inside.

“Baloo? Wait up!”

The two bears went inside, down the stairs, and out to the dock where theSea Duck had just landed. Four men of various species equipped with cameras and notepads spilled from a car.

“Reporters?” Kit cried incredulously. “Who called them?”

“One guess,” mumbled Baloo sullenly.

The reporters were eager to get the scoop on this new aviation invention, so they crowded around the Sea Duck, firing off questions as fast as they could.

“Gangway!”

“A mechanical pilot?”

“What’s it called?”

Martin Torque smiled as the reporters took picture after picture of the Auto Aviator. Publicity was just what he needed to market his invention. “Okay, I will answer all of your questions. But first let me introduce that ace of the skies - Baloo. Baloo, come on up here.”

“What?” Baloo gasped, amazed.

“Take a good look, gentlemen,” Torque said, addressing the reporters who were furiously scribbling down every word he uttered. “Before you is the best pilot that ever was.”

Baloo grinned from ear to ear. “Well, now. When ya put it that way...”

“Over here, ace!”

“Give us a smile!”

“Let’s see that profile!”

Striking what he thought was a gallant pose, Baloo grinned foolishly as camera bulbs flashed in his face. He shook his head and blinked furiously to get rid of the spots dancing before his eyes.

“Yes, here they are, together for the last time. The pilot of the past and the pilot of the future - the Auto Aviator.” Torque stepped aside so that the reporters would get a full view of his impressive invention.

“Now, wait a minute!” Baloo bellowed, feeling his position as the top dog on the Air Race Wall of Fame was being threatened by a mere machine. “That overgrown waffle iron’s no pilot. A real pilot can handle storms an’...an’ air pirates an’...an’ stuff like that.”

With an air of superiority, Torque stated, “My pilot can fly day and night. It never sleeps. Never eats. Never deviates from its flight plan.” He contemptuously poked Baloo’s nose with his index finger, prompting a scowl from the big bear. “Your kind are like the dinosaurs - decaying, defective, and defunct.”

Baloo had no idea what some of those words meant, but he didn’t like Torque’s patronizing tone. He had had enough of this so-called professor and his robot. The fingers of his right hand convulsively curled into a fist. “Oh, yeah? Well, defunct this!” Drawing back his large fist, Baloo punched Martin Torque in the eye in front of Kit and the reporters.

The reporters, of course, preserved the moment on film.

Khan Towers
That Evening

Martin Torque, a cold compress over his swollen black eye, sat in the penthouse office of Shere Khan, the richest man in Usland. The imposing tiger businessman, clad in an impeccable, $16,000 suit, perused an article on the front page of the Cape Suzette Tribune about the Auto Aviator. Along with the article was a picture of Baloo punching the professor. While he waited for Khan to address him, Torque glanced out of the corner of his good eye at the spacious, forbidding office, at the well-tended jungle plants lining both sides of the room, at the large window that overlooked Cape Suzette.

The inventor fidgeted in his seat. He was silently, if not impatiently, waiting for Khan to speak.

“Hm...such a crude individual,” Khan purred in his smooth, cultured bass voice. He was chuckling inwardly at the photograph. Even though he thought that Baloo’s manners were bourgeois, he had the utmost regard for his piloting abilities. He swivelled his chair to face the professor.

“A mindless menial, Mr. Khan, sir. My tests are complete. My machine is perfect. Should I put you down for, say...a dozen Auto Aviators?”

Folding the newspaper and placing it on his desk, Khan replied dryly, “I haven’t said that I’d buy anything. Baloo may be correct. Perhaps your machine can’t handle all situations.”

Martin Torque started out of his chair in anger. “Are you going to believe that barnstormer?”

“Calm yourself, Professor. If there was a test against a real pilot and the Auto Aviator won, I might buy, say, a thousand of your mechanical men.”

“A...a thousand?” Torque blinked with astonishment.

Shere Khan checked the ticker tape on his desk. As usual, Khan Industries stocks were skyrocketing. “Think about it.”

“But...”

“Good day.” Khan turned his back to the professor, signifying that the conversation was closed.

Martin Torque rode down in the glass elevator to the ground floor, pondering his good fortune. If Khan purchased a thousand Auto Aviators then maybe other business tycoons would jump on the bandwagon, and he, Martin Torque, would be very rich. Very rich indeed. However, there was only one obstacle in the shape of a fat bear to overcome.

He sprinted out through the pouring rain to his van. “All right, Mr. Khan, I’ll prove the Auto Aviator is a good invention, and in the process I’ll destroy Baloo.”

