William the runt runs screaming after the puppies.
LaJo scuffs dust, walks. He sees something in the distance, on Great Plains. He shades his eyes. It’s a dustpuff, rolling across the shimmering vastness. Too small to be the mustang herd. And now he hears it, a mere speck of sound riding the morning breeze off the Mountains. His boy’s ear identifies it instantly: Girl … whoop … happy.
JUBILEE
RIDES!
DESTROYER
IF EVERYBODY WASN’T ALREADY AWAKE, they sure are now thanks to the racket from the kid in Socks. The kid is heaving and screaming, “Help! Help!” as if he’s drowning. All the dumbo has to do is stay calm, hold his nose and roll himself down the slope and onto flat land. But of course he’s too panicked to think of that. He is, after all, just a Newbie.
Destroyer removes the clothespin from his nose, takes a sniff test. He’s a good five frog flings away and still the reek is strong. He replaces the clothespin. He climbs out of the cab and sits on the roof. Good place to enjoy the show.
Little kids are coming from all directions, attracted by the racket. None get any closer than Destroyer. They’re holding their noses, turning blue some of them. “Don’t go no closer!” a voice honks. Other voices call: “Hang on, Henry!” “Breathe through yer mouth, Henry!”
What impresses Destroyer is this: so many. So many kids come running. Newbies and Snotsippers and Sillynillies and Gappergums. They’re forming a giant circle around Socks. Around Henry. Where were they when the Big Kids came for Destroyer? Back when he was Harold. Back when it was him and Daffy and the heck with the rest of the world. How he loved that thing! It was the only toy he needed. The pedals were webbed feet, just like a duck’s. The back scooped out like a ducktail. But the best part was the front fender, which was Daffy’s duckbill. It not only looked like Daffy’s bill, it acted like Daffy’s bill. Whenever he mashed the big soft red button, the bill flapped open and out came a sound—“Yaak! Yaak!”—that was pure Daffy. The whole thing was yellow. Didn’t bother Harold that the color was not black like the real Daffy. As far as he was concerned, he was aboard the real Daffy—“Yaak! Yaak!”—not a tricycle.
They came out of nowhere. One moment he was riding happily through Thousand Puddles and next thing he knew there were cries of “Runt!” and he was hanging upside down. Somebody had him by the ankles. He was looking at three pairs of ratty Big Kid sneakers and hearing a hurricane of laughter. One of them somehow squeezed himself onto Daffy, knees out like wings. One pedal turn and the trike broke with a sickening snap.
This made them laugh even harder. He was passed from hands to hands, swung like he was a swing, his pocket treasures raining to the ground. They dunked him headfirst into one of the puddles and headed off, staggering. They were no longer laughing. They were gasping, “Oh man …” and “Oh wow …” As he crawled out of the water, he wondered what it must be like to be so totally happy that you use up all your laughter. Then he cried.
A kid, a trike: broken, both. And nobody came. Nobody came running. No mob of kids calling to him, bucking him up: Hang in there, Harold!
JACK
LITTLE KIDS ARE RUNNING. He hears a distant yowl, in the direction of Socks. Probably another unlucky runt tossed into the smelly pile. It happens. But it’s the commotion within that occupies Jack. That banshee scream—“Yeeeeeee-HAAAAAAAAH!”—of the devil girl. His heart an empty bike rack. The wind wailing through the blown-open hole in his soul. LaJo’s remark, which he can’t shake: You’re different. And here’s the thing: he sensed it long before LaJo said it. He feels it now, scuffing across Great Plains. Is it an absence? A presence? Good? Bad? He can’t tell. There are no words for it. Except … different. He has sensed it from the moment he woke up, from the foggy moment before he woke up and knew his bike was gone, from the moment he heard the strange whispered words, coming back to him now, rising from dust on his sneaks: it’s … time
Kidcalls knock him into the present:
“Yo, Jack! Where’s yer bike?”
“Hey, Jack! What happened?”
Big Kids are speedbiking through the Plains like unleashed dogs. He prays none of them see her on Scramjet. He doesn’t think he could survive the embarrassment.
“Hey, Jack!”
“Hey, Jack!”
