Calvin opened his new Playstation 3. He was now thirteen, and it was his birthday. Susie, who he had started dating at the beginning of seventh grade, had given him this present as a show of her love, but Calvin sensed all was not right in the world. His six-year-old sister was now on the prowl, lurking in the shadows, her face covered in jealousy. Calvin excused himself from the table, after thanking Susie of course, and headed toward his sister.

Gwynn noticed him and started crawling away, trying to get under the porch, but Calvin grabbed her leg and pulled her out from under it.

"What's wrong, Gwynn?" he asked, knowing full well what was wrong.

"Why do you get all the presents and attention? I'm the youngest, I should get it!"

"Well, you are the youngest, so you do get the attention most of the time, but it's my birthday, so I get presents. I remember on your very first birthday. Almost no one looked at me until my birthday two months later, then I got the attention for a day before you got the spotlight again. So, because of that I think that I deserve getting a little attention once in a while."

Gwynn pouted, she obviously didn't care. Calvin sighed.

"I have a present for you," he said, exasperated, "He's in my bedroom, on my bed. I used to play with him all the time. With him, you'll never feel alone again, you'll always have his attention," Calvin said, then added as an afterthought, "unless he's hungry or sleeping."

"Okay," Gwynn looked a little excited, "Who is this person?"

"I never said he was a person," Calvin retorted.

He opened the door.

POW!

"Well," Calvin grumbled, "at least that hasn't changed," then he turned to Gwynn, "I guess we don't have to go all the way to my bedroom."

Gwynn gawked at Hobbes who, at Calvin's large size, had only been able to knock Calvin down the length of the sidewalk.

"He- he's real!"

"Of course he's real," said Hobbes, referring to himself in the third person, "he, I mean I, have always been real."

"Gwynn," Calvin said, turning to his sister, "I'm giving you Hobbes. You need to take good care of him for me."

Hobbes tilted his head, "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"No, buddy," Calvin responded, smiling, "I just won't have the time to play with you as much as I use to. What with homework, Susie, and getting a job soon I thought it would be best to get you a friend to last another six years. Unless you'd rather spend the next fifteen to twenty years in a cardboard box."

"I'm good with what I've got," Hobbes decided, "but on one condition. When Gwynn here," he turned to the little girl, "that is your name, right?" he asked.

Gwynn nodded and muttered, "Yes."

Hobbes turned back to Calvin, "when Gwynn gets your age, I go back to you, deal? That way I can stay in your family forever."

"Deal," Calvin said, extending his right hand to shake Hobbes' right paw, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a birthday party to get to. Calvin started walking away, he turned around. "Hobbes, old buddy, show her Calvinball and Stupendous Man and Spaceman Spiff and Tracer Bullet, but give those characters new names." He smiled at his sister, "They're yours now."

And he walked away, to leave childhood behind forever and to become an adult.

Later in Gwynn's life, she gave Hobbes back to Calvin on her fourteenth birthday. Calvin was twenty and engaged to Susie, he had become quite rich selling Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous man comics, while writing a series of Tracer Bullet Mystery novels. But in every novel, every comic book, there was a sidekick who, amazingly, happened to be a tiger, or had the name Hobbes.

Calvin and Susie had two kids: a boy, who they named Scott, after Calvin's father, and a daughter, who they named Kasey, a combination of their names and, as Calvin joked, a spin of his favourite pizza place. They lived a happy life and still are as this book is being written. Calvin and Susie are both thirty-eight and happy. Scott is six and the youngest sibling, while Kasey is ten and loving school, just like her mother.

One day, when Scott was home from school (he had the flu), Calvin was working at home on writing the script for a new Spaceman Spiff Movie. He heard that his son was doing anything but resting, so he went upstairs, past his son's room and into a little closet filled with Captain Napalm comics, tuna, and salmon. There, on a chair in the center of the mess, was Hobbes.

He looked up. "Calvin," he said, "I've read all of these a hundred times. Soon you'll have to give me some of your own comics to read."

"I don't think so," Calvin responded, "I have a new friend for you to meet."

"Who?"

"My son, Scott. He isn't the most popular kid in school. He needs some friends, so I think that you could do the same for him as you did for me over thirty years ago. Give him a friend."

"Okay," said Hobbes, looking back at his comic book, "I'll set him up with another tiger I know, a guy called Socrates, prankster."

"Hobbes!"

"Okay, okay. I'll be his friend."

"Then follow me."

And so, the legacy continued…