Summary: Calvin and Hobbes get trapped in the hypercube.

And now back to Calvin and Hobbes: The Series
Written by Swing123 and Garfieldodie

Hypercube

"CALVIN!! CALVIN, IT'S TERRIBLE!!!!" Hobbes yelled, exploding into Calvin's room.

"I'll say it is!" Calvin shot back. "If I don't do this math test right, Miss Wormwood said she'd destroy my future."

"Who cares about your insane future?!?!?" Hobbes shouted. "WE'RE OUT OF TUNA!!!!!!"

"How on Earth am I going to ace this thing before tomorrow?" Calvin snarled. "What do I look like? Some kind of human calculator? Look at this! I have three pages worth!"

"We have to go into the Tuna Emergency Announcement System!" Hobbes yelled. "You tell your Mom, I'll pitch empty tuna cans at your dad!"

"Hobbes, are we talking about the same thing?" Calvin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure. What were you talking about?" Hobbes asked.

Calvin rolled his eyes.

"Focus Hobbes! We need some way to get this test done! I don't know what to do!"

"You might try actually doing it." Hobbes suggested.

"Yeah right." He said, rolling his eyes. "Get real, Hobbes, I need an easier way to do it!"

Hobbes sighed.

"That's predictable." He sighed.

There was a pause.

"You know, we're out of tuna," Hobbes said.

Calvin rolled his eyes.

"Fine, Hobbes, Mom is going to the grocery store." He grumbled. "I'll tell her to pick up some tuna on the way."

He stood up from his chair, and walked out of the room, grumbling to himself.

He walked down the stairs into the living room.

There he saw Mom and Dad standing by the front door.

They were all dressed up, with Dad in his best suit and Mom wearing lipstick and a yellow dress.

Calvin stared at them.

"Uhhhh... Kinda fancy way to get ready for the grocery store..." He began.

Mom and Dad stared at him.

"What?" Dad asked.

Calvin glared at them.

"I thought you said you were going to the grocery store!" he said.

"We are." Mom said.

"And then we're going to see a movie." Dad said.

"WHAT?!" Calvin exclaimed, his eyebrows jumping. "You can't do that!!"

"Why not?" Mom asked.

"Well for one, you haven't consulted me!" Calvin yelled.

Mom and Dad rolled their eyes.

"Look, Calvin we're only going to be gone for a couple of hours, so don't destroy anything while we're gone." Dad said.

"Fine with me. Just as long as your not dropping me off with the Derkins or having Rosalyn coming to babysit!"

Mom and Dad exchanged glances.

"Well, Calvin, actually..." Mom began.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!" Calvin screamed, rushing up the stairs to his bedroom. "HELP ME!! HELP MEEEEEE!!"

Hobbes looked up from his Wild Cats Encyclopedia in time to see Calvin burst into the room.

"HOBBES!" He shrieked, frantically. "BARRICADE THE DOOR! NAIL PLY WOOD TO THE WINDOWS! CALL THE SCI-FI CHANNEL! ROSALYN IS COMING!!!"

Hobbes jumped in alarm.

"ROSALYN?!" He yelled in terror.

There was a pause.

"You did tell your mom to get tuna, right?" He asked, finally.

Calvin glared at him.

"Hobbes, this is more serious than your dumb tuna addiction! We have to find some way to defeat Rosalyn, tonight!"

Suddenly, car headlights shown through Calvin's window, and cast shadows around the room, and the sound of a car pulling into the drive was heard.

Calvin and Hobbes froze.

The sound of someone getting out of their car, slamming the door behind them came from outside.

There was a long moment of silence.

Then, the doorbell rang.

DING DONG!

"SHE'S HERE!!!" Calvin screamed, holding his head, and jumping around in circles. "THE BABYSITTER FROM HELL IS STANDING OUTSIDE OUR DOOR!!WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!!!"

Hobbes looked around, frantically.

Calvin did also.

Then, Calvin's eyes fell on the hypercube, which was sitting a few feet away on the desk.

He blinked.

