pig.” Grumbling, he wrested a box from the pig’s mouth and wiped the slobber off of it using his shirttail. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. He slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, man, what was I thinkin’?”

“You - think?” Rebecca scoffed.

“Ha-ha, Miz Manager,” Baloo said, plucking the bonnet from her head. “I was thinkin’ that we should have a little sing-along.”

Understanding dawned on Rebecca’s face. She felt like a complete idiot for not thinking of that, and she was annoyed because Baloo had thought of it first. Scowling, the grabbed the bonnet back. “Rock-a-bye, baby...”

Baloo and Kit joined in singing the lullaby, which had its usual sedative effect on pig. It slumped to the cargo hold floor, snoring. A half-eaten soda bottle protruded from its mouth.

“Quick! Before it wakes up,” Rebecca whispered.

Five minutes later, the pig was diapered, bonneted, and in the buggy.

Kit stuck the pacifier in the sleeping pig’s mouth while Rebecca draped a blue blanket over it. “There,” she said with a self-satisfied smile. “A perfect disguise.”

“Yeah, if you’re blind,” Baloo said.

“Push the carriage, Baloo,” Rebecca ordered, opening the door.

As Baloo and Kit struggled to lower the heavy pram to the dock, the pilot murmured, “Between the Watoosian nomads an’ Becky, I’ll think I’ll take my chances with the nomads. At least I know what to expect with them. This truffle idea is pure hogwash.”

“Baloo! Hurry up!” Rebecca called from the opposite end of the dock.

“I’m hurryin’. I’m hurryin’.” Baloo and Kit threw their combined weights against the baby buggy to set it bumping down the warped wooden dock.

The Zibaldo Border

A short distance from the dock, along a narrow, winding dirt path overgrown with thick undergrowth was the border checkpoint. It consisted of a small, square structure nestled among the trees.

The border guard, a thin hyena wearing a khaki uniform, walked up to the checkpoint. He put his lunch box in the building and punched in his time card. Another workday, another dollar. Guarding the northern border of the sparsely populated country of Zibaldo wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute, but, hey, it was a living. A steady job was difficult to come by in these trying times.

Nothing of interest had happened during the six-and-a-half years that he had held this position of border guard. Nothing, if you didn’t count the Pygmy Fracas of 1933 when a troop of truffle hunters and their pigs discovered just how vicious the small pygmy tribe who lived in the heart of the jungle could be. The truffle hunters had escaped by the hairs of their chinny-chin-chins. The pigs, however, hadn’t been so lucky.

To alleviate the monotony of his eight-hour shift, the guard took a red yo-yo out of his pocket. He was getting pretty good at ‘walking the dog’ and ‘around the world’.

He quickly stowed his yo-yo in his pocket when he heard voices approaching. Along the overgrown path came three bears. One of them was pushing a perambulator.

The guard got his official-looking clipboard from the guardhouse. In a thick Zibaldoian accent, he said, “Step up. Step up. Welcome to Zibaldo, my friends. And where are we going?”

“Um, my family and I...” Rebecca began.

Baloo interrupted with a cough. The mere thought of being married to this crazy woman was unbearable.

“Just came for a picnic,” Rebecca concluded through clenched teeth. If Baloo screws this up with his antics, I’ll clip his wings but good!

“Oh, a baby! I love babies,” the guard said, approaching the pram. He lightly tickled the ‘baby’. “Coochie-coochie-coo.”

The ‘baby’ bit the guard’s finger, prompting a pained, “Ouch!”

Suspicious, the guard removed the blanket just in time to see the pig devouring the pacifier. He peered down at the odd-looking infant. “Wait a minute. That looks like a pig to me.”

Baloo chuckled. He couldn’t help saying, “Takes after her mom, doesn’t she?” inciting a frown from Rebecca.

“We don’t allow pigs in this jungle.”

The pig devoured the guard’s clipboard and shirt sleeve in one swift bite, causing the guard to be afraid - very afraid.

In the tone of an outraged mother, Rebecca cried, “You’re insulting my child!”

The ‘baby’ oinked.

“Soundslike a pig to me.”

Rebecca threw herself protectively across the pig’s large stomach. “Nope, that was just a burp.”

“Aiiieee...” the guard said, holding his nose with repugnance. “And it smells like a pig, too.”

Rebecca bit her lip, unsure how to explain that one.

Kit piped up with, “Well, if it looks like a pig, and sounds like a pig, and smells like a pig, it can’t be a pig, right?”

“Why not?” the guard asked suspiciously.

“‘Cause pigs aren’t allowed in this jungle,” Kit answered with a broad grin.

