Author's Notes: Yay! We're back! We have another story to tell! Or retell, as it were! It's time for the rewritten version of Trouble Island. I'm super pleased with how this story has turned out, and I feel it's a huge improvement on the original version I posted back in '05. Enjoy, won't us?

A pair of dragonflies buzzed around the woods, circling each other in a perfectly synchronized acrobatic feat. They swirled around the trees, the flowers, the tall grass, enjoying the peace and quiet. Everything was nice and serene. They couldn't think of anywhere else to aimlessly buzz around for no reason other than pure instinct.

However, the sound of whooping and yelling and metallic rattling startled them out of their fun, and they were forced to make a panicked dive out of the way as a little red wagon came barreling along a dirt path. Bumping and clanking, it raced down the landscape and bucketed into the distance.

Calvin gripped the steering handle on the wagon and maneuvered carefully. "Okay, I think we're getting the right amount of speed! Is everybody ready?"

"The equipment is prepared, captain!" Hobbes replied.

"But what if it doesn't all hold together?" Andy asked worriedly.

"Then we put the video on the internet and become overnight sensations!" Socrates cheered.

"Great," grunted Sherman. "Hopefully, that'll pay for the medical bills."

"Stop being a Debbie Downer! I am ready to soar, darn it!"

"You heard the guy!" Calvin declared. "Everyone get ready!"

They were all crammed tightly together in the little red wagon. Even though one of them was a tiny hamster, it was still two kids and two tigers in it. With so little space, they had been forced to stand up as they rode, hanging onto each other, while Calvin gripped the steering column tightly.

Socrates slipped on a pair of swimming goggles and gripped a handlebar with a long rope tied to it. "I am in uniform!"

"Sherman!" Calvin shouted. "Are we ready to deploy?"

"Velocity seems to be favorable. My main concern is that the weight may be a problem…," Sherman replied.

"You calling me overweight?" Socrates snapped.

"Boys, please!" Andy scolded. "We're trying to be young and reckless! This is no time for bickering!"

"Okay, everyone get ready!" Calvin declared. "One… two… three! Deploy!"

Hobbes and Andy braced themselves as Socrates left out of the wagon, still holding the rope. On his feet, he was wearing a pair of Styrofoam trays, both tied to his feet. He hit the ground and proceeded to 'dirt ski' behind them.

"Woo-hoo!" he cheered. "Cowabunga! Hang ten! Footloose! Booyah!"

"That's right," Sherman called back. "Get all the stereotypes out."

"Just remember to steer!" Hobbes reminded him. "We go one way, you go the other!"

"Yeah, basic physics! Totally got it!" Socrates replied. "Let's see if I can do a handstand!"

As the red-tailed tiger was fooling around behind them, Calvin wrestled with the steering column, doing his best to avoid all the rocks and trees that kept appearing before them. At one point, he glanced back to see if Socrates was pulling it off, and when he looked again a few seconds later, he saw a massive boulder was rapidly approaching. With a yelp, he wrenched the handle to the right and swerved.

Unfortunately, they left the path and flew right off the side of a cliff.

"Whoops," Calvin said, peering over the edge at the land below.

Hobbes sighed heavily. "One day, we need to set up guard rails around these cliffs."

They all flew into the air as the wagon fell.

"Ah well," Andy said thoughtfully. "I probably wouldn't have sounded all that great with a deep voice anyway."

Socrates, on the other hand, was enjoying himself enormously. He wouldn't even let go of the rope. "Surf's u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-up!"

They all tumbled and toppled higgledy-piggledy through the air until they finally came in for a very wet landing in a lake at the bottom. It erupted in a huge splash, with the water raining down again for several seconds.

A short while later, Calvin emerged on dry land, coughing and spluttering, dropping on his hands and knees as his normally energetic hair drooped lifelessly. Andy crawled out a few moments later, his clothes dragging and his own brown hair over his eyes. Sherman spilled out of the boy's pocket with his fur all matted down.

Hobbes crawled out shortly after, soaking wet, but also eating a fish he'd managed to catch. He noticed the others and held some out. "Want some?"

Then, with a large splash, Socrates emerged and attempted to walk to shore, only to keep tripping on the trays that were still tied to his feet. He landed back in the water about three times before he finally collapsed on land next to them. He rolled onto his back and proceeded to kick the trays off.

"Phew!" he exclaimed, sliding the goggles off. "Got some wicked air time on that one, dudes."

"Socrates, this isn't the 60s," Calvin grumbled.

"I'm copasetic."

