by Anna Cuffaro
“Look, I’m OK, mate. Don’t worry I’m fine. Yes, well, they did peck at me quite a bit, then they let me go and, but hey, I’m fine now”.
“Well, what are you doing here?” Gatwick asked.
“I was waiting for you ’cause I knew you’d be coming back this way, you see!”
Gatwick was a softy and was touched by Jet’s concern. “Come up here and meet my little sister”.
In one curved swoop, Jet flew up to the bears’ balcony. Gatwick introduced Jet and Little Sister to each other, and Jet joined the bears for breakfast. Jet didn’t like fish, but he certainly adored the butter cakes that Gatwick had crumbled up for him. What a splendid way to start a day, with your Little Sister and your best friend.
“So, what are you two going to do today?” Jet asked.
“We’re going up mountains and having a picnic. I want to fish in the lakes up there, and Little Sister wants to sunbathe. You can join us, if you like”. The staff at the hotel had filled a wicker basket with a tasty picnic for them.
Jet said that he’d love to, but that he couldn’t possibly because he had other plans. Then Jet asked which mountain they’d be going up.
“Monte Generoso, but it’s known as Emerald Mountain”, replied Little Sister. “It’s ever such a big, big mountain – high and wide. I’m so excited!”
It wouldn’t be difficult for Jet to get there before them. He was agile and could fly bears were always so slow getting anywhere.
“By the way”, Jet really had to ask this question, “how can you afford to stay in a place like this? Not exactly like living at Gatwick Airport, is it?”
Gatwick replied: “You wouldn’t believe it, if I told you”.
“Try me”, said Jet.
“It was by scratching a card with my wooden spoon, and all this money was under it”.
“You’re right, Gatwick, you know. I don’t believe you. And what about your ‘little sister’, did you plan to meet her here?
“Oh, no, we met by chance, we just happened to be on the same plane”.
‘Another fine tale’, Jet thought. “I’ll have to love you and leave you, I’m afraid; got masses to do. Thanks for the breakfast, those cakes were really something else”.
Jet had found out about their plans for the day. Later that morning, Sam would be coming back to give Jet instructions. At least, he would have something to tell Sam, which meant not being bullied by the Eagles. As promised, Sam arrived on the dot.
“Hiya, man. Big chief says you gotta get Gatwick’s box. We gotta know what he’s carryin’ around in there. Could be anythin’! Now don’t go shopping him to the Swiss police. We don’t want ’em bangin’ him up for robbery when we got bigger issues on our claws – the lives of thousands of innocent freedom loving, law-abiding citizens are at stake. We gotta protect our people. That’s our mission”.
18 End of Five-star Life
Gatwick and Little Sister had finished breakfast and were sitting on their water beds sorting their luggage out. One of the wheels of Gatwick’s big box on wheels, tied up with red rope, had come off. Oh, dear, he didn’t know how to fix it. Both he and Little Sister fiddled around with the wheel and finally managed to fix it back on again, although still a bit wobbly.
Little Sister smiled. She’d just had a wonderful idea: “Why don’t we take everything out of our luggage and then put everything back in again?”
“I did think of that, too”, replied Gatwick, wondering how come she always came up with these good ideas before him. “It’s surprising how much you can get into boxes, cases and handbags, if you pack them carefully. Let’s put the money in your suitcase, Little Sister, under the boxes of chocolate”. They had seven boxes left. “Why don’t we share another box of chocolates now?”
Little Sister thought that an excellent idea.
So they sat there, with all the piles of money around them, and ate their way through another box of chocolates. Now there were six left. Good Little Sister started packing her suitcase to the tune of Knees Up Mother Brown. The wads of pounds first – those were to go at the bottom of her suitcase – then the boxes of chocolates, and the Swiss francs on top. Like Gatwick, she was so neat and tidy. Now for the wooden spoon, the fishing rod and the pencil sharpener. Those would go in Gatwick’s Edwardian case with rusty catches and an even rustier big lock, while Little Sister would look after his sunglasses and fake sideburns by placing them in her new lime-green leather handbag with four compartments. She decided to keep her necklace on because she adored the way it glittered. Now for the picnic.
