[15: Traffic jam]

The sound of the rain vanished into the thatched roof, and the whole house
was quiet. A small refrigerator stood in the edge of the corner that served
as a kitchen, looking out of place.

"This place is about 500 years old. Took a bit of work to get the plumbing
put in, but I helped my dad a couple summers ago. Electricity too."

Meera shook her head. She had been to a temple once, a thousand years old,
but it had been a grand ruin, not something that people still used. Moss
covered stones, crumbled arches. Statues a hundred feet tall, but with
chipped and missing features, carved away by the wind and rain. This house
was anything but a ruin, kept tidily and maintained carefully by generation
after generation.

There was a car horn from outside the house, faint except if you stood near
the window. Dick peered out, and exclaimed "Oh, blast! The gate came open."

He grabbed his slicker again and ducked out of the house. Meera watched
through the window as a wiry old man stepped out of a little black car, and
shook his fist a bit at Dick, obviously annoyed at the flock of sheep thaht
stood between him and his destination. She caught snatches of conversation.
A "this is the last time" and a few hasty "Yes, sirs" from Dick. He
whistled, and the black and white dog handily nipped at a few heels and the
flock started to move again, but down the road instead of back through the
gate.

The man in the car slammed his door angrily, and the moment the sheep had
cleared away from the road enough to squeeze by, he sped past, leaving a
deep rut where his tyres slipped off the gravel covered road and into a
marshy spot beside it.

Another few whistles and the flock righted its direction, and started going
back through the gate, the little dog moving quickly among them, darting
between the road and the flock just as one of the sheep headed the wrong
way, then back to correct someone else.

This time, Dick took the heavy chain that hung by the gate and put a lock on
it, and shook it more than once to make sure it stayed fastened, then the
door opened again and he ducked in. 

"You're soaked!"

"Yeah, I didn't fasten my slicker, I was in such a hurry to head off Dr.
Peterson. Last time he came through and the sheep were on the road, he
actually ran over one of the sheep. Then the next day his solicitor was
knocking on the door and asking for damages to his car.