Another vein of black water opened up to my left.

Pretty quick we were going to be on an island of ice.

The wind from the propellers beat down on us, but Susie kept staring up, blinking from the wind blowing into her face. Hobbes’s fur was blowing in every direction.

A man in uniform had launched himself in the basket and was being lowered toward us.

Paramedic (shouting over the noise of the helicopter): I’m taking her first!

Me: Her?

Paramedic: Pick her up …

Me: You see her? Yes, take her! Here she is! You see her!

I picked up Susie in my arms and put my mouth in her hair next to her ear and said, you’re gonna be okay now, Susie, you’re gonna be okay.

He took her out of my arms like a big rag doll and stuffed her into the basket. Then he crawled in after her and the basket started to lift.

Paramedic: I’ll come back for you!

*   *   *

The cracks were slowly reaching around me and Hobbes. The roaring of the helicopter and the screaming and groaning of the ice were deafening and the cracks were widening.

The lake was in my brain. I put that vast lake into my brain, and I could zoom out and see it as a blue splotch on the big ball of the world, or I could zoom in and see each snowflake as a 10158 possibility. I was standing on the lake and tucking the corners of it into my skull, but the lake didn’t know me. It didn’t feel me. It couldn’t understand me, zoom in or out on me.

I might be tipping into a cold lake in a minute, but I could imagine a tiger, and a dinosaur based on bones, and monsters under the bed, and I could imagine flying. That’s what a sick brain could do—it could know it was sick, it could know it might die. That was the Calvin brain, the human brain. Only the human brain could know about a hot tiger on a cold lake.

I had the lake in me, Bill. But the lake didn’t have me.

Not yet.

The basket was coming down for me.

Hobbes: As long as you know—

Me: What?

Hobbes: As long as you know you have a tiger. Don’t make me come out. Keep me in.

I nodded, not exactly sure what he meant, but knowing I could figure it out so long as that basket got down to us in time.

Hobbes: We’re buddies.

Me: Yeah.

Hobbes: We’re friends.

Me: Yeah.

Hobbes: Don’t give up on the Lottery.

Me: Okay.

Hobbes: Don’t give up.

Me: I won’t.

Hobbes: Don’t let Maurice push you around.

Me: Okay.

Hobbes: Remember there’s a tiger in you.

Me: Okay.

Hobbes: Do your homework but don’t stop having fun.

Me: Okay. Hobbes …

The ice floe was tipping and he was grinning his Cheshire cat grin.

Me: Calvin without Hobbes, it just wouldn’t have worked.

Suddenly the basket was there and the paramedic was manhandling me into it.

Me: Hobbes! Get in!

Paramedic: Settle down, kid. I’ve got you.

Me: You have to get Hobbes…!

Paramedic: You’re really cold. Come on, settle down, or you’re going to cause trouble for both of us.

Me: Hobbes!

The basket lifted off and we were high over the ice and then we were in the helicopter.

As we pulled away, I could see Hobbes like an orange blanket floating in the black water.