Chapter 47

“Shouldn’t take us long ... after I round up the kids.” Daddy said, “We bought a lot at Marina Naisoso. We’re living aboard the Flint while Link Homes is building ours ... well ... Green Leaf is doing our floors and decks ... very traditional styling but modern construction techniques.”

He hung up.

“We’ll wait,” I said to Corporal Mali.

“Yup,” he said. “Wanna soda?”

“Got Orange Fanta?”

April said, “Mello Yellow?”

“Got the Yellow ... will Orange Crush do?”

I jumped out of my seat, “You have Orange Crush?”

Alice perked up, “Orange Crush, please.”

Bottles of the delight appeared and sips approved. There was a lot of “Mmmm.”

“Where did you get this?” Alice asked.

Officer Mali chuckled and said, “Some guy from Chicago decided he wanted to import it without telling us ... didn’t declare it with customs either. We have a ship load. There’s a big cooler down at the impound docks ... we like cold.”

“You said ‘ship’ ... not shit?”

“Ooo ... that’s funny.”

So ... when JW and Zoe Flintkote and offspring finally found Tyche Selene Flintkote ... and Alice Lovisa Olsen ... the pair were sitting in Airport Security drinking from glass bottles of Neil Callen Ward’s tasty invention Orange Crush ... a soda missing from JW’s life since the family had left New Zealand.

The reunion with the soda claimed priority.

“Mrs. McWilliams is busy ... when we left she was confirming her pregnancy ... breakfast over the side.”

“So ... how many of these are yours?” Corporal Mali waved a hand at the six kids.

“Those two,” pointing at two girls, “I think. And that boy ... the tall one.”

“You think?” Mali said.

“GIRLS! STOP! Form a line.”

They did.

“I see ... so much alike they’re homeschooled.”

“Life was extremely interesting in the second grade.”

“Girls? Where were we in the second grade?”

“University of French Polynesia, Daddy.”

“What were we doing there?”

“You were substitute professor of Oceanography.”

“Why did we have to homeschool you?”

“The teachers were boring!”

“So?”

“We played tricks.”

“Uh huh ... and...”

“They made us stay on the boat.”

“And?”

“We learned Dolphin.”

“And?”

“Daddy?” That was a whine.

“We surrounded the harbor patrol and wouldn’t let the boat go.”

“And how did that work for you?”

They all rubbed their bottoms.