Installment two of "Wonder of Corrugated Cardboard." Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Calvin and Hobbes. I don't Calvin and Hobbes. I don't own Calvin and Hobbes. All work and no play make Jared a dull boy. All work and no play make Jared a dull boy. All work and no play make Jared a dull boy…

By morning, the nightmare was so much dust in the wind. He had literally forgotten about it as he had been jolted out of his sleep as his blankets were torn from him violently. A wave of coldness clung to Calvin's skin. He shivered and struggled into consciousness only by the large bulbs of gooseflesh that had broken out on his arms and legs.

"Good morning, Sunshine!" came a distant voice in a dream. Calvin jerked right and his eyes jolted open at the sight.

Hobbes seemed to be suspended in mid-air for the second he had seen him, and one thought flashed through his mind:

("Friendship," the skeleton had bellowed, holding a card of Hobbes)

he was going to get crushed. He made a feeble attempt to cover his face. Hobbes crashed into the bed, his arms outstretched. Calvin pried his eyelids open and saw Hobbes' face hovering before him, a good-natured smile on his face.

"God Hobbes…one would think you could find a more subtle way of waking me up." Hobbes shrugged and got off of the bed. "Who needs an alarm clock when you have friendship."

Inside his mind, Calvin heard the word "friendship" reverb severely, making his temples pound as the information from the night before came rushing back in a flood of information.

He uttered a tiny gasp as he realized that a card had come true. The first of the four had been predicted. Of course, he had friendship before the nightmare, and that didn't mean anything. Mental Tarot cards don't predict a damn thing, he reassured himself.

* ** *

He had gotten through the day without any mention of friendship (it helped that he didn't have many (or any) friends at all) nor the other three predictions. They had been…uh…

Calvin had forgotten, but it didn't matter, because it had just been a coincidence that morning, something simple that could easily have been forgotten. And that's what it had been…forgotten.

If he could just get through the rest of his life without mention of

(wealth)

the other three predictions, he would be okay.

* ** *

"You see, the problem with today's youth is we have to be exciting every moment of our lives! We won't sit still for a minute if it doesn't have car chases, guns, sexual exploitation, or an explosion every five seconds." quipped Calvin. He turned his head forward again and quickly veered past a tree. The lower branches whipped through the air ahead of him.

"That's why we can't tolerate anything less. You don't see kids drawing, say, a river in a forest, or a Presidential campaign for whatever reasons he would. Kids draw cars being hurled over cliffs all the while engulfed in flames. He will draw an entire crowd sprayed with gunfire before he draws anything that won't lead to an explosion. Action and adventure is what pleases us. It indulges our hunger for excitement. It-"

Calvin's last statement was cut short as the issue he had been discussing became art imitating life. The wagon's left front wheel crumbled and was thrown off into the woods, never to be seen again. The steering shaft snapped and the front axle disappeared into the soil. The wagon's front screeched and began to flip over. Calvin cried out and jumped up. Hobbes passed through his legs and Calvin landed on the back side, which now ran parallel to the ground. Calvin jumped up and off simultaneously with Hobbes as the back axle snapped and the final frame and carriage slammed into a tree trunk, chroming off of the side and over the ledge that, if not for the fatal crash, would have ended Calvin and his tiger's lives quickly. The frame had been turned into a twisted corpse.

Calvin sneezed and exhaled fresh soil and dust from his nose and struggled up. Hobbes was rubbing his head on the ground. He had leaped just in time, for he had found himself with his legs dangling over the side of the thirty-eight foot gap into the river below. If it had been last year, Calvin and Hobbes could have easily gone over and landed for a swim, but the water was down this year, and you would only go for a dip from the edge if a full body cast was on your mind.

"Hobbes, are you alright?" grumbled Calvin, wobbling to his feet. Hobbes spat crimson saliva onto the path (which veered right suddenly) and cursed silently. "A little cut in the mouth, but okay nonetheless." He struggled to his feet then uttered a long cat yawn and snapped a crick out of his back.

"Well…we should see what we can salvage from the wreck." uttered Calvin as he peered over the ledge. The twisted frame was half in and half out of the river. Water lapped quickly over the front end, which had been badly shattered.

"How are we going to fix this? Dad doesn't have the tools…" remarked Calvin as he picked up the snapped and twisted back axle, minus one wheel.

"With money." Calvin frowned at Hobbes suggestion.

"How, we've got nothing-"

"Oh? What's this then?" Calvin turned to Hobbes who had bent down to pick up a small white envelope that had been in the path.

"What?" gasped Calvin. He had just flown down that path. He would have seen it in spite of him trying not to bust open his skull. There should be a tire track across the front, and yet…and yet there was nothing.

"It says 'Calvin' on the front…looks a little fancy too." Calvin took the envelope from his yellow-ochre buddy and was suddenly hit with a wave of nostalgia. The slopping, backhand handwriting was that he had seen on the Tarot cards the night before. He reluctantly tore his finger across the seal and looked inside.

Bills. Dozens of bills. All twenty's, unmarked, pressed and steamed. There had to be better than five hundred dollars right in his hands. Calvin was in awe. He could not respond to this. This…this was something else. He took the bills out of the envelope and simply stared at them. Who could have put the envelope right in the middle of the forest like this. Who? There was nobody here.

As he began to put the bills back in, he saw the tiny note inside. He pulled it out and let his eyes scan over the print. It was the same backslant that read "Two down, two to go. Enjoy your 'wealth' while you can. P.S. Death is coming!" Next to the postscript was the picture of his little friend from the night before. He could almost see the gleam of the sword blade that was stuck into the skeleton's skull.

Suddenly, Calvin had a feeling. It was a strong feeling, a feeling of paranoia, that they were being watched. Whoever had given him his "wealth" was still watching.

"Hobbes, we have to get out of here."

"What about the wagon?"

"We can get a new one. Let's just go."

Calvin hurriedly pushed Hobbes up the path, and began to pant away.

Calvin took one last look over his shoulder, and before he reluctantly turned it back, he would swear he had seen a blur of something shiny and pearly white.

Like a sword that had been jammed into a skull.