You can find the
Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois[/i] TOC here.
Where we left off in Part 10 Lois chuckled and saw Dan standing over by the vending machines. She wondered how long he had been there. He looked like he was fighting the machine for a soda. She got up and went to join him. “I know you think I’m not thinking about it. Just because I’m not talking about it, doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it.”
Dan had dropped the bombshell on her after the art show the previous weekend that he was thinking about asking for a transfer to Metropolis office, so he could be closer to her. Before he made any decisions, he had wanted her opinion. She hadn’t said ‘yes’, but she hadn’t said ‘no’ either.
“Lois… relocating is a very big step. I said I’d wait and I [i]will wait,” he said, finally extracting a soda from the machine. “— until you’re sure about us.”
“I’m glad you understand.” She sighed, stealing the rest of the coins out of his hand. He was finally starting to be aware of her control issues.
“Of course, if I were the paranoid type, I might think you’d been avoiding the whole thing,” Dan went on. Frankly, he still sounded pretty paranoid to her.
Lois set a hand on his chest and laughed. “Of course not!
Avoid it? Of course I’m not trying to avoid it.” She plugged his money in and extracted a plastic cheese sandwich from the machine. “Did you ever notice how lousy the cheese sandwiches are in this machine?”
“What?”
“Oh, I’m just saying you can’t get a good cheese sandwich. I’d kill for a piece of Camembert, the really good kind from France. You notice it’s tough to get good Camembert outside of France?” she said, prying back the plastic wrap covering her sandwich.
“I’m so glad you’re not
avoiding this whole thing,” Dan replied so sarcastically it dripped from every word. “Very, very happy about that.”
Lois didn’t know what was holding her back from moving forward with Dan, except… except that she was still having trouble sleeping. She was afraid to close her eyes and fall into her dream world.
The thought of moving forward with Dan seemed ridiculous if she figured out the clues on that piece of paper and could somehow save Clark. Saying “yes” to Dan felt like giving up on Clark, and she just wasn’t ready to do that yet.
Part 11Perry came by from the stairwell. “Oh, Lois. You busy?”
“No, no. I was just speaking with…” Lois said, turning towards Dan and noticing he was no longer there. When had her boyfriend wandered off? Or stormed off? She hadn’t noticed which, or when. “Nobody, apparently.” She shrugged and headed for her boss’s office.
As soon as they were in his office, he started in on her. He brought up the dark circles under her eyes. Between her Lex Luthor articles and the Churches trying to blow her up numerous times, and now her latest in-depth article on Spencer Spencer, he was worried about her health.
“Perry, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m not working too hard,” Lois reassured him. “Can I go back to work now?”
“Now, Lois, I read you like a book. Things get a little rough in your life, you wrap yourself up in your work…” Perry said as he closed the office door. “ – like it was going to save you.”
“Look, Chief, I’ve got to draw the line here,” she said, putting her foot down on his interference. “I have a professional life and I have a personal life, and Dan wants to move to Metropolis to be closer to me.” Tears came to her eyes out of nowhere.
Oh, God! Why was she bringing this up to Perry?
“Lois, don’t you think you ought to try dating first?”
“Well, you see…”
I’m in love with a man from my dreams. “I really like Dan…”
“Then there’s no problem,” Perry replied as if the matter were solved.
Lois looked at her boss as if
he were crazy. “Yes, there is Perry!”
I like Dan, but I love Clark. On the other hand, Clark’s not real and Dan is. Well, actually, Clark’s real too, but he’s lost… out there somewhere, waiting for me to rescue him. Only I don’t know how.How could she explain the mess that was her life without being locked in a padded cell? “Have you ever thought you found someone who was exactly right for you, but then you found out some…
thing, that you never knew about them that you thought could wreck it all?”
Well, that summed it up nicely, there, Lois. Here’s your key to the psycho ward, she told herself.
“Yes.”
She was floored.
He understands?“After Alice and I got married, I found out her right leg was an inch shorter than her left…” Perry continued.
“Chief…” Lois tried to explain that their two problems weren’t even in the same hemisphere of being alike.
“She used to wear these shoes with little wedges in them, made in Portugal,” Perry went on and Lois got absorbed in his story. “And on our wedding night, we’re standing there in front of each other… uh… in the… all together…”
Lois blushed. She couldn’t believe that Perry was telling her this story.
“And she’s listing off to the starboard. Her secret was out. But, you see, it didn’t make any difference to me, because I love her,” Perry finished.
