earlier, he said, “Well, now, that was dandy. Need any help there, Becky?”

Coughing up seawater, Rebecca spluttered, “No - cough, cough - thank you.”

“Hey, Baloo, did you get the new pontoon?” Wildcat asked.

“Doesthat answer your question?” Baloo pointed to the pig, which had discovered Wildcat’s lunch box; it pushed the lid open with its snout and devoured the sandwich inside. Then, it ate the lunch box and snorted up the crumbs.

“Wow! A pig! Is that what they make pontoons out of these days?”

The gluttonous pig chomped onto the wrench that Wildcat held. It played tug-of-war briefly before swallowing both the wrench and Wildcat’s arm.

While Wildcat struggled to extract his arm from the pig’s mouth, Kit helped Rebecca out of the harbor. The boy said, “You ought to be more careful, Miz Cunningham. What if that pig hadn’t stopped?”

“That is not just a pig, Kit,” Rebecca said, wringing out her sopping cardigan. Her wet, limp hair was plastered to her head. “That is a means to a fortune.”

Wildcat, who had managed to free his arm from the pig, sat on the dock, wriggling the fingers of his nearly-digested hand. He wondered what he had done wrong. A pontoon had never tried to eat him before.

Baloo laughed. “Come off it, Becky. You don’t even know if this monster likes truffles, though it seems to like everything else.”

Dripping with water, Rebecca declared, “I’ll prove this animal was a good investment.” For emphasis, she lightly kicked the pig’s side. “Even if it kills me.”

Higher for Hire’s Office
Thirty Minutes Later

Baloo sat on Rebecca’s desk, shaking his head over his boss’ latest antics. There was no question in his mind. She had definitely gone off the deep end.

Rebecca was waving a truffle in front of the pig’s nose. “This is a truffle, Mr. Pig. Doesn’t it smell good?” Her pleasant tone in her voice changed to extreme annoyance when the pig charged at her. A stream of drool dripped from the hog’s mouth onto the floorboards. “No, don’t eat it, you stupid pig. Just sniff it. Now, you’re going to find a whole bunch just like this for me, and if you do, you’ll get a treat. A yummy treat, but you’re not going to eat this truffle or any other truffle, because they’re worth a lot of money, and...ah! Get...get off me! A little help here, Baloo!”

“Why do ya need my help, Becky?” Baloo said insolently. She don’t need my help to look stupid. Amusement danced in his eyes as she slipped in a puddle of drool. “I thought this pig was your ticket to livin’ high on the hog.”

“Cut the jokes, flyboy, and get this big beast away from me!” Rebecca cried, sagging under the pig’s weight. The pig had put its forelegs on her shoulders in an attempt to reach the truffle she held over her head.

“Anythin’ ta make you happy, boss lady.” Baloo jerked on the pig’s leash, pulling it towards himself.

The pig then licked one of Baloo’s legs with a very loud, very wet ‘slurp’.

“Oh...aw,yuck! Psycho leg-lickin’ pig! I ain’t a salt lick!” Before the hog could devour any part of his anatomy, Baloo bashed it over the head with a garbage can.

The pig inhaled the garbage can as well as everything in it.

“Got the blindfold, Miz Cunningham,” Kit said, running down the stairs with a handkerchief.

“Good. Now we’ll really put this pig to the test.” Once again, she tentatively held the truffle to the pig’s nose, prompting a joyful squeal from the animal. “There, Mr. Pig, take a good sniff. Down, pig, down! All right, Kit, the blindfold.”

Kit swiftly put the handkerchief over the squirming, squealing pig’s eyes. He strained to hold the pig back and tried to avoid getting his toes stomped on. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I don’t want any doubting Thomases,” Rebecca said caustically, scowling at Baloo.

A sly gleam in the big bear’s eyes belied the innocence in his voice. “Me? Doubt? Never.”

“Okay, boy, which hand has the truffle?” Rebecca unclenched her hand containing the truffle and the pig lunged for it, snapping its powerful jaws. “See? See!”

With a squeal, the blindfolded pig knocked Rebecca to the floor and devoured the truffle in one gulp. Then, it went for Rebecca’s arm, which smelled like a truffle. “Ah, get it off! Get it off! It’s making an hors d’oeuvre out of my elbow.”

Kit quickly grabbed a broom and smacked the pig on its backside. The hog turned and ate the entire broom from the straws to the tip of the broomstick in fewer than five bites.

“Man, oh, man, it’s all stomach,” Baloo said, tilting his hat back to get a better look at the pig. He had finally met something that was hungrier than he was.

“It’s an eating machine,” Kit added with a slight smile. He watched, amazed, as the pig started chewing on the rug.

