He shook his head. “They had other things for me to see.”

“We have to call the army hospital. Mom has the car—maybe they can come pick you—”

“No,” he interrupted. “Who do you think did this to me?”

“I have no idea, Jordan. How ’bout you tell me?”

“It was them. It was the guys at the plant, working with the military. Remember those two guys in suits that I pointed out at football practice? They were waiting for me in this little room. We tussled.”

“‘Tussled,’” I said. “You mean they stabbed you?”

“No,” he said. “There was this disfigured psycho scientist with a skull-like face, no lips, no ears, and a sword that shoots out from where his right arm should be. I’ve seen him in my dreams, twice, but now I know he’s real.”

Jordan’s face was peppered with sweat, and his undershirt was glued to his body. Maybe he had a fever? Delusions?

“The psycho scientist stabbed you?” I asked.

“Swear to Jah,” he said. “With the sword that came out of his arm stump.”

“Like Wolverine.”

“No, those are more like sword fingernails. This was a sword arm.”

“Hang on,” I said, looking for a thermometer that hadn’t seen the inside of a dog’s anus. Jordan had an infection that must’ve given him a fever, and now, after walking around for hours with open wounds, he was delusional and experiencing hallucinations. I finally located a small electric thermometer in our upstairs bathroom, and as I returned to the exam room, my heart sank.

Jordan looked awful, his skin pale and ashen, his face and body smeared and spattered with blood.

“Who was the fight with?” I asked as I put the thermometer in his mouth.

“Mmm mmm,” he said. He had a thermometer in his mouth. I pulled it out.

“I told you,” he said. “Those two guys in suits—FBI agents, maybe—and that scary scientist.”

“Scary scientist with a sword.”

“Right. But I grabbed the gun from one of the FBI guys and shot him three times in the chest.”

“You killed the scientist?”

“In theory,” Jordan said. “But I don’t think he’s really dead.”

Okay, we’d ventured deep into Crazytown. I jammed the thermometer back into his mouth, but he pulled it out.

“I didn’t shoot the FBI guys,” he continued, “though I pistol-whipped one of them, and handcuffed them both to a radiator. Obviously they know who I am and will come after me. That’s why we can’t go to the army hospital. And we can’t tell anyone.”

“What happened to the gun?”

“I ditched it in the woods on the way home,” he said.

“Great,” I said for lack of anything better to say. Hadn’t we been snuggling on the couch just a few hours ago? I took the thermometer from his hand. “Leave this in your mouth this time, or I’ll stick it somewhere else.”

He obeyed, and I had a silent moment to think. I couldn’t fix all this alone. I needed my mom.