numbers. “No, I mean, seven hundred fifty dollars...Uh-huh...Charge it to Jerry Nickewicket ...Yep, got it...No, no, no, thank you for choosin’ Higher for Hire. Bye.” The big bear hung up and, grinning at his daughter, leaned back in the chair and put his feet on the desk. “Easy as pie, Pigtails. There’s nuthin’ about this office stuff that I can’t handle.”

A squeal of brakes announced the arrival of the afternoon delivery.

“Must be the mangoes.” Baloo lumbered outside with Molly close behind.

“This Higher for Hire?” the stocky canine truck driver wearing a brown jacket and cap inquired, holding out his clipboard and a pen.

“Yep.” Baloo scrawled his illegible signature on the clipboard.

“Bananas. Should I leave ‘em on the dock?”

Baloo’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Bananas? Are you bananas? Your s’posed ta have mangoes!”

“Nope. On the air waybill it says...well, I’ll be dipped. You’re absolutely right, mister. It says thirty crates of mangoes. I’ll unload ‘em anyway.” The delivery man let down the tailgate of his truck and pulled out a dolly.

Baloo threw himself between the driver and the truck. “Hey! No, you can’t do that! Where are my mangoes?”

“Hard telling. Could be in the warehouse, could be on the way to somewhere else. Heck, maybe they’re still on the trees!” the truck driver chuckled.

“What am I gonna do?” Baloo said, panicked. “My customer is expectin’ mangoes.”

The truck driver looked almost sorry for Baloo’s predicament. “Boy, you’re new here, ain’t ya? Try callin’ the number on the waybill, buddy.”

Baloo tore to the phone, Molly at his heels. After dialing the number, he muttered anxiously, “C’mon...c’mon, pick up!”

A seductive woman’s voice answered. “Thank you for calling the Mango Wango Company’s hotline. I’m Terri Shinsdale.”

“Hi, I’m Baloo von Bruinwald at High...”

Terri Shinsdale plunged ahead mechanically, “To order a fruit basket, dial one. To order fruit by the lug, dial two. To get information concerning your order, dial three.”

“Augghhh!” the pilot screamed.

“I’m sorry, sir. That’s an unauthorized line,” the smooth voice drawled. “To speak with our shipping coordinator, dial four.”

Baloo dialed ‘four’ on the rotary dial and said, “Four!”

“Thank you. You will be connected shortly.” In a shrill, New York accent, she yelled, “Yo, Henry, call for ya!”

Baloo drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk. While he waited, Terri hummed 'Yes, We Have No Bananas' into the phone.

Bad choice of song, lady, Baloo thought irately.

“Hi, this is Henry,” came a young-sounding tenor voice.

“Yeah, Henry, this is Baloo at Higher for Hire. Ya got our shipment screwed up. We got bananas instead of mangoes.”

“Uh-huh. Yo-kay.” Henry sounded completely unconcerned. “I feel your pain. Let me pull up the paperwork on that.” He shouted into the phone, “Hey, Mike, where’s the Higher for Hire file?”

Baloo cringed in pain; he wriggled a finger in his ringing ear. “Man, Molly, these guys are wacky.”

“They’re bananas,” the little girl giggled.

Laughing, the pilot gently tickled one of her ears. “Good one, Button-nose.”

Henry said, “Yeah, I got it right here, Blue.”

“That’s Baloo. What’s it say?” The big bear glanced at the clock. Rebecca would be back at any minute.

“It says you have mangoes.”

“But we don’t have mangoes! We have bananas!” shouted Baloo at the top of his lungs. “Becky’s gonna kill me,” he muttered to himself. “She’s gonna kill me! Hospital, here I come!”

“Are you sure, Mac?”

“Yes! Doncha think I know what bananas look like?” Baloo’s face was red with rage. “Where’s my mangoes?” he roared, repressing the urge to bang the receiver on the desk repeatedly.

“Relax, no need to get upset, man,” Henry said coolly. “We’ll get you your mangoes.”

“When? When?”

“Eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“No! I gotta have ‘em NOW!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but the only way you can have them now is if you came and picked them up yourself.”

“I’m comin’! I’m comin!”

“Make sure you bring the alleged bananas and all the paperwork with you.”

“We will,” Baloo growled, slamming down the phone. “We’re takin’ a trip across town, Molly.”

He stuffed the car with crates of bananas - trunk, back seat, front passenger seat, tied to the top of the car. The bumper nearly scraped the ground from all the weight. Baloo squeezed into the driver’s seat and Molly scrambled on his lap.

“Can I steer, Daddy?”

“Not this time, Dumplin’. We gotta go real fast. What’s the address on that crate beside you?”

“Can’t read it. It’s upside down.”

Baloo turned the giggling girl on her head.

“One-oh-six-three-five Santa Monika Blvd. Cape Suzette.”

“Santa Monika Blvd? Man, that’s clear across town. We’ll do eighty.”

