It's A Wonderful Calvin
I don't own Calvin and Hobbes. Duh.
Susie Derkins was building a snowman. The snowflakes fallen on her woolen hat gently tingled her hair. She couldn't help but think how perfect the day was.
Suddenly, a familiar white orb catapulted itself into the back of her head. Calvin.
"I'm telling!" She screamed, not even seeing her assailant. Off she ran to Calvin's home to tattle on him.
Calvin dropped down from the tree. "Run, Hobbes, run!" the boy screamed as he began a mad dash for the woods.
"Not so fast, bucko." A female voice replied. Shoot.
Later that day, Calvin was looking out his window. "I tell ya, Hobbes, sometimes being a human really stinks." He sighed as his tiger friend sipped hot chocolate and read the latest issue of Captain Napalm.
"That's why being a tiger is far better." Hobbes smiled.
"Nah. Being alive is just pointless. I wish I was never born." Calvin digressed.
At that moment, a C Major chord was struck and sustained. Calvin and Hobbes arched their eyebrows, then looked out the window.
Outside was a very bright ray of light. It might have been Santa, but he was due in a week. Instead, a figure in a blue spandex jumpsuit dropped down with matching blue wings fluttered down, muttering something about "Zukleks" and ray guns.
"Are you……… Calvin?" The figure asked, looking down at a long paper list.
"What are you, my guardian angel?"
"Well……… yeah……… everybody else is taking the Christmas season off to sit in the grave for a bit. I'm overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated."
"Do I get any presents?"
"No……… afraid not."
"Great."
"Look, kid, you wished you weren't born, it's my job to make you take that back."
"I thought that God granted wishes."
"Yeah, but, even still, this one involves altering time."
"So?"
"Look, kid," the angel sighed, thrusting in a DVD version of "It's A Wonderful Life" into Calvin's hands, "watch this movie and reevaluate your life. See ya in the next world."
The angel now turned around, a C Minor chord was struck, and he began to ascend when the light suddenly stopped as Calvin interrupted him.
"We don't have a DVD player."
The angel muttered some "death curse of the Naggon race" as he hovered down and handed the six-year-old a VHS version of the same movie.
"Merry Christmas."
The C Minor chord was struck again, and the angel began an ascent. Once again, he was interrupted.
"We don't have a VCR." Calvin sighed.
"CD player?"
"Nope."
"Cassette deck?"
"Not even in the car."
"Great." The angel sighed, producing a TV guide. "Charlie Brown Christmas……… Garfield Christmas………"
Ten minutes later, the list culminated with the "Captain Napalm Christmas Smackdown." Despite Calvin's expression of interest, the angel decided that there was only one way. He grabbed Calvin, and a B Major chord hit and held in the background as the world ebbed and flowed around Calvin.
Finally, they resurfaced in a completely different room with a bunkbed.
"Hey, Hobbes and I got a bunkbed!" Calvin smiled. "All right!"
The angel tried to hold him back, but Calvin began to jump on the upper bed. The angel very quickly jumped up and restrained the hyperactive six-year-old.
"Don't. move." The angel whispered in Calvin's ear threateningly.
At that moment, a girl with freckles and two red pigtails came in. She appeared to be five. With her came a smaller girl, apparently around three, with red hair cut off at her shoulder.
"………and Santa leaves us all presents!" She cheered enthusiastically. "Lots of fun presents. Dolls and movies and Barbies and………"
The angel muted the young girl to himself and Calvin. "She was getting on my nerves." He explained.
"Okay, so another family lives here. So?"
"Another family, perhaps, but not other parents."
At that moment, a face that looked like Calvin's father without the glasses poked its head in. "All right, Maggie and Christy. You'd better go to bed. Santa's watching, you know!"
"Is that my father?" Calvin asked, in a state of utter shock.
"Yes, daddy." Maggie, the elder daughter, smiled. The two daughters climbed into their bunks, Maggie on top and Christy on the bottom.
Their father then closed the door and walked downstairs. The angel warped Calvin and himself downstairs.
"They're asleep." Calvin's former father sighed.
"They're such agreeable young children. Just the kind of children I want." A woman with flowing brown hair smiled. She was apparently Calvin's mother.
"I know. Can you imagine having, say, a horrible, hyperactive, six-year-old boy?" Calvin's father smiled, taking his wife's hand as he sat down. Calvin's mother's expression equated some disgust.
"Okay," Calvin sighed, "They're better off without me………"
"Yeah. They are." The angel stated. "Still, I'm supposed to get you to be glad you're alive. So I can't well stop there."
The angel sent them forth in time about eighteen hours, where they materialized in Ms. Wormwood's classroom. She had brown hair, a thinner figure, and better taste than polka dots. Her class seemed the same, minus Calvin, of course.
