Hokey Pokey Read Online Free Page A

Destroyer? Back when he was Harold. Back when it was him and Daffy and the heck with the rest of the world. How he loved that thing! It was the only toy he needed. The pedals were webbed feet, just like a duck’s. The back scooped out like a ducktail. But the best part was the front fender, which was Daffy’s duckbill. It not only looked like Daffy’s bill, it
acted
like Daffy’s bill. Whenever he mashed the big soft red button, the bill flapped open and out came a sound—
“Yaak! Yaak!”
—that was pure Daffy. The whole thing was yellow. Didn’t bother Harold that the color was not black like the real Daffy. As far as he was concerned, he was aboard the real Daffy—
“Yaak! Yaak!”
—not a tricycle.
    They came out of nowhere. One moment he wasriding happily through Thousand Puddles and next thing he knew there were cries of “Runt!” and he was hanging upside down. Somebody had him by the ankles. He was looking at three pairs of ratty Big Kid sneakers and hearing a hurricane of laughter. One of them somehow squeezed himself onto Daffy, knees out like wings. One pedal turn and the trike broke with a sickening snap.
    This made them laugh even harder. He was passed from hands to hands, swung like he was a swing, his pocket treasures raining to the ground. They dunked him headfirst into one of the puddles and headed off, staggering. They were no longer laughing. They were gasping, “Oh man …” and “Oh wow …” As he crawled out of the water, he wondered what it must be like to be so totally happy that you use up all your laughter. Then he cried.
    A kid, a trike: broken, both. And nobody came. Nobody came running. No mob of kids calling to
him
, bucking
him
up:
Hang in there, Harold!

JACK
    L ITTLE KIDS ARE RUNNING . He hears a distant yowl, in the direction of Socks. Probably another unlucky runt tossed into the smelly pile. It happens. But it’s the commotion within that occupies Jack. That banshee scream—
“Yeeeeeee-HAAAAAAAAH!”
—of the devil girl. His heart an empty bike rack. The wind wailing through the blown-open hole in his soul. LaJo’s remark, which he can’t shake:
You’re different
. And here’s the thing: he sensed it long before LaJo said it. He feels it now, scuffing across Great Plains. Is it an absence? A presence? Good? Bad? He can’t tell. There are no wordsfor it. Except … 
different
. He has sensed it from the moment he woke up, from the foggy moment
before
he woke up and knew his bike was gone, from the moment he heard the strange whispered words, coming back to him now, rising from dust on his sneaks:
it’s
 … 
time
    Kidcalls knock him into the present:
    “Yo, Jack! Where’s yer bike?”
    “Hey, Jack! What happened?”
    Big Kids are speedbiking through the Plains like unleashed dogs. He prays none of them see her on Scramjet. He doesn’t think he could survive the embarrassment.
    “Hey, Jack!”
    “Hey, Jack!”
    He wishes he were less popular, less visible.
    Suddenly he’s in a cross fire. There’s always a war going on somewhere on Hokey Pokey. Dismounted Snotsippers crouch behind trikes, firing away at each other as if he’s not there, cap pistols spitting red ribbons:
    “Pow!”
    “Pow!”
    “Pow!”
    “Pow!”
    “Pow!”
    Now they look up from their gunsights.
    “Hey, Jack! C’mon—join the war!”
    “Be on our side, Jack!”
    “
Our
side!”
    He pistol-points at them, goes
“Pow!”
—and half a dozen fall dead. One kid is giving it the old leg twitch. Another’s got his tongue drooping out. Snotsippers love to play dead. Jack ought to know. He was one of the best. He used to practice. His specialty was the wide-eyed blinkless stare. Sipping breaths to keep his chest still. Other goners looked like they were sleeping, but Jack—Jack was
dead
. And once—so famously they still talk about it—he stayed dead for
hours
, even through the arrival and departure of the Hokey Pokey Man.
    He walks on through the sweet, peppery cloud of cap