I





"HOOOOOOOOBBES!!!!!!!!!"

The summer sun got into the angry eyes of the little blonde boy as he gave chase through the trees. In his arms were two sticks.

"Come on!!!" He gave an angry shout. "You're supposed to touch the two trees marked with the red flags and then you go over the hill!"
"But I have the Flag of Exemptness!"

Up the hill came a pair of black ears. Then, slowly, two beady, yet kindly, black eyes, an orange and black striped face, a tall, thin tiger body, two tiger arms - one holding a white flag - and a wagging tail. Then, two white feet emerged, completing the figure of Hobbes, tiger extraordinaire.

"As long as I have the Flag of Exemptness, I am exempt from touching the two trees." Hobbes smiled. "So, I can go over the hill."
"But if I touch your left arm with my longer stick….like this," and as he spoke, the boy poked Hobbes in his left arm. "The rules of Calvinball state that you must go and touch the flag up at the top of the tree house before I tag you!"
"Very well! But remember….." Hobbes grinned even wider. "You'll have to recite the poem if you want to get up there to catch me!"
"DOH!!!"

And so, a chase gave way once more. They were two friends, almost like soul mates, chasing each other in an eternal game of fancy and make-up. On top of it - and perhaps this was their main motivation for playing - there was nothing in it for them but the prospect of getting as dirty as possible before going inside for dinner. It was their life; that, and reading comic books, among many other things.

"Awwww!!!" Calvin, who was unable to catch up to Hobbes, could only sulk as Hobbes hoisted the ladder just out of his reach. "Come on! Let me come up there this once!"
"Nuh uuuuuuuh….." Hobbes stuck his tongue out. "You have to recite the poem first!"
"I don't want to!!!!" Calvin growled. "I always have to say the poem! Why can't you just let me up this one time?!"
"Its against G.R.O.S.S. policy."
"Well, someone's going to start seeing demerits for not letting me up there!" Calvin started to shout angrily. "I'm dictator-for-life! I won't let the president push me around like this….."


"Well," the figure turned to face the other direction towards the windows. "The president is the only thing which keeps your precious dream alive with the funding. So you'll do whatever is ordered of you!"


"…..HOBBES!!!!!!!!"
"Buh?!?"

Hobbes blinked. For a moment, his thoughts had suddenly drifted off at Calvin's shouting, and something else had supplanted. He blinked again, and Calvin's reddened face returned. Whatever it was had only lasted for a split second. However, it put the tiger off guard for a moment.

"….Oooooh, you're going to get it now!!!" Calvin looked up towards Hobbes and snarled. "Hey! ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION TO ME?!?!?"
"……….Look who's talking about paying attention!" Hobbes suddenly remembered what was going on in the confusion. "And besides, how can you give me demerits when I've got the logbook?"
"YOU WOULDN'T DARE!!!!!"
"Hmmm…." Instantly, Hobbes was on the book, taking a pencil in his hand. "Let's see……what should I say about Calvin's resignation of his dictator-for-life position…"

His tail swung excitedly as Hobbes pretended to scribble words down on the paper. As he did, however, the tail then swung into the bunched up ladder, flinging it out of the treehouse and down to Calvin.

"HAHAHA!" As soon as it hit the ground, the boy was on the ladder. "NOW I WILL GET YOU! PREPARE FOR DEMERITING, TRAITOR!!!"

------------------------

"Is this the house?"
"Yes."

The black, unmarked car silently parked across the street from the large, white, two-story suburbanite house. In the front seats, two men, both dressed in black suits and ties, silently turned to each other.

"I wonder what's so incredible about this kid and his toy," the passenger of the car, a clean-shaven young man, took off his sunglasses. "You honestly think this tiger is of such national importance?"
"Well," The driver, a mustached man, took out a small book. "Callous told us it was of a high priority - Category 1. You know what's inside that supposedly harmless tiger? A bonafide murderer."
"You really believe what he said?"
"He's working in confidence with the president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff," the driver licked his finger to separate the book pages. "We have no choice but to follow orders. Besides, it gets us out of Washington, at least. I need a vacation."
"Yeah, but this is just too easy - it is a vacation!" The clean shaven man shook his head. "How did you find this place if this is such an important government project?"
"Oh, well….." The driver put the book down. "I called 411. Operator seemed more than happy to give me the address and number of the kid's place when I told her I was in the FBI."
"….Wonder what's so big about this kid." The passenger wiped his brow. "Everyone seemed happy to point us towards this kid's house, weren't they, Max?"
"Yeah….." The mustached man looked up at the house. He could see a small figure climbing up into a pile of boards in a tree in the back yard. "Just a little…"