Then, he turned to Hobbes.

"Say, Hobbes?" He said.

"Hmm?" Hobbes asked, pausing from his panic and turning to Calvin.

"Our problems are solved!" Calvin said, a large grin spreading across his face.

Hobbes stared at him for a moment.

Then, his eyes went to the hypercube.

His eyes burst open.

"OH NO!!" He said, backing away. "NO! NO! NO! I'd rather face Rosalyn then go in there!"

"Oh come on, Hobbes, it's just an empty dimension." Calvin said. "Filled up with all the stuff I've put there. Rosalyn would never suspect us to hide in there! It's totally harmless!"

"Right, just like the Mega-Shrinker 5000 is harmless. Just like the Time Plucker was harmless. Just like the MTM is harmless!"

"I never said those things were harmless." Calvin said, his brow furrowing.

"I'm not going into the hypercube, and that's final!" Hobbes said, crossing his arms.

"Fine with me." Calvin shrugged. "Get eaten by the vampire demon babysitter. Not my problem."

And with that, Calvin turned, and started walking towards the hypercube.

Hobbes watched him.

He blinked.

"Why do you have to put it that way?" He demanded.

"To make you come, why else?" Calvin said, picking the hypercube up, and placing it on the floor. "You coming or not?"

There was a pause.

Suddenly, the door slammed downstairs, and the sound of Mom and Dad's car engine revving up reached their ears.

Then, there was a voice.

"Calvin?" Rosalyn asked.

Calvin and Hobbes exchanged glances.

Hobbes heaved a sigh.

"Alright, fine, I'll come." He grumbled to himself.

"Great! Come on!" Calvin grinned.

He crouched down, and jumped up over the hypercube.

A blue light shot out of the top of the cube, and Calvin was absorbed into it.

SWISH!!

Hobbes stared at it in pure horror.

Then, he stepped forward.

He held his foot over the top of it, and covered his eyes.

SWISH!!!

The blue light came outwards, again, and Hobbes was absorbed into the cube.

"YYIKES!!!" He shouted, as he was pulled inside.

Suddenly Calvin's room vanished in a blast of blue.

Hobbes slowly opened his eyes.

He was floating inside a seemingly endless dimension of swirling colors.

Red, blue and yellow were all around him.

Oh, and there were several other items floating along with him.

Comic books, empty boxes, out-of-date day calenders, miscellaneous toys, an entire work desk, some chairs and so on.

Then, Hobbes spotted Calvin.

He was sitting in one of the floating chairs, staring at Hobbes, blankly.

"There you are!" He said, his voice echoing inside the dimension. "About time you got here."

Hobbes looked upwards.

There was a small square opening right above him, and above inside it, was Calvin's bedroom.

Hobbes looked back down at Calvin, who had lost interest in the tiger, and was now looking around his surroundings.

"Wow, Hobbes, isn't this great!" He grinned, looking around. "I've never been inside the hypercube, before! It's amazing!"

He looked down.

There was a comic book floating by his feet.

He picked it up.

"The 10th Anniversary Double-Length Special Edition Captain Napalm issue?!" He exclaimed. "I've been looking for this, forever! What the heck was it doing in here?"

He turned back to Hobbes.

"I mean, isn't it great though with everything we need being here and..."

Calvin stopped.

Hobbes had disappeared.

"Hobbes?" Calvin asked, looking around.

There was a pause.

Calvin's eyes slammed shut.

"I should have known you were going to do that." He hissed under his breath.

Calvin started forward, pushing stuff out of his way as he went.

Not only stuff you'd expect a six year old to have but stuff you'd never expect a six year old to have.

A computer monitor, three Doctor Who DVDs, an entire door, a small TV, several cables and wires, puzzle pieces, a brick chimney, a floor mop, a life-size Star Wars figure of Darth Vader, and so much more.

It took Calvin over half and hour to root through all the junk he had in there.

"Geez, I need to clean this thing out," He commented shoving an empty bookcase out of his way.

Suddenly, Calvin's eyes fell onto an old oil drum, floating over by seventeen different shoes.

