All is silent in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. A warm, summer breeze flows across an old road, and crickets sing under a blanket of stars. Suddenly, a car speeds by with police following it. A voice narrates, "Calvin the criminal has just robbed a priceless jewel shop, but the law is chasing him! As the police cars inch ever closer, Calvin's only hope is to make a daring jump across a mechanical drawbridge! As the bridge folds up, Calvin makes the jump!"
Suddenly, everything changed.
"AAAUUGHHH!" Calvin had almost cleared the hedge around his house when his mother had grabbed his leg, and he came crashing to the ground.
"Aw, Mom! I don't need a bath! I'm not that smelly!" Calvin whined as he tried to crawl away. "You're smelly enough, and are taking a bath whether you like it or not!" his mother retorted. After 10 minutes of screaming and pouting, Calvin was sitting in the bathtub, simmering with anger at having been chucked into the tub without his consent. Just then, Hobbes came in.
Now, Hobbes was a tiger, but not an ordinary one. He walked on two legs, talked, and was Calvin's best friend. Strangely though, whenever anyone else was around, they just saw Hobbes as a stuffed toy.
As soon as Calvin noticed him, he spoke. "Hobbes, I hate baths! I gotta find a way to beat them! They are a mighty oppressor of my rightful liberty!" "Almost any rule would be," Hobbes chuckled. "Hobbes, I'm serious! We need to beat mom, and I think that we need some help," Calvin said
"We?" Hobbes asked.
Calvin sighed, figuring out what Hobbes was implying. "Look," he decided, "I'll get you some tuna if you help figure out how to get rid of Mom's tyranny-" "Deal!" Hobbes immediately replied, his tail swaying in excitement. Calvin smiled. He knew that he could get Hobbes to agree to anything with tuna. "Alrighty then, let's brainstorm!"
After Calvin was done with his unjust bath, the two friends concentrated on figuring out ideas for rebelling, though Hobbes' ideas were half Starkist. Then, Calvin's mom came in. "Calvin," she said, "time for bed."
Calvin frowned. "But Hobbes and I are in the middle of coming up with ideas for… for…"
He stopped talking, realizing that telling his Mom that he was trying to conspire against her was a bad idea. She sighed. "Calvin, just get in bed, please," she half-pleaded. Calvin, seeing no other alternative, and that they could still think in bed, decided to do the smart thing.
"Alright Mom, you win," he conceded, and got up. "C'mon Hobbes. We gotta go."
As Calvin walked off, his Mom was standing still, surprised by the passiveness her son had displayed in doing what she asked of him. She just watched Calvin walk up the stairs, dragging his stuffed tiger after him.
After being tucked in and left alone by his Mom, Calvin continued thinking of ways to "I can't come up with anything good,'' Hobbes commented after a while. "We could use a brain the quality of Leonardo Da Vinci or Ben Franklin right about now." "Who?" Calvin asked. "If you'd ever pay attention in school, you would probably know what I'm talking about." Hobbes replied.
"Too bad the Cerebral Enhance-O-Tron is destroyed. We could have used it." Calvin replied. Then, he had a flash of inspiration. A smile crept onto his face. "Uhh, I'm gonna go...floss my teeth." Hobbes said, but Calvin stopped him.
"Oh no you're not! I've been going about this all wrong! I have failed in my rebellions and plots because I lack lessons! I need to learn... to rebel!"
Hobbes was stunned. "You… learning?! I can't believe it!"He laughed.
"Quiet, flea feast!", Calvin stated. "It's only this once!"
"Okay, fine, fine," Hobbes said, a grin still slapped across his face. "You can finally throw in the towel-" "I'm not throwing in the towel!" "-and learn-" "It's only once!" -but you can do it tomorrow, because I am tired. Goodnight, Calvin," he said, and wriggled himself deep under the bedsheets.
"You're always tired," Calvin muttered.
"Fine," he declared at last. "But you are not invited to my classes once I start taking them!" Calvin angrily replied, and got onto his side of the bed. Hobbes chuckled at his best friend's antics, and closed his eyes.
