Hello, Invisible Friends.   I’m the cookie stealing bunny.

And I have a confession.

But I can’t tell you what it is.

Actually, I will tell you.

You have two choices: wait until Saturday’s Critter Confessions, or give me a cookie.

So what’s it going to be?

That’s what I thought.  How rude of you not to have cookies for me, the cookie stealing bunny!  You’ll have to wait until Saturday to hear my confession.

Speaking of Saturday, I need to go steal–er….find a cookie….

Excuse me.

In the meantime, (Shameless Plug alert!), check out the Blond Duck’s newly published stories:

Miss Pickles, the original tale of whimsy and frivolity, available here….

The Land of the Flowered Bed, a children’s book of three short stories illustrated by my good buddy Marie!  It’s about a little girl’s room filled with encanted toys from a magic toy shop.  Adults will love reading it aloud to little ones, or little ones can read it on their own.

It’s full of such characters as Pumble and Sandie from the Pond!  Check it out here!

And I know it’s close to Halloween, but Christmas is coming!  Check out my collection of short Christmas stories, the Twelve Tales of Christmas! Available here or through Amazon.com!

And now (spraying cookie crumbs), for The Return of Miss Pickles.

And just so you know, I didn’t steal this cookie.

I borrowed it.

Forever.

Don’t judge me.

For previous editions of the Return of Miss Pickles, visit my NeverEnding Stories page or here!

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Stationed by the edge of the large basket of the hot pink hot air balloon, Mason watched his school become smaller and smaller.  Fields turned into green checkboards, neighborhoods and shopping centers into clusters of flat squares intersected with ribbons of grey roads.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Miss Pickles appeared next to his elbow, peering over the edge through her aviator glasses. “How a world can be so big and so small at the same time.”

Don peeked over the edge and shuddered.  “Do you know how unsafe this is?  None of us have parachutes or any kind of safety equiptment.  We’re probably breaking so many laws…”

“Can I have a teacake?” Ralph asked, his eyes fixated on the basket of food in the corner of the balloon.

“Ralph, you could be on the moon meeting the King of Martians and you’d ask him for a candy bar!” Mason sighed.

“A Mars Bar,” Don said slyly.

“I love Mars Bars,” Ralph replied dreamily, drool dripping off his wobbly chin.  Wiping it on his sleeve, he pouted up at Miss Pickles.  “Tea cakes?  Please?”

“Sure,” Miss Pickles replied.  “Pass them out to all of the duckies, won’t you?”

Before she could even finish her sentence, Ralph lurched to his feet and lumbered toward the tea cakes.  The straw basket swung precariously to the left, and all the children except for Mason and Don, who clutched onto the edge of the small basket, went sliding into a big pile in to one of the corners.  The cat in the armchair sneered and licked his paw.

“Amateurs,” he muttered.

Mason’s eyes grew wide and he glanced at Miss Pickles.  “The cat talks?”

She grinned and put a finger to her lips.  Turning back to the pile of children, who were now rolling about in their wet umbrellas and muddy raincoats, she called, “Ralph, is there any chance you could move slower to the tea cakes and give the other duckies a chance to re-distribute themselves?  We don’t want to put so much strain on the gas lamp above us.”

“Ralph, you’re going to kill us!” Don bellowed.  “Don’t you know anything about weight and air?”

“Well, no,” Ralph scoffed, crawling towards the tea cakes.

“Heavy things go down!” Don bellowed.  “Light things stay up!”

As Don and Ralph bickered and the rest of the class tumbled around the straw basket like fruit in a grocery sack, Mason crept towards the cat.  “You can talk?” he asked.

The cat fixed a withering yellow stare on him.  “Meow,” he replied.  “Or perhaps I should purr?  Maybe sing a song for you?”

“That’s amazing!” Mason gasped.  “Are you like a trapped wizard or a magic cat or something?”

The cat rolled his eyes and licked his paw.  “Oh yes.  I’m really a powerful magician.  This is one of my tricks gone wrong.”

“Really?” Mason breathed, his eyes wide.

“No!” the cat snapped.  “I’m just a cat.  Now if you excuse me, I have some reading to do.”  Twitching his tail, he extracted a book from the folds of the chair with his paw and cracked it open.

Forcing himself not to stare, Mason returned to his post at the edge of the basket.  But there wasn’t much to see.  The balloon had risen so far that they were wrapped in a blanket of grey clouds.  The slides of the basket were slick with moisture, and Mason’s skin was damp and chilly.  Glumly, Mason ran his hand down the wet side of the basket.

“This isn’t fun,” he muttered under his breath.  “If I wanted to do walk around in a gray cloud and be wet and cold, I could have done that at home.  On the ground.  With a coat.”

A flash of light in the corner of his eye made him jump.  Whirling around, he peered over the edge of the basket.

“Did you see that?” he asked the cat.

“See what?” Don asked, walking up behind him.

“I was asking him,” Mason said, pointing to the cat.

“You were asking the cat?”  Ralph giggled as he popped a fifth teacake in his mouth.  “Why would you ask the cat?”

“Yes,” the cat replied sternly, holding his place in his book with his tale.  “Why would you ask the cat who was reading if he had seen something out the side of the balloon?”

Don and Ralph’s mouths dropped.  “He talks!”

“That’s why I asked him,” Mason replied, staring out the side of the balloon.  “Hey guys, help me watch for this…”

“So do you,” the cat snapped.  “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“Maybe,” Don shot back.

“Would you like a teacake?” Ralph offered, holding a pastel cake out in his palm.

The cat narrowed his eyes and hissed.  “No.  Thank you.”

Ralph pouted.  “You’re a very rude cat.  I was just being polite.”

This time, the flash was bigger and brighter, nearly blinding Mason.  He jumped back, shielding his eyes.  “Miss Pickles!  Is that lightening?”

“No, it’s a pyrotechnic show,” the cat snapped.  Several girls looked over in awe.

“He talks!” one squealed.

“That’s so adorable!” another cooed.

“Don’t bother,” Ralph sniffed.  “He doesn’t like teacakes.”

“Obviously not as much as you,” the cat snapped.

Don chortled.  “Oh, he got you!”

“Miss Pickles!” Mason shouted, trying to be heard over the girls’ cooing and babbling as they gathered around the cat.  “Was that big flash lightening?”

“What else would it be, dummy?” Beatrice snorted.

“But it was so close!” Mason argued.  “How can the balloon fly in lightening?”

“There’s twenty five people in a hot air balloon with a talking cat in an armchair and you want to know how it can fly in lightening?” Beatrice repeated incredulously.

“Miss Pickles?” Mason repeated, ignoring Beatrice.  A bright light crackled alongside the balloon, sizzling as it disappeared into the thick, muggy air.

“Of course it’s lightening, ducky,” Miss Pickles replied.

“This is such a hazard,” Don muttered, bearing his head in his hands.

“What happens if the lightening strikes us?” Mason asked, his stomach flipping over and over.

“It won’t,” Miss Pickles replied.  Whipping out her pocketbook, she extracted a pink pogo stick from the bag and began hopping along the straw basket.

“How do you know it won’t hit us?”

“Because we won’t let it.”

Whirling around, Mason found a pair of black eyes peering into his.

To be continued…

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!  Tomorrow we have a fabulous ode, Wednesday a new scary story and Thursday, a delicious recipe!  Friday, we have a new Dallas Jean and Saturday, the Cookie Stealing Bunny confesses all!  Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!

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