In Search of Moe Chances
Part 1
TaleSpin and its characters are property of Disney / Buena Vista and are used without permission.
Cape Suzette
1912
A twelve-year-old grey bear cub on a bike raced through downtown Cape Suzette, weaving around the early morning shoppers and zooming past the steel skeleton destined to become the Khan Industries skyscraper. Mindless of the cop directing traffic at an intersection, he darted between a Model T and a horse-drawn wagon full of cabbages, then nearly clipped a female pedestrian wearing a large pink hat with a showy ostrich plume, who cried out in protest.
"Sorry, lady!" the boy yelled as he sped away.
Ahead of him, at the harbor's edge, a large silver dirigible balloon rose against the massive cliffs that protected the town. As he approached, he could see a big crowd that was getting bigger by the minute. He could hear a band playing "Come, Josephine, in My Flying Machine".
The cub skidded to a stop near the dirigible, hopped off his bike, and dodged through the crowd to where a mechanic was making sure the airship was air-worthy.
"Buzz! Hey, Buzz! Have you seen my uncle?"
With a pop, a googly-eyed bird pulled his head, topped with a tuft of grease-tinged feathers, out of the interior of the engine housing. "What? Oh, hi, Baloo. Your uncle? He was right over..." Suddenly, he exclaimed, "I've got it! An automobile that washes itself and cleans the street at the same time!"
Buzz pressed a button on his belt buckle, causing a couple of mechanical arms to pop out of it. One held a small notepad, the other a tiny pencil.
Baloo, who was used to Buzz's sudden wild flights of fancy, muttered, "Uh, yeah," and left the mechanic scribbling down ideas for his next great invention.
Scaling one of the ropes that moored the dirigible to the ground, Baloo was able to spot his uncle standing beside the mayor and other city officials on a temporary stage. The tall tiger mayor was doing what he liked best: making a speech.
"This is a grr-eat day, not only for us here in the growing metropolis of Cape Suzette, but for all people everywhere. Thanks to grr-eat men like Mortimer Chances pushing the boundaries of technology and doing grr-eat feats of derring-do…"
Baloo thought the speech was a grr-eat big bore. He slid down the rope and slipped inside the enclosed gondola.
The cramped cigar shaped space was lined with lightweight bamboo shelves stocked with a modicum of food, clothes, blankets, medical supplies, and spare parts. At the far end, below a large window, was the control panel and a ship's wheel.
Baloo squeezed in between a tin of crackers and a pair of boots on the bottom shelf then pulled a blanket over his head. It was the perfect hiding place.
A little while later, after all the speeches had been made, a slender tan bear sporting a thin moustache and a fashionable three-piece suit entered the gondola. Hearing the sound of crunching, the young man smiled knowingly and shook his head. He whisked off the blanket, revealing a sheepish, cracker crumb covered cub. "Looks like I've got some extra cargo."
"Busted…" Baloo groaned, crawling out of his hiding place. "Can't I go with you, Uncle Moe?"
"Not this time, Baloo. A solo flight 'round the world means I gotta go alone. Got something for ya." He pulled a red and blue baseball cap from his pocket and slung it on the cub's head.
"Gee, thanks!" Baloo cried, adjusting the cap. "How long are you gonna be gone?"
"As long as it takes. In the meantime, you be good for your Great-aunt Priscilla."
"Aw…I'm never good enough for Aunt Prissy!"
Moe, who was as easygoing as his elderly aunt was strict, instructed, "No tracking mud on her carpet or bringing in stray puppies or trying to fly by jumping off the roof of the chicken coop."
"But I almost had it last time. I just needed more tinfoil."
"You keep from breaking your neck 'til I get back, kid, and I'll teach you to fly for real."
"In your airplane?" Baloo asked eagerly. "Ya mean it?"
"Cross my heart and hope to fly."
"Well...okay. I'll try to please Aunt Prissy." Baloo hung his head with the sigh of one doomed to a life without fun. "But it won't be easy. She said someone as stupid as me will never amount to anything."
Moe frowned and thought a few uncomplimentary things about his sharp-tongued aunt. Putting his hand on the boy's shoulder, he said, "People used to say man would never fly. But what do I always say?"
"Never say never," Baloo quoted, his face brightening as he looked up at his uncle.
"That's right, kid." Moe playfully tugged the bill of Baloo's cap down over his eyes.
