FIFTY-SIX YEARS LATER…

Calvin and Hobbes were sitting on the shoreline of the island.

The tents had grown worn and had holes in them. An ancient fireplace sat in the middle of the clearing, a line of gray smoke rising into the air. A couple of fishing rods had their lines drawn and bobbed up and down in the water.

Calvin and Hobbes were now a lot more rugged-looking. They both had long gray beards. Calvin's clothes were torn and he was barefoot in the sand. Hobbes' fur was rangier. They had heavy bags under their eyes.

"Hobbes?" Calvin croaked.

"…Yeah?"

"…My butt's falling asleep."

"Mine too."

"Huh. Look. There goes the canoe again."

"Yup."

"You'd think it'd have been seen by now."

"You'd think someone would have missed us by now."

They looked over at the futuristic city that had been built around the island.

"I wonder if they finally got around to that Smell-O-Vision we heard so much about," Calvin sighed.

"Probably not," Hobbes said. "Just because Apple was able to chuck out iPods, iTunes and iPhones so quickly don't mean anything."

"iPhones just seemed frustrating to me, anyway."

They paused.

Then one of the fishing lines moved.

"Oop! We got something!" said Calvin, getting up.

They both ran over and reeled in the catch, revealing it to only be a tire.

"Wow," said Calvin. "A Michelin Radial."

"Nice," said Hobbes. "We haven't eaten Mexican for a few weeks now."

"That's what we're calling it now? Mexican?"

Then they heard a noise behind them.

"Uh-oh," said Hobbes. "Looks like the Creatures are back."

"Quick! Run!"

"Calvin, they hunt by scent!"

"Then get out of their reach! Into the trees! HURRY!"

They quickly started to run towards a tree, only to come face to face with the Creatures.

Mom and Dad stumbled out of the jungle, beaten, weary and sweaty.

"Hey, Calvin!" Dad said, half-crazed. "Isn't this great how we're building character out here in the wilderness? HA, HA, HA!"

Calvin stared at them for a long time.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!" he screeched.

Calvin looked around and found himself back in the tent. He immediately checked his face. It was hairless. He checked Hobbes.

Hobbes was still snoring away in his sleeping bag.

Calvin moaned.

"I'm going to die…," he sighed, collapsing back into his pillow.

The next morning, Dad was up bright and early, and he was looking out over the lake.

"Ah, what a great morning!" he said cheerfully. "The birds, the mist, the lake, the—"

Calvin suddenly left his tent. He looked bleary-eyed, and his hair was a mess.

"…the wildlife," Dad finished, looking at this son. "Sleep well, Calvin?"

"You try sleeping in the tent with a rock under it, and then we'll talk," Calvin snapped.

"Uh-huh. So, you want to try some fishing?"

Calvin glared at him.

"Dad, how can you think of fishing when we're in a life and death situation?!"

"Calvin, you should appreciate the time we have here! Look at this! Out amongst the wild, living on the ground, cooking our food over a fire…"

"Getting bug bites, having diarrhea with no place to put it…," Calvin added.

"Oh stop it," Dad grumbled, tossing him a fishing rod.

Calvin grumbled and picked it up.

"Okay, Calvin, I'm going to teach you how to cast!"

"I hope you mean hiring actors to replace us here on this island."

Dad ignored him.

"We're going to use these new fishing rods I bought for the trip!" he said.

"Money that could've been used to buy us a better trip, I'd imagine," Calvin snorted.

"Okay, what you want to do is flip back your winder, keep your thumb on the line, cast forward with a firm flowing motion, release your thumb, and let her go!" he said, going through the motions and getting his line in the water.

Calvin stared at him, and then tried to do it with his own pole.

"Okay, I think I got it," he said, going through the motions. "I flip back the winder, keep my thumb on the line, cast forward with a firm flowing motion, release my thumb and let her go."

When he "let her go", the fishing rod slid out of Calvin's hands and flew over the lake and landed in the water.

SPLOOSH!

Calvin and Dad stared at the rod floating in the lake.

Dad looked down and glared at Calvin.

"Can I go back to bed now?" Calvin asked, clearly more annoyed than his father.

Dad rolled his eyes.

Later that afternoon, everyone was gathered around the campsite, sitting on logs.

Everyone was holding a can and was eating out of it.

They were all labeled SPAM.

