three gorilla birds, Kit thought, frowning. It’s smelly and it eats everything in sight. The pig was now gnawing on the back of Baloo’s seat. Ragged chunks of yellow foam bulged out of the holes in the seat cover as well as from the corners of the pig’s mouth. With an exasperated sigh, Kit hurried into the cargo hold to search for something else to occupy the pig for a few seconds.

The minute his back was turned, the pig returned to its favorite chew toy - the control panel wires.

“Get that animal off!” Baloo said for the millionth time, backhanding the pig across the snout. “He’s eatin’ the controls again.”

Kit grabbed the first expendable thing that he saw - an orange life preserver - and hurried to the cockpit. “C’mon, pig,” he said, luring the hog away from the control panel. “How ‘bout a nice life preserver?”

The pig’s teeth punctured the life preserver, allowing the air to escape with a ‘whoosh’. It chewed up the life preserver, then started nosing around for something else to eat.

“What’s wrong, Baloo? Lost your way with animals?” Rebecca said smugly from the navigator’s seat. She, dressed once again in her safari outfit, flashed a saucy smile at her pilot.

Rebecca wouldn’t have smiled if she knew what her precious pig was up to. The pig had acquired a taste for wires. It discovered some running along the base of the cockpit wall behind the navigator’s seat and happily munched away. Sparks started to fly. Horrified, Kit tried to pull the gigantic pig from the wires, but to no avail. The strong-willed pig weighed four times more than he did.

Scowling, Baloo twisted the severed control panel wires together. “Ooo...that’s it! I’ve put up with your stupid truffle-snuffling idea long enough. No way am I gonna let my plane be digested by a four-legged garbage disposal. Now, either that hog goes, or I go.”

Coolly, Rebecca replied, “Fine, you go.” A second later, her stomach dropped out from underneath her.

The starboard pontoon had completely separated from the strut. The pontoon fell ten thousand feet into the ocean, causing the plane to lurch violently to the left. With the center of gravity off balance, the Sea Duck spiraled out of control.

“Mayday! Mayday! Pontoonless plane with pig going down,” Baloo cried into the microphone.

Rebecca was thrown out of her seat while Kit and the pig tumbled about the cockpit.

“Number two engine, Kit! The number two engine!” Baloo cried, using every trick he knew to regain control of the seaplane.

Kit staggered to the control panel, where he quickly flipped a switch and turned the idle cut-off knob, cutting the fuel mixture to the port engine. “I...I don’t think we’re gonna make it, Baloo.” The ocean was coming up too fast. The thought of crawling back to the cargo hold for the parachutes flitted across his mind, but then he remembered that the pig had eaten them.

“We’d better,” Baloo said, his knuckles turning white as he wrenched the steering yoke to starboard to counteract the roll. “I wanna live long enough to get that pig. And that Becky.”

Finally, the port engine ran out of fuel and its propeller sputtered to a stop. Baloo used the thrust from the starboard engine to level out the plane. While he was bringing it down, the Sea Duckwhirled completely around once. It splashed down for a bumpy landing in the ocean, skipping like a stone across the water. It spun around again, losing momentum, before gently resting against the dock.

Baloo turned off the plane with a big sigh of relief. “Well...well, a perfect three hundred and sixty point landin’,” he said jauntily, folding his arms behind his head. He was proud of his prowess as a pilot, and he had a right to be proud. In this case, any landing at all would have been a miracle.

Kit slumped against the control panel. His face was the same shade as his olive green shirt. He murmured, “Now I know what a sock feels like in a washing machine.”

“No, I think this was worse.” Hand held over her mouth, a nauseous Rebecca shakily got to her feet. Her body, still stiff from the previous day’s excursion, was now covered with new bruises.

The pig leaned against Baloo’s shoulder and breathed his foul breath in the big bear’s face. Baloo quickly turned towards the open window, muttering, “It’s gettin’ kinda stuffy in here.” He pushed the pig away and made a hasty retreat out of the cockpit. Seeing the cracked pontoon strut, he wailed, “Look at my plane! I hope you’re happy. You’re the one who wanted a pig instead of a pontoon.”

But pontoons were the last thing on Rebecca’s mind. Because they had made it to Zibaldo - relatively unscathed - her enthusiasm had returned. She could almost smell the money...er, truffles. She grabbed the pig’s leash and disembarked with Kit helping to push the pig off of the airplane. “We ran into a little bad luck. We’ll fix the plane up with the money we make.” She, with the pig following behind, strolled up the dock. In a sing-song voice, she said, “Now, come along. It’s truffle hunting time.”

