“Yeah. Your head’s been banged up an’ I been holdin’ you on my lap.” Then, reassuringly: “But you’ll be O. K., kid—don’t worry.”
“It’s dark—terrible dark....”
“Yeah, we’re travelin’ without no lights. I’d keep kinda quiet if I was you. It ain’t gonna be long ’fore we’ll be where you can tumble in bed an’ sleep till your head’s better.”
“He’ll have nice eat—eh?” came a query in a slightly foreign accent. “Us will too, eh?”
A man’s deep, sonorous voice from up in front answered in the affirmative. Nickie Fallon bent closer to Skippy’s buzzing ears and explained, “That guy’s name’s Barker an’ the one drivin’s his pal, Frost. They’re our pals from now on. Say, what a break they gave us!”
Skippy was deeply puzzled. He couldn’t seem to make it out at all. “Those Greeks,” he asked wearily, “didn’t I hear one of ’em just now?”
“Shorty and Biff? Sure. They’re along. Dippy was scared an’ wouldn’t come. But I knew you was regular so when you went out me’n Shorty brought you ’long seein’ you wasn’t hurt bad. Glad, huh?”
“How ’e be glad when you ain’t tell ’eem!”
Fallon laughed. “S’right, Biff. Here I’m thinkin’ the kid knows all about it.” He leaned over Skippy again: “I didn’t have no chance puttin’ you wise on the way up an’ I go an’ forget you been out cold since we hit the ditch.”
Skippy felt a chill up and down his spine at this reminder. “We hit somethin’—so it was a ditch, huh? Gee! I got hurt then, huh?”