As Calvin went inside, he saw someone down at the edge of the street setting up a sign with blinking lights on it.

Quickly, he grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked out towards the edge of the street.

It appeared to be a man wearing a yellow hardhat, and he was setting up a large sign that read EMERGENCY TRAVEL ONLY.

Calvin gulped and put the binoculars away.

When he entered the house, lightning flashed, and the lights in the house dimmed slightly.

Mom walked past.

"Mom, what the heck's going on?" he demanded.

"There's a storm passing through," she replied. "It's supposed to last through the night."

Calvin gulped and went upstairs to his room.

Right now, Hobbes was hiding under his bed.

"Hobbes, come out. Mom says it's just a storm," Calvin sighed.

"Oh sure, that's what it looks like at first," Hobbes snapped. "Then the next thing you know, you're squished like a bug underneath one of Jupiter's moons, and your dad will be complaining that all the rocks that once made up Saturn's rings are scattered all over the lawn!"

Calvin stared at him for a long time.

"Have you ever considered writing for a career, Hobbes?" he finally asked.

"Look, I've got everything we'll ever need to keep us safe right here," Hobbes said, jumping out from under the bed.

With him was a giant bag.

"What's that?" asked Calvin.

"My special FALLING SKY SAFETY KIT," Hobbes said quickly. "It's of my own design."

"What does it include?"

Hobbes immediately started yanking objects out as he named them.

"Football helmet for the head protection, a mouth guard, shoulder pads, a canteen, shin guards, roller-skates, plastic sword, the phone number for the navy, a trampoline, egg carton, sunglasses, spare change, toenail clippers, egg timer, light bulbs, a Garfield Day-to-Day calendar, blanket, sleeping bag, pillow, parachute, a house key, alarm clock, telescope, knee pads, shoulder pads, motivational tapes, camera, video camera, can of sardines, and most importantly, a lifetime pass to the All-American Theme Park!"

Calvin was currently buried up to his chin in this stuff, but he managed to keep a straight face.

"Umm…that's great, Hobbes," he said. "Just one question."

"What's that?"

"Why can't we just use the force field in the MTM?"

Hobbes stared at him.

"Uhhh… Gee. I guess I'm gonna have to return most of these to their rightful owners," he said slowly.

Calvin sighed and dug himself out.

"Look, Hobbes, odds are we aren't going to need this stuff. I mean, how can the sky fall anyway? This is Socrates we're talking about. You've been victim of his pranks too, you know."

"But he seemed genuinely confused when I talked to him about the prank! He was serious! And he wouldn't lie to me!"

"How do you know? He could be trying to pull the wool over your eyes to, you know."

Hobbes sighed.

"Look, I'm in no mood to continue this. I'm just gonna—"

CRACK!

BOOM!

Hobbes was cut off by the powerful thunder that suddenly rolled over the town.

"Yikes!" he screeched, and he dove under the bed.

As he did so, the power dimmed a few times.

"Darn it," sighed Calvin. "Any minute now, Dad's gonna bust out the candles."

"What's the point?" Hobbes demanded. "Any minute now, the sun's gonna be like, one mile away from the planet, and the only thing keeping us from dieing a fiery death is the fact that Mercury and Venus will be shading us ever so slightly."

Calvin rolled his eyes.

"Well, I've got better things to do than stand here listening to you be scared. I'm a busy man with important things to do."

And Calvin left.

But the next day, things were no better.

Leaves were flying everywhere. Trees were tipping over. Roofs were being lifted off of buildings. Telephone poles had come down. Fences were flying away.

By now, the power had gone out completely.

Very few cars were going through their street.

Mom and Dad had boarded up their windows.

Calvin and Hobbes had hidden all their favorite things in the basement.

Calvin was standing on the back porch, looking up at Sneer Hill.

Trees were waving around, and then one of them came a tumbling down.

This caused several others to fall down.

Calvin gulped.

"It's just a storm. It's just a storm," he repeated to himself.

