Summary: When Dad is going through his mid-life crisis, He forces Calvin and Hobbes to climb a high mountain with him. Where everything soon goes wrong.
And now back to Calvin and Hobbes: The Series
Written by garfieldodie and Swing123
Gasping For Air
Calvin and Hobbes were sitting in the kitchen having lunch.
Not much was going on.
They were munching apples and sandwiches and drinking Pepsi.
Fiddly dee.
Just then, Dad walked past. He was holding a mirror and looking himself over.
"Oh no!" he cried. "A gray hair!"
Then he looked again.
"Oh no! A wrinkle!"
Then he looked a third time.
"OH NO! A WRINKLED GRAY HAIR!"
And he ran to the bathroom.
Calvin and Hobbes sat there and watched him, and then resumed eating.
"Your dad seems upset," Hobbes commented.
"It'll build character," Calvin said.
Dad ran into the bathroom and ripped open the medicine cabinet over the sink.
He immediately started hurling bottles and cases out onto the floor.
Then he found a bottle.
"Maybe this hair dye will help," he pondered.
A little later, Calvin came in to use the bathroom.
Dad was standing there, holding a brush in his hand, and his head was completely black.
Calvin stared at him.
Dad stared back at him.
Then Calvin reacted.
"HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!"
And he walked away laughing.
Dad scowled at the hair dye and threw it in the toilet.
He had to go around like that for a few days.
Calvin, Hobbes, Mom, Susie, Moe, Rosalyn, Miss Wormwood, Andy, Socrates and Sherman were all laughing at him.
Once the hair dye came out, Dad put on his helmet and started to pedal his bike.
It started out okay, but soon he was attacked by a mob of mad dogs.
They chased him off the road, and Dad plummeted downward until he crashed into a rock pile.
He spent the next half hour repairing the bike, and then he pedaled it home.
He was all banged up and bruised and had scrapes all over his body.
Dad took a hot bath and went to bed.
The next day he did this all over again.
Each day, after coming home from work, he'd do this.
Hobbes later commented on it.
"I don't think that helmet is on tight enough," he said as he watched Dad limp home one evening.
This time, Dad hadn't been able to repair the bike, and he'd had to carry it home in pieces.
And you know what else was crazy?
What he said when he came in: "Ahhhh, this is the life!"
Calvin didn't bother.
Mom just laughed at him.
While Dad was taking his bath, Calvin looked at the helmet.
"You've got to hand it to the guy who invented the bike helmet," he said. "It must've been hard to come up with a look that didn't look good on anybody."
Hobbes watched as Dad went to take a nap on the couch.
"How old is your dad?" he asked.
"Umm, I'm not sure," said Calvin. "I think he's around his…hmmmm……mid-forties, I'd guess. I mean, he's still got hair on his head, but it's starting to fade."
"Then that would explain it."
"What?"
"He's in his midlife crisis."
Calvin stared at him.
"What's that?" He asked.
"It means that he's going crazy over getting old, and he's desperate to appear young," Hobbes explained.
"Well, it sure as heck is entertaining," Calvin chuckled.
Then he checked his watch.
"Ooh, look! Captain Napalm is coming on!"
Calvin and Hobbes zipped over to the TV and turned it on.
They sat in the chair.
Dad was still sawing logs on the couch.
Half an hour later, Captain Napalm was over, and it was time for bed, and Calvin and Hobbes went upstairs.
But they left the TV on.
If they had just turned it off, then none of this would have happened.
But then again, if they hadn't, we wouldn't have a show here.
So the TV was now going into news time.
And about fifteen minutes into the program, Dad was starting to wake up.
"…and now we go into local news," said the news anchor. "Just a few miles outside of town, the mountain has just opened a new hiking trail. It takes a direct tour of the cliffs. It's a great chance for all the world's young hikers to climb it."
Dad's eyes lit up.
A mountain, huh?
"Oh, Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallvvvvvviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnn!" he sang.
And that's how Calvin found himself sitting in the back of the old beat up car next to Hobbes and Dad sitting up front, humming a happy little tune.
Mom had disappeared the next morning after she overheard the plan.
"Why are we coming again?" asked Calvin.
"Because we're going to have fun!" Dad said. "We're going to climb to the top of that mountain!"
"What do we do when we get there?"
Dad blinked.
A beat skipped.
"Uh…we climb back down."
"What? No tram to carry us?"
"Calvin, relax. Think of all the character you'll be building."
"Character? Okay, stop the car. I want out. Character building has always been bad for this family."
"Calvin, you'll love it."
"Love it, huh? Love it like what? Love it like a vibrating chair, or love it like an ingrown toenail?"
