Calvin and Hobbes: The Faint Dying Light Chapter 2: The Faint Dying Light, a calvin & hobbes fanfic

Calvin and Hobbes

The Faint Dying Light…

Calvin and his father woke up at five am the next morning. It was just before dawn when they made their way into a small wooden canoe to paddle out into the lake to watch as the Sun rose over the horizon.

There were fish in the lake; lovely, fat, trout that sometimes hopped out of the water not all that far from where father and son sat together in silence. At times, one of them would feel a slight tug on his line—but for half an hour, neither of them managed to get a bite.

And then, Calvin caught a fish—a nice, big fish that would be enough for the family to share. His father took a picture of him with it, and told Calvin to smile, but no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't.

His father hadn't liked that.

Harsh words had been said. Insults had been hurled like javelins. All were one sided.

Calvin didn't say a word in his defense—he never had, neither at home or at school, not for the past ten or so years. He wasn't trained to do it; he was trained to be obedient, to follow the authority in charge no matter what they said or told him to do. It didn't matter if it was his father yelling at him or a teacher, he simply did not talk back, period.

He didn't blink, either. And that unsettling fact was what made his father stop yelling, in the end, as they made their way back to shore.

Calvin's mother spent the day writing a novel she'd begun some months before. His father painted.

Calvin, on the other hand, walked for hours and hours through the forest, perfectly silent and perfectly alone. He didn't return for lunch or dinner, and when he finally got back, his father was there to greet him…

With a slap to the face that knocked him to the ground.

Calvin had nothing to eat that night—nothing but the pills he always ended evenings with, and the cuprous taste of blood in his mouth.

Calvin's father woke him up just before dawn the next morning as well, and again, they went fishing. This time, however, even the few meager words Calvin had said the previous morning were missing; he didn't speak apart for more than one or two monosyllables and he didn't raise his eyes to his father's once. He simply got up, dressed, got into the boat, and that was all.

The fishing that day was a bit worse than it had been before; about forty minutes passed before Calvin's father got a bite, and the fish he caught was just barely big enough for two people. There was nothing to do but to keep fishing, though, and to hope that their luck would change soon.

Eventually, Calvin's father apologized for hitting his son the night before. He apologized—he said sorry, and then, immediately afterwards, he said that hitting Calvin had been a lot more painful for him, and how it would serve to build character so it was a net positive in the end anyway.

Calvin accepted the apology without reservation. His father hugged him after that, but it was like hugging a somewhat warm, lanky doll that simply looked like a person.

The family spent that day hiking from before noon until well after dusk. They covered perhaps twenty miles of the most isolated forests in the state, and when they came back, they ate dinner and slept, and that was all.

Calvin took his pills, though. He'd always taken his pills, ever since the first, last, and only day he'd forgotten to, when his punishment for doing so had been to stand outside in the snow for an hour with nothing but underwear on.

They slept in the next day, and rather than going fishing, Calvin and his father decided to rely on some packaged food to prepare breakfast. Spam wasn't exactly high cuisine, but it was savory and salty and tasty in a pinch, and with some black pepper and hash browns, it certainly wasn't bad at all.

They hung around camp until noon, and after that, Calvin's father spent some time swimming. Calvin and his mother, on the other hand, just sat on the shore and relaxed.

She wrote, on and off, and sometimes, she tried to talk to her son. It wasn't that she enjoyed talking to him, or rather, trying to—she never had—but he was, after all, her son. So, although he was antisocial and silent, well, the alternative was that his personality would preclude him from being a presence that was even tolerable. So, she let him be and focused on her writing.

At times, she wondered what went on in his head. He didn't talk to her or his father, or any of the adults at school, she knew, but he surely had one or two friends, though he claimed to barely have any acquaintances. There had to be a few people who he talked to, at least from time to time, who knew him on an level deeper than the shallow, placid surface he showed to the rest of the world.

After all, there had to be some depth to him—right?

Calvin's mother shivered uncomfortably and turned back to her book. She had known from the beginning that Calvin's pills would have some unforeseeable side effects, but there was no way that all there was to him was what was visible. It wasn't possible that the pills she'd given him since he'd been a child had killed the kid he had been and replaced him with an emotionless robot. It just wasn't possible.

That night, they ate stew prepared from a dried mixture of broth, meat, rice, and fresh water from the lake. Once upon a time, Calvin would have referred to it as live maggots topped with dried guano, but that night, he ate his portion without complaint and when he was finished, he took his pills and went to sleep.

It rained the next day, but that didn't stop Calvin and his father from going back into the canoe to fish. Calvin didn't complain, not about the conditions nor the discomfort, nor the hour long lecture about how unpleasant situations like theirs built character, courtesy of his father. He simply did as he was told immediately and without protest, and so when they returned to land two hours later, soaked straight to the marrow, it could perhaps be said that he was in higher spirits than his father.

They hadn't managed to catch anything to eat that day. And, thanks to the inclement weather, there just wasn't that they had to do.

Calvin's mother wrote. His father read. Calvin, all alone in his tent, simply sat down and stared into nothingness.

They had a small dinner that night, and Calvin neither enjoyed it nor disliked it. After eating, though, he went to take his pills—and he noticed that there wasn't one left.

He told his parents. His father suggested getting to a pharmacy the very next morning, but foul weather was expected then, as well, and besides, Calvin had been so well-behaved over the past few years that surely it would be okay if they didn't cut their vacation short. Surely, it would be okay if Calvin went for just a few days without his pills.

Calvin's mother told him that it was alright, to just go back to his tent and get to sleep, and, so, Calvin did as he was told to the best of his ability. He went back to his tent and he lay down, but he didn't sleep—not for a long, long, long time, after dozens fragmented memories of a different life that he'd once lived came and left his mind.

Calvin woke up the next day to a mild but irritating headache. That was strange—he never got headaches, and neither his mother nor his father did, either. So, unsure of how to interpret the dull, throbbing pain that seemed to emanate from just behind his forehead, he sat up, slowly, and dragged himself out of his sleeping bag.

It took him some time to dress, but the motions of doing so were so automatic that he didn't have to think about them. Soon, he was prepared for the day—and that was when he realized it was still raining. Constant, muffled noise from all directions told Calvin that rain was striking his tent all over and had probably been doing so all night.

It wasn't very bright outside, he realized. He could only just look around in his tent without straining, so there was probably significant cloud cover outside, and besides that, it was still quite early in the morning. The Sun hadn't even completely risen yet…

And that meant that it was the ideal time to head out in the canoe onto the lake to fish for the day. Calvin made for his tent's flap—but then he sat back down when a powerful sense of nausea almost overwhelmed him.

He tried to get up again, but this time the nausea struck him so hard that when he sat back down, he lay back down and fell into an uncomfortable sleep within seconds.

When Calvin woke up again, it was still morning, but several hours had passed since he'd gotten up first. By now, the Sun was high in the sky, he knew, but that meant almost nothing given the amount of cloud cover outside. It was dark in his tent, and the rain was still coming down hard enough that Calvin wasn't able to hear individual drops hit the nylon exterior of his tent—instead, each impact meshed together with the rest to create an incomprehensible, consistent noisy wave.

His headache had subsided somewhat, and so when Calvin stood up—slowly—he didn't feel so sick that he had to lay back down immediately. He was even able to walk to the main flap of his tent, and he was about to open it and go out when his father beat him to it.

He was wearing a poncho that just held the worst of the storm at bay, but when he stepped into Calvin's tent enough water drizzled off of him that Calvin knew that he was probably quite soaked despite his apparel.

"We're not going fishing today," Calvin's father said sternly. He seemed disappointed, but Calvin didn't feel any disappointment. He didn't feel anything; he almost never felt anything these days—no, in fact, he did feel something, a faint, sarcastic stirring that whispered to him to reply by saying, "What a crying shame that is."

Calvin said nothing, though. He just nodded, acknowledging that he'd heard what his father had told him, and rested a hand against the side of the tent in order to avoid swaying on his feet.

"Hey—are you okay, kiddo?" Calvin's father asked. He reached out and placed a hand on Calvin's forehead, but Calvin didn't have a temperature. He wasn't sweating, either, and he didn't seem to be coughing or sneezing. And yet, he certainly seemed dizzy and distracted, as if he was experiencing some sort of withdrawal symptoms.

Calvin just nodded, though, and slowly sat back down. He seemed shaky, but alright, even as he kneaded at his temples with his fists.

"I'm alright," he said. "I just have a headache, that's all."

"Well, alright," Calvin's father said uncertainly. "I'll be back to check on you later on. Just… stay here and get some rest, alright?"

Calvin nodded emptily and looked away. He held his knees to his chest, then, and didn't react as his father said goodbye and left him in his tent alone.

For the next several hours, Calvin simply sat and didn't do anything. He didn't think anything, either, because he couldn't think, for some reason. He tried to cling to the few thoughts that came to him, but they slipped away before he could even recognize what they were. He didn't realize what was going on, but he didn't realize that he didn't realize what was going on, and the flow of time itself was meaningless to him.