"Ugh…"

Hobbes got down on all fours and proceeded to shake all the water off that he could. His fur was a tad poofy now, much to his frustration. "Great. Another ride in the washing machine when we get home," he grumbled.

Socrates blinked. "The washing machine? I thought we tigers were supposed to do the whole 'self-grooming' thing."

"Calvin's parents are weird. I always go with his clothes."

"They don't put you in with the tighty-whities, do they?!"

"Perish the thought! Only with the shirts and decorative socks!"

Calvin began wringing his clothes out. "Man… Maybe if we keep moving, we can dry off a bit before Mom sees us."

"You need to install a laundry feature in the MTM," Andy suggested. "Something for just these sorts of occasions."

"Not a bad idea, considering these sorts of occasions happen more than occasionally," Sherman agreed.

"Come on," Calvin grumbled. "Help me get the wagon out of the lake."

"Gotcha covered," Socrates replied. He held up a paw, revealing that he was still holding the rope. He began pulling it up, and the wagon came squeaking onto the shore with them, sporting a few dings and scratches, but otherwise unharmed.

Andy let out a whistle. "I don't know how this thing still moves," he said. "Seems to thrive on abuse."

Calvin tipped it over to get the water out. "At least it means we don't have to walk home," he said.

Hobbes laughed briefly. "You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah, come on! Get in!"

"Heck no!" Sherman declared. "After the fall we just took, I'm not about to go for another ride in that little red deathtrap."

Calvin sat in the wagon and shrugged. "Okay then. Perhaps one of you could pull me?"

This was met with dismissive scoffs as Socrates dropped the rope and followed the others into the woods.

"Okay, fine! Be selfish!" Calvin snapped, climbing out of the wagon and pulling it after them.

Half an hour later, the five friends were all lying on a massive boulder under the hot sun. Calvin and Andy were in their underwear with their clothes laid out on the rocks to get dry in the heat. Hobbes, Socrates and Sherman were laid out as well, arms outstretched, warming their fur.

"… What day is it today?" Sherman asked.

Andy thought for a moment. "… Tuesday."

"Like heck!" Calvin objected. "It's Wednesday!"

Andy shrugged. "Well, if you want to be that accurate…"

"Could've sworn it was Thursday," Socrates said quietly.

Sherman slapped his forehead sadly. "You know what this means, don't you? It means not one of us has got any clue what doggone day it is!"

Calvin shrugged. "It just feels like a Wednesday."

"Does it matter what day it is?" Hobbes asked.

"I like to keep my mind sharp. I can't stand the thought of it atrophying," Sherman replied.

"Really?" Calvin asked. He was genuinely surprised. "I consider it one of the benefits of summer vacation!"

"True enough," Hobbes agreed. "Just kick back, relax and pretend we're not probably going to be killed by a kingdom of aliens."

"Yeah…," Andy said slowly. "It's been three weeks since all that happened. Still no plan?"

"Still no plan," Calvin confirmed.

"Are you lying?"

"Possibly."

"Okay…"

"Still not going in on my idea of making the Earth invisible?" Socrates asked.

"And spend the rest of our lives bumping into everything?" Hobbes asked.

"Well, if you're just going to be sensible, Hobbes…"

"My only real option," Calvin said, "is to wait and see what Rupert does. I told him he'd better give it his all if he's going to try again."

"So you fully expect him to try again," Sherman said.

"Yep."

"So you didn't just stop him when you literally had him defenseless at your feet?"

"Well, what was the alternative? Kill him? Come on, Sherman – we all know I'm not capable of just killing someone outright. Good grief, I'm going to have enough to tell my psychiatrist twenty years from now."

"Such as?"

"Well, all the camping trips I've been dragged on, for openers. The ones I've been on, and the ones I'm going to be on."

"Mmm," Hobbes grunted. "Including the one we're going on in a couple of days."

Andy, Sherman and Socrates all hissed sympathetically.

"Exactly," said Calvin. "We're going to be gone for a few days. Thankfully, Dad knows better than to take us fishing on the ocean. We're back to the Itchy Little Rock in the Lake this time."

"Not much of an improvement, but no cruise ships this time," Hobbes noted.

"I dunno… Going stark-raving murderous mad on a cruise ship was infinitely more pleasurable than swatting mosquitos every ten seconds."

Suddenly, Socrates sat up. "Huh boy."

"What's up?" asked Hobbes.

"Incoming transmission on my transmitter chip."

"Ugh," grumbled Andy. "Always when I'm not dressed…"

"Must be Galaxoid and Nebular," Calvin sighed. "Put 'em through."

Socrates tapped his head a few times, trying to make the chip work. Every few seconds, he seemed to go into a trance like he always did when it was activating, but then he'd snap out of it and have to start over.