Higher for Hire
Twenty-five Years Later...
Baloo pushed the brim of his pilot's hat up to get a better look at the newspaper he was reading. "I don't believe it! It can't be!"
"What?" Kit and Rebecca asked simultaneously.
Baloo sprang from his chair and started stuffing everything he could find into his pockets: a bottle opener, a banana, a dart, a paper airplane, a half-eaten apple. "Pack your bags and grab all the charts you can find, Li'l Britches. We're taking off in ten minutes."
"And just where do you think you're going without your boss's permission?" Rebecca asked, playing tug-of-war with the big bear over her stapler. She managed to wrench it out of his grasp, but couldn't save a handful of pens from disappearing into his pocket.
"They found my Uncle Moe!" Baloo shoved the newspaper at her.
Annoyed, Rebecca plucked it from her face and began reading aloud. "Two days ago, fishermen off the coast of Patagoita discovered a bottle in the stomach of a shark. In the plain brown bottle was a note. Although some of the writing had been obliterated by the water, the signature was of Mortimor "Moe" Chances, the world-famous pilot whose dirigible disappeared twenty-five years ago while attempting to circumnavigate the earth."
"Moe Chances, the first man to fly a dirigible across Usland, is your uncle? Wow!" Kit said in awe.
"Yep," Baloo said proudly. "He also invented some of the first airplanes. One of 'em even flew."
Rebecca continued reading: "Both the note and bottle are now in the possession of the International Explorer's Club."
"Then that's where we're going. Ya ready, partner?"
"Ready for what?" Kit chuckled at the sight of Baloo's pockets, bulging with unnecessary objects.
Meanwhile…
At the International Explorer's Club
"Professor Bontrotter, it has come to our attention that you do not meet the necessary requirements to be a member of the Explorer's Club anymore."
This statement didn't faze the portly hippo that it was directed at. Professor Bontrotter, with his twinkling eyes and pleasant expression, seemed incongruous with the room decorated with tarnished trophies and snarling stuffed animal heads. He pushed his small round spectacles up on his nose, smiled at the men seated around the table, and said in a voice that was faintly Peareesian, "I beg your pardon, President Passel. I must have forgotten to pay my dues again."
He reached into his ill-fitting black suit coat for his wallet. Instead, he pulled out a pair of binoculars. Draping the binoculars cord around his neck, he proceeded to pat each of his pockets in search of his elusive wallet.
President Passel, a large walrus, harrumphed. "No, you forgot to explore something! Like Phipps;" he motioned towards a rhinoceros armed with a shotgun and a fierce expression; "who rowed up the Amazing River. Rodriguez;" he pointed to a polar bear wearing a heavy parka; "led an expedition to the North Pole. Even Humphrey braved the voracious crowd at the Chocowoco Market to bring us the finest chocolate in the world."
"Here, here! Best expedition this year!" Phipps and Rodriguez cheered.
The small wombat blushed with pleasure at the praise and toppled off his chair when Phipps pounded him on the back.
"Explore something or you'll be thrown out of the club."
"I'm sure something to explore will present itself shortly," Professor Bontrotter said placidly. He looked thoughtfully at an old bottle with a rolled up piece of paper protruding from its neck sitting on the table in front of the president.
Just then, Baloo burst into the room, followed by Kit.
"Where is it?" Baloo demanded. "The note from my Uncle Moe? Where is he?"
President Passel set the bottle in front of the professor. "Last chance, Bontrotter," he said meaningfully. He and the other club members filed out of the room.
"Bontrotter, is it?" Baloo said, offering a hand, which the professor shook with a smile. "I'm Baloo and this here's Kit. Let's take a looksee at that note."
The single piece of tattered paper was spread out on the table. Between the rips and blurred ink was: Lost engine….Off course...native...37°S. Moe Chances
Baloo looked disappointed. "Hmm...not much to go on, huh, Li'l Britches?"
Kit hurried over to the world map that covered one wall. "It's not so bad, Papa Bear. Only Patagoita, the Out'n'outback, New Seal Land, and a couple of small islands intersect 37 degrees south."
"If he took off from Cape Suzette..." Baloo began.
Kit continued, "The prevailing winds would have blown him towards…"
"Patagoita," Baloo and Kit said simultaneously.
Kit nodded. "Makes sense. Near where the bottle was found."
