I awake to the sound of a growling stomach. It’s not mine. It’s the cat’s. “Shut up, Butterball,” I moan, as I push him off the bed. He hits the ground with a thud. “Bark!” goes the cat. I try to go back to sleep but it’s no use. Today is Super Fun Day.
I tiptoe across the dirt floor to the other side of the room to avoid waking my mother. Butterball has recovered from crashing into the floor and licks my leg annoyingly. He’s hungry.
I look in the cabinet for some food. The cabinet is where we keep our small food supply. It’s also where my little sister sleeps. Her name is Prin, which is short for Princess. Butterball is Prin’s cat. When I open the cabinet, Prin is snuggled up against an empty box of cookies. She looks so cute.
The only thing I see for Butterball to eat is a small pile of moldy carrots. I carefully reach my hand into the cabinet and grab them. Prin stirs for a moment but doesn’t wake up. “Phew!” I say, really loudly. Now she wakes up.
“Close the cabinet, you idiot!” she shouts.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I lean in to give her a peck on the cheek, but she slams the cabinet door in my face.
I toss the carrots down to Butterball. He looks up at me and growls. You see, Butterball and I are not exactly the closest of friends. I remember when Prin first brought him home. He was the biggest, ugliest cat I had ever seen, weighing probably fifty pounds, with a wet, black nose and floppy ears and a tongue that just wouldn’t stay in his mouth but insisted on slurp, slurp, slurping all over the place. His thick golden fur was full of fleas, and every time I threw a rubber newspaper out the window, the dumb old cat would run to retrieve it and bring it back, panting. He was repulsive.
“No way, Prin,” I said at the time, “you can’t keep him.” Then I led Butterball outside to drown him in the puddle at the end of our driveway, but the puddle was so shallow that his long snout wouldn’t fit under the water. “Fine,” I relented, “you can keep the stupid cat.”
So we kept Butterball. Not many people have pets where I’m from. I live in District 12, one of twelve districts that make up Peaceland. District 12 is the poorest district. While some affectionately call it “the Dirty Dozen,” most call it “a Terrible Place to Live.” My neighborhood, the worst in District 12, is known as the Crack.
I look down at Butterball as he chows down on those delicious rotting carrots. I should have saved a few for myself. For a moment, I envy Butterball. Today is just another ordinary day for that dumb cat. He’ll chase his tail and catch Frisbees in the park without a care in the world. But for me, today is different. It’s Super Fun Day.
The sun is rising. It’s time to hunt. I pull my boots out from under the bed, the pair my father gave me before he died. Once they’re on, I’m ready to go. I’m careful not to let the door slam on my way out. Once it closes softly, I open up the mail slot and yell back into the house, “I’m going hunting!” I set off to meet my hunting partner, Carol Hand-somestein.
The streets of District 12 are eerily empty today. The regular clatter of keyboards and ringing of telephones that usually fills the air has fallen silent as the anxious pall brought by the arrival of Super Fun Day descends over the town like a pillow and duct tape over the face of an unwanted pet.
A man raises the District 12 flag outside his house as I walk by. It’s black, like all the flags in merry old Peaceland. In the center, there’s a golden telephone. Each district specializes in one industry, and District 12 is the telemarketing district. Along with the other districts, District 12 once rose up in rebellion against the Capital, which is where all the rich and powerful people of Peaceland live. That didn’t go too well. In fact, it went horribly. How horribly? Well, there used to be two hundred districts. Lesson learned.
In order to ensure nobody ever forgets that the rebellion failed and the Capital won and they are in charge and blah, blah, blah, each year they make all twelve districts participate in what is called the Hunger Games. Every district selects two kids, one boy and one girl, to represent them in a big competition. These two kids are called tributes, which is short for tributary, which is a stream or river that flows into a main stem (or parent) river or a lake.
The Hunger Games aren’t exactly fun. If I’m being totally honest, I’d say they suck. Since there are twelve districts, and two tributes from each one, you know there are at least … twenty tributes in total. All of them are thrown into an arena somewhere in the wilderness where they have to kill one another until there’s only one tribute left. And it’s all televised. Most people TiVo it so they can fast forward to the killing.