Chapter 1

Our extras were loaded, baggage packed in the back of the suburban, the cats looking like area rugs spread out over the pile, and bicycles on the rack. Our diplomatic passports were on the dash ... just in case.

"Left side, David ... drive on the left side."

Grace said that every few seconds, that is going to take some getting used to, I kept drifting over to the right. Every muscle in my arms is screaming, WRONG LANE! You're in the wrong lane! I guess ... my brain is yelling at the idiots coming at me in the wrong lane. But it's me that's the idiot!

The cars are so little and the trucks are huge and old. There are bicycles ... thin English bikes and a few motorcycles ... and THAT was a Vincent Black Shadow!! I thought my head was going to twist off!

"Left lane, left lane. What were you looking at? Left lane. Never mind, rhetorical question. Guys and motorcycles. LEFT LANE!! PIPER! GET OFF! Piper, you have gotten heavy."

It's a wonder I didn't kill anybody ... Wonder? A positive miracle. I did see a few rude hand gestures in the rear view mirror. My comeuppance was the New Zealand policeman who pulled us over, thank god we were in uniform.

"Yanks?"

"Yes, Sir."

"There's a driving school for foreigners," he was writing out a ticket. "See that you take it. The course is cheaper than paying this." He tore out the ticket and handed it to Grace.

"Don't give it to me ... he did it," she said.

"Yes, officer, she's been yelling LEFT SIDE all the way from the port."

"Commander, you both have to take the course ... unless you decide to not drive."

"Yes, Sir."

"Now, tell me what you're doing in Dunedin?"

"We're going to be instructors at the University. We just received our doctorates from Berkeley."

"That would be... ?"

"California."

He didn't think much of Californians ... neither did we.

"Austin ... that would be the Earl."

"The Earl?"

"Of Huntly," then he said, "Mother's blood or father's?"

"Mom was a Finn."

"Father's then. Earl of Keith." He said, "You don't know your people?"

"Daddy said 593 AD."

"Keith Clan, get an Austin Tartan ... or a Keith. Get used to a kilt, lad. At least until the people get used to you. Americans aren't highly thought of in New Zealand," he said. "What else can I tell you or be of help?"

"The RNZAF Permanent Flying Training Station at Taieri closed as an RNZAF Station: this year?"

"Yes? What about it?"

"Umh ... we bought it from the Surplus Military Property Settlement people in Wellington."

"You bought the airbase?" he asked, "Why on earth for?"

"We needed a place for our airplanes and it's close to our work."

"Airplanes? As in more than one?"

"Seven."

That stumped him.

And then Grace said, "Where is it?"

"What?" The light dawned. "You bought an old airbase sight unseen?!?"

"I ... I ... we need a place..."

"You said ... seven ... where are they now?"

"At the airport ... delivered yesterday ... we'd like to get them moved ... hangars are expensive ... and well ... we own a place ... so..." Grace was untypically scattered.

"Why weren't they delivered to the base yesterday?"

"The Air Force is still there?" she said.

"They haven't finished moving out," I said.

"We thought we'd take a drive out to their Mosgiel and talk to the base commander ... tomorrow. But you're telling us we can't drive. We can fly but not drive."

"Your California license puts your age at 17?"

"Yup," said Grace.

"But you fly?"

"Yup."

"How long?"

"Four years."

"Since you were 13?"

"Out of curiosity, how many hours?"

"Log books, David."

"Why don't you do it?"

"Because I still rank you, Lieutenant Commander a day before."

"But ... Ike..."

"If you make Captain at the same time as I do ... then we're even."

"How do you know that?" I squinted at her.

"I read it in the Commissioned Officers Handbook."

"Sorry officer ... sibling rivalry ... I'm fifteen minutes older."

"Ah, I see," but he didn't.

I went to the glovebox of the Suburban.

Get this show on the road, David. We have to pee. Piper thought at me.

Hold it. I thought back. I grabbed the log books and as an after thought I snatched our Diplomatic Passports off the dash.

Leave the door ajar. We'll sneak.

The Officer was trying to explain to Grace that she had to be 18 to fly in New Zealand.

Grace was trying to explain to the Officer what the term, 'Pre-existing conditions, ' meant. I handed him my logbook, I handed Grace hers.

"Four thousand hours!?! How did you perform that little number? Fly 12 hours a day?"

"Twelve to fourteen every day that it didn't rain and we started praying for rain. May to October for two years."

"What were you doing?"

"Espionage Act of 1946. We can't tell you."

"I need to call this in."

While he was doing that the wind caught the drivers side door ... three times ... then there was a bitter urine smell ... three times ... and the wind caught the door and slammed it. Grace jumped.

"What was that?"

"Cats had to pee."

"I need to see your passports," He shouted from the car.

Grace and I strolled over to the car and handed them to him.

"You know ... you could have stopped all this if you had given these to me first. Where's that ticket?"

I handed it to him. He wrote NUL across it and had me initial. "You still have to take the class." He folded the ticket into his book and asked where we were going first.

"Why?"

"For my sins."

"What?"

"I pulled you over, now I'm your escort." He had the look of a very sour apple bite.

"349 Leith."

"Don't tell me ... let me guess. You bought the Leith Mansion." He paused, "Three or four years ago."

"Yup," Grace said.

"You paid to have it restored," he said.

"Yup."

"You've never seen it."

"Yup."

"Your Barristers fired the first contractor."

"Yup, shoddy work."

"Who told you? The CIA?"

"You might think that, I couldn't possibly say."

We didn't hit anybody ... it might be because the Officer ... Dinwoody ... had his lights and siren on all the way to the house. The parade pulled through the gates, Grace opened her door and one gold streak and two grays bolted for the nearest patch of bare soil. Holes dug and well filled ... sniffed and covered and sniffed again, the cats immediately found a tree and started marking their territory. (Just so you know, Piper has feet half the size of my head ... and she's half Canadian Lynx ... Her now grown Kits are bigger. They are 3/4 Canadian.)

"What are those?" asked Dinwoody.

"Cats," said Grace ... in a tone that wondered where he's lived all his life.

"Those are the biggest cats I've ever seen."

"Laboratory experiment gone horribly wrong," said Grace. That earned her a glare from Piper. She bounded over and started mauling Grace, Grace mauled right back. The purr sounded a lot like an out of time Harley. As soon as she had Grace well distracted, Piper leaped in the air, snatched Grace's hat and hauled ass for the tree where her children were.