filled the kitchen, Kit sighed, slouched in his chair, and loosened his tie. He longed to escape to his room, but that would seem rude, especially since the party was being thrown in his honor. Instead, he opened his pocket watch and wondered how much longer it would last. Knowing Baloo and Louie’s party-hardy reputations, it could last until the wee hours of the morning. His heart sank.

If I can handle air pirates, I can handle one measly party, he thought in an attempt to bolster his resolve.

He took a sip of the perfect mixture of tart-yet-sweet that was Louie’s Lemon Sludge and half-heartedly listened as Baloo recounted adventure after adventure that he and Rebecca had shared on their honeymoon. Normally, he loved Baloo’s stories, but today they grated on his nerves like fingers on a chalkboard.

“So I look over at Becky an’ say, ‘What? No French fries? We’re in Francais, ain’t we?’” Baloo guffawed and slapped his palm on the table, making everything on it dance.

“My husband,” Rebecca said with a rueful shake of her head. “You’d think he’d never been out of Cape Suzette before.”

“Sounds like Mr. World-Traveler left his brain behind,” Louie joked.

“S’long as I took my heart with me.” Baloo winked at Rebecca over Kit’s head.

Not for the first time did Kit wish that he wasn’t sitting between Baloo and Rebecca. He felt as if he were the net in the middle of their flirtatious ‘tennis match’. Worse still, Baloo had blatantly ignored all of his tentative attempts to enter the conversation and had even turned his broad back on him several times.

Rebecca counted on her fingers. “Your heart, your fishing pole, your fishing tackle...you had enough fishing gear to catch a pod of whales.”

“I did catch me a whopper.” The big bear spread his arms out wide to show how big the fish was.

“ThatI believe, fuzzy. A whopper of a story, that is!”

“It’s true. Tell the man, Beckers.”

“Do you mean the guppy or the tadpole?” Rebecca giggled as she rose to pour them all more Lemon Sludge.

“That big trout that we fried up for our supper, sweetheart.” Baloo playfully swatted her backside.

“Watch it, Baloo. I can still fire you.” She poured some punch for herself and sat down. Her brown eyes flashed a challenge at Baloo over the rim of the glass when she took a drink.

Baloo rose to the bait. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly. “And then where would you be?”

Looking adoringly at her, Baloo murmured, “Lost.” He leaned over Kit to kiss his wife.

For Kit, to have the big bear’s bulk hovering unwelcomely over him was the last straw! It was one thing to be ignored. It was another to be stomped on like a doormat.

Kit, seething with repressed anger, scraped his chair back with an irritated, “Excuse me!”

Infuriated, he stormed out of the kitchen and rushed upstairs to his room where he flung off his suit jacket and hastily changed into sweater.

“Lost,” Kit scoffed as he pulled on his baseball cap. “He’d be lost without me to navigate.”

A burst of laughter came from the kitchen, fueling his anger. He felt the immediate need to get out earshot of their annoyingly cheerful voices.

An old adage of Baloo’s unwillingly came to mind: If there’s no place else to go, the only place to go is up.

With that thought in mind, he sprinted up the stairs to the third story, through his parents’ bedroom to the door that led outside to the widow’s walk. On the way, he closed every door that he could to shut out the sounds of the party below.

Kit breathed a deep sigh of relief as he sat down on the edge of the widow’s walk with the sparkling Cape Suzette harbor and bright blue sky stretching before him.

As he sat there, his head pillowed against a rail post, with the warm afternoon sunshine pouring down on him, breathing in the briny sea air, and listening to the calm splash of the water against the shore, his anger subsided. Though Baloo’s utter disregard of him still rankled.

He stayed there, watching the airplanes and boats coming and going through the cliffs, until he saw Wildcat returning to his houseboat to finish packing up for his visit to his girlfriend Clementine, who lived in Boomstone. The vacation was a thank-you gift from Baloo and Rebecca for keeping an eye on Higher for Hire during their honeymoon.

Shortly after Wildcat left Higher for Hire, Baloo and Louie had walked down the dock together, joking and laughing. Together, they had flown away in the Sea Duck, presumably to take Louie back to his island.

“And Baloo didn’t even ask me to come along,” Kit whispered sadly into his pillow.

