Max and 99 looked around, baffled.
“Max, wasn’t that Whitestone’s voice?” 99 said.
“It certainly sounded like it. But, of course, it could have been an illusion.”
“Down here!” the voice called.
“In that direction-up ahead,” 99 said.
They hurried on-and came to the edge of the pit they had dug earlier. Whitestone was at the bottom of it.
“Will you give me a hand?” he said.
Max began applauding. “And you certainly deserve it,” he said. “That was the best trick I’ve ever seen. How did you do it? There you were, right in front of us, and suddenly-”
“Max. .” 99 broke in.
“I’m just trying to encourage him, 99. There’s no harm in harmless tricks. After he’s paid his debt to society, maybe he can get back into vaudeville.”
Max and 99 pulled Whitestone from the pit. Again, the three struck out into the jungle. And, in time, they reached the outskirts of Pahzayk.
“We’ll be at the airport soon, Whitestone,” Max said. “Then we’ll board a plane, and, before we know it, we’ll be back in the States.”
“I can hardly wait,” Whitestone said. “Now that the good in me has asserted itself, there’s nothing I want more than to be locked up.”
“Take it easy,” Max said. “You know, it’s as bad to be all good as it is to be all bad. You can become a nut on the subject. Then you have to be locked up.”
A few minutes later, they reached the airport. The clerk at the ticket counter, a tall, white-haired, distinguished-looking gentleman, advised them that the next plane for the States was warming up on the runway, and would be leaving in ten minutes.
“There’s a stroke of luck for you,” Max said. “See what happens, Whitestone, when you’re a Good Guy.”
Max purchased three tickets, and he and 99 and Whitestone left the terminal, made their way to the plane, and boarded. The stewardess, a tall, white-haired, distinguished-looking young lady escorted them to their seats.
“Hear the roar of those airplane engines.” Max smiled. “That’s music to the ears. In a few hours we’ll be home.”
“Behind bars,” Whitestone said expectantly.
The tall, white-haired, distinguished-looking stewardess returned. “Fasten seat belts, please,” she said. “We’ll be taking off in just a second.”
Max, 99 and Whitestone buckled themselves in.
“Max. .” 99 said. “That stewardess-doesn’t she look a little familiar?”
“Not to me, 99. But maybe she was our stewardess on the trip here.”
“No,” 99 said, shaking her head. “And that clerk at the ticket counter-”
“Not now, 99. The plane is moving down the runway.”
“Max-”
“99, will you save it, please, until after we get into the air. Take-offs make me nervous.”
“But, Max-”
“99, please! The plane is taking off. See, there it goes. Nose up. Climbing higher and higher. Isn’t that a beautiful sight, 99?”
“Max-”
“Yes, what is it, 99? You can talk now-now that we’re off the ground.”
“Max, that’s what I was trying to tell you! We’re not off the ground! We’re still sitting here at the end of the runway!”
Max looked around. “So that’s why my ears didn’t pop,” he said.
“Max! The plane was an illusion!”
“And Whitestone flew off in it,” Max sighed. “We missed getting him back to headquarters by that much. Well, 99, I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised. It was expecting too much to believe that Whitestone would reform. We have a saying in my country: When the frost is on the pumpkin, there’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover.”
“What does that mean, Max?”
“Once a prankster, always a prankster.”
