chests.”

“Oh, great!” she exclaimed sarcastically. It looked like this truly was the end for both of them. They were trapped with no hope. And only one hour ago, she had been so happy. Her chin began to quiver. Big tears welled up in her eyes, trickled down her cheeks, and splashed onto the dynamite.

Hearing her sobbing and not being able to hold her in his arms was agonizing to Baloo. Instead, he did the next best thing - he caressed her fingertips and tried to comfort her with words. “When we said ‘til death do us part, I didn’t think it’d be so soon. Aw, easy, Becky, eaaaasy. Don’t cry, sweetheart.”

“I’m not crying!” Rebecca sniffed, her voice quavering. She hastily blinked tears from her eyes. “I...I just have dust in my eye. It’s not fair!”

“Yeah,” Baloo agreed quietly. He glanced up at the balloon and then down at the basket for something to help them escape, but he found nothing. “Blast that dang Karny, or more like he’s gonna blast us.”

“He always invades Cape Suzette at the worst times. On our wedding day of all days!”

“Whenwould be a good time?” Baloo asked with a wan chuckle. He returned to unraveling the knots that constrained their wrists.

“Never!” Rebecca’s tears were forgotten. She was hopping mad now. “Why does Karnage always have to invade Cape Suzette? Why not some other city for a change?”

“We could move,” Baloo suggested.

“We just moved yesterday, and we shouldn’t have to leave our home because of some pirates. Besides, Cape Suzette is a prime location for an air cargo business. Do you know what we’d have to do to have what we have now, Baloo? We’d have to find a city with a seaside or lakeside location. A new house, a new office - meaning moving expenses. Establishing a new clientele. Do you know how long it took for Higher for Hire to become profitable?”

“Nuh-huh,” Baloo murmured, tongue protruding in concentration as his cramped fingers fumbled with the ropes. He wished that he had his pocket knife. He wished that Kit was there to help. He wished that he had an Orange Fizzie; his mouth was parched.

“It took months! Then, there’s uprooting the kids. They would have to go to different schools, make new friends, and...” She inquired irately, “Don’t you have that knot untied yet?”

“Uh, there’s only one hitch, Beckers. I think this knot’s the Killick Hitch, an’ I’m not good at those.”

“Oh, let me try! We do not have time to mess around with knots,” Rebecca snapped impatiently. She began fiddling with the ropes, her heart in her throat.

The faint ticking of the alarm clock reminded them of their impending doom.

The Pink Piranha

“I spy with my little eyes a big red balloon,” Aunt Louise said as the airplane flew, full throttle, towards the hot air balloon that was several thousand feet above the city.

Seeing help coming, Baloo’s and Rebecca’s faces brightened.

“Mind if we join the party?” Aunt Louise shouted to the two bears. ThePink Piranha circled clockwise around the balloon.

Louie leapt into the basket and landed on the dynamite. “Whoa-ho! Get a load of all these candles. There must be at least a hundred here. Is it your birthday already, cuz?”

“Lay off the jokes, cuz,” Baloo said, annoyed. “Just get us outta here.”

“Your wish is my command.” Louie began working at the knots. “What’s that tickin’ noise? You wearin’ a watch, Baloo?”

“Baloo - wear a watch?” Rebecca snorted.

“Nah, that’s just Karnage’s friendly little bomb tick-talkin’ to us.”

Louie gave a final yank on the knot, releasing the newlyweds from their bonds. He blinked once, twice as that fact sunk in. “A bomb?As in whammy-ka-blammy?”

“Did ya think the dynamite was just filler?” Baloo said. He waded through the sticks of TNT to the side of the basket. “Karnage wanted to blow us sky-high.”

“Sky-high in the sky, no less. Man, we gotta blow this balloon before that bomb blows a chunk out of us! Last one in the Pink Piranha is a cooked goose.” When the airplane swooped close to the basket, he jumped into its cockpit.

Baloo pulled Rebecca out of the dynamite. “You next, Becky.”

“Okay,” she said nervously.

When the plane buzzed around that side of the basket, Baloo tossed Rebecca into the plane. She landed neatly on Louie’s lap.

Extremely pleased, the orangutan joked, “Now, this is what I call a bridal shower.”

