alright.” Rebecca said with a sly grin   

 “Wow, Daddy Bear, you must be the best pilot in the world.” Chris exclaimed with the same level of admiration Kit was showing.

“Well that’s true.” Baloo said braggingly, holding himself up in a heroic pose.

“Alright, Chris, I got you a couple of things this morning before coming here.” Rebecca began.

“How’d ya managed that?” Baloo interrupted her. “The shops don’t open till seven-thirty, and it’s only seven fifteen.

“There’s a new store in town, called Khan-Mart and it’s open twenty-four hours a day.” Rebecca explained. “And thanks goodness for that, or poor Chris would’ve gone to school without a backpack, textbooks or supplies,” she turned to Chris and handed him a navy blue backpack. “Everything you need is all in there.”

“Wow, that’s a neat backpack!” Chris exclaimed in delight, accepting his new backpack and swinging it onto his back. “I love it, thanks Mommy!” He rushed forward and hugged Rebecca tightly around the waist. 

“You’re welcome, sweetie.” Rebecca said, kissing Chris on top of the head.

Later… in the schoolyard, Kit and Chris stood in front of the school building, their backpacks strapped to their backs and they were holding a brown paper bag containing their lunch in their hand.

Chris was gazing up at the school building with admiration. “Wow, this is a neat school, Kit, I like it.”
Kit grinned. “Yeah, it is, but it does have its downsides sometimes.”

They entered the school building and Kit led his brother down the hallway toward his locker. He opened the door of his locker after turning the combination dial left and right repeatedly and placed his backpack and lunch bag inside it.

“Kit?” Chris said, looking slightly confused. “Where’s my locker?”

“You don’t have one yet, you’ve only just enrolled today, remember?” Kit said, gently taking Chris’ lunch bag from him and placing it next to his in the locker. “But we can share my locker between us until you decide to get your own.” He then slid the straps of the backpack off of Chris’ shoulders and placing it into his locker before shutting it and locking it.

“Oh, I don’t want my own locker,” Chris said, smiling. “Why would I when I can share one with the best big brother in the world?” And with that, he hugged Kit. 

“Okay, we’ll share lockers from now on.” Kit smiled at his little brother as he hugged him back. Even though they were the same age, they still go by big brother-little brother terms with each other, despite Kit being just a couple of minutes older. “I’ll teach you the combinations later so you can open it yourself. Right now, I gotta give you the grand tour.” 

They walked up and down the hallway, passing by other kids and teachers, with Kit pointing out different rooms to Chris, showing him where the library is, where all the different classrooms were and then the cafeteria, the school office, the nurse’s office, the principal’s office, the gym and finally, the janitor’s closet.      

 “Wow, this place is neat!” Chris said, gazing around.

“And here are the bulletin boards.” Kit said, pointing at three big bulletin boards on the wall. “They mostly have school notices pinned to them, but they also have a list of banned items, the lunch menu for this week and future or current school events, school activities—oh and there’s a student notice, requesting the return of his lost gold watch.”  

Kit suddenly frowned. Someone lost a gold watch; I wonder if it belonged to Oscar?  

Oscar Vandersnoot was a shy and wealthy bear cub with very low self-esteem, very small for his age, smaller than even Kit and Chris. Oscar was consciously picked on by other kids, until Kit stood up to for him. Bullies of this school had learned the hard way not to mess with Kit Cloudkicker, who was short but strong for his age. Kit was a very good friend to Oscar, always trying to help him out, even got him into the Jungle Aces’ Secret Midnight Club.

“Hey Kit, there’s Jeffery over there!” Chris said excitedly, snapping Kit out of his thoughts. Chris was obviously delighted to see his cousin. “Who are they, Kit? Are they his friends? I doubt it, they don’t look too friendly,” he observed

Kit looked over to see where Chris was pointing to and saw Jeffery surrounded in front of his locker by a group of mean-looking kids.

“Oh, no,” Kit groaned, recognizing them as bullies. “No, you’re right, Chris. They’re not his friends.” He opened a nearby classroom door and steered Chris inside. He couldn’t have the bullies seeing Chris and then marking him as their next target. Chris really didn’t need bullies onto him on his first day, or at all. Chris has had enough of that at the orphanage. “Stay in here, Chris and don’t come out till I come back for you, okay?”

