Chapter 12
That evening, the moment of truth arrives.
Kitty's body has been removed from our quarters and all that remains is a splatter of blood on the wall, which Elspeth is still scrubbing at furiously.
The rest of us crowd around a screen on the wall to watch the live broadcast of our scores.
This is how the tributes will decide who they target, and who they fear.
And it's how Capitol sponsors choose who is worth investing in.
Anomaly, Pinty and Effie are squeezed onto one sofa while I take up another with Haymitch, who makes an effort to squeeze as close to the arm as possible.
The Capitol anthem plays as the announcers appear on the screen.
Just then, there's a knock at the door.
Haymitch rises to answer it. When he returns, he is accompanied by a stocky, brown-skinned man in casual attire.
Haymitch introduces him.
"Everyone, this is Moseph. He's Pinty's new stylist. And hopefully the last new stylist, period."
"Man can't make no promises."
Pinty looks Moseph up and down, sceptically.
"Sorry I'm late." Says Moseph, "I would have introduced myself earlier, but I slept in."
"It's six in the evening!" Says Effie.
Moseph yawns and says, "I don't know how you guys wake up so early."
He and Haymitch round the sofa and take their seats.
I catch Pinty giving Moseph a threatening glare. He appears none-the-wiser.
On the screen, blue-haired Salto appears beside a score of six.
"Not bad for a twelve-year-old." Anomaly acknowledges.
Pinty snorts, "And man was thinking of makin' an alliance with him. Add two more points and maybe."
Anomaly says, "You can't expect a twelve-year-old to score a nine, Pinty!"
"But six add two is eight, not nine…" says Moseph, "How can you get that wrong?"
"Whatever," says Anomaly, "at least I can walk faster than a sloth, unlike-"
Effie chides, "Oh stop it, you two! You're working together, you don't need to squabble like fashion-school seventh-graders!"
Anomaly mutters, "Joke's on you; I hardly went to school."
"How reassuring for the person whose life might depend on your skill…" Haymitch says, looking almost apologetically in my direction.
"No way!" Pinty's gravelly exclamation brings us back to the broadcast, "Candyfloss Hair. got a ten!"
There on the screen is Sugar, dead-pan as always, pictured next to an unbelievably high score for a fifteen-year-old girl.
"And you've gotta beat that to get in with them!" Pinty guffaws, "No chance, bruv."
"You never know, do you?" asks Moseph.
" Yes." The others say at once.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Elspeth nod her head as well. Her hair bounces and rustles like a whole forest in a storm.
"Mind your own business!" I snap at her, "And bring us some snacks, while you're at it."
Elspeth dumps her blood-covered sponge in a bucket of soapy water and heads to the kitchen. The bloodstain on the wall is now a huge, watery smear with ginger hairs stuck to it.
Next on the screen, Greg scores a ten, the same as Sugar. Considering his size and strength, it seems much more fitting of a score for him than for her.
Jess is not far behind with a nine, setting the career pack off to a pretty solid start.
The scores immediately plummet with Eugene and Elsie from Three, scoring a four and a three respectively.
Effie makes a sympathetic noise while Pinty murmurs, "Rat-meat."
Then the final career (aside from me and Rubis, of course) pops up on screen. Rob looks formidable in his photo, with his red hair in a ponytail, sweeping bangs and square jawline. He scores an eight, which at once prompts me to imagine him skilfully thrusting a trident into his opponents.
Tuna Lovecod – who I had honestly forgotten about completely until now – scores a two.
"Wow, Midnight. You might actually get the same score as someone else." Jibes Haymitch.
"Sugar? You mean Sugar, right?"
"No, I do not mean Sugar."
"Greg? I could beat him in a fight, no problem."
"If he was unconscious." Says Anomaly.
"And also decapitated." Adds Effie.
Before I can protest, Moseph says, "Didn't Greg get the same score as Sugar anyway?"
"Yes, thanks for pointing that out, Moseph." Haymitch rolls his eyes, "Glad to see you have more braincells than Midnight."
I say, "Hey! I have hundreds of braincells, thank you very… Ooh! Pork-balls!"
