A Madman's Tiger

When Susie Derkins was alone at home following a long day of talking to a particular patient suffering from something, when she was alone and could be truly, fully honest with herself, she'd mutter beneath her breath over a pint of cider that she somehow always knew in a small corner in the back of her head that being Calvin's therapist would drive her insane.

While Susie would certainly be the first to leap to her own defense in saying that in no way had she gone looking to be Calvin's therapist, she hadn't exactly said no to his company's first offer. Her insides had squirmed and her jaw had set and aggravating memories of the scruffy-headed boy pelting her with pine cones and snowballs had traveled to the front of her mind pretty fast, but she'd only put off answering. Left her response ambiguous. But then came the second offer. And a third. When the fifth offer finally came around, with the original promised salary having doubled, her benefits promising to cover all medical expenses (including dental!), and Calvin personally offering to allow her to sock him in the gut when they first met (Susie felt a pang of guilt after her rush of glee upon reading that in the letter) Susie caved and said to herself "How hard could it possibly be?"

As life would have it, veryhard. Notoriously hard. Mind-numbingly hard. Susie had a PhD in psychology and had gotten inside the heads of a number of creeps in writing her thesis and dissertation but somehow, paradoxically, it had all been easier than just talking to Calvin without ripping her hair out. It had been almost thirty years since they were six years old and next door neighbors and not a single thing, not one iota, not even an atom of the stuff that made Calvin who he was had changed.

True to his word Calvin had allowed Susie to sock him in the gut upon their first meeting (she had by then determined he deserved it); lo and behold, though, Calvin was wearing sheet metal under his shirt!

It didn't end there, either. In the winter he still threw snowballs, in the summer there were still water balloons, she had found worms in her office on at least a dozen occasions, Calvin had once come into a session acting like a dinosaur, and he still tried to cheat on tests – even though she was administering them as psychological evaluations!

Hobbes hadn't gone anywhere either. The stuffed tiger, while a little rattier now, was still thrown across Calvin's shoulder whenever he came to see her. Hobbes also still "attacked" and "mauled" Calvin, though apparently now Calvin was "winning" some of their fights thanks to him getting much taller over the years.

Calvin and Hobbes also hadn't stopped having their little one-sided conversations with each other. At least once Susie had spent an entire session listening to Calvin argue with his stuffed animal. When she had finally lost it and screamed at him to stop talking to his imaginary friend for at least one second –! … She had been surprised to receive an almost hurt look...seamlessly followed by Calvin rolling his eyes and pointing out that she was standing on her chair like it was still the first grade.

Yes, Calvin was a nightmare to deal with, but when things got at their worst Susie's own therapist (she had to see one to make sure her trouble didn't get in the way of her fixing her patients') would point out that Calvin's investors and employees managed to handle him just fine the first four years.

It was true. But only for a very good reason: Calvin, after all these years, had turned out to be an absolute genius. A real Einstein. After being laughed out of most of the major colleges and inventing circles for insisting on the reality of his stuffed tiger's sentience and self-locomotion, he had finally broken into a big name news studio and used a motley device cobbled together from a microwave, a radio, and a cardboard box to transmute lead into gold in front of the world.

Life was never going to be the same.

After showcasing his "transmogrifier," Calvin had been bombarded by huge corporations looking to hire him and make millions. Calvin had laughed them all off and started his own group, predictably named after himself and called Calvin Industries. While Calvin had often insisted that his device could easily have functioned with only the cardboard box and was capable of far more than making gold out of trash nobody he'd hired to help him had ever dared try anything more complicated. Luckily for everybody selling gold, after a brief stint of selling that landed him some quick cash and recessed the value of the stuff for only a year, Calvin ended up refusing to allow any more gold creation to take place and used his new found influence (and employees) to move onto grander projects he considered more worthy of his time.

