Rebecca emerged. She smiled at him cheerfully. “Morning, sweetie. How’d you sleep?”

“Fine.” He wasn’t going to mention his late-night excursion to see Buzz. Hoping that his guilt didn’t show, he hurried into the bathroom.

Kit wrinkled up his nose. The room reeked of hairspray. Choking a little, he rushed to open the window to let the noxious fumes escape.

He was painfully embarrassed when he spotted Rebecca’s bra drying over the shower rod. Blushing beet red, he reached for a towel to fling over it, only to slip on Molly’s rubber ducky and do a nosedive on the hard wooden floor.

He pushed himself up and went over to the sink, his head reeling. Upon opening the medicine cabinet over the sink to get his toothbrush, an avalanche of tiny bottles fell out. He caught every bottle except for one, which shattered in the sink. The strong scent of Rebecca’s perfume mingled with the waning scent of hairspray.

“Uh-oh. She’s not going to be happy about this...”

Kit piled the bottles on the back of the toilet. Very carefully, he picked up as many glass shards as he could, then rinsed the rest down the sink.

He was becoming annoyed. All he wanted to do was brush his teeth!

A thorough search of the medicine cabinet finally revealed that his toothbrush and the toothpaste were on the topmost shelf.

What’s it doing up there? My toothbrush is always on the bottom shelf! At least it used to be.

Since he couldn’t reach it, he climbed up on the sink. Just as his hand closed over both toothbrush and toothpaste, he slipped and fell, hitting his chin on the edge of the porcelain sink in the process.

Now, Kit was sore in more ways than one. He slammed the medicine cabinet door shut and went about brushing his teeth. The Kit in the mirror glowered darkly back at him. This was not the way his first full day of being a part of a family was supposed to start.

After brushing his teeth, he returned his toothbrush to its rightful place on the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet.

Seeing the myriad of tiny bottles on the back of the toilet, he sighed in exasperation.

Why do women need all this junk for anyway? he thought as he crammed the bottles in the cabinet and shut the door as fast as he could. He could hear them clinking and crashing inside.

I hope they all broke!

His chin throbbing, Kit went downstairs, thinking about how he should break the news to Rebecca about her perfume. He hoped it wasn’t too expensive.

Then, he thought of something that was critically important, something so important that superceded even the pain of his bumped chin. During the previous day’s excitement of the adoption and the adoption party, he’d forgotten to ascertain where he and Baloo were going on their cargo run today. He needed to know so that he could map a flight plan before takeoff.

Upon entering the kitchen, he saw Rebecca and Molly sitting at the table. Rebecca was perusing the newspaper and daintily sipped coffee while Molly hungrily ate pancakes and bacon. Baloo stood in front of the stove, spatula in hand. Four golden pancakes were sizzling in the skillet, their hot, appetizing aroma mingling with the scent of bacon and the sweet scent of maple syrup.

“Get your plate ready, Muffin,” Baloo said, sliding his spatula under one of the pancakes.

“Ready, Daddy.” A ring of maple syrup around her mouth attested to the fact that she’d already eaten several flapjacks.

“Hold it up real high.”

Standing on tiptoe, Molly held her plate over her head.

“One for the money. Two for the show. Three to get ready an’ four to GO!” Baloo deftly flipped a pancakes on it. “Bull’s-eye!” he said victoriously. “Right on the button. Want another one, Becky?”

“No, thanks, darling. Give them to Kit. He hasn’t had any yet.”

“Hiya, kiddo. Didn’t see ya there. Pull up a plate, an’ I’ll whip up some more flapjacks,” Baloo said as he handed Kit a plate with three pancakes. Humming, the big bear poured four more globs of batter into the skillet.

Kit sat down at the table and reached for the bottle of maple syrup that was sitting in the middle of the circular table. He poured a generous amount of syrup on his pancake stack and asked, “Baloo, where are we...?”

Before he could ask about the destination of their cargo run, Rebecca interrupted anxiously: “Kit, honey, where’d you get that nasty bump on your chin? I hope you aren’t coming down with the mumps.”

Swallowing a bite of pancake, Kit shook his head. “I already had the mumps years ago at the orphanage.”

Looking him over critically, she felt his forehead, then put her fingers on his wrist.. “No fever. Pulse steady.”