He glanced at his watch.

It was almost noon.

In another four hours, they would find out whether or not Socrates' prediction was true or not.

"How's it look up there?" asked Hobbes.

Calvin turned around and stared at his best friend.

Hobbes was wearing a football helmet and a life preserver.

"Not bad," Calvin sighed.

Suddenly, a big gust of wind flew through, and this caused the grill to tip over.

Hobbes jumped in surprise.

Neither of them knew that Socrates was standing on the roof, and he was holding a wooden slab that he had painted to look like a piece of the sky.

"I'm singin' in the rain… I'm singin' in the rain… After all that toil and pain… I'm singin' in the rain…," he sang as he aimed.

Then he tossed it off the roof, and let it land in the yard in front of them.

"What the heck…?" Calvin whispered.

He walked over and picked it up.

"What's this?" he asked.

Hobbes gasped when he saw.

"IT'S THE SKY! WE'RE DOOMED! OH MERCY!" he wailed.

"Calm down, Tiger little," Calvin shouted. "There's a logical explanation for all this."

"Yeah, that the sky is falling, and we're all doomed!"

"We are not! Let's look at the neighborhood."

Calvin and Hobbes ran around the house and gasped.

The road was starting to flood from all the rain.

There were no cars, yards were littered with debris, windows were boarded up, etc, etc, and ya get it.

"Whoa…," said Calvin.

"Did Mother Nature sneeze in here or something?" asked Hobbes.

Suddenly, something hard pelted Calvin on the back of the head.

"OW! What'd you do that for?" he demanded.

"What do you mean? I didn't do anyth—OW!"

Hobbes had been hit by something now.

"What's going on?" Calvin shouted.

Suddenly, they were pounded by more of the same.

"OUCH! OW! HEY! EEK! GEEZE! OOCH!" they shouted.

"What's—OW!—going on—D'OH!—Hobbes?" Calvin yelled.

"We're being—ACK!—hit—OUCH!—with stars! OUCH!" Hobbes replied.

"OW! Are—EEK!—you sure?—GEEK!"

"Most—OW!—think so! They're—OUCH!—small and—DOOF!—pointy! YOW!"

"All right then! DEEJ! We'd bet—EEK!—better get in—YEOOCH!—inside! COME ON! OUCH!"

So they quickly ran inside.

As quickly as possible, Calvin and Hobbes scrambled up the stairs to their room. Calvin dove into the closet, yanked out of the box, and slipped some goggles on.

"Quick! Put your goggles on! You right! Me wrong! That doesn't mean you have to hold it against me! We're stopping that sky from falling!"

"How?" demanded Hobbes.

"I don't know! We'll have to stop the storm. If we can stop the storm, then we can stop the sky from falling."

"What a plan," Hobbes said, as he dove into the box. "Simple, yet insane!"

The box flew out the window and took the sky.

Socrates watched from the rooftop as they flew away.

"This should prove to be quite theatric," he commented.

"UP, UP AND AWAY!" Calvin cheered.

The box flew up to the sky, and Calvin and Hobbes immediately flew above the clouds.

It was interesting seeing the lightning flash from above.

"Neat," said Calvin. "Okay, Hobbes. I have an idea. Hand me the MTM."

Hobbes did so.

"What do you plan do to with it?" he demanded.

"Simple! We'll use the MTM as lightning rod to take up all the lightning. And then, all the lightning will be kept inside without us getting hurt."

"Can I have your stuff?"

Calvin rolled his eyes and connected the MTM a fishing rod. Then he activated a feature on the MTM.

Oh, hello. I'm the all-powerful MTM who has an IQ of 6000. That's the equivalent of 6000 PE teachers.

"Finally, a computer that's honest," muttered Hobbes.

"Whatever," said Calvin. "I need you to activate your lightning rod option."

Oh, of course, your majesty. Nice to know you care about my safety.

"Just do it," Calvin sighed.

The MTM suddenly acquired a very long metal pole sticking out of it.

