Chapter 1

Hi! My name's Gibby, Gibby McThomas and my short life has been a mixture of good times and bad. The good times seemed to have arrived in spades when my mum and dad won the British lottery and found themselves worth ten million pounds sterling, or in American terms, almost fifteen million dollars.

They decided to move to the US for an extended stay as they wanted to explore that country. That is when the bad times started.

A few months after we arrived and just shortly after my sixteenth birthday we were involved in a plane crash. Mum and dad were killed and I spent the next few weeks in hospital having various broken bones in my arms and legs pinned and plastered. There I got involved in a dispute with social services. They wanted to put me in a foster home and appoint a guardian to take over the running of my inheritance.

I fought this and the British Embassy and a good lawyer got involved. The embassy pointed out I was a British citizen and therefore did not come under their jurisdiction. It was also made clear to them that I was a Scot. The legal age of independence in Scotland is sixteen. This meant that under Scottish Law I was my own man and considered able to make my own decisions about my future and about my inheritance'

Since my father had invested the money wisely I had no real financial decisions to make. I only needed to realise some of the investments to pay the death duties and these were a lot less than they might have been. When dad had won the money he had split it three ways. A third was kept in his name, a third invested in my mother's name and the third put in trust for me. Further, quite a few of his investments were made off shore and therefore not liable to British tax. Now that I was inheriting everything the tax burden was much less than it might have been. When I got out of the hospital, I found myself an orphan and a rather wealthy young man.

Since we had set up home in a small town in California, I decided to apply for permission to stay and continue my education in the States. I was a keen golfer and a great fan of Tiger Woods and because of this I had wanted to follow his footsteps and go to Stanford University. I think it was this ambition and the fact that there was no one at home to care about me that influenced my decision. Both my parents were only children. Both of them had been born late to elderly parents and all of my grandparents were deceased.

At this point I should probably tell you something about myself. I am what was known in my country as a gifted child and soaked up languages like a sponge.

My mother was part Italian and she and my grandparents spoke the language so I learnt it at my Mothers knee. My Father had been a soldier and we had been posted abroad several times and I learned German and French from postings to these countries.

We holiday frequently in Spain and again I became fluent in this language as well. I never got anything less than an A in any of my other subjects either. In other words I was very bright but this did not cause me the angst that many brainy kids seem to experience in many of the US schools. It seemed to be more acceptable to be brainy where I came from than it is here.

I am not very tall; around five feet eight and of quite a slim build. I am very fit, however. I ran every day, lifted weights and played golf. When I left Scotland I was down to a two handicap player and had been bent on improving this. I was also into martial arts as my father had been and he had reached the level of black belt second Dan. Although I had never tested I could give him a run for his money when we sparred, so I did not have to take shit from anyone.

Fortunately part of my training and interest was on the spiritual side of the discipline. I was into practicing the meditation and self control which it advocated and practiced this as much as I did the self defence side of things. As a result I was rather laid back and preferred to try and defuse situations rather than get involved in the use of force.

Thus, at the start of the new school year I enrolled in the local high school for my junior year. The School was set in a fairly prosperous neighbourhood but had its share of mixed race and some pupils from not so prosperous backgrounds. From the first French class I had my number punched. Miss Revere, the French teacher pointed to the fact that there was a newcomer in the class then in French she asked me my name and where I had come from. By the way I answered in accent less French she must have guessed I spoke it well for we carried on a short conversation in the language before she resumed teaching, pointing out to the class that my command of the language was excellent and that my accent almost Parisian.

She must have said something in the staffroom for there was almost a repeat performance in the first Spanish class. Once the first class test in maths and science came back and my results were all 'As' I was clearly marked as a brainiac, add to this my obvious skills in the computer class and the word nerd became another epithet commonly used when referring to me.

I now lived by myself in the house my parents had bought and did not really know anyone my own age. I was feeling a bit isolated and having been singled out as brainiac and nerd was not making it easy to find friends at school either.

The house was rather large for one person it had four rooms and a kitchen and laundry room on the ground floor. Four rooms with two en suite Made up the second floor and two large attic rooms could be found on the third floor. There was a thirty three metre swimming pool off a large conservatory at the back of the house, quite extensive gardens, stables and a coach house. The upper story of the coach house had been converted into two flats, obviously meant for staff who would look after the garden and pool. The ground floor bit for housing coaches had been used as garages for several cars.

I had occupied the house several weeks before starting school in September and on one of my early morning runs through a different and less affluent part of the town I spotted a small bungalow type dwelling whose garden was an orderly mass of flowers laid out in different beds. It was obviously someone's pride and joy and I made a mental note to come back and talk to the owners and see if they knew anyone that might like some part time gardening work. It proved to be a lucky thought and one of the best decisions I had made in my life so far.

That weekend I knocked on the door of the house and it was answered by a motherly looking lady with a kind face, grey hair and it seemed to me, twinkling eyes. I explained to her that although I may look very young, I lived alone, was the owner of a very large house with a big garden that I was going to need help with. I said that having seen her when I was out running I had wondered if she or her husband would know anyone who would like some part time work helping me to keep my garden in some sort of order.

She looked at me for a moment on two, then made up her mind and asked me to come in. It transpired that her husband who had just turned sixty had been made redundant several months ago and they had been living off his redundancy payment which was running out. They were now eating into their own personal savings just to exist and keep a roof over their heads.