--------------------

"…..And twenty demerits for trying to distort the logs for personal gain!" Calvin glared at Hobbes as he scribbled lines into the notebook. "And ten extra demerits for tricking me into believing that's what you were really doing! You won't even be an assistant assistant assistant assistant toilet scrubber when I'm finished with you!!!!"
"Hold on!" Hobbes jumped up. "You can't do that!"
"Oh yeah?" Calvin snarled. "Says who?!"
"….The rules of Calvinball!"
"Buh?!"
"We are playing Calvinball." Hobbes waved his hands. "So nothing I do can count towards demerits because its not official G.R.O.S.S. business!"
"Since when do the rules of Calvinball apply to G.R.O.S.S. policy?!?"
"Since I did…..THIS!"

Before Calvin could react, Hobbes suddenly snatched the logbook from his hands. With a fantastic leap and a roar of delight, the tiger jumped straight from the clubhouse into a tree on the other side of the yard. With another leap, he then leaped from that tree into the thicket that separated the yard from the forest beyond and disappeared.

"HEY!!!!!!!!!!!" Calvin was screaming as he climbed out of the tree the next incident. "GIVE THAT BACK!!!!!!!! TRAITOR!!!!!!!"

The young boy was almost flying across the yard. With a definitive war yodel, he crashed into thicket, emerging from it completely dirty. He ran around, his eyes wild with rage.

"HOBBES! HOBBES!!!!!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOBBBBBBES!!!!!!!!"

Hang on a moment! Suddenly, Calvin stopped. He looked around confusedly. Call me stupid, but something is sooooo not right with that mashed potato-faced cretin lately. I don't recall him being able to leap that far! Those two trees are something like a million miles apart!

"Yoohoo!" Calvin looked up at the call; from his tree branch, Hobbes waved and grinned. "How's the weather down there?"
"WHY YOU….!!!!!!" Calvin grit his teeth. "COME DOWN HERE!!!!!"
"Nooope!"
"Grrrrrr!" Calvin pointed towards the tiger. "You are SO in trouble when I get that back! On top of all you've done today, you've compromised the security of G.R.O.S.S.!! What have you got to say for yourself?!"


"You don't understand!" The silhouette's voice sounded desperate. "What we are doing is wrong! I had no choice but to follow my principles!"


"……WELL?!?!?"
"….Eh?" Hobbes looked at Calvin. "Um…..huh?"
"…..I think we need to change your cereal, buster." Calvin frowned angrily. "That bran stuff is giving you psychological damage. The pencil shavings must be stabbing your brain or something."
"Uh….." Hobbes scratched his head. "What are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about?!" Calvin waved his hands. "You've been acting weird, that's what! One minute you're jumping five million feet, the next you stare out in space like some twenty-eyed alien reject from the planet Zergia! What is wrong with you?!"
"Well……"

Hobbes looked around for a moment before climbing down the tree. His face looked slightly confused, and he looked at Calvin with a bit of certainty.

"I must ask you if you have ever felt confused in your life."
"Oh, sure!" Calvin crimped an eye. "Plenty of times!"
"No…. I don't mean math homework confused."
"Not math homework confused?" Calvin looked at Hobbes. "Then is it meaning of life confused, then?"
"…..No……not even that." Hobbes rubbed his head. "I mean……my thoughts are just…..confused in a confused way."
"…..Not only did I not know that there was more than the normal two types of confusion…." Calvin, at this point, started to climb on a log. "I think you've confused me with the new confusion."
"Well, its very weird." Hobbes followed suit. "One moment, I'll be with you, doing something, and the next…..I'm suddenly somewhere else with people talking about things I have little comprehension of. Its like…..in a sort of a disembodied way separate from the action, only its as if there was a reason for me to be there, thought I don't know why I'm there. Its kind of hazy, seemingly pointless, and makes no sense…..like soap operas and reality shows. And yet I can't help but wonder what they mean."
"So….." Calvin leaped off of the log. "They're like visions of something?"
"Yeah…..visions."
"…………..Well………"
"Well?"
"…….I seriously think you're nuts."
"I'm being serious!" Hobbes protested as he followed Calvin. "Its got me really worried. I used to never have sporadic flashes of weird stuff like this before, and now I've got them every day."
"Maybe your mind's telling you something." Calvin picked up a stick. "I remember this one time when I started to weird things flash in front of my eyes. It was weird shapes and stuff, really bright and stuff."
"Really?" Hobbes followed still, his hands behind his back. "What was your mind telling you?"
"….That Mom used the flash bulb on the camera." Calvin waved the stick around. "That's all."
"That's fine and dandy, but what does your mom's camera have to do with what I'm going through? I don't think it has to do with what I'm going through."
"Um…..well…..maybe your brains trying to tell you about something that you should be seeing or something; maybe its something your mind saw and its trying to tell you about it." Calvin shrugged. "I don't know! How am I supposed to know?! I don't know anything about what you might have forgotten to do. What's the point of pondering?!"
"….I dunno…." Hobbes scratched his head as he went along. "….Well….actually….maybe I did forget to do something. I don't remember anything like what I keep seeing before meeting you. Your mom and dad finding me is pretty much as far back as I go, you know."
"….Because of me, right?"
"Of course because of you." Hobbes did a skip. "My brain probably wouldn't have a reason to keep things in it without you. Not that all of the things I've witnessed are worth remembe-DOOF!!!!!!"