It was shivering.

Calvin rolled his eyes, and started towards it.

"Hobbes, get out of there," He grumbled, opening it up.

Hobbes was in there, staring up at Calvin, horrified.

There was a pause.

"GET OUT OF THERE!!!" Calvin ordered.

"YIKES!" Hobbes yelled, leaping out of the drum.

Calvin tossed the drum away, and glared at Hobbes.

"Great work, Hobbes, you've managed to get us lost in here! What do you have to say for yourself?!"

Hobbes blinked.

"Uhh..."

"We have an entire dimension in here!" Calvin yelled. "You can't just wander off like that! We have no idea how large this place is! It could be bigger than our universe! And since we're on a different plain of reality, it's almost impossible to determine how much distance we covered!"

Hobbes paused.

"Why?" He asked.

Calvin stared at him.

"Oh come on, Hobbes, don't you ever watch The Twilight Zone?" He demanded. "In different realities, one step in this place could take us miles away in our universe! For all we know, we might not even be on our planet, now!"

"Great." Hobbes sighed. "Exactly why are we here?"

"We're hiding from Rosalyn." Calvin growled. "Now, if you think you can go fifteen minutes without pulling that stupid vanishing stunt on me, again, maybe we can make our way back to the entrance!"

Hobbes looked around.

"The... entrance?" He asked, quietly.

"Yes, Hobbes, the entrance." Calvin shouted. "The way that we came in! We need to stay close to that, or who knows where we end up!"

"Alright..." Hobbes began. "But where is the entrance?"

"It's that way!" Calvin said, pointing straight ahead of him.

"How do you know?" Hobbes asked.

"That's where the broken lamp is floating." Calvin said.

"Oh."

And so, Calvin and Hobbes started off in that direction.

But not before Calvin had to make things a little more complicated.

"Or was it that way?" He considered, looking behind him.

Hobbes groaned.

Rosalyn looked around the house for Calvin.

"CALVIN?" she shouted. "GET OUT HERE! YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM ME FOREVER!"

She opened the door to Calvin's room and looked around.

Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.

There was a Rubix Cube sitting on the floor, but that was about it.

"CALVIN, WHERE ARE YOU?!" Rosalyn hollered.

Calvin and Hobbes were now trudging through a field of old toys and junk.

"So…," Hobbes said. "The Borg are a hive-mind, right? And each drone is assigned a number. There's no individuality or anything like a personality, right?"

"I think so, yeah," said Calvin.

"So did the show's writers goof when Captain Picard got the name 'Locutus of Borg'? Because that it incredibly un-Bork-like, right?"

Calvin stopped to think about that.

"Uh…," he said. "Boy, don't tell Andy that. You'll fry his little nerd brain."

They climbed through some more junk until Calvin uncovered an old car magazine.

"Huh," he said. "Look at this. What was it about Chrysler's 'Ask Dr Z' ad that always made me uncomfortable? Was it watching a respectable German CEO being trotted out like a drunken circus monkey? Or was it the cold hard fact that it was the best option they had for an ad campaign?"

Hobbes simply nodded.

"I'm pretty sure their second option was the drunken circus monkey," he said. "Why did Mercedes buy out Chrysler anyway? I hear that they paid for it with a lot of money, and then lost it for less than half of it!"

"Well, they were in merger-mania!" Calvin said. " Germany had just merged East German and West Germany into one whole country! They couldn't stop themselves! Next they were going to merge a chicken with some strudel!"

They climbed higher and higher through the piles of junk.

Rosalyn looked under the kitchen sink.

"Calvin, get out here now!" she said angrily. "I'm going to tell your parents! Boy, won't they be mad! You'd better show yourself!"

She started to back herself out, but instead…

CLANK!

"OW!" she shrieked, rubbing her sore head. "Now look at what you did!"

Calvin continued to crawl over a pile of toys.

"Hobbes?" he shouted. "Hobbes, where'd you go?"

Then he head some crunching coming from behind a mound of junk.

