Once they were at home again, Calvin and Hobbes entered their bedroom.
"What happened in there, other than the mass destruction?" Hobbes asked.
"Not much. It was kind of boring in there," Calvin replied. "All we did was hold up inkblots and made me make sentences. The couch was pretty comfy though. Tasty, too."
"You seriously need to stop doing that."
Dad poked his head through the door. "Calvin?" he said. "We need you to start packing. We've got an important day tomorrow!"
"Important day, Dad?"
"Camping trip tomorrow, Calvin," Dad reminded him. "We're going to leave first thing tomorrow."
He left them in the room.
"Oh, great," Calvin whined.
"All in favor of hiding, hide," Hobbes decided.
"Okay," Calvin said. "I'll turn on the radio to drown out any noises that may attract attention."
Calvin switched on the radio on the dresser and they instantly began work. Hobbes took the old jump rope from the closet and tied one end to the bedpost. However, the rope snapped and the rose bushes were totaled.
Next they tried the bed sheets, but they unraveled and they slid into the rose bushes.
Then they tried using the kite to fly down, but this only resulted in a close call with death.
Finally, on their fifteenth attempt to use a parachute, Hobbes asked a very vital question.
"Why are we trying so many different methods if each one of our attempts has gotten us outside?"
"Well, we need to find a method that is painless before the trip starts, and since we have a full day to do it, I say we experiment until we find a foolproof way to do it."
"That and we have nothing better to do with our time?"
"Isn't summer great?"
It was at that moment that the song on the radio stopped and a man with a high voice came on.
"We interrupt whatever you were listening to for this important report. Local residents have reported that they have spotted a strange craft flying near the Camp Site Island near the canoe rental. It is advised this campsite be avoided at all costs just in case."
Calvin and Hobbes instantly perked up and looked at each other.
"Well, I'll have to call the construction company and cancel that order of dynamite," Calvin decided. He paused. "Or will I?"
"Wait a minute," Hobbes said. "Strange craft? What if it was that thing that flew over here yesterday?"
Calvin thought this over. "Good point. Maybe we should head over there on our own to check it out? I mean, although it's against my principles to go to places I hate, but this one might be worth it."
"Let's hit it."
Calvin dove into the closet and pulled a cardboard box. He turned the arrow to AIRPLANE, and the wings and propeller came out.
"Are you ever gonna get the peanut machine working?" asked Hobbes.
"Once the soda machine works, I can get started on that."
Calvin hopped into the machine with Hobbes right behind him. They put on their goggles and they soared for the island, the place everyone but Dad hates.
"Hey, I've discovered how we can get out in a harmless way!"
"Good, because I think all of our afternoon has been booked."
It was then that Calvin realized something.
"Hey, how do we even get to that place anyway?"
"I dunno."
It was at that instant that something roared over them. The box was knocked out of the sky and it crashed onto the sidewalk where Susie was playing.
"AAAH!" she shouted. "Calvin, what are you doing?"
"No time to explain, Susie," Calvin said. "Hobbes and I have to go catch that flying thing. It's not getting away this time!"
Susie eyed Calvin. "Calvin, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you had something to do with that flying thing."
Calvin was about to retort, but he suddenly had a thought. "Wait a gosh darn minute," he said quietly. "Maybe you're right! After all, I've met aliens before! Maybe they're back and they want a refund! That would be particularly difficult, seeing as how I'm sure Retro's not-so-secret lair is gone by now."
Susie rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You're so weird." She picked up Mr. Bun and walked back to her house.
"Poor Susie," Calvin sighed. "She seems to be confusing 'weird' with 'genius'."
"What do you mean genius?" asked Hobbes.
"Hey, who built the Transmogrifier/Time Machine/Duplicator/Airplane/Drill?"
"You and they've only gotten us into trouble."
"You're such a pessimist, you know that?"
Calvin hit the controls and took off in pursuit of the flying thing, which was now just a dot in the sky.
"The question is if it is Galaxoid and Nebular, why are they here and what do they want?"
"That was three questions," Hobbes said. "Still, I feel that those questions shall be answered in due time."
The box with the two pals flew as fast as it could to catch up with the flying thing, but it was quickly disappearing from view.
Calvin pulled out a pair of binoculars.
"It's heading for the island, all right! We've got it now!"
"Just out of curiosity, what do we plan on doing when we catch up with that thing anyway?"
Calvin paused for a second. He hadn't thought of that yet.
"Maybe we could just not do anything but snoop. That's usually a good start."
"Just like in those old movies."
Calvin steered the box after the dot.
"We're catching up with it! We're nearly there! Hey, we're catching up faster than I thought we would!"
"CALVIN, STOP!"
Calvin lowered the binoculars and looked ahead. He slammed his foot down on the, er, brakes, and they did a quick stop.
They were right behind a giant UFO!
"Holy…," Hobbes said slowly, but he felt short of breath.
