Late that night, around two in the morning, a big electric storm came through the neighborhood, pouring rain and flashing lightning.
It began raining hard over Calvin's group of houses.
And since Calvin was in the attic, he wasn't to happy with it.
Neither was Hobbes.
Actually Hobbes would have been just fine with it if Calvin hadn't of sat up immediately, to begin complaining about it.
So yes, both Calvin and Hobbes were pretty miserable up there.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning shot out of the sky, and struck a telephone pole, sending waves of electricity going through the lines.
Instantly, all the houses on Calvin's block lost their electricity.
Meanwhile in Mom and Dad's room, the alarm clock next to their bed flickered, then died completely.
Oops.
Well, the storm did its damage, then it drifted away to wherever it is storms go when they're done setting up plots.
So, as you can expect, since the alarm went out, Mom and Dad were unable to wake up at the appropriate time, so they slept in.
Pretty late actually.
When Dad's eyes finally came open, he was shocked to learn that he hadn't woken up early at four o'clock in the morning!
Uh huh.
Then he was even more shocked to learn that his alarm clock was dead!
Dad rolled over, and checked his watch.
There was a moment of silence.
Then, Dad leaped out of bed, and shouted, "DEAR! WAKE UP!"
Mom shot up in bed, her eyes wide, and looked around.
"What?" She asked.
"THE ELECTRICITY'S OUT! WE'RE LATE!"
Mom stared at him for a long time.
"You mean we're on a schedule?" She asked, finally.
Dad ignored her, and frantically began getting dressed.
"You gather our bags up! I'll get Calvin out of bed!"
Mom sighed, and got out of bed, still half asleep.
She got dressed, and began gathering up her and Dad's bags.
Meanwhile, Dad rushed upstairs towards Calvin's room.
Calvin and Hobbes had gotten zero sleep last night, due to the storm, so they were now sleeping in late.
Now here's where things get interesting.
Since Mom was still half asleep she had not informed Dad that Calvin had decided to take up residence in the attic, so Dad assumed Calvin was in his bed.
He opened Calvin's bedroom door, and ran inside.
There, he saw, not Calvin, but Calvin's duplicate!
You see, after finishing Calvin's show, the duplicate discovered that Calvin was in the attic, complaining.
Not wanting to be bothered with this, the duplicate went into Calvin's room, climbed into his bed, and fell asleep.
Dad ran up to him.
"CALVIN!" He shouted. "What are you doing still in bed! Get up! Get up! We're late!"
The duplicate shot out of bed at the sudden noise that had disturbed his slumber.
"What? Who? When?" He yelled, looked around.
"Calvin, get dressed!" Dad yelled. "We should have left three hours ago!"
The duplicate stared at Calvin.
"Uhhh... Calvin? I'm not Calvin. I'm a duplicate."
Dad was, apparently, not in the mood for another "I'm not Calvin, I'm a duplicate" day, so he shoved Calvin's duffel bag into the duplicate's arms and ushered him downstairs.
The confused duplicate ran out of Calvin's room, taking the duffel bag with him.
Unfortunately, the duffel bag that the duplicate carried contained Calvin's inventions.
The Time Pauser, the hypercube, the Transmogrifier gun, The Scream Horn, it is was all there.
Except for the box inventions (The Time Machine/Duplicator/Transmogrifier), that thing was still in the closet.
Oh, and Calvin's MTM, which he had forgotten to store back into the duffel bag yesterday. That sat on Calvin's desk.
The duplicate ran out of Calvin's room, holding the bag.
Whoops.
There was a mad scramble around the house, in which Mom tried to fix a breakfast, Dad ran around telling everyone to hurry up, and the duplicate running around, still completely baffled to what was going on.
Dad started throwing duffel bags at the door.
The duplicate ran up to them.
"What's going on?!" He shouted.
Dad didn't answer.
He was in such a mad hurry to get out of the house that he didn't hear the duplicate.
Finally, Dad managed to shove everyone out of the house, the duplicate still screaming he wasn't Calvin, and somehow managed to cram them and the baggage into the car.
Heh.
He was in such of a hurry he accidently put Mom in the back seat and the duplicate in the front.
After Mom sorted it all out, and put the duplicate in the backseat, Dad ushered her into the car, slammed the door ran around to the other side, leaped into the car, started it, and drove off.
Away from the house.
Which still held Calvin and Hobbes.
Ho boy.
Calvin and Hobbes continued to sleep in.
It took them another two hours to wake up.
By that time, it was 11 the morning, and the day was basically half over.
Calvin woke up, and rubbed some sleep out of his eyes.
He yawned.
He checked his watch.
His eyes popped open.
"HOBBES WOKE UP! WE SLEPT IN! WE'RE MISSING SPONGEBOB!!!"
