Chapter 2

When you’re at sea, passage making, it feels like you can’t wait to get ashore. After 29 days at sea ... even Samoa works. But ... three days ashore and we’re itching to get to sea. You can’t please everybody all the time. Teenagers seldom settle.

Satellite radio and TV are our means of keeping up with the doings of the land based. Listening to the propaganda (NEWS) 0r watching the bubbleheads express opinions so far away from the opinions of real people gets either boring or hilarious ... depending. When it’s boring we practice our single stick or Bōjutsu katas. When it’s funny we watch or listen. It was nothing to be roused from a nap to “Come watch this.” And we do. We are not old enough to Captain our boat, although the classes for Captaincy are part of the curriculum he signed up to teach when mom hired him. Still, we watch stand, do helm duty and work in the engine room fixing things.

But we are shellbacks and Royal Diamond shellbacks.

We are members of the Order of the Blue Nose (Arctic Circle), Order of the Red Nose (Antarctic Circle), Order of the Ditch(Panama Canal), Order of the Golden Dragon (International Dateline), Order of the Lakes (Five Great Lakes) Order of Magellan (Circumnavigated) and The Strait Jacket Club (Straits of Magellan).

We are Moss Backs ( the tip of South America), Order of the Rock (Gibraltar), Safari to Suez, Order of the Spanish Main (Caribbean), and the Order of the Sparrow (7 seas). And some of it more than once.

So ... we were in the South Pacific approaching New Zealand when our nanny, Grace, woke us up.

“You probably want to hear this,” she said. “It’s not good. There is no way to sugar-coat it. So listen up.”

She turned up the radio and told us to sit while the announcer announced We interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast with breaking news: John Semanthaler at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC.

“We’re outside the fence looking at what remains of the West Wing, where the murder of the President of the United States, MH holder John Flinkote and the suicide of S.W. Flintkote, of Frogmorton, Virginia, took place. Still unknown is the fate of the Presidential Secret Service White House Detail. The deed took place after business hours so most of the staff were not present. Surviving members of the Flintkote family, C.M. Flinkote, J.W. Flintkote and S.M. Flintkote are somewhere in the South Pacific. The United States Navy has been tasked by Congress to diligently search the world for them. Stay tuned for further developments.”

“Looking for us?” Cyndimae asked.

“Why?” JW asked.

“She sent us away to keep the government from finding us,” I said.

Grace looked shocked to hear me say that, “Why would she do that?”

JW said, “The last few years she became convinced that the government was responsible for our fathers disappearance.”

“Hello,” said Seven and the Powers that Be, “You need to get to New Zealand as fast as possible.”

Grace stood opened mouthed.

“Grace ... you won’t remember any of this.” Seven said, “Go sit and turn off your ears.”

And she did. You know how you tell your friends a secret and they zip their mouths shut? Grace pretended to lock up her ears. First time I’d seen anyone do that.

“Why do we need to get to New Zealand?” Cyndimae asked. “Shouldn’t we turn around to meet the Navy?”

“New Zealand won’t allow nuclear weapons or nuclear powered American ships near the island. Something about bomb testing in Australia and the resulting fallout.”

“It was the Pommys that tested. The US didn’t test in Oz,”

“So they say,” said The Powers that Be. “If the Americans catch you you’ll end up in a lab somewhere.”

“Why would they do that?”

“How did you get so smart?”

Oh, Great. Now the Powers are practicing psychiatry. Answer a question with a question.