Baloo didn’t know how she could possibly think about mushrooms after their near brush with death. He said in exasperation, “She’s got truffles on the brain, Kit.”

Rebecca let out a shocked gasp, which sent Baloo and Kit rushing to her side.

The pilot asked, “What is it?”

Rebecca pointed to a large canvas sign that flapped slightly in the sultry breeze.

Kit read, “Absolutely no pigs past this point.”

As if in protest, the pig took a bite out of the signpost.

“Great!” Elated, Baloo took the leash away from his boss. That was the best news that he had heard all day. “Too bad, Becky. But I guess we just have to fix the Duck and get outta here. No pigs means no pigs. Maybe we can, uh, swap it for a pontoon.” He jerked on the pig’s leash, and the annoyed pig jerked in return, sending Baloo sprawling on the dock.

“Maybe you’re right,” Rebecca said dolefully, her shoulders sagging in defeat. After a moment, a stubborn glint came to her eyes, and she threw her shoulders back. “No! We’ve come too far. I have an idea!”

Baloo, still sprawled on the dock, murmured, “Oh, I hate it when she gets that look in her eyes.” It meant that work, trouble, or both were coming his way.

With the pig in tow, Rebecca returned to the Sea Duck. She went to the storage closet, opened it, and started to dig through the mound of stuff, throwing objects haphazardly over her shoulder. “I thought that I saw...ah-ha!” She unearthed a baby buggy. In the baby buggy was a pink bonnet, a pacifier, a large white square of fabric, a blue blanket, and a safety pin.

Baloo asked, “What in blue blazes are ya gonna do with that junk?”

“We’re going to disguise the pig as a baby.” Rebecca held the bonnet up to the pig’s head to see if it would fit. Before the pig could nibble on the bonnet strings, she snatched the it away.

“Ababy?” Baloo and Kit echoed simultaneously, perplexed.

Even the pig stopped rooting through trash to give her a wary look.

Brightly, Rebecca explained, “If the pig doesn’t look like a pig, we can sneak past the border guard. It’ll work. Believe me. Everyone loves babies.”

“Uh-huh,” Baloo muttered, looking anything but impressed. “That plan’ll work when pigs fly. ‘Sides, how are we s’posed to get Hogzilla here into that getup?”

Rebecca furtively glanced at the pig, then at the bonnet. She motioned for her flight crew to huddle up. “We’ll round him up,” she whispered.

Recalling the past three hours, Kit felt uneasy. That pig was more likely toeat those items than wear them.

Baloo snickered. “A round-up? Do I look like a cowboy?”

Rebecca froze him with a glance. “You look like a pilot who’s about to lose his job if he doesn’t help me!”

“Yippie-ti-yi-yay,” Baloo murmured.

Rebecca shut the door leading to the cockpit, then handed the diaper to Baloo and the pacifier to Kit. The three bears encircled the pig, arms outstretched.

“When I say ‘three’, everybody grab the pig,” Rebecca murmured, clasping the bonnet tightly. “One...”

They inched closer to the hog.

“Two...”

They inched even closer.

“Three!”

En masse, they pounced on the pig. With a squeal of alarm, the pig ran between Baloo’s legs, knocking him head over heels with a “Whoa!” Then, the mere blur of a pig went on a mad rampage around the cargo hold with Kit and Rebecca in pursuit.

Just when Kit thought that he had the porker cornered, it plowed over him, throwing him atop the top bunk bed. Head spinning, he looked down on the mass destruction, thinking, The next time there’s a pig demolition derby, count me out!

When the pig flew past her, Rebecca threw the blanket over the hog’s head. With an angry grunt, the pig shook it off and disappeared into a pile of junk.

Rebecca cautiously approached the rippling pile. She let out a high-pitched scream and leaped out of the way when the porcine torpedo rocketed out from beneath the mound and made for the fuselage’s stern. Just as it appeared as the pig was going to charge the cargo hatch door, it came to an abrupt halt, huffing and puffing. It spied - er,smelled something in a small wooden crate and proceeded to investigate its contents.

“I think we’re goin’ about this the wrong way,” Baloo commented, dizzily getting to his feet.

“Maybe we should hog-tie him,” Kit suggested, hopping down from the bunk bed. His grin evolved into a grimace as he gingerly touched his scraped elbow.

Rebecca staggered over to her flight crew. The bonnet sat, askew, on her head.

“Aw, not my bottle cap collection,” Baloo groaned. “Stupid pig.” Grumbling,

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