Dad sighed and continued to drive.
Calvin leaned back in his seat with Hobbes and read a comic book.
Once they arrived at the mountain, Dad put on a pair of cleats.
Calvin put on a pair as well.
Hobbes didn't.
Guess why.
Dad approached the guy at the ticket booth.
"May I help you?" asked the ticket guy.
"I'd like two tickets for me and my son," Dad said.
"Tigers always get free rides," Hobbes whispered.
Calvin rolled his eyes.
"Tickets for what?" asked the ticket guy.
"Tickets to hike."
The ticket guy stared at him.
"You actually wanna hike?"
"Yep."
The ticket guy glanced at Calvin.
"Midlife crisis?" he asked.
"A-yup."
"Ah."
The ticket guy leaned closer to Dad.
"Listen, fella. Everyone grows up. We can't stay hyperactive forever."
Dad looked at Calvin, and then back at the ticket guy.
"Don't toy with me," he said.
Calvin scowled.
"Listen, buddy. Nobody has the ability to beat age. You can disguise it any way you can, but you can't deny it forever. So take my advice and go home."
Dad glared at the ticket guy.
"Just give us our tickets."
"Fine, but you can't hold me responsible for your death," said the ticket guy, who handed him two tickets.
Dad handed Calvin his ticket, and they all went up the mountain.
Hoo boy.
Dad marched far ahead of Calvin and Hobbes, who weren't going very fast.
Dad was admiring the landscape and yammering about the beauty of nature.
Calvin was shoving Hobbes up the slope because Hobbes was trying to go back.
"Keep going, Hobbes," Calvin said. "The sooner we get to the top, the sooner we can go home."
Hobbes stared at Calvin.
"It's a one hundred mile hike! There's no way we'll survive!"
"Come on!"
Calvin gently pushed Hobbes some more.
Dad looked back down as he climbed some more.
"Keep it up, Calvin!" he shouted. "We're getting closer with each step!"
And he looked forward again.
"Closer with each step to our death!" Hobbes hissed.
Calvin sighed.
They kept going.
And going and going and going.
And going and going and going and going and going.
And going.
Oy vey.
The path grew steeper as Calvin and Hobbes hiked up the mountain.
They could hardly keep up with Dad, who was rushing on ahead.
Dad was growing tired, but he wouldn't show it.
"Come on, Calvin! Feel the burn!" he shouted.
"I'll give you burn!" Calvin grunted.
He attempted to jump up and strangle Dad, but Hobbes held him back.
Calvin and Hobbes struggled up around the now twisting path. Hobbes glanced at the cliff just ahead that the path went along the side of.
It was about a fifty foot drop from that point.
Hobbes kicked a rock over the edge.
It fell for a long time.
Hobbes gulped.
Then he ran to catch up with Calvin.
And he kept his distance from the ledge.
Dad's walk was now a slow jog.
Then he started to run around the corners.
Calvin and Hobbes were trying hard to keep up, but it was growing difficult.
"Dad, slow down!" shouted Calvin.
"Yeah," gasped Hobbes. "We don't have as long legs as you."
But Dad climbed higher and higher.
Until he was out of sight.
When Calvin and Hobbes looked around one of the corners, Dad had vanished.
He had drawn ahead.
Calvin stared.
Hobbes stared.
Uh-oh.
Calvin and Hobbes continued to climb up.
They couldn't find Dad anywhere.
And now, Hobbes was on all fours.
"I don't think I can make it!" Hobbes groaned, his strength giving out at last. "This mountain is way too steep."
Calvin tried to help him up.
"Keep going!" Calvin urged him. "This mountain is the only thing standing between us and the Dad. Now come on. We can't let a little mountain stop us!"
"Why not?"
"Because Dad is the only one who can drive."
Hobbes managed to build a little more strength and climb up the mountain some more.
But now Calvin was losing energy, and it was growing more difficult to keep going.
Calvin then spotted some eagles staring down at him and Hobbes.
"Hobbes, try not to look dead, okay?"
"It'll be hard."
Now they had walked several miles, and still no sign of Dad.
Calvin and Hobbes kept going.
Man, they are determined!
Hobbes glanced over the edge of the mountain.
But they were so high up that they couldn't see the ground.
Suddenly, Calvin realized he couldn't see anything.
"Hobbes?" he called. "Where are you?"
Hobbes put a paw out and felt Calvin's spiky head.
"Right here," he said.
"Man, what's with the fog?"
"It's not fog," said Hobbes. "I think we're in a cloud!"
Calvin looked around.
"Why can't I sit on it?"
Hobbes sighed.
