Chapter 5: Guernsey Hyde

Now, Lucky Flickerman hasn't gotten to be where he is – one of the most dynamic personalities on both Mandatory Viewing and daytime TV only five years after the war – without possessing the ability to demonstrate grace under pressure.

But in the privacy of his locked dressing room, a full three nights following the conclusion of the 5th Hunger Games, he allows himself to feel the stress, just once. For now, Lucky has the most unenviable job in all of Panem, aside from perhaps being the President. Lucky has to attempt and legitimize a Victor. When someone had suggested that a Victory Ceremony for the districts' latest champion might help, Ravinstill had grasped onto it with both hands.

Lucky would have thought that such rehabilitation would have needed to happen last year, after that damn fugitive won. But Vulcan Bronzedrop had managed to slip away into his old life quietly. Not so here – though, really, it can't be said that it's the poor boy's fault.

By this time, it is starting to sink in among the districts that this new social order isn't going to go away, though unfortunately, not fast enough. These first several iterations of what is rapidly becoming THE one-day social event of the year have been, to put it charitably and in a way that is politically correct (lest one be summarily executed for violating Speech Codes)… disorganized. It hasn't just been the Victors, though they are a big part – their quality has gone nowhere but downhill ever since Maximus's win. So far, the cream of the district's children has gleaned: a coward, a spastic, a ruthless killing machine, and a girl whose method of triumph three years ago still evokes an…. ahem, running gag inspired by a district B-movie revolving around a simpleton.

Lucky cringes. Speaking of simpletons….

He throws up his hands dramatically as aides hover about him like little flocks of birds, trying to improve his make-up while he navigates backstage. The process is so much simpler during his daytime anchoring slot, co-hosting What A Capitol Morning with Lucky and Beevis (geddit?).

That brings up another point about these whole Hunger Games – the process. It's unfocused, lurching from one thing to the next and learning largely by reacting, showing the bare minimum of what the Capitol has to be known for: order. The fact that it took three years to develop a method that would get squirrelly children to stand still for a minute is, in Lucky's view, a disgrace. And then, last year, when word got out that the Capitol had actually, for a brief time, lost a tribute…. a tribute who then went on to win…

Lucky shakes his head, rounding the corner into the wings. Everything about the process of the Games reeks of imperfections. Sure, the event is still relatively new after only five years, but in his distinguished (though kept-to-himself) opinion, the Capitol has to get its shit together, and fast. The districts won't take this seriously, and even the process of watching their own children die will become funny and thus make the Capitol a laughingstock.

The Games need a complete overhaul, from both ends. Both in refining the process… and the Victors, too. Everything about it is still too loose. Clearly defined rules need to be set in stone, and not piecemeal, like with the damn countdown. Maybe then, we wouldn't get Victors who are like… this…

"You're live in 30 seconds, Mr. Flickerman!" Lucky trots out onto the studio soundstage and takes a seat opposite the rather large boy who is meek as a lamb and cuddling a green plush toy.

Lucky puts on his performer's face as he watches the red light under the camera blink on. "And we are BACK live, here in CGN Studios! People of Panem, thank you for joining us, as we do something that's never been done before: we get to meet, for the first time, the latest Victor of the Hunger Games: Guernsey Hyde of District 10!"

There is token applause and even a scattered cheer or two from out in the darkness, but not loud and enthusiastic enough to drown out Guernsey, who is now lilting in a high, squeaky, almost sing-song voice, "Guernsey Hyde of District 10 sweets, OK, OK!" He gets an impish smile on his face and starts clapping like crazy. Lucky goes with it, trying to be kind as he reaches to take Guernsey's hand intimately, like an old friend.

"Now Guernsey…" Lucky trails off abruptly when the Victor takes the hand-taking to mean a handshake, which he performs so vigorously, Lucky fears his whole arm is going to be wrenched out of its socket. Guernsey puts his whole body into the handshake, in fact, then drops Lucky's… arm before clapping his hands and waving them out towards the audience in a jazzhand flourish.