At some point, he lay down and took a nap. When he woke up, it was late in the evening.

His head was still fuzzy, but at least he didn't feel sick when he stood up. Better yet, he was able to concentrate enough to make it to the door of his tent without needing to rest, though the constant throbbing of the falling rain was almost therapeutic to him. He had to go out of the tent because—because…

Calvin stopped in his tracks, for a moment, and thought hard.

He had to go out of the tent; he knew that much, but… why did he have to go out of his tent? It was really sort of a stupid thing to do, considering how hard it was raining. Besides, once he got out of the tent… then what?

The rule was that wherever he was, he had to check in with the proper authorities periodically, unless he was specifically told to do otherwise. At school, this meant that he had to always be doing something that he was supposed to be doing—he had to be in class or in transit, or in the bathroom if he was specifically told that he could. Then, after school, he went straight to the bus, said hello to the driver, and came home to say hello to his mother. After that, he did homework and studied in his room until his father came home, and then he said hello to his father.

Then, he was allowed to watch a TV program (that his mother had prescreened for him, of course, and recorded), and then it was time for dinner, more studying, and then sleep.

In a situation like this, he really ought to go and ask his parents what he was supposed to do, so, at the very least, they knew where he was.

But did that really make sense?

It was pouring rain, and besides, his parents knew where he was. If they wanted him to do anything, then they'd come to him, wouldn't they?

Then again, he really ought to go and let them know where he was…

Calvin's internal debate ended when his father entered the tent again. This time, he'd elected not to wear a poncho; instead, he'd sprinted the several yards between his tent and Calvin's and as a result was still somewhat dry when he got in.

"Hey there, sport," Calvin's father said. "How are you doing? Are you feeling any better?"

"A little bit," Calvin said. "Just… a little dizzy, but a lot better than I was before."

"Great," Calvin's father answered. "I'm glad to see that you're on your feet again. You know, being tough's all well and good, but it's also pretty smart to know when to take a break. Health isn't something that you should take for granted, and sleeping in for a day really isn't a big deal at all. Sickness builds character, and besides, when you're pretty sick, you can build a lot of character…"

Calvin's father continued to speak, but Calvin barely listened. He found what his father was saying utterly disinteresting, he realized, and as such, he was unable to concentrate on it. His father's words meant nothing to him at all, since they were so utterly abstract and meaningless, and apart from that, half the time they contradicted one another. When his father wanted him to rest, resting built character, and when his father wanted him to be up and about, toughing through periods of poor health built character.

It was utterly nonsensical. In fact, it was almost as if Calvin's father was using words as a tool to get him to do… whatever he wanted.

There really was nothing to be learned by listening to such things. Besides, there were far more interesting things to pay attention to, in that very tent—sure, the whole thing was a monotonous shade of orange, but it was semi-transparent. Calvin could see raindrops striking it, and gradually come together to form small waves of water that rolled down the synthetic surface with ever-increasing speed until they came to rest at the ground.

There were a thousand of these waves, and a thousand raindrops were needed to form each of them. When each raindrop struck, it exploded in an entirely unique fashion and the water that made it combined with the rest in unforeseeable, unknowable ways.

It was utterly fascinating.

At least, it was a lot more fascinating than whatever his dad was still talking about.

Calvin stood and listened stoically, though he was somewhat aware of a corner of his mind that told him to cup his hands around his mouth and bellow, "Boring!" as loud and long as he possibly could.

The thought of doing that almost made him smile.

The rain wouldn't continue forever, though. It would probably go on until the next day, though, and by then, who knew how much water the sky might have dumped on the area? The lake's water level would rise by a few feet at least, but what if it didn't stop there? Their tents were on a hill, sure, but what if the water rose up to that height?

What would it be like, Calvin wondered, to wake up in the middle of the night, neck-deep in water? If that happened, he'd have to escape from the tent, sure, but after that, then what? There were trees nearby, and he might be able to climb one and look around for higher ground. If worse came to worse, he could just swim around for a while and dunk his head underwater for an aerial view of the forest.

Now that would be fascinating.

At some point, Calvin's father finished speaking, but just before he did, Calvin managed to realize that the minutes-long speech was ending. At first, he almost panicked, but then he simply started to smile and nod as if he'd followed along the whole time and understood whatever convoluted point his father had arrived at.

That made his father smile and ruffle his hair. Better yet, it made him leave the tent, so that Calvin could sit down and think without distraction.

Sometimes he looked up at the waves of water racing one another down the sides of his tent. Sometimes he looked around at the silhouettes of the trees all around him, but mostly, he simply looked inside for thoughts that he hadn't known for years.

The next day, Calvin woke up with more energy than he'd had in… quite some time, actually. Although he was never, ever late for school, there was no denying that he was not a morning person. He usually woke up groggy at best, and he rarely felt awake until he was on the bus to go to school.

Today, though, he felt alert and full of life. The moment he woke up, he was up; before even sitting up Calvin found himself thinking with a sense of direction and purpose that he couldn't recall ever having.

He wondered what was going on with him—but only for a moment. Soon, he found that the tent was far, far too small for him—he had to get outside and explore, and today, he could do that. It was still raining, sure, but not nearly as hard as it had been the day before.

So, pausing only to ensure that he had one of the maps his father had picked up when they entered the campground, Calvin went outside.

Over the past day and night, rain had washed away much of the loose, young dirt that had collected around where Calvin and his parents had pitched their tents. Now, the bare rocks that lay underneath it were visible, and they'd been pounded smooth by a thousand different raindrops each. Water trickled over them, between them, and for a moment, Calvin imagined that the whole mountain was just a shell of rocks, within which was… who knew what?

That was ridiculous, though. So, Calvin shook his head, and went to his parents' tent to let them know that he was going for a walk.

Two hours and as many miles later, Calvin was hopelessly lost.

And he couldn't be enjoying himself more.

He'd gotten lost intentionally, after walking along predefined trails had grown boring to him. He'd put his map into a pocket and then he'd gone off-trail, deliberately ignoring protocols that were designed to keep campers safe, docile, sedated, as if they were farm animals of some sort.

But Calvin was no farm animal—he was a person. He was a teenager, sure, but he was still adventurous, and he still thought that he was invincible. How could anything else be true, after all? How on Earth could something really bad happen to him when he was so young, and so excited just to walk around in the forest?

Calvin remembered, vaguely, that he used to walk around in the forest behind his home. That had been years and years ago, though, and after a new development had displaced much of the wilderness where Calvin had grown up, most of the walking he had done had been in school.

Now, though, Calvin was alone in nature, a hundred miles from the nearest person—except for his parents—and they were both feeling tired, and were therefore unlikely to come out that day at all.

So, Calvin walked. At times, the rain grew harder, but that didn't stop or slow him, it just made him cling closer to the dozens of monolithic trees that passed him by. He breathed deeply of the fresh, chilled mountain air, scented by overturned earth and the overtones of decaying leaves and fallen trees. It was nothing like the air at home—at home, the air outside smelled like clipped grass at best, or the coughed-out pollution of SUVs and minivans.

Here, though, the air was naturally soothing, and almost therapeutic to Calvin's lungs.

And then, there was how aesthetically pleasing the forest was.

Calvin wasn't sure, but he believed that over the past few years, he hadn't really had any sense of aesthetics whatsoever. Beige and black and white were as appealing, or unappealing to him as more ornately designed articles of furniture or architecture, and while he'd still held a vague affinity for wilderness, he couldn't quantify it as he could now.

Now, Calvin understood why he found the forest so beautiful.

Each of the trees he passed were older than him—and his parents too, for that matter. The gnarled, off-brown of their bark-covered trunks held the scars of a lifetime in the wilderness; Calvin could see where squirrels had stood, where birds had rested, and, at least on two occasions, where bears had climbed.

Or… perhaps not bears. Perhaps there was another sort of big predator out here, in the unknown backwoods of the campground, that could make marks similar to the ones Calvin occasionally came across.

Lions, maybe?

Or maybe… tigers?

For some reason, that thought made Calvin stop in his tracks for a full minute.

Then, he just shook his head and kept walking.

Tigers, in a forest… huh, what nonsense. Tigers weren't native to America, and besides, the last wild tiger had died years ago.

For some reason, that made Calvin sad, but only for a few minutes. He was far too entertained by wandering around in the forest, walking aimlessly through knee-high grass and clambering over hills and through bushes. He didn't stop until dusk, and after that, it took him perhaps two hours to find his way back to camp.

His mother yelled at him a little bit for being gone for so long, but Calvin knew that she was just worried about him.

His father, though, just nodded at him in a way that said that he understood precisely what had been going on in Calvin's mind, and that maybe, just maybe, some of the wonderful genes he had had been passed on to him.

It was Friday the next day, and that meant that at last, spring break was coming to a close. Calvin and his parents wouldn't be going back home until Sunday, but the proximity of their departure weighed on Calvin's mind as he woke up.

