The Housepet Games
Chapter One
"Grape, I'm BOOOOOOOORED!" Peanut whined. He was hanging upside down off of the couch,
his head resting on the floor. A
Wii-Remote dangled from one hand, and the other held a comic book.
"You just got that new game!" Grape said in annoyance, lifting
her face from her pillow. "I thought
Smashing Super Brawlers, or whatever it's called, was going to be the best game
ever!"
"It IS the best game ever," Peanut replied. "But now I'm BOOOOOOORED!"
"Well, go be BOOOOOOORED somewhere else!" the cat
snapped. "I'm trying to sleep!"
Before she could plant her face in the pillow again, she
suddenly found Peanut directly in front of her.
"Let's play pretend!" he exclaimed.
"Later, Peanut!" Grape argued, her ears lying flat against
her head in anger. "I'm trying to take a
nap!"
Once again, she tried to rest her head again, but found that
Peanut had swiped her pillow.
"Hey, give that back!" she yelled, reluctantly getting up.
"Okay, if you insist!" Peanut said with a sly grin before
whacking her with it with all his might.
"You jerk!" Grape howled, rubbing her head. "That actually hurt!"
Peanut laughed and wound up to strike her again, but the
purple cat had had enough. With a savage
war cry, she tackled Peanut to the floor.
Wrangling the pillow from his paws, she began to beat him with it.
"Okay, okay!" Peanut yelled after a few good
pillow-punches. "I give up! Uncle!"
Glowering at the pesky pooch, Grape reluctantly stopped her feathery
assault on his face and stood up.
"Now can we play pretend?" Peanut asked, his tail wagging.
Grape growled in annoyance and rolled her eyes, "Oh,
FINE! You've got me too worked up to fall
asleep now anyway!"
"Yay!" Peanut yelled, leaping to his feet just as the
doorbell rang. "I'll get it!"
Grape followed him to the front door, where Tarot, Bino,
Fox, King, and Max were standing.
"I foresaw that you were going to call us over to play pretend,"
Tarot said.
"Awesome!" Peanut shouted, fistpumping the air. Turning, he led them into their living room.
Grape leaned down to murmur into Tarot's ear, "Um, not that
I'm upset that you invited yourself over or anything, but why did you bring Bino
with you?"
A sly grin appeared on Tarot's face, "Trust me, you'll enjoy
this," she promised with a wink.
"All right, what are we going to play?" Peanut asked,
bouncing up and down with excitement.
"Pridelands book 4!" Grape asserted. "We're going through the whole series,
remember?"
"I don't wanna play no stupid cat story!" Bino spat.
"How about we play MY FIST IN YOUR UGLY FACE?" Grape shot
back.
"Actually, I was wanting to break away from that game for a while
too," Max put in. "I just found an
awesome new book, and I wanted to try it out!"
"What book is it?" Peanut asked.
Max reached behind him and produced a paperback from... where,
Grape wondered? He sat it on the ground
so all of them could see. It had a black
cover, with an image of a golden bird with a ring around it. "The Hunger Games," the title boldly proclaimed.
"I've heard about that book!" Grape piped up. "Everyone says it's really good!"
"Why would you want to play a game about being hungry?" Fox
asked. "That doesn't sound fun at all."
"That's not what it's about," Max explained, fighting off
the urge to make a snarky remark. "It's
a story about a bunch of kids who are forced to fight each other to death while
the rest of the world watches."
"That's horrible!" Fox protested, standing up. "That's even worse than being hungry!"
"I have to agree," Tarot put in. "I'm not sure the spirits will like me
putting something that violent into our minds."
Grape grimaced. For
once, she agreed with the dogs. A bunch
of kids being forced to kill each other didn't sound like very much fun at all.
"Leave it to a cat to pick out a book like that!" Bino said,
crossing his arms in smug anger.
Then again, maybe it would be worth it just to be able to
murder Bino...
"Okay, I'm in!" the purple cat exclaimed.
"Me too!" Peanut exclaimed.
"All right," Fox said, uncertainly.
"Sounds like it could be fun," King chimed in, speaking for
the first time since he'd arrived.
All eyes turned to Bino, who glared at them each in turn, "All
right, fine!" he agreed at last. "But just
so that I can see you all cry when I win!"
Everyone turned to Tarot for the final decision, since she
was the one with the magic powers.
"Well..." she said, twiddling her fingers indecisively, "okay,
but we need to set some rules. First
off, I don't want to make any of us feel pain.
When you get beaten, I'll just put you back in the real world. And secondly, no blood."
Max shrugged, "Sounds fine to me."
Grape picked up the book and scanned the blurb on the back, "I
don't think we have enough people to play with, though," she said.
"It's better that way," Max insisted. "If we had twenty four contestants it would
take too long to finish. And let's skip
the opening part. That way we can just
go straight to the Hunger Games themselves."
"So, all we have to do is kill each other?" Fox asked, still
looking uneasy about the whole thing.
"We'll all be put in the arena at the same time," Max
explained. "You'll be on a pedestal
right next to a giant cone. There will
be a timer. If you step off the pedestal
before the timer reaches zero, you get blown up by landmines."
"What's the cone for?" Peanut asked.
"There will be weapons in it," Max went on. "Swords, axes, bows, that sort of thing. There will also be supplies, like food, and
things that can help you survive in the arena."
"Is there anything else we need to know?" King asked.
"Yeah," Max answered, a sadistic grin rising on his face, "stay
out of my way!"
"Enough talking!" Peanut shouted, "let's play!"
With that, all of the pets closed their eyes,
and allowed Tarot to pull them into another world.