The Auto Aviator prototype in the backseat echoed ominously, “Destroy Baloo.”

The van roared off through Cape Suzette. Its tires sloshed through a puddle, splashing Baloo’s picture featured on the front page of a discarded Cape Suzette Tribune lying on the sidewalk.

Higher for Hire
Sunday Afternoon

Rebecca Cunningham scurried around her simply furnished office with a feather duster. There was no rest for the weary or the businesswoman. Sunday or not, she still had to work, because she had scheduled an appointment with a prospective client. This was the only day that said client could meet with her. Because she hoped to have a signed contract in her hands by the end of the afternoon, she had agreed to the meeting. 

However, she didn’t like the fact that her flight crew was underfoot. If their presence blew the deal, she would strangle them, fire them, and strangle them again - especially Baloo.

Pilot and navigator had no idea what their boss was thinking. With no deliveries to make, Baloo lounged in his favorite red easy chair, one leg slung over the chair’s arm, fashioning paper airplanes by the bushel. Nearby, Kit sat cross-legged on the floor, also folding airplanes.

Rebecca dusted the windowsill and the banister. Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she said, “Great, Baloo. Your little stunt played right into Torque’s plan.”

Baloo flashed his boss a languid, amused smile. In his opinion, Torque deserved what he had got. “Ya mean he wanted a black eye?”

“No, he wanted to get on the front page, and you got him there!” She snatched up a flying airplane and crumpled it in her paw.

The pilot launched two airplanes behind his back. With a self-satisfied smile, Rebecca caught them in a wastepaper basket as they collided mid-air. “You can’t let every little thing upset you. You have to stay calm, cool, composed like me.”

“Then why are you runnin’ around like a chicken with yer feathers in a knot?” Baloo inquired.

Rebecca removed Baloo’s brown leather bomber jacket from the newel post and hung it on a hook. “Because I’m expecting a visit from a very important client.”

Baloo happened to glance out of the window where Martin Torque was talking to a turkey in a powder blue suit, thick glasses and flaming orange toupee. “Short guy, glasses, bad toupee?”

“Yes,” Rebecca said tranquilly, continuing to dust her desk.

“Someone beat ya to him.” Baloo chuckled.

“WHAT?” Rebecca flew to the window. Panicked to see her client talking to someone else, she raced outside. “Stop touching my client!” she shouted, clutching the turkey around the neck possessively; she knocked off his toupee in the process.

Torque said derisively, “He’s my client now.” He flashed a signed contract in Rebecca’s astounded face.

Kit scooped up the toupee and gently placed it on the turkey’s head.

“That’s impossible...isn’t it?” Rebecca looked at her former client. Her brown eyes begged him to reconsider.

The turkey straightened his bushy toupee. In an asthmatic voice, he averred, “Well...actually Professor Torque convinced me that I need an Auto Aviator. It’s...it’s much cheaper than your old-fashioned cargo service.”

Rebecca became livid. Her calm, cool, composed attitude flew out the window. Everything that she had gone through to impress this turkey in order to acquire his business was going to the birds. All the time she had wasted. Time that she could have been spending with her daughter Molly, whom she never saw enough of. “But we’ve had phone calls! Meetings! Lunches!” Shaking the turkey by the lapels, she screamed, “I’ve listened to your frozen okra stories for a solid week!”

Baloo gently took his boss by her slender arm, bodily picked her up, and set her down next to Kit, chuckling, “Easy, Miz Calm-and-Composed.” He strode to Martin Torque and his machine. Scowling, he said, “Look, Doc, I’m tired of hearin’ about this tin-plated doohickey.”

It was the moment Torque had been waiting for. Stealing Higher for Hire’s client was just icing on the cake. He was actually enjoying the looks of disappointment and disapproval on the three bears’ faces. “Are you challenging my Auto Aviator?”

Baloo rose to the bait. “Well...yeah!”

“Ah! A contest.” The dumb bear bought it hook, line, and sinker, and didn’t even know he was caught. This will prove it to Mr. Khan. “Baloo versus the Auto Aviator. The winner will be the world’s best pilot.”

Pointing to himself, Baloo declared, “And may the best pilot win.”

Higher for Hire
Tuesday Morning

The city of Cape Suzette was buzzing with excitement over the race between man and machine. Nothing like it had ever been recorded in the annals of aviation history. Rebecca knew this race meant tons of free publicity for Higher for Hire. Consequently, the unpainted wooden building on the harbor’s edge was decorated to the

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