"But Papa, you promised!" Emil complained. It was three days before his eleventh birthday, nearly a year after he and his cousins Remy and Etienne had gotten lost in the swamps. Three months ago, Emil's father had promised to take him and the other boys to the Air Show for Emil's birthday. And now, Francois Lapin had just told his son they couldn't go.

"I know, Emil. An' I'm sorry. I know how much you, Etienne an' Remy wanted to go. But I can' get out of dis meetin'. Jean-Luc is countin' on de senior Guild members bein' dere."

Emil sighed dejectedly and glared at the floor. "Stupid meetin'…stupid Guild." He muttered.

"Emil…" Francois warned his son. "Look, we'll go to de Air Show next year, an' we'll do somet'ing else for your birthday, okay?"

"De Air Show ain' gon' be here next year." Emil replied, pulling on his sneakers and heading for the door. "I'm gon' over to see Remy."

"Okay, be home for supper, s'il vous plait. An' don' say anyt'ing to Jean-Luc 'bout dis." Francois said.

"Okay, an' I won'. Can' speak for Remy, t'ough."

Francois sighed as his son left the house and shut the door behind him. This was one of the days when Francois wished he wasn't a single parent. It wasn't easy, raising his son on his own, especially when he saw Emil becoming more and more like his dead wife everyday.

"Oh hi Emil. Remy's in the backyard. Etienne's wit' him." Henri said when he answered the door and saw his young cousin standing on the step. He frowned at the glum expression on Emil's face. "What's wrong?"

Emil sighed and contemplated answering the question. His father hadn't said he couldn't say anything to Henri about it…"Jus' found out dat we can' go to de Air Show."

"Ohhh…well dat's too bad, Emil. I'm sorry. I know how much you an' de other two wanted to go. It's all Remy's been talkin' 'bout for weeks. I'd talk dem into movin' de meetin' for ya if I could, or I'd try to get out of it myself so I could take you, but I can'. I'm sure your father will do somet'ing else wit' you guys t'ough." Henri replied, following Emil in through the house towards the backdoor.

"Oui, he said he would. But it's not de same."

"I know. But you'll get to an Air Show sometime. You got your whole life ahead of you to do t'ings like dat." Henri reminded him.

Emil sighed again. "T'anks Henri. But it ain' helpin' much…" He looked out the door at his two best friends. "An' it's gon' be even worse when dey find out we can' go…"

Emil joined his friends in the backyard. "Hey guys."

"Hey! Three days! Only three days!" Remy exclaimed. "The wait is killin' me!"

"Um…about dat…" Emil said quietly, wishing he didn't have to tell them the bad news.

"What? What is it?" Etienne asked.

"Nobody can take us. Dey're havin' dis big Guild meetin' de same day, an' everyone has to be dere. None of dem can get out of it to take us, so we can' go." Emil told them.

"What?!" Remy and Etienne demanded.

"We can' go. Dere's no way." Emil admitted.

"Dat's not fair!" Remy said. "We have to go! Dere has to be a way, if we can t'ink of it."

Etienne was silent for a moment. Then his eyes lit up. "How much are tickets? Maybe we could get tickets of our own an' go by ourselves."

"Dey're more money den we have. An' b'sides, do you really t'ink our fathers would let us go on our own? It's too dangerous." Emil replied.

"What if dey don' know we've gone?" Remy asked, a twinkle in his red eyes. "Dey can' let us if dey don' know what we're doin'. If dey're at dat meetin', dey won' be able to keep an eye on us…"

Emil smiled. "I like de way your mind works, Remy. But dat still doesn' answer de question of how we pay for getting in…"

"We could always sneak in…" Etienne said suddenly.

Remy and Emil stared at him in astonishment. They weren't used to hearing Etienne say things like that. He was usually the one who tried to talk them out of doing things that could get them all in trouble. He giggled. "What? You guys ain' de only ones who can t'ink of stuff like dat. B'sides, our fathers are t'ieves. Surely we could figure out how to sneak into de Air Show without getting caught."

"Yeah…my birthday might not be ruined after all!" Emil said happily. He knew his father would think of something cool to do with them, but nothing could compare to actually getting to go to the Air Show.

Three days later, Remy and Etienne went over to Emil's house. Tante Mattie was supposedly babysitting them there while the Guild held their meeting. What she didn't know was that the three boys had other plans.

"We're goin' outside, Tante." Emil said when his cousins arrived. All three of them fought hard to keep straight faces around their minder, because they knew she would be able to tell if something was up. Today, though, she merely smiled at them and continued her knitting.

"Okay, but stay in de yard. I'll call you for lunch."

"We will!" the three boys replied in unison. They went into the backyard and tossed a football around for awhile. They knew from past experience that Tante Mattie would check on them in about five minutes and then go back to what she was doing before, not giving much thought to them again until it was time for lunch.

After they noticed her checking on them, they dropped the ball and walked out of the yard, giggling excitedly. It had occurred to them that they would get into trouble if anyone found out they had gone to the Air Show on their own, but they convinced themselves that they just wouldn't get caught.

A large fence with a gate surrounded the airfield. There was a huge line of people waiting to pay their way into the Air Show, but the three boys passed right by them. They paused a few meters from the lineup and looked in through the fence, totally astonished by the various planes, jets, helicopters and tanks they could see.

"Whoa…dis is gon' be so cool!" Etienne exclaimed.

"It'll be even cooler when we get in dere." Emil replied. "C'mon!"

They ran around to the far side of the airfield, where there wasn't any security keeping an eye on the fence. Seeing that the coast was clear, they began climbing the fence, and within minutes they had jumped down to the other side. To avoid drawing attention to themselves, they joined a crowd of people, and no one was any the wiser that they hadn't paid their way in.

