of work, work, work, which was seriously cutting into his nap time.

Baloo yawned, then glowered fiercely at the rising sun ahead of them. If it hadn’t have been for Kit and the Sea Duck, he would have quit Higher for Hire long ago.

The attitude of the bearess sitting in the co-pilot’s seat couldn’t have been more different. Rebecca, who had traded her usual attire for a khaki shirt, shorts, and a pith helmet, was wide awake and raring to go. Her sparkling brown eyes diligently studied the map that she held in her hands.

This was the day that she...er, Higher for Hire would be rolling in the dough. It was going to be so pitifully easy to get rich by collecting these feathers that she wondered why everyone else wasn't doing it. She chalked it up to her superior business know-how and innovativeness. Needless to say, Rebecca was feeling very pleased with herself. She just wished that Baloo would stop harping about the nomads.

Flitting his tired eyes over the instruments, Baloo said with feigned ignorance, “I dunno if I can find Watoosi, Becky. Haven’t been there for years an’ years.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you the coordinates.” Rebecca drew out the sextant and compass. With a frown of concentration, she began to scribble numbers on the edge of the map.

Baloo watched her out of the corner of his eye. He smirked. There was no way that she would know how to read that complicated map. It had taken him several months to master the art of navigation, and flying was as natural as breathing to him. Trying not to smile too broadly, he said casually, “Navigating’s a hard thing to do. If ya can’t understand where we are or where Watoosi is, that’s okay, Becky. I’ll just turn the Duck around, an’ we’ll go home. No point in gettin’ lost.” For good measure, he threw in one of Rebecca’s favorite complaints, “An’ we don’t wanna waste gas.”

“At our present tack and air speed, we should be at Watoosi in,” she checked her watch, “about seven hours. But since the wind is blowing from the southwest at fifteen knots, you should come to course one-two-seven.”

Incredulous, Baloo exclaimed, “How’d ya know that, Becky?”

“Kit taught me.” She smirked, twirling the sextant between her fingers.

Feeling betrayed, Baloo grumbled under his breath as he turned the Sea Duck four degrees to starboard, “Remind me ta thank that kid when we get home. How dare he teach her navigatin’ behind my back?”

“Listen to this, Baloo!” Rebecca said excitedly.

“Do I hafta?” he mumbled grumpily, tired of Rebecca’s showing off.

“Did you know that there’s a lake in Watoosi?”

“Yeah. So?”

“I thought there wasn’t any water in deserts.”

Baloo, feeling that it was his turn to teach her a thing or three, said smugly, “Shows ya that ya can’t go by everythin’ the books say. Ya know, Becky, it won’t be easy to find them nomads. They move all over.”

“Iknow what the word ‘nomad’ means, thank you,” Rebecca said dryly. “But I don’t think they’ll be that hard to find.”

“Why not?”

“The way I see it, the ostriches are the nomads’ pets. Both the ostriches and nomads need water to survive. All we have to do is land at Rickie Lake. There’s a river that runs into it.” She squinted and held the map closer to read the river’s name. “The Ramalama River. Surely the nomads live somewhere along the lake or river.”

“Unless they got a well drilled in the Highindri Desert. That bein’ the case, we get ta take a nice stroll through miles of sand, snakes, an’ sagebrush just to get some stupid feathers.” He tapped his fingers on the control yoke, saying sarcastically, “Oh, yeah, Becky, sounds like my idea of a fun ol’ time.”

“Oh, stop your complaining and concentrate on your flying,” she snapped.

Baloo sighed in exasperation. She had that nothing-is-going-to-stop-me-from-the-completion-of-my-crazy-plan look in her eyes. He hated that look. “I’m tellin’ ya, Becky. Them nomads are real dangerous.”

“You won’t care about the danger after we’re rich.”

Putting his hands behind his head, Baloo leaned back in his seat and steered with his feet. “This is the most feather-brained idea in the world.”

“What about that treasure hunt that you went on last week, buster?” Rebecca said, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Hey, that treasure was real!”

Fanning herself with the feather, Rebecca laughed. “It was real all right. A real disappointment. Lost City of Diamonds? Ha! Let me tell you something, Baloo.” She waved the feather in front of his face until he angrily swatted it away. “These feathers are a million times more real than your stupid treasure hunt that fizzled out. We just need to get a few thousand.”

“A few thousand?” Baloo’s feet hit the floor with a ‘thump’ as he sat up in astonishment. “How are we gonna get a thousand feathers back to the Duck with those nomads lurkin’ around, Miz Know-It-All?”