"Anyone here mind telling me why we have this every time we go camping?" he demanded.

"It's nutritious and filling," said Dad.

"Then why do I always feel like throwing up after I've eaten a can?"

Calvin finally slammed the half-full can on the ground and stomped back into the woods.

"HOBBES?!" he shouted. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

There was no reply.

Calvin failed to notice a pair of yellow eyes behind him.

"HOBBES, YOU GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW! I'M BORED AND DEMAND COMPANIONSHIP!!"

There was still no reply.

Calvin looked around.

There was a rustling in the bushes.

Calvin whipped around in surprise and felt a cold shiver go up his spine.

"He…hello…?" he asked nervously.

No one replied.

Calvin moved cautiously forward into the woods. He didn't notice how the bushes shifted slightly as he moved on.

Finally, Calvin reached a small clearing.

SNAP!

He whipped around at the sound of twig snapping.

"…Hobbes…?" he croaked.

"ROAR!!"

WHAM!

Calvin was attacked from behind by Hobbes.

"AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHH!!" Calvin screamed.

They wrestled and toppled and rolled through the woods, crashing into trees and pushing through bushes.

Finally, they came to a stop in the middle of a small clearing.

Hobbes got off of him.

"Oh, sorry," he said, dusting himself off. "I thought you were a small woodchuck."

"YOU KNEW DARN WELL IT WAS ME!!" Calvin roared.

Hobbes laughed and chuckled as he immediately turned around and high-tailed it through the woods. Calvin growled and snarled and promptly chased after him.

They ran through the brush, pushing aside bushes and low branches as they chased each other around, until finally, Hobbes started climbing up a tree at immaculate speed.

Calvin stood at the base of the tree, glaring up at him.

"GET DOWN FROM THERE!" he shouted.

"What's the password?" Hobbes asked sweetly.

Calvin stared at him.

"THIS ISN'T THE TREEHOUSE! GET DOWN HERE!"

"Say the password, and I'll consider it."

Calvin growled angrily.

"Tigers are wonderful. Tigers are swift. Tigers can give your spirits a lift. Tigers are smooth. Tigers are cool. Tigers most definitely have the way to rule. Tigers are tough. Tigers are strong. Tigers were portrayed by Disney quite wrong."

There was a pause.

"Well? Are you coming down or not?!" Calvin demanded.

"I lied. I'm not coming down."

"YOU MADE ME SAY THE PASSWORD! NOW GET DOWN HERE!"

"I just wanted to see if you could remember it!" said Hobbes.

Calvin finally snapped.

"FINE!! IF YOU WON'T COME DOWN, I'LL JUST COME UP!!"

Calvin immediately started shimmying up the tree.

Hobbes watched with much amusement.

Finally, Calvin made his way to the top.

"HA!" he said triumphantly. "I've foiled your little plan! What do say to that?!"

Hobbes responded by jumping from the branch of that tree onto the branch of another tree.

Calvin stared at him with his mouth agape. Then he growled.

"So that's how you wanna play it, huh?" he grunted.

Hobbes merely smiled sweetly.

Calvin backed up a ways on his own branch. Then he charged forward and jumped off the end of it towards Hobbes.

"HA-HA!" he whooped as flew.

He missed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!"

Hobbes caught him by the seat of his pants with one claw and pulled him back onto the branch.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaahhh…," Calvin said, looking around.

There was a pause.

"You think you're so darn clever," Calvin grumbled.

Hobbes merely nodded.

They looked out across the forest.

"It's like one of those paintings on TV," Calvin commented.

"Yeah," said Hobbes. "It's big."

"Yeah… Really big."

"There just doesn't isn't a single word that can describe the vastness of the world…or the universe for that matter."

Calvin thought for a moment.

"Hugeoppotamousness," he said.

"That's not a word."

"Exactly."

They watched as the sun started to go down.

"Where does the sun go when it sets?" Calvin asked.

"Backstage for a massage and a nightcap," Hobbes replied.

Calvin smirked.

"Yeah, he earned it."

Mom and Dad were sitting on the beach.

Mom was struggling to eat her spam, while Dad was still trying to use the fishing rod to catch dinner.

Calvin finally showed up with Hobbes draped over his shoulder.

"So, how is everyone?" he asked.

Dad grunted and Mom merely clutched her stomach.

"You okay?" Calvin asked.