"Oh man, look at dat!" Remy exclaimed, stopping to stare at a huge tank. They had been milling around the grounds at the Air Show for three hours, looking at everything, talking to the military people, sitting in helicopters, and waiting for the actual Air Show to start. "It mus' be so cool to drive one of dose…!"

Etienne laughed. "Let's go ask dat man if we can get inside, like we could wit' de helicopters."

One by one, the three boys were allowed to sit in the tank. When they were done, they agreed tanks were a lot cooler than helicopters. They also thought the bomber jets would be even more fun, but they weren't allowed to get in any of those. Or so they thought.

Some of the planes were in hangars on the airfield, and the people were allowed to go in and look at them. The hangar doors were open, and every once in awhile, a plane would leave one of the hangars to get ready for the Air Show. The boys went into one of the hangars and saw an F-15 with the doors open and no one around.

Emil and Remy looked at each other, identical gleams in their eyes. "You t'inkin' what I'm t'inkin'?" Emil asked.

"Dere's no one guardin' it…" Remy replied. "Why not?"

Etienne realized, as his cousins started climbing the steps to the plane, what they had in mind. "Guys, we can'! We'll get in trouble!"

Remy rolled his eyes and asked Emil, "Why does he always say t'ings like dat?"

"B'cause he's a goody-goody." Emil replied. "Et, c'mon an' stop worryin'! You're as bad as Theo!"

Soon, the three boys were sitting at the front of the jet. Remy and Emil were in the pilot and co-pilot's seats respectfully, and Etienne was in the navigator's seat just behind them.

Emil winked at Etienne, something Remy didn't catch. Remy was too busy reading all the labels for the buttons, gears and meters on the dash in front of them. "Hey Rem?"

Remy looked at Emil. "Yeah?"

Emil pointed at the power button. "I dare you to turn it on."

Remy blinked. He couldn't turn down a dare, least of all a dare made by his best friend. "I…I can turn it on. Sure."

"So do it." Etienne prompted.

Remy reached over and pushed the button. All three of them covered their ears as the engines roared to life. They stared at each other, eyes wide, mouths hanging open.

"Dis is so cool!" Emil breathed. He accidentally moved and leaned on the control stick in front of him and the jet suddenly moved forward slightly. He pulled his hands away quickly, his voice squeaky. "Oh mon Dieu, it moved!"

"Do it again!" Etienne said. He thought it was the most amazing thing in the world that his cousin got the plane to move. Remy and Emil looked at each other and shrugged. They both tentatively put their hands on the control sticks and pushed forward lightly. The jet moved again. This time neither one of them took their hands away. Instead they kept pushing and the jet rolled out of the hangar into the bright New Orleans sunshine.

With Etienne laughing almost hysterically in the seat behind them, Remy and Emil turned the jet and drove it along the pavement in front of the hangars. People avoided the jet, thinking it was on it's way to join the other jets for the Air Show. They inadvertently started going faster and faster until they realized they had a very big problem.

They didn't know how to make the jet stop.

"Oh no…!" Emil exclaimed. "How do we stop it, Remy?"

"See dat hangar over dere?" Remy asked. Emil nodded. "We aim for it an' hope for de best."

Etienne stopped laughing. "But dis is a government jet! If we crash it…"

"Et, we're already in trouble. Dey can' do much more to us if we crash it." Remy told him.

"Oh man…" Etienne groaned, covering his eyes and wishing he were anywhere else but inside that jet at that moment.

Thirty minutes later, the three boys were sitting in the office of one of the head military men. He had been introduced to them as Lieutenant Colonel Quentin Gregory. And while they thought it was obvious that he was very unhappy with them, he was actually trying not to laugh.

"What am I s'posed to do wit' you boys?" he asked as sternly as he could from the other side of his desk. He was trying to scare them, and it was working.

They looked at him. "Call our fathers?" Etienne whispered.

"I could. An' I should. But I don' t'ink I will. Do you know why?"

The three boys shook their heads, wondering why he wasn't going to tell on them. They found out soon enough though.

"B'cause I t'ink dey're gon' find out on deir own. I have a feelin' dey didn' give de three of you permission to come here by yourselves today, an' I don' t'ink you'll be able to keep your whereabouts from dem. So dere's no need of me to call dem. But do you know how much money it's gon' cost to replace dat jet?"

"A lot?" Emil asked miserably. His birthday had taken a very bad turn for the worse and he didn't like it one bit.

"Oui, a lot. An' after your fathers find out what happened, I want you to come back here wit' dem so we can work out a way for you three to pay it off. Understand?"

The three boys nodded. "Yes, sir." They said in unison.

"Good. Now go home. An' I don' want to hear of you takin' any more jets for a joyride, okay?"

They nodded again and were escorted out of the office and away from the airfield by two other military personnel. They walked back towards Emil's house, knowing that by this time, the Guild meeting was over and their fathers and the others were all anxious about what had happened to them.

"Dis is so not good…" Remy commented. "Even if we could have managed to not tell dem 'bout de jet, now we have to."

"How mad do you t'ink dey're gon' be?" Etienne questioned.

"Well, let's see. We prob'ly scared Tante Mattie out of her wits, we sneaked into de Air Show without payin', we 'borrowed' a jet we weren't s'posed to an' ended up crashin' it." Emil counted down the list of their crimes. "I'd say dey're gon' be pretty freakin' mad."

"Yeah…an' it looks like most of de Guild's here, too…" Remy pointed out as they walked up to Emil's house. Glancing at each other nervously, the three boys prepared themselves for facing the music.

Chapter Four: Halloween Antics