Heh. That lummox. Thinks he's so funny. Calvin threw the covers away from him after verifying that Hobbes was asleep. He got out of bed, and with his greatest finesse, opened his closet door and got out a cardboard box. He then crept out of his room toward his dad's study room. I'll just have to find myself a teacher to show me how to rebel. A movie character or a historical figure should do.
Silently opening the door to the study, Calvin slinked towards the computer. It was an ancient Dell computer, but it would do. He grabbed the mouse and pressed the power button. He started to collect objects around the room to use in his contraption, too. "Soon," he muttered, "I will be well versed in the art of rebellion. No one can stop me!" he shouted.
Calvin quickly clapped a hand to his mouth as he heard a muffled groan coming from down the hall, from his parents' room. He'd have to be more quiet.
Sunlight and the chirping of an American Goldfinch roused Hobbes from his slumbering state. Opening his eyes, the tiger looked around to find… no one else in the room. "Aw, great," he murmured. "Calvin's not here."
As he searched the house, he heard a strange, electronic noise from the study, and decided to investigate. Without a sound, he entered through the open door and found the boy, back turned, working on the cardboard box that Calvin kept in his closet.
Inwardly, Hobbes groaned. That piece of corrugated junk had given Hobbes many problems in the past. It had been used as a time machine, a transmogrifier, a duplicator (the worst out of all of them), and an intelligence-amplifying machine that Calvin had called, "the Cerebral Enhance-O-Tron."
But it didn't matter at the moment. What mattered was that Calvin was in the perfect place, for a morning pounce. Hobbes coiled his back, bunched up his muscles and…
Wham! "AAUGH! Get off of me, you murdersome cat!"
In his room, Calvin's dad groaned. Why did his son have to wake up so early? He pulled the covers over his head.
Calvin and Hobbes scuffled for several seconds before stopping, and pushing apart. "Sorry Calvin!" Hobbes laughed. "It's just my instincts!"
"I am so tired of your stupid feline instincts!" Calvin shouted. Lucky for you, I was in a jovial mood," he retorted. "Behold, the Time And Space Gifted Academic Box! Or T.A.S.G.A.B for short."
"So what does it do?" Hobbes asked.
"Well," Calvin explained. "You connect it to Dad's computer, search up anything, find what you want and press this blue button on the side of the T.A.S.G.A.B to activate it. Then, you select print and print out a real version of what you found!"
Hobbes got the gist of it. "So if I want a tuna fish sandwich, I look for a picture of one?
"If you think that I am letting you use this for your tuna related activities, you are wrong, Hobbes. Dead wrong," Calvin replied.
"Fine, but I'm making myself a sandwich right now. See ya." Hobbes announced, and left to get out the tuna, pickles, bread, and mayo. Why does Calvin always have to use a cardboard box to solve his problems? He wondered,
Meanwhile, Calvin got on the computer, and searched for people that could help him. "Top 5 wisest movie characters? That sounds interesting," Calvin mumbled. He clicked on it, and went through the people listed there. He settled for a picture of what looked like an old monk in robes, walking through a desert. He then tried to press the blue button, but the button wouldn't budge.
He tried again, lost his temper, screamed, and smacked the button as hard as he could. The machine started, gears whirring, sparks flying, but then stopped. With a final series of coughing noises, it came to a halt. Hobbes, who had just come back with his sandwich, chuckled at Calvin's antics.
"You know what, Calvin?" He said. "I'm beginning to enjoy this adventure!" "Shut up, Hobbes!" Calvin yelled in frustration. "I probably have to tighten the button's wiring or loosen the Trans-Reactor valve. Let's check it out." Calvin grumbled. Hobbes sighed in that all knowing way, and approached the TASGAB.
But as Calvin and Hobbes opened the box, they were astonished to see a blue, swirling portal coming from… from somewhere!
"What… is that?" Hobbes whispered in amazement.
The two were so enamored by the portal that they didn't notice that something was starting to tug on them. By the time that Calvin and Hobbes snapped out of their trance. They tried to turn and run, but it was too late.
"Calvin, It's sucking me innnnn!" Hobbes shouted. Suddenly, an invisible force swept them towards the portal, and Calvin and Hobbes disappeared!