Mom held up the spam can to his face, holding her mouth shut.

"Ah."

"URP!" she belched and she ran off, dropping the can.

Calvin rolled his eyes and walked over to Dad.

"How goes it, Gilligan?" he asked sarcastically.

Dad glared.

"I liked that show," he snorted.

Calvin rolled his eyes.

"How goes the water-based life form catching?" he continued.

"Fine," Dad said stubbornly. "Sure, I've been sitting here for nearly three and a half hours, but I'm sure the fish will bite at some point!"

Calvin rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Hobbes and I are going to bed early."

He headed for the tent.

Dad grumbled and sat there, his butt planted firmly in the sand.

Calvin and Hobbes entered the tent and sat down on the sleeping bags.

"So this is where it ends?" Hobbes asked. "Not in giant heroic alien invasion, but on a rock in the middle of a lake?"

"Sadly," Calvin replied. "You have to appreciate the bitter irony of it all. After all the evils we've faced, what does us in is starvation on an island."

"We can't stay here forever!" Hobbes complained. "What if Red Dwarf: the Movie comes out while we're trapped here?!"

"Pfft! As if," Calvin snorted, rolling his eyes. "I'm more concerned about our house being robbed while we're gone and someone makes off with my entire room!"

"Yes, after all, every crook in the world would want to make off with your entire supply of comic books," Hobbes sighed, rolling his eyes. "How are we for food?"

Calvin picked up a list he'd made the day before.

"Let's see…," he said, squinting at his own bad handwriting. "We've got half a bag of chips, a can of mustard, a browning lemon, three stale biscuits, two bottles of milk a day after their expiration dates, and a tube of gum ointment."

Hobbes looked up.

"Gum ointment?!" he asked, looking thoroughly disgusted.

"Dad had it in the first-aid kit. I tried some. It's minty. Pretty good stuff."

Hobbes grimaced.

"Anything else?"

"Just three more cans of spam…," Calvin said. Then he looked up. "Oh, and I found a can of dog food in the bottom of the bag, for some reason."

Hobbes hissed his misery through gritted teeth.

"Well, it's obvious what'll get eaten last, isn't it?" he sighed after a pause. "I can't stand spam! I just hope your dad catches something."

"Don't worry," Calvin replied. "I've got tire on the list with a question mark next to it."

Hobbes sighed again.

It seemed like a good day to sigh.

That night, Calvin and Hobbes slept in the sleeping bags.

Calvin slept more soundly tonight, but Hobbes was twitching in his sleep.

"…Zzzzzz…SNRK…zzzz…GGRRRROWL…"

Calvin woke up with start.

"Huh?! Wha…?" he asked.

Then he noticed Hobbes. The tiger was writhing in his sleeping bag.

"RRRRR…ZZZ—ROAR!—…zzz…"

Calvin was getting scared. He checked his watch with a flashlight.

" 3:49 AM," he muttered.

He tried to wake Hobbes by shining the light in his face.

Hobbes' eyes squinted, but he stayed asleep.

"GGGRRRROOOOWLL! MMRRREEEEOOOWW!"

Calvin jumped back in surprise.

"Hobbes, wake up! You're dreaming again!"

Hobbes suddenly growled and swiped at the air and tossed in his sleep.

Fearing for his life, Calvin unzipped the tent and fled from it in terror. He watched from a safe distance as Hobbes continued to toss and turn.

Sighing, Calvin decided to just sleep in the sand that night.

"Just my luck I get the one roommate who treats sleep like his mortal enemy that he must do battle with every night," he muttered, and he snuggled up on the beach.

The next morning, Calvin was up early enough that he could get back into the tent before Dad exited his.

Dad immediately went to his fishing rod, and resumed the position of the previous day. He was sitting cross-legged with his trademark fishing hat and fishing vest on his person, and a tackle box to his left. He still looked bleary-eyed, but he also looked determined, with just a dash of craziness.

He sat there for the good part of four hours before the rest of the family finally woke up.

Mom pulled out a canteen with their ever-precious supply of clean tap water. They'd have this until they were forced to take drastic measures and actually use water from the lake.

Calvin had changed back into his natural attire and was wandering over towards her. She handed him the water, letting him take a gulp from it.

Hobbes also exited the tent, and he simply sat outside it at the entrance. He sat there, looking like he hadn't eaten in years, when in fact it had only been twelve hours, and that's only because he'd slept straight through the night.

