Baloo Can't Handle the Truth

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Higher for Hire
One Afternoon...

"And that's how the emus and cookware salesmen ended up in the hot tubs we delivered. Honest, Becky."

Rebecca Cunningham knew her pilot was being anything but honest. Her suspicions were confirmed by eleven-year-old navigator, Kit, who seemed to be fascinated by a crack on the floor. Exhausted and furious after a long day of trying - and failing - to placate hotheaded Hubert of Hubert's Hot Tub Haven, she drew a big breath as if to begin a tirade, then changed her mind and slumped into her chair. "Fine, Baloo."

Astonished that his boss hadn't yelled at him, Baloo gasped, "Wha...really?"

She halfheartedly gestured towards the door. "Just...go away."

As Baloo and Kit made their hasty departure, Rebecca packed up her briefcase, muttering under her breath, "If that fat bear spent as much time working as he does thinking up excuses for not working, Higher for Hire would be in a lot better shape financially. Why I even decided to buy this business and hire that stupid pilot is beyond me." She slammed her briefcase shut and started for the door. "Emus and cookware salesmen, my foot!"

For emphasis, she slammed the office door shut behind her and stomped to her car.

She muttered under her breath as she picked her daughter, Molly, up from the babysitter's.

She muttered under her breath as she and Molly went to the grocery store.

She was still muttering under her breath as she and Molly ate dinner.

Molly, a very precocious five-year-old, asked around a mouthful of mashed potatoes, "Is Baloo in hot water again, Mom?"

Smiling wryly at the little girl's word choice, Rebecca replied, "You could say that, pumpkin."

"Look, it's the wishbone! Make a wish and pull."

I wish that for just one day Baloo had to tell the truth, Rebecca thought wearily as she tugged on the wishbone.

"Yay, Mommy, you won!"

Meanwhile…
Higher for Hire's Kitchen

"I can't believe Miz Cunningham let us off that easy," Kit said, picking at the pepperoni on his pizza. "There's no way she swallowed that story."

Baloo carefully added his empty plate to the towering stack of dirty dishes in the sink. "There's nuthin' wrong with makin' a few extra bucks on the side, kiddo, and if I gotta tell a little lie, then…" He shrugged unconcernedly.

"A little lie? Passing those two huge guys off as cookware salesmen?"

"Hey, we got a hundred shaboozies up front to sneak 'em and those emus through customs."

"Why did they want emus anyway?"

"Somethin' about eggs. I figgered they wanted to make fancy-pants omelets." Baloo went into the office and flipped on the radio. Dancing around the room, he shouted over the jazz music, "Besides, everything worked out in the end!"

"You call being banned from entering the country for a year 'working out'?"

"Who cares about getting kicked out of Jenzeebar? Everything's topsy-turvy there anyways."

"I'm sure Miz Cunningham does," Kit murmured guiltily. He thought of how hard she had tried to make Higher for Hire profitable in the few short weeks since she had bought the business. Sighing, he picked up a dishcloth and began washing the pile of dishes in the sink.

Meanwhile…
A Red Seaplane Flying Over a Dark Ocean

"Gah! Get dose birds away from me, ya peach pits!" exclaimed the short crocodile who was being chased around the cargo hold by two hungry emus. The birds were pecking at his floppy brown hat.

"But ya told us to give you da birds, boss," said the very stupid voice of Rhino Goon. Reaching back to the cargo hold from the pilot's seat, he grabbed both of the emus' necks in one meaty fist, causing the birds' eyes to bulge out of their heads.

"You told us," echoed the stupider voice of Ape Goon from the co-pilot's seat. Despite the fact that both birds were female, he had named them George and George.

Trader Moe ruefully poked a finger through the new holes in the top of his hat. "I wanted yas ta get me dese birds, because once a year dey do sometin' very valuable."

"Come down da chimney to give us presents?" Ape Goon guessed eagerly.

Trader Moe whacked the grin off of Ape Goon's face with his hat. "They lay an egg, ya lugnuts! And not just any egg. Rare Fabriget eggs worth millions."

"Uh-oh," Rhino Goon said, glancing at his hulking counterpart. "One of da birds laid an egg on dat other plane."

"Yeah, not here," Ape Goon said worriedly. He didn't like the anger growing in his boss's eyes.

Both goons cringed, waiting for the explosion.