Her boss really did understand her. That was just the story Lois needed to hear. She shouldn’t give up on Clark because she loved him. It didn’t matter to her that he somehow died in the past. He was supposed to be here in the present, and she would continue to work on those clues until she figured exactly how to rescue him from dying in the past and bring him back into her future.
Then she realized neither she nor Perry were speaking; he was just looking at her, waiting for her reaction to his story.
“Oh, Chief, that’s beautiful,” Lois told him with all the emotions flowing through her.
Her boss smiled.
Right answer, Lois, and thanks for not giving up on me, Clark whispered in her ear.
~Never, Clark.~
“Listen now.” Oh, dear, Perry wasn’t finished giving advice. “You and Dan have got to deal with whatever it is, and I don’t mean over a sandwich at your desk.”
Dan? Oh, crap, Perry thought she had been talking about Dan? “Where do you mean?” she was somehow able to mumble, hoping her boss wasn’t going to give another piece of advice about taking her boyfriend to bed.
“Get out of town, so you can focus on what really counts.”
“Oh, well, Perry, I think I’m disciplined enough to not be distracted by work,” Lois started to ramble, trying to find a way to get herself out of this conversation. The phone rang and her boss picked it up.
Actually, maybe Perry had a point. She needed to get out of town. Go to Smallville! Check out things on the ground, so to speak. Do some reconnaissance. See how much of her dreams were real and how much – Superman – were just dreams. It had been forever since she had taken a vacation day. She wondered if the Daily Planet could live without her for a week. Or two. She would take two weeks if it meant spending all her time focusing on rescuing Clark.
“It’s for you,” Perry said, handing her the phone.
“Hello?... Yes, what?” Lois told the person on the other end of the phone who was telling her about some headless corpses in a shallow grave. “Are you sure?”
He was sure and wanted to know if she was interested in checking them out.
“Yeah! Yeah, I’ll be right there.” Lois hung up the phone. “My police source just said that they just found four bodies, all male, in a shallow grave. First two identified as being last seen at one Spencer Spencer’s club, Love Fortress!” She turned to run out the door, but then she realized, she forgot to tell her boss the best part. She giggled as she turned back around. “And get this! They were all
headless.” She grinned in victory. Jimmy’s false idol was going down!
“Good Lord.”
She went to run out the door again until the Chief’s voice stopped her.
“Hey, Lois!”
Lois turned back to look at him.
“A word to the wise. Honey, there will always be another headless corpse, but true love comes around maybe once,” he reminded her.
O-kay. That was weird advice even for Perry. Lois continued out of his office and almost plowed right into Jimmy.
“Hey, Lois, I guess you haven’t seen your desk?” he told her.
“My desk?” she repeated in confusion as she headed towards the object in question, only to find it covered with another huge bouquet of flowers.
Terrific. “Let me guess: Dan?”
He appeared from behind the pillar next to her desk with a big grin. “Yes, of course,” Dan announced with a wink. “Who else?” He put his elbows down on her Spencer Spencer research binders as he gazed at her like a love-sick puppy.
She sighed. This was just what she needed. “Dan. That’s so…” Lois searched for the correct term.
Annoying? Excessive? Over-the-top?~Shut up, Clark. Like you wouldn’t do the same thing.~
“Sweet,” she finally chose, although Clark’s suggestions had been closer to the mark.
A-ha!Lois pulled the binders out from under Dan’s elbows.
“But?” Dan inquired.
“We have to talk.”
Dan looked uncomfortable with her use of
those words.
I don’t know, Lois, those sounded like good words to me, Clark said in that jealous tone he got whenever she talked to Scardino. The only other time she had ever heard Clark use that tone was in her dreams whenever she talked about or to Lex.
“And we
will talk, Dan,” Lois pushed her way through the awkwardness. “Right after I get back. I’m sorry. I just have to get this statement, but we’ll do this,” she called to him as she carried her stuff out of the office. “I swear!”
Lois glanced back at Dan as she stood at the elevator and witnessed a moment of despair crash over his expression before he hid it behind another one of his charming smiles. She sighed. If she wasn’t in love with another man…
***
Lois walked out to her car to find it blocked in by a freight truck.
“Great,” she grumbled. As she went to find the driver to ask him to move, her phone started to ring. Balancing her binders precariously, she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “Yes, hello?” she said into her phone.
“Ms. Lane, you have an overseas call. Please hold,” a man on the other end told her.