Although he'd slept in, a little bit, he was still exhausted and sore from the day before. He hadn't walked that far for that long in ages, if ever, and his body wasn't reacting well to it.

He'd be better soon, though. If he took it easy for a few hours, he'd be better.

After stretching for a few minutes, and massaging his muscles to take the edge off of the pain, Calvin made his way out of his tent. His mother was still sleeping, of course, but his father was up, sitting at the edge of the water and… just sitting, actually. He wasn't doing anything at all, nothing that Calvin could see.

So, Calvin joined his father, if only to see what the older man was doing. But even after he sat down next to his father, Calvin had no idea what was going on. He wasn't… moving, or watching anything, or sleeping, or anything at all.

"What are you doing, Dad?"

Calvin's father jumped perceptibly at that, and turned to glare at his son. Immediately, Calvin shied away, but his father's striking hand didn't raise more than a few inches.

"I was trying to enjoy a peaceful sunrise," he said. "You know, since my son, who I was going to go fishing with, decided he'd like a little more shut-eye instead of waking up on time."

Calvin recognized the disappointment in his father's voice, and took it as a cue to hang his head.

"I'm sorry, Dad. It's just that I was really tired from yesterday, so I—"

"Is that any excuse for not fulfilling your obligations?" Calvin's father asked incredulously.

"No," Calvin thought, "but… it's highly relevant…"

Calvin was confused when he had that thought. Where had it come from? He never had thoughts like that, because they were disrespectful and irreverent of authority. And there was no higher authority in Calvin's life than his father, so the idea that he'd even think about questioning his father or talking back to him was… disturbing. It was so disturbing that it made Calvin shiver where he sat.

At the same time, Calvin's father turned away, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Ah, phooey," he said. "I guess it's better late than never… let's get going, Calvin."

Immediately, Calvin got to his feet and made his way to the canoe. He turned it right side up and waited for his father to approach with the fishing poles and gear before shoving it into the water, and then diligently hopping in and taking control of the oars so that his father could rest while he rowed out to the middle of the lake.

Calvin's goal was to show that he was sorry to his father by being extra-obedient, but the baleful expression didn't leave his father's face—not after five minutes, or ten, or fifteen, when Calvin had finally rowed them out to what they'd found to be the best place to fish in the lake.

At that point, Calvin simply kept quiet as he and his father cast lines and waited for the fish to come.

It was still quite early, so much so that the Sun hadn't quite peaked over the horizon, but apparently that wasn't early enough for Calvin's father. Calvin's father had always seemed to consider waking up earlier than others to be some sort of personal achievement.

Why, Calvin didn't know. In fact, now that he thought of it, the whole thing was rather stupid. What did it matter if you were able to get up and stay up before everyone else did? Sure, the seclusion of the early morning was nice, but couldn't it also be nice to be able to know the difference between work days and days off?

Calvin smiled to himself—he never smiled to himself—before fidgeting a bit.

He didn't like the canoe, he realized. Sitting in it was uncomfortable, and staying in one place for so long was unbearably boring. The view wasn't even pleasant, since a layer of fog had descended over the water, and it was chilly, and there were bugs, and all in all, Calvin realized, fishing was a thoroughly unenjoyable activity.

But there wasn't anything he could do to help it.

Perhaps half an hour passed, and in that time, Calvin caught two small fish. His father caught a slightly larger one, and with that, they had enough for breakfast.

By the time they were on land again, Calvin's mother was awake, and that meant that the responsibility to cook fell to her. Calvin and his father were left to do as they pleased, and while Calvin's father elected to paint again, Calvin found that he was in the mood for some swimming. He was still a little sore, but if he paced himself, he'd be alright.

And so he swam.

He didn't go far, or fast, and half the time, he didn't do more than wade around in the shallows. Sometimes, he just lay on his back to float, looking at the surrounding mountains and forests, wondering what could have transpired there before they were known to him, his parents, or western society in general.

Late in the afternoon, Calvin found an arrowhead—a legitimate, honest-to-God Indian arrowhead. It was slim and chiseled to a fine point by some sort of stone tool, and the notch at the end marked where it was intended to be attached to an arrow shaft.

For hours, Calvin searched for another one, but he was unsuccessful. He only had one arrowhead to show his parents at dinner, and when he did, his mother scoffed and his father laughed.

It was just a bit of chipped rock, his father told him, and there was nothing special about it at all. Calvin's mother told him to throw the useless trinket away before he hurt himself with it, but for the first time in years, Calvin willfully disobeyed a figure of authority.

He kept the arrowhead, and fell asleep that night with it in his hands.

The next morning, Calvin woke up early to avoid disappointing his father. He was successful in waking up early, but unsuccessful in not disappointing his father, because it turned out that he was up and about before his father was. And although Calvin's father didn't say as much, Calvin could tell that that distressed him—after all, he prided himself on being able to get up and start the day before anyone else could.

Calvin's father's mood improved, however, as they set out to go fishing again. It was drizzling, and that was good—fish would be more likely to linger near the surface of the water where their baited hooks would be waiting. True, it was humid and somewhat unpleasant, but Calvin and his father wore surprisingly effective lightweight ponchos to keep the worst of the wetness off of them.

Still, twenty minutes passed without event after they got to the center of the lake. And as those twenty minutes crawled by, Calvin found himself getting increasingly bored.

This sort of thing was what built character, he told himself, but that pathetic excuse didn't occupy him for long. Even if wasting time being bored in a dumb boat in the middle of a lake on a miserable day did build character… so what? Wasn't it just masochism to seek to suffer?

Some time later, Calvin spoke up.

"Dad," he said quietly, "what exactly is character?"

Calvin's father blinked and looked at his son. Apparently he'd become very absorbed into fishing (though Calvin couldn't guess why), and apart from that, it was as if the very nature of Calvin's question confused him.

"Well," he began eventually, "character is… something that's hard to define."

He nodded confidently, but Calvin just stared.

"Err, that is to say," Calvin's father continued, "character is… moral fiber. It's backbone—it's what gives you a structure that you use to run your life."

That made a bit more sense, so this time, when Calvin's father nodded, Calvin smiled the smallest amount to show that he understood. Before Calvin's father could turn away, though, Calvin spoke again.

"So… being in his boat, fishing… that builds character, right?"

Calvin's father nodded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"How does it do that?" Calvin asked.

For a moment, there was silence. Calvin tried to keep looking at his father, but in time, he felt his vision blur and fade—at least, when he tried to focus it on the other person in the boat. As boring and obscured by the rain his surroundings were, at least they were marginally interesting. At least, when Calvin looked at them, he could feel a sense of adventure and curiosity. When Calvin tried to look at his father, all he felt was boredom and irritation.

"Well," Calvin's father eventually said, "fishing is what men do in order to learn to cope with silence and stillness. It helps you learn how to deal with things that aren't exciting, or—or flashy and action-packed, like TV."

"But we also watch football because that builds character," Calvin said. "And football is… all about action. Right, Dad?"

"That's true," Calvin's father said, sitting back a little and resting a hand on his chin. "That's true…"

A moment later, though, his face changed and he glared at Calvin.

"What are you asking me these stupid questions for? Did we come out here to fish or talk about your nonsense ideas?"

"Sorry," Calvin said automatically, and that was the end of that.

An hour passed in silence, but in that hour, the fishing was good. Calvin and his father each landed two rather large fish, plus a few smaller ones, and that was enough food for that day, the next day, and perhaps even the next day after that. Calvin's father was proud, and, in a way, so was Calvin, but that pride was tempered by the fact that he had no idea why he ought to feel so accomplished, when even his father didn't know why fishing built character.

Calvin ended up spending the day wandering around in the forests. As the day wore on, he found himself climbing trees to see things from a different angle, and as it turned out, he was perhaps twenty feet off the ground when the Sun began to set beyond the mountains. As it did, one particular mountain peak cast a shadow on the clouds overhead, creating an unexpected dark splotch in the otherwise multicolored sky.

Calvin still didn't understand what character was or why it was useful. But, he believed, if there was anything that built character… seeing a sight like that was it.

It was Sunday: the last day of spring break. Calvin realized this the moment after he woke up, and it terrified him, because it meant that the next day, he'd have to go to school.

And he hated school.

Or did he?

He… wasn't sure, he realized. He knew that he… didn't enjoy school, but on the other hand, he didn't skip it, or get in trouble, and it was, in a way, his occupation. So… did he like school, or did he hate it?

Or could it be that he'd always hated it, and had only seemed to like it recently because…?

… What about his pills?

Calvin didn't know what they were, exactly, or what they did. All he knew was that taking them had been part of his nightly ritual for almost as long as he could remember. He vaguely recalled a distant time in the past—another life, practically—in which he didn't take his pills. Back in those days, he remembered getting yelled at a lot by his parents, getting in trouble at school, and having more fun in a day than he did in a year nowadays.