"Hobbes, what are you doing?!" he shouted.

"NOTHING! I SWEAR! DON'T COME BACK HERE!" Hobbes shouted.

But Calvin did anyway.

Then he stared in surprise at what he saw.

"Hobbes?"

Hobbes was carrying several green army men on his back and head as he prowled around on all fours. He looked sheepishly back up at Calvin.

"Uh, Hobbes?"

"…Yes?"

"…What are you doing with all those army men?"

"Nothing."

Calvin continued to slowly come closer.

"Are you pretending to be some gigantic mutant jungle cat or something?"

"NO!" Hobbes shouted. "SHEESH! I'M NOT LAME OR ANYTHING! Man…"

Calvin paused and continued to watch him.

Hobbes looked rather twitchy right now.

Then a sly grin crept over Calvin's face.

"…Is it the elephant thing from Lord of the Rings?" he asked slyly.

Hobbes cringed slightly.

"…Maybe…," he said nervously.

Calvin rolled his eyes and chuckled.

Later on, Calvin and Hobbes found a roll of tape, and they started stick the tape to Calvin's face, making his ears stick out and his nose stick up.

"Why is scotch tape called 'scotch tape'?" Calvin asked.

Hobbes immediately went into know-it-all mode.

"Because the Scotts have a 2300-year-old history of giving delicately wrapped birthday gifts, and they're widely credited with creating the perfect tape to wrap those gifts," he said.

There was a long pause as Calvin looked at him in utter confusion.

Hobbes sighed.

"I don't know why they called it 'scotch' tape," he said, tossing the tape over his shoulder.

Calvin rolled his eyes and started to pull the tape off.

"Yeah, I always thought the traditional Scottish gift was loathing, wrapped up in grudging tolerance," he said.

"You know a place that's weird to live in?" Calvin asked. "Los Angeles."

"How so?" Hobbes asked.

"Well, I remember seeing some clips of the streets on the News, and I saw one of the strangest stores in the world over there!"

"What was it?" Hobbes asked.

"The sign said DOUGHNUTS AND CHINESE FAST FOOD!"

There was a pause.

"F…for real?" Hobbes asked.

Calvin nodded.

"But…but h…how…wha…?" Hobbes stammered.

"WHO THE HECK ACTUALLY CRAVES THOSE THINGS AT THE EXACT SAME TIME?!" Calvin demanded.

"Well, that's Los Angeles for ya," Hobbes replied. "It must be the ideal place for pregnant women!"

Calvin paused and stared at him.

"You know what's weirder? It's probably the standard order at that place! Can you imagine that? Uh, yeah…gimme two jelly-filled, a glazed, six with sprinkles…and, heck, throw some Moo Goo Gai Pan in there."

Hobbes chuckled.

Rosalyn tore the closet apart, searching for Calvin.

"CALVIN, I'M NOT GONNA SAY THIS AGAIN! GET OUT HERE!!"

She stormed around the house.

"Where the heck could a kid who makes so much noise hide?!" she demanded loudly.

"WAHOO!" Calvin cheered.

They had found an old sled and were sliding down the piles of junk.

"STEAR! STEAR! LEFT! LEFT!" Hobbes shrieked from behind.

CRASH!

Calvin and Hobbes managed to crash right into a pile of junk.

After a few seconds, a dazed and confused Hobbes emerged.

"How much cluck could a good duck cluck if a good duck could cluck good?" he asked, his eyes out of focus.

Calvin emerged as well.

"Darkness?" he asked. "It is I, Pajama Sam! I have come to vanquish you!"

They managed to sort themselves out and climbed out of the junk.

"We should be getting closer," Calvin said. "With any luck, we should be there soon."

"Good," said Hobbes. "I keep getting trading cards stuck between my toes."

They trudged onwards.

"Hey, why is it that those old Roman buildings still stand today?" Hobbes asked.

"The ancient Romans used better concrete than we do," Calvin explained. "Can you believe that?! They lived two thousand years ago, and they used better concrete than we do today! It makes you wonder… Why don't we build stuff and make it last?"