By the end of a year Calvin had made solar panels that gathered twice as much energy. By the end of the next his snow sculptures were famous world-wide. By the end of another he'd discovered his precious "Calvinsaurus" (which did indeed ended up topping the Tyrannosaur and Spinosaurus in the size department – if not by as much as Calvin had always predicted). After a fourth he'd perfected humanoid robot design, a cure for the common cold, a metal alloy as inexpensive as it was strong, a chemical that could stimulate the body to heal faster and stronger than doctors had even dared to dream! Philosophers were talking about the technological singularity with even more excitement and fervor than ever before and a new era in human society seemed just around the corner. With Calvin Industries, anything was possible!

And all of a sudden Calvin just crashed.

He spent three weeks cooped in his office and spoke to no one except to ask for some food and water. Well, no one but Hobbes, anyways. Susie could still remember the news broadcasts. She was finally out of college, her shiny new PhD still fresh and unused. She had student loans to pay off, but she still spared a tiny worry for the future of the world – and for Calvin.

As terrible as he'd been she was a little worried. Calvin was at the height of fame and adoration, right where he'd always said he'd be, right where he'd always dreamed of being – why would he suddenly cut himself off from everything?

That was when Susie had gotten the letter from Calvin Industries. Calvin had finally spoken to his employees and investors. There was one thing that would get him back in the game: her.

He had somehow learned that she was a trained and licensed and PhD laden therapist now and he had decided he'd talk to her. Then he'd go back to changing the world.

She had balked, but she hadn't said no. For some reason, it seemed like maybe it would be betraying her initial worry to say no. But at the same time, "yes" seemed so dangerous, so potentially terrible, so too-capable of sending her right back to the first grade.

But that fifth offer...it had been too good to turn down.

And so she had started seeing Calvin as a patient. Her only patient, that was how much time and energy he demanded. She was, of course, thoroughly and very generously compensated, which took off some of the edge, but somehow she really had been sent back to the first grade by Calvin.

On the other hand it was interesting to learn what had made Calvin crash. Despite all the fame, the love, the jealousy, and the need people had for Calvin, he was still a madman because of Hobbes. Nothing would every change that. Even if the front page applauded him and every news station adored his accomplishments, even if he was known and respected by every world leader, even if Stephen Hawking called him a true genius, even if da Vinci and Einstein and every other genius in the world's history were to rise from the dead and call him a visionary – people would still whisper about Hobbes behind his back.

Behind closed shutters, under their breaths, in the privacy of their homes, they whispered. Everyone did. His choices to make Hobbes his partner in the company, his Vice President, Vice CEO, Vice Chairman, Vice Calvin, were always met with incredulity. With chuckles. With "Oh, that Calvin. He never did grow up, did he?"

All that had made Calvin fold in on himself. Being Man of the Year for TIMES magazine didn't matter when he was also Madman of the Year. He'd needed somebody to talk to, somebody he could still be Calvin in front of so that he could be Not Quite Calvin, but Still Mostly Him in front of everybody else, so that way they'd quit treating him like a madman. So they'd stop whispering. At least, that was what he'd said to her.

So she saw him in regular sessions and impromptu meetings. At least once a week, inevitably more. He'd call her up in the middle of the day and she'd rush to the office where he'd vent about some slight or some mishap or some guy he reminded him a little too much of Moe or maybe he'd just show up because he needed to chat with her and Hobbes with no one else watching. And Susie would listen, would grit her teeth, would tolerate the insults and teases that would always accompany the chats, and would, in her way, tether him to the earth.

It wasn't easy being in first grade again, but Calvin's very fat wallet didn't make it too hard. And, in a bizarre, perverted, almost masochistic way, it was nice seeing her old neighbor, classmate, and borderline friend after all these years.

It wasn't as though Susie didn't know why Calvin had chosen her out of all the other therapists in the world. She wasn't as experienced, she wasn't as good, but Calvin had wanted her because she had been his friend in first grade. No one else but her and, well, Hobbes. It was kind of sweet that he still remembered.