And then he'd started to take the pills, and all that had changed. He'd grown quiet and obedient, and so bland that when he looked into mirrors all he saw was whatever was behind him. He was the perfect kid, as far as his parents and the school was concerned, and that's why he'd been kept on the pills all these years.

This little hiccup during spring break… it wouldn't happen again, Calvin realized. The next time he and his parents left their home for an extended amount of time, his mother would prepare for it weeks ahead of time and bring more than enough pills to sustain them.

Calvin was a teenager now, and he'd been on the pills since age six or seven. And if his parents had their way, he'd be on them… for who knew how long? Maybe he'd be on them until he was eighteen, or twenty-one, or twenty-six, or even longer than that; who could know?

The idea of being on the pills for that long—not even that long, for even another day—it terrified Calvin, it truly did. When he was on the pills, he was the perfect kid, as far as his parents and the school were concerned, but he was not himself. He was not even a person.

That morning, Calvin ate breakfast with his parents and tried to be as obedient and quiet as possible, even though half of the things they said made him want to laugh or scream or both. He helped them break camp and then pack their belongings into the car as efficiently as possible, and on the drive home, he didn't make a peep once.

And when they got home, the first thing his mother reminded him to do was to take his pills before going to sleep.

Calvin went up to his room, so frightened that he didn't realize what he was doing until the familiar bottle was in his hand. He opened it up and poured out two of the little flesh-colored tablets, and looked at them for a moment.

And then he opened the window and threw them as far as he possibly could.

Calvin lay day immediately after that, but he didn't go to sleep for hours. He was too scared, too anxious, and too proud of himself and far, far too free to waste precious moments asleep, because no matter what he told himself, he knew that his freedom would not last forever. Sooner or later, something would happen, and he'd be back on the pills for the rest of his life.

Buzz. Buzz.

The alarm clock was going off, but Calvin paid it no mind. He was having an absolutely wonderful dream about flying through the skies like a bird, and the last thing he wanted was for it to be interrupted so that he could get up and get ready for school—quite possibly the most pointless and wasteful institution in the entire hemisphere. What could possibly be gained by going to such a place, and that, too, for over seven hours a day? He'd learn how to be a sheep and how to parrot back utterly useless facts and figures, and if he did learn anything useful or interesting it would be by sheer coincidence.

And then Calvin realized what would happen if he didn't get up and go to school: his mother would realize that he was off his pills that much sooner.

Strangely, it seemed that to preserve his freedom, or to prolong it, Calvin had to go to school.

So, he go ready for the day as he generally did. He washed his face and brushed his teeth, dressed in the only clothes he'd ever worn, and then he went downstairs to eat breakfast and greet his mother.

He was sure to say good morning to her and smile, just as she'd always told him to. He could feel her eyes on him, examining him closely for any signs that he'd disobeyed her, but Calvin kept a cool head. He was an internationally-renowned secret agent, after all, and his mother was just another evil Russian Hell-bent on world domination. All he had to do was to show her what she wanted to see, and he'd be in the clear.

And so breakfast passed. Calvin kept quiet and barely looked up from his cereal, as if he was somewhat lethargic but ever-ready to listen and obey whatever he was told. When he began to take his empty bowl to the sink to rinse clean, his mother scolded him for leaving behind a lone Cheerio in the bowl, and he immediately apologized and ate it with his spoon.

She seemed relieved what she saw that, and Calvin knew why. When he'd shown her that he was willing to follow even the most miniscule of commands without a second of hesitation or question, he made it clear that he was well and truly doped up.

Now, it was time to go to school.

Calvin went outside to wait for the bus after saying goodbye to his mother. No sooner had he walked out the door than he saw her go to the living room, TV remote and telephone in hand, but that didn't concern him. He didn't care what she did, as long as he was free.

And, just then, Calvin was free.

For as long as he could remember, his mother made him leave home a full half hour before he had to. The rationale was that if the bus came early, he had to be there to catch it, and until that day, Calvin had accepted it. He now knew that it was simply a barely-veiled excuse to get him out of the house and out of her hair so that she could talk with her friends and watch TV to her heart's content.

He didn't care about that, though. In fact, he welcomed his mother's actions, because now, he had half an hour completely, totally, perfectly to himself.

It took five minutes to walk to the bus stop, if you went on the sidewalk. But Calvin took a route that would get him to his destination after at least twenty minutes.

He went through a surprisingly wild forest next to his house, one that development hadn't quite eaten up yet. Trees were marked with spray-paint, so Calvin knew that the forest's days were numbered, and that made him sad. Still, they existed for the moment, so, for the moment, he was free to enjoy them as much as he wanted to.

He didn't want to get too dirty or distracted, so he confined his explorations to the ground. He strayed off the beaten path, stalking flickers of motion and sound in the distance, always stealthy, always searching, as silent and deadly as a tiger.

A tiger…

Calvin stopped in his tracks, and for a full minute, he tried desperately to grab at the fleeting shadows of memories he wasn't even sure were his. He remembered… something about tigers made them special to him, though they no longer existed on Earth (except for in zoos—and that didn't count).

What could it be, though? Perhaps… he had read something about tigers in a book once? Or maybe he'd spent the months leading up to when he started taking his pills thinking and dreaming about tigers?

He wasn't sure, but at this point, it didn't really matter.

Calvin realized how much time he'd wasted standing still and thinking about tigers. It wasn't that he hated tigers—far from it—but this might be the last morning in his life when he could just wander through the forests and marvel at the trees. He didn't want to spend it standing still and thinking.

Calvin ran to the bus stop, and that was the one reason he got there just seconds before the bus came to get him. He said hello to the bus driver, sat down in his normal seat, and didn't look up until they got to school.

He was too busy thinking about tigers.

The pills he took must be the most powerful on the market, Calvin reflected, because only an overpowered dose of whatever kept him calm in day-to-day life could have kept him in his seat during class. For two hours now he'd been sitting in the same place, staring at figures on the board that made little sense, trying his level best to keep himself under control.

And, so far, he was succeeding—but only just.

The lesson that day was about song distant, long-forgotten battle (which made Calvin wonder why they were learning about it—if it hadn't seriously affected the course of history, what point was there in learning the precise formations of each army when any fool could look up such information in a textbook?). All of the names looked familiar and all of the dates did too, and at the end of the day, it just wasn't a very exciting thing to learn about at all. Barely any combat had taken place, after all—each military commander had engaged in maneuver for days on end, barely engaging the other force, until one army ran out of supplies and surrendered.

Well, at least lunch would be soon. And after lunch, there would be recess, and Calvin would finally have a chance to run around again.

Until then, though, he'd have to find a way to entertain himself. As it was, he was nodding off, and if he listened to another word the teacher had to say, he'd scream.

So, he looked around at his classmates. They varied, of course, in gender, race, appearance, and a thousand other ways, but what seemed to unite them all was the fact that they were, each of them, bored out of their minds. The only one who seemed vaguely awake was a brunette sitting next to Calvin.

For a moment, he looked at her. She looked familiar, for some reason, and that was strange. Calvin remembered that his school's population had recently tripled as a few new neighborhoods in the area had been developed, so while most of the students he'd gone to kindergarten with still went to his school, original groups of friends and acquaintances had invariably split apart and drifted.

This girl, though, looked hauntingly, chillingly, familiar.

And then, Calvin realized why: her name was Susie, Susie Derkins, and years ago, she'd been his…

Come to think of it, he didn't know how to describe her. She'd been his friend, his enemy, his rival, his nemesis, and, in a way, his love interest, all at the same time.

But that was ten years ago. Now, she was just a stranger to him. She was even more of a stranger to him than he was to himself.

Calvin knew that he'd changed, over the years. He wasn't a short little kid anymore; now, he was a tall, rather lanky teenager, though he retained his famously blond hair. Inside, however—when he wasn't so doped up with pills that he couldn't think—he still felt the same.

Susie, though… had changed. She had definitely changed. Calvin remembered seeing a liveliness in her eyes when she was in class that was now replaced by nothing more than a dull, lackluster sort of emptiness, as if what had once defined her had been sucked out by a straw. She sat there, with her hands in the pocket of her hoody, half-hunched over, as if some unseen force was pulling her towards the ground.

What on Earth had happened to her? Calvin didn't know, but looking at her was like looking at a corpse that hadn't yet realized that it was dead.

He shivered, terribly, and looked away.

Calvin didn't say another word for the rest of the lesson, but that wasn't because he was thinking of something. It was because he was trying desperately not to think of Susie, what had happened to her, and how unlikely it was that she would ever, ever get better.

Lunch.

At least that was a break in the tedium. For a full half hour, Calvin would not be directly supervised, and after that, he'd have recess, and he'd be able to enjoy it for the first time in years.

For a moment, Calvin tried to remember what he'd done over recess during the past several years. When he couldn't, he realized that his mother must have simply told him to sit quietly and keep to himself, so that play and action wouldn't cause his inner self to rise up over the pills.

