Chapter 3

Political Asylum is no joking matter. International Law requires the country you are asking for asylum to grant temporary residence until a determination has been made. That’s why so many countries try so hard to keep boat refugees at sea. Once you’re on land and make a claim they have to let you stay ... until they can legally kick your ass off.

Our plea wasn’t helped by the Navy carrier group trying to invade NZ waters. Nor by the squad of fleet marines who bulled their way ashore.

Well ... maybe it was. If the US Navy had come hat in hand and begged Pretty Please, Immigration probably would have let them have us ... maybe.

But the Navy asshats tried to intimidate and that helped our cause.

The other thing that helped was our Letters of Credit and the several millions of dollars in certified funds ... and the couple of million stashed on the boat. We are, after all, trust fund children, and we needed funds for our extended jaunt around the world.

So ... they let us stay. That’s not to say they didn’t allow a bit of questioning by the lawyers of the party of the second part ... we being the parties of the first part.

Since we had been at sea for four circumnavigation’s of this fair planet, there was little we could tell our inquisitors.

“We don’t know!” was said multiple times to various and sundry Suits until we got tired of it.

“On advice of counsel ... until you can form a new line of questioning ... we’re done talking. Go Away!”

“What counsel?”

The three of us tootled our fingers and walked out.

I had counseled CM (Cynthia Mae) and JW (John Walter) and CM had counseled SM (Me) and JW and JW had done the same for us.

Triplets as smart as we are communicate with eyebrows, wrinkles and scratches. And we really do read each others minds. The United States of America had wasted two weeks of a beautiful New Zealand summer and we wanted to explore.

Have I mentioned we are deadly? Probably not.

We are Deadly. There ... that’s out of the way. Dangerous ... and immune to truth serums, poisons, and tranquilizers. And we don’t know why.

We don’t know why we know what we know, ya know. We are our own normal. We’ve ALWAYS been this way! We recognize that “normal” people are rather dull. We’re not.

We are our own best company.

“You can stay,” the man in uniform said.

“YAY!” We said.

“At least until we have finished our investigation,” He said. “You might have to leave.”

“BOO!” We said.

“You are absolutely teenagers,” he laughed.

“Where can we go?”

“We’d prefer that you stay on the North Island,” he hesitated. “But stay in country. Keep us informed, Okay?”

“What can we do?”

“Stay out of trouble,” he said.

“We would never start anything,” we said, “May we defend ourselves?”

“Yes,” he said. “If your application is proved, come fall you need to be in school.”

And that was the beginning of serious testing. We had all our academic records. But the World knows American Education SUCKS! So ... we had to prove we were as smart as our records say we are ... again.

And just to prove we were as smart as we said, we read the rules to the New Zealand Monster Ball.

“Are we in agreement?” and we all nodded at each other. “There is no provision made for age or residency unless we use a concierge to buy.”

“Yup!” we said. “Seven? The next three drawings numbers please.”

In NZ, the smallest jackpot is 10,000,000.00Nz. The prize is cumulative ... if nobody wins the jackpot rolls over.

So ... I won the first one ... three drawings worth. 35 million ... no tax.

Cyndimae won the next ... one drawing... 10 million ... no tax.