The Adventures of Jack Lime by James Leck Page A

went topsy-turvy faster than you can say concussion. I flopped back down and tried to suss out my situation, but thanks to all that fog, I couldn’t see much except shadows. And the longer I looked, the more shadows there seemed to be. Soon they were all around me, watching me, closing in on me. I was completely surrounded.
    â€œHay ack,” I slurred, throwing my hands in the air, but they just fell back down like two dead fish.
    And that’s when a voice whispered from the shadows, “Ake ideez hack.”
    That kind of gobbledygook made me nervous, but hard as I tried, I just couldn’t manage to sit up.
    â€œHake id eez, Jack,” the voice said, as one of the shadows broke off from the rest and lurched toward me.
    â€œHay ack,” I slurred, but it kept coming, getting closer and closer.
    â€œAke it eezy,” the voice said. The shadow was standing over me now, like a spider over a fly.
    â€œAck off!” I yelled, swinging my fists into the darkness.
    The shadow leaned over. The darkness covered me like a funeral cloak. I was sure I’d be taking the next train to Deadtown. Then a light flicked on. And in a flash, the shadow was gone and I was face to face with Old Doc Potter.
    â€œTake it easy, Jack,” he said, dodging my punches. “You must’ve been having a dream.”
    I glanced around the room and realized I was in the hospital — again. “How’d I get here, Doc?” I asked.
    â€œI was hoping you could explain that,” Potter said, taking a little flashlight out of his pocket and shining it in my eyes. “All I know is that your principal brought you in after a schoolyard fight, and it looks like you lost. You’ve been unconscious for almost two hours.”
    Now that he mentioned it, a nasty brawl did ring a few bells. But all I could remember were four hairy knuckles coming at me like a runaway locomotive. “So what’s the damage this time, Doc?”
    â€œA nasty concussion and a broken nose,” he said. He sat in a chair next to my bed. “Your grandmother tells me you’re still the local crime fighter. Is that true?”
    â€œSay, where is Grandma, anyway?” I asked, touching the bandages on my nose.
    â€œI sent her home to get some rest. But you didn’t answer my question: are you still the local crime fighter?”
    â€œCrime fighter, detective, private eye, sleuth, peeper for hire, you can call it a lot of different things. Long story short, I fix problems for people who need problems fixed. Which is a lot like what you do, isn’t it, Doc?”
    â€œI suppose you’re right about that, Jack,” Potter said, leaning back in his seat, “but I don’t end up at the hospital as much as you do.”
    â€œThat’s saying something, Doc, considering you’re supposed to work here.”
    â€œOnly part time, Jack,” he said. “I’m trying to retire, but I’m worried if I did that you’d end up in the morgue. And I feel like I have a duty to your father to make sure that doesn’t happen. Did I ever tell you I was the doctor who delivered your father?”
    â€œI think you’ve mentioned it once or twice, Doc.” In fact, just about every time I saw Doc Potter, he reminded me that he’d delivered my father, which usually led into the you-should-take-better-care-of-yourself lecture, and I could smell that coming a mile away.
    â€œWell, I did, and I would like to think that I’m one of the reasons he became a doctor. You know, he used to come visit me at the hospital just to —”
    â€œDoc, I hate to cut you off, but my head is ready to split open, so why don’t we cut to the chase.”
    â€œThat’s fair, Jack. That’s fair,” he said, stretching out his long legs. “It’s time that you started to take better care of yourself, and your poor grandmother, and stopped trying to solve everybody