“Let’s put the picnic in your box, Gatwick”, Little Sister suggested. “We can take the food and drink out of the wicker basket, put it all in your box and leave the wicker basket here. That way, we won’t have the extra weight, and the box will get lighter and lighter through the day”.
So, that’s what they did. Again, Gatwick wondered why he hadn’t had that good idea.
The two of them went down to reception to pay their bill.
“Did you have a pleasant stay?”, the receptionist asked, staring at Little Sister’s diamond necklace.
“Oh, it was lovely, thank you. We enjoyed ourselves very much. How many notes would you like?”, Gatwick asked.
“Here’s your bill. That’s one thousand francs, please”.
“Sorry, could you repeat that, please?”
Gatwick didn’t know how much one thousand francs were. He looked at Little Sister for help, but her face was blank, she didn’t know either.
Little Sister opened her suitcase and showed him the money. Perched on the reception desk was one of the Red Vultures who had had the suite next to the bears. One of the Red Vultures, called Dazbog, had seen Jet go up to Gatwick’s balcony that morning. He knew Jet was working for the Eagles, and the Eagles were the most hated enemy of the Red Vultures. Gatwick and Little Sister must be working for the Eagles. Dazbog was gob-smacked when he saw all that money. OK, so he had seen a lot of money in his life. But never had he seen it all laid out like that: in a suitcase to the tune of Knees Up Mother Brown. And, he could see the shiny gold peeping out between the notes.
“How many of these would you like?” Gatwick asked the receptionist.
“Ten, please”.
Slowly counting to ten, Gatwick placed the notes on the counter.
“That’s lovely. Thank you so much”.
While Little Sister shut her suitcase, Gatwick asked the receptionist if he would get them a taxi. That bus driver was so rude, Gatwick was not taking the bus any more. The receptionist wanted to know where the taxi should take them:
“To the little train at the foot of Emerald Mountain”.
“Very well, I’ll do that right away. You can go and wait in the courtyard, the taxi will be here in five minutes. Thank you for choosing our hotel. I hope you had a pleasant stay and hope to see you here again soon. It was a pleasure having you. Have a safe journey. Goodbye”.
The bears bid him ‘goodbye’. What a friendly man he was!
Just about everyone knew the bears were going up Emerald Mountain that day.
19 The Police
The Police were making great progress in investigating the great bank robbery. A phone call from a bus driver had given them some very interesting leads. The same bears the bus driver had described were clearly seen on the CCTV footage the police had checked. Sure enough, there were the bears in front of the bank as clear as anything.
The Chief Inspector had been shown the images of Little Sister fishing the haul and Gatwick out of the hole. True, they hadn’t seen Gatwick go into the hole because the big white van blocked the view. But, the police thought that if he came out of the hole, then he must have gone in – that’s only logic. They also saw the bears placing gold bars into Little Sister’s suitcase. The bars had been handed to the little white bear in a carrier bag and then placed in the suitcase at the scene of the crime. These criminals were daring.
The bus driver had told the police that he h
ad taken the bears up to the airport, that they had probably left the country and might be in Brazil by now, where they would lead a life of lazy luxury (while he had to keep driving backwards and forwards on a bus all his life. And, every evening he had to listen to that wife of his screaming at him and suffer the pinching of his cheeks – though he did love the old bat because that’s all he had).
So, that was their lead. The bus driver had taken the bears to the airport. That’s where the investigation would start. The Chief Inspector went there himself. He questioned everyone. It was from the security man that he obtained the most interesting information. According to him, the bears were anxious to fly off somewhere but had missed all the flights – they were still there until after the last flight of the day had left. He’d had to turf them out of the airport and show them the way to the Grand Hotel:
“I really had no idea they were carrying all that money around!” the security man exclaimed. And, that was the statement that appeared on the front page of Lugano City News the next day.