"WHAT?" Trader Moe's furious shout made the entire plane shudder.

Higher for Hire
The Next Morning…

After the Sea Duck was loaded and ready to head out on another day of deliveries, Rebecca was giving her flight crew some last-minute instructions.

"Did you get all that, Baloo?" she asked, looking up from the clipboard to her pilot who was lazily leaning against the hull of the seaplane, picking his teeth with his fingernail.

"Nope. I stop listenin' when you start yammerin' 'bout boring details, Becky."

Kit's jaw dropped in disbelief. Baloo had never been that blatantly brazen to their boss before.

"Well, detail this, buster!" Rebecca tweaked Baloo's ear, prompting a pained yelp from the big bear. "If you don't promptly deliver these begonia seeds to Bloomintown, you will be fired!" With a final, savage pinch, she released his ear.

Wincing in pain, Baloo said soothingly, "Cool your engines, boss lady. Me and Kit'll deliver 'em... after a quick stop at Louie's."

Kit's jaw dropped a little more. He followed Baloo into the Sea Duck's cockpit, wondering if his Papa Bear had a death wish.

"Refueling the Sea Duck?" Rebecca asked. She handed the clipboard with the delivery paperwork to Baloo through the plane's open window. The big bear, in turn, tossed it to his navigator.

"Yep and refueling the big guy." Baloo patted his ample stomach, fastened his seatbelt, and began flipping switches in the Sea Duck's start-up sequence. "Louie's bacon, egg, star fruit, and tabasco breakfast burrito is the B-E-S-T best."

Luckily for Baloo and Kit, the roar of the Superflight 100 engines drowned out Rebecca's ranting.

As the Sea Duck backed away from Higher for Hire and their boss, who was still yelling at the end of the dock, Kit asked, "Why'd you tell Miz Cunningham we were going to Louie's? You know it makes her mad."

"Yeah, but it's the truth, ain't it?" Baloo replied, reversing the props then ramping up the throttle.

"I guess..." Kit shot Baloo an uneasy look as the Sea Duck ascended into the sky.

Approaching Bloomintown
Hours Later...

Kit shifted his gaze from the rain pelting the Sea Duck's windshield to the map on his lap, to his compass, and finally to his watch. As usual, the 'quick stop' at Louie's hadn't been so quick, which meant, as was also usual, they were late.

"Uh, Baloo, we were supposed to be at Bloomintown at exactly one o'clock and it's almost three-thirty."

"Relax, Li'l Britches. We're r-r-right on...on…" The big bear seemed to choke on the words. "I mean, it's cl-close enough for j-j-j-j-j-jazz. Gah! We're really late!"

"You okay, Papa Bear?" Not for the first time that day, Kit got the feeling that something was wrong. Baloo was being strangely...honest.

"Yeah. No, um..." Baloo took a swig of soda pop and cleared his throat loudly. "Least Becky ain't here to squawk at us."

"Baloo!" Both pilot and navigator jumped guiltily when Rebecca's voice came over the radio.

The pilot picked up the microphone with trepidation. "Yeah, Becky?"

In a saccharine, singsong voice that spelled disaster, Rebecca said, "Miss Doolittle wants to know why she doesn't have her begonia seeds yet. Hmm?"

"Air p-p-p...I mean, a hurric-c-c-c-...I mean, a p-p-pack of p-p-panicked p-p-pachyderms?" Baloo's tongue stumbled over his litany of excuses. In desperation, he shouted, "I'm a bad employee!"

"I know," Rebecca said drily. "That's why if you don't deliver those begonia seeds ASAP, I'll fire you PDQ!"

Cold sweat beading on his forehead, Baloo threw the throttles wide open and raced towards the Bloomintown airport, which was directly ahead.

"Baloooooo!" Kit wailed as the Sea Duck barrelled into the path of three tanklike Thembrian cargo planes that had just taken off from the tarmac. He clapped his hands over his eyes to avoid seeing their inevitable demise.

After a lot of bouncing around in his seat, some skidding and crashing sounds, and some angry oaths from Baloo, the seaplane finally came to a screeching halt. Kit tentatively peeked through his fingers.

What he saw was not pretty.

Scratched, dented, and smoking planes littered the runway. Packages, boxes, and bags - their contents becoming drenched by the rain - were strewn around. Pilots and their passengers were shouting at each other. Some were pointing

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