He wishes he were less popular, less visible.
Suddenly he’s in a cross fire. There’s always a war going on somewhere on Hokey Pokey. Dismounted Snotsippers crouch behind trikes, firing away at each other as if he’s not there, cap pistols spitting red ribbons:
“Pow!”
“Pow!”
“Pow!”
“Pow!”
“Pow!”
Now they look up from their gunsights.
“Hey, Jack! C’mon—join the war!”
“Be on our side, Jack!”
“Our side!”
He pistol-points at them, goes “Pow!”—and half a dozen fall dead. One kid is giving it the old leg twitch. Another’s got his tongue drooping out. Snotsippers love to play dead. Jack ought to know. He was one of the best. He used to practice. His specialty was the wide-eyed blinkless stare. Sipping breaths to keep his chest still. Other goners looked like they were sleeping, but Jack—Jack was dead. And once—so famously they still talk about it—he stayed dead for hours, even through the arrival and departure of the Hokey Pokey Man.
He walks on through the sweet, peppery cloud of cap powder.
“Hey, Jack! Hey, Jack!”
Kiki comes running. He’s waving something—Jack’s baseball glove. The devil girl must have flung it from the handlebar. Kiki is gasping.
“Jack … Jack … look … Ifound … yourglove.”
Jack takes it, holds it by the thumb, shakes it. A desert of dust pours from the fingers. He wants to cry. He spits on the humped, leathery heel. As he wipes the dust away, the signature in silvery handwriting comes back into view: MR. SHORTSTOP.
Kiki gulps air, stares up at him in wide-eyed bafflement. “I found it out there”—he points—“on the ground. I knew it was yours. What”—he glances about—“where’s your bike? Where’s Scramjet? Huh, Jack? Dusty riding it? LaJo? Huh?”
Jack turns his back on Kiki’s babble, walks.
“Jack, hey, look—I taped up my ball.” He pounds it into his own glove, a cheap, thin imitation. Kiki’s laces are plastic; Jack’s are prime rawhide. “C’mon, Jack, throw me a coupla grounders, OK? Just a couple, huh, Jack?”
The black-taped ball comes rolling alongside, passes him as if it’s going his way. It stops in the yellow dust ahead. “C’mon, Jack! C’mon!” Jack hears the slap of Kiki’s fist in cheap leather. When he reaches the ball, he kicks it as hard as he can. It skitters across the prairie, coming to rest in a gray tangle of tumbleweed. The silence behind him is the purest he’s ever heard. He hates himself. He knows if he turns he’ll see the kid’s lip aquiver, the eyes gleaming. Add one more crapslap to the worst day of his life. He strings the glove onto his belt. He walks on … and suddenly Kiki is yelling: “Jacklookout!”
His cap is gone! His head smacked and his cap gone! Gone with the devil girl’s yell:
“Hi-yo, Hazel!”
JUBILEE
HOW COULD SHE RESIST? There he was, walking ahead of her. So tempting. So easy. She waves the cap grandly, flings it across the Plains as she flung the glove, races on.
She happens upon girls playing football. As soon as they spot her, they abandon the game and come running.
“Jubilee! Wow!”
“Hey! Is that what I think it is?”
“It is! It’s Jack’s!”
“Scramjet!”
“Omygod, Ace! How’d you get it?”
“Omygod omygod—look at her face! She stole it!”
“You da chick!”
She lets the fuss wash over her. When it subsides and they’re all fish-eyed waiting for her to speak, she gives her patented little sniff and grin and says primly, “It’s Hazel now.”
&nbs
p; Pandemonium. If somebody had a chisel and stone, they’d make a statue of her right here and now.
The girls circle, bend to huddle, cheer:
A—B—C—D—E—F—G!
Get these boy germs off of me!
As the huddle breaks and the din peters out, a voice calls: “C’mon, Ace, park it. We need a quarterback.” A ball comes flying. She catches it and, as always, feels the loving seduction of the pigskin. Her fingers inch-worm over the pebbled surface to the Chiclet-y laces. “Go!” she barks, and a dozen girls take off, looking back over their shoulders, calling her name, pleading. She picks one out, throws, leads her by a good twenty yards because she’s arcing it high and is already peeling out before it comes down. It’s not these girls she most has to see. It’s someone else.