Hobbes sighed.

"Well, I'm pretty sure we don't want that Pizza Hut on Route 9 to still be standing two thousand years from now, do we?" he reasoned.

Calvin considered this and continued on.

A few minutes later, Calvin had found an old book about Nostradamus and was reading off predictions.

"Wanna hear another?" he asked excitedly.

"No!" Hobbes moaned. "You really need to put that away! Those predictions are so painfully vague!"

"Vague? Vague how?" Calvin demanded.

"Well, for instance, you average Nostradamus prediction sounds like this: On a cold day in the nation by the sea, two men will battle for power. One will win."

There was a pause as they trudged on.

"…Did I already read that one to you?" Calvin asked.

Hobbes sighed exasperatedly.

"Come on, Hobbes! Give it a chance!"

"No way! Those things are useless! They're always so incredibly vague!"

"They are not! Listen to this one! On the day that the sun rises to the East…"

"Off to a solid start so far," Hobbes said, rolling his eyes. "This stuff is pure grade bull-pucky."

"No, no, no!" Calvin said. "Nostradamus definitely had the gift! He must've been haunted by the future and the horror of centuries to come!"

"Pfft!" Hobbes snorted. "Calvin, if you want my honest opinion, the average prediction in his actual living days went like this. The person would tell him, 'Tell me more! Eighty doubloons if you'll tell me more!' Then the Nostradamus would probably say, 'Uh, yeah, okay, let's see… And the east shall tremble as the moo-cow of destruction dances in the empire of shiny pebbles. Yeah, that oughta do it."

A little later, Calvin and Hobbes were scaling the side of the mountain of junk.

"You know what was really weird?" Calvin asked.

"What?" Hobbes asked.

"Why people were so excited for the third of the Star Wars prequels! I mean, honestly! The first two both were painfully bad! There was bad writing, bad acting, bad character development… And they yet people still got excited at the mere mention of it! I mean, the first two sucked! Why should the third one be any different?!"

"I guess it's just the hype of an overused franchise," Hobbes replied.

Soon, they reached the top.

"Alternative title: Star Wars III: A Trip to the Dentist," Calvin said.

They observed their surroundings.

"Can you see it from here?" Hobbes asked.

Calvin looked up at the sky.

They colors were still flashing around.

"Okay," he said. "Let's see. Where could it be…?"

Then Hobbes' ears picked up a voice.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what?"

Calvin strained to listen.

For a moment, they didn't hear anything.

Then, it came again.

"Calvin, where are you?!?" they heard the voice scream.

"Hey, it's Rosalyn!" Calvin cried. "That's it!"

"What is?" Hobbes asked.

"We can follow Rosalyn's inhuman shrieks back to the entrance! Quick! Which direction do we go in?!"

Hobbes listened carefully and cupped a paw to his ear.

There was a brief pause.

Then, in the distance, he heard it again.

"Calvin?!" Rosalyn screamed.

"That-a-way!" Hobbes said triumphantly.

They quickly slid down the mountain of old junk and took off in that direction.

Rosalyn was now searching Calvin's room.

"CALVIN, WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU?!?" she shouted under the bed.

Calvin and Hobbes raced along the piles of junk, following the shouts.

"That's it, Roz!" Calvin called. "Just keep shrieking like a banshee and we'll get to you as soon as we can't!"

Hobbes then jumped up into the air to avoid hitting a broken lamp, and suddenly, he realized he wasn't coming back down.

"We must be getting closer!" he said. "The floating is back!"

"Come on!" said Calvin, who jumped up after him. "We're nearly there."

As they floated forwards, Calvin spoke again.

"You know who I feel sorry for? The guy who has to write the employee holiday cards! I'll bet that after over a thousand of those, it's only natural to announce massive corporate layoffs."

"Yeah, but you know who has it worse? Ducks! They have throats that are about two inches wide, and they can't enjoy the satisfaction of catching a trout and swallowing it whole!" Hobbes replied.

Calvin stared at him, confused.