Calvin then held it out over the side of the box and held onto the fishing rod.

Hobbes was tempted to cut the string with his claws, but he held himself back.

The MTM was lowered into the clouds.

Lightning flashed all around it.

Finally, a long streak of lightning started to head for the ground, but instead, it entered the rod on the MTM.

ZZAP!

After ten minutes of waiting, there was no more lightning flashing.

Just the thunder rumbling.

Calvin reeled the MTM back in.

"All right, that's taken care of," he said. "Next item on the list is to stop the wind."

Calvin dove the box down through the clouds again, and immediately, they were nearly knocked out of the sky by the wind.

"Whoa there, Silver!" Calvin shouted, shifting his weight to keep the box steady.

"Calvin, let's make this quick," Hobbes moaned. "I'm about to get reacquainted with my breakfast."

"Hang on."

Calvin quickly activated the thrusters on the box, and it quickly shot into the direction the wind was coming from.

"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?" demanded Hobbes.

"My theory is that if I fly fast enough in the opposite direction of the wind, I can make it go back the other way!" he shouted.

About half an hour later, they were still flying in that direction.

Technically, they were flying in circles.

All they did was make Hobbes more sick.

Finally, Calvin gave up, and he brought it in for a landing.

"It's no use!" wailed Calvin. "The sky's gonna fall, and we're all gonna die! There's only one good side to all this!"

"What's that?" asked Hobbes.

"It wasn't my fault!"

Hobbes groaned.

Suddenly, there was a crack of lightning that lit up the whole street.

"Whoa!" gasped Calvin.

BOOM!

"AAAH!" cried Hobbes.

The storm was at full power now.

"The lightning's back!" wailed Hobbes. "We're dead!"

"We are, I'm afraid! Unless…"

"UNLESS WHAT?!?" Hobbes demanded.

"Unless we get back to town and hide in our cellar! Maybe we'll be safe if we're underground!"

"Brilliant! Let's go!"

Unfortunately, the box was now out of gas, and Calvin was out of apple juice to fuel it.

So Calvin loaded the box into the hypercube, and they began the walk towards their house.

It was a full street away.

They fought rain, wind and flying debris every step of the way.

"This is so far the worst day of my life!" wailed Hobbes.

"Come on, Hobbes! We're only a block away!" Calvin shouted over the storm.

"No problem! Wherever the wind goes, I go."

As they passed by some houses, a fiery bolt of lightning ripped through the sky, hitting a telephone pole and cracking it in two. The pole came crashing to the ground only inches away from them. Wires snapped and sparks flew all around them.

"I guess this would be a bad time to stop and make a long-distance phone call," Hobbes mused.

Still, they pressed on. Just as they had begun to breathe easier, a strong, spiraling wind picked up Calvin and carried him away. The gust hurled him down the street, tossing and turning him end over end.

SPLAT!

Calvin was pitched right into a blue mailbox that stood at the edge of the block.

"This looks like my lucky day after all!" Calvin said, his back pressed against the mailbox.

BLAT!

Hobbes came flying through the air and landed smack on top of Calvin.

The force of his arrival caused the side of the mailbox to rip open, and they tumbled inside.

Calvin peeked out of the hole.

"Then again…," he sighed.

"Hey, Calvin!" said Hobbes, holding an envelope. "I may have already won three million dollars!"

Calvin rolled his eyes.

They both climbed out and pressed on.

"We're not gonna make it!" Hobbes shouted.

"Yes we will!" Calvin replied.

It wasn't a good argument, but it's all he had to go on.

Then Calvin saw a trashcan on the curb.

It gave him an idea.

Quickly, he picked it up and dumped the garbage on the ground.

"Get in," he ordered.

Hobbes reluctantly crawled into the dirty can.

"Eew, someone in here eats anchovies!" he winced. "I hate anchovies."

Once inside, Calvin and Hobbes began rocking the can from side to side. When the can was in motion, they braced themselves for the bumpy ride. A moment later, thanks to the storm, they were airborne.