Calvin pulled out the MTM, and then he started to use the fan option to blow the cloud away.
"What now?" asked Hobbes.
"Well, since we now know how high up we are, we must now do something," said Calvin.
"What's that?"
"Scream."
"Good idea."
And they threw their heads back and screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Dad had been getting ahead of Calvin.
He didn't hear Calvin calling for him to slow down, and he continued going upward.
When he rounded the corner, he came to one of the cliffs.
He wiped some sweat from his brow, and walked up to it.
He looked over the edge, and sighed.
It didn't look too steep, but there was still a pretty far ways to go, if you fell.
He leaned over the side, and looked off over the edge.
He saw an eagle's nest on one of the rocks.
He leaned over farther to see it better.
His hand, which was propped against the railing, slipped.
"YAAAAAAAAAH!" Dad screamed, tumbling off the edge of the cliff.
Oops.
Calvin and Hobbes continued screaming.
After thirty minutes of heavy duty wailing, they finally had to take a break so they could breath.
Calvin opened up the Main Menu on the MTM.
NOW what do you want?
Calvin clicked on the tracking icon.
Please type the name/occupation of the person your trying to locate.
Calvin typed in DAD.
...Please Wait...
There was a moment of silence.
Then,
Specified Persons located
A 3-D map of the mountain started rolling itself out on the holographic screen.
A red dot marked DAD was blinking.
It was several miles below Calvin and Hobbes.
Calvin blinked.
"What the...?" He asked.
He turned to ask Hobbes what he thought about this.
Hobbes had disappeared.
Calvin grumbled to himself, then he started back down the mountain.
After twenty minutes of climbing downward, Calvin found Hobbes hiding behind a rock.
That wasn't surprising.
What was was how long he had been there.
He had vanished twenty minutes ago.
Yet, five miles downward, he had been behind that rock for nineteen minutes.
How does he do that?
I have no idea. And neither did Calvin.
After Calvin finished screaming at Hobbes, he consulted the MTM.
According to the MTM, Dad was supposed to be right in front of them.
Calvin and Hobbes looked around.
Dad was nowhere in sight.
"What's wrong with this dumb thing?" Calvin asked.
He brought up a holographic arrow which would point in the direction of Dad.
It pointed in front of them.
Calvin and Hobbes' heads came down, and stared in the direction of the arrow.
The arrow was pointing right off a cliff.
There was a moment of silence.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Calvin and Hobbes screamed, running over to the cliff.
Calvin and Hobbes looked over the edge of the cliff, and saw... uh... a very steep area ending in sharp rocks, and...
Hoo boy.
"DAD!" Calvin screamed.
"This can't be good." Hobbes sighed, shaking his head.
"I'll say!" Calvin yelled. "Dad's the only one who knows how to drive!"
Calvin stared over the edge in thought.
Then, a big grin spread across his face.
Hobbes noticed.
ZOOOOM!
Calvin grabbed Hobbes' tail before he vanished.
"Hobbes," Calvin grinned. "Prepare for a rescue mission!"
"I'm not jumping off the cliff." Hobbes yelled. "You can't make me!"
"Hobbes, relax, I have everything under control. Now then."
Calvin dragged Hobbes towards the cliff.
Hobbes would have no part in this however.
It took Calvin fifteen minutes to drag him over to the cliff, and by that time, he was covered in cuts and scratches.
By that time, they were both screaming their heads off, about all the injustices in the world.
Holding Hobbes' tail in one hand, and the MTM in the other, Calvin proceeded to shove Hobbes off the cliff.
Well, Hobbes would have none of that.
He roared, and screamed, and threw handfuls of claws into Calvin's face, hissed, and growled.
Finally, Hobbes lost his grip, and he fell off the edge.
"AAAAAAA!" He screamed.
After Hobbes was down, Calvin wiped some sweat from his brow, sighed, then he leaped off the cliff, too.
"AAAAAAAA!" Hobbes screamed, covering his eyes, and curling up into a ball.
Calvin held up the MTM at arm's length, and pushed a button.
FOOM!
There was a loud sound, and a cardboard box exploded out of the tip of the MTM.
Calvin leaped into the box, activated the rockets, and then caught Hobbes.
Hobbes glared at Calvin.
"Why didn't you take out the box, first!" He screamed.
"Two reasons." Calvin said. "Number one. It was cooler that way. Number two. You'd never have gone with me in the box."
Hobbes stared at him in disbelief.
Then, Calvin turned back to the controls.
"OK, now then, we need to find Dad."
Calvin stuck the MTM into a slot in the box, and a picture of Dad came up on a little screen.