Hobbes' foot suddenly met a thick tree root. The journal suddenly went flying from his hands, disappearing over one of the trees.

"Hobbes!!!!"
"Oh no!" Hobbes swerved around. "I lost the log!"
"AAARGH!!!!!" Instantly, Calvin was running in the direction of the book. "YOU STUPID DOO DOO HEAD! That log is TOP SECRET! Do you even know what would happen if Susie read it?!?!"
"Speaking of which," Hobbes stood up to run after Calvin. "I wouldn't mind Susie being here now. Maybe you'd stop yelling at me then."
"Oh, shut up!!!!"

Calvin nearly leaped into a stream trying to catch the book. He cursed to himself as the book, papers flying, the covers wind swept, flew flap open in a bush.

"That no good tiger!" He almost stomped across the water, glaring back to the animal whom was just getting to the stream. "I don't even know why I bother with him sometimes. He's acting so weird! Whatever happened to graceful agility and all that jazz?! Its like he forgot which foot goes out fir-GAH!!!"

The boy instantly felt himself lose his balance as his left foot accidentally misplaced itself in front of his right. He gave a shout, and shut his eyes, knowing full well that he would not be able to regain his balance.

*WHAM!*



Calvin fell into a pile of mud. It oozed all over him as he cursed. The book was only inches from his hands, and he sludged his whole front side in a lunge to get it.

"Must…..save…….!!!!"

His hands were just micrometers away when the book was suddenly swiped up. The lunge was not only unsuccessful, but Calvin ended up with his face in the dirt.

"BLUUUUURGHLE!!!"
"Ooooh! Calvin!" Hobbes was instantly next to him. "You got all dirty!"
"BLAARGH!" Calvin's mud-caked face flew up and glared at him. "You JUST noticed that, huh?!?!? You weirdo!"
"Well, did you get the book!"
"No I didn't!" Calvin growled. "I thought you got it!"
"I didn't get it."
"Then….it jumped up and ran or something!" Calvin's eyes bugged out. "Oh no! What if…..what if Susie sees it? Or worse, Mom?!?"
"….Books don't just jump up and run."
"Yeah, and my mom says they don't just cross the street, either." Calvin sarcastically replied. "Now go and find that book!"
"Ok…"
"Hold it."

Hobbes suddenly ran into a leg as he started running. Soon he, too, was sitting in the mud, looking up towards the sky.

"You wouldn't happen to be looking for this….." In the man's hand was a book with 'G.R.O.S.S.' scribbled on it. "….right, Calvin?"

Calvin's eyes widened as he looked up towards the black suit that stood over them and the mudpile. It was a mustached man, dressed in a black three piece, and he was looking down at him. He had short, dark, slicked back hair, and sunglasses. This last item he took off, his brown eyes looking down onto Calvin with a look of obvious look of recognition in his eyes.

"….Well…." He spoke. "Looks like I'm in the right place."

Calvin's eyes widened. He gave a gasp and jumped up. The mud splashed over onto the man's suit, though if there was any discontent there was none in the suited man's reaction. In fact, the man knew Calvin very well.

"No way….." Both Calvin and Hobbes not only knew who he was; he was also the last man on earth they had ever expected to see again. "UNCLE MAX!!!!!!!"