be the oldest?” Jeffery asked hopefully.                                

Kit chuckled. “You’re pushing your luck, bro,” he said, lightly shoving Jeffery, so that Jeffery swayed backward for a moment before righted himself.  

 “Ah, well…it was worth a try…” Jeffery said slyly.

Kit pulled Jeffery under a headlock and gave him a playful nuggie.

“So, how are we gonna do this?” Jeffery asked as Kit released him.

“Well, Chris is so much like a little kid…” Kit said, holding his chin thoughtfully. “So he can fill the ‘youngest brother’ spot.”

“Yeah, and you’re practically a teenager already.” Jeffery added, nodding. “So, I guess that puts me in the middle between you and Chris. This is great, I’m getting a big brother and a little brother! …Must be a two-for-one sale…”  

Kit chuckled a little bit before he frowned. “Hey, I am not a teenager!” he said indignantly. “I’m just very matured for my age.”

 “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, big bro.” Jeffery said, putting a great deal of emphasis on the word ‘big,’ which earned Jeffery yet another nuggie from Kit.

“You nutty bear!” Kit said cheerfully, ruffling Jeffery’s hair. “Well, I’m going back down there with Chris, we all need our shuteye.”

Kit laid Jeffery down onto his pillow, tucking him in. He then leaned forward and gave Jeffery a brotherly goodnight kiss on the cheek to keep his newly surrogated brother from being left out after he had kissed Chris.

“G’night, bro.”

“Good night, Kit…” Jeffery muttered sleepily, yawning, his eyes closing lazily.  

Kit climbed down from Jeffery’s bunk and rejoined Chris in the bottom bunk, who instantly snuggled and curled up to Kit’s side, one hand on Kit’s arm as he slept on.

Kit wrapped an arm around Chris’ shoulder and kissed him on top of the head before slowly drifting off to sleep.

There was a delicious smell in the kitchen the next morning as Kit, Jeffery and Chris, who now called themselves the Cloudkicker Trio, went down for some breakfast.

“I hope that’s Mom famous scramble eggs,” Jeffery said as they neared the kitchen. “Because, I’m tellin’ ya, you haven’t lived until you had a bite of her delicious eggs with bacon and sausage.”

“And biscuits smothered in breakfast gravy…” Chris added with a dreamy expression.

Jeffery stopped in his tracks and turned to face Chris.        

“How did you know that?” he asked in surprise.

“Because that’s what I smell…” Chris said simply, “and Daddy Bear cooked something that smells like that the other day.”

“Leave it to Uncle Baloo to spoil surprises...” Jeffery muttered under his breath. “Good nose, by the way.”        

They entered the kitchen as Melissa was turning over the bacon.

“Oh, good morning, boys,” she said brightly. “I hope you’re hungry.” She laughed as the stomachs of all three bear cubs gave a rumble. “I guess that answers my question, have a seat, dears.” 

They all sat at the table when the two apes that played as Jeffery’s goons in the magic show came into the kitchen, looking a little putout about something.

“Oh, hey guys,” Jeffery said, smiling up at them. “Kit, Chris, this is Mac and Fred, they’re construction workers outside our magic show and they live here in the boarding house, on the second floor.”

“Nice to meet you,” Chris said to the two apes, sounding polite but timid at the same time, he always felt intimidated around people more than twice his size.

“Hey guys.” Kit said, waving a hand in greeting.

“Hey kids,” said Fred.

“Jeffery, we’ve got a bone to pick with you.” Mac begins gruffly.

“Now, now, Mac, go easy on the kid.” Fred said; he then turned to Jeffery. “We’ve looked at our scripts for the next show and…well….”

“You’re making us out to be a couple of brainless gorillas,” Mac cut in grumpily

“What?” Melissa said; looking confused as she laid out the food on the table.

“Look at this,” Mac snarled, handing her a rolled-up copy of the script.

She took it, read the first few lines and let out a groan. She then rounded on her son, her hands on her hip.

