Calvin's Home, Friday Afternoon

[not_tylerdurden]

It was mid-afternoon, and Calvin was awake for reasons other than the insistent pounding on his door. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

"I'm awake, Mom," he called out, pulling the covers further over his head.

The pounding didn't let up. "You'd better be."

Crap, that wasn't his mom's voice. He glared at Hobbes. "I thought I told you to stop her from getting into the house," he hissed.

"But I like Susie," Hobbes said, stretching out in a stray beam of sunlight. "She knows all the best ways to give tummy rubs."

"Open the door or I'll let myself in," Susie Derkins warned over the pounding.

"But I'm naked," Calvin lied.

Susie opened the door anyway. "Nothing I haven't seen before, thanks to your nudist tendencies," she said, "Plus I know when you're lying."

"Susie, hi," Calvin managed weakly, hiding behind a protective cocoon of the covers. "What are you doing here? In my room?"

"I came to make sure you were getting ready for school?" she said, bending to pick up Hobbes. Honestly, Calvin was far too old to leave him lying around like that. "Since I also know that you won't do it yourself."

"Why would I be getting ready for school?" Calvin asked, rubbing his face with one hand and ignoring Hobbes's smirk. "I got expelled, remember? You were there."

Susie absently scratched Hobbes behind the ears as she replied. "Yes, I was, though I still don't know how you managed to get the noodles-"

"I was framed!"

"So you've told me. That doesn't change the fact that you still need to get ready for your new school," Susie reminded him.

Calvin curled further under the blanket. "Yeah, about that..."

"Don't tell me that you're not enrolled anywhere," Susie said, glaring at Calvin. "You had the whole summer to look. I made you an action plan. And flowcharts!" Both of which were currently lost somewhere in the clutter that was Calvin's room.

"No one would take me," Calvin replied sheepishly. Plus there was the part where he hadn't really looked very hard. "I think Miss Wormwood started a webpage about me or something, and it's not like I have to go to school, I'm old enough to leave."

"I'm not hearing this," Susie said, covering her ears. "If you're going to get anywhere in life, especially in this economy, you need at least a high school...what's that envelope?"

Calvin looked up. "What envelope?"

"The large, thick unopened one with a Maryland postage mark, lying on the middle of your floor in plain sight."

Calvin leant over the side of the bed to look. "Mom must have left it there."

"And you haven't opened it?" Susie asked, picking it up. "It's on school stationery."

"Probably another rejection letter." Calvin covered his face with his pillow. Smothering himself would save him a whole lot of trouble. "I thought you were only supposed to get those for college."

Susie looked over the envelope. "Fandom High? I've never heard of it." And she'd done a lot of researching.

Calvin lifted the pillow up. "Me neither. Hobbes must have applied for me."

"Yes, Hobbes applied for you, of course that's what happened." Not for the first time, Susie wondered what it would be like to have normal friends.