"Oh ho!" Lucky again tries to go with it. "Got quite a grip there, don't ya?"

"Got quite a grip there? Yes, I do have quite a grip there, OK, OK, sweets!"

Lucky fights off a wince. The psychiatrists working out of the few habitable offices in the new hospital that's still in the last stages of construction – they're calling it Victor's Mercy – had informed him that Guernsey would probably repeat most of the last thing he hears someone else say. The doctors term it as echolalia – an auditory defense mechanism.

Guernsey is now making content squeaking noises and cuddling the little green plush toy against his chest. Noticing it, Lucky tries to keep the show going by making a bit out of it. "That's a neat little doll you have…. can I see it?" He notices how he's almost instinctively started speaking to the 18-year-old as though he's a little kid a third of his age. It's hard to help that. Guernsey is cute, the way a child so often is. Takes you in. Quite striking, in his own way, without any of the physical affects that one often sees in the meek-minded (a less civilized Capitol man might call them retards, when no one else is in earshot who might report them for Speech Code violations).

Even as Lucky is still reaching for the toy, Guernsey yelps and snatches it back, leaning away from the host. "Guernsey's Kermey! Guernsey wants Kermit the Frog!" Ah, so that's what it is, and Lucky recalls the Muppet character from the old country's ways who is still allowed a show during Capitol and district children programming.

Guernsey, meanwhile, has now taken to rocking back and forth and snuggling Kermit the Frog against his cheek. When the spotlights catch it, Lucky can see the stitching ringing the collar of the frog's neck.

"Well, Guernsey, would you like to watch a recap of your Games…?"

He's barely finished asking the question before Guernsey is chirping, "Hey, Guernsey sweets, do you want to watch a 'cap of your Games? Yes, I want to watch a 'cap of my Games, OK? OK, sweets!"

Panem be Praised, this is going to be a long night. Lucky doesn't know what this guy's deal is about… well, anything. The comfort toy. The…. echolalia whatever-it-is. 'Sweets.' This constant referral to himself in the third person or just straight-out confusing his pronouns. Lucky moves quickly to roll the film, a watered-down version just delivered and approved by the Department of Information.

They start with the Reapings. Most of the children culled are quickly forgettable, though there is a hulking, resentful boy called for District 6 who Capitol folk quickly peg as a favorite. Betting on the Games is still technically not sanctioned, though Lucky knows money always changes hands informally.

After Train of 6, the only other tribute that really stands out is Guernsey – about as big, but not nearly as fierce.

He doesn't fight or even cry when his name is pulled from the bowl, even dutifully marching, while holding a green doll in his hands, up to stand where the Peacekeepers point. Lucky has to praise the officers' restraint. Not every soldier would be so understanding and accommodating of someone who is clearly… different, but he supposes that's just Ten's way. He's heard the battalions there are a firm but fair sort, who abhor overdoing it on subjugation unless they have no other choice. The camera sways to behold the only people acting with unrestrained emotion: Guernsey's parents. The mother is wailing and shrieking. The father – a strong, graying man – is actually attempting to fight the officers to get to his son.

Back here in the studio, Guernsey is transfixed. "Mommy Sweets and Daddy Sweets…" he babbles.

First thing he does when he gets off the air, Lucky is going to ask someone to explain to him why the hell this kid keeps using the word 'sweet' in a sentence. Every phrase and sentence. Does he really like candy or something?

The footage clearly depicts how Guernsey isn't allowed to say goodbye to those who love him. Lucky can hear a few in the audience cry out, their hearts melting. Lucky thinks back over the file he was given to prepare for this sit-down. Guernsey apparently comes from a family of horse breeders. By all accounts, the lad seems to be calmed by the beasts just as much as the horses are calmed by him. Studies suggest that equestrian therapy seems to work on people with such… afflictions.

