Morning at camp was a bright and happy one. Calvin is walking down the halls, feeling completely happy, unaware of the "haunted" events that would soon take place...He suddenly felt eerie vibes as he ended up at a dead end of the hallway by a row of raquetball courts. But the court on the end was different from all of them. There were no kids in it, and the lights were out. Calvin suddenly thought he saw someone sitting against the wall. Hobbes. He cautiously entered to find his favorite tiger sitting in a corner, not moving or even blinking.

"Hobbes?" Calvin said softly. The animal did nothing. Calvin slowly walked over to him. Suddenly, the lights went out, and the door slammed shut. WIth only a tiny bit of light coming in from the hall, it was almost pitch-black. Calvin touched Hobbes, who suddenly came "alive" and sprung at him. Calvin was chased through the darkness, finally crashing painfully into the door. It opened and Calvin stumbles out. "So that's what a heart-attack feels like."

Hobbes, Jason, and Marcus started laughing. "Oh, this was all a prank at my expense?" Calvin glared. "Well, it's only funny when it doesn't happen to me! Hey, this actually gives me an idea..."

"What?" asked Jason.

"We turn this into a haunted house!" cried Calvin enthusiastically. "We charge kids to go in and get scared by us!"

"That won't work," said Marcus. "Who wants to pay good money to get scared by a bunch of guys?"

"Yes it will!" argued Calvin. "After all, amusement parks do it every day!"

Soon, the haunted house was open, and a line of kids formed, happy to see a non-Ed scam for a change. Calvin and a stuffed Hobbes sat outside and were talking money.

"Come on, kids!" Calvin called. "Step right up to the scariest haunted house in this entire state! Walk in alive, and pray you walk out the same way! And going in there is the only way to avoid my annoying voice!"

Jimmy went in first, surprisingly. As he entered, he tried to see anything...but it looked like a dim and empty court. The door shut behind him, leaving him in the darkness. A few seconds passed and nothing happened. But the second Jimmy took a step forward, Jason and Marcus rushed out and circled him. Jimmy screamed, surprised, and ran away, trying to avoid the pair of boys. He ran into a wall, and the others started stomping around, banging and making loud noises. Finally, Calvin opened the door and Jimmy ran out. "That was the scariest thing that ever happened to me!"

Hobbes rolled his eyes. "We scared Jimmy. Give us a prize. I say we give it the Kevin test."

Kevin walked in next, much tougher. Loud noises were heard from inside. Jason and Marcus ran out, screaming. Kevin calmly followed.

"What!" cried Calvin. "No one upstages them! I say we have Kevin flogged!"

"Is that even legal?" asked Hobbes.

Calvin thought for a second. "Well...hey, Kevin! How would you like a job here?"

Ed, Edd, and Eddy watched the kids pay Calvin from a nearby room. "He's making a scam?" cried Eddy. "ONLY I MAKE THE SCAMS!"

Edd tried to cool his friend down. "Eddy, Calvin has the right to make scams, too. It even looks like this one is working, unlike ours."

"Crypt doors creek!" agreed Ed.

Eddy wasn't happy. "Well, I'M GONNA OUT-SCAM CALVIN! LET'S SEE HOW HE LIKES THAT!"

"You really should stop yelling your sentences, Eddy," urged Edd. "Someone may overhear..."

"It's scam time." Eddy ran into a nearby racquetball court and got right to work, starting to building something.

"There he goes again," sighed Edd. "Why don't we ever try to stop him, Ed?"

"I do not know, Idaho!"

Soon, Eddy had his own haunted house, with a sign up that read "HauntEd Mansion."

Calvin glared at him a few courts over. "Hey...they're trying to run me out of business!"

"Yes," said Hobbes, "I heard him yelling about doing so."

"Well, he won't! We were here first, and we're gonna always have a better scam!"

The Eds started letting people in. Sally and Linus went in first.

Sally got close to Linus. "It looks scary in here. You''ll protect me, won't you, my sweet baboo?"

"I AM NOT YOUR SWEET BABOO!"

They walked in to find an elaborate Foyer that looked like the one in Disneyland and Disney World's Haunted Mansion. The Foyer suddenly fell over, revealing that it was only a cardboard cutout. What was behind was is a room full of pictures of the Eds and a few of Ed's action figures that resembled gargoyles. Eddy's voice rang out over an intercom. "Welcome, foolish mortals! To the HauntED Mansion! We've been dying to have you! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

"Please, Eddy," said Edd's voice, also over the intercom, "That line is as old as most ghosts. And you're no Paul Frees."

Ed's voice was heard next. "I heard an old lady died on this, guys!"

"Isn't this room supposed to stretch or something?" called Linus. The entire room fell down a long hole in the floor.

