Calvin put the Mega-Shrinker 5000 on the desk in the attic.

"How's it going?" Hobbes asked coming into the attic.

"Oh, it still needs some work." Calvin said. "The cake crystals keep falling out, and the shrinker's still shooting to the side a bit. I need to straighten out the blast."

"Uh humm." Hobbes said. "And, why are you working on it in the attic?"

"Hobbes!" Calvin said, "This is a Top Secret device! I can't just work on it anywhere! What if the government sends FBI agents to spy on me!"

"Calvin, it's a microphone." Hobbes said.

"Yes, I know. Great disguise, huh?"

Hobbes rolled his eyes.

Up in the clouds, Rupert and Earl were celebrating, whooping and hollering, and dancing around the room.

Earl's crew stared at them, not really knowing what was going on.

"I can't believe it!" Rupert yelled.

"THIS IS GREAT!" Earl yelled.

"THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF OUR LIVES!" They both screamed.

"What's the business?" Asked Lenny.

Rupert and Earl stopped their celebration, and stared at the crew.

"What do you mean what's the business?" Earl demanded. "The Earth Potentate has a shrink ray! Do any of you even know what that means?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"It means that we can go in, steal the shrink ray, shrink everyone in the Earth Potentate's family, and then take over the world!"

Everyone grinned.

"Oh I get it!" Alex yelled. "So we're going to go inside the shrink ray, lure him towards it, and shrink him, right?"

"No." Earl said. "That is not right. I said that we were going to go into the house, steal the device, and shrink everyone inside the house."

"Yeah." Lenny said. "And if you shrunk your house, you'd really be lost!"

Earl let his head fall to his chest. He felt beaten. Conquered. Defeated. Hammered down by the forces of chaos.

He lifted his head, and let the air hiss out of his lungs.

"siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. We are not going to shrink the house. I never said we were going to shrink the house. Forget everything I said about the stupid house."

Dave blinked.

"Well, that's not very nice." He said. "How would you like it if you were a house, and people called you stupid?"

"Shut up Dave." Earl spat. "You morons are never paying attention to anything! Why do you think you never know what's going on? We're about to take over the world, and you're going to miss the bus."

The aliens gasped.

"What!" They yelled. "Did you see a bus!"

Earl stared at them.

"Bus? No. I didn't see a bus."

"Well, we did!" Alex yelled. "saw it with our own eyes!"

"That's weird."

"Not really." Lenny said. "We've never used anybody else's."

"Anybody else's what?"

"Eyes." said Dave. "We've always used our own."

Earl's eyes bulged.

"OH SURE!" He yelled. "SO DO I!"

"Oh." Said Lace. "so you saw it, too?"

"That's not what I said!" Earl yelled. "Stop leaping to conclusions! Let's take this thing one step at a time!"

"Yeah, 'cause one step always comes before the next one." said Luke.

"Shut up." Earl said. "let me say right here, that there is no bus on this ship. This doesn't add up!"

"Yeah, I never was very good with numbers." Alex said. "But we have eyes, and we saw it!"

Earl glared at them.

"Describe the bus." He said, testing them.

Lenny spoke up.

"Well, let's see. Big. It was big. Real big. And red."

"Uh huh." Earl said. "Did it have any wheels?"

"Oh yeah, lots of wheels."

"How many?" Rupert asked. "Numbers, Lenny, we want numbers."

"Oh, OK. Let's see. 37, 13, 68, and 4."

Rupert and Earl stared at them.

"The number of wheels, you brick. On the bus."

"Oh." Lenny said. "I thought you just wanted some numbers."

"No. The number of wheels."

"Eight?"

"No we haven't ate yet." Earl said. "We're having cornbread for lunch, but that doesn't count. But thanks for asking."

"Your welcome."

"Where were we?"

"Counting cornbread. I think."

"No, I said that the cornbread didn't count."

"Yeah, arithmetic is tough."

There was a moment of silence.

"Lenny?" Rupert asked. "I think something has happened to this conversation."

"I wonder what it could be."

"We were doing a work up on the bus." Earl spat.

Rupert and Earl waited for the crew to pick up from there.

"You remember the bus, don't you?"

"Well... not really. What bus?"

"The bus, Alex!" Rupert yelled. "The bus that came through the ship a while ago!"

"I'll be darned." Said Jay. "What did it look like?"

"It had eight wheels." Earl said.

"And it was big." Rupert added.

"And it was red. Bright red." Earl said.

"Huh." Danny said. "Was anybody on it?"

"There must have been a driver, Danny." Earl said.

"Hello?" Danny asked.

"What?"

"Someone called my name."

Earl grabbed Danny by the scruff of his uniform.

"I called your name, you little lunatic. Is it possible that your mind wandered and you weren't listening to our description of the bu..."

Earl's eyes blanked out.

