simmering beneath all that: surprise.
Surprise, because getting in looks first off like a piece of cake. It’s not like the Hut is a stone fortress or anything. Its windowless walls and flat roof are a patchwork of scraps that look like they came from Stuff: particleboard, shingles, bed slats. It looks like a kids’ clubhouse. A cheesy one at that.
But surprise is not at the bottom of the bottom. Disappointment is. Sticky, won’t-rub-off disappointment—because the Hut seems so inviting. It practically croons in the ear of everyone who sees it:
Come on in, kid. This is your place
. That’s what hurts so much, that a place that seems to welcome you, a place that seems
made
for you, will not let you in.
Nothing is more ordinary-looking, or surprising, than the door. To look at it, it’s just that: a door. A plain, white-painted (generously chipped) plywood door with a plain, ordinary, yo-yo-shaped brass doorknob. It looks as if all you have to do is turn the knob and—presto!—you’re in. Forget it. That brassy knob ispolished to high gold by the hands of kids trying to turn it, trying to get in. Big Kids. Little kids. Girls. Boys. They turn. They tug. They grunt. They beat the place with jungle-limb clubs. Wallop it with rocks. Kick it. Pound the walls with their fists.
The more they can’t get in, the more they want to.
Hence the word before
Hut: Forbidden
.
Some call it Don’t Even Try.
“So what’s your brilliant new idea?” says Ana Mae.
Jubilee grins. “We’re always trying to bust in, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So how about this time”—she taps Ana Mae’s chest with the red blade of the spade—“we bust
under
.”
JACK
F EELING BETTER . It was just like old times with Kiki. He can feel the day turning around, hope surging. He heads for Tattooer.
In his own Newbie and Snotsipper days, Jack thought Tattooer was
in
the building. Now he knows better: Tattooer
is
the building. Or, to be more precise, the robot. Its facade is the face of a clown. You walk up three steps and climb into a nostril—left or right, it’s your choice. Some say that choice makes all the difference, whatever that means. It’s a steep crawl up the nose, like going the wrong way on a sliding board, but you don’t even think about it, you just do it.
Inside, two things happen. First your diaper is whipped off and catapulted through a hole in the roof. If you’re standing outside, what you see is a stream of diapers popping out of the roof and flying in a great arc toward the far horizon. They never land, however, for at the height of the arc they burst into flame and glamorize the daytime sky like a parade of shooting stars.
The second thing that happens is you get your tattoo. Muddled memories recall a green misty light, a tickle on the belly, a smell like toasting marshmallows. Then, with a sound that’s come to be known as “the turtle’s toot,” you’re spit out the mouth. When you hit the ground, you announce yourself to Hokey Pokey: “I’m a kid!” More important, you’re wearing your tattoo—and a pair of pants. You are now a Newbie. A Hokey Poker.
Standing at the end of the line of diaper-clad Newbie recruits, Jack has never felt more foolish. Fortunately there are only three ahead of him. He prays the line moves fast, before anyone sees him. It’s bad enough that the Newbie in front of him looks up and says something that sounds like, “Ee foozanakka nugu.”
When his turn comes, he quickly discovers he’s got a problem: he can’t fit up either nostril. So he entersvia the mouth. Inside, true to his memory, a misty green light pervades, though it barely tints the gloom. Squinting, he makes out the Tickler, as it’s called. He doesn’t know what he must have thought of it the first time around. Now if he had to describe it, he might say
mechanical octopus
. It strikes him as surprising that at this point the Newbies don’t run off screaming, for it’s a little scary even to him.
Surprise, because getting in looks first off like a piece of cake. It’s not like the Hut is a stone fortress or anything. Its windowless walls and flat roof are a patchwork of scraps that look like they came from Stuff: particleboard, shingles, bed slats. It looks like a kids’ clubhouse. A cheesy one at that.
But surprise is not at the bottom of the bottom. Disappointment is. Sticky, won’t-rub-off disappointment—because the Hut seems so inviting. It practically croons in the ear of everyone who sees it:
Come on in, kid. This is your place
. That’s what hurts so much, that a place that seems to welcome you, a place that seems
made
for you, will not let you in.
Nothing is more ordinary-looking, or surprising, than the door. To look at it, it’s just that: a door. A plain, white-painted (generously chipped) plywood door with a plain, ordinary, yo-yo-shaped brass doorknob. It looks as if all you have to do is turn the knob and—presto!—you’re in. Forget it. That brassy knob ispolished to high gold by the hands of kids trying to turn it, trying to get in. Big Kids. Little kids. Girls. Boys. They turn. They tug. They grunt. They beat the place with jungle-limb clubs. Wallop it with rocks. Kick it. Pound the walls with their fists.
The more they can’t get in, the more they want to.
Hence the word before
Hut: Forbidden
.
Some call it Don’t Even Try.
“So what’s your brilliant new idea?” says Ana Mae.
Jubilee grins. “We’re always trying to bust in, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So how about this time”—she taps Ana Mae’s chest with the red blade of the spade—“we bust
under
.”
JACK
F EELING BETTER . It was just like old times with Kiki. He can feel the day turning around, hope surging. He heads for Tattooer.
In his own Newbie and Snotsipper days, Jack thought Tattooer was
in
the building. Now he knows better: Tattooer
is
the building. Or, to be more precise, the robot. Its facade is the face of a clown. You walk up three steps and climb into a nostril—left or right, it’s your choice. Some say that choice makes all the difference, whatever that means. It’s a steep crawl up the nose, like going the wrong way on a sliding board, but you don’t even think about it, you just do it.
Inside, two things happen. First your diaper is whipped off and catapulted through a hole in the roof. If you’re standing outside, what you see is a stream of diapers popping out of the roof and flying in a great arc toward the far horizon. They never land, however, for at the height of the arc they burst into flame and glamorize the daytime sky like a parade of shooting stars.
The second thing that happens is you get your tattoo. Muddled memories recall a green misty light, a tickle on the belly, a smell like toasting marshmallows. Then, with a sound that’s come to be known as “the turtle’s toot,” you’re spit out the mouth. When you hit the ground, you announce yourself to Hokey Pokey: “I’m a kid!” More important, you’re wearing your tattoo—and a pair of pants. You are now a Newbie. A Hokey Poker.
Standing at the end of the line of diaper-clad Newbie recruits, Jack has never felt more foolish. Fortunately there are only three ahead of him. He prays the line moves fast, before anyone sees him. It’s bad enough that the Newbie in front of him looks up and says something that sounds like, “Ee foozanakka nugu.”
When his turn comes, he quickly discovers he’s got a problem: he can’t fit up either nostril. So he entersvia the mouth. Inside, true to his memory, a misty green light pervades, though it barely tints the gloom. Squinting, he makes out the Tickler, as it’s called. He doesn’t know what he must have thought of it the first time around. Now if he had to describe it, he might say
mechanical octopus
. It strikes him as surprising that at this point the Newbies don’t run off screaming, for it’s a little scary even to him.
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