"All right, class," a voice stronger and higher than the voice Calvin's Ms. Wormwood used nearly sang, "who can tell me the answer?"
All of the hands in the class went up. Ms. Wormwood surveyed the class, then gestured to a boy with black hair, cut just above his eyebrows. "Moe."
Moe stood up. "The Vietnam War was opposed by those who despise fighting, just like me." He smiled.
"That's correct, Moe." Ms. Wormwood smiled.
"Anytime, Ms. Wormwood." The pupil responded, sitting down.
"Now then, on to math." Ms. Wormwood's voice nearly singing throughout the duration of her speech as she erased the blackboard. She then wrote out "7-3=?"
Susie raised her hand without the call for hands. She looked exactly the same as Calvin knew her.
"Susie?"
"Ten."
"Thank you. You're correct."
Calvin looked down. "Susie's the same, Moe's better off, Ms. Wormwood's better off………"
The angel fumbled for words. "Uh……… sure………"
"Then you agree?"
"Yeah, sure kid, why not."
"That's encouraging."
"I know. Love you too."
"Now what?"
"Hobbes, I guess………" the angel mused, turning around and thrusting them forward in time.
They finally stopped in a room where Hobbes was sitting. Calvin was about to go and talk to Calvin when, out of nowhere, a boy opened the door with a tower of tuna fish sandwiches.
"Sandwiches! Get 'em while they last!" The boy smiled.
"Thanks, Melvin." Hobbes smiled, ripping a sandwich off the top of the stack.
"Say, Hobbes," Melvin, the boy, began, "how'd you like to play a game of Melvinball this afternoon."
"It's too cold." Hobbes sighed. "Tigers don't like the cold."
"True." Melvin smiled. "How about we just relax in the living room in front of a fire, under the blanket, and read some Captain Napalm?"
"Sounds good."
"Want to draw mustaches on all the superheroes?"
"Of course."
"Great, then! It's settled!"
Calvin looked down. "Hobbes is better off."
"Let's see………" Spiff sighed as he rattled through his list. "Parents, Wormwood, Moe, Hobbes……… Susie………"
The two went forth once again, but only by a few minutes, to where Susie was making a snowman with Candace, her best friend.
"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way……… oh, what fun it is to ride in a one……… horse……… open……… SLEIGH!" The two sang as they completed the snowman.
"Another fine work of art, wouldn't you say so?" Candace admired the snowman.
Suddenly, footsteps were heard. "We know you're there!" Susie stated. Maggie and Christy came across the open snow, big smiles on their faces.
"Maggie." Susie smiled. "Christy."
"Hey, Susie!" Maggie smiled, embracing her neighbor.
"And how are you doing today?" Susie smiled, slipping into the big sister role that she had assumed with these two.
"We're doin' great!" Maggie smiled. "Wanna make snow angels?"
"Why not?" Susie smiled, dropping to the ground and going through the motions of several jumping jacks.
"Okay……… Susie's better off………" Calvin sighed.
"Umm………" The angel looked at his list. "Susie……… Uncle Max?"
"No thanks."
"Filthy Rich?"
"No."
"Jessica?"
"Over your dead body."
"I'm already dead, kid."
"Even still."
"That leaves……… Rosalyn………" The angel sighed, whirling them off throughout time. It had come down to this- the success of the angel depended on a grouchy babysitter.
They arrived in front of Rosalyn's doorstep. It was a very large, well-lit house, and the angel took Calvin through the door.
They walked in next to see the beautiful sight of Rosalyn and Charlie quite……… cozy. Calvin turned, nearly vomited, then sighed. Suddenly, the angel heard something.
"Come on, kid, I've got a call from Big Red."
"Big Red?"
"Just follow me."
Without any more words, Calvin found himself and the angel at the North Pole. Calvin was still invisible.
"Ah, Spiff. They finally got you." Santa Claus, alias "Big Red", observed.
"What's the crisis?" Spiff retorted?
"I have seven heat-seeking missiles that I don't know what to do with."
"Bummer."
"I know. Kids just don't want missiles, I guess."
"See ya around, I guess."
"Sure."
Calvin suddenly grabbed Spiff by his spandex collar. "No kids to take missiles for Christmas? What kind of world is this? Take me home now!"
Spiff, utterly shocked, simply snapped his fingers, and Calvin was back on his bed, in his life.
Hobbes, completely unprovoked, suddenly pounced Calvin.
"What the heck did you do that for?" Calvin demanded?
"They say that every time a tiger pounces a kid, an angel gets his wings!"
"Yeah." Calvin sighed. He was serene for a minute, then he realized something.
"Wait! That angel already had wings!"