He'd lost a lot of time, he realized, and at the same time he'd made many memories that he hadn't really made. Calvin went to the cafeteria and before he realized what he was doing, he was standing in one of the three lines in the cafeteria. This line was where the healthy, complete meals were served—entrees with vegetables, skim milk, and soup. Another line was for snacks and drinks, and the third line was where the real junk food was sold.

Curly fries covered in cheese. Mozzarella sticks. Nachos. Ice cream. Pizza. Chili dogs.

Nothing green. Nothing with the word "healthy", "vegan", or "nutritious" in it.

This third room was available to students from the time they were in middle school, but Calvin's parents had told him that he was forbidden to go to it under all circumstances. In fact, he was forbidden from the second room, too, unless it was to get water—in general, he was only supposed to get lunch from the boring old entrée room.

It had used to be that Calvin's mother had made brown paper bag lunches for him. But then, some years after he'd started to take the pills, she'd realized that he actually hadn't been lying and engaging in ridiculous hyperbole all these years. Her food really did make him sick.

And now Calvin was standing in line for entrees again.

When he realized this, he jumped out of line, and, almost as immediately, he made his way to the third, forbidden line.

It was lucky that it was Monday. Calvin got lunch money on Monday morning for the week, so he had enough money for… enough money for…

Well, he had enough money to eat enough junk food to make him sick, anyway.

Math had never been his strong point, and while even Calvin had to admit that there was a practical component to that field, this was his first day of freedom at school in as long as he could remember. He simply would not do math period, not even if it meant that he might be able to buy more ice cream than pizza or vice versa.

Calvin had bought his food, and his tray was full of the saltiest, fattiest, sweetest, meatiest concoctions known to man as he made his way out of the forbidden third room and into the larger cafeteria itself. He had Buffalo wings, chocolate ice cream, pepperoni pizza, mozzarella sticks with tomato sauce, and two bottles of soda, and, judging by the clock above the double doors leading to the cafeteria, he had about twenty minutes to consume it all.

"Challenge accepted," Calvin thought to himself—when he realized that he had to sit somewhere to eat.

And he didn't know where to sit.

Though the past months and years were an incoherent haze to him, Calvin knew enough that it wouldn't be… prudent to sit with the wrong person or group of people. Apart from that, his seating choices were already rather limited. He'd only spent a few moments buying his food, but in that time the cafeteria had filled up and there were only so many seats left.

One table, though, seemed to have a fair amount of seats left. Furthermore, the better dressed and more popular kids seemed to be avoiding it. When Calvin realized that, he knew that that was where he had to sit.

As he got closer, shadows of memories that weren't entirely his came to his mind, and he realized that he knew some of the oddly quiet, distracted-looking faces at the table. They weren't his friends—he didn't have friends—but they were who he generally ate lunch with.

These were the rejects of their society. Just by looking at them, Calvin could tell that half of them were even then under the influence of pills similar to those he'd used for years. Others of them were fat, others of them dressed in strange, black clothes covered with what looked like chains and barbed wire, and others of them simply sat and chewed their food as if they were robots.

Looking at them was like looking… in a mirror. Because just a week ago, Calvin had been one of them, through and through.

Still, he sat down at a free seat and started to eat without hesitation. The food was delicious, even though it had probably been frozen and thawed and heated a dozen times in a row before getting to his plate, and even though the company left something to be desired, he found himself… rather enjoying things, really.

For a full ten minutes, Calvin did nothing more than eat. He ate so much and so fast that he could practically feel himself sweating fat out, but he didn't care. He didn't care because it was delicious, and he'd hungered for food like this for he didn't know how many years.

When he was finished, his tray lay in front of him, empty, save for the testaments to his feast: scraps of grease-stained paper, empty bottles, and congealed ketchup.

Calvin found himself grinning widely. If his mother could see him now…

… Then she'd slap him across the face and force-feed the pills to him in such a quantity that he'd never be himself again.

His expression darkened, rapidly, and that was when he noticed that the meal he'd meant to take in effective solitude was, in fact, a meal that he's shared with someone.

Susie was sitting across from him. Susie Derkins. She was sitting across from him and watching him, even as his expression went from one of happiness to one of grimness. Her own expression suggested that she'd been smiling, at least a moment ago, but now, she quickly looked down to avoid Calvin's gaze.

He wanted to say something to her, he really did, but what could he say? He wasn't a carefree six-year-old anymore, and neither was she. Now, things weren't as simple and as innocent as they once had been, and he couldn't cheer Susie up by attending a tea party thrown by her and her toy bunny, even if he brought… someone else… along…

That thought made Calvin rest a hand against the lower half of his face.

Who else would he bring along to a child's tea party? Who else could he bring to a child's tea party?

He didn't know. He just didn't know. The pills had stolen his past away, and although he was free at present, if he wasn't careful, they could steal his future away, too.

Lunch ended, and so it was time for recess. When the bell rang and the doors leading from the cafeteria to the large blacktop area next to the school used for recess, Calvin was one of the first to rush out from the constraining brick building into fresh air, open space, and freedom.

He was filled with energy from the excess of simple carbs and fat of his meal, and he spent the first five minutes of his recess simply running around at top speed as if he was a chicken with its head cut off.

After that, he calmed down, but only just. Walking around at high speed, he made his way around the perimeter of the area allocated to recess time—never close enough to the edge to get himself undue interest from the teachers, but close enough that he felt like he was pushing the limits of what was allowed.

Now that he was a high school student, the playground was off limits, but there were other amenities allotted to the students. There were basketball courts, a track for running, and plenty of space to just run around or play with the rubber balls signed out to students who wanted to use them.

Come to think of it, those balls were air-filled, bouncy, and large, yet small enough to throw. They were regulation size for… Calvinball.

Calvin didn't remember how he'd come up with the zany sport, or who he'd played it with. He did know, however, that it was clearly superior to the dull things other kids played, and for that reason, he immediately signed out a ball the moment it occurred to him to do so, and then, he…

He realized that he didn't have anyone to play Calvinball with. And one couldn't play Calvinball alone—one simply couldn't.

And besides, who would want to play with him? Other kids hadn't liked to play with Calvin for as long as he could remember, and one couldn't play Calvinball alone.

Well, Calvin thought, at least he could have some fun with a ball alone. He could… dribble it, or kick it around, or bounce it off a wall, or something like that…

For a few moments, Calvin wandered around, trying to have fun with the ball by himself. All around him, other kids were playing with one another, or sitting and talking, or doing something, but Calvin was all by himself.

At least, he was, until he came upon the group of kids he'd eaten lunch with.

They sat alone in a secluded corner of the playground. They weren't talking or even facing one another, but they were there, and although Calvin didn't know any of them by name—and although he wasn't sure that he ever had known any of them by name—he knew that they were the only kids in school who would be seen talking to him for more than a few seconds at a stretch.

Convincing them to play Calvinball would be no easy task. But Calvin knew that he had to try. Already he was well into his teenage years, so the natural creativity and imagination that had defined his life until then was already vanishing.

Apart from that, sooner or later, he'd be on the pills again, and when that happened, the last thing he'd want to do was to play a game that didn't even have set rules.

So, for many reasons, this might be the last chance to play Calvinball Calvin would ever have.

He looked at the closest things to peers he had for another moment. And then, he stepped forward.

Calvin was winning, but Calvinball was a game that he'd developed and played for years of his childhood. Apart from that, a skillful change of rules could invert his points in a second, and if he set a foot into the wrong zone his competitive advantage could be destroyed immediately.

It was a shame that they didn't have masks, and for some time Calvin had been disappointed that he'd had to break one of the few permanent rules Calvinball had. In the end, though, it had been worth it, because now he and perhaps a dozen or more players were racing up and down a strip of asphalt in the middle of the playing area, shouting out taunts, battle cries, and, most importantly, new rules.

That was what made Calvin adore Calvinball so much. It was chaotic by nature and demanded a dynamic strategic mindset, and the best thing of all was that it was constantly, unendingly exciting.

Calvin stepped into a new zone. One of the most silent kids at lunch immediately declared that it was a vortex zone and that Calvin had to spin around until he fell down, but Calvin immediately retorted that he, in fact, had been in a boomerang zone when he'd declared the vortex zone—and that now he had to spin until he fell down.

It had been a brilliant tactic, and served to give Calvin the chance to bonk him with the Calvinball, earning another point.

And so the chaos continued. For the most part, Calvin maintained a healthy lead over his competitors, but toward the end of recess he found his advantage threatened from an unexpected source.

He knew that she had book-smarts and a strategic mind, but he'd never had imagined that she had the sheer ferocity needed to excel at Calvinball.

Susie.

She caught up to his score, and, just moments before recess was set to end, she passed it. And although Calvin tried desperately to unseat her, she nullified his declarations with the casual skill of a master, reflecting them against him more often than not.

When at last the game ended, Calvin was the second highest scorer. Susie's score was twice that of his.