The box immediately turned, and head back for the cliff.
The box flew downward towards the ground.
It came to some soft moss, and then, started flying into a thickly wooded area.
"Not going in there!" Hobbes yelled.
Hobbes leaped out of the box, but Calvin grabbed him.
"GET BACK HERE!"
Calvin, Hobbes, and the box all toppled over, and Calvin and Hobbes started fighting.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of Hobbes biting Calvin, They both agreed to a truce, and went into the woods.
How did Calvin convice Hobbes to go into the woods?
I have no idea.
The box wove back and forth along the trees.
"What are we doing now?" asked Hobbes.
"We're looking for Dad, of course!" said Calvin. "The MTM said he fell off the cliff, so all we need to do now is find where he landed."
Hobbes gulped.
Then they saw something dangling from a cliff.
It looked like…
"DAD!" Calvin screamed.
Dad was dangling from a branch that was stuck out of the cliff wall and was looking very dizzy.
"Should we put him in the box?" asked Hobbes.
"There's not enough room for him," Calvin replied. "Here. Take the tape measurer."
Hobbes hooked up a tape measurer to Dad's belt loop.
Then Calvin flew up the mountain side.
Hobbes let the measurer extend.
Once they reached the top, he announced to Calvin.
"Ten feet," he said. "Now may I ask what the point of that was?"
Calvin ignored him and took out the MTM again.
He pressed an option on the holographic menu, and then a sentence came up.
How long?
Hobbes stared at it.
Calvin typed in the number ten.
Just then, a rope shot out of the front of the MTM.
"There we go," he said. "Now it's time for my cowboy routine."
Calvin tied the rope into a lasso, and then he tossed it down the cliff.
It drooped around Dad's waist, and then Calvin got a firm grip.
With the rope still attached to the MTM, Calvin and Hobbes held onto it, and the rope reeled in, and it pulled Dad up in the process.
It was a slow process.
Calvin discovered that he had loads of patience.
Which is weird.
It took about ten minutes to get Dad back up.
That meant about a foot per minute, in case you're not doing the math.
But when he finally made it to the top, Calvin and Hobbes helped him up over the cliff.
"Phew!" said Calvin. "Thank goodness."
Calvin reached into Dad's pockets and pulled out something.
"He didn't loose the car keys."
Hobbes took Dad's canteen off of his belt and squirted Dad with water.
Dad coughed and sputtered.
"COUGH! COUGH! Oh…," he moaned. "Where am I?"
"On the cliff, Dad," said Calvin. "You fell off, and Hobbes and I had to pull you back up."
Dad looked at the rope around his waist.
"Phew!" he said. "Thanks, Calvin."
Calvin then smacked Dad over the back of the head.
"OW!" Dad yelled. "What was that for!"
"For doing what you did!" Calvin said. "What the heck were you thinking?"
"I was trying to see an eagle's nest," Dad said.
Calvin stared.
"Dad, we got like sixty of those on Sneer Hill. Once you've seen one, you've seen them all."
Dad sighed.
"Calvin, I'm sorry I dragged up this mountain."
"Well, technically, you didn't drag us up. You basically just left us behind in your dust. But please. Continue with admitting you were wrong."
Dad glared at him.
"I…was…wrong!" he snarled.
"Good enough for us. Come on, Dad. Take us home."
Dad sighed and got up and they hiked back down the mountain.
That evening, Calvin, Hobbes and Dad limped back home.
Calvin felt like he was going to fall over.
Hobbes had a hard time focusing on hard objects.
Mom was there fixing supper.
She looked great.
She walked over to them with a big cheerful voice.
"I had a great day today!" she said. "I went to the spa. How about you boys?"
Three bleak exhausted faces turned to look at her.
Then they all uttered the same word.
"Jerk," they hissed.
And Dad went for a shower.
Calvin and Hobbes went upstairs.
"Oy," Calvin moaned. "I ache in places I never knew did anything!"
"It hurts me to breathe," Hobbes groaned.
There was a brief pause.
Finally, Calvin spoke.
"You know what the sad part is?" he asked.
"No. What?" Hobbes asked.
"Dad is still gonna take that bike ride tomorrow."
Calvin and Hobbes sighed and drifted off to sleep.
Heck knows they would never do that again.
Even if they lived to be forty.
The End
Voice Work:
Pamela Segall Adlon: Calvin
Tom Hanks: Hobbes
Bill Murray: Dad
Jennifer Love Hewitt: Mom
George Clooney: TV Announcer / Ticket Guy
Coming up Next: The Calvin and Hobbes: The Series Season Finale! The Case of the Rouge Water Balloon