The Grand Hotel was the Chief Inspector’s next call. Here, he spoke to the receptionist:
“It’s true, they had a suitcase full of money and gold bars. The little white bear had a diamond necklace on, too. I saw it all with my own eyes, here in front of me in the reception hall. The little white bear opened the suitcase, to the tune of Knees Up Mother Brown, and I saw the haul inside”.
“Knees Up Mother Brown, you say?” the Inspector asked.
“Yes, why does that mean something?”
“There might be a code – a message of some sort – in that tune. I’ll have to pass this information on to our code breakers”.
“Well, what do you know!” said the receptionist, “whoever would have imagined such a thing? Real life is more incredible than in films”.
“Did they give you any clues as to where they’d be going next?”
“Oh, yes we gave them a packed lunch. They were going to have a picnic on top of Emerald Mountain. I even called a taxi to take them to the railway station. From there, they were taking the little train up the mountain”.
“Many thanks for your help. I think we’ve got them now. We’ll have our forces onto them in no time”.
The Chief Inspector left. He hadn’t noticed that Dazbog, who was sitting in an armchair in the hall hiding behind his newspaper, had overheard the whole lot.
20 Emerald Mountain
It was the most beautiful sunny day, just right for a picnic. Gatwick and Little Sister arrived at the train station at the foot of Emerald Mountain. They loaded their luggage, and themselves, onto the little red mountain train on the rack-and-pinion railway. It was not long before the steam engine gave two chugs and stuttered into action. A big puff of smoke came out of its chimney. The train went diagonally over a road at a level crossing, Gatwick waved goodbye with his wooden spoon to the pedestrians standing there waiting to cross the road: “Cheerio!”
“Cheerio!”, Little Sister copied her big brother.
The way soon became steep as it went through some woods. All of a sudden they were in a pitch black tunnel. The driver honked the loud horn just as the nose of the train was about to emerge from darkness.
“What did he do that for?” Little Sister asked Gatwick.
“It’s because there may be some animals on the tracks. There are a lot of animals up here. I saw the pictures in the brochure. The chamois is the symbol of Emerald Mountain. Did you know that their fur is light brown in summer and dark-brown in winter? Our fur doesn’t change colour, does it?”
“That is so interesting, Gatwick”, she was hugely proud of her big brother. What a life she was having now. She briefly thought of the dusty book shelf, but soon put it out of her mind and admired the view, which was now breathtaking, really breathtaking. Little Sister stopped breathing, her round head turned red, and her eyes opened wide. The sheer vertical drops were awesome: frightening but exciting. Gatwick told her to look down at her paws for a moment, to get herself together, while he put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. She soon perked up, so Gatwick went on telling her what other animals lived on Emerald Mountain.
“In the brochure, I also saw pictures of squirrels, goats, cows and even a brown bear”.
“A brown bear!” exclaimed Little Sister.
“Yes, an enormous one. Look, Little Sister”.
“My word; he’s huge. Let’s see if we can find him and talk to him!”
“Good idea! There’s a bear cave up there, it’s called Grotta dell’Orso. We’ll go look for him in there. Look there are also lots of different types of birds. Hey, look at this funny woodpecker, it’s red. Did you ever see a red woodpecker in your life?”
“Well, no, you don’t get to see much sitting on a shelf, you know”.
“Then there are owls, blackcaps, kites, wrynecks, buzzards, swallows, larks, wrens, ravens, and others I don’t know the names of”.
“I only know what ravens look like out of those”, said Little Sister candidly.
“Well you see, owls are very wise and know a lot; blackcaps have black caps on their heads if they’re male like me, and brown caps on their heads if they’re female like you; kites can glide a long way; wrynecks have a dark line running down their backs from their necks; flying buzzards hold their wings up like a V; swallows have long tail streamers; larks get up early in the morning; and wrens are a bit dumpy, like us”.
“Gatwick, you’re so intelligent. How do you know so much?”
“Once a passenger left a birdwatching book on a seat at Gatwick Airport, and I spent all afternoon looking at it”.
The small steam train slowly climbed the slopes, chugging and puffing as it went. It was now above the treeline. No trees could grow above a certain height. The higher up trees are, the shorter they grow. They got shorter and shorter as the bears moved up the mountain, until there were no trees at all.
