Chapter 10: Changing Minds
The afternoon had become late, and Rebecca and the two chipmunks were still sitting in the Higher For Higher office, digging up memories of their past adventures. Wildcat had nothing to do as the Sea Duck was not there, so he spent most of the day upstairs playing with Molly. Sometimes Rebecca went up to look after them, she knew that when she left them all alone, they would surely cause not little mischief. But now no sound at all came from Molly's room. It was the time of the day when Molly's favorite radio show was aired, and that meant that nothing and nobody should dare disturb Cape Suzette's probably biggest Danger Woman fan as long as she was stuck to the radio.
A wall clock in the office showed that this day's episode was about to end when Rebecca heard the sound of four radial engines come in from the pier. Being a friend of Baloo's and Wildcat's and an amateur pilot herself had taught her what a radial engine was.
"Perfect timing," she remarked and got up. Chip and Dale followed her through the door, and Wildcat and Molly who had heard the engines, too, ran downstairs and after them.
It was a great relief for the five of them to see that the two Conwings and their crews had returned in time and without any damages.
"Crikey, Gadget luv," Monty said as he left the Rangergull, "y'know 'ow ta fly an' touch down smoothly. I could really keep all those cheese omelettes inside. Geegaw would be proud o' ya."
"Golly, that wasn't hard," Gadget replied. "The Rangergull is by far the heaviest aircraft I've ever piloted. Nevertheless, I had to tweak the trimming to compensate your weight after the cargo was unloaded. You should really do as Baloo does and try to lose a bit of it instead of stuffing yourself with all one can make of cheese."
"Okay, okay, I confess that was a 'ole lotta lunch. But see it positively. I don't think I'm gonna 'ave another cheese attack t'day."
As usual, Zipper expressed his skepticism.
"I promise you, Zipper, no more cheese attacks today."
"And," Chip asked after meeting them aside the Gull, "what was your first job as cargo pilots like? Everything went fine?"
Gadget and Monty told him, Dale, and Rebecca about the flights, the impressive building called Nader's Hall, the lunch at Ye Olde Omelette Outlette, and they showed them the R/R logos on the white seaplane which Chip commented, "Now it's really the Rangergull."
"Hey, everybody," Rebecca called from the end of the pier, "I haven't introduced you to my daughter yet." Now the Rangers saw that cute little bear for the first time. "Rescue Rangers, this is Molly. Molly, these are the Rescue Rangers."
Molly, still wearing her improvised Danger Woman outfit, smiled and waved to the Rangers walking and flying respectively towards her when something came to Rebecca's mind. "Oh, no!"
Baloo hated when she said that as it could mean trouble ahead. "Becky, what's up?"
"Baloo, Kit is on his excursion, and now we don't have a babysitter for Molly!"
"Indeed, I've forgotten that, too."
"But we must go to the Trader's Ball tonight, and we can neither take her with us nor leave her alone here." Whispering into his ear, she went on, "And I don't trust Wildcat enough."
"We can do that!"
For this proposal, Dale earned angry looks from his fellow Rangers and an upset unison "Dale!" from Chip and Gadget.
"Remember what 'appened the last time?"
"Monty, the last time is about 15 years ago now. And take a look at her. Neither of you expects this cutie to be a gangster in disguise, or do you?"
Despite Dale trying to convince him otherwise, Chip went on defending the Rangers' anti-babysitting position. "No, of course not. At least not yet. But whenever we even came close to babysitting, it ended up in a disaster! Think of Jeremy!"
"We didn't babysit Jeremy, not even I did it on my own, no matter how hard I tried. The bear did, remember? And we rescued both in the end."
What Dale said sounded plausible to Gadget, something that doesn't happen often. Jeremy's rescue was hard, especially for her who had to rebuild the entire plumbing of the caravan within seconds, but they had much harder cases, and who said that it was easy to be a Rescue Ranger?
Chip, however, insisted in his point of view. "And the booby baby?"
"That wasn't babysitting, Chip, that was the aftermath. It was an egg most of the time we were babysitting—well, rather egg-sitting it. And we managed it, even it was stressing."
"And I must say," Gadget interjected, "you were some perfect replacement fathers. I'm still proud of you guys for what you have done." Dale was on a good way to convince her. He did have some good points.
"Thank you, Gadget. But now, Dale, we come to—" Chip made a short break "—Bink and Tammy Chesnutt."
"Bink and Tammy?" Dale had waited for this moment. This was kind of Chip's favorite. And this was where he could get him. Friends or not.