“I just bumped my chin on the sink upstairs. It’s fine, really,” he futilely protested as she got up, grabbed a dishtowel from a drawer, and bustled over to the icebox. “You don’t have to go to any trouble, Miz...Rebecca.”

“It’s no trouble. How in the world did you bump your chin on the sink anyway?”

Thinking about all of those broken little bottles that belonged to her, Kit shrugged and said truthfully enough, “I slipped.”

“You should be more careful, sweetie.” Rebecca placed the cold compress on his chin. “There. Hold it like that and sit still.”

Kit nodded. The cold, wet compress was making his fingers ache and chin numb. “Can you tell me where...?”

“Hush!” Rebecca admonished. “If you don’t stop moving, the swelling will never go down.”

Icy droplets were dripping on his legs and making him uncomfortable. He shifted slightly in his chair, saying earnestly, “But, Miz Cunningham, I really need to know...!”

Molly interjected with, “Can we have pancakes every morning?”

Baloo, who was flipping the flapjacks in the skillet, replied languidly, “Depends.”

“On what?” The little girl ran her finger around her plate and licked it.

Rebecca gave her a reproving look and handed her a napkin. “It all depends if Baloo can get up this early every morning.”

“No, huh?” Molly said innocently.

Kit, who was simultaneously holding the compress to his face with one hand and eating pancakes with his other hand, smirked.

“She knows you well, Baloo,” Rebecca laughed.

Pretending to be annoyed, Baloo gently tweaked Molly’s nose. “Sometimes you’re too smart for your own good, Button-nose.”

Sensing a lull in the conversation, Kit said quickly, “Miz C...Rebecca, where are we...?”

But his question was cut off by the ringing of the telephone in the office/living room.

Rebecca rose from her chair, murmuring, “That better not be Henry calling to say that he messed up our mango order again. I spend more time on the phone with that man than I do all of our clients combined...”

Kit was almost to the boiling point. No one would allow him get a word in edgewise, and he had to know where they were going on their cargo run - and soon. “Papa Bear, where are...?”

“Hot an’ fluffy,” Baloo said jovially, piling four more pancakes on Kit’s plate. “Just like ya like ‘em. Eat up, Li’l Britches.”

Kit cringed inwardly when Baloo patted him on the head. As if I was a little kid. He recalled the ‘little tyke’ remark that he had overheard the pilot say the night before. The anger from that remembered remark along with the frustration, the dejection, the abject disappointment that he had felt at the adoption party rolled over him like a great, dark wave.

In addition, an irritating, icy cold rivulet was running down his neck. Something snapped inside of him.

“Jeez, what am I - chopped liver?” he shouted. “Can’t I ask one, simple question around here?”

Frightened by his outburst, Molly stopped eating; a half-eaten piece bacon protruded from her mouth. Baloo, who had stopped humming, flipped a flapjack onto his head and stared at Kit in utter astonishment.

Rebecca poked her head from office, her hand over the telephone receiver. “What’s wrong?”

Struggling to keep his emotions under control, Kit said shakily, “I just want to know where we’re going on today’s delivery.”

“Lumbago,” Baloo and Rebecca said simultaneously, flashing each other a questioning look.

“I knew that,” Molly whispered tremulously, peeking over the tabletop.

“Well,I didn’t and I’m the navigator!” Kit threw down the towel with a clunk of ice. He then stormed outside, banging the door.

Baloo plucked the pancake from his head and ate it. “What’s up with him?”

Thoughtfully, Rebecca murmured, “I wonder...”

Outside, Kit hurried past Wildcat’s houseboat to the Sea Duck, wishing that Wildcat was there instead of in Boomstone. In his simple, bumbling way, the mechanic knew how to fix hurt feelings. Instead, he climbed into the cockpit and closed the door behind him in an attempt to shut out his troubles.

He rummaged around in the glove box until he found the maps that he was looking for. His anger subsided as he deftly charted a course for Lumbago. That done, he carefully folded the maps and returned his pencil and sextant to his pocket. His fingers closed around his new watch. He pulled it out of his pocket and opened it.

Kit’s eyes lingered on the inscription.

Could it have been only yesterday morning that he was so happy, so excited to finally be a part of a family?

And now...

His feelings were so badly mixed that he didn’t know what hewas feeling.

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