Wiggerstomper feared lost in the Bearmuda Trapezoid.”

“Who’s Oscar Wiggerstomper?” Kit wondered to himself as he flipped to the next page, which had an advertisement for a radio.

He would have liked a radio, but what really caught his eye was the ad itself - a typical happy family spending a typical evening gathered around the radio. For a moment, he allowed himself to pretend that he was the boy fiddling with the radio’s knobs while Father smoked his pipe, Mother knitted, and his little sister played with the dog.

Then, Kit chided himself. He knew that he would never have a family. He had given up on that dream long ago. He, an orphan ever since he could remember, was a loner and would always be a loner, but he didn’t mind it so much. Frankly, he liked being self-reliant and able to do pretty much whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

But he what he wouldn’t give for just one friend.

Kit flipped to the back of the magazine to the advertising section. His eyes longingly lingered on the planes for sale. Which one would he choose if he had his choice? And how would he customize it so it would be the fastest, best plane in the world?

“I’ll get my own plane someday and fly out of here, away from these stupid pirates.”

But how?

Karnage was greedy when it came to parceling out the loot. Everyone did the dirty work and the captain got the loot.

He had thought about stealing from Karnage, but that would be dangerous, even deadly.

“Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhh!”

An angry scream reverberated through the Iron Vulture, ripping through Kit’s thoughts and making him jump guiltily. Surely, Karnage didn’t know that he was thinking about stealing from him...or did he?

Even if he hadn’t have spent almost a year with the air pirates, he would have known that that scream meant nothing good. He decided to find out what the yelling was about, so he turned off the flashlight and stealthily crawled through the vents towards Don Karnage’s bedroom.

A shaft of light coming from a room below told him that he was getting close. He peered down into the room. Karnage was pacing furiously around Gibber.

“Month after week I, Don Karnage, am forced to settle for paltry heists and dinky trinkets.” The wolf tossed a gold-plated cup aside. He then drew his sword and jabbed an imaginary foe, all the watching himself in the mirror. “Surely a pirate of my statue is destined to do something great, something magnificent, something big!”

Gibber muttered something in the captain’s ear.

“Perhaps...but where would I get a bathtub big enough to hold it?” He sheathed his sword. “The feared pirate Don Karnage’s density lies not in the plundering of mere cargo planes, but in the starry skies.” He pointed to a picture of a city cut out of a magazine that was taped to the wall. “Thatis what is worthy of my greatness. To go down in history as the pirate who plundered a city, but not just any city. Cape Suzette.”

Again, Gibber whispered something in Karnage’s ear.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Karnage said impatiently. “Those nasty cliff guns are the fly in my eye. The ointment in my soup.” He jumped up and down in rage. “Every time, they shatter my plans to figurines!”

Gibber muttered a lengthy suggestion.

“Sneakity-sneak up on Cape Suzette from the backside, away from the gunners? Hmm...” Karnage pondered that idea for a minute, then dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “If we did that, I could not make my grand entrance. No, we must find a permanent-press way to get rid of the guns, for once and for all, but all I have is an estupidepirate crew and these estupidebooks.” He picked up one of the books that he had saved from that evening’s bonfire and was about to throw it across the room when he noticed its title. Instead of tossing it, he opened it.

Gibber, peering over Karnage’s shoulder, murmured a few words.

Giving his first mate a nasty look, Karnage slammed the book shut. “When I know what I’m doing, I’ll know what to do. Now, go. Go, go, go!” He roughly shoved Gibber out of the room and banged the door shut.

Once alone, or so he thought, Karnage stretched out on his bed, opened the book, and flipped through it. Kit strained to see what the captain was looking at, but it was futile from his precarious perch.

“No,” Karnage said, flipping a page.

The pirate captain continued to thumb through the book, saying an increasingly drowsy ‘no’ with each page. Then, he started to yawn and his eyes drooped. A few moments later, he fell asleep with the open book tented on his chest.

Burning with curiosity, Kit quietly unlatched the grate and let it swing downward into the room. The boy winced and quickly retreated into the all concealing shadows when the grate’s hinges squeaked. After what seemed like an eternity, he cautiously peeked down into the room.

To his relief, Karnage was still asleep in the bed directly below him.

