"MY REPORT!" Calvin cheered. "It's here! I'm saved! We can leave now!"
He went to grab it, but he screeched to a halt.
"Wait! We're covered in cheese! If we touch it, we'll get it all cheesy, and then it'll be ruined!"
"Well, what do we do about it?" asked Hobbes. "Sue Leavin' and Squeezin' for putting us in this predicament?"
"Later. For now, let's get ourselves cleaned," Calvin said decidedly.
"How?"
"Search the room! Maybe there's something in here like a sink or something where we can wash off!"
But the search for a source of water was hopeless. There wasn't even a sponge!
"Well, this is just perfect," Hobbes muttered. "What'll we do now?"
Calvin looked around still. It was then that he looked at the ceiling.
"Hey! A fire sprinkler! We can use that to clean us off!"
"Wouldn't we need a fire first?" Hobbes asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, in order to turn it on, I assume we'll need something really hot to turn it on. Then it'll rain on us and we'll be cleaned."
Calvin racked his brain, thinking of a plan.
It was then that there was a knock at the door.
"WILL YOU CRAZY KIDS GO AWAY?" Calvin shouted angrily. "I'm not Dr Grime!"
"And I'm not Nurse Grime," Hobbes added.
"Actually," said a squeaky voice, "I'm from Leavin' and Squeezin', and I'm here to do the meal rounds. I'll slip the menu under the door for you."
A small piece of paper slipped underneath the door.
Calvin ignored it, but Hobbes was hungry and decided to give it a look-see.
"Hmph," he said. "Not much of a menu. All they have on here is hot cocoa, cold string beans, cheddar cheese and orange juice."
"Leavin' and Squeezin' does it again," Calvin muttered.
Hobbes sighed. "But I'm pretty hungry. I didn't get to finish my free nachos, so I'll get some hot cocoa. Do you want anything?"
"Nah, I'm good."
"Okay."
Hobbes extended a claw and poked a hole in through the check box next to the words "hot cocoa". He slipped it back under the door.
They spent a half hour in the room.
Calvin spent it thinking of how to turn on the sprinklers.
Hobbes spent it waiting for his hot cocoa.
There was a knock at the door.
"Who is it now!" Calvin shouted.
"Leavin' and Squeezin' with your free hot cocoa," said the squeaky voice.
Hobbes jumped up and opened the door a crack, and a hand slipped him the mug of hot cocoa.
"Thanks, Mac," he said, and he quickly shut the door before the crazy kids got in.
Hobbes took a small sip from the cup.
"Ooh!" he said. "This stuff's hot! Really lives up to its name!"
Calvin's head whipped around.
"Hey, that's it!" he cried. "If we hold the hot cocoa up to the sprinklers, it'll turn on!"
Hobbes looked disappointed.
"Well, can you let me drink half?"
Calvin grumbled.
"Oh, fine, you big baby."
Hobbes took a long sip from the cup.
Calvin stood there, waiting.
"Hurry up!"
Hobbes sipped slower deliberately.
"You mangy furball! My academic future is at stake!"
Hobbes finished half.
"It's always been at stake. We're just talking about your history grade," he said.
"Whatever! It's still a very risky situation."
"Well, here' s the cocoa."
He handed Calvin the mug.
"Okay, but first, put this comic book slipcover over the report so it won't get wet."
Hobbes did so.
Calvin looked at the high ceiling. There was no way neither he nor Hobbes could jump that high. Then he saw an air duct was next to it, and then he saw one next the desk in the room.
"I'll climb through the ducts and hold it up to the sprinkler," he said.
Hobbes quickly ripped the cover off of the air duct on the floor, and Calvin, the mug in hand, traveled along.
"I hope that cocoa's still hot by the time he gets up there," he muttered.
There was a lot of banging around in the ducts, but fortunately, Calvin didn't spill a drop of cocoa.
Overhead, Calvin banged as hard as he could into the cover for the tunnel, and it fell to the floor. He stuck his head out.
"Here goes," he said.
Calvin held the mug upside down so that he could put the mouth of it over the sprinklers.
The heat from the cocoa triggered the little mechanisms in the sprinklers, and they turned on.
Water poured from the ceiling!
