The Case-Book of Holloway Holmes: The Adventures of Holloway Holmes, #4

By Gregory Ashe

Even great detectives have their off days.

The Case-Book of Holloway Holmes is a collection of short stories from The Adventures of Holloway Holmes. It includes the following:

"The Adventure of the First Day"

Jack and Holmes settle in at their new school. This story is set before The Strangest Forms.

"The Adventure of the New Friend"

Jack and Holmes discover the highs and lows of friendship. This story is set before The Old Wheel.

"The Adventure of the Lost Boy"

A series of vignettes during Holmes's absence from the Walker School. This story is set before Where All Paths Meet.

"The Return of Holloway Holmes"

Jack and Holmes experience several relationship "firsts." This story is set after Where All Paths Meet.

 

Please note that the first three stories were distributed previously in various formats.

"The Return of Holloway Holmes" is exclusively available in this collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hodgkin and Blount
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781636210629

Book preview

THE CASE-BOOK OF HOLLOWAY HOLMES

SHORT STORIES FROM THE ADVENTURES OF HOLLOWAY HOLMES

GREGORY ASHE

H&B

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Case-Book of Holloway Holmes

Copyright © 2023 Gregory Ashe

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests and all other inquiries, contact: [e-mail]

Published by Hodgkin & Blount

https://www.hodgkinandblount.com/

[e-mail]

Published 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Version 1.04

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63621-063-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-63621-062-9

The Adventure of the First Day

This story takes place before the events of The Strangest Forms.

1

Jack

Dad was throwing up again.

I squirmed into the bedding, squeezing my eyes shut. The sound continued down the hall in the cottage’s only bathroom. Several long uh-uh-uh, and then silence. Like he was holding his breath. The morning light laid a hand across my face. After a moment, I burrowed under the pillow, into the dark.

Uh-uh-uh.

A low-grade headache prowled around the back of my skull—nothing like the whammies Dad got, but the kind that meant I’d been stupid to cover the night shift, stupid to stay up late watching the Stream Queens play Dead by Daylight on Twitch, stupid to think I’d honestly have the morning off and could sleep in.

Uh-uh-uh.

One, I thought. I threw the pillow across the room and kicked the sheet and blanket to the foot of the bed. One morning to sleep in.

Rubbing my eyes, I went out to the hall. The cottage was small: two bedrooms that were exactly the same size, i.e., about as big as my balls; an even smaller bathroom; and a combined kitchen and living room where the TV from our old house now took up a whole wall and sometimes the refrigerator smelled like it was burning.

Dad was on his knees in the bathroom, leaning against the old pedestal sink, his face the same color as the porcelain. Big drops of sweat covered his forehead, and a trickle of saliva hung from the corner of his mouth. Hey, buddy. Go back to bed.

Did you take your medicine?

He nodded. He looked wrung out. The year before—before the accident—we’d biked Canyonlands, and at the end of every day, he’d wanted to stay up and talk and look at the stars. Now, he was lucky to stay upright through the morning. Come on.

Mr. Taylor called.

I got my hand under Dad’s arm. Come on.

You’re supposed to be sleeping.

Well, I’m up.

Dad squeezed his eyes shut as I helped him to his feet. Jack—

You’re supposed to lie down with an ice pack when they’re this bad.

He probably would have said more, but he also looked like he wanted to throw up some more, so it was one of those mutual self-destruction things. I got him into his bedroom and pulled the thin, sun-bleached curtains closed. They’d been printed with what had probably been wildflowers at some point. On the other side of them, the whole world became a flat, bright gray. I got him an icepack. I got him a glass of water.

I just need fifteen minutes, Dad said, but he was squeezing his eyes shut again. For the meds to kick in.

What’d Mr. Taylor want?

Jack, I can do it.

Ok, well, what did he say?

Outside, a couple of kids were laughing, and music blared and then cut off. More laughter. We were set back from the campus, but not far, and all day you could hear stuff like this. The rich kids going to their rich kid school.

The boys’ bathroom in Hinckley.

He had his eyes closed, so I made a face.

I know, he said. That’s why I said I’ll do it.

I didn’t say anything.

His real smile came out then, only it was like the curtains, sun-bleached.

The doctor said you can alternate Tylenol and ibuprofen if the prescription doesn’t help. They’re on the nightstand. Don’t knock over your water.

You’re a good man, Jack Moreno.

Puke bucket?

Dad pressed one hand to his temple; with the other, he fumbled under the bed and brought out an old gallon plastic bucket that had once held discount vanilla ice cream.

I’ll check on you at lunch, I said, and before he could protest, I shut the door.

After giving my eyes another rub, I dug through the clothes on the floor of my room and came up with a relatively clean The Walker School polo and the pair of old jeans I liked to wear for the shitty—no pun intended—jobs. Add-on: my ancient Vans; I saved the Nikes for when I wouldn’t be wading through piss. Dad didn’t have any coffee ready, and I’d eaten the last Pop-Tart the day before. My stomach did that thing that’s not really grumbling, where it just seizes up like a fist, but I didn’t know how much time I had, so I ignored it. Mr. Taylor was one of those guys who got a hard-on from holding clipboards and stuff like that. If he’d told Dad there was a situation, he’d follow up on it. Soon.

I jogged over to the maintenance building and got the cart, gave it a quick once-over—trash bin, cleaning sprays, drain enzymes, scrubbers and mop and squeegee and broom, plus all the extra, miscellaneous stuff—and headed for the athletic center. At my school, we would have called it the gym. At Walker, it was the athletic center. It was also douche central. In pre-algebra, we’d had to do, you know, a + 4 = 10, and then you had to take the four away from both sides, and hey, a = 6. So you take the athletic center, and you say a + sports = a fucked-up bathroom, and then you take away sports from each side, and you get a = rich entitled assholes.

When I got there, it was the lobby bathroom, which was why Mr. Taylor was pitching a fit—God forbid somebody important walked through and decided to take a leak. Somebody had locked the door, probably the gym teacher who had reported it. I let myself in. I found the breakfast burrito in the urinal.

That was it. No shit smeared on the walls. No sewage back-up. Some ass-wipe hadn’t wanted to eat the breakfast prepared for him by the school chef and a team of line cooks. Big emergency.

I gloved up, filled a bucket with disinfectant, and retrieved the urinal strainer. The burrito—what was left of it—went into the trash.