J e r r y s p I n e L l I

down me! And they do, kids from all over town, in 
all seasons of the year. They sled down, they run 
down, roll down, tumble down, bicycle down, 
tricycle down, Rollerblade down, skateboard 
down, trashcan-lid down. 
Early in his life, when Zinkoff raced cars 
along the sidewalk, he had believed himself to be 
the fastest kid in the world. Now that he knows 
this to be untrue, Halftank Hill has become all 
the more appealing to him. 
Sometimes he runs, because it is the only way 
he can experience, for just a moment, a particularly 
fascinating feeling. Halfway down the hill he can 
feel himself losing control, his legs cannot keep up 
with his speed. He feels as if he is coming apart, 
running out of himself, leaving himself behind. 
Sometimes he bikes it. He aims the front tire 
over the grassy crest and down he goes, and for 
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those few seconds nothing can convince him that 
he is not the fastest thing in the universe, and 
even though he’s too big now to yell yahoo he 
yells it anyway: “Yahoo!” And rediscovers every 
time that no one is slow on Halftank Hill. And 
there are no clocks. 
Sometimes he doesn’t want to ride anywhere 
in particular. Sometimes he doesn’t want to ride 
fast. He just wants to ride. That’s when he aims 
Clinker One for the alleys, where cats and little 
kids roam but no cars, a bicycle’s boulevard, and 
he rides, just rides, and it’s good enough. 
And so Zinkoff’s life in fifth grade is filled 
with things new and interesting and good 
enough. And until the day of the test-that-is-not-
a-test, it never occurs to him that something has 
been missing. 
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