Since he couldn’t sleep, he sat up in bed and flipped on the light. He reached over to the night stand for his new Space Riders comic book. On top of the comic was his pocket watch, right where he had tossed it after the party.

Forgetting about the comic book, he picked up the pocket watch and opened it. Once again, he read the inscription.

Kit Cloudkicker von Bruinwald. It would take some getting used to, but it had a nice ring to it. He loved the fact that he was now Baloo’s son, something that he had wanted ever since he had literally run into the pilot at Louie’s Place.

He glanced at the empty bed across the room. It seemed odd not to see Baloo there.

Kit heaved a deep sigh.

Despite his happiness about being adopted, there was a queer lonely ache in his heart. He missed the talks, the jokes, the laughter that he and Baloo used to share long after the lights were out. He even missed the crumbs on the floor from Baloo’s midnight snacks.

But he didn’t miss Baloo’s blind-ruffling snoring or having to muffle that snoring by wearing earmuffs that cut into his head and made it uncomfortable to sleep. Rebecca now had those earmuffs.

Rebecca, to whom Baloo would share all his secrets. Rebecca, to whom Baloo would impart his adventures first.

And he, Kit, had been relegated to being just one of the kids. Baloo had made that very clear at the party by ignoring him in favor of Louie and Rebecca.

It made him sad to think that he was no longer Baloo’s confidant, best friend, and co-pilot in every crazy scheme. But if there was one thing Kit knew from experience was that life wasn’t easy or fair. He’d get used to it in time. He didn’t want to get used to it, but he would. All of a sudden, life felt flat.

He snapped the pocket watch’s lid shut, turned off the light, scooted down under the covers, and placed the watch on the night stand.

At least he thought he did.

Just as he closed his eyes, the watch teetered on the edge of the night stand and fell to the floor with a crash!

Kit’s eyes flew open. Oh, no!

Alarmed, he flipped on the light, peered over the side of his bed, and gasped. The watch’s tiny, intricate innards lay scattered all over the hardwood floor.

Boingwent the spring as it popped out.

Kit leapt from his bed. Kneeling, he scooped up the pieces.

He crouched there for a moment, gazing at the watch pieces, his mind whirling. He couldn’t let Baloo and Rebecca know that he had already broken it. They would think he was careless and didn’t appreciate the gift.

Like Baloo would notice if it was broken anyway, he thought bitterly.

But still, he had to get it fixed. He didn’t want to be grounded.

What a time for Wildcat to visit Clementine!

With Wildcat gone, there was only one person who could help him now. After wrapping the watch pieces up in a clean handkerchief, he hastily dressed, went to the door, and peered down into the office. Baloo was sitting in his favorite armchair with Rebecca snuggled on his lap. They were talking quietly, their arms intertwined about each other.

There was no way he could sneak past them. He’d be busted for sure, then questioned and lectured.

Kit quietly closed the door. He crossed the room in determined strides. Pushing the lamp to one side, he crawled on top of the night stand, opened the window, and looked out into the starlit night. It was a straight shot down to the cobblestone pavement two stories below.

That didn’t faze him. He whipped out his airfoil and flicked it open with the practiced push of a button. Making sure that the handkerchief containing the watch pieces was safely in his pocket, he jammed his cap further down on his head. He climbed onto the windowsill, took a deep breath, and jumped. He slipped the airfoil beneath feet and glided down, landing with the silent agility of a cat. With a push of a button, the airfoil collapsed like a fan. He stowed it beneath his sweater.

Looking up at his open bedroom window, he didn’t know how he was to get back inside, but he’d think about that later.

Right now, he was on a mission.

He quickly made his way through the near-deserted streets of Cape Suzette towards downtown and Khan Tower, skirting the places where he knew street pirates hung out.

Finally, he arrived at his destination. Panting a little after his long jog, Kit looked up at Khan Towers - all 90 stories of it. It towered before him, a massive symbol of billionaire Shere Khan’s wealth and power.

There were still a few windows lit up, attesting to the long, arduous hours Mr. Khan demanded from his employees.

Kit hoped that the person he needed to see, Khan’s scatterbrained inventor Buzz, would be one of those working late. But to ascertain that, he had to first get past the doorman and up to the fifty-second floor to Buzz’s lab.

Kit cautiously crept up the steps, between the twin stone tigers guarding the building. With his back to the skyscraper’s

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Next page