And kind of annoying every time she felt a snowball or pine cone strike the back of her head. She'd at least learned to ignore it in the past year of dealing with him. Her being left out of chats with Hobbes had started to feel normal, Calvin's rants about how stupid the people he worked with were had become commonplace, and now when he mentioned things like Galaxi-whatsit and Nebu-some-such she only nodded, smiled, maybe laughed if it really was funny.

And, when she was alone at home following a long day of talking to a particular patient suffering from something, when she was alone and could be truly, fully honest with herself, she'd mutter beneath her breath over a pint of cider that she somehow always knew in a small corner in the back of her head that being Calvin's therapist would make life more fun.

The thought literally scared her the first time it had crossed her mind. She'd been in the middle of a session with Calvin and she was sitting next to Hobbes on a sofa because Calvin had put him there claiming that Hobbes was getting all "womanizer" since it was Valentine's Day and Susie just couldn't help but laugh, really laugh, because the thought was too much for her to stay stoic and she thought "Talking to him is so much fun!"

When she realized what she'd thought of she jumped in her skin. Calvin noticed, asked what was wrong, his eyebrows raised suspiciously like "Dad, are you really telling me that ice floats 'cause it wants to be close to the sun?" She'd brushed it off, cut the session of short. With a shrug Calvin left, Hobbes toted over his shoulder.

Once she was at home that night, sipping cider and reading something by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt the thought entered her head again; this time, though, Susie only sighed. She wasn't about to lie to herself. Between pulling out her hair and screaming on her chair and gritting her teeth as she tried to ignore the first in what would ultimately be a long series of slush balls... Calvin was fun. He sent her back to the first grade and the first gradewas fun!

While, yes, Calvin did put worms in her office, he also made her watch some old Saturday morning cartoons with her, and she had to admit that had been fun. While yes, Calvin pelted her with pine cones, he also took her out camping in the woods, and it had been amazing to see the stars again. While yes, Calvin made faces at her while wearing the official GET RID OF SLIMY GIRLS newspaper hat, he also let her in on fantasies of Stupendous Man and Spaceman Spiff, where for a few wonderful hours she could live out a dream as Wonder Lass or Cosmonaut Carrie.While yes, Calvin was whiny, nosy, stupid, selfish, obstinate and probably crazy – he was fun. And, deep down, when she alone with her cider, Susie Derkins had to admit she was happy.

Of course, looking back she knew she probably should've suspected something was up with her own psyche with thoughts like that.

It had started out innocently enough. Sudden flashes when she was tired, things she could brush off easily. Moments where Calvin would catch her staring but once he snapped her out of it, the sight was gone. Unfortunately, the issue didn't go away. Only grew more defined. Crisper. Slowly she could make out more and more and now...

Well, eventually she had seen Hobbes completely, in the flesh, for at least a moment.

It had happened a couple of weeks ago. Before that there was only a vague sense of strange surrounding the stuffed tiger. A sense that was almost palpable, so much so that she stared. She stared, but she ignored the strange flashes or waves of something more that traveled across her vision sometimes when she looked Hobbes' way. But two weeks ago...he had been there completely.

She'd almost screamed and was still a little surprised she hadn't. After a quick apology to Calvin – though her eyes were still on Hobbes, who had now become a stuffed tiger again – she gathered her papers and ran from the room.

The day after she had waited for Calvin in her office, desperately hoping that she had just been tired or dehydrated or had temporarily gone insane but now it was over – only to be disappointed by a glimpse of a huge, living tiger strolling into the room after Calvin and lazily letting himself fall to the couch beside him.

Susie blinked and Hobbes was gone, replaced by a stuffed tiger.

Sessions were stiff and hard to get through after that, though thankfully Calvin spent most of the time chatting with Hobbes or having shouting matches with him as he was in the middle of trying to puzzle his way through finally putting together a cold fusion reactor. Susie would always catch a glimpse of Hobbes, though, at some point or another. And, in the last few days, she'd hear him, a few words at a time, too.