“No! No! I can’t… Argh!” she said to deaf ears, already having been placed on hold. “Oh, yes, I’ll hold…” She continued to pace in front of her car looking for the driver of the truck. “Hello?... Hello?... Hello?... Hello?... Hello?... Hello?” she repeated into the phone, hoping someone would pick up.
“Please hold. I’m transferring,” the voice on the phone finally said.
“Yeah. I’m holding,” she said into the phone.
Who in the world is calling her from overseas? Did this have to do with her Spencer Spencer article? She noticed someone removing boxes from the truck in front of her, and she flagged him down. “Hey, do you think you could get someone from Maintenance to move this truck. I’m blocked in.”
The man said he would.
“Hello?” she said, hoping her call would come through and tell her what so important as to call her on her cell phone.
She heard a creak or a groan of metal above her and glanced up. The Daily Planet flagpole tipped and started falling almost directly on top of her. Lois froze in her spot, dropping both her binders and cell phone on the ground, not to mention her jaw. Next thing she knew, she heard a crash and she was laying on the sidewalk five feet away with Dan Scardino on top of her. The flagpole had flattened the newsstand she had been standing in front of moments before. Dan was littered with the debris from said newsstand.
“Are you all right?” he asked, shaking his head and sending dust particles off from his hair.
“Yes,” she breathed. “I know that doesn’t seem like enough to say… Wow, look at you…” she mumbled. She could feel Dan shaking.
From fear? Had he been as afraid for her safety as she had been? “You’ve gotten me out of a lot of jams, but I’ve never seen you like…”
Dan kissed her, cutting off the rest of her gratitude.
***
Once again balancing her Spencer Spencer research binders with the addition of a huge gift basket, Lois stumbled into her apartment. She had just had time to dump her binders and drop her keys down when there was a knock at her front door. Unable to see around the gift basket – ‘large enough to flee Cuba in’ according to Perry – to look through her peep hole, Lois just opened her door.
Dan leaned against her doorframe. “You forgot to ask, ‘who is it?’”
She rolled her eyes and slammed the door in his face.
Jerk!He knocked again as she walked into her kitchen to throw away the gift basket. She ignored him. He knocked again, louder. Between pressed lips, she called out with Mindy Church sweetness, “Who is it?”
“Dan,” he answered in a silly voice.
“Who?”
“Dan!” he repeated tersely.
“I don’t know anyone I’d want to let in my apartment by that name,” Lois responded, crossing her arms and refusing to answer the door.
“Your idiot of a boyfriend, who you soundly need to hit in the head with a 2x4 for once again interfering with how you live your life,” he replied.
Lois opened the door with a satisfied smile. “Oh, him.”
“I’m sorry,” Dan instantly apologized. “I did it again, didn’t I?”
She nodded at the obviousness of that statement.
“How is it that I’m allowed to save your life, but not criticize how you open your door without checking for bad guys?” Dan inquired, following her into the apartment and shutting the door behind him.
Lois didn’t dignify that question with a response.
With more intelligence than he had shown recently, he decided to move on. “Want to tell me what that thing was?” he asked with a hint of jealousy. Probably because the gift basket had been larger than the desk-covering bouquet of flowers he had brought her when he had stopped by the office earlier.
“Promotion for some stupid tropical resort,” she told him, walking into the kitchen and pulling out the only thing in her cupboard, a box of chocolate cookies. She returned to the living room to sit down on her sofa. She set down the box and took a bite of a cookie. “Perry is practically forcing me to invite you to go with me.”
“Me?” Dan raised a skeptical but delighted eyebrow as he sat down next to her.
“Perry thinks it would be good if the two of us had some time together outside of Metropolis to focus on our relationship, to decide what we
really want,” she said, standing back up to retrieve her binders.
“Doesn’t sound all that bad of an idea,” he replied.
“I told him ‘I’m too busy’,” she said.
“Yeah, well, your work would be a lot safer than spending an uninterrupted weekend alone with me,” Dan teased.
“Hold it. Hold it!” she retorted, lifting up her hands. “I’m not the one canceling dinner and lunch at the last minute to rush off to some undisclosed location to meet a source… oh, wait, that could be me, but it hasn’t been. Four of our last six dates were canceled or delayed because of
your job.”
“What are you saying?” Dan asked.
Did she really need to idiot-proof it for him?
If the shoe fits…~Oh, shut up, Clark!~ she groused at that jealous voice inside her head.
