Now, get up!”

“But, Becky, this is vacation,” Baloo whined as Cassie slid off his stomach onto the bed. He sat up. “Ain’t ya s’posed ta rest on vacation?”

“Not this vacation. There’s too many things to see, and we need to get going if we’re going to keep this vacation on schedule.”

Yawning, Baloo ran a hand through his messy hair. “Vacation an’ schedule don’t belong in the same sentence, an’ I for one ain’t followin’ no schedule on my vacation.”

Hands on hips, Rebecca said, “It’s my vacation, too, and on myvacation, we follow a schedule.”

“Ya wanna bet, Rebecca?”

Both adults silently, stubbornly squared off against each other, scowling. From their grim expressions, it was obvious that neither was willing to compromise.

Rebecca said through gritted teeth, “Kit, take your sisters to the lobby for more juice or something. Your father and I are going to have a loud discussion.”

“Avery loud discussion,” Baloo growled, clenching his fists.

As soon as the door shut behind the cubs, a battle began.

“How come they always have to fight and spoil all the fun?” Molly said softly, gently squeezing Cassie’s little paw as they walked down the sidewalk, past rows of doors They didn’t see the weasel rummaging around in their car’s backseat; of course, the weasel didn’t notice the cubs either.

Glancing back at the room from which emanated the sounds of muffled shouting, Kit sighed. “I dunno, sis. I guess it’s because they don’t always see eye-to-eye.”

Molly’s gloomy face brightened. “That’s ‘cause Mom’s shorter than Daddy.”

Kit smiled wanly. “That’s one way of looking at it, Short Stuff.” He took Cassie’s other hand, saying, “Wanna get a donut, Cassie?”

“Yummy donut?” Molly echoed, patting her stomach. “Yummy.”

Cassie giggled. “Nummy dough-dough.”

Just as the cubs entered the lobby, an extremely disgusted Weazel opened the grey sedan’s door, climbed out, and slammed the door shut. He had searched the car thoroughly, including in the glove compartment and underneath the seats, yet had produced nothing, nada, zero, zip, zilch. The treasure map of Emperor Karat was nowhere to be found. In fact, he wasn’t even sure that this was the car belonging to the fat pilot and his family.

Weazel slumped to the ground, exhausted. He had spent a trying night going from motel to motel, looking for the von Bruinwalds’s car. There must have been at least two thousand grey cars in Flaggstone. He had searched every one of them, but there hadn’t been a trace of the fat pilot, let alone the map.

Frankly, he felt like giving up. He hadn’t slept a wink all night and his body ached from the previous day’s fiascos. But he knew that quitting wasn’t an option. In the back of his mind loomed the fearsome Heimlich Menudo, Jerry the Nipper and Mickie Finn.

Weazel leaned against the side of the Chevrolette, thinking, What would Heimlich tell me to do? While pondering that, he absently stared at the row of ponderosa pines opposite him as they serenely swayed in the breeze. Heimlich would tell me: “How stupid can you be, Weasel? Find the fat pilot and his family, and you will find the map.”

“But how am I s’posed to do that, Heimlich?” he wondered aloud. “There’s a bazillion motels in this town. What if those bears already left Flaggstone? What if they stayed in another city? Then what do I do?” The knot in the pit of his stomach tightened. He hoped that his death would be swift and painless.

But, then, fate smiled on him. Or, rather, fell on him.

A clipboard flew out of the window of the nearest motel room and bonked Weazel on the head. “Ow!” he whined, rubbing his sore pate. “That’s a pain that’s gonna linger.”

From inside the motel a familiar, bossy woman’s voice demanded, “Howdare you do that, Baloo? That’s our schedule!”

A familiar male voice said stonily, “Ya mean, was our schedule, Becky.”

The woman snapped, “Baloo, why did you do that? Stop stuffing your face and pay attention to me when I’m yelling at you, buster! Ba-LOOO!”

The window slammed shut.

Weazel shook the stars from his head, then picked up the clipboard. When he realized what it was and who it belonged to, he leaped up and whooped for joy.

“Owwww,” he moaned, holding his aching head. In that head, a plan was taking shape. He sped towards his car, saying happily, “For once, I’ll be one step ahead of those map-stealing bozos.”

One Hour Later

The grey sedan wound its way north by northwest through sandstone-walled canyons. Kit and Molly gazed out the open windows, looking with eager eyes at the rugged cliffs that flashed by them.

“Lookee at the river, Kit!” Molly exclaimed, pointing to a rushing rill running beside the road on the right side of the car.

