Richard van Diretag was kneeling next to his van, examining the flat tire on the rear right side of the vehicle. He sighed as he used his hands to examine the tire.
"How bad is it?" he heard his son ask from behind him.
"The tire's flat, but the axel's still good. We're going to need that spare from the trunk," Richard replied.
"You mean that flat that's buried underneath all of our stuff?" Rose asked. Richard looked up to see his wife coming out of the passenger side of the van.
"Yeah..." was Richard's terse reply. It wasn't long, though, before a roar of thunder heralded a downpour of rain. Richard looked up at the sky and said, "Great...can this day get any worse?" Rose and their son moved quickly back into the van as Richard just stood there getting soaked in the rain. He sighed as he got back in the van. He pulled out his cell phone for the fifth time since they stopped and saw that it still had no service where they were stopped. His concentration was interrupted by the flashing lights coming from behind him of a police car. "Oh now what?" he cried out. He watched as the car parked behind their van and an officer climbed out of the car. He walked next to the driver's side window and knocked on the window. Richard rolled the window down and addressed the officer.
"What seems to be the trouble?" the officer asked.
"Flat tire," Richard replied. "I've been trying to get a hold of our insurance company, but the reception here's terrible."
"Yeah," the officer agreed, "where you folks headed?"
"Moon Lake," Richard answered.
"Nice place," the officer replied, "Let me see if I can get someone to help ya. You have insurance, right?"
"Yeah, we do," Richard replied.
"All right, I'll call someone for you. Just stay put and wait, all right."
"Sure," Richard said, "And what's your name?"
"Strange," the officer replied, "Officer Strange."
"Well, thanks for your help, Officer Strange."
Officer Strange went to his patrol car to call in a tow and a taxi for the van Direstag family. The rest of the family waited in the van. A half-hour later, a tow truck arrived to take the disabled van to a repair shop followed shortly by a taxi. The family pulled their luggage out of the van and into the taxi and then piled in. The taxi took them the rest of the way to Moon Lake.
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The family arrived in the more affluent part of Moon Lake. Their house was a good two-story house with a rather large lawn. Rachel noticed that the yard went into the surrounding woods.
"Woah, check that out," her younger brother called out, pointing at the Tachibana Estate. Rachel whistled as she looked at the walled estate. From her point of view, it looked like a classic Japanese castle, complete with a solid wall and a padoga.
She then turned her eyes to their new home. "So, this is our new home, huh..." she muttered to herself as she looked up.