While it made her feel a little ashamed to admit to herself, Susie hadn't breathed a word of this phenomenon (madness, she always worried) to her own therapist. She didn't want it to seem like she'd somehow caught Calvin's crazy! While it was fascinating to the psychology student in her, she just knew that it could never end well for her. She could get her license revoked, she could get her diploma revoked! She could lose her jobs, her home, her friends –

Susie choked a bit on her cider as she processed her own thought. Friends. Not friend. Not singular. Not just not getting to talk to Calvin by virtue of making him (and maybe her, too) the subjects of some study, but not getting to see him or Hobbes.

Susie swallowed the rest of her cider and briefly toyed with the idea of buying some beer to drown in now. She really was losing it. She probably should tell her therapist so she could be institutionalized. If Calvin's unique form of crazy was somehow contagious, then they could have a serious problem on their hands at some point. It was practically her civic duty to –

No. Susie now clutched her head. She was almost crying. Calvin had wanted her out of all the therapists in the world for this very reason. He trusted her to let him be Calvin so he could let everyone else know Diet Calvin, Sugar-free Calvin, Calvin: Censored. She had his reputation in her hands; if she "squealed," as Calvin would say, the whispers would come back and they'd never stop hounding him, no matter how much he did for them. She just couldn't do that. Not after all that trust. Not after all that fun.

And so, with a heavy heart and a growing aching in the back of her head, Susie went to bed. She had a regular session with Calvin the next morning, so she had better get some rest.

The next morning, Susie tried to act as normally as she could. She washed up, got dressed, ate a light breakfast of fruit and toast, and went to meet Calvin at her office. Maybe, a small, very stupid part of her hoped, it really was all a dream.

Those hopes were dashed when, while sitting on a sofa in her office, she saw Hobbes follow Calvin into the room, all however much weight in very real flesh, muscle, and fur.

Susie swallowed, cleared her throat, placed her papers on the coffee table. Calvin and Hobbes both tossed themselves onto chairs not-quite-opposite her and bickered for a few moments about how close their chairs were to each other.

Susie blinked. She blinked again. She bit her lip, rubbed her eyes, smacked her forehead, and then she started to panic. Hobbes was here, more definite than ever before, and now, even when she stopped staring, when she blinked, when something else caught her eye – he wasn't going away.

With a "harrumph," Calvin and Hobbes' squabble finally finished and they both shifted to face Susie. With a grin on his face, Calvin explained that he'd finally perfected the cold fusion reactor and that he predicted that fossil fuels would become obsolete in only a couple of years.

It was then that he caught her staring at Hobbes, more terror on her face than ever before.

Calvin cleared his throat. He scratched his head. He looked to Hobbes, then to her, then at the floor, then he chuckled a bit, very quietly, as a knowing expression crossed his face.

Hobbes suddenly cleared his throat. Susie shuddered and practically jumped in her seat.

Now Calvin and Hobbes looked to each other and smiles, small, awkward, "I guess the jig is up, huh?" smiles crossed their faces. Calvin glanced back to Susie one last time.

"You can see him, can't you?"

Life, for Susie Derkins, anyways, was never going to be the same.

After she had finished weeping like she had just watched My Sister's Keeper and blubbering out the whole story between sobs, Calvin took her up in a great big bear hug, stifling every urge in her to cry. After a tense moment, she returned the embrace, clutching him tightly since now, she knew, they had to be crazy together.

Hobbes at first approached with a hug, but upon seeing her flinch he settled for shaking hands – hand and paw, at least. Susie had been surprised at how soft his fur was, how even though he was a real tiger (as real as a bipedal, talking tiger was) he somehow still felt like a plush toy.