"Wait a minute!" He yelled. "Why are we describing the bus!"

"I dunno." Danny said.

"YOU'RE the one that saw the stupid bus, so you ought to be the one describing it!"

"Huh."

Earl stuck his nose into Danny's face.

"You did see a bus, didn't you?"

"Well... I don't think so. What would a bus be doing on the ship?"

Earl's eyes started rolling around in circles.

He couldn't find the words to express the scrambled feeling in his head.

He stepped away from his lunatic crew, and tried to clear the vapors out of his head.

Rupert and Earl then turned away from the moron crew, and started flipping switches on the control panel.

The crew watched.

"What are you doing?" Lenny asked.

"Working." Earl said. "doing my job. Following tracks."

"Oh good!" Alex said. "are they bus tracks?"

Earl's head shot up and his eyes fixed on Alex.

"ALRIGHT!" He yelled. "THAT'S ALL I CAN STAND! All of you! I forbid any of you to say the word bus again!"

The crew all exchanged glances.

"Gosh." Dave said. "What if we see one? What will we call it?"

"Call it a sub. That's bus spelled backwards if your bad at spelling too,"

"What if we see a sub?" Asked Lenny.

"Call it a tub."

"That doesn't make much sense." Jay said.

"No." Earl said. "and neither do any of you morons! So hush!"

There was a moment of silence.

Then Jay said, "They don't look like sub tracks to me."

"HUSH!" Rupert and Earl both screamed at once.

At last, they hushed.

Rupert turned back to the control panel.

"Where was I?" He asked. "I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM! STANDING AT A BUS STOP, WAITING FOR A SUBMARINE, COUNTING CORNBREAD, TRACKING A WASHTUB! I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON!"

"That makes two of us." Earl replied. "I hate this crew."

For the rest of the day, Rupert and Earl laid low until nightfall.

When it finally came, Rupert and Earl told the crew to not destroy the ship while they were gone, and took some jet packs.

They opened up the door, and jumped off.

Both immediately activated the jet engines and flew straight down for Calvin's house with wide evil grins on their faces.

When they landed on Calvin's doorstep, they sabotaged the lock on the door, and entered the house.

"Remember." Rupert muttered. "Go into the attic, get the Shrink Ray, and then take them by surprise. Don't wake anyone up."

Rupert and Earl activated the jet packs to first gear, and started floating up the stairs to the attic.

When they past Calvin's room, Earl past first, then Rupert paused, and grinned evilly at the image of the sleeping Calvin.

Then he floated past.

Suddenly Calvin bolted up in bed.

"YIKES!" He yelled. "My stomach is empty! This calls for a midnight snack!"

As Calvin exited his room, Rupert and Earl disappeared behind a corner.

Calvin walked downstairs, and started rooting through the fridge.

Suddenly, he heard a loud bump coming from upstairs.

Calvin's eyes came up, and he dropped the banana creme pie back into the fridge.

He studied the area around him.

He closed the refrigerator door, and pulled his Transmogrifier Gun out of his pocket.

He started tiptoing up the stairs.

"This must be the attic door." Rupert said, staring at a door at the top of another short staircase.

Rupert and Earl floated up to the door. Rupert opened the door, and they flew inside.

Just as the door shut, behind them, Calvin rounded the corner, and cut his eyes from side to side.

He moved forward, his Transmogrifier Gun held in front of him, as he moved towards the attic door.

He inched up the stairs, and took hold of the handle.

He flung the door open, taking Rupert an Earl by surprise.

They spun around, their yellow eyes glowing in the darkness, and Rupert was holding the Mega-Shrinker 5000.

"YOU TWO!" Calvin screamed. "PUT THE SHRINK RAY DOWN!"

Calvin started firing lasers at Rupert and Earl.

The two dodged it, and Rupert whipped out his ray gun, and started firing.

Calvin dodged Rupert's blast, and continued firing his laser.

ZAP! ZAP!

ZAP! ZAP!

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

ZAP!

ZAP! ZAP!

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

ZAP!

ZAP!

ZAP!

After several minutes, Hobbes finally got out of bed, and came to see what all the zaps were.

When he saw Rupert and Earl, he panicked.

"YAAAH! RUPERT!"

Rupert's head came up.

This gave Calvin enough time to zap Rupert and Earl's ray guns out of their hands.

Rupert simply grinned, and held the Mega-Shrinker up.

"Don't move, Potentate. Unless you want to get shrunk!" He snarled.

Calvin and Hobbes exchanged glances.

"We're going to shrink them whether they move or not." Earl said.

"Exactly." Rupert grinned.

Rupert cocked the shrinker, and pointed the glowing, humming end at Calvin and Hobbes.

Calvin and Hobbes gasped.

Rupert and Earl started laughing insanely, again.

Well, it has appeared that one of Calvin's inventions have turned on him.

Again.