club.”

“Breakfast?” At the thought of food, Baloo’s stomach growled. It had been a long time since that inedible gruel cookie at Natalia’s aunts’ house. “Don’t mind if I do.”

“Is food all you ever think about?” Louie asked, shivering as he and Baloo fought against the bitter wind to the shelter of the nightclub.

“That...an’ Natalia,” Baloo replied with a dreamy smile.

“Fine. You think about her.” Louie jerked his thumb at himself with a smirk of superiority. “I’ll marry her. You wanna be my best man, doncha?”

“Always was,” Baloo said with his own smirk of superiority as they squeezed through the doorway together.

Fifty pairs of eyes belonging to fifty warthogs wearing the same drab uniform turned towards them when they blew through the door. They silently stared at Baloo and Louie for a few seconds before returning to their pickles, roasted turnips, gruel, and shaved ice. There wasn’t a cheerful face in the place.

Shaking the snow from his feet, Louie frowned as he looked around at the unadorned grey walls, at the silent patrons sitting on hard wooden chairs around circular tables, at the pickles floating in barrels of brine that flanked the plain wooden bar. He thought, Man, talk about your doom and gloom! Watchin’ water freeze has fewer zzzzzs.

Baloo sauntered to the bar and addressed the bartender, who was drying a glass with a white towel. “Hey, buddy.”

The grim warthog studied the bear and ape from beneath his grizzled eyebrows. After a long pause, he said gruffly, “The name’s Ivan.”

“Nice ta meet ya, Ivan. I’m Baloo an’ this here’s Louie.” Baloo held his outstretched hand over the bar.

Ignoring the proffered hand, Ivan grunted and polished the glass more vigorously.

Feeling slightly slighted, Baloo dropped his hand, leaned across the bar, and murmured confidentially, “Listen. Have ya seen two old ladies an’ a bee-you-tiful girl ‘round here?”

Louie added, “The gal’s kind of an iceberg, but, don’t worry. The ol’ Louie heat’ll make her melt right down to butter an’ make her little heart flutter.”

“Buy something, and maybe I will tell you.” Ivan set the glass on a shelf behind the bar. “Maybe.”

“Buy somethin’, huh?” Baloo ran his eyes over the room to see what the other people were eating. The least disgusting dish was a pickle-flavored shaved ice. His appetite faded faster than money disappeared from his pocket. “Gee...I can’t decide.”

Just then, a short, oddly-familiar warthog climbed up onto the barstool beside Baloo. He lisped, “I highly recommend the house speciality.”

“What’s that?”

“A knuckle sandwich and a pound cake for dessert,” Spigot chortled.

Before you could say ‘gotcha’, all of the Thembrians pushed back their chairs with a loud scrape, pulled handguns from their uniforms, and aimed them at the two outsiders.

Baloo and Louie gulped, raised their hands, and backed up into the bar. When they felt Ivan’s Great War pistols stuck in their backs, they jumped and yelped in surprise.

“What did we do?” Baloo cried, his heart pounding.

“Ididn’t do nuthin’,” Louie replied. “It musta been you.”

Before Baloo could retort, Natalia stormed out of the backroom behind the bar, shouting, “Let them go, Agent C! This wasn’t part of our agreement!”

Agent C’s barked, “Silence!” stopped Natalia in her tracks. The director of M.U.M. roughly shoved his way through the flanks of spies until he was standing right in front of her. Fixing his steely gaze on her, he gestured with his gun towards Baloo and Louie and ordered, “Give me the formula and you can go free.”

Natalia glanced around at the roomful of armed spies, then flashed a worried glance in Baloo’s and Louie’s direction. Her lips trembled, but she bravely met Agent C’s eyes. “Promise that you won’t hurt them.”

As if he hadn’t heard her, Agent C said coolly, “If you refuse, you’ll go back to prison for playing in the snow, law breaker.”

A collective gasp of astonishment and a few shocked murmurs arose from the Thembrians.

“Playing in the snow?”

“That is serious!”

Head hung in shame, a dejected Natalia made her way around the bar to Baloo and Louie.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears pricking her eyes.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, Natty,” Baloo said with a wan smile.

Louie scoffed under his breath, “‘Don’t worry ‘bout it’, he says.”

“Look at it this way, man. How can things get any worse?”

At that moment, fifty Shropshearians toting guns crashed through the door accompanied by a swirl of wind and snow.

“You had to ask,” Louie said sardonically. “Can we start worryin’ now?”

“Yeah.” Baloo swallowed hard. “Now would be a good time.”