Calvin then went on to explain that no, Susie was not, in fact, insane. She had cocked an eyebrow and glared at that statement; what wasn't crazy about seeing a living tiger instead of a plush one?! Calvin quickly demonstrated.

While he and Susie stood on one end of the room, Hobbes stood on the other. Then, with a quick movement, Hobbes grabbed a vase and threw it to the floor, shattering it. Before Susie could express her sheer indignation and fury at losing that very pretty vase, though, Calvin coolly pointed out how neither of them were close enough to the vase to have done anything to it.

He was right. Even after Calvin and Hobbes left the reality of the vase's destruction was evident. There was no stone there that Calvin had thrown, and while Calvin had done many great things what he couldn't do was move things telepathically. Not even Stupendous Man could do that. Even when she'd shown one of the janitors, the vase remained broken. Hobbes had done it.

After that, the sessions became less of Susie tethering Calvin to terra firma, and more Calvin showing Susie how to spread her wings and fly.

Calvin told her that whenever he wasn't working on one of his great inventions or masterpieces or zoological discoveries, he spent his time on a little pet project to see what Hobbes and all the other fantastical elements of his mind precisely were. While the vase test could prove to anyone who could see Hobbes that he was quite real, when he tried it on people who saw only a stuffed creature the vase (or whatever object had been chosen) would always, somehow, become indestructible as well as immovable. While the object was easy enough to disturb when said person wasn't watching, then they would always claim Calvin had done it, no matter how great the distance.

Calvin had been trying to explain the disparity for a long time. He'd run a lot of tests on Hobbes, from checking his pulse to his breathing to his brain to his DNA. Some worked, some didn't.

The MRI scan refused to show anything more than plush, but the stethoscope detected healthy breathing. The full body X-Ray never picked Hobbes up, but sonar or radar would always indicate his full presence. The CAT scan stalwartly refused to find a big cat, but Calvin could draw his blood and test his DNA and find that it was indeed from a tiger.

He hadn't shown any of the evidence to anybody, since there was also so much that defied it. Still, every piece of "proof" gave him hope that Hobbes was not madness but something so much more. Existing as both reality and unreality. It was breathtaking.

After hearing all this for the first time, Susie dared to ask whether or not all else was quite real as well. She explained that she meant Stupendous Man, Spaceman Spiff, Tracer Bullet, everything like that. Calvin laughed and said to close her eyes.

He guided her through envisioning the world as a rocky planet, devoid of hospitable conditions besides the very convenient air. He told her to see alien crafts buzzing in the sky. He told her step by step how to imagine a grotesque alien being and how to understand its language. And then, he said to open her eyes wide.

The view was marvelous. Orange landscapes of some foreign planet stretched endlessly. Insect-like ships hovered in the sky, high above her. When she checked herself, she found herself wearing a jumpsuit and goggles fit for Cosmonaut Carrie. She even had a blaster set to Extra Crispy.

And there, before her, was Spaceman Spiff. Not Calvin, the mad inventor, the loon who was still kinda fun to hang out with, but Spiff.

Susie fainted immediately.

By the next day she had recovered and with a bit more help re-imagined the planet and they shared the fantasy, this time more intimately than she had thought possible.

The day after, Calvin let her in on even more unbelievable things. He brought the original Transmogrifier, nothing more than a cardboard box, and slid another vase inside. After setting the dial (which was drawn in nothing but marker) he pressed the button.

Boink.

Hobbes, who was also in attendance, shrugged and explained that, for whatever reason, scientific progress always goes "boink."

The more incredible part of it all, though, was when Calvin lifted the box to reveal not a vase, but a steak dinner.

Before Susie even had the chance to overcome my shock, though, Calvin had flipped the box on its side and neatly duplicated the platter. When Susie took a knife and fork and cut herself a slice, she was sure her eyes had been as wide as saucers. And when she ate it – there was nothing imaginary about it.

Susie then stammered out an apology for ever doubting him when he claimed he was, in fact, a duplicate of the true Calvin. Because, every time, it had been a duplicate.

