Free Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli

shoulders. She tries not to think of her wet armpits and dry mouth. She focuses on the prize. Soon they will know what’s on the other side of the wall. She tries to picture it but finds that her thoughts dissolve like a lemon-lime hokey pokey on her tongue. No doubt it will be wonderful, but wonderful in what way? Will there be dazzle and spectacular things to see? Will it be the answer to a great mystery? Will it be wonderful in ways she cannot imagine? Is that the point? The prize? Thatthe first person to enter Forbidden Hut will have an experience that cannot even be imagined by those left outside?
    She digs … digs …

DESTROYER
    “I AM D ESTROYER OF W ORLDS  … I am Destroyer of Worlds …,” he whispers as he steps within the arc of the handlebar. And sees his problem at once: the saddle is too high—he needs a boost. And that’s not going to happen, as he’s alone out here on the bluff. The thought flitters in his brain:
Not that anybody would ever give me a boost
.
    He looks about for something to step on—nothing but the berry thicket and a hole in the ground. Standing by the bike, the saddle head-high, he feels his littleness. Runt, the Daffy-killers called him. Well … maybefor once runt is good. Maybe he doesn’t need a boost. Maybe he doesn’t even weigh enough to topple it over. Maybe he can just climb up onto this thing. Step on the pedal, step on the sprocket, lean into the top tube, swing a leg up and over. He’ll do it on the kickstand side, and the kickstand will hold
(Please!)
because … 
he’s a runt
.
    The kickstand’s silver toe pierces the red dust. He’s panting, as if he’s just finished a race. He feels weak, shaky. He can’t move.
    Do it!
    He curls his fingers around the top tube, loosely at first, now more firmly. He does not know whose pulse he’s feeling, his or Scramjet’s. With his right hand he grasps the back of the white fuzzy saddle. He lifts his left foot, places it gingerly upon the left-side pedal, waits … waits …
    Do it!
    He pushes himself off the ground until the pedal, the bike, the kickstand holds … holds … yes! Swings his right leg upward, catches the saddle on his knee-bend while shooting his right hand forward to the right grip, left hand to left grip, pulling, pulling up with his bent knee, pushing up with his hands … up … up … andover! He’s in the saddle! Aboard Scramjet! Harold Peter Bitterman Jr. tall in the saddle on Scramjet the Magnificent! His feet dangle freely, pedals far below. His arms are stretched to the limit, elbows locked. He leans into the grips. He dares whisper, “Let’s go, boy.”
    And feels a shudder in the withers.

JUBILEE
    “O H NO !”
    Water comes gushing up from the bottom of the hole. Suddenly she’s knee-deep in it. She wallops the Hut’s wall with the spade. The red blade breaks off. “Crappo!” she yells, and pounds the broken handle upon the ground.
    Ana Mae says, “Ace, shut up. Listen.”
    She follows Ana Mae’s eyes back across the trees. “What?”
    Ana Mae stands. “Hear that?”
    At first there is only the soft, friendly chuckle ofthe creek. Then, from the bluff, a scream. A little-kid scream.
    Jubilee is up and out of the water hole. The little-kid scream is snipped, as if by scissors, by another sound, an inhuman sound, a sound they have never heard before and yet instinctively recognize.
    Jubilee drops the handle. The girls gape at each other. “Hazel!”
    They run.

DESTROYER
    T HE CHAIN IS NOT SINGING . The sound it makes cannot be described. It sets puppies and Newbies howling. Strangulated shrieks rise from deep in the loamy furrows of Doll Farm. Snugger pinkens. And Destroyer believes the sound is ripping him a third earhole between his eyes. He knows in this moment two things better than he has ever known anything:
    1. He has made a
big
mistake.
    2. It’s too late to do anything about it.
    The yellow beast is going so fast he feels his butt rising, his legs