Guernsey is loaded into the cattle cars with his district partner and the others. He actually appears excited. "Go on a trip!" he is clearly heard saying on the tape. It takes a little bit for the other tributes to figure him out. A few, like Train from 6, start to tease him. Poor Guernsey doesn't seem to realize it is teasing.

Just as the cattle cars are stopping in District 12, Train mockingly nudges Guernsey on the arm.

The reaction is immediate. Guernsey starts flapping his gums and tongue so that a strange snorting sound emanates from him as he frantically whacks himself on his own arm, like he's trying to put out a fire where Train touched him. The District 12 tributes are thrown on in time to witness the whole display. The boy from 12 is incensed by it.

"Leave him ALONE!" he dares to get right in Train's face. Train just laughs and tries to intimidate the scrawny, scrappy coal mining kid. The former gets his balls bruised for his trouble.

From that time on, the kind boy from 12 – who's only about a quarter of Guernsey's size – is kind to the special needs fellow. He shares with him bread that is pelted at them in their cage at the Capitol Zoo, trying to ignore the gawking of the crowd gathered. On the tape, you can see it in Guernsey's face that he might have an awareness of just what this is. At one point, when some preteen Capitol boys nastily jeer at him, he taps the boy from 12 insistently and starts jabbering something that might be "Take a break now! Take a break now!"

District 12 stays up with Guernsey their one night in the zoo, talking to him gently and in very simple language.

"When we go into the… the big circle," 12 says. "…. There will be bad people. You must run and hide, Guernsey. Play hide and go seek. OK?"

"Play hide and go seek! Play hide and go seek!" Guernsey squawks, like a parrot.

"Yes. Hide and go seek. Because we're going to be playing… playing a game. It's like a game, see?"

"Playing a game! Playing a game, OK? OK!" Several of the other tributes groan, their sleep ruined.

The next evening, the tributes are transferred into their individual cages underneath the arena. The Peacekeepers guarding them are not like the ones in Ten, and attempt to take the little green doll away. "Stop! STOP!" Guernsey howls in protest (the word sounding more like 'Stawp') so loudly and viciously, near tears, that the officers' first instinct is to not just beat the large idjet up, but instead give the doll back, to take into the arena with him. Lucky doesn't know it while watching, but years from now, people will say that Guernsey Hyde introduced the concept of district tokens, but that's another story, one that will take a few more years to really catch on.

The tributes are lifted into the arena the following morning at 10 AM sharp. Lucky remembers first seeing this live, and how pleased he was at the layout: the landscape contractors who excavated the arena's entire floor in Dell's year had now peppered the Capitol Arena with boulders and rocks of various sizes – useful weapons and hiding places both. The sharp weapons are still in the center of the ring, just begging to be used.

Guernsey is oriented two pedestals down from his District 12 friend. The mining kid is clever enough to use nonverbal cues, getting Guernsey's attention and pointing back behind them, towards the boulders.

You: run and hide. Guernsey seems to understand, though it's hard to tell.

The countdown over the intercom begins, and that's when things start to go wrong. Guernsey starts loudly counting along, but his pace is off from that of Filonius Templesmith. Between the two of them, Guernsey is also louder. Much louder, out-projecting the intercom. The technicians try to crank up the volume of Filonius' voice full blast, but it still isn't enough.

The other tributes are left confused over who exactly is on the correct pace. The result is yet another snafu with the landmines and pedestals, this time in the form of a game of chicken. Some are listening to Guernsey's countdown, while others are straining to hear Templesmith. As he's counting down about two numbers in the space of Templesmith's every one, Guernsey will finish the countdown early.

"2 and 1, OK! Big finish!" Guernsey claps his hands and waves them in a big flourish. In the same time it takes him to do this, at least five other tributes who were following off his count misjudge the timing and leap off their plates a second or so early. They get blown to bits. The audience laughs it up, though at the time, President Ravinstill is filmed in his private box, throwing up his hands. Oh, for Panem's sake…

The gong sounds and the surviving tributes dash forward. Guernsey starts to follow the crowd, but the boy from 12 intercepts him, pushing him the other way.

