Hokey Pokey Read Online Free PDF Page B

paint job.”
    At first there’s no sign, and she’s afraid he’s missed it. But now his head is turning, and one wide, wonder-struck eye is coming into view.…

JACK
    E VERYBODY KNOWS . Everybody’s a detective.
    “Hey, Jack! I saw her over there!”
    “Hey, Jack! Over there!”
    “Hey, Jack! I saw bike tracks!”
    “Hey, Jack! We’re makin a posse! We’ll find her!”
    So public his shame. For once, he resents his own popularity. Every show of sympathy, every offer to help, cranks up his disgrace, his hatred of the girl.
    “Hey, Jack! We found Scramjet!”
    Jack waves dismissively:
Yeah, right
.
    “Jack! It’s
buried
!”
    He halts. Frost coats his heart.
Would she?
    It’s a couple of Gappergums, a girl and a boy, pulling up in front of him, panting. He knows they have no more sense than moss, so why is he listening?
    “Behind Tantrums, Jack! Mitchell found it!” Each grabs a hand. “C’mon!”
    Jack allows himself to be led. Prays:
Please no
. But fears.
    As they head for Tantrums, Jack is barely aware of walking through Flowers, barely aware that, midmorning, it’s already trampled. Two Snotsippers and a Longspitter are waiting in line to enter Tantrums. All three are grimly tearing at faceless rag dolls, ripping them to shreds: dog bones for fitpitchers. On a bench outside the door sits a bored Big Kid, the attendant. His job is to hand out rag dolls and assist the exiting fitpitcher, who often can hardly walk at the end of his or her tantrum. Tantrums itself is a dome-shaped structure—white, rubbery, soundproof—with a plastic pipe in the top for tantrum exhaust. The color of the exhausting gas signifies tantrum category, from One (black: mild) to Five (white: achieved only once, by Robert the Fuse). At the moment it’s showing aqua: Category Three.
    From behind Tantrums comes a cry: “I need help!”
    They run. Mitchell, a Longspitter, is tugging a bike wheel, still half buried, and at once Jack’s heartfrost melts: it’s not Scramjet. It can’t be. It’s too big. Mitchell is grunting with effort. Jack, feeling charitable now, grabs Mitchell’s spade, pushes him aside. “You need to dig more.” A couple minutes of spadework frees the wheel. Jack lifts it, stands it on the ground. The little kids gasp, wonderwowed, reach tentatively to touch it. They’ve never seen anything like it. Neither has Jack. Half the spokes are gone. All remaining metal is a rock-hard red-brown rustcrust. All that remains of the rubber are a few black scraps. But that’s not what astounds them—it’s the size. The wheel stands higher than Jack’s head.
    “Jack,” one croaks, “what is it?”
    “What it looks like,” says Jack. “A bike wheel.”
    “
That
big?”
    “Yeah.” Dumb answer, but that’s all he can say, for he has no idea where it came from or what it’s doing in the ground. He’s heard of a race of giant bikes that once roamed the land, but he’s always assumed it was a fairy tale.
    Suddenly he stops—that sound again. He turns.“Who whistled?” They look at him like he’s goofy. Already Mitchell is back to digging.
    As Jack walks away, he hears Mitchell’s cry: “Sprocket!”
    He passes Tantrums again. The Big Kid attendant is helping a sagging fitpitcher wobble off as, already, the next in line plunges inside and slams the door.
    He spots the tiny terrorist, the one who calls himself Destroyer. He’s pointing his plastic clicker at a pair of little kids dumb enough to believe it’s a magic weapon. Normally Jack would sneak over behind the kid, mess with him somehow, show him up for the harmless runt he really is. But he’s got no will for it today. Everything’s been sucked out of him but the need to get his bike back.
    A gang of assorted little ones comes running. “Hey, Jack!” He keeps walking, tries to ignore them. It doesn’t work. They plant themselves in front of him. “Jack! Jack!”
    He blows disgust, snarls: “What?”
    “Jack—is there monsters?” pipes