Read Online Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli - Free Book Online Page A

It’s very low to the floor, no doubt to accommodate the height of its clients.
    Jack drops to his knees and shuffles forward. He stops at what he hopes is the right spot. He pulls his shirt up. He’s sweating. He waits. And waits. Nothing seems to be happening. The stubby, jointed mechanical arms seem to be locked in mid-gesture. Has he done something wrong? Can it tell he’s not a Newbie? He crouches lower, sits on his heels. The dark light flickers. A sniff-like noise—twice—comes from somewhere. Now two of the arms are moving. They poke him gently on the stomach. Instantly they recoil and a red light is flashing and an alarm is wailing and something is happening beneath him and with a guttural gagging cough Tattooer barfs him backward and out of its mouth. He lands on his butt in the glaring daylight, at the feet of his Amigos.

AMIGOS
    D USTY AND L A J O STARE DUMBLY as Jack gets to his feet, dusts himself off. He doesn’t look at them. He acts as if he doesn’t know they’re there. He walks off. He abruptly turns and comes back. He pulls up their shirts, first Dusty’s, then LaJo’s. He sags. He sighs.
    “It’s just me, isn’t it? Nobody but me.”
    They nod.
    “You knew?”
    They nod.
    “How long?”
    Dusty clears his throat. “Just today. That’s when we saw. This morning. LaJo saw it first, at the tracks.”
    Jack looks up, squints at the sundazzle. Their shadows are down to inches. “He’ll be here soon,” he says absently.
    Dusty looks up, LaJo down. “Yeah,” they say together.
    Jack gazes off in the distance. “So what do you think?”
    LaJo starts to say something, but Dusty cuts him off. “Nothin, Jack. It don’t mean squat. It’s just some … crazy thing. No sweat.”
    Jack looks at LaJo. LaJo doesn’t want to speak, but Jack waits him out. LaJo shrugs. “Like he said, no sweat.”
    Jack keeps staring, repeats as if trying to memorize: “No sweat.” He looks back at Tattooer. He grins feebly. “I figured it was worth a try.”
    Dusty, ever the tension-breaker, pokes Jack, laughs. “When you came shooting outta there … 
backwards—
”
    A flaming diaper vaults across the sky.
    “What’s it like in there?” says Dusty. “I forget.”
    “Creepy,” says Jack.
    They stare in silence as the diaper comet dissolves in a sooty puff. Dusty pokes LaJo. “Give it to him.” LaJo doesn’t move. Another poke, harder. “
Give
it.”
    LaJo turns. “No.”
    “Yes. He
needs
it. Give it.”
    LaJo’s hands remain tightly in his pockets. “Some things you don’t mess with.”
    “It ain’t up to you. It’s up to him.”
    They’re speaking as if Jack isn’t here.
    Jack holds out his hand to LaJo. “Give.”
    LaJo stares at Jack.
    “Give.”
    LaJo shrugs, gives.
    It’s a felt-tip marker. “I found it,” says Dusty. “He snatched it.”
    Jack studies the marker. He removes the cap. The tip is black, well-worn. He hands it to Dusty, pulls up his shirt. A small, solitary smear remains on his stomach. Dusty kneels, hesitates, begins to draw. He pauses, looks up. “Tickle?”
    “Nah,” says Jack, but really it does.
    Dusty goes back to work. LaJo sends them a sour look, turns away. A fresh Newbie pops from the maw of Tattooer: “I’m a kid!”

DESTROYER
    T HERE ’ S A POINT , when you’re still far away, where the bluff looks like the end of the world. All you see is the top edge of the bluff and the sky, like someone took a knife and sliced Hokey Pokey off right there. Then, as you continue walking, you begin to see treetops beyond the bluff, and then the jungle and, through the trees, the creek, and then, when you reach the bluff’s edge and look down, you see the tracks.
    None of this catches Destroyer’s attention. What he notices, emerging like a mirage from the heatshimmer as he approaches, is a pair of girl bikes. They’reparked by the blackberry bramble. One, an ordinary nag, is a purply color. The other one is special. It’s yellow and glittery. Ribbons