“I’m saying I don’t think you could let the Drug Enforcement Agency get along without you for two whole days,” Lois clarified, taking another bite of her cookie.
“And you would rather write about other people’s lives because it would be less dangerous than living one of your own,” he tossed back at her. “Which, knowing your life as I do, I’m surprised you’ve lasted as long as you have.”
She pressed her lips together. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Dan said, before he got an uncomfortable expression on his face and shifted his body position. His beeper must be vibrating.
“Someone
want you?” she asked innocently.
“No,” Dan lied, shifting his position again and looking even more uncomfortable.
Lois took the last bite of her cookie with a grin as she waited for him to fold.
“Yes,” he grumbled, pulling his beeper out of his pocket and walking to her telephone. He dialed the number, talked into the receiver for a few minutes as she started flipping through her binders. Eventually, he returned. “I’ve got to go,” he apologetically admitted.
Big surprise there.
“Go,” Lois insisted. If she had a meeting with a source, she wouldn’t want him holding her back.
Dan walked to the door and opened it. “You know, I could do it, if you could.”
“Wanna bet?” she dared him.
He laughed nervously and nodded. “Bet.”
Lois grinned, taking a bite of another cookie. He was so totally going to lose, but there was nothing he could do about it. That resort didn’t even have telephone service.
Dan winked at her and left.
Sighing, Lois took another cookie out of the box.
What was she doing? Didn’t she just decide that very afternoon that she was going to Smallville and investigate Clark? Figure out how to save
him? Not run off on some romantic tropical vacation with Dan.
When she had gone to Perry to ask for the time off, he had misunderstood and offered her the promotional trip to her own private island resort to work on her relationship with Dan. She couldn’t very well tell her boss that she didn’t want to go off with her clearly smitten boyfriend, who had just saved her life – again – but instead wanted to go chase down leads about some man she had met and fallen in love with in her dreams. That would be a one-way ticket to Bedlam.
And maybe Perry was right. Perhaps a weekend in the sun, relaxing at some fancy resort was just what she needed… before she left on her solo vacation to search for her true love.
***
A small white motor boat with a blue canopy meandered through the islands off the coast of South America. Lois could hear the call of tropical birds and the titter of animals. She could smell the fragrance of lush flowers and the salt of the sea air. It was hot and humid and, despite all that, felt wonderful. She was starving for some of that famous tropical fruit everyone was always raving about. That bland airline meal she had picked at, and reluctantly eaten, happened hours ago. She thankfully had bought and eaten a large Double Fudge Chunk Bar upon arriving at the duty free shop at the Rio airport. She only wished the heaviness in the pit of her stomach and the dried salt on her cheeks would go away.
The boat finally approached a dock. The captain unloaded her three suitcases and a couple of beach chairs.
“Excuse me? Do you know where we check in?” she asked him as she stumbled along in her high heel cork beach shoes with the first of her bags. He waved vaguely up the small beach and into the trees. “Well, the brochure said something about a ‘welcome hoki luau’.” The man completely ignored her. “I guess, we’ll just wait for the hotel jitney,” Lois mumbled, pulling on her stylish white sunhat.
Jimmy climbed out of the boat with her umbrella – she did burn easily for a brunette – and his one small bag. He seemed happy to be there. He wore his sunglasses, shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt that really should have been left on the rack at the store. She didn’t blame him. When one got called, two hours before departure, to go on a romantic tropical beach vacation in the islands because the boyfriend – or should she say
former boyfriend – of one’s partner had been called into work at the last minute, one was allowed to be ecstatic about it.
“I know what this is. Casual elegance, Lois,” Jimmy was saying. “We shouldn’t be distracted by the simple rustic beach, into thinking that there really isn’t a…” He turned back to the boat, but the captain had already cast off and left them standing on the dock. “You’re kidding me. I thought these fancy places had better service than that? I didn’t even have a chance to tip him. Did you tip him?”
Lois shook her head. “Nope.”
They stood on the dock for minute longer until they could no longer see the boat. With a sigh, they each picked up one of Lois’ remaining suitcases and moved ashore.
***
Lois relaxed on the sun chairs, her umbrella unfurled against the heat of the day, as she waited for Jimmy to return from his trek in search of said tropical island resort. Relaxed was the wrong word. Grumbled probably fit her mood better.
Perry! She swore at her boss from under her breath once more. If she hadn’t listened to her boss, if the Chief hadn’t meddled, she could be on her way to … well, Kansas.
