Free Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli Page B

watch. The occasional Snotsipper or Sillynilly blurts “Hey, Jack!” while the oldest kids, shocked at the pairing of girl bike and boy rider, stand mutely and wonder uneasily about themselves.
    Beyond Tantrums, Mitchell now appears to have uncovered all the petrified remains of the fossil mega-bike. Bikasaurus, Mitchell is calling it. He’s got the frame together and is trying to fit a wheel. A couple of Snotsippers sit on their haunches nearby, rapt.
    They roll on toward The Kid. They pass beneath the great stone arm: it seems a blessing. He sees Gorilla Hill in the distance. He hears again the girl’s demonic scream, as surely embedded in his brain as any fossil in the ground. He knows the only way to disinter that scream is to cancel it with a downhill ride of his own. He’s about to rein toward the Hill when Scramjet veers sharply to the right. Must have gone over a stone. Jack tugs on the left grip and a funny thing happens: nothing.The handlebar doesn’t move; the front wheel maintains its course. Jack tugs harder—again, nothing. Jack looks down. Chain, sprocket, steering column—all seem in order.
    This time Jack tugs with both hands, wrenches hard, actually, but the bike stubbornly refuses to budge. He leans in the saddle, whispers, “Hey, boy, what’s up?”
That girl
, he thinks. She’s done something to his bike, bunged it up somehow, and now it won’t turn.
    Just for the heck of it, Jack presses on the pedal. Nothing happens. He presses hard. Tromps. The bike keeps its steady, unhurried pace. It seems to be heading for the bluff. Alarm comes as a quick nip between the shoulders. He squeezes the brakes—nothing. And suddenly knows:
I’m not driving it—it’s driving me
.
    Once again he feels the day falling apart. Dreading yet unable to stop himself, he pulls up his shirt and dares to look: Dusty’s felt-tip tattoo has already faded to a faint gray smear. An enormous sadness comes over him. His mouth feels furry. In the shimmering, shadowless distance he sees two figures running his way.…

JUBILEE
    A NA M AE IS FIRST TO SEE . “Look!”
    They stop.
    Jubilee squints under her cap brim. “You think?”
    “Yeah. It’s him.”
    “What’s he doing?”
    “He’s coming this way.”
    “I can see that, dummy.
Why?
”
    They stand in the dust. Bike and rider are coming slowly.
    “Maybe he doesn’t know it’s you,” says Ana Mae.
    “Maybe he does,” says Jubilee. “I should’ve brought that shovel.”
    “He’s alone,” says Ana Mae. “We’re two.”
    There seems nothing else to do, nowhere else to go. They stand, wait, wait.
    Slowly bike and rider emerge from the heatshimmer.
    “He’s not pedaling,” Jubilee says.
    Now they hear the soft tire crunch. Now they see his face. Jubilee is surprised. It is not the face she expected. Her fisted fingers uncurl.
    The bike stops directly in front of her. The boy seems in shock, as if he’s just awakened in a strange place. He does not look at her. She sees that the handlegrip ribbons and the pom-pom tail are gone. Otherwise, Hazel looks the same. It occurs to Jubilee that the boy and bike might stay there all day. All she knows for sure is that the next move is not hers. At last the boy drops a foot to the ground, swings the other leg over, dismounts. He looks at her now. All she sees in his eyes is sadness, a sadness as big as the sky. He does not put the kickstand down; he simply releases the bike. As it falls, she instinctively reaches out, catches it by a grip. When she looks up, he’s walking away, and in the distance she hears the familiar
wooguh! wooguh!
of the red rubber cart horn and the excited cries that fly across Hokey Pokey every day at high noon: “He’s here! … He’s here!”

HOKEY POKEY MAN
    I N THE SKY the sun has stopped directly over The Kid. In all of Hokey Pokey only The Kid’s arm casts a shadow.
    The Hokey Pokey Man gives the red rubber bladder another squeeze:
wooguh! wooguh!
Kids are running from all