He fished a small ball of twine out of his pocket and tied a large loop at one end. He then proceeded to lower it slowly down into the room. The loop fluttered slightly, blown about by Karnage’s deep, even breathing.

Careful...Kit thought as he lassoed the book.

He gasped when Karnage rolled over, causing the book to slide over the side of the bed.

Giving the twine a quick jerk, Kit just prevented the book from hitting the floor. He quickly pulled it up to the vent and read the title: Do It Yourself Electronics.

Make your own toaster...radio...pizza oven...lamp? Kit read as he flipped through the technical diagrams and complicated equations. This looks like something from Better Homes and Cockpits. There’s nothing here that he could use to invade Cape Suzette, unless he’s planning to bomb the cliff gunners with appliances.

Kit jumped, startled, when Karnage rolled onto his back and mewed, “I’m cold, Mama.”

Uh-oh! He’s waking up! Looking around frantically, Kit spied a piece of wire dangling from the vent ceiling. Fashioning the wire into a fishhook, he attached it to the twine and lowered it once more into the room where he hooked the blanket that was folded at the foot of the bed and tugged it up over Karnage.

“Gracias, Mama,” Karnage smiled.

“Don’t mention it,” Kit murmured wryly as he swiftly retracted the twine, removed the fishhook, and slipped the book into the loop.

When the book was halfway down into the room, it slipped out of the loop and smacked Karnage right in the face.

Karnage, instantly awake, sat up in bed. “Who? What? Where? And sometimes why?”

Luckily for Kit, he didn’t notice the piece of twine that was snaking its way back through the open grate. After blearily gazing around the room, the captain lay back down and closed his eyes.

Kit, upon hearing Karnage’s even breathing, closed the grate and started to make his way back to his alcove and his new Flyboy Magazine, thinking, Captain or no, I prefer my bedtime reading material.

End of part 2

Hopes and Schemes
part 3

TaleSpinand its characters are property of Buena Vista / Disney Co. and are used without permission. All other characters are mine and cannot be used without permission.

The Next Afternoon
Two Miles West of Cape Suzette

Just out of range of the cliff guns, the air pirates’ CT-37s circled in the clear blue sky like a flock of vultures. Their collective attention was on the cliff opening and, more specifically, the planes coming and going from said cliff opening.

When the Sea Ducksped by below them, Dumptruck said into his C.B.’s microphone, “How about dat big, juicy yellow cargo plane, Captain? I bet it has a lot of loot.”

“How many times do I have to remind you pathetic pirates?” Don Karnage impatiently said into his own mike. “We are onlyhijacking Shere Khan’s planes.”

“Why are we getting revenge on Shere Khan?” Mad Dog whined.

“This is not about revenge! This is about getting even.”

Mad Dog accepted that explanation without a second thought. “Oh. That’s different, then.”

Karnage ordered, “Keep your eyeballs peeled, men. Maybe not this minute, maybe not the next, but sometime soon, one of Khan’s planes will come along with our names on it.”

Gibber whispered into his mike.

“Of course it won’t have ‘Gibber’ painted on it, idiot! That was a mere figuring of my speech.”

Meanwhile...
The Sea Duck

Baloo was steering with his feet and wrestling with a chart. Obviously, the chart was winning, because it was clinging to his face like a leech. With a cry of frustration, the big bear ripped it from him. He glared at the chart, which had landed on the co-pilot’s seat, then took a deep breath, and determinedly picked it up, stretching it taut between both hands at arm’s length. “All right-y now. If Cape Suzette is here, then Crab Town must be...”

He squinted at the tiny words on the chart, superimposed across oceans of blue and lands of green. “It’s...” he looked at one corner; “no...” he scrutinized the opposite corner; “no...” he studied the two remaining corners; “no! Aw, doggone it! How am I supposed to deliver crabs to Crab Town if I can’t findCrab Town? Hey, stay cool, Baloo. No need to get crabby. Maybe ya can’t find Crab Town on this chart, because it ain’t on this chart.” He crumpled it up and tossed it over his shoulder.

He then opened the glove compartment. An avalanche of charts, parking tickets, sunglasses, candy wrappers, and bottle caps spilled out.

“Swell.”

The irritated bear set the autopilot - a crowbar slung across the control yoke -

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