The leader of the Shropshearians said, “Hand over the papers and no one gets hurt.”

“Over their dead bodies,” said Spigot from his barstool.

“Hey!” Baloo exclaimed. He clamped a protective hand over the prized papers protruding from his shirt pocket and bit his lip to suppress his nervous smile. “What are we gonna do?”

Sweat beading on his brow as his eyes darted around at the unfriendlies, Louie replied, “Dunno, cuz. I’m up for suggestions. Hey, watch where you’re pointin’ that thing, buddy!” He roughly shoved a rifle barrel away. “This haberdashery is real imitation silk.”

The warthogs and border collies moved in closer, all cocking their guns.

Louie gulped. “Sounds like we’re gonna be on the receivin’ end of a one hundred twenty-one gun salute.”

“Swell,” Baloo said sarcastically. Out of the corner of his mouth, he muttered, “How’d we get ourselves into this mess anyhoo?”

“Right now, I’m more worried about gettin’ out of it,” Louie replied. “I’ve been in hot water so long, I feel like a tea bag.”

“Yeah, sure looks like we’re cornered.” The pilot briefly took his eyes off their adversaries to look longingly at the exit. So close, yet so far away.

“Cornered?” Louie’s eyes lit up. “That’s it!”

“Huh? I’m not pickin’ you up on my radar.”

With a wink, Louie whispered, “Follow my lead.” Pretending to strangle Baloo, he shouted at the top of his lungs, “You big galoot! You cornered me into this!”

“Me?” Baloo gasped. He also pretended to strangle Louie while the Thembrians and Shropshearians looked on, wondering what they were doing. They became so engrossed in the quarrel that they lowered their guns and flashed each other questioning glances. “Why you gutless, whinin’ little...”

“Now!” Louie shouted.

At that moment, Louie decked the Thembrian behind Baloo, and Baloo decked the Shropshearian behind Louie. The punch-ees toppled into the person behind them, creating a domino effect.

With a collective shout of protest, a free-for-all broke out. Thembrians slugged Shropshearians and Shropshearians slugged Thembrians in retaliation.

Baloo, Louie, and Natalia stood in the middle of the fray. Natalia shrieked and ducked when a chair and its former occupant sailed over her head and crashed into the bar.

Smash! Three shelves of glasses shattered onto the floor. Glass shards flew everywhere.

Crash!A table flew across the room, plowing over five fighters in its path.

Ka-whoosh! A barrel of pickles got turned over, causing pickles and sticky brine to slop all over the floor. Revelers slipped and slid on pickles.

Beaming with pride, Louie surveyed the fracas that he helped start. “Nowthis is what I call a nightclub.”

“An’ it’s time to say goodnight. Let’s get outta this place!” Baloo grabbed Natalia’s wrist and snaked through the chaos to the door.

At the door, their way was barred by Spigot. Instead of a gun, he held a pickle. “I order you to halt!” He grunted in frustration as he tried to fire the pickle. “Where’s the trigger on this thing?”

Seizing the pickle from Spigot, Louie said, “You really oughtta cut down on these. They’re stuntin’ your growth.”

“Yeah. Pick on someone your own size, shorty.” Without further ado, Baloo picked up Spigot and hung him by the back of his uniform on a wall-mounted coat hook.

“Have fun hangin’ around,” Louie laughed as he, Baloo, and Natalia made their escape.

“Dunder-her-her!” Spigot cried, kicking his legs wildly.

“Coming, Agent Spigot, sir!” Dodging blows and furniture, Dunder carefully picked his way through the waning fight. “Excuse me, pardon me. Oh, that looks bad. I have some salve,” he said, bending down to get a better look at Ivan’s two black eyes and bloody nose. He gently picked the bartender off the floor to lay him on the bar.

“Get over here right this second, soon-to-be-shot-Dunder!”

“Sorry, sir! Right away, sir!” Dropping Ivan on the floor like a hot potato, he rushed to Spigot’s side and lifted him down.

Agent C stormed across the room. His booming voice reverberated over the din. “Nozzle!”

“It’shis fault!” Spigot said, pointing to Dunder. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Sorry,” Dunder apologized.

“This is the last straw. You are the worst spies I’ve ever seen in all my years at the Ministry Under Mustgo.”

“Or M.U.M. for short,” Dunder added.

“Is that a short joke?” Spigot asked, glaring up at Dunder.

“Guilty,” Dunder said ashamedly.

Agent C threw up his hands in frustration. “As of now, you both are transferred to the Glorious People’s Air Corps.”

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