"I'm running out of material," Hobbes sighed.

Calvin nodded and looked up.

They could see the entrance coming.

"Yes!" he cried. "We're almost there! Now we just wait around the rim of the hypercube until Rosalyn goes home."

"Sure," Hobbes replied. "Just one question."

"Shoot."

"Where'd you get all of this stuff?"

Calvin glared at him.

"Well, I'll tell you, Hobbes, but on one condition."

"What's that?"

"You have to tell me how you do that vanishing act of yours."

Hobbes glared back at him.

"Give me one good reason!"

"Well, you want to know where I got all this stuff."

Hobbes sighed.

"Fine," he said. "I'll tell you after you tell me."

Calvin nodded.

"Fine."

There was a pause.

Calvin spoke.

"It came with the Hypercube."

Another pause.

"Huh?" Hobbes asked.

"Well, you know how when you get a new wallet, and there's already a picture of someone in one the slips?"

"Yeah…?"

"Well, this is mostly what all of this is."

"A pre-packaged photo?"

"Sort of."

"Huh."

There was a pause.

"So…are you gonna tell me how your vanishing act works?"

"Yep. Like this."

SHOOM!

Hobbes vanished.

Calvin growled.

"OH, FINE!" he shouted. "GET YOURSELF LOST AGAIN! SEE IF I CARE, WHICH I DON'T!"

There was a long pause as Calvin continued to float towards the entrance of the Hypercube.

A few seconds later…

SHOOM!

"Reality got the better of you, didn't it?" Calvin grinned.

Hobbes scowled at him.

They continued to soar towards the entrance.

Finally, it was right on top of them.

"Yes!" said Calvin. "We're here! Now we just have to wait for awhile."

Suddenly, the entrance began bouncing up and down.

"What th—?!" Hobbes cried, getting out of the way.

"Oh no, Rosalyn's figured out the hypercube!" Calvin wailed. "She's trying to get us out!"

"STUPID STORAGE CUBE IS ALWAYS JAMMING UP!" a familiar voice shouted.

There was a pause as the entrance continued to bounce.

Calvin and Hobbes stared at each other.

"Hobbes…?" Calvin asked.

"Yes?"

"I thought you heard Rosalyn's voice coming from this direction."

"I did."

"Then why do I hear the voice of one Dr Frank Brainstorm through here?"

Hobbes thought hard about this.

"Maybe… Uh… No… Well, I think that… No…," Hobbes stammered.

"You screwed up, didn't you?!" Calvin demanded.

"Uh, I did indeed."

Calvin angrily slapped his forehead.

"It wouldn't bother me so much if you weren't so darn easygoing about it," he grunted.

Hobbes shrugged.

"But this proves what I said earlier!" Calvin continued. "A step in here can be a mile in our universe! We'll just have to find different portals from one dimension into the next one, and then take a peek and see where we are exactly. This means that we're connected to Yellowstone National Park."

"So which way do we go?" Hobbes asked. "If there are as many portals as you claim there are, this could take days!"

"We just have to pray and hope we get lucky."

There was a pause.

Hobbes stared at Calvin.

"Well, I didn't want to get in trouble with you later after giving you a load of scientific lies," Calvin said, shrugging.

Hobbes sighed.

They turned away from the portal, and headed into the great unknown.

A few minutes later, they were back on the "ground" and were trudging through the piles of toys and gadgets.

"So all hypercubes in the world are linked to this dimension?" Hobbes asked.

"I guess," Calvin replied, pushing stuff over.

They walked for a while.

"You know what I wonder?"

"What?"

"What's it all sitting on?"

There was a pause as they stopped to think.

"I…don't know," Calvin said slowly.

They both looked down at the junk.

"Maybe it just floats in the nothingness," Calvin suggested.

"Possibly," Hobbes said.

Then Calvin looked up.

"Look!" he said, pointing. "There's a portal right there! Let's check it out!"

They quickly ran down the piles of junk. They leapt into the air and floated up towards the exit.

Calvin turned to Hobbes.