Kit glanced out her window, then focused his attention on the left side of the car. “Hey, look at that big boulder way up there on top of the cliff.”

Molly scooted over beside him and caught a glimpse of it before they rounded a bend in the road. “Wow, that thing is huge! How does it stay balanced on that little pointy end?”

Kit shrugged. “Very carefully.”

“Just as long as it stays up there a little while longer,” Rebecca said, smiling at the cubs in the rearview mirror.

“How much further is it to the Colossal Canyon, Kit?” Molly asked.

“Why don’t you tell me, Molly?” Kit handed her the maps and compass.

“For really?” Molly exclaimed, her eyes bright with excitement.

“You’ve got to start navigating sometime.” Kit grinned. “First, find where we’re at.”

Molly opened the map and studied it, frowning. “Okay. We’ve gone past Vaille, so we’re somewhere on this road...”

While Molly calculated their position, Baloo shifted snoozing Cassie on his lap and craned his neck to look at the speedometer. “You’re goin’ too fast, Becky.”

“I am not! Have you noticed how many people have passed us? Uphill and around curves even. There’s a lot of crazy drivers on this road.”

“I know. I'm ridin' with one,” Baloo murmured.

“I’m doing just fine, thank you, Baloo,” Rebecca replied curtly, trying to keep both the car and her temper under control as they zoomed around a tight curve. “You don’t hear the kids complaining, do you?”

“‘Course they ain’t. One of ‘em’s sleepin’, an’ the other two are too scared out of their wits by your drivin’ ta say nuthin’.”

Rebecca glanced in the mirror and saw Kit and Molly bent over the map, engrossed in a navigation lesson. They didn’t seem scared to her. “Sure, Baloo,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, watch out for that car!”

“Eek!” Rebecca stomped on the brakes to avoid hitting a police cruiser that had pulled onto the road right in front of them. The von Bruinwalds were thrown violently forward. With a squeal of brakes, the car screeched to a stop right in front of the cruiser.

“Told ya you were goin’ too fast, Becky,” Baloo said smugly, pushing himself back from the dashboard. He looked down at Cassie safely cradled against him; she, unaware that anything had happened, was still sleeping peacefully, her thumb in her mouth.

“I was not!” she snappe, plucking the map from her head and handing it back to Kit.

“Isn’t ‘police’ spelled with a ‘c’ instead of an ‘s’?” Molly said, wrinkling up her nose in confusion as she stared at the sloppy ‘POLISE’ painted in white on the side of the black Fjord.

“Yeah, it is,” Kit said, fixing a suspicious eye on the policeman shuffling over to them. The fifteen-year-old, who had dealt with more than his fair share of cops in his short life, thought that this was the strangest looking cop he’d ever seen.

Rebecca rolled down the window and addressed the policeman with a nervous smile. “What seems to be the problem, Officer?”

The cop - a short, stout weasel in a baggy blue uniform - pushed his orange-rimmed sunglasses up further on his nose. In a slightly nasal voice, he said, “I’m, uh, been assigned to check every car that passes through here, ma’am.”

“You didn’t stop that car right in front of me,” Rebecca pointed out.

“Um, it’s a, uh, a random search. We’re randomly searching cars, making sure that you aren’t stealing any, uh...” Weazel blurted out the first thing he saw; “rocks. Yeah, that’s it! Rocks, from the Colossal Canyon.”

“Sorry to disappoint ya, Officer, but we ain’t got no rocks,” Baloo laughed.

“Except the ones in your head, Baloo,” Rebecca rejoined, silencing her husband with a stern look.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” the policeman said. “Open the trunk.”

“But, Officer, we haven’t even been to the Colossal Canyon yet,” Rebecca said, getting out of the car to unlock the trunk.

After opening the trunk, Rebecca stood to the side while the policeman eyed the suitcases.

“Don’t look over my shoulder while I’m lookin’, lady!” Weazel cried. Upon seeing Rebecca’s astounded, slightly suspicious expression, he cleared his throat and said in a calmer tone, “Uh, I mean, it’s a violation of the federal law to watch a cop searching your vehicle, ma’am.”

“Oh...okay...” Baffled, Rebecca reluctantly got back in the car.

Weazel frantically rummaged through the bags in the trunk. With a triumphant laugh, he located the pink diaper bag and zipped it open, thinking, Somethin’ smells weird in here. He grabbed up all of the brochures and maps that he could find and stuffed them in

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