Chapter 17

Ms Baxter had waited for us. Everyone else in the Admissions Office was gone ... long weekend ... they probably left at noon. Nothing quite like an early start. Any travel could be done before dark.

“Can you write cheques?” Ms Baxter asked.

“It’s my company ... I needed daddy while I was a minor. I don’t know where he’s gone for the weekend,” I said. Truth be known ... I had no idea where he’d been for the week ... With Jim Mac for sure.

I would think with the mine he’d quit looking ... I guess it’s a hobby now.

Ms Baxter explained how much and why it was ‘so expensive.’ “It’s not so much the tuition as it is the Pre testing. Every final exam has to be paid for as if you were actually taking the class. Alice Li has applied for testing to eliminate First and Second year undergraduate class work.”

Alice said, “I’d test out of Third Year if you would let me.”

“Sorry Alice ... first and second only.” She turned to me, “Forty five thousand nine hundred. Living at home.”

I whipped out my Parker Ink Pen and scrawled my signature on a cheque for $45,900 ... tore it out of the ledger and handed it to Ms Baxter.

“Just like that?”

“She might not have my DNA ... but she’s my sister.”

I grinned at Alice ... she grinned back.

“You riding the bus or do I need to buy you a car?”

“A ute please. I have one in mind.”

Ms Baxter was participating ... she was a spectator at Wimbledon. Look right ... look left, repeat.

“Hermm...”

“You want to go home,” Alice said.

“Sorry to keep you,” I said.

“Alice ... Tuesday... 8 AM ... remember... 70% or go home.”

“Yes, ma’am ... Tiuesday... 8 o’clock. Come on Abby, lets go look at my car.”

I am driving Daddy’s Shelby. We stepped out of Admissions to see the Cobra surrounded by gawkers.

“Hemm, excuse me ... That’s my car and we need to get going.”

“Fuckin’ foreigners ... showin out,” said a scruff.

“Born here, raised here ... how about you?”

He took a swing ... I broke his arm.

The cop was an Australian. An Australia for Australians card holding member.

First thing he did was call the Aboriginal Child, Family and Community State Secretariat ... and THEY said I was Aborigine ... of course they did.

“This is going to be so much fun,” I said to the cop. He looked disgusted.

I called Judge Jenny.

“THEY WHAT?!?”