“Are you working?” Jimmy scoffed, sitting down the other beach chair.
“I’m writing my will,” she retorted. Actually, she was writing down everything she could recall about what Clark had told her about himself, but that wasn’t something she was planning on sharing with her partner. “That way when they find our bleached bones, someone will know my last wishes.”
He leaned back with a sigh. “Well, if these are my last minutes, who better to spend them with?”
Lois refused to look at him, instead groaned inward looking to the sky and wondering why she had invited her partner to join her on this bad idea to begin with.
“Alone in paradise with a beautiful woman. It’s almost biblical.” Jimmy shot her a grin.
She returned a scowl and put down her umbrella. Obviously Jimmy hadn’t done much in the way of reading the Bible. She got up and tried to walk around. She thought better when she paced. Unfortunately, pacing in these non-beach shoes was a trial at best. “While you were out looking around, you didn’t happen to find any proof that there actually is a hotel now, did you?”
“No,” he reluctantly admitted. “But why wouldn’t there be a hotel?”
“Well…” Lois hated it when Jimmy was right. “Maybe no one built one or maybe we’re on the wrong island or …” Her eyes opened in fright as her imagination went wild. “Maybe this is a penal colony.” She could hear Jimmy chuckling at her theories. “Or maybe no living being has ever been here in the history of the Earth. Why don’t you go and take another look around?” she suggested.
“No, Lois. Use your head. Look…” He pointed towards where they disembarked from the boat. “There wouldn’t be a dock here unless this was some kind of inhabited island. Secondly, this place is too nice for a penal colony, if they still have those nowadays. Let’s just wait for the hotel to come out looking for us. They’re expecting us, so when we don’t show up, they’ll look for us. If you’re so desperate to find the hotel, I’ll lend you my shoes and you can go tromp through the tropical vegetation. I’m staying here.”
Lois sighed. She hated to do so, but she gave Jimmy another point. He was being logical. What he said made sense. Only… only, something about this place, this whole trip felt off to her, and she didn’t like that. “You know what we need. We need a flying superhero to come and save us and fly us back to…” She flipped her hand. “The closest bit of civilization.” Wherever
that might be. Rio?
“Yes, Lois. But there’s no superhero here. It’s just Joe and Judy Regular.”
She scowled at him again. He didn’t have to remind her of that. She looked off towards the water. “Superman, where are you?” she whispered in defeat.
Eventually, Lois took off her impossible heels and paced in her stocking feet, but even that seemed futile. The boat ride had taken them around forty-five minutes, if not longer, so it would be stupid to try to swim back to wherever it was they had come from. She plopped into her chair with an exasperated sigh.
Jimmy blissfully ignored her. He had opened his shirt and was soaking up the rays.
She pressed her lips together. “You’re going to burn.”
“Oh, right,” he said and started digging through his bag. “I picked this up in the gift shop at the Rio airport.”
He showed her a brown bottle of what she could only imagine was goo, but was probably suntan lotion.
Jimmy confirmed her theory. “It’s supposed to give me a natural Brazilian look. That should impress the ladies when we return home, huh?” He bounced his eyebrows.
Ugh.
She heard a sound, and it wasn’t one that she liked. It sounded wild and animalesque. Gulping, Lois hesitantly turned her head to look past where Jimmy was sitting. There, standing at the edge of the beach, was a tiger, a large and very hungry looking tiger. She knew coming to this island was a mistake.
Jimmy opened his bottle of goo and started slathering it upon his bare chest, unaware of their reception committee. With a grimace, Lois covered her mouth and nose at the smell, which was a mixture of turpentine, coconuts, and tar. It was noxious at best and rivaled only the Metropolis Sewage Reclamation Facility for the worst smell in the history of smells. She wanted to cough. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to ask Jimmy to go feed himself to the hungry tiger just to get her away from that smell, but she didn’t. She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to breathe. She didn’t want to attract that big cat’s attention any more than they already had. She had no idea how they were going to escape the animal.
Then Lois saw the tiger wrinkle its nose and run off.
With an amazed chuckle, she held out her hand. “Why don’t you give me some of that stuff?” she asked, when she was finally able to speak again. She had no desire to get closer to that smell, but it was worth it if it repelled wildlife. She coughed to clear her throat as Jimmy shrugged and poured a dollop of brown stuff into her hand. “Jimmy,” she said as nonchalantly as she could. “Have you ever heard of tigers in South America?”
