The Hunger Games of Childhood

Summary

After we both got accepted into an Ivy League university, my parents instituted a new rule: my twin brother and I had to compete for our monthly allowance.

The stipend was $1,000 a month, but only the one who scored higher on their custom-made academic test would get it.

I studied obsessively, burning the midnight oil, but every single month, I scored exactly two points lower than my brother.

I was so dizzy from hunger and low blood sugar that I could barely stand.

Desperate just to eat, I went to interview for a student-worker job at the university dining hall.