This is the first part of my latest fan fiction. I'm going to write a story for every major holiday, like Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter. It's going to start with Christmas and end with Thanksgiving of the next year. Yeah, I know that right now it's closer to Thanksgiving than Christmas, but I already have a story imagined for Christmas, and not Thanksgiving. Anyway, I hope to make lesser mistakes than I did in the process of beginning Mission Sugar Rush (I'm really sorry for the delay on that, but I'm having some writer's block on what should happen next.) I hope you enjoy this and all my other stories to come, because I certainly enjoy writing them. Now, on with my story!
Sleepytiger541
The snow gently fell outdoors as Susie Derkins followed her old footprints to the clearing where she had made her snowman. It was at the base of the a tall hill, and she knew it wasn't wise to build it there, because Calvin might come out and terrorize her, but as far as she knew, he wasn't out today and there was something peaceful about the clearing that attracted her.
The clearing was surrounded by beautiful evergreens, whose stunning green branches were covered with powdery snow. This alone made the whole place feel so Christmasy. Christmas! It was only in a week, and Susie had been good all year. She hoped that she got the Sweet Sparkly Princess Doll, which was on every girl's list. Susie closed her eyes and tried to imagine the doll, which came with three sparkly pastel dresses and nearly thirty other accessories.
Now she was there, in the clearing with her snowman. It was probably the best she had ever done. The snowman wasn't just a snowman, but a Santa snowman, which was sitting beside a snow bag of snow toys. To the left of the snow Santa were three snow reindeer, sitting on the ground, with sticks for antlers and a pretty red and green ribbon tied around each ones' neck. Susie was intending to take a picture of the snow figures and enter it in Mrs. Wormwood's annual snow sculpture contest. The winner got a shiny ribbon with a picture of a snowman on it. Susie had worked a long time on her snow Santa Claus and reindeer, and she was sure she would win. Just one more award, and I can start a new award album, she thought pleasantly. She had kept an album of awards and good report cards since she was in preschool and it was full except for one page.
Susie just needed to put a few finishing touches on her sculpture and it was a shoe-in for first prize. As she approached the Santa, to sprinkle some silver glitter on his snowy beard, she noticed that the snow behind him was packed down looked disturbed. It had been flattened into a path. Did I do that? She thought. She must have. Susie looked around, and there was no sign that anyone else had been in this area. She took the vial of glitter out of her coat pocket and twisted off the top. She looked around once more, to make sure that no one was watching her and pinched some glitter out of the vial. Then, with extreme precision, Susie moved her hand toward the snow beard, not wanting to spill any on the Santa's body. Easy…easy… Susie told herself.
POW! A gloved hand shot out of the snow beard. Susie screamed and jerked her arm back, spilling the entire container of glitter in her hair. She watched in horror as her snow Santa that she had worked so hard on began to crack apart. Then suddenly, all the snow fell away, and she saw who it was, shaking the snow out of his hair. Calvin!
"Surprise, surprise, Susie!" he yelled, producing a squirt gun full of icy water! "Nice job covering the tracks, Hobbes!" said Calvin, as the snow bag of toys broke open, and a stuffed tiger flopped out. "I hope you like snow, Susie, because after I'm through with you, you'll be a Popsicle!" She turned to run away, and felt freezing water soak through the back of her jacket and onto her skin. Fueled by the sudden cold, Susie ran through the woods screaming, all the way back to her home. "You just wait, Calvin!" she yelled over her shoulder. "I'm gonna tell Santa on you!"
"You won't get away!" said Calvin, swinging his leg over the snow deer. "Hi, ho, Silver, away!" he commanded, as the snow deer collapsed from under him
"That was sweet!" Calvin guffawed, raising his hand so Hobbes could give him a high-five.
Hobbes sat up with snow in his mouth, after trying to consume one of the snow reindeer. "Yeah," he said jokingly. "But I can't say much about the taste of this antelope. It could use some steak sauce."