"Go! Hide! Run, Guernsey, RUN! Hide and go seek! Hide and go seek!"

Guernsey hears and listens. He runs to play hide and go seek, while the boy from 12 charges into the fray. The moment will be debated among scholars into the eons as to whether this is possibly the first display of what will later be called an alliance.

Guernsey selects the biggest boulder he can find at the far edge of the arena. He's counting to himself, upwards this time, actually getting all the way to 100 without a mistake. Curled up into a ball, he gets progressively louder and louder to hear himself over the clangs and death screams from his fellow tributes. "98, 99, 100! Ready or not, here I come!"

No one does come, not even his little District 12 friend, speared by Train three minutes into the Games. The death screams continue for a while, just like last year in what some Games fans are already calling 'The Bloodbath,', which then ebbs into a duel or two spreading out amidst the rocks. A handful of others, like Guernsey, got the same idea to go hide, now that hiding is apparently an option for the first time ever.

Train dominates in the opening battles, and once he's out of opponents left to slaughter and once he's finished observing the last few scraps get decided, he goes on the hunt for whoever remains.

The time it takes for the Bloodbath kills to conclude takes several hours, so that by the time Train starts on the prowl, these Games are approaching the 5-hour record set last year. A couple more hours, and the nine who survived the initial melee, including Train and Guernsey, dwindles to eight, then to six.

It's surprisingly slowgoing, as Train has to literally look under every rock, for there are a lot of them, in order to find prey. The girl from 5 actually managed to dig with her bare hands all the way under one boulder; Train finds her seven hours into this thing and strangles her. She finishes a respectable fourth place.

Guernsey is still scrunched up in a ball, confused as to why no one has come looking for him yet. He's still mumbling to himself – constantly - nonsensical babble, but it's quieter now. Otherwise, he'd be a sitting duck.

With the Games now down to Train, Guernsey and the girl from 8, the foremost is starting to get frustrated at how he can't find his remaining two competitors, and turns to the audience sitting in the stands steps away for help.

"I don't suppose you can assist? Do you see a tribute scum?" A couple of audience members try to look, scream and point to get Train's attention when they think they see something moving.

It can't be intentional, but the way Train asks for outside aid is evocative of those little animated characters in baby shows who need help finding something – characters that will say things like, "Do you see the red fish? Which one is the red fish?" when the red fish is clearly within view.

The difference here, of course, is that for Train, the "tribute scum" is not so clearly in view, at least from his vantage point.

But from Guernsey's vantage point, someone is.

"There!" he yells really loudly, pointing at where the girl from 8 is huddled behind a boulder with her back to him. She makes the fatal error of popping up in fright from behind her hiding place; as for Guernsey, his own voice is loud enough so that it echoes and Train can't so easily follow the sound to where the gentle giant is crouched.

Train selects his easiest target. He goes for the girl first.

He has to chase her down, and finally bashes her head in with a rock. When he glances up, winded, he can see the girl has led him right to his last foe – the giant retard from the livestock district.

"You're mine now, freak!" Train advances with a broadsword and takes a swing.

It is at this moment that for Guernsey, all the pieces seem to click into place. He may not always show it, but he's aware. He's smart. And he knows that he's in the really scary event he's watched with Mommy and Daddy, where kids lie down and go to sleep with their bodies all red.

Guernsey gives a little shriek and ducks, stumbling away, still clutching his comfort toy. Train keeps on coming, and when he takes another swing, Guernsey pressed up against a wide boulder that he can't so easily dart around, the gentle special needs boy throws out his comfort toy in front of him.

Kermit the Damn Frog gets in the way, so that Train doesn't cut off Guernsey's head. He decapitates Kermit instead.

It's a mistake that will cost him.