"I didn't know this room had a trapdoor," said Edd.

"It doesn't," replied Eddy.

Linus and Sally crawled out. A small vehicle rolled over. Eddy resumed his narration voice. "Bring yourselves into this...'Doom Buggy.'"

"That's a baby carriage!" yelled Sally. They struggled into it.

"I don't think there's enough room," said Linus.

Sally hugged Linus. "Well, we could sit in each other's laps..."

Linus pushed away. "I'm walking."

"Do not pull down on the safety bar, please," narrated Edd, as opposed to Eddy. "I will lower it for you." As the saying was repeated in a few other languages, the bar came down hard on Sally, practically strangling her. The Doom Buggy took off at lightning speed, with Linus rushing after it. After passing a few cardboard chairs and various hand-drawn portraits created by Ed, they went down a long hallway with a Suit of Armor at the end. They passed the Armor, which did nothing. As the Buggy passed, Eddy rushed over to the Armor.

"Hey!" he yelled at it. "You were supposed to scare them!"

The Armor fell over. "I can't move!" Edd said from inside.

The Doom Buggy then entered a Seance Room, with a crystal ball with Ed's face in it.

Eddy's voice returned over the intercom. "This is Madame LeotEd. He..."

"She," Edd corrected, also on the intercom.

"Right, she. She has a remarkable head for mat...mater..."

"Materializing," Edd corrected again.

Eddy continued to struggle with the script. "...materializing the dis...disen...disen...can't you write normal words?"

"It's disembodied!" yelled Edd. "And I'm adding class to our attraction! People like class!"

"Polly wolly doodle!" Ed said from inside the crystal ball.

The Doom Buggy then entered a ballroom, where Ed and Eddy, covered in flour, were dancing. Edd sat at an organ, playing the "88 Fingers Edd" song from "Avast Ye Eds."

"How romantic," Sally sighed dreamily.

Linus covered his face. "I wish I was dead."

"Hey, you'd fit in!" called Eddy.

The Doom Buggy enters the Attic, where an annoyed Edd stood dressed as a ghost Bride.

"I don't get it," said Linus.

They were now in a cemetery. The Eds were scrambling about, trying to play all of the ghosts at once. They are were trying to sing "Grim, Grinning Ghosts."

Eds: When the crypt doors creak

And the tombstones quakes

Spooks come out for a swing wake!

The Eds ended up tripping over each other, and stumbled out dressed as the hitchhiking ghosts. The ride, at this point, was nearing the end. The Doom Buggy stopped.

"I didn't realize the racquetball courts were this big," remarked Linus.

"They're not," said Eddy. "We had to make a few holes leading into other ones."

Edd looked up in shock. "Wait...a few holes? Eddy, do you realize that might..."

Suddenly, the entire court collapsed on the kids. They all stumbled out, in full view of everyone in line for Calvin's haunted house.

"How was it?" Calvin smiled innocently.

"I'd rather not say..." coughed Linus.

"Tell everyone you know!" Eddy called weakly.

Eds: So hurry back

We would like your company!

Dejected, Eddy walked back to the main camp room and sat down on the couches. "He's ruined me! No one will care about my scams anymore!...unless I manage to get control of HIS haunted house AND RUN IT INTO THE GROUND!...wow, I do yell a lot."

A few hours later, the kids were all walking to the pool. Calvin was in the bathroom (that would later become Eddy's), unaware that the kids were leaving. Eddy peeked in. "This is gonna be easy!"

As Calvin washed his hands, Eddy dropped a note in. It said "Dear Calvin, we're going to the woods instead of the pool. Look for us there." Eddy ran away without being seen.

Calvin read the not. "The woods? I can find that...I guess."

"He's gonna get lost in those woods!" Eddy thought to himself. "By the time he gets to the actual pool, we'll be back here, and I'LL HAVE HIS SCAM AND TAKE ALL HIS MONEY!...wow, I even shout in my thoughts."

A few minutes later, Calvin was walking towards the woods. Hobbes watched from the group of kids in the distance. "Is there any reason Calvin's walking in the direction of the woods?"

"I don't know..." said Jason, "but it's easy to get lost in the woods. I say we go find him."

"How?" said Marucs. "I didn't see which way he went in there."

"To the Foxmobile!" cried Jason.

Jason, Marcus, and Hobbes were soon in a small flying car whizzing over the woods.

Hobbes was wide-eyed. "Wow. This is...wow."

Marcus was happy that the machine was working. "It's just like the 'Jetsons!' But we're not ripping off the 'Flintstones,' who are sort of rip-offs of the 'Honeymooners!'"

Hobbes spotted a kid walking through the woods. "There's Calvin!" Calvin was walking across a log. "Hey, guys!" he called. "I heard you were gonna be here!"

