It was just another rainy afternoon.
Mac and Bloo sat in the Foster's sitting room, bemoaning the crummy weather. The weather conditions were indeed particularly vexing considering summer had just begun and Mac had finally been let out of school for break last week. And where was the summer sun? Sleeping on its job.
Bloo was staring out the window with intensity. An unfinished game of checkers lay on the table in front of him. "But Maaaac," said Bloo, drawing out his creator's name in his usual nasal voice. "Why can't we play outside in the puddles? Come onnnnn. Just for five minutes." Mac rolled his eyes. "I told you, Bloo," Mac said, a note of impatience finding its way into his voice, "This weekend's the annual weekend my dad comes to visit; he won't be happy if I get sick. Again. Remember what happened last time we went out in the rain for an extended period of time?" Bloo looked at the boy with an earnestly blank expression. Mac sighed. "When we got sick after playing in the mud and Frankie had to take me home?" Mac asked. Bloo continued to stare blankly at him.
"When Wilt, Coco, and Eduardo thought you were a ghost because you got all pale and oozed disgusting mucus all over everything?" Mac asked.
No response.
"When Frankie crashed the Foster's Bus into the House because she thought she was being followed by a monster?" Mac continued.
Bloo's eyes were beginning to narrow. He was losing interest fast.
"When Wilt, Coco, and Eduardo tried to suck you into a vacuum?" Mac asked, over-annunciating each word, the tone of his voice bordering on desperation. Frankie, Wilt, Coco, and Eduardo had filled him in on all of this the day after it had happened, and though Mac had been quite under the weather that day, he still remembered their story.
"Nope. Doesn't ring a bell," Bloo said finally, completely indifferent. The imaginary blue blob was staring out the window again. The boy was once again amazed at what little power of retention his best friend had. But then, that had all happened nearly two years ago. Bloo sometimes had trouble remembering things that happened five minutes prior.
"But whyyyy can't we go outside and play in the puddles?"
Mac could feel the heat of exasperation in his head; he let out a groan of frustration. "BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO BE SICK WHEN MY DAD COMES TO VISIT THIS WEEKEND." Bloo looked back at his creator from the window. "Oh, yeeeaaah," said Bloo, "your dad." Bloo seemed to turn this over in his head for a few moments. Mac, relieved, turned away from Bloo and the window and back to the checkerboard, only to be tackled out of his chair and onto the floor within mere seconds by Bloo, who had launched across the table and obliterated their checkers game (Bloo been losing, anyway). Before Mac could realize what was happening, Bloo was grabbing at the collar of Mac's shirt and shrieking at him in a full-blown tizzy, his voice raised three octaves and near-tangible waves of indignity rolling off his little blue body. "But if you're gonna be with your dad all weekend, then you can't visit me! And if you can't visit me, then the deal with Madam Foster is off! And if the deal with Madam Foster is off, then I'LL GET ADOPTED WITHIN SECONDS AND I'LL NEVER SEE YOU EVER AGAIN! I knew my own awesomeness would be my horrific downfall someday!"
And as suddenly as Bloo had entered into a state of panic, he now rolled off of his creator in an utter daze of self-pity. His voice flamboyantly tearful, Bloo lamented, "Oh, Mac. I never thought this day would come. I never thought you'd leave me. And yet…" Bloo burst into a bout of dramatic tears before continuing, "No, don't say it's for the best. Goodbye, old fri—"
Mac cut him off with a quick smack to the side of Bloo's head. "Bloo," Mac said angrily, "We already went through this last year. And the year before. …And three hours ago. I set it all up with Mr. Herriman and he said that I would be excused from visiting you on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday because of my 'extenuating circumstances.' Now would you please quit your pity party and help me reset the checkerboard?"
Bloo abruptly ceased the histrionics and said, simply, "Oh."
Just as Mac and Bloo had replaced each piece in its designated place and taken their respective seats across the table from each other, the doorbell rang.
It was pizza night.