Baloo gathered up the note and bottle and headed out the door as quickly as he had entered. "Thanks, Bontrotter!"
The professor looked after them for a moment, then snatched his black fedora from the hat rack, calling, "Wait! I'm coming with you!"
Hours Later…
The Patagoita Plains
Two hats, a red pilot's cap and a black fedora, bobbed above the rustling golden grass that blanketed the flat plains as far as the eye could see.
"The Patagoita Plains are home to the Prancing Pygmies," Bontrotter mentioned as he walked behind Kit in the path tromped down by Baloo. "The small, but peaceful, group of natives live in huts made from the very grass we're walking through. If your uncle landed around here, they would know."
Suddenly, the trio came to a clearing in the grass. Directly in front of them was the pygmy village. The huts were exactly as the learned man had described: a circular base with a single door and a triangular grass 'hat'.
Baloo mopped his brow, remarking, "You're a regular walkin' encyclopedia, Professor."
"Well, I am one of the foremost geographers in the world," the hippo said with a smile and a shrug.
"What are the pygmies doing now?" Kit asked, pocketing his compass.
The professor trained his binoculars on the village. "Why, it appears to be their annual rain conga dance." He traded his binoculars for his camera, which also hung from a strap around his neck, and snapped a picture.
They watched as the alligator pygmies, rattlesnake rattle-tipped spears in hand, formed a chorus line and did synchronized kicks in time with the pounding rhythm of the bongo drums. The faster the drums played, the faster the dancers danced until they were a mesmerizing blur of red feathered headdresses, grass skirts, and kicking legs.
"C'mon," Baloo scoffed. From the gigantic cracks that crisscrossed the parched earth, it was obvious that no precipitation had fallen on the plains for a long, long time. "Dancin' can't make it rain."
Just as he said that, dark clouds obliterated the sun and a drop of rain plopped on his head.
Then the sky opened up and it became a drenching downpour.
"You were saying?" Kit said wryly as lightning flashed across the sky immediately followed by a crash of thunder.
The dripping explorers were surprised to see the pygmies scramble into canoes woven out of grass.
"What are they doin'? It's just a little rain." Baloo ran towards them, waving his arms and shouting, "Wait! I gotta ask you about my uncle!"
Suddenly, behind them, they could hear a distant low rumble that was growing louder by the second. Turning around, they saw a huge tidal wave rushing towards them.
"We gotta get back to the Sea Duck!" Baloo cried.
"It's too far away!"
"The tree! Head for the tree!" Professor Bontrotter shouted, pointing to the only tree in sight.
The explorers, pushing through the blinding rain, splashed through growing puddles towards the gigantic tree in the middle of the village. Baloo reached it first and gave Kit a boost into the branches before scrambling up after him.
"Where's the prof?" Baloo wondered.
The unflappable hippo was snapping picture after picture of the tree. "A remarkable specimen. The biggest Ombu tree I've ever seen."
Baloo retorted, "If you don't get up here right now, it'll be the last tree you'll ever see!"
He grabbed the professor by the collar and yanked him up into the tree mere moments before the wave engulfed them. Eyes shut and breaths held, the trio clung tightly to the branches as the water smashed against them with the force of a dump truck crashing into a nitroglycerin plant.
When the wave had passed and the rain had stopped, the village and pygmies had disappeared. The tree was only thing visible in a vast lake.
"Help!" Baloo shouted, his hands cupped around his mouth. "Help! Aw...nuts!" He wrung the water out of his cap. "Stuck in this tree, surrounded by an ocean of water, no Duck in sight. What else can go wrong?"
As if on cue, a log bumped up against the tree trunk and the large, wet, unhappy feline that had been clinging to it disembarked, snarling.
Grabbing for a higher branch that was just out of reach, Professor Bontrotter said, "Well, a leopard could come, looking to make us his dinner."
Crrrrack! said an extremely close bolt of lightning. The thunder answered back: Boom!
"Uh, don't look now, but the tree's on fire," Kit announced, looking at the blazing upper branches.
"This is ridiculous!" Baloo exclaimed. He didn't know which fate he preferred: fried or fare.
"Looks more like a waterspout to me," Bontrotter said, pointing off to the distance to where a funnel was wending its way towards them.
"Whoa!" they all cried as the burning tree with the three explorers and the leopard was whisked into the air.
End of part 1