“Jeffery Lee Cunningham!” she said very sternly, and Jeffery shrank so low in his chair that only his forehead was visible. “We let you keep the line ‘I’ve gotta get some better goons’ but this new line is going too far. You march straight upstairs and change the scripts!”

“But, can I have breakfast first?” he asked weakly, he knew better than to ask but he wasn’t very keen on the idea of climbing up four and a half floors without an elevator to change a script.

“No, you can eat after you’ve changed that script.” Melissa said, she hated to be stern and firm with her baby, but he had to learn. “Go on!”

Jeffery glumly got up and left the kitchen.

“What does the script say?” Chris asked, once the sounds of Jeffery’s footsteps on the stairs faded away.

Kit, who was reading a copy of the script, frowned.

“Oh Jeff…” he said, shaking his head. “Bad move there, bro.”

 “What, what does it say?” Chris asked more urgently.

“Right here, he had Fred and Mac trip over some of the magic equipments and then he’d say ‘I swear, they’re getting dumber and dumber everyday…” Kit said as he read from the script. “Oh Jeff, what were you thinking? Now I’m going to have to give you a disciplinary nuggie.” 

“Maybe he was trying to be funny, but did it the wrong way...” Chris suggested. “But that was kind of mean of him to say that about Fred and Mac.”

Fred grinned and Mac gave Chris an appreciative smile for his comment. 

“He’s not mean, Chris… maybe he was tired when he wrote that.” Kit said, shrugging. “He does tend to go overboard with things when he's tired.”

“It was both, dears.” Melissa said gently. “He was both trying to be funny and was tired at the same time. I didn’t raise my baby up to be mean, I assure you, Chris dear.”

“Whatever the reason, if he insults our intelligence one more time, we’ll want paying for our generosity.” Mac growled.

“Easy there, Mac,” Fred said, retraining his co-worker with a hand on his shoulder. “Jeffery’s just a twelve-year-old kid, cut him some slack.”

“Oh, I’m sure Jeffery won’t do that again, I’ll make sure of that.” Melissa said apologetically, and then she held two plates up to them and said brightly. “Bacon and eggs?”     

“Sure, we would love that, Mrs. Cunningham.” said Mac and Fred together.

“Oh please, call me Melissa or Aggie. Mrs. Cunningham is my sister, dears.”

“Okay,” said Fred.

Mac turned his head sideway, staring at Melissa and then he said: “You look more like Melissa than Aggie.”

“My sister tells me that, but I still like the sound of the name Aggie.” Melissa said, smiling.

Just then, the sound of running footsteps reached their ears and Jeffery dashed back into in the kitchen with a new script in his hand.

“I’ve—finished!” he panted, gasping for breaths. He had obviously run all the way back down four and a half floors.

“Okay, dear, let’s see how you did.” Melissa said, taking the script from him and reading it

“Uh, can't it wait until after breakfast?” Jeffery asked desperately.       

“No, dear.” Melissa laughed; she continued reading the script “‘oh goodie, they're getting smarter everyday!’ Oh, Jeffery...” she said, sounding disappointed. Clearly, this was not what she had in mind.

“What?” Jeffery said defensively. “You made me rewrite that script on an empty stomach and you know I can’t think straight on an empty stomach. That’s why I wanted to have breakfast first. I need my brain food, Mom."

At this, Melissa and the Cloudkicker twins laughed.

“Oh, go on and eat before it gets cold.” Melissa said, smiling humorously.   

“Finally!” Jeffery bolted for his seat between Kit and Chris and begins shoveling down his scrambled eggs.

“Slow down, Jeff; remember what happened last time you ate too fast?” Kit said cautiously.

“Oh…yeah…” Jeffery said, embarrassed and he slowed down.

“What happened?” Chris asked curiously.

“You don’t wanna know, Chris.” Kit said, looking a little disgusted. “Let’s just say he got sick that way.”

Jeffery gave Kit an apologetic look, but Kit shook his head warningly at him.

“Forget it, Jeff, you couldn’t help it.” Kit told him firmly, “Now let’s drop this. New topic please.”

“What’s a topic?” asked Chris.

“A subject to discuss.” Kit explained

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