Later, Calvin and Hobbes sat in front of the TV, watching a Christmas special and recounting their successful mission. "A-an then," he laughed. "W-when I p-popped out of the snowman, and there was all that stupid girly glitter in her hair?"
"Uh-huh," said Hobbes, solemnly sipping at his hot chocolate. The prank was fun, although mean, but he couldn't seem to shake what Susie had said. The words still hung in his mind: You just wait, Calvin! I'm gonna tell Santa on you! "Um, Calvin? Is Susie really going to tell Santa on us?"
"What?" said Calvin. "You have to be kidding, right? There's no way that Derkins is going to go out of her way to tell Santa on us. Her parents are too cheap to travel that far. Remember when they wouldn't buy my giant snowballs?"
"You mean the giant snowballs you were actually going to throw at her when she answered the door?" said Hobbes.
"Trust me," Calvin explained. "Susie Derkins traveling all the way to the North Pole, just to say, 'Mr. Santa Claus, Calvin scared me!' is absolute drivel. Besides, even if Santa knows what we did, we've more than made up for it in all the good things that we've done in the past, OK?"
"Uh..." Hobbes stuttered, remembering past incidents, like the Rubber Cement Incident, The Toilet Incident, and the Food Processor Incident.
"It's OK, Hobbes! Look, if you don't believe me, we'll go over there right now and look to see if they've booked a flight or something," Calvin said, tossing Hobbes his scarf. "Maybe THIS will show you how smart human beings are." Calvin buttoned his jacket and put on his snow hat. "Going to the North Pole! Crazy!" he muttered under his breath as they headed out the door.
The short walk to Susie's house would've been quiet, except for Calvin constantly saying how humans were indeed the dominant species and only a tiger would be capable of blowing an empty threat out of proportions. "Here we go," Calvin said when they finally reached the bush that they hid in for spying on Susie. To his surprise, Susie's car was out in her driveway. Her dad, wearing a big fuzzy hat with earflaps on the side was leaning on the hood of the station wagon.
"Come on, you two!" he called cheerfully to his wife and Susie, who were coming down the steps with a big duffel bag. "If we're going to make it to the North Pole, we need to hurry. We've got a long way to travel, you know."
The two spies' eyes grew wide with fear. "See, I told you!" hissed Hobbes. "Susie is going all the way to the North Pole to rat on us, and all we're getting is coal! I can't believe it! The first time I actually participate in one of your sick jokes, and I'm not getting any presents for it!"
"I can't believe it," murmured Calvin. "I…I was wrong for once!"
However, Calvin and Hobbes had greatly misinterpreted the situation. "The North Pole" was actually the name of a Christmas tree lot two towns away, run by Susie's uncle. He had the best trees for miles around, and being family, the Derkinses went every year to him for a Christmas tree. The big duffle bag was actually filled with bungee cords, so the tree could be hooked on top of the car.
Calvin and Hobbes, of course, zoomed home as fast as they could. Hobbes sat on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "My tuna. My new squirt gun. My coloring books. My glow-in-the-dark yo-yo. All gone! Just because of one stupid prank! My perfect feline behavior record has been spoiled!" Hobbes began to hit himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand, chanting "Stupid, stupid, stupid…."
"Will you quit your bellyaching!" said Calvin, who had been pacing the floor so long he would have probably worn a hole in it. "I'm a genius, remember? We'll just think of a plan. Our problem is that we need to reach Santa and persuade him that we've been good enough to give us presents. And we have to reach him before Susie does. So, what can we do?"
"Why don't we write him another letter?"
"Are you nuts? During this time, the mail services are clogged with gift lists and Christmas cards. It'd take ages for him to get it, and Susie would have been there and back by the time he did! Geez, tigers are dumb."
Hobbes got up and grabbed Calvin by the shirt. "Look, you! Tigers are NOT dumb, OK? They're graceful, intelligent, and really good-looking. And if you say it again, I swear I will throw you out of that window SO hard, you will land in Susie's car when she's passing through Canada! Then you can go to the North Pole and stay there as an extremely short elf that cleans up after reindeer!"