"Problem?" Hobbes asked.

"I'm not sure," Socrates replied. "I seem to be… Oop! Wait! Here it comes!"

Socrates then began to speak, but it was clearly the voices of Galaxoid and Nebular trying to talk to them.

"… Earth Po – ate… kscch … has es – kxcsk – from – kschhhx – dang it, we… - aving trouble… our transmission… kscch – call back later – kssshhhh!"

Socrates snapped back to normal and staggered a bit, shaking his head.

"Are you okay?" Andy asked.

"Yeah, I think so… What the heck was up with that? It was all garbled and staticy!"

"Sounded like some defect on their end," Sherman said.

"Whatever," Calvin sighed, lying back down. "They said they'd call back later."

"Yeah, that's a good enough reason to just ignore it," Hobbes said sarcastically.

"Exactly. Glad you agree, Hobbes."

Everyone else rolled their eyes and laid back down.

Back at the house, Mom was going about her day, getting dinner started. She was thumbing through a few cookbooks, looking for something new and bizarre to try. She figured Calvin wouldn't eat it, but what the heck. She needed to experiment once in a while. She needed something new.

She also needed something to keep her mind occupied. Just a few weeks ago, she had been certain they were all going to die. A band of aliens had come down from above and threatened them all. What was worse was that they'd seemed to home in on their house specifically. Why them, she wasn't sure. But it had taken a long time to get used to the knowledge that something had happened.

And she still wasn't sure where Calvin fit into it all. He'd been kidnapped just before it happened, but he'd turned up with his stuffed tiger over his arm as if nothing happened. He'd claimed to have defeated the aliens, but that was just Calvin being Calvin – always in a world of imagination.

Still… that worried her.

The door opened, and she heard her husband returning from his normal day of patent-lawyer-ing. He set down his briefcase in the living room and left his hat and jacket across his favorite chair. He strolled into the kitchen as he undid his tie and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Good afternoon, dear!" he said. "How was your day?"

"Oh, it was fine. Calvin's been off with Andy and their tigers all day, so it's been pretty quiet."

"Good, good…"

"I'm kind of worried about him."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, think about it! After everything that happened, he doesn't seem to have been all that effected by it! He just goes on like he always does, misbehaving, causing trouble, complaining all the time… It's like nothing happened!"

"Well, considering what did happen, I'm actually kind of glad," Dad said. "Makes going back to normal everyday life kind of easier."

"I still can't help but worry. I mean, what if he's repressing something? What if he's been in denial? Suppose what happened was so traumatic, he has to convince himself something else happened?"

Dad blinked. "That actually sounds like him before all this started. He never tells the truth. He's watching a show I told him not to? Aliens made him. He tracks mud across the floor? A duplicate of himself did it. And of course, let's not forget the fake story he gave for the Noodle Incident…"

"To be fair, we don't know that's a fake story. Nobody has ever seemed one hundred percent certain what happened there…"

"The point is Calvin doesn't like admitting when he's made a mistake or something bad is happening, so he creates a story to avoid guilt or fear. Remember when I found him tied to a chair? He claimed Hobbes did it, trying to hold him for ransom."

Mom thought about that. "Wait… how did Calvin tie himself up if he was alone?"

Dad shrugged. "Never found out. But come on. His stuffed tiger did it? That's below feeble."

Mom thought about this for a while. "Maybe we need to do something about this…"

"Such as?"

"I'm thinking maybe a child psychiatrist."

"Seriously?"

"Well, something has clearly been going on in Calvin's head for some time now. Maybe having someone to talk to will help him get in touch with reality. I mean, if nothing else, we can get him to grow away from Hobbes someday."

"Yeah, I hate to think he's going to be dragging that thing off to college with him… Still, I don't know if we can afford a psychiatrist right now. After all, we've still got our camping trip coming up."

Mom rolled her eyes. "Dear, we'll have plenty of money left over for the camping trip. Let's start researching and see if there's someone affordable in the area."

Dad nodded and got up to start looking on his computer.

Mom glanced out the window and saw Calvin and Andy coming up the hill with two stuffed tigers and a hamster in the wagon behind them. She smiled slightly, but the concern was still prevalent.

Author's Notes: And we're off! This should be a ten chapter story, so if we're lucky, this should be a ten week ordeal for you all. We also have an outline forming for Retro Chill's rewrite, but more on that later.

Looking forward to the eventual TVTropes page for this, and all our other stories. I enjoy seeing how other people interpret our stories and what they spot, so I hope those who work on it keep up the excellent work! Thanks!