Primmytwoshoes Ebergrimm wants yellow cake with chocolate frosting in her school lunches. Right now, this is not allowed. Alas, Primmy has been given only one shot at earning Dessert Privilege-and she knows that if she tries, she will fail. Primmy's older sister Karen volunteers to take Primmy's place in the Pie-Throwing Elimination; Karen pledges to sign over Dessert Privilege to her younger sister when Karen wins.

Wait, what? What is going on?

Verylongnameus Ice, the Superintendent of Schools for the Panem (Colorado) Independent School District, is an evil man. He poisons people he does not like. Worse than that, he decreed in 1982 that desserts would not be sold as school lunches, nor were kids permitted to bring desserts from home. Soon after making this decree, Ice was persuaded to grant a small exception-

Each year, one boy and one girl would be randomly selected from each school zone (Panem ISD has twelve). The boy and girl would be bussed across town to the school-district football stadium. There the twenty-four students would form a circle, then try to throw pies in each other's faces. When only one kid had a face not-pieed, that kid would be the winner of the Pie-Throwing Elimination. He or she would then get Dessert Privilege for as long as he attended Panem schools.

This year, Primmytwoshoes Ebergrimm, a School Zone Twelve seventh-grader, is Selected to be in the Pie-Throwing Elimination. How delightful! Except that Primmy broke an arm and a leg rescuing a kitten from a tree; body parts in a cast means that Primmy has zero chance of winning the Elimination; and Primmy being Selected this year means that Primmy will never be Selected again. How awful! Older sister Karen does not want Primmy to feel sad, so Karen volunteers to take Primmy's place.

Karen thinks that what she has volunteered for is a simple, five-minute contest-but there are some things Karen does not know. Karen is especially in the dark this year, because Superintendent Ice just changed the rules. This year the Elimination takes place in an "arena."

Karen does know about one complication to her plan: The male selectee from School Zone Twelve is Poofa Meadowlark, and he is in love with Karen. "You go your way, and I'll go mine" will not work with this boy.

MAY THE ICE CREAM BE EVER IN YOUR FLAVOR.

Note: This book is written for middle-school readers.

Please also note: This book contains mild profanity-because it is written for middle-school readers.

Tags: action, coming of age, female protagonist, humor, love triangle, parody, romance, teen, virtue rewarded, YA, young adult

The story is 53,200 words.

Tom H. Richardson is a publisher, author, and former high-school class clown notorious for puns. A comedian was a supporting character in his first novel, Sun Rising In The West: Does Japan Buy California?. He wrote the humorous short story "The Vamp Of Mensa." The Dessert Games is his second novel.