“Okay Kit.” Chris said; he could tell by Kit’s tone that he was serious.

Kit closed the door, leaving Chris alone in the classroom as he set out to confront the bullies.

Meanwhile, Jeffery was sitting on the floor with his back against the door of his locker. One of the big wolf kids, who seems to be a miniature Don Karnage, had taken his backpack and was going through it and tossing Jeffery’s stuff to his fellows.

“Oh, look at this,” said the wolf kid, pulling out a black stick. “It’s a magic wand! What were you going to do with it, little Jeffery, hmm? Put a spell on us and turn us into frogs?”

“Give that back!” Jeffery cried in panic, making a grab for his wand but the wolf kid held it high out of his reach and his fellows grabbed Jeffery and pushed him back down in a sitting position on the floor again.  

“Break it, Gorgon!” yelled a fellow bully, a rat kid.

“Yeah, break it!” chorused the others.

“NO! Give it back!” Jeffery yelled in even more panic than before, he started to rise from the floor but the bullies pushed him back down again.

“Stay put, stupid little Jeffery.” They said, calling him ‘little’ to make him feel inferior.

“Give me back my wand, please.” Jeffery cried, tears flowing from his hazel blue eyes. He never could handle bullies very well; it was Kit who was good with bullies, not him. He just wasn’t tough and streetwise like his cousin.

“Oh look, he’s crying, like a baby!” They laughed. “We should call him baby Jeffery now.”

“Please, just give me back my wand.” Jeffery pleaded desperately.

 “Okay, baby Jeffery; you can have it back…” Gorgon held the wand out in front of him with both hands, brought his knee up and slammed the wand upon it. With a snap, the wand broke clean in two. “Oops, looks like I broke it,” he said with mocked remorse, strongly reminding Jeffery of one of Kit’s stories when Don Karnage broke his airfoil. 

Jeffery froze, numbed with shock as Gorgon dropped the two pieces of the broken wand to the floor in front of him. He stared at it with emotions welling up inside him, tears now flowing freely from his eyes.

“N-no…My…my w-w-wand…” Jeffery said in a hushed voice, feeling as if his insides had vanished and his brain turning icy cold.

“Hey, leave him alone!” yelled an angry voice.

“Oh snap! It’s Cloudkicker!” One of them shouted in panic. “Run for it!”

The group of bullies scattered in panic and ran away like scared little chickens  
  
Jeffery continued to stare at his broken wand lying on the floor, and then he felt a pair of arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders. He glanced sideways to see Kit’s face inches from his own. And then he begin to cry in earnest, sobbing into Kit’s shoulder with Kit muttering soothing and comforting words to him as he rocked Jeffery back and forward.

“Shh, Jeff, it’s alright now, you’re gonna be okay.” Kit was saying gently.

“No, it’s not alright!” Jeffery shouted, while sobbing hysterically. “T-t-that was my favorite wand, g-g-given to me by my g-g-granddaddy before he—” Jeffery stopped, he couldn’t bring himself to say it, but Kit understood.

This wand was the last thing Jeffery’s grandfather gave him before his tragic death involving a car accident and Jeffery kept the wand to feel connected to him, to keep the memory of him alive and fresh When his grandfather was alive, he and Jeffery were really close, he was one of the few people Jeffery looked up to as a father figure since his real father abandoned him and his Mom when he was very young, too young to even remember him.

Jeffery continued to cry on Kit’s shoulder for several long moments before he finally got a grip on himself and stood up but still looked upset.   

“Jeff, it’ll be okay, trust me.” Kit said; his sweater now wet on the shoulder from Jeffery’s tears. “Couldn’t you just fix the wand?” he asked trying to comfort his cousin.

“S-sadly n-no.” Jeffery whimpered. “I-it had s-s-special features in it that even if you c-c-could put it back together, it would n-n-never work r-r-right again.” Jeffery continued to sob, but this time he sobbed into his own hands, rather than on Kit’s shoulder. “I-it