Hokey Pokey (18 page)
HOKEY POKEY
NIGHT
L
ION YAWNS
and inhales six of the Seven Sisters, who then come laughing out of his nostrils. “Do it again!” they plead, but Lion roars and that’s the signal for the party to start. Bulls. Bears. Dippers. Swans. Archers. Queens. Kings. Rams. Maidens. Crabs. Twins. Flying fish. Sea goats. From all quarters of the heavens they come and make a circle a million stars around and do the hokey pokey …
Put your right paw out …
… till the sky itself wobbles with laughter, and no one notices Pitcher Boy, for he is very still. Little Bear stubs his toe on a leftover wish and howls so loud he awakens Mooncow, who glumpers to the top of the sky and pours a Milky Way, and now the dancing circle is a wild white
flume ride across the endless night. And Pitcher Boy might have stayed still till dawn, but Little Bear howls on and Pitcher Boy dips his pitcher into Milky Way and pours it over Little Bear, who gubbles and gurps and burps a milky bubble, a magnificent bubble that sails among the chuckling stars and becomes pearly with starlight, heavy with starlight, and falls … falls down …
down …
down …
down …
TODAY
…
TO
H
OKEY
P
OKEY
…
… where it breaks with a soft and golden
pip!
upon the nose of Jubilee, breaks and spills over her sleeping eyes a whispered word:
it’s
and then another:
time
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to my associate storytellers:
Roger Adelman
Rinky Batson
Shorty Landes
Renée Cafiero
Nancy Hinkel
Bill Reiss
Eileen
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR
JERRY SPINELLI
is the author of many books for young readers, including
Stargirl; Love, Stargirl; Milkweed; Crash; Maniac Magee
, winner of the Newbery Medal;
Wringer
, winner of a Newbery Honor;
Eggs;
and
Knots in My Yo-yo String
, his autobiography. A graduate of Gettysburg College, he lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, poet and author Eileen Spinelli.