Although, of course, the rest of the school was laughing at them for playing such an apparently incomprehensible game, Calvin didn't mind, and neither did the rest of those he'd played with. So often were they silent for so many different reasons, but even those who were drugged into a constant state of lethargic stupor had had fun, had had a few moments in which to live.

Now this was a new experience for Calvin: popularity.

Sure, he wasn't popular in the traditional sense, as he most certainly didn't have the respect of the football team nor the hearts of the cheerleaders, but he did now have a clique, of sorts, a group of friends who seemed to enjoy his company and who he was.

They met up in between classes, just to talk about the strange thoughts that they'd had, or perhaps to discuss their plans for the coming days or weeks. Nothing was official, of course (at least not yet—but maybe over the weekend, Calvin could make a series of colored bottle caps indicating rank and medals earned), but Calvin did feel like he was a ringleader, of sorts—a ringleader of the rejects, the loners, and those who had been drugged up so much that they had to struggle to maintain their identities.

As a leader, he had certain privileges, it was true, but he also had some responsibilities. And one of those responsibilities was to provide for the wellbeing of his subordinates, and the school's student population in general.

And for that reason, he had no choice but to go on a mission—a most risky, dangerous, stealthy mission. If he got caught—and the odds of that were precariously high—he'd be in a lot of trouble. His parents would be called at the very least, and it was more likely than not that he'd be sent home.

On the other hand, if he succeeded, he would be, doubtlessly, one of the most glorious and bravest leaders to ever exist on the face of planet. Even George Washington would tip his hat to him—if he was successful.

As the day had gone on, Calvin had found himself remembering more and more about who he was, but, just as importantly, he'd found himself remembering more and more about his school. He knew the names of teachers and students, and he knew the procedures and protocols that were implanted to make sure that everything was orderly and structured.

He therefore knew exactly what flaws in the system had to be exploited in order to turn all that carefully-constructed structure into chaos.

During one class, when the teacher was droning on and on about some abstract, useless topic, Calvin had put the resources of his mind to good use. He knew his objective and he knew the parameters, and so by the end of class he had a plan.

He didn't meet with his subordinates after that class. Instead, he made his way to the principal's office.

It was set up to be secure. A receptionist sat at the front of the office to direct students to wherever they had to go in order to be yelled at by the right person, and she was a sharp woman. Ms. Dubois was her name, and Calvin had been sent to her by teachers several times—to get things, or ask for things, or to give things.

Over time, he must have made a reputation for obedience for himself, and that was good. As long as he maintained the focused, zombie-like personality the pills had imposed on him, no one would suspect a thing.

Calvin entered the principal's office and let the door shut behind him. When Ms. Dubois looked up, he smiled in a not-quite-sincere way to greet her, just as he would have if he had been drugged to the point that he couldn't quite replicate the sincere happiness his mother had told him to greet figures of authority with.

"Good afternoon, Calvin," she said, "what can I do for you?"

"Ms. Schilling needs the files for Danny Rogers and Chris Anderson," Calvin said. "Can you get them, please?"

"Sure, Calvin," Ms. Dubois replied. "Just stay right there and call me if anyone else comes in, alright?"

"Yes, Ms. Dubois," Calvin nodded.

She then got up, left her desk, and made her way into a room where students' disciplinary files were kept.

Ms. Schilling was a low-ranking employee in the school's secondary administrative office, and she often requested disciplinary files from this office. Calvin had been sent to get them for her on a few occasions, and he knew for a fact that Danny Rogers had quite a disciplinary record, stored in several different shelving units in the room where Ms. Dubois had gone to search for them. It would take a few moments to collect it, and if that wasn't enough time, she'd have to then search for Chris Anderson's file.

And Chris Anderson didn't exist.

Calvin waited until Ms. Dubois was well within the filing room before he looked around to make sure that the employees who sat behind her—far enough that they didn't quite have to pay attention to what was going on at the front of the office, but close enough that they could—were all looking away.

Then, he made his way to the several seats in front of the receptionist's desk and made to sit down.

Instead, though, he went prone, and as quickly as he could, he crawled into the small walkpath that led to the heart of the principal's office itself.

Starting just then, when he crossed the line that said "Staff Only", he could, and probably would get in trouble. If he was caught now, he could claim that he tripped, but soon, he'd be doing things that he simply could not talk his way out of.

So, he crawled faster, as silently as he could, making sure that he couldn't be seen.

Some yards behind the receptionist's office, there was a hallway that led to the school's electronics room. Calvin had been there before, when his parents had volunteered him for an after school program that had him work with the janitors to see the logistics behind keeping such a massive building clean and in working order, and he knew that that was also where the school's intercom system was.

He entered the room, on his belly, and then he stood up and closed the door and windows behind him.

He was in.

He had only a few seconds to figure out how to operate the intercom, but it didn't look that difficult. Set in the middle of a rat's nest of wires and electrical components and ports was a table with a microphone and a switch that was currently set to the off position.

Was it really that simple?

Calvin flipped the switch to on and tapped the microphone.

A distorted, bass-heavy burst of noise echoed through the school.

Calvin turned the system back off and focused, clearing his throat. Then, doing his best to imitate the grouchy, gravely voice of an older man who had yelled at far too many little kids and had far too many years left until he'd secured his pension, Calvin turned the intercom back on.

"Attention, all students," Calvin said, "this is Principal Spittle speaking. School has been cancelled for the rest of the year, so please go home immediately. Enjoy your extended summer vacation, and I'll see you next year."

That was it, he'd done it. Now, it was time to bug out as quickly as he could without getting caught.

So, pausing only to turn the intercom off, and then yank out several of the cords that made it all work, Calvin slipped out of the room and, on all fours, scampered back to where he ought to have been all along.

He just managed to sit down as Ms. Dubois came out of the filing room, and the rest of the principal's office's employees stood up and started to look at one another, silently asking for an explanation for what had happened.

Calvin, too, stood up. He looked blankly at Ms. Dubois for a moment, before turning around and starting to walk away.

After all, "Principal Spittle" had told him and the rest of the student body to go home immediately. And Calvin was not the kind of student to disobey teachers, let alone the principal himself.

It was chaos.

Although the real Principal Spittle had managed to get on the intercom within a few moments of Calvin's false message, by that time, roughly half of the student body had walked out. After all, they'd been between classes when Calvin had made the message, and without teachers to stop them, they simply opened the doors and made their way home, by car or by foot.

Most of them had been stopped, of course, but perhaps one in ten students had managed to break free. Calvin was sure to be recovered, of course, because the last thing he wanted was additional attention.

After all, no one had seen him do what he'd done, and he was fairly sure that he'd disguised his voice well enough.

But he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

By the time it was all said and done, though, about half an hour of the school day had been wasted, and the class that this chunk of time had been taken out of had been canceled.

It was, simply, the most glorious success Calvin could have dreamed for, and then some. He'd written his name into the invisible hall of fame of those who resisted the school's tyranny, and he'd become the leader his subordinates needed.

And he had more plans—plans to disrupt, destabilize, and destroy the school's nefarious schemes, and he also had plans to stop anyone from ever forcing him to take the pills again.

The cornerstone of all these plans, though, was his reputation, in the eyes of teachers and administration, as a quiet, bland, obedient kid, one who didn't have the brains or the creativity or the guts or the heart to pull off the things that Calvin planned on pulling off.

For that reason, he promised himself that he'd keep a low profile—at least for a few days.

After that, though…

He grinned to himself and entered class.

Calvin had history this period, according to his schedule, and none of his comrades seemed to have class with him—except for Susie. He tried to say hello to her when she passed him on her way to her seat, but she didn't look up at him. She barely looked up from the floor.

Calvin left her alone, though, and opened his notebook and took out a pencil like he was an obedient student, waiting for the teacher to enter.

And when she did, he couldn't help but recoil a bit.

Now this was someone he had memories of—Miss Wormwood.

So, she'd followed him to highschool, and she still hadn't quite made it to retirement yet. She hadn't changed over the years, either—sure, maybe she had a few more extra pounds these days, and sure, her hair was even more gray, but she was still the same old Miss Wormwood in her same old polka dot dress.

And she was still teaching the same old boring subjects in the same old boring monotone voice.

Class began, and although Calvin made a token effort to follow along, he realized that he had not been at fault, all these years, for failing to pay attention in class. His teachers were at fault for making these topics so unspeakably boring.

Take what they were learning about, for example: the American Revolution. This was an incredibly interesting topic of study, because not only had it involved a clash of cultures, ideas, and militaries, it had resulted in a country and a way of life that still existed that day: their country and their way of life.

And Miss Wormwood was putting kids to sleep talking about it.

Calvin thought he knew why. Instead of focusing on the important things—why the Revolution had happened, who were the big players, and what had happened at the major events in the whole process—she was forcing them to memorize incredibly inconsequential things, like the names of individual military commanders, minutiae about political gatherings, and things like that.