Baloo, still in the basket, murmured to himself as he watched the airplane fly closer, “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, an’ four to GO!” At the word ‘go’, he made a mad leap for the fuselage while Rebecca jumped back into the balloon’s basket.

Baloo landed in front of the cockpit with an “Oof!” and slid back against the windshield. Aunt Louise had to stick her neck out to the left to see where she was going.

“That’s the biggest, hairiest bug I’ve ever seen,” Louie commented.

Baloo turned around to glare at his friend. “Keep your criticisms to yourself. Hey, where’s Rebecca?”

Louie pointed to the balloon.

Alarmed, Baloo hollered, “Becky, you’re s’posed ta be over here!”

“I have to get my dress!” She snatched up the sack containing her dress and shook off a few sticks of dynamite that were clinging to the rough burlap.

“You got it. Haul your tail section over here pronto!” Baloo said frantically; he could hear the alarm clock’s ticking. Who knew how long they had left?

She threw the sack as hard as she could at the airplane. It landed on Baloo’s head.

“Thanks a heap,” he said dryly, plucking the sack from his pate and handing it back to Louie. “Now, c’mon, honey!”

If things weren’t bad enough, the last remaining CT-37 swooped down over the balloon, machine guns blazing.

“This is no time for fun and games,” Aunt Louise said huffily.

“You’re having fun?” Louie said incredulously. He and Louise ducked as bullets flew over the cockpit, dangerously close to where their heads had been a second earlier. “If one of those bullets hits that dynamite, we might as well say bye-bye to breathin’.”

“Just hold her steady,” Baloo yelled, lying face down across the fuselage. “An’ try to get as close to the basket as ya can.”

Seeing the CT-37 headed right towards her, Rebecca yelped, “Baloo!” and held her hands out over the side of the basket as far as she could without falling out.

Baloo caught them in his as the airplane zipped by.

One second later, the hot air balloon exploded into a thousand flaming fragments.

Khan Towers

Don Karnage, seeing the demise of his arch-enemy, grinned from ear to ear, saying, “Good riddance to annoying rubbish.”

Ignoring Mad Dog’s and Dumptruck’s persistent pleas for help, he turned on his heel and went into the building.

Khan’s Office

Kit, with his arm protectively around Molly’s shoulders, peered out the window at the big black ball of rolling smoke far above them. There wasn’t any sign of the Pink Piranha, not to mention Baloo, Rebecca, Louie, or Aunt Louise.

Then they saw it - the Pink Piranha hurtling across the sky like a shooting star. The plane, propelled forward by the force of the blast, was speeding out of control towards the ground.

“What’s happening, Kit? Are they gonna crash?” Molly asked quietly, her eyes riveted to the plane.

Kit also watched the plane’s rapid downward progress with trepidation. Not wanting to scare Molly more than she already was, he tightened his arm around her and mumbled with forced conviction, “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Aunt Louise is a good pilot, almost as good as Baloo.”

Pink Piranha

The airplane dove sharply towards the ground, accelerating by the second. Baloo, his legs wrapped around the fuselage, was stuck to windshield with the immense G-forces. He and Rebecca - who sat on his lap - clung to each other for dear life. Their eyes watered with the wind blowing into them.

“Man, for a second there, Becky, I thought I was gonna suffer from separation anxiety,” Baloo said with a weak smile.

Rebecca brushed her palm across her eyes. “You weren’t the one that was almost blown up.”

“Don’t go blamin’ me for that. That was your fault. You an’ that silly dress.”

“Silly dress? That’s not what you said this morning when you saw me in it, Baloo.”

Their argument was curtailed by Louie shouting, “Get the nose up, Aunt Louise!” He grabbed onto the stick and pulled back with all his might.

“I’m tryin’, Louis, but we got too much of a load,” Aunt Louise said from between clenched teeth.

Seemingly from out of nowhere, the CT-37 appeared. Its pilot was still intent on shooting down the Pink Piranha.

“Man, I wish that pirate would find somebody else to pester,” Baloo said, cringing when the CT-37 swooped upon them.

Over the wind noise and the ack-ack-ack of the CT-37's guns, Aunt Louise yelled, “Baloo, when we get low enough you and Rebecca gotta jump. It’s the only way.”

“The only way?” Baloo echoed in disbelief.

“We’ll do it, Louise,” Rebecca said determinedly.

“W...we will?” stammered the big bear.

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Next page