A "Hunger Games" themed camp has opened in Largo, Fla., the Tampa Bay Times reports.
Fortunately, instead of killing one another, the young campers "collect lives" and "capture" each other's flags:
The first day of camp brought girls with lunchbags and suntans and swimsuit strings hanging down the backs of their shirts. They smiled and jumped up and down, excited to see each other; many were classmates at Country Day School, the host of the summer camp. It was this friendship that made Rylee Miller, 12, feel a little conflicted. "I don't want to kill you," she told Julianna Pettey. Julianna, also 12, looked her in the eye. "I will probably kill you first," she said. She put her hands on Rylee's shoulders. "I might stab you."
The boys had gathered away from the girls, across the room. Eli Hunter cocked an elbow and pointed the fingers on his other hand, explaining that he was a sniper in a tree. He gunned down Liam Cadzow, a tiny blond boy in a bucket hat.
"What are we going to do first?" shouted 14-year-old Sidney Martenfeld. "Are we going to kill each other first?"
"No! No violence this week," the camp's head counselor was busy telling the children. But keeping the kids from talk of murder would prove difficult. That was, after all, the driving plot point of The Hunger Games — and this was Hunger Games camp.
At the end of the week, the 26 kids expected to compete in a real-life Hunger Games tournament. They'd spend the next few days training. Then they'd fight to the "death."
"If I have to die, I want to die by an arrow," Joey Royals mused to no one in particular. "Don't kill me with a sword. I'd rather be shot."
[...]
Friday came, and so did the Hunger Games tournament; or, at least the cleaned-up version in which no one could "die."
Alyssa Stewart, 12; Alexis Quesada, 13; and Julianna formed an alliance. After nabbing a few flags, they paused in a safe zone, a green picnic bench under a tree, to get a drink in the shade.
There, the girls added Andrés Kates, 11, to the alliance. But the second he left the safe zone, they grabbed his flag. "Hey!" he yelled, stumbling backward.
The girls ran off, first across the basketball court, then through the grass, between buildings, by the water fountain, past the body lying on the ground . . .
The body lying on the ground. CJ Hatzilias, 11, face-down, in the grass. He was crying. "They stepped on me," he said.
Someone went for help. "CJ, what happened?" Gillette asked.
"They stepped on me," he said.
D'Alessio knelt down. "I'm sure it was an accident."
CJ shook his head. He said some boys had knocked him down and kicked him.
D'Alessio got him up, wrapped an arm around him, walked him over to the camp offices.
The boy wiped his nose. "I got stepped on," he said.