neat, huh?”

Because the sea monster didn’t look tooscary despite its colossal size, and because Wildcat had made friends with the animal, Molly cautiously, slowly reached her hand out to pet Teela’s nose. She was surprised to find that the sea monster was warm. When Teela purred, the little girl giggled with delight.

“Oh, by the way, her name’s Teela.” Wildcat patted the sea monster’s neck fondly.

Molly smiled at the sea monster. “Hi, Teela. I’m Molly. Can I take a ride, too?”

“Sure. Climb on.”

Teela bent down, and Wildcat boosted Molly up, placing her in front of him. Molly, straddling the neck, gently took a hold of the ‘mane’ to keep her balance.

“Whoa!” Molly breathed, feeling her stomach drop out from under her when Teela gradually raised her head. She looked down. She could see the tin roof of Higher for Hire. All of the tin roof. She was on eye level with the windsock, er...where the windsock used to be. “We’re up really high!”

“Sorry, Mollycat, but the snow went away.”

“That’s okay, Wildcat, but the air pirates are coming in!” Molly pointed to a fleet of CT-37s that were flying from the Iron Vulture’s beak. Her young, agile brain devised a plan. “I’ve got an idea, Wildcat!”

“To buy more jelly beans?” Wildcat turned his empty pockets inside out.

“Uh-huh. Do you think Teela can swipe at the airplanes as they go by? Like in that movie we saw last week with the big gorilla?”

“Did you hear that, Teela?” Wildcat asked.

The sea monster nodded her head. There was an understanding and pleased gleam in her yellow eyes. It was going to be a delightful pleasure to give the air pirates a taste of how they treated her. When a light maroon CT-37 got too close to her, she clamped her mouth around its rudder.

“Hey, vhat gives?” Dumptruck said, confused. “Why aren’t I moving?” He looked behind him. Seeing the sea monster, he shook his fist and shouted, “Bad snakey! Naughty snakey! Let go, or Captain Karnage will punish you!”

With Wildcat and Molly cheering on, Teela shook the plane like a puppy shaking a toy and tossed it over her shoulder. Dumptruck’s trademark “Whooo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” could be heard as the plane spun out of control, skipped across the ocean four times, and sunk.

“Yay!” Molly laughed, clapping her hands. “Do it again, Teela!”

Iron Vulture

Just as our gallant heroes had scrambled into the Sea Duck, Charley gave out a great, pulsing wheeze - chugga, chugga, chaahhhhh... - like a steam locomotive stopping. The fan ground to a halt with a squeal of metal on metal and began to spin in the other direction, gaining momentum with alarming alacrity. Sucking air into itself (and whatever happened to be in that air - birds, clouds, insects), Charley swelled like a water balloon.

In the Sea Duck, Baloo flipped switches as fast as he could. The port engine, then the starboard, started up. Air pirates with guns poured out of the trapdoors and shot at the Sea Duck’s fuselage.

“Great. Now, we get ta be target practice,” Baloo grumbled, taxiing the seaplane down the runway away from the pirates.

At that moment, the suitcase structure of the weather machine began popping apart at the seams. A metal rivet shot across the room. Streams of air seeped out from the cracks. Then, when it couldn’t get any bigger, it blew with a deafening ‘BANG!’ The violent explosion sent theIron Vulture rocketing across the harbor, over the cliffs, and out across the ocean. The air pirates who had been firing at the Sea Duck were thrown to the deck. They clung to anything they could to avoid being blown off. The Sea Duck shot off the end of the receding Iron Vulture.

“Ha! Ha!” Baloo laughed, circling the Sea Duck around to see the Iron Vulture’s rapid departure. “Guess those pirates are gone with the wind.”

“Not all of them, Papa Bear,” Kit reminded as CT-37s dove at them, guns blazing.

Iron Vulture

“Captain, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?” demanded Hacksaw, shaking the limp form of the pirate captain.

“You are going to stop shaking me, you simpering simpleton!”

Hacksaw immediately dropped Karnage back to the deck and ran off, hysterically screaming at the top of his lungs, “We’re doomed!”

Putting a hand to his sore head, Don Karnage regained consciousness only to find utter chaos. The weather machine had backfired and was blowing the Iron Vultureout to sea. The pirate crew was running about like chickens with their feathers in a knot. But worst of all, Baloo was nowhere in sight.