DESTROYER
THE FUN COMES TO AN END when the Big Kid rescue squad shows up. They throw the life preserver to the mortified victim, Henry. It’s just an inner tube on a rope. The kid grabs it for dear life, and they drag him across the dust to safety and a riot of cheers—you’d think the kid had just hit four home runs in a row. The little kids begin to disperse, some of them, the boys, back to their war games.
Destroyer grins. Other kids play war. To them it’s a game. Not to Destroyer. He’s never fired a fake bullet, never dropped a bogus bomb. His weapon is different from all the others: it’s real. Even though you can’t see it, even though you can’t touch it. But you sure can feel it. His weapon is fear. Destroyer understands fear. Understands it like he understands aloneness. He could never explain it in words. Perhaps his understanding began the day Daffy died. All he knows is, fear works. He believes that the source of fear lives in his pocket, in the yellow plastic clicker that he found one day in Stuff. He discovered that the clicker had power. He discovered that if he pointed it at a little kid and clicked it and said “Bam!” or “Pow!” or “You’re dead!” the little kid would believe it—not play it but believe it. He gave the clicker a name: Exploder.
He’s crouching by the truck now, out of sight of the kids streaming back to their play. Many are in pairs or groups, but here comes a solo runt in a striped shirt. Destroyer shows himself, calls “Hey.” The kid turns, sees—and that’s all it takes. His bugged-out eyes freeze on Destroyer’s outstretched hand, on Exploder. He knows the drill. By now they all do. Three clicks and you’re dead. Exploded. Smithereens. Destroyer doesn’t even have to say “Pow!” anymore.
Click
Click
Click
The stiff yelps, lurches, falls backward, lies sputtering on the ground.
Destroyer ambushes two more, a boy and a girl. Body count: three. Plus Henry. A good morning’s work. He climbs into the truck. Sooner or later it will occur to the dumb clucks that they’re not really dead. They’ll get up and walk away. And when he sees them again, they’ll still believe. Fear. It’s the best beauty of Destroyer’s weapon: it can kill you over and over.
He was going to stop but it’s too much fun. He knows where to find more victims. Snuggle Stop. He rolls.
LAJO
DUSTY STOPS, points. “There she is!”
She’s rounding Doll Farm, seems to be making a beeline for somewhere. Even at this distance LaJo can see that her legs are not moving. Already she knows what it took Jack months to learn: there is little need to pedal Scramjet. If fast is what you want, all you have to do is give a light heeltap to the chain, hold out your feet and pull down your hat.
“C’mon!” Dusty takes off after her. Like he’s really going to catch her on foot.
There’s an empty swing nearby. LaJo takes a seat. There’s something he’s been wanting to do since they met up with Jack at the tracks. Wanting but not wanting. Because he’s afraid of what he might see. Or not see. He stares at the faraway rider, her ponytail straight out, and Dusty’s stupid pursuit. A Sillynilly comes screaming down a sliding board.…
Do it.
He does it. Doesn’t think, just does it. Pulls up his shirt and looks … and almost faints with relief. It’s there, plain, clear, sharp as always. The tattoo. The inky eye in the middle of his stomach. Same as everyone’s … everyone’s except …
For the tenth time LaJo flashes to the moment back at the tracks. Jack lifting his shirt to wipe his face, LaJo seeing it, the sudden nameless chill between his shoulder blades: Jack’s tattoo is fading!
JUBILEE
SPINNING SPOKES DICE SUNBEAMS, spit diamonds: Jubilee rides.
Along the way girls cheer:
“Go, Jubilee!”
“You da girl!”
“Doin it—yeah!”
Boys stare stunned, sullen.
She ripples through the hoed rows of Doll Farm, little mothers pulling up their rubbery babies naked as turnips, shaking dirt loose from round, astonished eyes. She verves and swerves through Thousand Puddles for a bit, then thinks Heck with it and slices the rest of them down the middles. When she sees the DON’T sign coming up, she’s tempted—oh she’s tempted, because there’s nothing she can’t do today, nothing, and the sign is so flimsy, just posterboard on a stick and the hand-lettered word. So easy to snatch. She reaches, reaches … but at the last instant veers off with a laugh.