"I'll just stick my head out and see where we are," Calvin whispered.

"Check," said Hobbes, giving him a thumb up.

Calvin floated to the portal.

In a flash of red, he looked around.

"Drat," he whispered. "My hypercube makes a blue flash."

He looked around. He appeared to be in a lab of some sort. Then he saw another hypercube not far away.

Quickly, he ducked his head down and searched the vacant dimension.

"That's odd," he said. "There's a hypercube next to the one out here, but there's no portal here."

"Maybe it leads to another part of this dimension," Hobbes suggested.

"Maybe. Come on!"

"Wait! We can't just go through another portal! What if it takes us farther away?"

"What if it brings us closer?"

There was a pause.

Hobbes grumbled.

"I hate it when you do that," he muttered.

Calvin quickly flew through the hypercube.

SWISH!!!

Hobbes followed.

SWISH!!!

They both emerged in the lab.

Quickly, they jumped into the next one.

SWISH!!!

SWISH!!!

They reappeared in the empty dimension again, but found the piles of junk to be piles higher this time.

"Wow, where are we now?" Hobbes asked.

"I don't know. Can you hear anyone?" Calvin asked.

"No."

"Then we need to find another portal."

They landed on the junk and waded there way along the piles and stacks.

"There's one!" said Hobbes cried.

At the top of a mountain of junk, they saw another portal.

They quickly climbed to the top of it and jumped through.

SWISH!!!

SWISH!!!

They appeared in a desert.

The hypercube they had just come out of was half buried in the sand.

"Oh, great," Hobbes moaned. "And me in my heaviest coat."

Calvin searched the landscape.

"Hey, look! Another one!"

"What?!" Hobbes cried.

Indeed, there was a green hypercube sitting a few yards away.

"Quick!" Calvin cried.

SWISH!!!

SWISH!!!

They reappeared atop a mountain of sand.

"Huh," said Calvin. "They should probably do some vacuuming in here."

They slid down the pile until they tripped over something.

"OW!" said Calvin. "What was that?"

Hobbes picked the object up, which was revealed to be a book.

"Huh," he said. "Nostradamus: Predictions for 2003." He opened it.

Calvin looked at the cover.

"It says on a sticker, 'Discount Bin: 75 per cent off," he said.

Hobbes read a page.

"…and in May 2003, half of France shall fall into the sea…," he read.

"Ooh, spooky," said Calvin.

Hobbes rolled his eyes and tossed the book aside.

Then he saw another portal.

"There!" he said, pointing.

Calvin followed his gaze and grinned.

"Let's go!" he said.

They ran after it and climbed up a small hill, and then jumped through the air and through the portal.

SWISH!!!

SWISH!!!

They flew out and landed in a Japanese Hut.

"This figures," Hobbes said, rolling his eyes.

They looked around, but found no other hypercubes.

Calvin quickly opened up another door, and then found one sitting in the closet.

"Am I the only one in the world with just one hypercube?" he demanded.

"Yes," Hobbes replied. "And I thank you for it."

They jumped in.

SWISH!!!

SWISH!!!

They landed in a pile of action figures.

"What the heck…?" Calvin asked, emerging from them.

"It's all the lamest sci-fi characters ever devised!" Hobbes exclaimed, looking at all the stuff. "Look, there's the robot from Lost in Space, a Dalek from Doctor Who, a ewok from Star Wars…"

"Look, here's Anakin," said Calvin, holding up the action figure.

They trudged through the action figures and into the junk again, and after a while, they climbed another pile of junk towards another portal.

SWISH!!

SWISH!!!

"Where are we now?" Hobbes asked.

Calvin looked around.

They were in a laboratory of some kind. On one half was a massive library. On the other half was a bunch of test tubes and beakers and formulas, as well as a giant control panel and screen.

"This place looks familiar," said Calvin thoughtfully.

Then Calvin spotted a piece of paper on the table. He read it.

"This is Sherman's lab!" he exclaimed.

"Oh great," Hobbes moaned. "Let's get out of here before we hear him start talking about the University!"