After forty minutes the train stopped and all the passengers got off. The first thing the bears did was to rush to a railing at the edge of the mountainside, press their furry noses against it, and watch the goats climbing up the mountain face. “Hello, goats!”, the bears shouted down. But they didn’t answer. Only one looked up quickly, a bit irritated, and then went back to eating his patch of grass. They weren’t very friendly.
“Let’s try the cows”, Little Sister giggled. She started running towards the sound of cowbells: clang, clang; clang, clang... Swiss milk cows were taken high up in the Alps for summer grazing. They were taken up in a procession, all together like children on a school outing. These must have been the most beautiful cows in the world. They were all different: brown or black, with and without spots. Gatwick and Little Sister soon got friendly with the cows. In next to no time the two bears were using the cows’ tails as swings. The cows loved it and swayed the bears to and fro as high as they could go:
“Hold on tight”, shouted Gatwick with glee to Little Sister.
When they were tired of that game, Gatwick thought he would pick some flowers and place them behind the cows’ ears. He ran off and came back with a small white star-shaped flower. Then he climbed onto one of the cows’ backs and placed it behind her ear. She turned her head round and said:
“Youoo knowoo youoo can’t pick the flowers here. It is forbidden and against the law! Moo! That is a precious edelweiss”.
Gatwick was horrified and so was Little Sister. “What can I do now?”, he asked, “I can’t put it back. I’m so so sorry”.
Little Sister started crying.
“Please don’t cry Little Sister, I’ll never ever do it again”. It took a while for a smile to come back to Little Sister’s face.
Gatwick wanted to know what the tags were on their ears. They explained that it was like a passport. The tag has the cow’s name on it, the cow’s date of birth, and its cow identity number: Gatwick and Little Sister went from cow to cow looking at their names: Carolina, Margherita, Celestina and Angelina.
“Swiss cows,
I must tell you that you make the most delicious chocolate”, said Gatwick.
The cows answered in chorus: “Thank youoo for the compliment”.
With that, the bears decided that they’d have another box of chocolates between them. To get to the boxes of chocolates, Little Sister had to take out all the Swiss francs and place them beside her on the grass. She handed the box to Gatwick, then she neatly put all the money back in again. When they’d finished the chocolates, they thought they’d start their picnic. They emptied all the goodies from Gatwick’s box onto the grass. The cows joined them. What a feast!
When they were full, Gatwick placed all the litter back in the box. He wasn’t going to be accused of being a litter lout again! In fact, Gatwick cleaned the whole field. He had also seen that the cows had dropped splats of their dung on the grass. He shovelled them all up with his wooden spoon and hurled those into the box, too. Then he went back to all the laughing and rolling about in the grass with the others.
During this merry mayhem, Jet had flown down and, with one quick swoop dropped the imitation big box on wheels, tied up with red rope, onto the grass and took away the real one as quick as a flash of lightning.
21 The Brown Bear
The cows started telling the bears about the Brown Bear who lived on Emerald Mountain. They said that some shepherds were hunting him down. They wanted to kill him before he killed their sheep. Gatwick and Little Sister were horrified. Gatwick asked how they knew the bear was there. It seemed that the shepherds had found some bear fur and bear droppings. The Brown Bear must have wandered into Switzerland from the Italian side of the Alps. Some shepherds said that they had seen him through binoculars.
It was now time for Gatwick and Little Sister to leave the cows and make their way to the Bear’s Cave. The cows gave them directions. It was quite a distance but all they had to do was to follow the mountain path. On and on they trudged with their luggage. Little Sister’s paws were hurting, she wanted a rest. They sat down on the grass and admired the different greens in front of them. The darkest green was formed by the reflection of a cloud between the mountain and the sun. All of a sudden Dazbog flew down with a swoosh, seized the imitation box, by hooking the red rope on to his beak, rose steeply and glided away. Gatwick was devastated. He’d had that box all his life; though, of course, he didn’t realise it was an imitation. Now he was only left with his small blue Edwardian case with rusty catches and an even rustier big lock. Poor Gatwick!