Approaching Snuggle Stop, she slows down. Her memories of the candy-cane-striped red-and-white hut are still warm. Many days she stood in line with the other little kids, awaiting her turn to step inside and lose herself in the big, soft, loving, furry embrace of Snugger. To this day neither she nor anyone else knows what Snugger looks like, it’s so dark in there. Not that it matters. All that matters is that Snugger is there to give you what you need, whenever, 24/7. She feels the need less now. Only rarely is Snuggle Stop visited by a Big Kid, and then only at night, a solitary shadow crabbing over the glittery landscape, cursing the moon that is always full over Hokey Pokey.
It has been one of the quiet prides of Jubilee’s life that her little brother, Albert, has never stood in the line at Snuggle Stop. He hasn’t had to, because she sees to it that he goes to sleep snuggled into the loving spoon of his big sister and wakes up the same way.
Until this morning.
She reins in Hazel. She surveys the long line. There he is, toward the end, in his striped shirt. His posture alone tells her all she needs to know. A sob ball falls from her. It’s the saddest thing she’s ever seen. She hates herself.
She parks the bike. She moves closer. She calls, “Albert.” He looks—oh the look! He turns away. She says his name again.
He turns. He wails, “You wasn’t there!”
Now or never, she thinks. She reaches for him, tugs. He resists. Then doesn’t. He allows her to pull him away from the line. She needs to distract him, make him forget. She points to the bike. “Look, Albert—want a ride?”
Albert looks, then kicks her in the shin. “You wasn’t there.”
She fights the tears. Abandoning him to wake up alone, choosing bike over brother—is there a rottener sister anywhere? “I know, I know, I’m sorry.”
“And then I got exploded!”
She looks at him. “Huh?”
“I got exploded!” he bawls. “And I was nex!”
She cups his shoulders. “What are you talking about?”
“I was nex in line and then he did it!”
“Who? What?”
He snivels: “I was nex in line for Snugger and Destroyer came in his truck and exploded me and when I was dead the other kids went ahead of me and then I was at the end of the line!” He kicks her again.
She’s not sure what all that’s about. She only knows she needs to steer him in a new direction. She leads him to the bike. “Look, Albert—it’s mine now. Want to ride?”
He looks at it. He won’t give up his monkey face, but she can see a glimmer. He reaches out, pulls his hand back and kicks the front tire. The bike topples. “You wasn’t there!” She catches the bike before it hits the ground. He’s bawling harder than ever now.
She picks him up, pulls him into herself. She’s not fur
ry and her name’s not Snugger, but she gives him the best, the warmest, the most loving hug a sister ever gave a kid brother. She sobs into his ear. “I’m sorry, honeybunny, I know, I know. Bad Jubilee. Bad. Bad. She’ll never do it again. Never let you wake up alone again, never, never, never.” And suddenly she’s aware that he’s clutching—Thank you!—his arms and legs wrapped around her, practically squeezing the breath out of her. Then a shift in his weight. He’s reaching over her shoulder, reaching for the bike—
She lets him down. She lets him pet it. She kneels behind him, chin on his shoulder. He’s still sniffing but she knows the worst is over. He’s drinking in the full glorious view. “So—what do you think?”
He traces his fingers solemnly over the black-and-silver flanks. “Where’d you get it?”
“Oh, it just sort of came to me.” Get him off this track. “I call her Hazel.”
“It’s Scramjet,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s Jack’s.”
Why is she surprised? Jack and Scramjet are famous, even among little kids, especially among little kids.
“Not anymore. It’s Hazel.” She kisses his ear, whispers into it. “And it’s mine.”
No reaction, but she knows he’s taking it in, processing. His eyes never leave the bike.
“And y’know what?”
“What?”
“I think Hazel wants a new 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
EVERYBODY KNOWS. Everybody’s a detective.
“Hey, Jack! I saw her over there!”
“Hey, Jack! Over there!”
“Hey, Jack! I saw bike tracks!”