Calvin looked around the room. It was in here somewhere. That old thing could run, but it couldn't hide. As much as it hated its purpose in life to serve, Calvin wasn't about to let it get away. He was going to put it to work, whether it wanted to or not.

Finally, Calvin spotted something sneaking around the corner. This was it. He attacked.

"Where do you think you're going?" Calvin yelled. He tackled it.

Hobbes was on the bed, reading the funnies. "Goodness, Calvin. It's just a box."

"Yes, but it is a tough box," Calvin shot back.

He rolled around on the floor until he wound up under it. There was BRZAP from under the box and a shade of bright purple from under it.

"Hobbes, hit the UNDO button on the side," he said.

"Why, what happened?" Hobbes asked without looking up. "What'dja turn into this time?"

"It can't be shown on National Television, nor can it be described in words. We'd get into trouble with the church market. Just hit UNDO."

"Whatever," Hobbes said. He lazily extended a finger and hit a drawn on button marked UDNO.

Calvin was zapped back to normal, and he crawled out from underneath. He scurried out from underneath, and flipped the arrow around towards a new word: away from TRANSMOGRIFIER to TIME MACHINE.

The box flipped over onto its bottom and the top opened up.

Calvin climbed in and put his vortex goggles on. Then he just stood there and looked at Hobbes.

After about ten seconds, Hobbes finally decided to look up at him.

"What?" Hobbes asked.

"Get in."

"No."

"Oh, come on! It's not the dinosaur ages this time! It's the future! I've updated the computer program, and we can face any direction we want, and we can get to the future. We'll take pictures of it, and we'll be famous when we get back! We'll finally get some respect, and Mom will sign me up for driving school!"

Hobbes rolled his eyes. "I'm not taking any chances with you. You hardly know anything about technology. You crashed your Dad's computer, and then you actually did crash it."

"The mouse jumped me, and I pulled a little too hard trying to unplug it! No bid deal! I'm lucky to be alive!"

"Yeah, and you're unlucky to be grounded for a week."

Calvin snorted. "Fine! I don't need you. I'll get famous and rich all on my own!"

He pressed some buttons and he disappeared in a beam of light.

Hobbes returned to his newspaper funnies.

Half a minute passed before the light came back and so did Calvin. Calvin leaped from the box and got on his knees, hands clasped together.

"PLEASE COME WITH ME! I HATE DOING THESE THINGS BY MYSELF! PLEASE!"

Hobbes rolled his eyes at how pathetic this kid could be at times. It was too sad to watch. He finally tossed the funnies aside and joined him.

"Fine. Anything to see you quite possibly ruin everything in the world."

"Thank you," Calvin said, missing the sarcasm.

Calvin pushed a few buttons again, and they disappeared in the light.

Hobbes observed his surroundings. Lightening flashed everywhere, and it looked like they were in a blue, swirling tunnel. Pictures of famous events flew past.

"This is new," he commented. "We seem to be going slower."

"Right. I modified the speed of the engine, and now we can stop worrying about missing our stop, and you will stop that silly moaning."

The box swerved through the bends in the tunnel, and lightening blasted at it dangerously.

"Whenever something is better, something else is worse," Hobbes said, covering his head.

Calvin was too busy enjoying himself to take notice.

They also didn't notice that the images that were rushing past them were changing. One minute, technology seemed to boom and cars were whizzing past. The next, lizards were walking by.

Calvin was too excited to pay attention. He spotted a row of numbers just in front of them. There was a portal with a fiery flame lit around it.

"Year 2112 AD," he read. "This is our stop! We're probably far enough into the future to steal technology."

Hobbes looked behind him and saw that the future didn't look so good.

"Uh, Calvin?"

"HOLD ON!"

The time machine hurtled through the portal and they flew out into the future.

"Wow!" said Calvin. "This all looks so…so…familiar."

"Are you sure this the year 2112?" asked Hobbes.

"That's what it said at the portal entrance."

"Then something is seriously wrong here."

Calvin landed the time machine, and they left it alone. They searched the place. Just as they had suspected, dinosaurs were roaming the area.

"There's a Diplodocus!" said Calvin. "This is the Jurassic!"

"But this is supposed to be the AD," said Hobbes. "How can the Jurassic Creatures be here when it's after the meteor shower?"

Calvin thought for a while, and then he slapped his forehead.

"Of course! It all makes sense! Don't you see how Dad gets uglier and uglier in the morning? He is devolving! That's what happened here! All time has gone into reverse! Everyone is becoming an ape, which we all probably will be by the year 2089. Then we'll all go back into the ocean, and then the dinosaur eggs in the museums will hatch, and dinosaurs will come back!" He inhaled deeply.

Hobbes examined the landscape. "I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later."

Calvin waved his hand around. "Is it muggy around here, or is it just me?"

Hobbes' pupils shrank. "I recognize that smell! It's dinosaur breath." Then his eyes bulged.

"Don't tell me. There's one right behind me, isn't there?" Calvin asked monotonly.

Hobbes nodded slowly.

"Well then, I suggest that we…RUN FOR OUR LIVES!"

Calvin and Hobbes whirled around and rocketed down the path back towards the time machine. They hopped in, put on their vortex goggles and made furiously hit some buttons.

Nothing happened.

"What's wrong now?" Hobbes asked.

"The components in the electrical circuits aren't working. They're dead. We need a fresh kind to make the electricity we need."

"Where're we gonna get the right stuff out here in the Jurassic?" asked Hobbes.

"I don't know. Thankfully, the time machine is the only part of this thing that's broken."

Calvin leaned out over the edge turned the arrow.

The box shuddered and sprouted wings and a propeller. It was now in airplane mode. With a cough and a sputter, the box took off into the air.

Well, sorta.