A smile spread across Calvin's face. "I just thought of an idea. Why don't we just go to the North Pole our own selves?"
"What?" said Hobbes. "How do we do that? I mean, we can't walk, and we can't fly, and we can't even travel through the mail."
"Yeah, it's a shame too. That box was actually sort of comfortable. But you're wrong. We'll just fly there in the sled."
"But our sled isn't magic! We can't even get through the woods without crashing it."
"Yeah, but we can use my transmogrifier to make it fly!" Calvin was already diving into the closet, slinging toys left and right. Hobbes narrowly missed being hit by a baseball bat. Finally, he exited the closet carrying out a cardboard box marked "Transmogrifier" with a dial on the side and a permanent magic marker. "See?" he said, writing something on it with the marker. "I'm going to write 'Magic Flying Sled' on it. Then, we'll just put it over the sled and poof! It's magic! It can fly! And the best part is, if there's someone we don't like, we'll change them into magic flying sleds as well and sell them at the full blue book price!"
"What exactly is the blue book price for a flying sled?" Hobbes asked, curious.
"One million smackers."
"I should've known."
Calvin brought the sled in off of the front steps and put it underneath the box. "Here goes nothing," said Hobbes, pushing the button. The box made a strange noise, and Calvin lifted it. Purple smoke curled out from under it, and when it cleared away, the sled looked the same except for two comical cardboard wings fastened to it. The two stared at it in silence for a minute. Finally, Hobbes said, "We're supposed to fly on THAT thing?"
"Uh, well," said Calvin, smiling nervously, not wanting to admit that his invention screwed up. "This is obviously, um, a cloaking device. Yeah, that's it. And as soon as we hit the air, I'll just press the 'launch' button, and zoom! Rocket boosters will pop out of the back and, uh"-
"There is no button," interrupted Hobbes, clearly not impressed.
"I just have to draw it on," Calvin explained. Hobbes noticed that several beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.
"Admit it. Your transmogrifier is broken, and we're not getting squat for Christmas."
"No!" said Calvin. "No, it's not! Just wait! We'll go and test it with a snowman. Then you'll see!"
"Are you sure?" said Hobbes, almost wanting to believe him.
"Positive. The transmogrifier has never let me down before! And it shouldn't, either! I made it! Go pack your bags! We're going to see Santa!"
Hobbes sighed. "OK. I just hope you're right. Or it won't be a very merry Christmas…for both of us!" They took the sled back outdoors.
A moment later, Calvin and Hobbes walked out of their room each carrying a suitcase.
"Are you positive that your mom doesn't mind us using the new briefcases that your Mom was getting your Dad for Christmas?" Hobbes asked.
"Trust me. It's A-OK," Calvin answered. Then, under his breath, he added, "as long as she doesn't know."
"What was that?"
"Nothing." By this time, they were almost to the front door.
"Why don't we leave your Mom a note or something? We're going a really long way, you know," Hobbes pointed out.
"Oh, I forgot." Calvin dashed back into the kitchen, where his Mom was busy completing an order form for Christmas cards. They had decided to just buy some with pictures of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the front, rather than put Calvin's picture on the cards, for obvious reasons. Calvin could hardly believe it took them so long to realize they'd easily save $10.00 on film if they just gave up.
"Are you going back out in the snow again?" his mother observed, staring at the layers of clothing he was wearing. "I think you have too much on."
Calvin said very rapidly, "Mom, Hobbes and I have decided to take a trip to the North Pole for real this time to beat Susie to it so that way we can convince him to give us presents instead of taking them all away because of a harmless practical joke that Susie misinterpreted. Bye, bye, I love you, be back before Christmas." He popped back into the hall and reunited with Hobbes at the door. "Hurry up before she figures out what I told her!" He grabbed Hobbes's paw and pulled him outdoors.
STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO!
COMING SOON!