Guernsey panics, taking the opportunity to pick up Kermit's severed head while Train stands there stupidly with a 'Huh?' expression on his face. His sword is hanging limply at his side and Guernsey rather bravely is able to thrust the pieces of Kermit right under Train's nose.

"Fix Kermit the Frog!"

Train stutters, blinking. "What? No… I'm supposed to kill you!"

Guernsey doesn't seem to care. "Fix Kermit the Frog!" he wails, demanding, still shoving the pieces of his toy at Train, who begins to actually stagger back. The request soon becomes a chant, as Guernsey pursues Train around and around the arena, Train left with every opportunity to just kill the other guy to shut him up, and yet he doesn't, because the stupid boy is stuck like a broken tape recorder and he won't stand still and he won't shut up! The roars of the crowd for Train to just finish the feeble-minded dolt don't help matters.

"Stop SAYING that!" Train bellows at Guernsey finally. "NO! I won't fix the frog!"

"Fix Kermit!"

"No!"

"Fix Kermit!"

"NO!"

This goes back and forth for several minutes, Guernsey becoming progressively agitated until finally, he snaps.

With a piercing, frustrated squeal, Guernsey actually launches himself at Train, unable to express himself any more plainly than through physical motion. His isn't quite an attack. Doesn't Train understand?! His toy is broken!

Well, Train is so taken by surprise that he does nothing as Guernsey gets on him, so frustrated that the special needs boy manages to grapple away the sword that is acting as such a big distraction from the real issue here – Kermit is broken! – and he turns to hurl it away.

In the wind-up, the tip of the blade slashes in a wide arc… right across the neck of a truly baffled Train. The big kid from 6 gargles and clutches at his throat, blood gushing out. Guernsey doesn't notice, completing hurling the sword away a good fifty feet. When he finally does turn back, Train is writhing on the ground, legs twitching as the blood loss becomes too much. He succumbs.

The Capitol arena, for the second year in a row, is totally silent. Staring down at Train, Guernsey doesn't seem to understand just what has occurred. He is intelligent enough to realize he's somehow hurt the big, loud boy, but it was an accident! He didn't mean to!

What happens next isn't shown on the tape – it's been heavily edited out. But Lucky remembers witnessing it live, from the stands, as Guernsey bent over Train and began gently patting his tummy.

"Wake up! Hey, Boy, wake up! Oh, yes, the Boy is waking up! Hey, Boy, can I (wrong pronoun) wake up, please? Yes!"

It is kind. It is compassionate – absolutely everything a Victor shouldn't be. The trumpets quickly sound to pronounce Guernsey Hyde the Victor of the 5th Games and whisk him away. It is the singular greatest embarrassment to the Capitol since they lost the opening battles of the Dark Days.

Guernsey remains in one of the completed and operational wings of Victor's Mercy for the next day or two. His singular focus is now to get Train back, to get him to wake up. None of the doctors on call have the heart to explain it to him that Train isn't just sleeping, he's dead; he will never wake up. A sweet nurse who apparently sews as a pastime does take it upon herself to stitch Kermit up with great care.

The four previous Victors are called in to sit at Guernsey's bedside. Maximus has to admit, he is kind of cute, and his method of winning was actually pretty funny; he had personally found Train to be nothing more than a big ape. Acacia acts like a mother hen around him, engaging Guernsey about Kermit and trying to ask him questions that Guernsey just restates before answering everything in the affirmative, even if the answer can only be No. Vulcan sits in a corner, not looking at or talking to anybody.

But it is Dell Fonio of District 9 who is the most natural with their newest comrade. He's intrigued by him, and gives Guernsey his address so the other boy can send him pictures he likes to draw.

When a reporter asks why Dell is so comfortable with the boy, the 3rd Victor just shrugs and says, "Well… I know what it's like to be vulnerable."

In time, Dell Fonio and Guernsey Hyde – two Victors counted out because of their disabilities – will develop what people judge to be the sweetest friendship in the history of the Games.