It would take a few minutes to get up high enough, and until then, they were only five feet off the ground.

"Oh, this is just terrific," Hobbes moaned.

The allosaur was just inches away.

"IT'S BREATHING DOWN MY NECK!" Hobbes shouted.

Calvin looked around frantically. He spotted a cave just ahead. He steered into it.

"No!" Hobbes said.

They ducked into the cave. The allosaur couldn't follow them.

"That was close," said Calvin.

"That was not a good move," Hobbes said angrily. "Now we're trapped with a dumb dinosaur waiting to tear us apart."

Calvin pushed Hobbes out of the box, and then he got out.

"Don't worry, Hobbes. As long as we have the box, we're safe. Now then, I have a pair of batteries in my pocket for just such emergencies. However, we can't leave through here. The only way out is through that way and we have to get rid of the allosaur."

"How are we going to do that?"

Calvin went to the box. He flipped the arrow around.

The wings and propeller went back inside the box, and then flipped over again.

"Ah, the Transmogrifier," Calvin said. "The grandfather of my inventions. The one that started the whole thing. Let us pause for a moment of respect, shall we."

A choir sang as Calvin and Hobbes bowed their heads for a few seconds.

"All right, that's enough."

Calvin dove under the box.

"Okay! Set if for Pterodactyl, and get it right this time."

Hobbes didn't waste his breath, and he turned the little arrow on the front towards PTERODACTYL. Then he pressed the button on the side.

The box vibrated vigorously. Steam poured from it. Finally, Calvin popped out, but he wasn't Calvin anymore.

Actually, he wasn't a pterodactyl either.

He was a frog.

"Hey!" he shouted. "What happened?"

Hobbes didn't answer. He was too busy laughing at him.

"Some techno-whiz you are!" he chortled. "You don't know the first thing about technology."

Calvin scowled. Then he shot his new, rubber tongue out and struck Hobbes' head.

"Hey!" Hobbes shouted. "Get off of me! Stop it! AAHHH!"

Calvin couldn't reply. He was being thrashed around like a yo-yo, bouncing off of Hobbes head and then hitting the ground.

They scrambled out into the open past the allosaur. The allosaur went in for the kill.

Hobbes ripped Calvin's tongue off of him and hurled him at the dinosaur.

Calvin tongue stuck to the creature's nose. "EEW!" he shrieked.

The allosaur backed up and thrashed, trying to get the frog off of his face. It worried Calvin was trying to attack it, and once Calvin flew off, it ran off.

Calvin landed with a thud on the ground.

"Not how I would have done it," said Hobbes, "but effective."

Calvin shot his tongue into the cave and brought the Transmogrifier out. He hopped under it and returned to normal.

"Well, that was stupid and weird," said Calvin, dusting himself off.

"What did it taste like?" Hobbes asked.

"I'm not at liberty to say."

Calvin took out his batteries, but he failed to notice some small creatures were observing the box. One turned the arrow, and it turned into the Duplicator. With the opening on the side, they could easily pile in. The box wobbled and shook. It tipped over, hitting the button, making its trademark "boink" noise.

Calvin and Hobbes looked up upon hearing it.

"Did you just hear scientific progress?" Hobbes asked.

Calvin looked the box.

"How did it become the Duplicator?"

The box jumped towards them. They jumped back.

Calvin cautiously opened it. Out poured a brigade of tiny dinosaurs. They attacked.

"LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" Hobbes shouted.

Calvin grabbed the box and they ran for the cave. Hobbes was right behind him, and right him were the dinosaurs.

"Why did we run here?" asked Calvin.

"Well, we know how to get rid of clones, right?" said Hobbes.

"Oh yeah!" said Calvin.

The dinosaurs charged them.

Calvin and Hobbes stood in front of the box, open-sided.

The second they knew they weren't going to stop, they back flipped over the box, allowing the dinosaurs to charge into Duplicator.

Hobbes quickly shoved the box into place, and it became the Transmogrifier again. Calvin spun the arrow, not caring where it ended. It stopped on GARDEN SLUG. A bunch of slugs wriggled out from underneath it.

"Hey, that was fortunate!" said Calvin.

"Not to mention gross. Now the box has slime all over the inside."

"Big deal. Let's get in this thing and get home. I don't care for this time. I doubt I'll live this long, so I have no problem."

Calvin turned it into the Time Machine, and they hopped into it. Calvin installed the batteries.

"It'll take approximately thirty seconds to finish charging."

Hobbes sat for a moment before he noticed his tail had become all bushy. He sensed something coming. He looked behind himself.

"Allosaur's back!" he screamed.

Calvin checked his watch frantically. "We still need to wait fifteen minutes."

The Allosaur reached down the gobble them up.

"We don't have time!" said Hobbes.

Slowly, the Time Machine was warming up and rising.

"Eight!" said Calvin.

The portal appeared, with a gate right in front of it.

"Five!"

The Allosaur roared loudly and went in for the kill.

"AAAAAAAHHH!" screamed Hobbes.

"Two."

The gate dropped and the flames around the portal were ignited.

"Let's hit it!" Calvin yelled. They sailed right into the portal.

The Allosaur's jaws got stuck in the portal.

Lightening flashed all around in the blue, swirling vortex as Calvin and Hobbes flew through it, watching things turn back to the way they were supposed to be. They spotted the portal in their room, and they flew out.

Unfortunately, the portal was opened at the window's direction. Calvin couldn't get the brakes to work, and they flew out the window. The crash landed in Mom's rose bushes.

"Ow!" said Hobbes.

"This is why we wear goggles when we travel," said Calvin.

"I don't suppose our funding could get us helmets too?"

"CALVIN!" a familiar voice shouted.

"Uh, hi, Mom!" Calvin said brightly.

What he wouldn't give to get the airplane working right now.