“Paranoid much there, Lois?” He laughed, pouring more goop into his hand. “No, Lois, tigers reside in India and southeast Asia. Here we have panthers and jaguars, but I doubt they’d be on an island this far from the mainland either. The worst we’re liable to come across are snakes and some big ol’ nasty bugs. Nothing to worry about.”
Lois swallowed down the bile stuck in her throat.
Snakes? Bugs?
Other than mosquitoes? She hoped this tiger repellant worked on those too. With much disgust she started rubbing the sticky stuff on her arms. She belatedly realized that it probably would stain her nice white travel dress, but since they were going to die on this island, what did it really matter.
***
More hours passed by before Lois and Jimmy decided nobody was on their way and they should hunt for some food and water. It was better than staying on the beach and being hunted herself; luckily, they hadn’t seen another hide nor hair from the tiger. She dug through her luggage and changed into a pair of shorts and skimpy top that basically covered her bra, tying in a knot at the center of her chest. Thankfully, she had also packed some flat white sandals. This outfit was much cooler and one hundred and ten percent more comfortable.
Jimmy eyed her choice of apparel appreciatively until her looks-could-kill expression convinced him to look for food. Sometimes she wished she had heat-vision.
What this weekend would have been like if Scardino hadn’t bailed on her at the last minute, Lois had no idea. He had been working on a case of some missing transplant drugs, the kind that helped reduce the chance of rejection by the host body – she couldn’t remember the name. He was afraid that someone was using it to do some unscheduled transplants on their own. In other words, human organ trafficking. It was all very interesting, but off-the-record.
Just as he had arrived at her apartment to go to the airport, Dan had gotten beeped to come into the office on another lead. With a shrug, a kiss to her cheek, and a mumbled apology, Dan had run out the door, claiming he would catch up with her at the airport. Lois hadn’t waited until her front door had closed; she had picked up the phone and called Jimmy. She wasn’t going to hold her breath for supposed boyfriend to catch up with her now.
After rescuing her from the falling flagpole, her resistance to his charm had wavered. Dan had shown that he really cared for her as he risked his life for hers again, but it seemed only during those times when her life was in danger did she really matter. Heaven forbid he put her ahead of his job for two days running…
Lois found a pool of water where it seemed a small creek emptied itself. She tried to bend down to fill their one water bottle full of water. Two seconds later she fell headfirst into the water.
Jimmy chuckled, coming back into view carrying with a small bunch of bananas. “Whatcha doing?”
“I thought a swim might be nice,” she retorted. She pooled her hands to take a sip of water.
“Eww, I wouldn’t do that, Lois,” he suggested. “Who knows what kind of germs are floating around in that pool?” He grimaced. “Let’s see, if we can get a fire started and we’ll boil the water before we drink it.”
“If you’re taking orders, I’ll have a double caf espresso with non-fat milk and whipped cream,” Lois said between pressed lips, dropping the water back into the pool. Jimmy had earned himself another point.
“I saw some cocoanuts back there. I’ll see if we can crack one open on a rock to use for a pot.”
Yep, heat-vision would definitely be coming in handy about now.
He set down the bunch of bananas and reached over the edge of the pool to help her out. With a jerk of her hand, Jimmy plopped into water next to her.
“Refreshing.” He gave her a nasty glare and her expression sweetened.
“I thought so too,” Lois replied with a bat of innocent eyelashes before she splashed him. She climbed out of the pool and reached down to help Jimmy.
“No, thanks, Mad Dog. I’ll help myself,” he told her, moving down the pond.
“Sorry, Jimmy. I just hate being laughed at,” she confessed, still holding out her hand. She would have been dead meat, literally, if it hadn’t have been for Jimmy and his goo. At least the dip in the pool had rinsed off some of the sticky substance. It never had rubbed in properly.
This time, Jimmy accepted her help and she pulled him from the pool. “Thanks, Lois.”
“You go find those cocoanuts and see if you can crack them while I get changed again, and try to start a fire.”
“You? A fire?” Jimmy seemed genuinely surprised. “You got some matches in one of those suitcases, Houdini?”
“No, but I did happen to take one year of girl scouting before my parents broke up.” She patted her head with a finger. “Let’s hope some of it stuck.”
“My apologies, boss,” he said with an elaborate bow.
Lois raised a brow. “Partner.”
Jimmy smiled. “Partner.”
***End of Part 11*** Part 12 Comments