Sure, it was important that historians, for example, be able to reflect on facts like these without difficulty. But Calvin and his classmates would, by and large, not become historians. They'd simply study for the tests they'd be given, and then they'd forget everything they'd learn.

About halfway through class, Calvin couldn't take it anymore.

He raised his hand into the air and left it there for a few moments, until Miss Wormwood noticed it and called on him.

"Yes, Calvin?" she prompted.

"Miss Wormwood," he started—and then he paused. How should he word something like this…?

He felt the eyes of the other students on him. The students—maybe they were a good place to start.

"Miss Wormwood, do you really expect us to remember all this?" he asked.

Miss Wormwood blinked. "Excuse me?" she said.

"We're all going to forget this stuff," Calvin said. "Pretty much all of it. So, isn't it kind of pointless to teach us about these things, when we can just look it up in a book anytime?"

"Young man, without the knowledge of basic American history, you'd be ignorant," Miss Wormwood said. "Is that what you want?'

"No," Calvin said, "but I don't mind being ignorant about… about some guy who wrote an article about something that happened. Do we really need to know who he was? As long as we know about the important things, and why they happened, I think that's enough. And we don't know about the important things," Calvin said. "I bet that right now, maybe half the class knows—knows who the leader of Great Britain was during the American Revolution."

"Preposterous!" Miss Wormwood said, but Calvin simply looked her in the eye and did not flinch. So, she nodded, and began to hand sheets out to the class at large.

"All right, Calvin," she said, "let's see how wrong you are. Class, please write your name and the name of the leader of Great Britain during the American Revolution on the papers I'm handing out to you. This will be a closed-note quiz—"

"No," Calvin said, "I want this to be as fair as possible. Let's make it an open-note quiz," he said.

Now, Miss Wormwood just looked amused. She shrugged, though, and continued to hand out the papers.

"All right, an open-note quiz it is, class. You'll have… five minutes. Please begin," she said.

Calvin supposed he could have cheated and written down the wrong answer on his own paper, but that wouldn't be quite fair. The moment he got his paper, he wrote his name and "King George III" on it, set down his pencil, and waited for Miss Wormwood to collect the papers.

A few minutes later, she did, and then she began to tally up the answers on the blackboard.

At first, Calvin was worried. So far, five people had gotten the right answer and only one had gotten it wrong—but then, the tables were turned.

More people started to get the wrong answer. A lot more. Some of the answers were apparently so bad that Miss Wormwood winced, and soon, it became clear who the winner was going to be.

By the time all of the quizzes' answers were tallied up, only seven people had gotten the right answer.

Twenty one had gotten the wrong answer.

Miss Wormwood seemed lost for words. She looked at Calvin, at the board, then back at Calvin.

She was mad, and there was no doubt about that, but underneath her anger, it was clear that she accepted that she had to accept that Calvin was right. He had demonstrated to her how profoundly ineffective her teaching methods were in a completely unambiguous manner.

She was just about to say something when the ball signaling the end of class sounded. For a moment, the students just looked at one another, silently asking if they ought to leave—and then, finally, they did start to pack up and go.

Miss Wormwood stopped them, though, and gave them a homework assignment.

She told them that their assignment was to find out something about the American Revolution that interested them and do a report on it, to be presented in class the next week.

The idea of having to do work for school angered Calvin, but before he left the classroom, he made sure to give Miss Wormwood a smile that was, for once, heartfelt.

She was a boring old teacher, but apparently, she could change. And if she could change, then maybe Calvin could change from a person who his parents felt they had to give pills to a person that, while free-spirited, was just controlled enough to be himself.

Two more periods. Two more periods. Two more periods, and then Calvin was home free…

To do homework. And, now, to do a project that—well, in all fairness, a project that didn't exactly seem boring. Sure, he'd have to produce a report and some other materials, but at least he'd have the freedom to learn about something he was interested in, and focus in on it so that he wasn't bored by details that he had no reason to learn anyway.

All in all, then, it had been a rather good day. He'd eaten well, he'd wasted the school's time and resources, and he'd forced a change in the academic institution that would be wonderful for him and his classmates. Now all he had to do was—

"Well, well, well, Twinky—long time no see."

That voice engendered a visceral gut reaction from Calvin, and even before he turned his mood had darkened.

Moe.

He'd grown, over the years—a lot—and so he retained the proportional advantage in girth and height he'd had over Calvin since kindergarten.

Now, though, he wasn't just a fat kid with a bad attitude. Now, he was a 6'8" football player with a beard and biceps that were most definitely not natural.

"Still wearing the same red shirt and shorts, eh, Twinky? I guess your mother doesn't have much imagination, eh?"

"Moe," Calvin said, nodding curtly to greet the much taller student, "are your maladjusted antisocial tendencies the product of your berserk pituitary gland or simply a heritage unusually rich in species diversity?"

For just a moment, Moe blinked, stared, and tried to figure out just what he was being asked, before laughing (actually, it was more of a grunt than a laugh) and shaking his head at Calvin.

"Ah, Twinky. Always good for a laugh."

"I'm glad to have entertained you," Calvin said dryly. "Anyway, it's been a pleasure speaking to someone with such a remarkably simian countenance, but I have to go—"

"Hold on there, Twinky," Moe said. He placed his hand against Calvin's shoulder, effectively stopping the smaller student from moving.

"Got to pay toll to get by, don't you? It's Monday, right? So, one dollar for a Coke, just like always. Come on, Twinky, pay up," Moe said.

Calvin stepped back, roughly shoving Moe's arm away.

"I'm afraid I'm out of money," he said coldly, "so you'll have to get your Coke money from someone else."

"Out of cash?" Moe said, before shaking his head in feigned disappointment. He stepped forward, slowly raising his fists, with a malicious grin on his face. "Come on, Twinky, you know that's no excuse."

"Whatever," Calvin said, in an attempt to be dismissive—though as he did so, he looked around for an escape, or a teacher, or anything that might help him get away from Moe if things really did go bad. There was nothing, though—they were all alone in an empty hallway.

"I'm going to be late for class," Calvin said, "so, I'm just going to get going. Goodbye, Moe. I hope you've already hit the upper limit of concussions that you will in your football career; at this stage, any more would decrease your IQ to that of a developmentally delayed eukaryote."

Unfortunately for Calvin, Moe had just come from a biology course, and he'd managed to stay awake long enough to hear the teacher explain what a eukaryote was. So, after a few seconds, he was able to put two and two together, and when he did, he began to get angry—angry enough that a throbbing vein appeared in his forehead, as well as on his right bicep.

Calvin couldn't run, couldn't hide, couldn't offer a token defense long enough for a teacher to come and end things. He couldn't surrender, either, because he knew that when Moe got this angry, he would literally stomp his enemies into the ground.

Calvin's only option was to fight. For that reason, he didn't wait for Moe to hit first. Instead, he hit Moe as hard as he could as quickly as he could, with a left hook that struck the bully squarely at the nexus of his jaw and his neck.

And, like Goliath, Moe fell.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected. In fact, if he'd had the time to expect anything, he would have expected precisely this.

Calvin was in the principal's office, sitting directly across from the aging but still sharp Mr. Spittle himself. On the principal's desk were papers, folders, binders, and all manner of other stationery, and on the wall behind him were framed diplomas and other achievements written in gothic fonts on parchment paper.

It was, all in all, a thoroughly unpleasant place. And the fact that Mr. Spittle had needed an unfiltered cigarette to calm himself down after the chaos earlier that day didn't help. Even now, whenever he spoke, Calvin could feel the angry caress of the harsh smoke still on Spittle's breath wrap around his mouth and nose and squeeze.

He'd been asked what had happened, and so he had told the truth. He had told Mr. Spittle about how he'd been bullied by Moe for about a decade, and how, without cash, he hadn't had any options available to him which would have avoided a physical confrontation. Calvin admitted that it was true that he had provoked Moe somewhat, but held that if he hadn't done something violent, he would have been in worse shape now than Moe was.

And Moe was in bad shape. He'd been knocked out cold and had required a trip to the school nurse. If Calvin had hit him any harder, he would have broken his jaw.

Calvin reacted to that news with a sense of pride, though he was sure—or at least, he hoped that it didn't show on his face. Apart from that, he couldn't lie when Mr. Spittle asked him if he felt bad about what had happened: he didn't, not at all.

So, now, he was sitting still in his chair, idly looking at his fingernails while the principal paced behind his desk. This was an interesting way to end a school day, Calvin thought to himself, and if every school day not spent under the influence of pills continued to be this interesting, he'd have enough material for a novel by the time the school year was over. So, in a way, this could be a good thing.

Mr. Spittle started to rant, then, about how very wrong what Calvin had done was, and about how even though bullying was not tolerated in school, there were ways to deal with it and ways not to deal with it. He didn't say, Calvin observed, what he ought to have done in a situation like that, with no escape and no retreat and no teachers in sight.

