Kimiko came tumbling out of her room. "What shit? Where see shit?"

  I glanced into her room and saw that she'd been watching Short Circuit on her computer. Dang, we had another movie buff in the family. Isn't it great?

  "Hi Kimi. Did you finish your typing drill already?"

  She gave me a disgusted look. I don't know if she was picking up sarcasm from us already, or it was part of the innate nature of people that gathered around me.

  She rolled her eyes and flipped her hair and grumbled, "I finished that over an hour ago. I came out ta tell ya, but you and Jane onee-chan were busy hugging at the time, so I came back here and started watching the movie. Number 5 is cute."

  "I heard part of it. What ya were talking about I mean. What's the big thing about dragons and The Lady? Well, other than the fact that she's the only other person who can talk ta me in my head like I do with you."

  Kimiko suddenly looked a bit wild-eyed and started to back up.

  "Mama, you're scaring me. Why are you and Jane onee-chan looking at me like cats do when they are about ta jump on a mouse?"

  I glanced over at Jane and she glanced at me. We were both slightly crouched with our hands extended a bit in front of us, with our fingers bent like they had claws at the end of them. No wonder Kimi was scared.

  I dropped to my knees, hugged her and said, "Sorry sweetheart. We were just a bit startled. Why are you calling her 'The Lady'?"

  "Well, because she is, silly. She started talking ta me a little while before ya came ta get me. She said that someone would come ta take me home real soon. It seemed like a long time ta me though. That's why I asked ya why it took ya so long to come get me when I first saw you. I didn't really believe her at first because I knew that I couldn't go home. My new mama and papa were dead."

  She snuffled a bit at that, but didn't take the tissue I offered her.

  Jane and I exchanged one of those 'significant looks' that you always see in the cop dramas when the leads finally notice that something is going on that they didn't know about.

  "That's why I started crying when you said that ya really meant that we were going home. That's when I knew that The Lady hadn't lied to me. She didn't mean that someone would take me back ta my old home. She meant that someone would come ta take me ta my NEW home."

  We both asked her a couple more questions, in different ways, about why Kimiko called her "The Lady" but the only answer was still the first one. "Because she is."

  "OK sweetie, you can go back to your movie, but in (I checked my watch) 16 minutes you and I have an appointment for your first lesson."

  Kimiko bounced her way back to her desk, and Jane and I decided to give things a break to let our brains settle.

  We both went to our workrooms. Her to do something about getting Kimi's tablet ordered, and me to add some quick touches to one of the paintings I'd started on our camping trip.

  One thing had become abundantly obvious. It was time for us to decide whether we were going to stay bystanders or gather our courage and go out on the floor and learn to dance.

  -------------------

  "OK Kimiko, stop for a minute. I want you to practice with Jane for a bit. You need to work out with someone taller than yourself as often as you can."

  "But Mama, she's so big. How could I do anything against her."

  I hit the intercom: "Jane, there's something I need you to see and something for you to do. Come on in as soon as you're ready."

  "OK Mama, on my way."

  "Just sit and rest for now Kimi, she'll be here soon."

  Kimiko dropped bonelessly, in the way only children and cats can manage. A minute later Jane came in, just finishing knotting her practice belt.

  "Kimiko honey, go ahead and show Jane those basic kicks and jumps I was showing you."

  "If I have to Mama. I can't do them very well yet."

  I laughed. I never have figured out why novices all seem to think that they should be experts after 30 minutes of practice.

  "Of course you can't silly. You just started learning them a little while ago. Go ahead and do them. I want Jane to see where you are. She's going to be teaching you some of the time too."

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  "Why didn't ya say so right away? Learning with Jane onee-chan is gonna be a lotta fun!"

  She started with a short run then did several jumping kicks. She followed those with several cartwheels, 5 or 6 back handsprings, and ended up with a full back layout.

  "Is that OK Mama? Jane onee-chan?"

  Jane answered for us both. "Yes Kimi, you did very well for a beginner. I see what we need to do for your early training now. Go ahead and take a shower and change, then we'll see about lunch."

  "Hirugohan! Yippee! (Is that the right word?)"

  "Yes Kimi, that's right. Go ahead."

  She bounded off down the hall and I turned to Jane.

  "Whatever are we going to about training her? She seems to be terrified of hurting other people. She couldn't even throw a pretend punch. I don't think she has even a tiny bit of talent for the offensive martial arts, but she's probably the most talented gymnast I've seen in my entire life."

