What Hobbes had found was blocking his eye sight. It was off-blue, and he couldn't see through it, and it was now difficult to breath.
He tried to alert Calvin, but Calvin was busy crawling out of one of the giant socks.
"Are these relatives of yours?" he asked the little gym sock.
"Where's the tiger?"
Calvin looked and saw a great big gelatinous mass was flailing around. "Hobbes, please. Not in front of the sock," he said.
A muffled reply was all that came back.
Calvin rolled his eyes and walked forward. He gave the goo a good yank until it came off.
"Phew!" Hobbes gasped. "Thank you. It is hard to breath through such gloop."
Calvin looked at the sticky stuff. "Look, its Funny Putty!" he cried. "I love this stuff! You can do all kinds of stuff with it! And look! It made a picture of your face!"
Hobbes looked down at the expression he had. "Cool!"
"And this is better than using a camera because you can stretch it and make it funnier!"
Calvin laid out the putty and stretched it out. In no time, Hobbes' eye was where his shoulder was, and he head was bent out of shape.
"I guess Funny Putty truly is the toy with a hundred uses," Hobbes said.
"Hey, look!" said the sock.
Calvin and Hobbes looked up and saw a cave!
"Why does it smell so fruity?" Hobbes asked.
"Let's find out!" said Calvin.
They ran inside, only to find it was lit up with fireflies! Lot's of scented, hardened slimy stuff was coating the entire cave wall.
"Whoa!" Calvin said! "I feel like we're in a school desk!"
"It's so colorful," added Hobbes, looking at the blobby stuff.
"It's bubblegum!" said the sock. "The fireflies enjoy chewing it, so they stay in here chewing it all day to keep it lit!"
Calvin then saw something greenish with a stick sticking out of it.
"Look, a sucker!" he cried.
"A big sucker!" added Hobbes. "It could have a future as a crane lever!"
They ran up to it and gave it a pull. It was stuck on there pretty good.
"Darned gum!" Calvin moaned. "It's stuck!"
Hobbes thought for a moment. "You know, wet gum is less sticky."
"So?"
"So we need something like water to loosen it."
"Where do we get that?" Calvin wondered.
They looked down at the sock.
"What?" it asked.
"We need water," Calvin said. "Preferably cold water."
"Definitely cold," agreed Hobbes.
The sock rolled his eyes. "Come with me."
They followed the sock out of the cave and around a corner near the mountain.
Calvin and Hobbes about fell over at what they saw.
"It's a lake!" Calvin cried.
"A purple lake," Hobbes added nervously.
"A loud purple lake."
"A big loud purple lake."
"A big loud purple lake that is coming from the soda can over there."
They saw a giant blue can sitting in the grass, and it was leaking soda.
"This is Soda Pop Lake," said the sock. "It is about a mile long and ten miles wide. It is the best source of caffeine anywhere."
"That would explain the loudness," Calvin admitted. "It's fizzing."
"And look out there!" said Hobbes. "An ice cube!"
"How do we get out there?"
"I dunno," said the sock.
"Then why'd you bring us here?"
"Hey, you didn't say you wanted to touch it!"
Calvin and Hobbes slapped their foreheads.
"Well, this is just brilliant," Hobbes groaned. "Now what do we do?"
"We need a boat, but how do we get one?"
They heard a loud CRUNCH from nearby. They looked and saw a giant Nutcracker eat peanuts. A shell was suddenly tossed towards them.
Calvin got an idea. "Can we borrow that?" he asked.
"Sure," said the Nutcracker in a Scottish accent.
Calvin grabbed it. "Ah, the peanut!" he said. "The misunderstood nut."
"I think you're a misunderstood nut," Hobbes said. "What are we gonna do with a giant peanut shell?"
Calvin tossed the shell into the water. He sat down in the front half. He waited for a minute.
"Ahem!" he said.
"What?"
"Get in!"
Hobbes sighed, still not understanding.
"What happens now?" asked the sock.
"Hobbes will now propel us towards the ice cube."
"Oh!" Hobbes said. "Here goes the S.S. Peanut now parting the dock on her maiden voyage!" He took an old soda bottle and smacked the ground with it. He took his tail, gave it a yank, and it spun rapidly like a propeller. They shot away from land like a rocket.
"YAAAHOOO!" Calvin shouted.
"WHOOOO!" added Hobbes.
Calvin reached out and managed to grab onto the ice cube. They crashed into the shore and were flung through the air.
"Well," Calvin said. "That could've gone better."
"But we got the ice cube!" Hobbes said. "Now let's get back there before it melts."
"How?" the sock asked.
They looked back and saw they had smashed their peanut shell.