Elspeth has arrived with a bowl of snacks. She begins offering them around, completely obscuring the TV screen with her hair.
She hands them round to Pinty, Effie, Anomaly, Haymitch then Moseph.
"Ah, none for me, thanks." He says.
Elspeth has a wounded expression. She nudges the bowl into Moseph's lap.
"Hey! I don't want to touch them."
Moseph shrinks back.
"Rude." Says a muffled Bickett from within Elspeth's hair.
Moseph does a double take.
"I thought Avoxes aren't supposed to talk!"
"She can't." Bickett pokes his furry face out, "But when somebody insults her cooking, she needs someone to stand up for her."
"I'm sure your cooking is great; I just can't eat pork. It's not Halal."
Elspeth wipes a tear from her cheek.
Bickett asks, "If we go and get you a plain and boring ham sandwich, will you eat that?"
"Ham's not halal either."
"Oh, come on! But it's coming from a talking guineapig! God's laws clearly don't apply here."
"Keeping guineapigs isn't halal." Says Moseph, looking increasingly uncomfortable.
Bickett grumbles and retreats back into his furry orange nest.
Elspeth dabs her watering eyes on her red sleeve and offers what remains in the bowl to me.
Three pork balls and several corkscrews of ginger hair.
I reach into the bowl before something furry and grey lands on my hand.
Chomp.
"Ow! It bit me!"
A rat with clumpy grey fur and a snotty nose sits in the bowl.
Wait. I know that rat.
"Burger?"
Anomaly says, "And now he's talking to a rat. We've lost him."
I glare at Burger, sitting smugly amongst my pork-balls.
I snap, "What did you do that for? I was going to eat those!"
"Hey!" Bickett appears again, "Don't you shout at my wife like that!"
"Your… wife?"
I look between Bickett and Burger.
"Oh, take the bloody pork-balls." I concede.
I lean back on the sofa and dust Elspeth's hair out of my clothes.
As Elspeth leaves with the bowl, I hear Bickett say, "Yes… Good idea, my love. These pork-balls will keep our offspring well-nourished for today."
"Did you just hear…?" I look at the others.
"I think you're going nuts, mate." Anomaly says.
When the floating hairs left behind finally drift to the floor, we realise that we have missed the scores of three tributes.
Now Tardi fills the entire frame of their photo, next to a whopping score of eleven.
We gasp in unison.
"No wonder the careers want to team up against them!" I say.
"Your best bet is to stay far away and hope they starve." Haymitch advises.
"Or I could join the careers and pummel them."
"Neither of those events seem at all likely, Midnight." Says Effie.
Corvid and Izzie both score nines. Formidable scores, yes. But it comforts me to know that they will be a full three points behind me.
Next, DJ scores a five. Verona follows him with a three.
I smirk. Threatening to come after my Rubis, when they're only a five and a three? Ha!
Bretta's photo appears next. She has achieved a score of one.
The next photo makes us all jump when his hideous face fills the screen. Yucky has also scored a 1.
"They shouldn't scare us like that!" Effie complains, "Don't they know some of us are allergic to ugliness?"
Haymitch says, "I need a drink."
Anomaly says, "Ooh, yes! Elspeth! Cocktails!"
Pinty leans across the others to tell me, "Them two tributes make you look like a tank, cuz."
As Minx and Mace both score eights, Elspeth arrives with drinks.
She hands them out, skipping Pinty, of course.
Pinty says, "Oi fam! Why don't I get one?"
"Because you're twelve, Pinty." Says Effie.
"Yeah? And?"
"Oh, let her have a drink." Says Anomaly.
"No, I don't think so." Says Haymitch, "I'm the resident drunk, remember? Just 'cause I'm staying relatively sober for these games doesn't mean we need to replace me."
He takes a swig from his vibrant cocktail and spits it back into the glass.
"Jeez, a little too easy on the vodka, don't you think?"
He hands it back to Elspeth to add more.
Pinty says angrily, "Man could hold down more booze than you, no cap."
"I don't want to find out if that's true." He replies.
I try to diffuse the situation.