"Well, it certainly is an inexpensive way to fly," commented Calvin. "I can't say much for the in-flight movie, though."

The storm had reached the peak of its fury. Inside the whirling trashcan, Calvin and Hobbes held on for their lives.

As they passed through the neighborhood, they saw the worst storm they'd seen in years.

Windows shattered, buildings rattled, and debris filled the air as the dark clouds ripped over town.

BANG!

The trash can carrying them smashed into a telephone pole and came crashing to the ground. It teetered back and forth and then became still.

Slowly, dizzily, Calvin and Hobbes emerged from the can.

"Aunty Em? Aunty Em? Are we still in Kansas?" moaned Hobbes.

Calvin glanced at the sky.

"It can't be much longer before the sky falls! Any minute now, nebulas, planets, stars, satellites and cosmos will come colliding with Earth!" he cried.

"What do we do now?" Hobbes asked.

"We run for home! See! Our house is just down the sidewalk!"

"What about your parents? Won't they be worried?"

"As far as they know, I'm locked in my room with you and being asleep. Now let's get a move on!"

They tore down the street at full speed.

It wasn't long before the house came into view.

Suddenly, they were lifted into the air once more…

…only to collide with their mailbox.

"I'm getting really tried of this," Calvin moaned.

They quickly picked themselves up and made a mad dash through the fence between them and the back yard. They made a sharp turn, slipped on the wet grass, and saw the cellar door just ahead.

Calvin quickly yanked it open.

But before they could dive inside, there was a loud crashing noise.

Calvin and Hobbes looked back.

It was another tree. It had crashed into the Calvinball field.

Calvin looked at his watch.

4:00 PM!

"It's starting!" Calvin wailed.

"Run!"

Calvin and Hobbes dived into the cellar.

Calvin slammed the door shut, and locked it.

Then, both of of them dove to the floor, covered their eyes, and... well, hoped for the best.

Suddenly, the air grew thin, as both of them began to hear a terrible sound outside.

The sky falling, no doubt. All around them.

It was a terrible deafening sound of crashes, bangs, screeches, and explosions.

As well as the sound of everything being torn up in the proccess.

The sound of tin being ripped to shreds. The sound of trees being reduced to spliters. The sound of cars being crushed by Saturn's moons. and so on.

Neither one of them is too sure what happened next.

Maybe the fear caused them to faint. Maybe it was the instant change in the air pressure.

Whatever it was, blackness fell upon them instantly.

Hobbes was the first to wake up.

He looked around.

He was in the basement.

Phew! He had made it.

And by the looks of things, he was okay. Just a few bruises and the fact that he was exhausted.

But right when Hobbes was about to start celebrating his survival, he remembered something.

"CALVIN!" he cried.

He looked around frantically.

Oh. Phew!

Calvin was asleep just a few feet away.

Hobbes immediately started checking for injuries.

The only damage was a nasty bruise on Calvin's forehead and a small cut on his hand, which had stopped bleeding long ago.

Other than that, Calvin was fine.

"Calvin, wake up."

Calvin stirred for a split second, and then stopped.

"Calvin, wake up!" Hobbes repeated, but with force this time.

Nothing.

Hobbes sighed, and then cleared his throat.

"CALVIN, WAKE UP!!!" Hobbes screamed.

"AAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!" Calvin yelled.

He shot three feet in the air, and then landed on the hard floor.

"Ow!" he shouted. "What happened last night?"

"Oh, the sky fell, remember? Judging by the time on your watch, I'd say we've been here for twelve hours."

"Wow. We'd better head upstairs and see what damage the sky did."

"Roger."

Calvin and Hobbes scrambled up the stairs and into the hallway.

Calvin was confused.

Everything seemed normal.

In fact, not a single thing was out of place.

No, wait, there was one small difference.

One, a window was smashed.

Dad was busy replacing it.

"What's going on?" asked Calvin.