"Look!" said Hobbes.
They looked up.
It was a giant slingshot!
"Get in!" said Hobbes. "I got this one!"
Calvin and the sock, holding the ice cube, got into the rubber part of the giant slingshot.
Hobbes ran over to a half-buried yo-yo, and he yanked the string off. It already had a noose on it. He ran and got onto the slingshot. He lassoed a nearby tree, and reeled them into it.
"DON'T HANG ON!" he shouted.
The rope's grip on the tree loosened, and they were shot from the sling towards a familiar pile of socks.
Calvin and Hobbes and landed first. Calvin caught the sock. Hobbes caught the ice cube.
"Quick!" said Hobbes. "It's almost gone!"
They ran back into Bubble Gum Cave, finding the sucker still where it was.
Hobbes took the ice cube, and he started to rub the ice cube on it. The gum loosened, and then it dissolved. By the time the ice cube had melted, the sucker was loose and Calvin could pull it free!
"I always wondered why I like peanuts," he said.
Hobbes looked at the sucker. "Now that we have the sucker, what do we do with it?" he asked.
Calvin had an idea. "Come with me."
They left the cave and stood on the socks.
He grabbed the Funny Putty, and he stretched it. He made a wadded up end, and then he hurled it up the mountain side. It stuck onto the top.
"Come on!" he said. "Start climbing. And bring the sucker."
"Oh, Calvin," Hobbes said teasingly. "You know I'd never leave without you!"
"He meant the other sucker," said the sock.
"Ah."
Calvin rolled his eyes as he started to climb. With the sock on his shoulder, up he went. Hobbes was behind him with the sucker in his mouth.
Soon, they'd made it to the top. They ran back to where the plastic wrench was still sitting in his mobile crane.
"Sir, we'd like to make a proposition for ya!" Calvin said.
He took the sucker from Hobbes' mouth and jammed it into the place where the old piece had broken.
"Whoa," said the wrench. "Nice job."
"Great!" said Calvin. "Now how's about clearing the blockage, huh?"
The wrench looked at his watch. "Actually, it's time for my coffee break."
Calvin's face fell. "What?"
The wrench left the crane and disappeared.
"What kind of construction worker are you!" Calvin shouted. "This poor little sock needs to be cleaned, and you're the only one with the ability to do it! Get back here, you mook! By golly, if I were on this job, I'd—"
Calvin then stopped for a moment. What if he did do this job? He ran to the cab of the crane and saw that the key was still in the ignition.
"Hobbes, I lifelong dream of mine has finally come true!" he said.
"Should we be worried?" asked the sock.
"I think so."
Calvin put on a yellow hardhat and jumped behind the controls. He used the sucker to open and close the claw, which grabbed onto old napkins, pink erasers, pencil lead, dead batteries, an apple core, two banana peels, and an old slice of pizza, a shoelace, a breath mint and a nickel.
After fifteen minutes, Calvin had cleared about everything, and the sudsy water could pour in.
"Momma Mia!" Hobbes said in fake Italian. "That's a sudsy water patch there."
"Whatever," said Calvin. "Okay, sock. This is where you get that clean you've whining about."
"Right!" said the sock. "BANZAI!"
The sock sprang into the lake. The big spinning thing was moving fast. The dirt came off the sock. It jumped up and down. It dove and swam.
After a minute, it jumped back out and next to Calvin and Hobbes.
"Clean, at last!" he cried.
"All right!" said Hobbes. "Let's get you back with your friend, and we can check socks off our list."
It took a while, but they finally made it to the dresser. It was a crazy adventure that involved a lion, a witch and a wardrobe, but we don't have time to get into that.
"Here we are!" said Calvin. "The dresser."
They knocked on the sock drawer, which slid open.
"Yes?" asked a voice.
"My sock friend!" the sock shouted.
Another sock, exactly identical to the first, popped out. We'll call her Sock 2.
"You're back!" she cried.
"I am!" said Sock 1.
They hugged. They danced. They made fools of themselves in front of our two heroes.
Hobbes sniffed and wiped his eyes with his tail.
"What are you crying about?" Calvin asked.
"Little moments like this," Hobbes sighed. "They make the job all worthwhile."
They watched the happy socks jumping up and down and dancing.
"Do you want to dance?" Hobbes asked.
Calvin paused for a moment to give Hobbes a strange look before finally saying, "Yeah, why not?"
They put on some sunglasses and started to boogie.
After they finished, Calvin and Hobbes worked a deal with the socks. In payment for reuniting them, they had to be Hobbes' socks for the Grubby Corners Mall security guard. They agreed, so they only had two more things to get…