"Come on, Pinty. You can have a drink when you're older. Let us adults enjoy ours without making a fuss."
"You what, fam?" She looks livid, "Man might be dead in a week!"
"And what's this about you drinking with us, Midnight?" Asks Haymitch, "You're eighteen; that's still underage. We are in America, remember?"
"Oh yeah, that's right." I realise, "Ok, American law is always right, after all."
Anomaly says, "One more reason to hate your guts..."
Moseph hasn't touched his drink. When Elspeth returns with Haymitch's cocktail – now considerably more full – she looks at Moseph questioningly.
"Er…" he says, "Is your guineapig going to get offended again?"
Elspeth folds her arms as if to say, it's me you ought to be worried about.
"Well, um…" Moseph starts, "I can't really have alcohol…"
Elspeth raises an eyebrow.
"Why can't you have alcohol?" asks Anomaly.
Elspeth draws a finger across her neck, warningly.
"Is it not halal?" I ask intelligently.
"Well… erm… no. It's not. But-"
Elspeth furiously tips the contents of his drink all over him.
Moseph shrieks, "I'm also deathly allergic to it!"
As we watch, his skin erupts boils the size of chicken eggs. His eyes bulge out of his head and he claws at his clothes, trying to separate himself from the liquid that covers him.
As Moseph's skin melts off of his body, he cries, "The holy wrath of Allah has been delivered unto me!"
Effie squeals and leaps behind her sofa. In her absence, Pinty grabs her cocktail and downs the whole thing in half a second.
Haymitch, Anomaly and I look on in astonishment.
Within moments, Moseph is a puddle of sludge on the ground.
Anomaly sums it up pretty well.
"What the actual fuck…?"
Elspeth stands before us with her hands on her hips and a small, triumphant smile.
She then gets a mop and begins to clear up Moseph's remains.
Out of nowhere, panic hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest.
"We missed Rubis' score!"
Pinty rolls her eye.
"Don't stress, blud. Man saw his and Anita's, innit."
"Yeah yeah, I don't care about her. What did Rubis get?!"
"Nine, innit. Same as the Tree Goths."
I slide down the sofa in a huff. How could they put Rubis on the same level as those freaks? I bet they're not even gay.
My disappointment cannot last for long though, because I'm up next.
I hold my breath in anticipation.
Around me, the others place bets on whether I will get a one, a two, or somehow break the system and score zero.
"I'll show you all! I'm telling you, you'll eat your words for breakfast when you see I've gone and scored a… ELEVEN?!!"
We all stare.
The bewilderment is tangible.
As Effie would say…
UNHOLY.
CARROT.
WAFERS.
What about my twelve?! How could they score me so low?! Is Minnesota not grateful? Were they not mesmerised with my skill, my finesse?
They said they wanted me for my personality.
So where. Is. My. Twelve?
"No way…!" Anomaly eventually says.
"That can't be real." Says Effie.
"Man must be trippin'." Says Pinty.
"How much vodka did that Avox add to my drink?" asks Haymitch.
He rubs his eyes disbelievingly.
I'm in shock.
"I can't believe it…" I murmur.
Haymitch says, "Neither can we."
"After everything I showed them… After all of that, and I only get an eleven?"
" Only?!" Effie cries, "The only one who scored that high was Tardi!"
"And you would put me on the same level as that humongous oaf?" I spit.
"No… Not exactly…" says Effie.
"Then you agree with me."
"Certainly not."
Haymitch says, "I think I need to have a word with Minnesota; check up on their sanity. I told them reading five books a day would impair their grip on reality."
"Yes." I say, "Do that. Go now. I want my score changed."
With that, I storm to my bedroom. I slam the door behind me with a loud grunt of frustration.
Then I remember that Pinty is yet to receive her score.
I open my door a crack to see what she got.
A nine.
At first, I think they must have displayed it upside-down.
Then I realise that Pinty can't be strong enough to get a six, so they must have completely muddled her up with someone.
I hear her say, "Eh. Man was hoping for a ten, no lie. Whatever."
She stands and walks to her own bedroom.
"Drama queen." Says Effie.