The weather was Guamish, that's a word I made up, which means hot, sticky, unbearably humid, much like the weather on Guam where my Grandpa George was stationed in the Navy during WW2. Summer, in July, Hannibal, Missouri, tends to be that way. I was sitting on the front porch wearing my Baa Baa Black Sheep T-shirt, military green shorts, military green socks, and white tennis shoes and watching the Black Sheep Squadron season two episode "The Show Must Go On, Sometimes" on my laptop when my brother's red PT Cruiser pulled into the driveway.

"Mom home?" he asked rolling down the car window.

I paused the video, luckily I was watching it on YouTube and not my season 2 DVD and walked down to the car so I didn't have yell to him. Our crazy next door neighbor, Vicky, was standing outside waiting for the OATS bus to take her to the doctor to see about her latest medical complaint, which meant she'd be calling to bug mom with how the doctor either didn't believe her or she was going to have to take several more pills on top of the multitude that she already took. I swear that woman was on enough medication to start her own pharmacy and the fact was she'd basically ruined her body. If the doctor said that something had to run its course, she'd pester them until they gave her something to shut her up. Which, I considered unethical from a medical standpoint, but no one ever asked me. I didn't want her to hear what I was saying. I nodded my head in her direction so my brother would know why I hadn't answered him and walked to the care with my nose in the air. A habit from my childhood, that my mother hates as well as me constantly saying "You know."

"She went shopping with Suzy in Quincy and just left so she'll be gone awhile, why?"

"I have to go into work, Tracy had to work today and I needed mom to watch these two brats," my brother explained indicating my 14 year old nephew and 13 year old niece in the back seat, who as usual were fighting, which is why they didn't stay home by themselves even though they were old enough to.

"I'll watch them until either of you get off work or mom gets home," I offered.

My brother was silent for a few moments, but finally he agreed.

"You two be good," he told them as they got out. "Austin's had two sodas already this morning so no more and regardless of what she tells you Ashlee doesn't have our permission to be taken to the pound to get another dog," he said to me giving me that look that meant he'd better not come back and found out I'd given in. A few years ago when he was on a mission trip with their church I'd let Austin, who was about six years old at the time, talk me into taking him to get a baby guinea pig at this pet store downtown, which was, we later found out, run by some people who had no more business taking care of animals let alone selling them. It had turned out that the guinea had a skin infection, which my former vet was able to clear up, but my sister in law who is a germophobe times ten refused to have it in the house so I ended up adopting it. The problem was this was a female and my two guinea pigs were males so that meant a separate cage as I certainly didn't want fusionating guinea pigs creating little guinea pigs every few weeks. I was much wiser by this time and wasn't going to let either of them talk me into anything.

"All right," I said.

Ashlee had her Nintendo DS with her and Austin had this big airsoft gun and a bunch of ammo with him, which would make for a very interesting afternoon.

Once my brother had left, we went into the house and after turning off my laptop I went to my room to put it away. The great thing is, since my uncle finally won the Megamillions Lottery not once, but twice, we were able to make some major renovations to our house. Like a huge kitchen and I now had a room-sized walk in closet in my bedroom, as well as a computer desk as big as a conference table and my own bathroom with a _.

"Hey middle schooler," I say to Ashlee. "Look to the left." I know she won't, the wall directly to the left as you enter my room is filled with posters and photos of Bruce Campbell as Brisco County, Jr., Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, and my favorite pictures of the extremely hot looking, extremely sexy and oh be still my beating heart, drop dead where you are standing, orgasm inducing deliciousness of Robert Conrad in both The Wild Wild West and Baa Baa Black Sheep. Of course, in all these pictures he is shirtless, which in my opinion is how he should be all the time. Ashlee, however, can't stand any of them.

"Ewwww," Ashlee replied.

I grabbed her arm and tried to force her to look at them, but she started acting like a street tough and so rather than risk getting hit, I let her go.

"What are we going to do?" Austin asks.

"I want to go up to the attic and get one of my old notebooks from high school and then we'll find something to do," I reply.

In addition to renovating the downstairs, we were able to finish the attic and install shelves along one wall so that everything was super organized. We went up to the attic and while I was looking through a box of my old high school papers to find the notebook I wanted, Austin noticed the wall towards the back of the gabled part over my room.

"What's that?" he asked pointing to the cardboard on the wall.

I stopped looking through the box and walked over to him.

"That's just cardboard covering a vent, but when I was little and we first moved here I thought it was a secret doorway.

"Auntie Laura is a bus butt," Ashlee said in response to that statement.

I ignored her.

"Auntie, come here," Austin called. He'd walked back to the wall and was pushing on it.

"What?" I asked.

"It feels funny," he replied.

"It's old wood and cardboard, so of course it's going to feel funny," I replied, but Austin insisted something wasn't right.

Ashlee and I walked over to where Austin was standing. He pushed against the wall and suddenly we were falling through some sort of tunnel.

"What in the world?" I thought, but none of us could say anything as we were too stunned or scared or both. After what seemed like several minutes, but was probably only a few seconds we landed dazed, but unhurt. I looked up into the spreading branches of a coconut palm tree.