"Oh, hey, you're up," said Dad. "Well, I'm just trying to fix this window the storm damaged. A rock flew in and smashed it."

Calvin stared.

"Uh, that's interesting. Did they sky fall?"

Dad chuckled.

"No, but it sure sounded like it last night," he said.

Calvin and Hobbes stared at each other.

"The sky didn't fall?" asked Hobbes.

"But then that would mean…," Calvin's voice trailed off as he came to terms with this.

Immediately, Calvin and Hobbes ran outside.

There was a thick layer of fog all over the place.

But other than that, the only irregular thing was the fact that was debris everywhere.

Oh, and the tin roof on their cellar had been ripped off, completely, and was now stuck in a tree that managed to survive the storm.

Thus the terrible sounds that they had been hearing in the basement.

Huh.

People were working to clear the mess.

Calvin and Hobbes' eyes were wide and their mouths hung open.

"But…but…but…but…," they stuttered.

"So this means…the sky didn't fall?" asked Hobbes.

"I'd assume so, yes," said Calvin.

They both looked up.

The blue sky was there. The dark clouds were gone. A bright warm sun was melting away the fog.

"Yep, I assumed correctly."

They stared at each other.

Then they got dark expressions on their faces.

Socrates was napping at his mansion. He was on his own while Elliot and his parents were out helping to clean the town.

Suddenly, there was an explosion just downtown.

"SOCRATES!!!"

It was Calvin and Hobbes screaming.

Socrates was shaken out of bed.

"Whoa!" he said, looking around. "Did somebody knock?"

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

Socrates looked out the window.

Calvin and Hobbes were pounding into the door.

Socrates got a devious grin on his face. He slunk towards the elevator, rode it down, and then answered the door.

"Cally! Hobbo! To what do I owe this pleasure?" he said sweetly.

Calvin and Hobbes were glaring at him.

"So, Tiger Little!" snarled Calvin. "Looks as though the sky didn't fall after all!"

"Correct," Socrates grinned. "It was a prank."

"A prank that made us both look like bigger idiots than ever before!" Calvin yelled. "Not to mention you almost got us killed by that storm!"

"Yes indeedy."

"But that doesn't explain how you knew of the storm before it struck," said Hobbes.

"Weather Channel," said Socrates.

"That does it, Crateso. You are in major-league trouble now!" Calvin yelled. "It's time for me to get revenge on your revenge on my revenge!"

"Oh really?" Socrates asked, getting in Calvin's face. "How so?"

Calvin pulled out his MTM.

"This here MTM of mine is loaded with a little over one zillion volts of pure lightning from when we were trying to stop the storm. And these little bits of electricity are about to get up-close and personal with your body," Calvin said.

Socrates suddenly didn't feel very well.

"Hobbo? A little help here?" he gulped.

"Sure," said Hobbes.

Hobbes picked Calvin up and put him on his shoulders.

"You'll get better aim from up here, Calvin," Hobbes said.

"I MEANT HELP ME! NOT HIM!"

Calvin immediately activated the MTM.

Oh, hello. Did you need me for something else?

"Yes, we'd like to fry Socrates here with the lightning we have each time a press the POWER button."

Very well. Fire when ready.

Socrates stared.

"You programmed your MTM to hate me?" he asked.

"Yep-er-doodles," said Calvin slyly.

Calvin pressed a button.

ZZAP!

The lightning struck Socrates.

"YEOUCH!"

ZZAP!

"OUCH!"

ZZAP!

"OW!"

Socrates then made an attempt to run away.

Hobbes ran after him, and Calvin continued to zap him.

ZZAP!

"D'OH!"

ZZAP!

"EEK!"

ZZAP!

"I'M SORRY!"

ZZAP!

"YEOW!"

And they disappeared down the street.

The End

Voice Work:

Pamela Segall Adlon: Calvin

Tom Hanks: Hobbes

Ryan Stiles: Socrates

Jennifer Love Hewitt: Mom

Bill Murray: Dad

Coming up Next: The Return of Dr Brainstorm