He got to his feet and hurried to the cabin, shoving every pirate that got in his way. He looked out the large stained-glass window in the bow only to see a speck of yellow - the Sea Duck - escaping. “Aargh! No! No! No! That fat pilot has done it again! He has ruin-ed my perfect scheme! It’s not fair!” Seizing the intercom microphone, he commanded, “After that meeserable Bahloo! Attack the Sea Duckand shoot it down! Destroy it! Blast that bear into a million, trillion, bite-sized bits!” Then he threw the microphone across the room for good measure.

Seeing the remote control lying on a table, he snatched it up and headed to the hangar to his personal black-and-red tri-wing CT-37. It was payback time!

Sea Duck

“Get back to the cargo hold, an’ strap in with Buzz, Becky. This is gonna be one bumpy ride,” Baloo ordered, maneuvering the plane right through the fleet of CT-37s, playing a game of air chicken. The pirate planes scattered like bees before a flyswatter.

“No,” she protested, with a belligerent shake of her head. “I got you into this mess, and I want to help you get out of it.”

“You’d help by gettin’ back there!”

Bullets whizzed through the cockpit and Rebecca dropped to the floor to avoid them.

Baloo shouted over the din, “Yeowch!”

“Baloo!”

“You okay, Papa Bear!”

Rebecca and Kit turned frightened eyes towards the big bear, fearing the worst. There was a bullet-sized hole in the pocket of his shirt near his heart, but no blood, as they were relieved (and astonished) to see. Steering with one hand, Baloo drew a little black box from the pocket. A bullet was lodged in the box’s lid. Keeping his eyes on the sky, he removed the bullet using his teeth, spit the bullet on the floor, and flipped open the lid to inspect the contents. “Good. It’s okay.”

“What’s that?” Rebecca murmured, her eyes growing larger as she leaned over the seat to get a better look at the diamond ring inside the box.

“It’s a ring.”

“I know it’s a ring, but why are you carrying a ring in your pocket?” she persisted.

Baloo placed the box in her hands, saying sheepishly, “It’s, uh, for you...if ya want it. Um...if ya want,” he gulped nervously, “me, that is, Rebecca.” With a smile mingled with hope and shyness, he gazed deep into her eyes with an expression that clearly stated ‘I love you’. Nothing more needed to be said.

Rebecca glanced from the diamond to her pilot, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Oh, Baloo...” Happiness and relief overwhelmed her. This meant that she didn’t have to hide her feelings for her pilot anymore.

More bullets flew through the cockpit, ricocheting off of the ceiling, floor, and control panel. A line of bullets cut through the radio, causing a few wires to sizzle.

“You picked a terrible time for a proposal,” Rebecca laughed ruefully, wiping tears from her cheeks.

“It wasn’t s’posed ta be like this, Becky.” The Sea Duck rolled over repeatedly. “I was gonna take ya out to a nice dinner at the Copabanana,” the Sea Duckdove sharply, causing two CT-37s to collide with each other; “then a walk through Cape Park in the moonlight. Ya know, Beckers,” the Sea Duck artfully zigzagged between two CT-37s, “set the mood for the big question.”

The seaplane looped around a pirate aircraft and Rebecca clung to Baloo’s elbow to steady herself. She giggled, “This seems like a more natural setting for us, though, Baloo. Just out of curiosity, when was this big date supposed to be?”

Baloo shrugged. “Whenever I mustered up the nerve.”

“Nerve?” Rebecca scoffed. “You saved me from Don Karnage, foiled his plans to take over Cape Suzette, you’re flying circles around these pirates, and you had to muster up the nerve?”

“That’s a diff’rent kind of nerve.” He missed crashing into a CT-37 by mere inches as he put the plane through a Baloo Barrelhouse Backwards Roll. “Can we talk about this later, Becky? I’m kinda busy here. If ya won’t get to the back, strap in with Kit, Sweetheart. It’s time for some serious flyin’.”

Rebecca wedged herself sideways into the seat next to Kit and fastened the seatbelt. Baloo dove the plane down, down, down towards the ocean, gaining speed. The bearess, however, wasn’t paying much attention to the pilot’s aerobatic maneuvers. Rebecca studied the beautiful diamond ring for a few seconds; she passed her fingertips over the dent in the lid. She shuddered to think what might have happened if Baloo hadn’t been toting that ring, if he actually had been shot through the heart... She then glanced over Kit’s head at Baloo, who was intently focused on performing his famous Pelican Dive. With a smile, she slipped the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly.

Kit, divining her decision, hugged her. The boy beamed from ear to ear as he rested his chin on Rebecca’s shoulder. He couldn’t wait to call her ‘Mom’.

Rebecca returned his hug and kissed the boy on the cheek. Just before the Sea Duckhit the ocean, Baloo