Jabber edged along the thin ledge next to his window. Got to get out, got to get out. He chanted in his head as the came to the corner gargoyle, grimy and covered in moss.

Today, he thought. Today I will get out.

But just as he grabbed onto the gargoyle, he slipped. One tiny slip was all it needed. And he tumbled down, down onto the cobbled streets below, landing in a heaped mess of blood, clothes, skin and bone.

I'm Copter. As in helicopter. I live in Sunny Dayz. I don't know the street. I don't know the town. I don't know the country. Just Sunny Dayz. With a z.

Sunny Dayz is a 'home'. I don't know what a home is. Perhaps it's a name? Maybe that's where I live. Home in Sunny Dayz. Jabber was a boy who lived here, many moons ago (many moons ago is what I heard the Nurse say, the women who are here all have one name. Nurse. I think many moons ago is a time, like '40 past Tuesday' or 'a week past 6'). Nurse tells a story about him every night. We think it's because he was a Legend. Or a When I Was Your Age. Whatever they are.

We don't have names here. We never got them as a gift when we were younglings. So we borrowed them. From the Big Book of Words that Nurse keeps on a shelf in the Room Rec. P. Flanders was last to pick his name. So the only name left was the one on the front. I was first to pick a name. We Drewflipped a Shiny from a hat. A Shiny is a round thing with a lion on one side and an old lady on the other side.

It's very confusing here. We don't know much, because we never got taught a lot of names for things. Like the Shiny. The only person who knows things is Spectacles, who told us the Shiny is called a Shiny. Which I think is funny, because he's Only Six. I'm Just Under Twelve. That's my age. Like Jodhpur's age is Ten and Three Quarters. And Shoe's is 7 And A Half.

Nurse tells us things, but only The 9 O'clock Nurse. She's a Nice Lady. She feeds us extra Nom Noms, and teaches us words we don't know. Sometimes she even reads us nursery rhymes.

Last week, The 9 O'clock Nurse disappeared. She hasn't come into work for days and days. But, yesterday, everything changed. I was sitting at the Light Portal, when the TullyFoam started to go BEEP BEEP BEEP. It was a massage, from the 9 O'clock Nurse. She'd given me the TullyFoam, in case of an emergency. It was a short one, and it said

Help me. Trapped in Chicago. Nurses got me.

You might want to know how I know it was the 9 O'clock nurse. It's because she's the only Cuntack on the TullyFoam. I don't remember much after that, because the Nurses used their spark machine on me. It makes us forget things. There is one thing I remember, and it's hard to forget. I am from a place called District 3, in Panem. My Mutter and Fatter were 16 when I was made, and they died. In a thing called the Hungry Games. How did I find this out? I sneaked a look at the yellow book things in the All The Time Nurse's office. My official name is Subject 232423, which I think is funny. My name's not Subject, it's Copter. The All The Time Nurse must have written it down wrong. The 9'oclock Nurse told us that Panem was made up of 12 districts, and each had a different job. Jabber was from 12, his family mined coal. I don't know what my family did, they died before they could work.

And that is why I decided to escape, to find the 9'oclock Nurse and to find out what the Hungry Games is, and to find out about my parents, and to find out about everything I ever wanted to know.

I am going to get out of here.