Calvin fell from the air duct and landed in the chair.
"VICTORY!" he cheered.
"WE'RE CLEAN!" added Hobbes.
Indeed, the cheese was starting to slip off.
However, they activated all the sprinklers, and this caused the entire Grubby Corners Mall to flood!
All the crazy kids outside the door stopped shouting, and they all looked up.
"It's raining!" they shouted.
"I'm getting clean!"
"Me too!"
"I feel squeaky!'
Taking advantage of the distraction, Calvin and Hobbes grabbed the report and burst through the door, down the hall and out of the mall.
But the cone cop had seen them.
"STOP!" she shouted. "THEY'VE STOLEN THE NEW WRITING PIECE!"
Several portfolios and traffic cones burst from the security office and took off after the boy and tiger.
"QUICK!" Calvin shouted. "We need to get back to that baseball we showed up in!"
The end of the road was coming on fast. The baseball was waiting for them.
"HURRY!" Hobbes shrieked.
"GET THEM!" shouted the security guards.
Calvin and Hobbes looked back at all the mad folders and cones.
Hobbes ripped the baseball open. Calvin dove in, the report in his hands. Hobbes dove in after him, slamming the baseball shut and locking it.
There was a lot of shouting outside, but it died down suddenly as they were sucked back into the vortex that had brought them here to begin with.
After a few seconds of travel and tumbles, Calvin climbed out of the backpack with the report in his hand.
"AT LAST!" he cheered. "WE DID IT!"
"Help!" shouted Hobbes. "I'm stuck!"
Calvin grabbed the backpack and held it upside down, and then proceeded to shake it violently until Hobbes poured out in a heap on the floor.
"We made it!" he cheered.
"Indeed," said Hobbes, his face in the floor.
Just then, they heard a knock on the door.
Mom entered.
"Calvin, it's been half an hour. How's that report coming?" she asked.
Calvin looked at Hobbes in surprise. He checked his watch. Only half an hour? It felt longer.
Oh well.
Calvin handed her a piece of paper. "Here's the report. It was lost in my backpack the whole time."
Mom looked at the report. "How could you loose this in your backpack?" she asked.
Calvin sighed and held up his backpack, and like before, he held it upside down, and proceeded in shaking it.
The following items fell out: socks, shoes, shirt, sweater, Old packs of bubble gum, a candy bar, an old soda can, peanut shells, the remnants of an ice cube, wadded up cartoons of Wormwood monsters, month old homework, a stale piece of cheese, a baseball, a marble, Mentos, fifteen cents, a binder, an old half-eaten cheese sandwich, a portfolio, a cheese chip, raisins, a spoon, a trading card, yo-yo string, the yo-yo, a slingshot, a green plastic wrench, a toy crane, a bunch of old socks, Funny Putty, a sucker, spilled soda, a nutcracker, old napkins, pink erasers, pencil lead, dead batteries, an apple core, two banana peels, an old slice of pizza, a shoelace, a breath mint, a nickel, two pairs of sunglasses, a shoetree, a shoehorn, a sponge, a toy diver, Knitting Weekly magazine, a green eraser, fuzz, a traffic cone, a spatula, an empty box of nachos, cheese, a mug and a milk carton.
PHEW!
Mom stared at the pile of garbage before her.
"Okay, it makes sense."
On Monday, Hobbes stood outside the house, waiting for Calvin to come home from school.
Calvin got off the bus when it came.
"Hey, how'd it go?"
"Eh, not bad," he said. "I got a grade."
"Did you pass?"
"Sort of."
Hobbes stared at him.
"What qualifies as 'sort of'?"
Calvin ripped out the paper.
"A C!" he cheered.
"Cool! Does this mean you pass history?"
"You bet! Now all I have to do is pass math, science, English, phys ed, and art, and then I can go to second grade!"
They both looked at each other nervously.
"Um…should we start on that homework now?" asked Hobbes.
"Well, not right now," Calvin said quickly.
"Okay."
"Now let's go for a little ride in the wagon."
"Good idea."
They hopped into the wagon and roared off into the woods.
But they had left the backpack on the front steps.
A pair looked outside.
Huh boy…
THE END…?