"Does this thing look familiar to you?" Calvin asked nervously.
It was then that they noticed that the whole thing started stop hovering and it was now headed straight for island that Calvin was due to be vacationing in!
"Oh, great!" Calvin moaned. "We're vacationing with a pair of aliens."
"Well, we know they're friendly aliens," Hobbes reminded him.
Of course, Hobbes was right. Galaxoid and Nebular were great friends of Calvin and Hobbes. Unfortunately, a certain someone was up to something, turning their alien friends into possible enemies…
It didn't take too long for Calvin and Hobbes to get into the spaceship. It basically took about an hour. Hey, that may seem long to you, but when you're trying to break into a spaceship, that is actually considered to be pretty short.
Calvin and Hobbes had to crawl through an air duct.
"Man, it smells like transistor fluids down here," Calvin groaned.
"Shh, I can hear voices," Hobbes hissed.
Calvin and Hobbes scurried quickly through the small crawlspace. They looked ahead and spotted someone they didn't recognize through a vent on the bottom.
"What is that?" Hobbes whispered.
"I can't tell," Calvin said. "The bars on the vent are in the way."
The voice that was heard was not recognizable.
"Is the machine ready?" the voice said.
"Yeah, it's set," said another unrecognizable voice.
"Okay, bring it out."
Calvin and Hobbes looked at each other.
Peering through the bars, they saw some human beings hauling out something covered by a tarp.
"What's that?" asked Calvin.
He found out soon enough.
The tarp was yanked away. Calvin and Hobbes nearly fell over.
What was under the tarp was a machine. It was square-shaped with a timer and helmet attached to it.
"Oh my gosh," Hobbes whispered. "Is that the Imaginator?"
"Imaginator 2.0.," Calvin gulped.
It was then that something on the machine clicked, and a bright shade of red burst out of a hidden compartment on it. A laser shot out and struck a painting, bursting it into flames.
"Whoops, my bad," a man said.
Calvin and Hobbes couldn't blink.
"I don't recall the Imaginator being able to do that," Hobbes said. "I think I see what's happening here."
"What?"
"Retro's back, and because of that, we're gonna die!"
"We can handle him," Calvin scoffed.
"With lasers?" Hobbes questioned.
Calvin gulped and looked back down.
The men were trying to put out the fire.
"We'll worry about that later. Let's go."
They scrambled around, not caring if they were heard or not. They crawled like there was no tomorrow, which there wasn't going to be if they didn't hurry.
They crawled out of the vent on the side of the ship and jumped into the box. Calvin turned it on and they blasted off for home.
Mom and Dad were in their bedroom packing for the trip when Calvin ran into the room and started jumping on their bed.
"MOM! DAD! MOM! DAD!" he shouted. "THERE'S A FLYING SAUCER HOVERING OVER THE CAMPSITE ISLAND PLACE AND THEY'VE GOT THIS GIANT LASER BEAM THINGY AND—"
"Calvin, what are you talking about?" Dad interrupted.
"Mad scientists have hijacked a spaceship and they've got it set up at our campsite, and we're gonna die, and it's all because of that nut, Retro, and he's probably brainwashed Galaxoid and Nebular into helping him get revenge on me, which is weird, because he could've done it in the last movie, but that's not important right now because if we go camping, we'll be blasted to smithereens, and that's why we can't go camping. The end."
Mom and Dad looked down at him.
"I don't know what he said," Mom said, "but I think that's reason enough to stay home this year."
"Not a chance," Dad said. "We're going camping! It's a one of man's ways of recommuning with nature. It's what the world was intended for."
"If we were intended to do that, God wouldn't have made Bill Gates," Calvin said. "Can't we just stay with Uncle Max this year? After all, he said we could visit him whenever we wanted! Come on! He's fun!"
"We'll do that next year," Dad said. "This year, we're going to the greatest place on the planet."
"If there's no television, I'm suing for false advertising," Calvin said.
"You both need to learn that everything a man needs is provided by the wilderness. Man doesn't need much. Man was intended to just need bushes and trees, animals for companions, a beautiful sunset and some delicious spam."
"We have that here!" Calvin cried. "Why do you have to drag us off to our imminent doom?"
"Because we're distracted by certain luxuries like newspaper, television, work and such. We go camping because we need to unwind and relax. We need to learn and appreciate nature."
"If you wanna do that, just walk in the woods! It's practically a national state park."
Dad responded by throwing Calvin out of their room and into the hall.
"Now remember, you should pack only the essentials," he said, and he slammed the door.
Calvin rolled his eyes as he walked into his room.
Hobbes was on the bed, putting the box back into the closet.
"Well?"
"Pack essentials," Calvin ordered. "I say that packing essentials would include weaponry that will protect us."
"We'll need atomic bug spray then," Hobbes said.
"I was thinking laser spray, but that works too."