The entire family looked like the "before" part of a "before / after" picture. Or maybe they were the "after". It would depend what they were advertising.

They all sat on the beach in perfect silence before they noticed something odd had happened. It wasn't one of those things you'd notice right away, so it was perfectly understandable that they didn't notice the minute it happened. To their credit, in fact, it wasn't until six minutes after it happened that they realized it.

Dad had tipped over and fallen asleep.

Naturally, no one went to check on him. After all, it was his fault this happened, so they just went on with what they were doing.

Finally, though, Calvin grew curious, and he went over to see to his exhausted father. He gently removed the fishing rod from the poor man's hands and took it aside, and promptly began to reel it in.

The minute he was done, however, he saw something not too far away.

It was the canoe, which had by drifted around in the island in a complete circle.

"How far away do you think it is?" Hobbes asked, walking beside him.

"Probably a quarter of a mile," Calvin sighed.

Then he had an idea.

He immediately ran back to the tents and looked through Dad's duffel bag. He dug through the cans of spam and whatnot, and finally found what he desired. It was a piece of paper containing information about the fishing rod.

"I knew it!" he said. "Dad said it was a new fishing rod, so it only stands to reason that this would be here!"

"What do you need from it?" Hobbes asked.

"Found it! It says the rod has 1320 feet of fishing line! That's a quarter of a mile, isn't it?"

"So?"

Calvin didn't answer. He was running his brain full pelt. He checked their surroundings and then he saw the next item on his mental list.

It was a tree that was stretched out into the air. He figured it was the tallest one on the shoreline.

"Okay!" he said. "Grab the rod and follow me!"

Calvin promptly ran towards the tree.

Hobbes looked confused, but complied with the request.

Running as fast as they could, Calvin immediately started climbing tree. Hobbes climbed up right behind him.

Soon, they had reached the top.

"Whoa," said Hobbes. "I think I can see our house from here! And look! The mail is just piling!"

Calvin glared at him.

"Are you quite finished being lame?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now hold my waist."

Hobbes held onto the tree with one set of claws, and then he held onto Calvin with his paw.

Calvin then proceeded to aim the rod.

"Okay…," he muttered, squinting his eyes. "How did Dad say to do it…?"

He went through the motions.

"I flip back the winder, keep my thumb on the line, cast forward with a firm flowing motion, release the thumb, and let her go!" he said.

This time, however, the rod stayed in his hand, and the line went flying through the air and sailed straight towards his target.

Calvin and Hobbes held their breath as it flew through the air and into the canoe.

It landed inside it.

Calvin closed his eyes tight and proceeded to reel it back.

The hook latched onto the tip of the canoe and began to bring it back with it.

"It…It worked!" Hobbes gasped, looking shocked.

Calvin cautiously opened one eye, and he stared out at the lake.

Slowly but surely, he was reeling the boat back to the shore.

"YES!" Calvin cheered.

As he continued to reel it back towards them, Hobbes helped him to proceed in climbing down the tree.

"It's coming! We're saved!" Calvin cried.

Then there was trouble.

Not to long after they touched ground below the tree, the canoe became jammed on something, and Calvin couldn't get it to come any closer.

"WHAT?! NO!" Calvin shrieked, running forward with the rod.

Dad woke up with a start, and Mom stuck her head out of the tent.

"What's going on?" Mom asked.

"THE BOAT'S STUCK! I CAN'T GET IT TO COME!"

They all looked and saw the fishing line stuck in the boat's nose, and it was clearly wedged on something.

Mom sighed.

"Well, it was a good try," she said, patting him on the back.

Dad grumbled.

"Yeah, and now we don't have a fishing rod to catch dinner," he snorted.

Calvin panicked for a good thirty seconds before he remembered something. Handing the fishing rod to Mom, he whipped around and kicked his way through some bushes and charged back through the brush.

"Calvin?!" Mom asked.

Calvin didn't listen. He pushed and shoved, clawing his way through the wilderness of the dismal island. He had come so far, and he wasn't going to turn back now.

Finally, he reached his destination. He'd found the creek on the slope. At the bottom, just where he'd left it, was the tree bark he'd used to slide down the slope. Running around the creek, he was able to scoop it up and run back the way he came.