A COCONUT PALM TREE! We definitely weren't in Hannibal, Missouri anymore, but exactly where were we? Austin and Ashlee looked at me and I shrugged as I was just as confused as they were. Suddenly, the sound of planes filled the air and I indicated for us to lie flat on the ground. I glanced upward just as they seemed to fly directly overhead and my jaw dropped. Those were Corsairs! I'd watched Baa Baa Black Sheep/Black Sheep Squadron enough times and had read everything available on the actual Greg Boyington and the Black Sheep of VMF-214 as well reading about the planes in general to know a thing or two about Corsairs. Namely the last time the United States pilots had used them in combat was in 1969, the year I was born, during a little South American skirmish called The Football War between Honduras and El Salvador, supposedly over all things a football, or what in the US would be called a soccer match. Personally, I thought that they were very cool planes, although my Uncle Ron definitely had a different outlook regarding them and would give you chapter and verse a list of their many faults, which I already knew from reading about them and the Black Sheep, as I said earlier.

As the planes taxied in and came to a stop several hundred feet away, I noticed some of the names on the side of them and suddenly I realized where we were, Vella La Cava. Now what I couldn't figure out was how we had gotten from my attic to a fictional island from a TV series that had been on the air when I was 6 to 8- years old, even though it should be noted that the island in the Solomon Island chain that the actual Black Sheep were on was called Vella LaVella. Austin and Ashlee were looking at me wondering why I was sitting there with my mouth open like a deranged idiot. As I was trying to think of a way to explain to them where we were and that I needed to think of what our next move was going to be a large white dog ran up, stopping a few feet from us, and began barking.

"That," Ashlee said. "Is the ugliest dog I have ever seen."

"His name," I said. "Is Meatball and he's…." I didn't have time to finish the sentence as just then two men ran up and stopped next to Meatball, who was still barking, staring speechlessly at us.

Ashlee looked like she was about to make a smart aleck remark to them and I gave her a warning look that clearly indicated she'd better forget whatever it was that she was about to say and for once she got the message and remained quiet.

Casey and TJ," I said recognizing them from the TV series.

They looked at each other with confused looks and I knew exactly how they felt.

"Quiet Meatball," TJ said to the dog, who was still barking although not as loudly as earlier. He quieted down although clearly not sure of whether or not to trust the three of us.

"Do we know you?" Casey asked.

How in the world was I going to explain this, I thought?

"It's a long story," I said not sure what else to say. "My name is Laura Shulse, this is my nephew, Austin, and my niece, AshIee. I know who you and TJ are, but how I know that is going to take some explaining and even then I'm not sure that you all won't think I'm out of my mind."

Ashlee looked at me with a look that said half the time she thought I was anyway.

Casey and TJ talked in a low whisper for a few moments and I couldn't hear what they were saying although it was obvious they were talking about the three of us.

"I think Pappy needs to hear her story and maybe he'll know what to do," Casey said finally.

I just nodded and indicated for Austin and Ashlee to stand up. The three of us followed them to one of the tents. It was all I could do not to stare as we walked across the camp. I'd seen all of this so many times on TV, but now it seemed surreal, well to be accurate in the general psychology sense of things, it was. There was the Sheep Pen and the maintenance shed and I could hear Micklin griping to Hutch about someone's plane and why those college boys couldn't watch their mixtures. I knew he had to be talking about TJ. TJ glanced quickly at me to see if I'd heard and I gave him a sympathetic look. I could tell everyone was watching us as we walked past, but for the time being I thought it was best for me to act as if I didn't notice them. Then we stopped by one of the tents and Casey knocked on the wooden door frame.

"Pappy, we've got a situation that I think you need to know about," he said.

"Come in Casey and it'd better not be for something that Colonel Lard will be on our case about.

That voice, oh be still my heart, that voice. I had to force myself to remain calm. We entered the tent and I had to force myself not to

Greg glanced up from some reports that he was working on and the expression on his face was just as confused as Casey and TJ's had been.

"Casey, who are these people and where did they come from," he asked.

"I think I ought to let her tell you," Casey replied indicating me.

"Oh thanks a lot Casey," I said to myself if he knew what it was doing to me just being in the same room with Greg, he wouldn't be asking me to actually talk to him.

Greg indicated for Austin and Ashlee to sit on his cot and then got up from his chair and motioned for me to sit in it while he leaned against the desk. That put him in very close proximity to me and I gave a silent prayer of thanks that he had his shirt on. By this time the tent had become more crowded as the rest of the Black Sheep had entered, curious as to what was going on. I noticed Austin and Ashlee had moved down and Anderson and Boyle were sitting on the cot next to them while Gutterman, Bragg, and French were standing just inside the door. Meatball had lay down in a corner and seemed to be sleeping, but I knew he was probably taking in everything that was going on.

I took a deep breath and began to tell my story, which the more I talked the more crazy and improbable it sounded even to me. When I finished everyone was silent for quite some time and I was getting to the point that I was almost in tears, which is something that happens when I get frustrated due to low self esteem and a medical condition I was diagnosed with at the age of 19. Jim, who was standing closest to me placed a hand on my shoulder.

"It's okay darlin'," he said. "We'll get to the bottom of this."

I gave him a weak smile of thanks. I hadn't liked Jim at first, but the more I got into the series he grew on me.

"I think the first thing we need to do is to go back to where you three landed and maybe that will help us find an answer to what is going on," Greg said giving me a smile which, although he didn't know it, made my heart beat slightly faster.

To be continued