Though Mac and Bloo had raced each other to the foyer, Frankie got there first—she'd been vacuuming the burgundy shag rug in the entryway. All the way there, Bloo had loudly yelled, "The pizza's here! The pizza's here! Did we order pineapple?" and Mac had yelled equally loudly, "Bloo! You don't even like pineapple. Bloo!" They both came to a screeching halt at the front door and barely missed colliding with Frankie. "Did we order pineapple?" Bloo asked enthusiastically as he tugged at the hem of Frankie's skirt. Frankie looked down at him, her hand frozen on the doorknob, and sighed. She'd had a long day—as per usual—and her patience was running thin, to say the least. "No, Bloo. We did not order pineapple. Because no one in the House likes pineapple pizza." Right on cue, Bloo began a querulous moaning which eventually subsided into incoherent grumblings about Frankie never getting the pizza order right. As Mac exchanged a sympathetic look with her, the doorbell rang again.
Frankie pulled open the front door to reveal a large stack of pizza boxes that obscured much of the figure holding them. Chris, the pizza delivery boy, (who really was, by no means—other than his minimum-wage paying job—any longer a boy) was attempting to crane his neck around the boxes he was holding. In a brief two year period, Chris had gone from being a gawky, acne-covered sixteen-year-old to being a clear-faced, decent-looking, well-postured eighteen-year-old. Who still worked as a pizza delivery boy and was still equally as awkward as the day he'd first delivered pizza to Foster's. Mac had a feeling that Chris underwent this transformation in an attempt to woo a certain twenty-four-year-old, red-headed caregiver. Mac grew livid just thinking about it. However, Mac's anger quickly ebbed when he noticed the figure standing next to Chris.
It was a bipedal tiger.
The tiger was about the same height as Frankie. It looked pretty filthy and worn. It had a white belly and white paws and a white face. Elsewhere, it was striped with black and a shade of orange that was somewhere between deep saffron and pumpkin. Its large black nose twitched. It held its front paws—though they were probably more akin to hands than paws—clasped together contemplatively.
An imaginary friend, no doubt, though a rather convincing etching of a tiger—albeit a bit too fluffy and humanoid to be menacing.
After several moments of silence, Chris finally said, "My…er…boss found this guy going through the dumpster out back. Said the guy was looking for tuna fish. Scared the living daylights out of me—I mean…" he hastily corrected, "my boss…when he found him. Thought he was a real tiger." Chris laughed uncomfortably. "Nearly soiled his pants, my boss did," Chris added unnecessarily, shifting the large stack of pizza boxes in his hands. When no one said anything, Chris hastily added, "But then the tiger started talking so I figured I could just bring him here. 'Cause he's an imaginary friend. …Right?"
Frankie opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get a syllable out, Bloo interjected, "Cooool. A tiger." Frankie shot him a dirty look and opened her mouth to talk again, only to be cut off once more by Bloo. "Do you do tricks? How many people have you eaten? How'd you learn to stand? Can you jump through a ring of fire? What's it like to eat people? If you want to, you can demonstrate on my diminutive homo sapien friend here. I always wanted to meet a real tiger. Not that I haven't before, it's just—" "BLOO! This is not a real tiger," Frankie said, quashing Bloo's monologue, "This is an imaginary friend. Didn't you listen to anything Chris just said?" Bloo looked at her as if she'd just asked the most opaque question the world had ever known. "No," Bloo said, "Of course not. Why would I ever listen to anything what's-his-name-pizza-guy has to say?" Bloo gave a haughty, all-knowing sigh and said exasperatedly, "Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. Frankie. Frankie. Fuh-rain-kee. Fr—" "SHUT UP, BLOO!" Frankie, Mac, and Chris yelled simultaneously.
Finally, Frankie was afforded the opportunity to address the newcomer. "You can totally stay here if you'd like," she said kindly, in her matter-of-fact caregiver way. "We have food that doesn't come out of a dumpster. And electricity and running water. And 1,340 other Friends you can hang out with, give or take a few. And everything's completely free. You'd be totally welcome here." She smiled supportively.
The tiger seemed to contemplate this for a bit. Finally, in an earnest voice that expressed both politeness and a hint of peculiar impishness, he said, "Do you have any tuna fish?"
Frankie grinned at the tiger, paid Chris, and took the pizza boxes. "We sure do," she said. "Let's get you washed up before dinner. Then after you eat, you can go on the House tour. What's your name, buddy?"
The tiger flashed a winning smile. "Hobbes."
A/N: Thank you for reading. My apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors. I try.
Shall I continue? Please let me know. Reviews, as always, are welcomed and greatly appreciated. Particularly constructive criticism. Thanks a million.