"What?" said Jason. "We're going to the pool, like every day!"

"But I got a note that said we were going to the woods!" said Calvin.

"Was it anonymous?" asked Marcus.

"Yeah...hey, I've been tricked! No one tricks Calvin!"

"Bowser tricked you into thinking that I was dead," reminded Hobbes.

"Well..."

"And we trick you all the time," said Jason.

"When?"

Jason paused. "Uh...We'll talk about that later! Now, let's fly over to the pool and figure out who's behind this all!"

They started flying. Suddenly, the car started shaking. "What's that?" Calvin asked nervously.

Jason tried to stay calm. "Well, this is one of the first non-government flying cars, so there are bound to be a few problems..."

"Like what?" asked Hobbes.

"Too complicated to explain," said Jason.

Marcus rolled his eyes. "We're out of gas."

Jason looked offended. "Well, you could explain it the easy way, but in truth, there's a very complex reason of WHY we're running out of gas."

"You didn't put in enough."

"Thanks a lot, Marcus. Well, now we're gonna all crash and burn unless we can find a safe landing."

They all screamed, but noticed that they were falling towards the pool building. Thinking fast, Jason steered them in, and they crashed through the huge glass window and land in the indoor pool, almost hitting several kids. Jason smiled. "Wow...what a splash." The car slowly sank into the pool.

A few minutes later, the car was dried off and everyone was again splashing in the pool. Down in the water, Aqua Calvin and Aqua Hobbes steered their submarine around, looking for clues. "Aqua Hobbes, do you realize that I could have died in that crash?"

"Um...I could have died, too."

"I matter more," said Calvin. "Whoever sent me into the woods was either playing a prank or they really have it in for me. I bet it's the pool villain!"

"Moe?"

Calvin was surprised. "The villain was Moe? I was sure it was Wario."

Hobbes shook his head. "No, it was Moe."

"Oh. Wario would have been a lot of fun."

"Yep."

Aqua Calvin looked through his periscope and saw a paper that said "Calvin's a jerk!" in an open storage closet. "Hey! That paper says 'Calvin's a jerk!'"

"What a smart piece of paper," said Hobbes.

"It must be the same guy who sent me into the woods!" Calvin launched himself out of his sub and popped right out of the pool. He ran into the closet and picked up the piece of paper. The then recalled what Hobbes had said. "'What a smart piece of paper...' HEY!"

The door slammed shut. Calvin tried to open it, but it didn't work. He was locked in. "Hey! HEY! I'm in here!"

The sounds of people outside started to fade away, as the kids walked into the locker rooms. "Darn! They're leaving! Wait...I'm stuck in here! It was that guy again! He knew that I would go for the paper! AND I'M NOT A JERK!"

A different door opened behind Calvin. He walked out to find Jason in the locker room. "We heard you in there!" explained Jason. "Good thing this storage room has two doors!"

"The guy who got me lost in woods locked me in there!" cried Calvin.

"Whoever's doing it wants you out of the way or something," said Jason. "I wonder who it is."

"Maybe it's those Koopas," said Hobbes. "Or the Kankers. Or Moe."

"No, that's not it," said Marcus. "The Kankers don't appear to be after you at the moment, Moe would be targeting everyone, and The Koopas would try to actually kill you, not just make sure you couldn't get back to camp."

The last words Marcus had said stuck with Calvin. "'Not just make sure you couldn't get back to camp...' That's it! Whoever's after me doesn't want me to go back to camp! But that means if I actually DO get back to camp, they'll really have it in for me! Everyone watch my back! Seriously...I think I got a sunburn or something..."

Eddy peeked out at them from a locker and slammed it shut. Inside, he had a tiny fortress, full of papers describing scams and ways to get Calvin. He picked up a walkie-talkie. "Ed! Ed! Come in Ed!"

Ed sat next to him in his locker fortress, which looked a lot like his basement. "My name is Ed!"

"I know. Now, look! Calvin's escaped thanks to his stupid friends. They're starting to catch onto me, so we've got to get rid of him and get his scam money right when we get back to camp!"

"Can you feel the hate tonight?"

Eddy ignored him. "Be ready when we get back. CALVIN'S GOING DOWN! Over and out!"

"This concludes out broadcast! Tune in next week!"

The kids were soon back at camp. Calvin was eating something at a table with his friends. They were all finishing.

"I'm done," said Hobbes.

"Me too," said Jason.

"Yeah, I say we open up our haunted house," suggested Marcus.

"You get things ready," said Calvin. "I'll be with you in a second." The others left. Once they were all gone, Ed walked over and literally plopped himself in front of Calvin. Eddy stood behind him, holding cue cards.