After racing through Cape Suzette, praying that he wouldn’t get caught by a cop or lose any bananas, Baloo arrived at the Mango Wango warehouse.

“Lookit, Daddy!” Molly pointed up. On top of the warehouse was a larger-than-life statue of the founder, Mr. Wango. The huge ape’s mechanical arms ‘juggled’ plaster mangoes, papayas, oranges, lemons, limes, and bananas.

Baloo rushed into a door and found himself in the main warehouse, and almost got mowed over by a forklift. “Aah!” he screamed, diving out the door, doing a belly flop on the ground.

Molly leaned over her moaning father. “Are you okay, Daddy? That looked like it hurted. The office is that door.” She gestured to a neon red sign over the door that said ‘office’.

“Just checkin’ to see if the produce is fresh.” He sniffed a nearby crate of oranges. “Yep, it’s fresh.” Taking hold of Molly’s hand, he walked nonchalantly, whistling, into the office.

There was porcine Terri Shinsdale, dressed in a bright orange dress, filing her long, red nails behind the desk. “Hello,” she said in a vixenish-smooth voice, a sharp contrast to her chubby exterior. “May I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m from Higher for Hire. I’m here to trade bananas for mangoes.”

“Oh, you,” she cooed; her plucked eyebrows raised with amusement. However, her simpering smile vanished after she saw his wedding band and Molly peering over the desk at her. She yelled through the open door behind her, “Henry, the banana man’s here for the mangoes!”

“Does he have the bananas?” Henry shouted back.

Baloo nodded.

“He says he does!”

“Tell him to drive around to the side door!”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Baloo went to doff his hat, discovered that he had no hat, and waved sheepishly instead.

The car bumped over the gravel road around the building to two double wide doors big enough to admit a Mack truck. Baloo backed up to the door. Henry, a young wiry goat in green overalls, joined them with a cart. He counted the crates of bananas as Baloo unloaded them.

“Twenty-nine. Thirty. They’re all here. Paperwork, please.”

Molly proudly produced folded-up papers from her overalls pocket.

The big bear fidgeted from one foot to the other while Henry leisurely scanned the paperwork. “Seems in order.”

A fox appeared with a skid loader laden with crates with pictures of mangoes on the sides. Baloo pried the lid off of one. “Yep, mangoes.”

The mangoes were loaded in the car and on the car. Wherever you name it, there were mangoes stashed in the car.

“We’re gonna make it, Molly! We’re gonna make it!” Baloo said when they were a few blocks away from Higher for Hire.

As soon as he said that, they hit a pothole. A crate of mangoes tied to the bumper escaped from the rope; the crate’s lid slipped off. Oblong olive fruit plopped to the ground.

Baloo glanced at the speedometer when he heard a police siren wail. “Goin’ thirty-three in a thirty-five zone. That’s legit.”

Molly, sitting on her father’s lap, stuck her head out of the driver’s side window. The officer was motioning to them.

“You with the mangoes, pull over!” the policeman shouted.

Baloo gulped. Rebecca was going to have a field day with this. If he was late with the shipment andgot a ticket, he hated to think what the punishment would be. “Oh...” he moaned, steering the car to the curb and turning off the ignition.

The officer, a short feline who had to stand on tiptoe to see into the window, sternly ordered Baloo to get out of the car.

“What seems to be the problem, Officer?” the big bear asked with a nervous chuckle.

“Violation for exceeding the vehicle weight limit and littering.”

“Littering?” Molly echoed, perplexed.

The officer pointed to the trail of smashed and squished mangoes on the road. He ripped a ticket from his notepad and handed it to Baloo.

Baloo’s face fell when he saw how much he owed. “Geez Louise, Becky’s gonna turn my hide into a rug fer gettin’ a ticket.”

“That one’s not mushy. I’ll get it, Daddy,” and the little girl darted out in front of an oncoming truck.

“Molly! NO!” Baloo shouted, his heart pounding.

When the truck had sped by and the dust had cleared, Molly was waving at him from the opposite curb. Baloo ran over to her, both relieved and furious. He scooped her and the mango up. After hugging and kissing her on the cheek repeatedly, he scolded, “Doggone it, Molly, don’t you ever, ever, EVER, run out in the road! You coulda been...” He couldn’t finish the thought; it was too horrible to imagine. He hugged his little daughter closer.

“I’m sorry, Daddy, but I got the mango. See. It’ll help save your hide, won’t it?”

Still shaking with fright, Baloo murmured, “Yeah, Button-nose, it’ll help. It’s your hide I was worried about.” He kissed her again, looked both ways, and crossed the street to the car. “We gotta beat your mama home.”

Moments before the Sea Duckcoasted in for a landing in the Cape Suzette harbor, Baloo had the mangoes piled at the end of the dock. To appear as if he had everything under control, he pretended to fish. Molly sat beside him, holding a net.

An exhilarated

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