"Bear in the Big McDuck Mansion"
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife
This is a rewrite of yet another story from "Disney's Two-Minute Stories with Mickey Mouse and Friends", this one a rewrite of "Donald Duck and the One Bear" a story in which the bear acts like Goldilocks and eats Donald's pizza instead of porridge. I'm having fun seeing how many of those stories I can rewrite.
The Triplets had talked their Uncle Scrooge into throwing them a Pizza Party for their 1Oth birthday. (1) Mostly because, with Mrs. Beakly doing a lot of the work, it was pretty cheap. Launchpad was helping out as assistant chief.
One nice thing (among many) about Launchpad: Launchpad admits when he doesn't know something. And he asks for help and accepts help instead of insisting of doing everything "all by himself".
He even asked Benzeno Gasolinee (from the Ducktales episode: "Top Duck") to help make the pizzas, but not every pilot is willing to do anything he can to help.
Mrs. Beakly made sure that Launchpad didn't add anything too strange to the pizzas, he'll eat anything. Despite his pointing out (quite rightly) that the boys like that stuff on pizza, too.
"I don't want the Boys getting sick." Mrs. Beakly said.
"Maybe I think they're old enough to start making those kind of decisions for themselves. And learning the consquences for themselves." Launchpad answered.
"YOU don't have to clean up the mess if they can't keep it down. I do. Mrs. Beakly replied.
"Good point. Didn't think of that. Sorry." Launchpad said.
When the pizzas where done, Launchpad and Mrs. Beakly went out of the kitchen to round up the guests and the triplets.
"As soon as everybody is seated, we can wheel out the cart of pizzas and serve them" Mrs. Beakly said.
But a bear was nosing around outside the Mansion. He smelled the pizza and being hungry, he came to investigate. He entered the Mansion thru a back door a guest had left ajar.
The bear started to eat a pizza. Mrs. Beakly came back into the kitchen. She took one long look at the bear, screamed and ran right out again!
"There's a bear in the kitchen and he's eating the pizza!" Mrs. Beakly screamed at Launchpad.
"Whoa, Mrs. Beakly, save the games for after we eat!" said Launchpad.
Launchpad naturally thought she was joking. What would a bear be doing in downtown Duckburg?
"I'm telling the truth! There's a bear in the kitchen and he's eating the pizza!" Mrs. Beakly screamed again.
So Launchpad peeked into the kitchen, half expecting to see Dufus or the Trins in a bear suit, sneaking an extra pizza.
But it was a REAL bear. Eating a pizza. Launchpad gulped. Then he thought of the Triplets. And Dufus. And Webby. And he knew that bear couldn't stay in the kitchen, somebody would get hurt.
SOMEBODY had to lure the bear away from the mansion, to a safe distance. Where it wouldn't hurt anybody until animal control could take it away.
So Launchpad looked around. The bear was right near the wheeled cart full of pizzas on trays. Launchpad snuck into the kitchen, grabbed the cart and wheeled it out. As he hoped, the bear followed the pizzas out of kitchen. Also as he hoped, it refused to let go of the pizza it was already eating. Which slowed it down.
Launchpad kept throwing slices of pizza to the bear to get it to keep following him, but to keep it from following too fast. The bear would eat a slice, follow him, and then stop to each another slice. Launchpad thus got it to follow him to Bubba's old cave.
Bubba was now living in the Lost World (2), so the cave was empty. Bubba had come for a visit recently (3), but would not be back for a while, perhaps not ever. It was getting harder and harder for Bubba to cope with the 21st century. He was just more comfortable in his new home in the Lost World.
So Launchpad figured the bear would be safe enough in Bubba's old cave until Mr. McD could get animal control out there. But first came the scary part: getting the bear in the cave.
Launchpad entered the cave with the pizza. He wished he could just push the cart in, but the cave floor was anything but smooth and the pizzas might not go far enough into the cave to keep the bear inside of it. So into the cave, all the way to the back of the cave.
Then he dropped the cart, and ran for the far wall. While "Bearlylocks" was eating the pizza, Launchpad snuck out of the cave, keeping close to the wall. He was scared silly, but he did it.
Just then, a "man" came along in a pizza truck. He was yelling:
"Pizza! Where are you? Come here, Pizza!"
"You're in a pizza truck and you don't have pizza?" Launchpad asked, confused.
" My name's Piatra. I'm looking for a pet bear named Pizza. He's the mascot of the chain of pizza stores I own." Piatra said.
"Our slogan is: "When you're hungry as a bear, come eat Piatra's Pizza". Pizza the bear is kept in a enclosure near my biggest store. But some well-meaning idiots stole him and set him free in the woods outside Duckburg. Only Pizza is a tame bear, with no idea how to survive in the wild. When he got hungry, he tried to come home and got lost. He was seen wandering thru Duckburg. I got to catch him before he hurt somebody, or more likely, somebody hurts him!" Piatra said.
"It's OK- he's in a cave not far from here. I'll take you too him." Launchpad said.
And he led Piatra to Bubba's old cave. The bear Pizza was stuffed with his namesake. He was fast asleep in the back of the cave, the trays of pizzas now had nothing but a crust or two on them.
"Oh, dear. Did he eat all that pizza?" Piatra asked.
"Afraid so.' Launchpad replied.
"Well, I better let him sleep it off. It's dangerous to wake an animal. I'll talk to your boss- Scrooge McDuck, right? -and come back for Pizza the bear when he wakes up." Piatra said.
So Piatra had a talk with Mr. McDuck, who agreed not to sue him in exchange for all the pizzas the party guests could eat. Then he took Pizza the bear back to his nice, safe enclosure.
The End.
(1)The Triplets came Ten and stay Ten. Which is a pretty neat trick, but any fictional character can manage it.
(2)See my story "Bubba Go Home!" Shameless plug.
(3)See "The Wish Bringer" by LuckyDuck29. It has Ugly Twerp in it, but if Disney were as nice to Launchpad as she is, I would not have a problem with that. I'm on strike and refusing to mention Ugly Twerp by his real name until Disney brings back Launchpad and drops the "Launchpad is a moron" routine.