"Charles Maplewood," he knew exactly that Chip hated being called his full name, "you are the only one of us who has a problem with this case. An' your problem is that you seem to have a problem with Tammy havin' a crush on you an' callin' you Chipper for that reason. But let me tell you one thing: Tammy had more of a problem with you rejecting her that rudely than you had with her admiring you. By the way: Tammy has proved Ranger-ready more than once. She has teamed up with us successfully countless times. And she has overcome both her feelings for you and her jealousy towards Gadget. They are best friends today, in case you haven't noticed yet. Tammy could be a real official Rescue Ranger by now, even rather than Foxglove, and you know what it means when I admit that. But noooo, you still have that problem."
In his thoughts, Dale continued his monologue. 'And he wants to hook up with Gadget. Huh! I'd like to see that. You'd better learn how to treat a female right before your next try, Mister The-Leader-Gets-The-Girl-And-The-Fool-Gets-Nada. Think twice, buddy. I actually have a girl-friend. If I didn't have Foxy, and if I wanted, I could easily choose between two or three other girls, and yes, including Gadget and Clarice.'
Chip gave Gadget a glance, hoping for some defense. Her face still showed her anger, but now she was angry about him. She had not only started to think about the no-babysitting policy which Dale had proved pointless, she also remembered the Rescue Rangers' main policy: No case too big (like their first case, stopping the human super-villain Aldrin Klordane), no case too small (like their second case, retrieving a human child's puppy). And she remembered how Chip had rejected Midge's demand for help getting him to Capistrano. The other Rangers had broken out in tears about his decision. All four. He had made his friends cry, just because he considered that case too small for his thinking in Sureluck Jones dimensions. The main policy made more than sense, if he wanted or not. And it did apply in this situation. The Rangers were there to help wherever help was needed, and this task was not further away from what they normally do than the cargo job. Besides, the Rangers would be the last to deny a case because they had bad experiences with one or more similar cases in the past.
No, she wouldn't leave this cuddly little bear alone this night. Even if she had to do it all by herself.
Dale's words were still echoing in her head. She wished that she wasn't dreaming, that Dale would say all that to Chip in real life. It was overdue.
It seemed like Dale had defended himself and the babysitting issue too well, because even Monty and Zipper almost looked at Chip as if a mutiny among the Rangers was to go ahead. They were again what they used to be—two of the best babysitters one could have.
"Lis'n, Chip. I 'aven't only been babysittin' with the Rescue Rangers, I was even the babysitter o' one o' the Rangers 'erself. Yes, I took care o' li'l Gadget a number o' times when 'er father wasn't there." Monty walked over to Gadget and put his arm around her. "An' Zipper is the oldest child in 'is family. Y'know 'ow many brothers an' sisters a fly 'as, don't ya? 'e stayed at 'ome 'til enough o' them could care fer themselves an' fer each other 'cause 'is parents were totally overloaded. Now I'd say we two got a 'ole lotta experience in babysittin'. An' I ask ya: What can go wrong with this li'l angel?"
Dale had opened Gadget's, Monty's and Zipper's eyes. And Dale, Gadget and Monty had opened Chip's eyes. The leader of the Rangers started to realize that. Everybody had been blinded by a vertically challenged human villain disguised as a baby an eternity ago. Chip himself was the blindest of them, most of the time labeling his blindness "responsibility as the leader", while Dale was the first to get his vision back. The Rangers had learned a lesson where there was no lesson to learn at all. In contrast to Chip's situation now.
The other Rangers stared at him and waited for his decision. After all, he was still the leader, the one of the team who approved or denied the cases—though there had hardly ever been a case he should rather have denied.
"Rescue Rangers..."
He could see the anticipation in his friends' faces. They wanted him to say this one word. So he said it.
"...away."
Upon this word, Gadget, Monty and Zipper started to cheer, and Dale gave his old friend a hug. "Aw, Chip, you're the best! I knew you wouldn't let us down!"
"Alright, calm down, everybody!" Chip was a bit embarrassed about their reaction. "Let's go now. I hope we haven't forgotten anything since way back then."
It was then when the Rangers saw Molly standing in front of the door all alone.
"Hey," Chip wanted to know, "where are Baloo and Rebecca?"
Molly answered, "Oh, Mommy is making herself beautiful for the ball. And Baloo is trying to get into his suit again."
"Okay, Molly—" Dale started.
"Molly's not here. I am Danger Woman!"
"—Danger Woman, let's wait for the two to come out."