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!”

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!”

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!”