Ed read the card out loud. "'Sit down and say, 'hello, Calvin!'"

Calvin stared. "Uh...hello."

Ed continued to read. "'Ask him how he is.'"

Eddy pulled out a card that said "how are you?" "Oh, I'm fine, Eddy!" called Ed.

Calvin looked confused. "Ed, this is just like that episode of your show where Johnny got rid of Plank, and you opened that friend store...wait, 'episode?' 'Show?' What am I talking about?"

Ed read Eddy's last card. "'Grab Calvin and throw him in a racquetball court.' The cards have spoken!"

"Ed, I'm not sure..." Calvin was cut off when Ed grabbed him and did what the card said. Calvin found himself thrown against the white wall of the large empty court. Eddy stepped in. "Well, Calvin! You were better off lost in the woods!"

Calvin jumped up. "Eddy! You're behind this! I could have been killed in the rocket car!"

Eddy shrugged innocently. "It's not like I asked your friends to come and save you! You'd be happier lost than trapped in here!"

"Why? What are you doing?"

"Since there's nothing you can do, I'll tell you! I'm gonna lock you in here, destroy your scam, and steal all your money! And since these courts have small windows on the doors, it will all be in your full view! Best of all, by the time someone hears you in here, I'll be long gone! You're hopeless! Lock the door, Ed!"

Ed locks the door, but Eddy hadn't left yet. "Not with me still in here! Now I'm stuck!"

"Good!" snapped Calvin. "And once I'm out of here, I'm telling everyone about your stupid plot!"

"No way! We're still trapped in here, and I can do anything I want to you! YOU'RE DEAD, CALVIN!" Eddy ran at Calvin when the lights went out. "Did you do that?"

Calvin was just as surprised. "No..."

"Ed?" Eddy called weakly. Thumping noises surrounded them. Suddenly, ghostlike figures appeared on the walls. Eddy fell to his knees. "THESE COURTS REALLY ARE HAUNTED!" They both screamed.

The lights came back on, and Jason, Marcus, and Hobbes walked in.

Eddy looked up. "What just happened?"

"You've been tricked!" smiled Hobbes.

"We heard you in the locker room, ranting about getting Calvin!" explained Jason.

"We had to test some sound effects and projections, so we used you as a test subject!" said Marucs. "I guess they worked!"

Eddy stared wide-eyed. "You all knew it was me?"

Calvin looked embarrassed. "Yeah...all of us..."

"Give it up, Eddy!" said Jason. "No matter what you do to Calvin, we're not letting you near our haunted house!"

Eddy stomped away. "Fine...you got me..."

"Well, that was annoying," said Calvin.

"Yes, but now we can continue with our scam," said Hobbes. "The day isn't over yet."

"Hey, how about we make it a ride through?" suggested Marcus. "Like we have things you can ride in and make it a dark ride!"

"What?" said Calvin. "But that won't work! The Eds tried that!"

"Well, we'd do it right!" argued Marcus.

"No," said Hobbes, "if we did that we'd have to get chickenwire, because all great pretzel rides have that!"

"Pretzel?" yelled Calvin. "Where did THAT come from!"

They all continued to argue when the Kankers walked over. "We want a job here," said Lee.

"Sure!" cried Calvin, without thinking. "Take it!"

Jason had an idea. "Hey, I know...we could make it a pirate ride!"

They kept arguing, as screams were heard from the haunted house. A few angry kids stomped out.

"Do you know what those insane sisters just did to me!" exclaimed Charlie Brown.

Calvin looked nervous. "I'm afraid to ask..."

"I'll put an end to this!" Snoopy ran into the court. A huge explosion was heard seconds later. The kids ran over to find that Snoopy had made a cave-in with his explosion. "Not bad."

"Our money was in there!" cried Calvin.

"And so ends our scam," said Hobbes. Snoopy calmly left.

Eddy watched from a distance. "Ha! I had the Kankers work there! I knew they'd be the downfall of Calvin!"

Ed walked over. Calvin stood far away with cue cards, as Eddy was before.

Ed read the cards. "'Take Eddy into a raquetball court and lock him in with the Kankers...' I will obey!"

"Ed?" Ed grabbed Eddy and ran away.

"You know," said Calvin, "if they didn't get so...'violent' with the guys in there, the Kankers would have been good workers. They're the scariest things at camp, after all!"


This is one of my favorite stories, based on something I did once when I was younger (it came crashing down in a similar way). This story is also notable for several reasons: It's Sally's only speaking appearence so far, Aqua Calvin returns, we see Eddy's bathroom for the first time (although it's clean here) and this is the sort of first appearence of the Hitchhiking Ghosts in my fics. It's also the first time Eddy is the villain.