It wasn't until we were well on our way up US87 that my new friend and benefactor introduced herself as Lisa and said she could get me right to Fredericksburg, as she was headed for her home town of Mason, north of there on the same route. "I'm the Doctor," I said, to which she replied,

"Doctor What?"

"Just 'the Doctor. What's in Mason?"

She grinned. "Christmas trees. So what's in Fredericksburg? I mean I know what's in Fredericksburg, but what's there for you? I bet you dollars to doughnuts you're not from Fredericksburg."

"Actually," I ventured, "I am looking for a particular meadow in the Willow Street Loop. I don't know how to find it but I'll know it when I see it."

"Okay," said Lisa, "that's pretty weird."

"Yes, it is," I agreed.

Lisa turned the radio on and we listened to Janacek and Ravel. Then she turned the radio off and said, "We'll be in Fredericksburg pretty soon. I'll make you a deal. If you tell me why you need to be in a specific meadow on the Loop, I'll help you find it." I think my silence surprised her. "What? How murky can it be? I mean, what's in a meadow?"

"I am parked there," I finally said. She made an "I-know-there's-more" face. I took a chance. "Look here." I pointed to my neck.

"I can't," she said. "I'm driving." Then she pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped. "Okay, what were you trying to show me?" I showed her the nick on my neck. Apparently it wasn't very impressive. She frowned. I turned toward her and showed her where the drawstring had cut into my throat. She frowned more deeply, but it was a different kind of frown. I had her attention now.

"I am parked in a meadow and I was drugged and kidnapped there. My two friends are stranded there and don't know what happened to me. I have to get back to them – well, it's been a couple days now. They can't still be in the meadow, can they? So I guess I have to find the meadow and find my friends. I hope they're okay! And you're right, we're not from around here."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," I assured her, "yes, I think I am okay now."

Lisa pulled back onto the highway as soon as some kind driver let her cut in, and joined now rush hour traffic. After a minute or two she asked "Have you gone to the police?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Oh," I sighed, "so many reasons. For one thing, I got out of Phoenix…"

"Phoenix!"

"… as fast as I could. Then, if I find the meadow, how do I explain what happened to me? I don't understand it myself. I don't know why I was targeted, or whether I was targeted or chosen at random, opportunistically. I need to find out what, if anything, my friends saw, and whether they learned anything in my absence. Maybe they went to the police. I don't know." I didn't mention that I was from another planet, that my parked and abandoned vehicle was a space/time ship, that I had no identification on me and virtually no money, nor that I was a lot older than I looked.

My explanation made sense to Lisa and she nodded. "But," she qualified, "why do you smell like pizza?"

We decided that we should find the Fredericksburg police station first, to see whether Nyssa and Tegan might have reported me missing. As it turns out, they hadn't shown up there but the cops, upon hearing a bit of my story, called the Willow City Police Force and found out that my friends had indeed been there. Lisa drove me into Willow City and I repeated some of my story, and heard some of theirs: my friends had wandered down the loop, a long dirt road, until they happened upon Highway 16, and flagged down the first police car they'd seen, which first helped them locate the meadow in question (it is hard to miss a TARDIS) and then took them to the station. The meadow where we had landed (I left out any references to "landing") was private property belonging to a Mr. Liam Garcia, a well known figure along the loop by virtue of often being out in the meadow cleaning up the litter tourists sometimes left on his land. He was, himself, something of a landmark of the Loop. Sometimes he waved to folks passing by and sometimes he flipped them the bird, depending on his mood, which in turn depended on how badly littered he found the meadow. He had, in fact, called the police a couple days ago, irate that some joker had planted a big blue box amid the bluebonnets. At this point I was admonished (as had been Nyssa and Tegan, I was told) against trespassing. "Look, don't touch," said the desk sergeant.

I asked whether the police knew where Tegan and Nyssa had gone and was told that they'd been unable to provide a phone number or address (so they were referred to some hotels in Fredericksburg) but had asked for a lift to the meadow. (They were sorry about trespassing but in running after me and my abductors they had lost some jewelry: Tegan's earrings and Nyssa's rings. The police had grudgingly obliged at the end of the interview.) My friends had memorized the license plate of the U-Haul that had hauled me off. They also had descriptions of the two men: white, one practically a giant, with dark hair, the other of average build with red hair, both wearing dark clothing and dark glasses. The police had not taken any of that very seriously but now that they had heard my tale and been shown my throat and what was left of the rope that had secured my wrists and ankles, they decided to investigate. Lisa and I waited while an officer sat on hold for 40 minutes tracking down the license plate. (He promised that if he ever got off hold without first being disconnected, he would guide us to Mr. Garcia's home so that I could apologize personally for trespassing. He was, in fact, disconnected and had to start over.) It was registered not to U-Haul but to a Timberwood Park banker who had reported his 1979 Buick Riviera stolen a few months back.

"Phew," said Lisa, back in her bug, following Officer Ramirez's cop car. "I thought we'd never get out of there."

"I forgot to tell you something important," I said.

"What more could there be?" she exclaimed. "What, you're from outer space, the blue box is yours and it's a flying sauce?" I looked at her, utterly shocked. "I'm joking, Doctor!"

"I'm not," I said, very quietly.

Officer Ramirez took us to the front door of a sprawling one-story light blue house with black shutters. He rang the bell and we waited a few minutes but no one came to the door. The officer knocked then, and after a while we heard "Hold your horses!" from inside the house. We waited. Finally the door was opened by a man of about my height, slightly older than I in appearance (albeit not in fact), with blue eyes and a shock of blond hair. Lisa looked at Mr. Garcia, at me, back at Mr. Garcia, back at me. Officer Ramirez was laughing; apparently, he had met Mr. Garcia and couldn't wait to introduce us. My reaction and Lisa's must have gratified him but Mr. Garcia either didn't own a mirror, had impaired powers of observation or just plain didn't care. "Well?" was all he said.

Officer Ramirez looked at me, so I said, to Mr. Garcia, "I am afraid I have inconvenienced you. I didn't know your meadow was private property and I truly apologize. I'll get my blue box out of there right away."

"Too late," grinned my doppelganger. "I had it towed. Cost me three Benjamins and a Jackson." Officer Ramirez translated that into three hundred and twenty dollars.

"I…" I stammered, "I don't have any money at all." I hastily added, "But I can get some as soon as I have my blue box. Where did you say you had it towed?"

"I didn't," said Mr. Garcia, still grinning. "But they probably took it to the dump. You plannin' on sellin' that thing? I doubt you'd get more than a nickel for it. What's it for, besides squooshin' bluebonnets?"

"It's a flying saucer," laughed Lisa, and Mr. Garcia snorted.

"I reckoned it was some kind of outhouse." He snorted again.

"Would you mind, sir, if we just had a look out there before we go?"

"Well," said Mr. Garcia, "it's not so bad if you ask first. Just nobody ever asks."