Disgruntled, Rebecca got to her feet, dusted herself off, and headed for the door. “Baloo, just load my pig in the plane and prepare for takeoff.”

Baloo hopped off the desk and stormed over to his boss. “Whoa! Time out, Becky. I’m not loading that creature into my beautiful Sea Duck.”

“And just why not?” Rebecca said crisply.

Baloo shot a disgusted look at the pig, which was now trying to eat the ledgers off of the desk. In the nick of time, Kit snatched the book from the pig’s jaws and smacked it over the snout with it. “Because it’s messy, loud, obnoxious, ugly, and smelly.”

“Well, so are you,” Rebecca said pointedly, her disgusted expression mirroring Baloo’s as she headed for the Sea Duck. “Besides it’s my plane.”

Baloo muttered under his breath, “Who is she callin’ messy?”

At that moment, Rebecca turned, put her hands to her mouth, and shouted, “And I’d like to take off sometime this year, Baloo!”

The pilot mocked his boss in a falsetto voice, “Sometime this year, Baloo.” He and Kit started for the plane. In his normal voice, he growled, “I’m comin’. Just hold your bacon.”

When a shrill squeal came from the office, Baloo realized that he had accidentally said the ‘B’ word. “Uh-oh.”

Inside the office, a pig-shaped dervish was wreaking havoc. Crashes, smashes, and fearful squeals emanated from the building.

Rebecca sprinted past her flight crew to her office, exclaiming, “My office! My office!”

“Think we oughtta help?” Kit asked, half-hoping that Baloo would say no.

“Oh, why not,” Baloo said nonchalantly. Bear and cub walked back to the office, ducked when a splintered chair flew their way, and cautiously looked in the office.

The sight that met their eyes was truly amazing. A shrieking Rebecca rode atop the psychotic pig’s back as it raced around the room, turning the once orderly office into a pigsty.

“Would ya look at that?” Baloo chuckled, leaning against the doorjamb. A smile as wide as the Pacific was on his face. He couldn’t wait to tell the guys at Louie’s about this. “I could watch this all day.”

Meanwhile, Rebecca was doing a very good imitation of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. She shouted desperately, “Do something, Baloo! Ah-ah-aahhhhh!”

As much as Baloo would have liked for this hilarious scene to continue, it was destroying his and Kit’s home; and he had a sneaking suspicion that Rebecca would make them help clean up the mess. He yawned and caught Kit in a one-armed hug, saying jauntily, “Ya know, kid, I feel a song comin’ on.”

“This is no time to fool around, Baloo,” Kit exclaimed, his adolescent voice cracking. “She’s in trouble!”

To Kit’s amazement, Baloo started singing a jazzy version of a lullaby.

“A-rock-a-bye, hoggy, in the treetop. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.”

The only thing more amazing than his Papa Bear singing a lullaby was that the pig actually seemed to enjoy it. With something akin to a smile on its face, the porker slowed down. Rebecca jumped off of its back at the first opportune moment and cowered behind her overturned desk, shaking with fright.

“When the bow breaks, the cradle will fall.” The pig slid to a stop before Baloo. “And down will come piggy, cradle, and all.” When Baloo touched the pig’s back, it slumped, snoring, to the floor with an earthshaking ‘thump’.

“Wow!” Kit said. “Maybe that’ll work on my English teacher.” His teacher, Ms. Palindrome, was notorious for giving her classes lengthy spelling tests. Kit hated spelling.

Rebecca, worn out from her wild ride, cautiously emerged from behind her desk. When she saw that the pig was asleep, she stomped over to her pilot. Jabbing him in the chest with her finger, she said in exasperation, “One of these days, Baloo. One of these days.”

“Aw, Becky, you’re just jealous, ‘cause I have a way with animals,” Baloo said smugly, patting the sleeping beast’s back.

The Sea Duck
Three Very Long Hours Later

TheSea Duck was well on its way to Zibaldo, a small country in northeastern South Amerika. According to A Million Ways to Make a Million Dollars, the jungle of Zibaldo was the best place to find truffles.

Because Rebecca had been eager to get started on her quest, Wildcat hadn’t had time to finish the arrow extraction. Therefore, the hastily patched-up pontoon was still riddled with a few arrows. Also, having a pig aboard was making for an interesting and somewhat perilous flight.

As much as he loved flying, Kit was wishing that he was back in Cape Suzette, hanging out at the malt shop with his new friends. He was extremely glad that they were almost to Zibaldo. The pig’s gluttonous behavior was threatening to destroy the Sea Duck from the rudder to the fuzzy dice, and, as luck would have it, it was his job to make sure that it didn’t.

This pig’s worse than three gorilla birds,

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