“That’s true,” the guard conceded with a shrug. He pulled the lever that raised the red-and-white striped crossing gate. He stood aside, hat politely raised, allowing the ‘family’ to pass. “Okay, you may go. Have a good time, folks.”

The pig chomped into the guard’s hat, gulped it down, and burped.

Stupefied, the duped guard looked at the place where his hat had been a moment before. “Wait a minute! Where’s my hat?” He finally put two and two together. “That was a pig! Stop! Stop!”

Pushing the pram along the narrow path, Rebecca shouted, “Run! Run!”

The three bears and the pig rounded a bend and were swallowed up by the jungle.

“Wait, it’s for your own good! There are pygmies!” the guard cried. “Eh...forget it.” He leaned against the lowered gate and drew his yo-yo out of his pocket. He was unconcerned about the bears’ fate. More than likely they wouldn’t run into pygmies, and if they did, well, they had been warned.

Deeper in the Jungle

Baloo, leaning against a tree, wished that he had a camera. He thought that he had seen the limit of Rebecca’s weirdness, but apparently he was wrong.

Rebecca was on her hands and knees beside the pig, making snuffling and oinking noises and acting as if she were sniffing the ground. She was trying to teach the pig how to hunt for truffles. “Oink, oink, oink. See?” she said to the pig.

Kit was sitting on a fallen tree trunk just behind Baloo, rocking back and forth to keep himself cooled off. Because the thick foliage prevented wind movement, the hot, humid jungle air was stifling. Swatting at a huge mosquito buzzing in his ear, he thought about what a great adventure this would be to tell the Jungle Aces.

Shaking his head, Baloo jerked a thumb at Rebecca and said, “That, Kit, is the stubbornest person I ever saw.”

“Okay. Now, sniff out the truffles, Mr. Pig. Oink, oink, oink. See? Just like that.”

To Baloo’s amazement, the pig actually seemed to understand her instructions. It started to sniff the ground like a bloodhound.

“Ha! He’s on the scent. Soon I’ll be rolling in truffles,” Rebecca said triumphantly. Her triumph was short-lived, because the pig took off like a shot, dragging the screaming bearess along behind. “Yeeeeiii!”

“C’mon, Baloo!” Kit said, taking off after Rebecca.

“I’m comin’. Somebody’s gotta save her from herself,” Baloo muttered under his breath. But why does it hafta be me?

The pig sped through the jungle, taking Rebecca with him. She shouted, “Onward! Onward!”

Baloo and Kit followed the sound of the pig crashing through the jungle until they could hear it no more. Suddenly, they found themselves walking through a short tunnel where the trees grew so closely together that their leaf canopy blocked out all vestiges of sunlight.

Baloo stretched out his arms to avoid running into a tree. He carefully picked his way through the tunnel, heading towards the dim light at the end. He wondered, “Hey, who turned out the lights?”

When they emerged from the tunnel, they heard their boss say faintly, “Kit? Baloo? Where are you?”

Kit looked up. Rebecca was several feet above them in a tree. “We’re down here, Miz Cunningham!” he shouted.

“Where’s the pig?” Rebecca asked uneasily, unsure of how she got in the tree in the first place.

“Isn’t he with you?” Baloo asked.

The pig was, in fact, up the tree too. It had gotten so scared while running through the pitch-black tunnel that it hadn’t watched where it was going.

With a loud splintering sound, the branch that the plump pig was perched on snapped from the trunk. The pig and Rebecca crashed to the ground with both the pig and branch landing on the bearess’s legs.

Baloo and Kit leaned over their boss, who was lying spreadeagle on her back. The pig calmly took a bite out of the branch.

Smirking, Baloo said, “Doncha think it’s time you admitted this was all a stupid idea?”

Rebecca, her head reeling with pain and confusion, stammered, “Well...actually...”

Before she could say more, a roar reverberated throughout the jungle.

“That sounded like a...a lion?” Baloo said, hoping that the lion was far, far away on the other side of the jungle.

ROAR!

Rebecca gulped, scrambling to her feet. She inched closer to Baloo. “Lion? You sure it wasn’t the pig pretending to be a lion?”

A large, fully grown, very hungry male lion leapt to a boulder a few feet away from the truffle hunters. He roared again to warn them to run and hide. He was on the hunt, and they were the prey.

Scared out of his wits, Baloo muttered shakily, “Nope. Lion. Definitely lion.” He put a big fake smile on his face and offered the pig to the lion. “Nice kitty. How about a big, fat, juicy pig? Oh, yum. Doesn’t he look good?”

“No, Baloo, you can’t!” Rebecca

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