March 24 2014

Chapter 9: Invitation

It was midday when we arrived back at Cape Suzette. The prince Neferhaz Ben-Broak had been so happy to get his ice already chopped to snow that he had let us stay the night in his palace as his guests, although he was so excited to ski that we didn't have any time to talk with him. The next morning we had had a nice breakfast consisting of fruits and just baked bread before leaving and Baloo had been flying most of the time but before we got too close to the cliffs he switched places with Rebecca, in case the air police happened to be on patrol.

Once we had landed Kit had hurried to meet some of his friends in their club called "The Jungle Aces" and Rebecca and Baloo had gone off to deliver some stuff to Thembria. Thembria was a country similar to Soviet Union, but not as bad. They had a whole lot of stupid rules and even small stuff like playing in the snow could get one a hundred years long sentence in prison. With that in mind I wasn't disappointed when Rebecca told me I couldn't come with them since I didn't have a passport. Wildcat wasn't home so I was alone and Rebecca had asked me to stay in the office in the case that the phone would rang and also to clean around a bit.
"This ain't too bad" I thought as I was sweeping the floors with a broom I had found from the store room, a.k.a. my room,"Cleaning isn't a big prize for a room and food". As I swept the floor I went through the events of yesterday in my head. I had actually talked back to Don Karnage, an air pirate! If someone would had told me I could do such a thing, especially when being threatened with a sword near my throat, I would have asked what they had been smoking. I smiled a little and was happy to get a job here.

Suddenly my stream of thought was interrupted by a sound of knocking at the door. I put the broom aside and walked to the door. When I opened it, in front of me was an elder tiger wearing a green outfit that reminded me of something that a limousine driver would wear. In fact, that was exactly what he was. He looked at me up and down and I decided to be the one to start the conversation.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Miss Elisabet?"

"Yeah, that's me"

He showed me a letter with the text: Miss Elizabeth, Personal.

"Misspelled my name". I took it, thanked the man and was about to close the door but he stopped me. I looked at him questioningly and he told me I should read the letter right away. I was a bit puzzled as I opened the envelope and took out the actual letter inside it. The letter was short and written with clear, strict handwriting:

Miss Elizabeth

Your presence is required as soon as possible. Please make sure your as soon as possible is 1:00 pm.

Shere Khan

"Shere Khan?!" I said out loud. "What does he want with me?"

"I do not know, miss. The limousine is waiting" he said calmly and stepped aside, expecting me to step outside.

"Now hold on just a moment!" I said, a bit more angrily than I had meant to, and it was his turn to look at me questioningly.

"Is something wrong, miss?"

"Well, yes. Yes there is. First of all, how does he even know about me? I've never met him. Secondly, why should I go to meet him? This letter makes it pretty clear that he expects everyone to do as he says, so what if I don't feel like meeting him, what then?

The driver looked at me for a moment before answering. When he answered, he had lowered his voice and looked more serious, as if talking about something he shouldn't talk about.

"I'm afraid I do not know the answer for the first question, miss, but I think it would be better for both of us if you'd come to meet him."

I thought about it for a moment. On one hand I was interested to meet him and find out how he knew me, how much about me did he know and what he wanted from me. On the other hand he was a business man, ruthless at that, and if cartoons had taught me anything it was that the less you dealt with business men, the better. Unless of course the business man was Scrooge McDuck. But this wasn't him, this was Shere Khan. Then again, it could be more harmful not to go. The curiosity got better of me and so I sighed and stepped out. The driver walked up to a long and expensive looking limousine. He opened the back door for me, I hesitated a bit before stepping in and taking a seat.
Soon we were at the downtown. I looked through the darkened windows how people were doing their daily stuff, walking in and out of the shops, driving around and talking about the daily news and I tried my best not to think about my meeting with Shere Khan. Finally the limo stopped in front of a big tower-like building. Once I stepped out I recognized it as the Khan Industry building, the place where Shere Khan ran his business and had his office and even lived on the highest floor. I had seen the building back when Baloo had given me the tour around the city but it wasn't until now that I realized that the Khan Industry tower had been the highest building in the city.

"This way, miss!" the limo drivers voice brought me back to the moment. He was already standing by the doors to the building. We went in and the size of the entrance hall amazed me. There were people standing around, most of them panthers or other felines, all dressed in suits talking about business stuffs with each other. As I followed the driver through the hall people turned to look at me and their talking changed into whispering as they were probably talking about me. We walked to the back of the hall where an elevator was waiting for me. Another tiger wearing a same green outfit as the driver was in the elevator.

"Mister Khan is awaiting miss Elisabet here" the driver told the other tiger, who nodded. Then the driver pushed me inside the elevator, the doors closed and I felt how we started to go up. I just stood there, dumbfounded. There was no turning back anymore. When those doors would open for the next time, I would be alone in the same room with Shere Khan. I was shaking a bit for being so nervous.

"If I were you, I'd tidy my self up a bit" the tiger said without even looking at me. I glanced at him angrily before answering.

"Mister Khan called me here without a warning so I'm afraid he has to deal with me looking like this!"I said coldly. When I was sure the tiger wasn't looking I straightened my shirt and used my hand to put my hair in a better way.

Finally the elevator stopped. The doors opened and I stepped out. I looked behind me and saw the elevatorguy tigers face as the doors closed. He was smirking.

"You are two minutes late"

The deep voice made chills go down my spine. Far away, on the other side of the dark office I could see the profile of a desk and a big office chair against the light coming from the window behind them. Two small lights seemed to be coming from the chair, but then I realized it was actually his eyes shining.

"Come closer so we can talk".

"Oooooooh crap" I thought as I started walking towards the table.

Author's note

Oh crap, it's Shere freaking Khan! What does he want from the human in his world? Tune in next time to find out!

But now: trivia about the cartoon!

In the cartoon the prince of the desert was called Neverhasbeenbroke, which is an obvious joke. THEN WHY DID I SPELL HIS NAME Neferhaz Ben-Broak? The answer is actually simple: the episode "I only have ice for you" was written by Don Rosa, a well-known writer and artist for many great Scrooge McDuck stories (I'm a fan of those stories =D). In his story "The Crocodile Collector" he used the name Neferhaz Ben-Broak as a name for a rich egyptian merchant. That's why I wrote the prince's name as it is, the joke is still the same. (Plus mentioning Scrooge in the actual story wasn't a coincidence either ;) )