  "I've got to agree with you Mama. When she was upside down during that back layout, the top of her head was level with mine, so almost two meters. That's as high, or higher than the girls at the Olympics get, and they have a bit of a boost from the springs under the floor."

  I pondered for a while, and then it came to me.

  "Oh, I know Jane. Let's teach her as many of the evasive techniques as she can handle. Then she needs instruction in Aikido. I'm sure that she'll enjoy that since Aikido isn't an offensive art. If we explain that Aikido is focused on stopping people from being hurt, it should work out.

  "Master Oh should know someone in the area who's a competent teacher."

  "That sounds like a good place to start Mama. The other thing she needs is a good gymnastics instructor, but how are we going to find one that will teach her and not try to dragoon her into competitions?

  Jane cocked her head to the side for a moment, then her face got the "light going on" look.

  "Hey wait a minute Mama. I have an idea. It's going to sound strange, but how about we find someone who's an expert at Parkour? It's not designed that way, but it'd be a great defensive art. Nobody is going to be able to hurt you if you've learned how to run up the sides of buildings."

  "Damn but I think that'd work just fine Janie. Once the guys see how she can bounce around, I'll bet anything that they'll be gaga over a little girl who's interested in what they do. Sorta like a certain group of men who were just the same about another little girl who wanted to take up fly fishing."

  Jane punched me in the arm, but she had a very happy, nostalgic look on her face.

  ---------------------------

  Later that day Jane had a conference with Mr. Forsythe, with the discussion focusing primarily on the fallout from the raid. Her report was very interesting.

  "On the good side, it seems likely that everything from the various Mafia organizations to the triads in Hong Kong have taken serious, though likely short-term, damage from so many members suddenly getting religion. It seems likely that 80 to 90% were low level flunkies that can be replaced fairly easily, but any new people will need training in procedures, and that will take months for some of them. There will also likely be heavy investigation of most of the new 'employees' as this has created a perfect opportunity for various police agencies to get new undercover operatives inside the operations.

  "Be that as it may, it's highly likely that the police agencies will take the long view and only send in people who will be 'sleepers'. There won't be as many as they'd like, of course, because that kind of agent needs to be both highly trained and dedicated. Otherwise their survival outlook is pretty bleak.

  "Now we come to us. Of course I haven't told him anything about what really happened at our end. It's unlikely that he'd have believed me, and, even if he did, there's no way in the world that the bureaucrats would. Worse, we'd be written off as nut jobs and cut off, if not locked up to prevent leaks.

  "After I told him what I felt I could tell him, he's decided that we're to lay low for a few weeks, at least. Given the current uproar, there simply aren't any agents with any of the intelligence agencies that aren't swamped. There's no way for them to even think about new operations for us until things calm down.

  "So, we're free to take a break. Which I think will mean getting Kimiko lined up with her trainers, and into a program to push her with her English lessons and fill her in on American customs.

  "It will also give me time to get a complete security system installed in her elementary school."

  Jane put her chin on the top of her fist and stared off into the distance.

  "I'll start with the school board I think. I'll go there and offer a free installation, to serve as a sort of test bed for the new technology we're going to roll out to make schools safer from attacks.

  "If I dangle the word 'free', and tell them what good publicity it will get for the school district -- you know, making strong efforts to be on the cutting edge of protecting students -- they'll probably beg me to install it.

  "The icing on the cake will be an offer to install the system at any other school in this district at a 50% discount once we get all the bugs out of this one.

  "The teacher's union is likely to have a cow though. They'll scream bloody murder, claiming that it's a 'big brother' method of monitoring them so they can be fired more easily. But...I think that if I make it clear that all cameras in classrooms will show only the students and that there won't be any audio feed, there won't be any major problems.

  "If that doesn't work, I'll offer to let their reps review any recordings, and I'll make sure that they know that everything will automatically be erased after 24 hours, and I'll let them verify that too if they insist.

  "It shouldn't be any problem at all to have Kimiko's school selected. I'll just insist that it be the elementary school closest to home to make it easy for me to get there to fix things when glitches appear.

  "Do you see anything that I've missed Mama?"

  "Doesn't look like it right now. I'm sure something will come up, it always does, doesn't it? Remember: 'Murphy was an optimist.'

  "OK. you go and get that started Janie. I'm going to look up some info on adoption procedures in Oregon. Let's get together tomorrow morning and share what we've come up with."

  "That works for me Mama. I'm sure it'll take at least a week to get the school setup approved. It depends on whether or not I'll have to do any arm twisting."

  I REALLY didn't want to know what kind of arm twisting she had in mind, so I just nodded and went off to start my research.