Pretending that she hadn’t heard him, Rebecca started to build castles in the air. She scribbled numbers on the back of the map as fast as she could. “One thousand times one hundred fifty dollars equals...but if we get two thousand, we’d have...ooo!”

Baloo returned to scowling out the window, thinking, Them ostriches ain’t the only bird brains.

Watoosi
Seven Hours Later

“There it is, Becky. Watoosi. It ain’t your typical vacation spot,” Baloo said as the Sea Duck circled over the patch of shimmering blue in a desolate desert wasteland.

Rebecca pressed her nose to the starboard window.

From the air, Watoosi, a country located in central Afrikka, was forbidding. Up close, it was even worse. As Rebecca had mentioned, Rickie Lake - more like a shallow pond than a lake - was situated near the western border of the country. It was surrounded by vast stretches of the Highindri Desert. This desert around the lake was peppered with craggy granite monoliths, which had stood the test of time and erosion. No one lived in Watoosi except for the nomads, and they were fiercely territorial over this desolate bit of sand and rock.

TheSea Duck splashed down for a landing in the lake and taxied towards the northeastern shore where the Ramalama River fed into the lake. Through the open window, Baloo could feel the hot, dry wind. Flecks of wind-driven sand abraded his skin and eyes. The afternoon sun beat down mercilessly and heat radiated from the lake. “Man, what a scorcher!”

Flipping the Sea Duck’s overhead switches, Baloo anxiously scanned the rugged rocks that ringed the lake. Nomads could be hiding behind any of them.

Before the propellers came to a complete stop, Rebecca opened the door and jumped from the plane. She immediately let out an ear-piercing shriek and leaped back into the cockpit.

“Sand too hot?”

“Big...big...lizard!” Rebecca gasped out with a repulsed shudder. “I almost stepped on it!”

Baloo hid a smile. “Too bad, so sad. I betcha there’s tons of creepy crawlies all over Watoosi just waitin’ ta crawl up your legs or jump in your hair, Becky. Guess we better head on home.”

“No!” At the thought of losing all that money, Rebecca steeled her nerves and yanked him out the pilot’s seat to the cargo hold. “Get the raft, Baloo.”

“I will, I will! Just stop bein’ so doggone bossy.”

“I’m not bossy,” she said in her most infuriating tone. “I’m just always right.”

Baloo snorted, rummaging through the cluttered cargo hold for the inflatable raft. “If she ain’t bossy, I’m a pig.”

She happened to catch this quiet aside and couldn’t help remarking, “Well, the way you eat, Baloo...”

“Now don’t start that again, Rebecca.” He pulled the ripcord that made the raft inflate. The large raft pinned him to the fuselage’s wall.

“Where are the oars?”

“Closet, I think,” replied Baloo’s muffled voice.

She opened the storage closet and had to jump to the side to avoid the avalanche of junk that spilled out. “What do I keep telling you about a clean plane?”

Baloo recited his boss’s favorite adage: “A clean plane is an efficient plane. But ya never know when some of this stuff will come in handy.”

Disgusted, Rebecca nudged a greasy, black banana peel with her toe. “When we get back home, I expect you to give the Sea Duck a thorough cleaning.”

“Ifwe get back.” With some difficulty, Baloo managed to get the raft out the back hatch and into the lake.

She dug the oars out from beneath the pile of stuff, saying cheerfully, “Now all we have to do is paddle up the river until we find the nomad camp.”

“Whatever floats your boat.” Comprehending what she had said, he spun around. “Wait a dive-bombin’ second! Did you say ‘we’?”

“Yes.”

Baloo took the paddles from her and tossed them into the raft angrily. “No way am I bustin’ my tail feathers to get some ostrich feathers. I did my part of the bargain - I got ya here. You can go on this wild goose chase yourself.”

“It’s not a wild goose chase. Besides, they’re ostriches, not geese.”

“Feathers are feathers.”

“Not the very rare...”

Baloo wearily chanted along with her. “Ring-necked, Fluffy-tailed Watoosian Ostrich feathers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve told me a million times.”

“Come on, Baloo.” Rebecca carefully stepped into the raft and picked up an oar. “We haven’t got all day.”

He climbed into the raft reluctantly; his bulk made the raft sag. He sat down beside her and took the other oar in hand. “Aw, man, how do I keep gettin’ in all this hot water?”

Thirty Minutes Later

It was quiet. Too quiet. Terribly quiet. Awfully quiet.

The eerie silence was broken only by the steady sloshing of the oars in the river, the wind whistling through the rugged rock pillars, and an occasional bird screech.

They had been paddling upstream for what felt like a hundred years. Baloo thought that they were getting nowhere fast. He kept his eyes peeled for a sign of the nomads, but

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