add geniusly, “District Ten just took its final bow.” And finally, “The only place they’ll see another standing ovation is at their funerals.”
Satisfied, I move on with my plan to destroy the Varsities’ food. I must take tiny bites of all this delicious food to ruin it before they return. I bite everything—raw steaks, live chickens, pieces of pie. Once I start biting, I just can’t stop!
When I’ve bitten everything, I stick a couple of Twinkies in my pocket for Run and hide behind a tree. She won’t care that they’re bitten. She shouldn’t be eating whole Twinkies at her age anyway.
I’m so full. I think I’ll just rest. I think I’ll just go into a food coma right here behind this tree. Yeah, that’ll be nice. The back of this tree is the perfect place for a food coma. I puke up a few bites before passing out.
I awake to the sounds of the Varsity tributes groaning. Kantkiss 1, Varsities 0, for now at least. I step out from behind the tree into a puddle of my own vomit. I feel well camouflaged here. I peer down into Camp Varsity, where Archie blows a whistle, calling a time-out. I start jogging over to join the huddle, but then I remember, Kantkiss, that’s not your team!
Archie is shaking with rage. The whole huddle is jiggling because of it. Luckily he is yelling, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to hear him from this far away. It sucks how many important plot developments you can miss just because you aren’t standing close enough.
“Defense! What happened out there?” Archie shouts.
“We dropped the ball, bro.”
“Don’t mess with me. You know and I know that this is bigger than high school football, bigger even than college football. This is the big league. This is Peaceland’s top-rated The Hunger Games! What happened?”
“Well, when we went into the woods to kill those drama geeks, another kid, one undeserving of the title ‘tribute,’ took small bites of everything except the butter sticks. The butter sticks were eaten in their entirety.”
A female voice shrieks that can only be coming from Mandy. “Ew! I am definitely not eating some nerd’s leftovers,” she says, flipping her hair into Archie’s face and hiking up her denim miniskirt.
“You never eat anyway!” responds another Varsity.
“Thanks!” says Mandy.
“Silence!” bellows Archie, pulling a slightly nibbled megaphone from the food pile. “There will be no more bites today! We can’t risk any injuries. The food pile must be destroyed.”
“Right on, Archie! Let’s do an explosion!” another tribute shouts. “But first, let’s take a break and get some snacks from our other perfectly intact food pile.”
I gasp. Other perfectly intact food pile! I look to my left. There it is, another food pile, peeking out coyly from behind a boulder at the other end of Camp Varsity.
“What? Who put that there? Our nutritionist did not authorize a second food pile! I repeat: that is an unauthorized food pile. It too must be destroyed,” proclaims Archie.
Archie pulls a bunch of dynamite from his pocket and sets it up around the food piles, wiring everything just right for a mind-blowing simultaneous explosion. He is so dangerous!
BOOM!
I cry as the food pile I just ate from turns into ash and flame. All that remains is this half-eaten Twinkie I saved for Run. I stuff it into my mouth, savoring every last morsel. Run doesn’t have to know about this.
The food pile is reduced to a smoldering crater. From what I can tell, Archie is about to lose it.
“I’m going to kill the scum that did this!” Archie exclaims.
“Weren’t you going to kill him anyway?” one of the other Varsities asks.
“Yes, but now I am going to kill him in a very special way!” Archie yells back.
He explodes with anger and punches a tree with his bare hands. He rips some hair out of his head just prove that he isn’t bald. He puts on a baseball cap with the rim pointing backward to cover up the bald spot he has just created. Will there be no end to his rage?
Archie calms down. He pulls on some boxing gloves and continues punching the tree just for exercise.
“You know what?” he says, throwing a jab at the tree. “It’s an honor to be here. We were chosen out of hundreds of thousands of children. There was no way to know that we were the ones who were going to get picked, which is why we fought our way toward the stage to volunteer, killing several civilians in the process.” Jab, jab, hook. “It’s good to be here, killing children. I enjoy that. I enjoy slaughtering children. It’s awesome to be on TV when you’re killing people!”
Archie puts on a great performance for the cameras. There are tears in my eyes. I wish I could stick around for the rest of it, but I’m getting pretty nervous about the special way Archie’s going to kill me. I decide it’s best to clear the area. I retreat into the woods with a death wish upon me. I need to find Run before it’s too late! I remember the signal we agreed on. Green-and-white-striped flag, Run is safe. Red-and-yellow-checkered flag, Run is dead. I scan the tree canopy for flags, but there are none in sight. What could it mean?
I head back to the spot where I left Run. Except for a few diapers piled in an obvious attempt to build a tepee, the site is abandoned. I decide to follow a nearby stream. Maybe Run climbed into a basket and floated away to avoid becoming the victim of a cruel and oppressive regime, like that clever baby Moses in that book.
I take some berries from the trees and throw them into the stream for good luck. One time some girls made fun of me for being so superstitious. Well, look where I am now! I’m in the Hunger Games.
I haven’t found Run, and I’m getting worried. Not just about her but about myself also. Even though I am the main character of this story, there is no way that I will win the Hunger Games. I, the narrator, have told this entire book and there’s still like fifty pages left. So I’ll proba
bly die in the next few pages, and someone like Run will take over the storytelling or something.
I find one of Run’s fires. It’s just a bunch of spit, because Run is a baby. She must be close! I feel like her mother, even though we’ve only known each other for a few hours. I know I spent most of those hours eating, but I was eating for two. As a mom, I have to tell myself that Run is still alive. There’s no possible way she could be dead, not in a game where the object is to kill everyone—including babies.
I follow Run’s trail of spit back to where I left her. The trail takes a sharp left into some shrubbery about five feet away. There she is! She’s lying helplessly at the foot of a shrub, and I am suddenly filled with motherly pride. Run must have taken her first steps to get there!
There is little time for celebration, though. Run is about to die.
I hadn’t noticed the tribute from the tanning cream district because his deep tan blends seamlessly with the tree trunk behind him, but I am suddenly alerted to his presence by the huge pitchfork he is now preparing to plunge into Run.
I pull out my bow and prepare to defend my ally. “Don’t shoot!” the tanning cream tribute screams, like a wuss.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” I say, stalling. “Let’s be friends.” The tribute looks at me, smiling. While I keep him distracted, Run grabs at his shoelaces, tangling them into a complicated knot. Then I smell something. Run has just deployed the biggest fart of her life.
The tribute gasps for air. He staggers forward but is tripped by his shoelaces. I shoot him midfall, just to put him out of his misery. BWOMMP BWOMMP.
“We did it!” I yell to Run.
Then I realize I’ve made a very insensitive comment. Run is pinned to the ground, skewered by the fallen tribute’s pitchfork.
“Oh Run, don’t die! Not like this!”
There is no reason to BS Run at this point. She knows that she is about to die. It’s my job to make sure she dies with honor.
“This will only hurt a little,” I say, pulling the pitchfork clean of her flesh with one violent tug.