Calvin looked around frantically. Then he saw a wall of monitors.

"Look!" he said. "Sherman must have surveillance over the whole neighborhood!"

They stared at the screens, watching them.

Then, Calvin noticed the one that was of the road.

A familiar-looking car drove by on the screen.

"AUGH!" he cried. "Mom and Dad are coming home, and I'm still allegedly missing! We don't have enough time to get back!"

Then Hobbes had an idea.

"Doesn't your MTM have a hypercube?" he asked.

Calvin looked at him.

"Yeah? So?"

"Well, you made the MTM and your hypercube, so shouldn't that mean that they should be close together?"

Calvin stared at him.

"Uh…"

"Look, just try it," said Hobbes. "They won't be after me, so you can just go on ahead and try."

Calvin paused for a moment.

"Well… Okay, I guess," he sighed.

He pulled the MTM out of his pocket and handed it to Hobbes.

Hobbes looked for the right option, and then pressed the button on the side.

A little slot opened on the MTM. A blue glow erupted from it.

"Here we go!" said Calvin.

Hobbes watched as Calvin was sucked inside the MTM's hypercube.

SWISH!!!

Once he was gone, Hobbes deactivated it and left the lab, hoping to get out without Sherman catching him.

Calvin emerged in the dimension again.

"Okay, gotta be quick, gotta be quick!" he said, looking around.

Then he saw another portal not far away.

"Aha!" he cheered. But then he frowned. "How do I know it's the right one?"

Just then, a comic book floated nearby.

Calvin grabbed it and looked at the title.

"10th Anniversary Double-Length Special Edition Captain Napalm issue! Yes!" he cried.

With the comic book safely tucked away in his pocket, Calvin swam through the swirling colors towards safety.

Finally, he reached the portal and pushed through in a blue flash of light.

SWISH!!

When Calvin emerged, he was back in his own room.

"Yes!" he cried.

Unfortunately, he was heard.

WHAM!

The door suddenly swung open.

Calvin gulped and looked up.

It was Rosalyn, and she was glaring at him.

"Where…have you been?" she demanded in a dangerous calm.

Calvin grinned sweetly.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he said.

Rosalyn grabbed him by the collar.

"You…are in so much trouble," she growled.

"What for?" Calvin asked. "I didn't do anything! Any damages done to this house, you did yourself."

Rosalyn opened her mouth to retort, but came up empty.

"Also," Calvin continued, "Mom and Dad are home, and I haven't done a thing, so you can't ask them for a raise like you always do."

Rosalyn grumbled.

They heard the door open.

"We're home!" Mom called.

"Rosalyn? Calvin?" Dad asked.

Rosalyn rolled her eyes and glared at Calvin one last time before going downstairs.

Later that evening, Calvin was back to working on the test he had been working on later.

Hobbes came in through the window, still holding the MTM.

"Hey!" he said, landing on the bed.

Calvin looked up.

"There you are," he said, turning back to the test. "Where've you been?"

"Eh, Sherman caught me on the way out, and he had to yell at me for an hour like he always does when neither of us have anything better to do," Hobbes explained. "Here's the MTM back."

Calvin took it.

"Thanks."

"I take it things went well?"

"Indeed they did! Since Rosalyn thinks I was just hiding all day, there was pretty much nothing for me to get in trouble for! That means I can focus on being annoyed by this test from earlier."

There was a pause.

"Did your parents bring tuna?" Hobbes finally asked.

"Ah, sweet distraction!" Calvin said, getting out of the chair. "Let's go!"

They ran out of the bedroom and turned the light off on the way.

The Hypercube sat in the darkness, illuminating the room in a blue glow.

The End

Voice Work

Pamela Segall Adlon Calvin
Tom Hanks Hobbes
Bill Murray Dad
Jennifer Love Hewitt Mom
Daveigh Chase Rosalyn
Neil Crone Dr Brainstorm

Coming up next: The Five Calvins (The fifth Calvin and Hobbes: The Series TV movie)