He then flipped the box so the top was open, but Hobbes stood and put his foot down at time travel. It was probably all for the better, because while transmuting lead into gold stretched believability, what Calvin was doing stretched Susie's sanity. It was all incredible.

Susie asked how any of it was possible. Calvin shrugged. He didn't know much either. All he had was his theory, that what kids call reality and grown ups call imagination really lies somewhere in the middle, in a region that is hard to reach without actually being a kid, though even that theory had flaws since no one but him had ever seen Hobbes, even in childhood.

But, now that Susie could see Hobbes, Calvin decided that he was on the verge of a breakthrough (although he couldn't explain what that meant when she asked). To celebrate he ordered an impromptu night out at a nice restaurant where Hobbes could order from the wine list. Susie vetoed the proposition and proposed a more private celebration there in the office, where they wouldn't draw stares for being Calvin, Hobbes, and Susie (for now Susie knew that in public, even with her therapist, she'd have to be Diet Susie, Sugar-free Susie, Susie: Censored, just like Calvin).

They did celebrate that night in her office and Susie really did think it was fun. She brought some cider and poured Calvin's alcohol down the toilet and Hobbes, as it turned out, had learned to be a chef. The odd trio enjoyed dinner talking about cold fusion, transmogrification, training engineers to be like Calvin, and what exactly happened to reality when they became Spiff or Carrie.

Calvin confided in her that she had actually gone farther into his world than even Hobbes, for the realm of fantasy living, of Tracer Bullet and Stupendous Man, was a place Hobbes would not go. Hobbes defended himself by insisting Martian dust would ruin his fur. He said it had already somehow ruined some of Calvin's clothing and Susie had noticed there was strange red dust on the soles of her shoes. Calvin said his point still stood and he thanked Susie for being such a good friend.

On hearing this, Susie blushed. Actually blushed. Calvin had never been very friendly, affectionate, or – heaven forbid – grateful, but here he was, thanking her for being a good friend. It was really very sweet of him, so she blushed.

Hobbes chuckled all of a sudden and started to leave, saying he had to groom his fur to get rid of any stray food bits, though Susie wasn't stupid and she noticed Hobbes slapping Calvin on the back and whispering "Go get 'em, Tiger!" while he left.

So Calvin and Susie were left alone. Silence fell upon them as they tinkered with their meals, neither looking up at the other; Susie felt painfully aware of the heat in her cheeks and the gnawing in her heart as an idea, a loony, crazy, absolutely mad idea crept into her consciousness.

Calvin spoke first, said he loved talking to her and he wanted to know if she'd ever want to hang out at her house or his house?

Susie hesitated, then looked up, face still red, and asked if Spaceman Spiff or Stupendous Man would be showing up most of the time.

Calvin shrugged and said that depended on how often Cosmonaut Carrie and Wonder Lass would be willing to hang around her place.

Susie told him she'd be sure to call beforehand to let him know.

Calvin nodded, sipped some cider, and asked about maybe just having dinner together the next day.

Susie couldn't help it – she blushed again, a lot harder now. She asked if Calvin was, by any chance, asking her on a date?

Calvin choked and didn't answer for a long time. Finally, just before Susie felt like she should say it was fine if it wasn't, he uttered the magic word.

"Yes."

And suddenly everything stopped for Susie and she couldn't help but smile and be so happy for some reason. Call her crazy (well, at this point she pretty much was) but Susie was happy. She was happy with one foot in the water, trying it out, seeing if Calvin's unique brand of crazy was a good fit. Somehow, with the world of Hobbes and incredible cardboard boxes and Spiff and Bullet and Galaxoid and Nebular and a strange snarling under the bed that Susie swore she now could hear at night and everything else that made Calvin Calvin –

Susie was happy.

And now, with Calvin's latest stunt, life, for her, anyways, was never going to be the same.