Hobbes shot out of bed.
"HELP! MURDER! MAYDAY!!"
He landed back on the bed, and his eyes rolled around for a few minutes.
Then they came into focus.
He stared at Calvin for a long time.
"Is there any particular reason you just screamed and yelled bloody murder at me?" He asked, calmly.
Calvin showed him his watch.
Hobbes stared at it for a second.
"Huh, we slept in."
Calvin and Hobbes leaped out of the bed, and raced downstairs.
Well, Calvin did.
Hobbes slowly got out, yawned, stretched, and started towards the attic door.
In that same amount of time, Calvin leaped out of bed, woke everyone within a two mile radius with his loud "Summer rocks" screech, raced downstairs, poured out some Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs into the biggest bowl he could find, poured chocolate milk into it, sprinkled three spoonfuls of sugar onto it, raced into the livingroom with it, spilling some milk on the way, switched on the TV, changed it to Nickelodeon, and began gobbling it in front of Spongebob.
Hobbes came down the stairs, and walked up to Calvin.
Calvin glared at up at him, but didn't sat anything.
The minutes passed.
Soon Spongebob ended, and Calvin and Hobbes got stuck watching that weird anime show on Cartoon Network.
It was basically just a bunch of people screaming at each other, and dramatically leaping through the air.
And every time the characters screamed, their heads grew to large sizes, they lost their pupils, several of their veins showed, and their arms were replaced with flesh-colored poles, which were being flailed up and down, constantly.
Basic anime, in other words.
Calvin and Hobbes got a whole two minutes into it, before they agreed to watch the Pink Panther on Boomerang.
After about three or four minutes into that, before Hobbes noticed something missing.
"Say, Calvin?"
"Hmmm?" Calvin asked, before bites.
"Where are your parents?"
There was a moment of silence.
Calvin stopped chewing.
He looked around.
"I, uh, don't know."
Calvin set his bowl on the coffee table, and stood up.
"MOOOM!! DAAAAAD!!"
Calvin paused, and listened.
No answer.
Calvin thought for a second.
"MOTHER!! FATHER!!!"
No answer.
"MAAAAA! PAAAAA! MOMMY! DADDDDY! MOMMA! PAPA!!!"
Hobbes stared at Calvin.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
Calvin glared at him.
"I'm testing out all the other names to see if they'll come in here, shocked at the fact that I'm calling them stuff I've never called them before."
Hobbes continued to stare at him.
"I think you called them Mommy and Papa when you were three."
"Shut up."
Calvin crossed his arms, and looked around.
"MOM! DAD! WHERE ARE YOU!"
No answer.
Calvin walked into the kitchen.
They weren't there.
He checked the bedroom.
They weren't there, either.
Calvin walked back down to Hobbes.
"I dunno, Hobbes. They have to be around here, somewhere."
Calvin thought for a moment.
"And now when I think of it, I don't think I deleted my duplicate from last night..."
"What?" Hobbes asked.
"Oh, I duplicated myself last night." Calvin said.
He cupped his hands to his mouth.
"DUPLICATE!!!"
There was a moment of silence.
The duplicate didn't answer.
There was a moment of silence.
"Calvin?" Hobbes asked.
"Yes, Hobbes?"
"Weren't your parents supposed to go camping, today?"
There was another moment of silence.
"Yeah, they were." Calvin said, slowly.
Calvin and Hobbes exchanged glances.
Then, slowly, they looked out the window at the garage.
It was empty.
Calvin and Hobbes turned back around, and stared at each other.
"They left." Calvin said.
"Without us." Hobbes said.
"With the duplicate of me." Calvin said.
There was a moment of silence.
Calvin thought for a moment.
"And that means..."
Calvin rushed upstairs.
He checked his room.
He looked around frantically.
Hobbes came in.
"What is it?" He asked.
"My duffle bag!" Calvin yelled. "The duplicate took my duffle bag!"
Hobbes stared at him.
"So? What did you have in it? Clothes?"
Calvin glared at him.
"My inventions! My inventions were in that bag! The duplicate took them all, and now we're defenseless!"
There was a moment of silence.
Hobbes stared at Calvin.
Then, he dropped to his knees, pumped his fists into the air, and screamed, "THANK YOU!!!"
Then he stood back up, and faced Calvin.
"How unfortunate." He coughed.
Calvin glared at him.
He turned around and thought for a moment.
Then he remembered.
"We're going camping!"
"OK, what did my son do now?"
"How many times do we have to tell you something before it sinks in?"
Calvin nodded slowly.
Then a wide grin spread across his face.
This worried Hobbes greatly.
"Oh great." He murmured. "Here we go, again. Prepare the helmets and shields."