When he returned with it, he ignored protests from Hobbes, Mom and Dad, and dove back into the tent, returning minutes later with the great stick he and Hobbes had found.

Placing the bark under his stomach and the stick at his side, Calvin ran forward and dove onto the lake, using the bark slab as a boogie board. He then used the stick as a paddle, and he paddled his way towards the canoe.

"CALVIN, BE CAREFUL!" Mom shouted.

"YOU CAN DO IT!" Hobbes called.

"DON'T LOSE THE FISHING ROD!" Dad added.

Mom and Hobbes glared at him.

Calvin kept paddling and paddling. It was slow going. In fact, it was fifteen minutes later before he was even halfway there.

At one point, he looked up at the sky.

"Whatever you do," he said to the clouds, "don't be ironical. If you didn't want me to succeed, you should've made me miss when I cast that line. It's too late now."

He continued paddling despite the strain. It was a long morning as he kept going.

Soon, about ten minutes before noon, he reached canoe.

Gasping with relief, he unhooked it from the fishing rod, but he didn't let it go. He hooked it to his belt loop.

Then he proceeded to get the canoe off the rock. It took fifteen more minutes to shift it, but he finally got it around the rock. Then as an extra precaution, he took the stick and jammed it into the rock to mark the spot so it wouldn't happen again.

Then he left behind the bark and climbed into the canoe. He was exhausted, but he still had a job to do. He saw that Mom was still holding the fishing rod. He gave the hook he was holding a tug, and he was promptly being towed back to the shore. Satisfied, he collapsed from the exhaustion of using up his entire morning to get a boat back.

About fifteen minutes later, Mom and Dad had finally reeled Calvin back to the shoreline.

Tired but triumphant, Calvin climbed out and onto the beach, and made sure they pushed the canoe safely onto the shore.

Mom immediately hugged him.

"Oh, sweetie, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!" she gasped.

"Sure thing, Mom," Calvin said, gasping for air. "Can we go home now?"

"What?!" Dad protested. "But we haven't stayed for the full week yet!"

He was met by two homicidal glares.

"I'll start packing!" Dad said, rushing away.

Mom went to join him.

Hobbes approached Calvin.

"Nice job out there," he said.

"Uh-huh," said Calvin, still gasping.

"…Are you okay?" Hobbes asked.

"Hobbes…?"

"Yeah?"

"Which arm is it that starts hurting at the first sign of a heart attack?"

"Why?"

"Time's a factor here, Hobbes!"

Soon, they were all paddling their way back to shore.

They went past the stick Calvin had plugged into the rock.

Calvin reached out and grabbed it.

"What do you want that for?" Dad asked.

Calvin stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Dad, it's a stick! You don't just ditch a stick!" he said indignantly.

Dad rolled his eyes.

A few minutes later, they were getting in the car.

But Mom got in the driver's seat.

"Dear, what are you doing?" Dad asked.

"We're going to go somewhere I want to go on the way," she said, looking slightly crazed.

"Where?"

"Just get in the car."

"But dear—"

"GET IN THE CAR!!" everyone shouted.

Dad immediately got in the passenger's seat.

Mom shifted the car into reverse and drove them away from the deathtrap that is an island.

About an hour later, the four of them were seated in a booth at a restaurant.

Dirty dishes were piled on their table, and Mom, Calvin and Hobbes were eating the only real food they had eaten in days.

Mom had already eaten until her stomach swelled up so large her buttons popped off, and she was showing no signs of stopping.

"Uh, dear…?" Dad asked meekly. "How much is this going to cost us?"

"It doesn't matter," Mom replied, eating a chicken leg and clutching her stomach. "This is your way of saying you're sorry."

"It is?" Dad asked nervously.

"Yes, and we're thinking about accepting your apology."

"I see."

Calvin and Hobbes were eating pie and drinking soda side-by-side.

"If you ask my opinion…," Calvin said between bites of his chocolate pie, "…it would've been cheaper to make me a child star."

"Indeed," Hobbes agreed. "Now enough chit-chat and pass the lemonade pitcher."

Calvin handed him the pitcher of lemonade, and Hobbes immediately began to chug it.

The End

Voice Work:

Pamela Segall Adlon: Calvin / Spaceman Spiff
Tom Hanks: Hobbes
Jennifer Love Hewitt: Mom
Bill Murray: Dad

Coming Up Next: Dad