For that reason, his entire diatribe was not worthy of being listened to. Calvin therefore let his mind wander where it would, right up until Mr. Spittle finally got to the point of punishing Calvin.

"Since this is the first time you've gotten in trouble in… well, as long as I can remember, anyway," he said, "I won't suspend you this time. But if there's another incident like this, Calvin, you have to know that I won't have a choice. You'll be suspended, out of school, for at least a week."

Well, that wasn't too bad at all, Calvin thought to himself. Let off with a warning—albeit a severe one—that was a punishment, sure, but it was barely a slap on the wrist. Still, he feigned an apology and some remorse, and promised Mr. Spittle that he wouldn't fight Moe ever again. And then he stood up to leave.

And then Mr. Spittle stopped him and said the words that made Calvin freeze where he stood.

"And, of course, we'll have to call your parents."

Calvin didn't say a word. Nothing came to mind, and even if something were to come to mind, he was too scared to do anything more than breathe.

At times, he was too scared to do even that.

He was in trouble. He was in a lot of trouble, and he knew that from the moment he took a look at his mother's face.

He said nothing on the ride home. His mother told him to go to his room and wait there until his father came, but Calvin hadn't needed to be told that. The moment he walked in the door, he went upstairs and stayed there.

First, he paced. Then, he lay still on his bed. Then, he opened the window and sucked in deep breaths of air, trying not to panic, but it was useless. No matter what he tried to do to distract or calm himself, he couldn't get his mind off of the fact that when his father got home, there would be Hell to pay for what he had done.

It was only a few hours until five pm. For Calvin, each of those hours were eons.

Then, he heard the door open. His father greeted his mother with a few words and a kiss, and then Calvin buried his head under his pillow when his mother began to talk.

A few seconds passed. Then, there was a terrible clumping, a series of impacts, as his father climbed the stairs.

The door to Calvin's room was thrown open. Then, Calvin's ankle was grabbed and he was yanked out of his bed.

His father's face was purple and several veins in his forehead were throbbing as he stood over Calvin with his fists clenched. When he spoke, it was in a voice that wasn't his own, but was rather the Hellish shrieks of a demon.

"What the fuck," he demanded, "do you think that you're doing? Getting into fights at school—and you knocked a kid out! Do you realize that if he sues, everything we have—the house, the cars, the retirement fund, the house we're buying in Florida—everything could be gone? Boy, if I went around beating up people, my father wouldn't have said anything to me, he'd have just taken out his belt and—"

Calvin's father made a violent gesture with his hands, and it was all Calvin could do to keep standing. He shied away from his father toward his bed, though he didn't dare to sit down. His mother had entered the room, he observed, and some corner of his mind was thankful for that. If she was around, he was safer—just a little, tiny bit safer.

Even so, Calvin's father was starting to take his belt off.

"I-it wasn't my fault," Calvin said in a fearful squeak of a voice. "Moe's been bullying me for years! He tried to take a dollar from me, so I-I hit him before he could hit me. Dad, he's over three hundred pounds—if he'd hit me, you wouldn't have had to punish me for losing a fight, because I'd be in hospital right now."

For a moment, Calvin's father tried to think a way around Calvin's comments. But no matter how he tried to approach them, they seemed to be logically consistent and entirely rational.

For a moment—just a moment—Calvin's father considered the possibility that he was wrong and that Calvin had a point. Then he made a noise like a bull snorting and approached Calvin with his belt raised.

"Wait, just a minute," Calvin's mother piped up, and right then was the closest Calvin ever got in his life to loving his mother.

She turned to him with an unreadable expression on her face.

"Calvin… if Moe's been bullying you for years, and he's that much bigger than you… then why on Earth didn't you just give him the money?"

Calvin's mind raced. He thought about how he could evade the question, or deflect it, and then he thought about how he could lie in order to concoct a convincing reason why he hadn't given Moe a measly dollar in exchange for his physical safety.

And then he thought about telling the truth.

That idea was so absurd that it was suicidal, but the more Calvin thought about it, the more he realized that he'd been living a lie for… he didn't even know how many years. He had been drugged up so much that he wasn't himself—or anyone for that matter—and everything he did, everything he said, was a lie, because it wasn't him who was doing it.

Maybe it was time to start telling the truth.

"I didn't give Moe money," Calvin said in a surprisingly calm, level tone, "because I didn't have any left. I spent it all at lunch, on junk food. I had buffalo wings on my pizza and I dipped my mozzarella sticks into chocolate ice cream, and I washed it all down with two bottles of soda. It was delicious," Calvin said, "and I don't regret it for a second. It's the first time I've really eaten in years, isn't it? I know that you and Dad go out for dinner and movies sometimes, but all I've had to eat for my whole childhood is—is rabbit food! So I decided to live it up a little," Calvin shrugged. "Sue me. I'm still a kid… not a zombie, or a robot, or… or…"

Now, Calvin was approaching dangerous waters. But he looked at the shocked expression on his parents faces and felt anger suddenly rise with him.

"I'm not a robot," Calvin repeated. "I'm a person. You can't tell me what to do. You can try to convince me, but you can't make me do anything. You can't kill my soul and steal my childhood with drugs, just because it's convenient for you. I… I might have been a handful when I was younger, but you didn't have to steal my childhood from me," Calvin said. "You didn't have to take my only innocent years away from me forever. You could have just… just made me behave with normal means, and if you absolutely had to use drugs, then… you could have let me off of them years ago. Or at least you could have reduced the dose, so that I could have felt like a person from time to time. But you didn't," he said, "so I feel like I've been dead for years now. I couldn't think, couldn't imagine, couldn't dream—and I know I used to do all those things. I know, because I… I used to imagine that I had… something…"

Calvin's voice fell as he remembered something unexpected, or the beginnings of something unexpected. He struggled to hold onto that strange, distant thought, seeking it out as if it was a silhouette in the fog, and he focused on it so hard that he never saw the slap coming. It simply struck him on the face hard enough to knock him down with a grunt of surprise, clutching at his mouth, and the tooth that his father had knocked loose.

"So," Calvin's father said dangerously, walking to stand over Calvin, "you're off your meds. You didn't start to take them again when we got back, did you? I should have known—I should have taken the bottle myself and forced half of it down your sorry throat."

"And then what?" Calvin asked. He staggered to his feet and looked his father in the eye. "You wouldn't have had your son back, you'd have had a zombie again, and what good is that? A zombie doesn't have character, Dad—how can zombies have character, when they don't have memories or personalities? How can they even be people when they can't even remember their own best friends?"

When Calvin said that, a powerful wave of nostalgia struck him. He took a step back and put a hand to his head, and struggled to remember…

And this time he remembered.

Hobbes. His greatest friend in the world—Hobbes, the stuffed tiger that everyone else thought was just a stuffed tiger. Hobbes, the stuffed tiger who somehow became a real person when no one else was around.

"Hobbes," Calvin said out loud. He was almost hyperventilating as he stared from his father to his mother, and repeated his best friend's name.

"Hobbes," Calvin said. "What happened to Hobbes?"

"Hobbes?" his father asked cluelessly, but a moment later, Calvin's mother gasped as if she had suddenly recalled something.

"That old thing?" she said. "I threw it out years ago. After you started taking your meds, you didn't want to play with such silly toys anymore. Hobbes is probably twenty feet underground in a dump by now," she added.

"Why do you even care?" Calvin's mother asked. "It was just a toy, not a living thing. It had less of a personality than you have for all these years."

Calvin's parents laughed at that joke, but Calvin didn't. He simply stood there, more numb and indifferent to the world than he ever had been, even when he'd once accidentally taken a double-dose of his pills. His parents continued to laugh at a line of humor they concocted on the spot about their son, and how zombie-like he really was.

Calvin heard none of it. All he could think about, all he could see in his mind's eye, was Hobbes, his greatest friend in the world, sitting somewhere in a pile of trash, wondering where Calvin was.

A moment later, Calvin started to move. He started to walk away from his parents, toward the front door, and when his father put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, he simply kept walking.

"Where do you think you're going?" Calvin's father asked. "You're grounded for life, kid, and if you take one step out that door, you're not coming back."

"That's the plan," Calvin said. He paused to put his shoes on and was just starting to open the door when his mother stopped him.

"Where are you going?" she asked. She sounded as if she cared, but Calvin knew that she didn't. She was just imitating the actions a caring mother would take if her son was on the verge of walking out of her life forever.

"It's just like you said," Calvin said. "Hobbes is probably twenty feet underground in a dump somewhere, and I'm going to find him. Even if it takes me until I'm your age to find him, I'm going to find him," Calvin said.

Calvin's mother shook her head and said no more. Neither did his father as their only son stood up and walked out of the door, shutting it with a final sounding click. He hadn't even said goodbye.

A few moments passed. Then, Calvin's parents became aware of the great burden that had lifted from their shoulders. They took one look at one another, smiled, and started to dance then and there.

(This will be concluded in the epilogue. Please review to tell me of your expectations and reactions before you get to reading it.)