Susie made me go back to school. Of course.

Maurice said the freak is back when I walked in, but everyone else was like, saw you in the paper!

Most said stuff like

what was the helicopter like?

is it true that you and McLean are a thing?

she says you guys slept in the same tent

why are your faces sunburned?

is it true her baby toes froze off?

is it true your toes turn black before they fall off?

I had never been so popular. I thought they would call me schizo or something, but if they did it wasn’t to my face. Besides, it didn’t seem like a bad name anymore. Just a fact. Sooz and I sat together at lunch the first day back and Maurice tried to grab my lunch but I stopped him and Susie told him to go clip his nose hairs so he grabbed her lunch and I socked him.

He told the principal I was bullying him and I got in trouble, but Maurice hasn’t bothered me since. I have initiated an appeasement policy and hope to find a diplomatic resolution to our ongoing tensions.

My English teacher turned out to be a friendly alien and suggested I write all this down for my English project, and, given the special circumstances, she wouldn’t even take marks off for being late. Maybe she was just being nice because I’m onto her about the whole alien thing, but when she sees how many pages it is, maybe she might give me a decent mark.

I also got an extension for my biology project, an essay about how we’re polluting and destroying Lake Erie and how the other Great Lakes will be next. Susie read it and said if I don’t get an A, no one will.

*   *   *

I got on medication and it helps. It helps a lot, and I don’t get any of the side effects. Turns out Dr. Filburn didn’t go to school for twelve years for nothing.

I visited soldier guy in the hospital. He didn’t salute me this time because he’s on meds now, too. Turns out we both like chess. He might be becoming my first guy friend.

Sometimes I can feel Hobbes in the room, or beside me when the fire is going and I’m sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows. I don’t mind. I mean, a comic strip called just Calvin? It wouldn’t have flown.

Hobbes doesn’t talk, but feeling him around reminds me not to give up on the Lottery and to make sure I take care of myself.

Our parents thought Susie and I had run away together. Naturally Susie’s parents gave me grief about hanging out with her at first, especially when they knew everything that had happened. But she told them we were Calvin and Susie and that’s just the way it was. After I had groveled sufficiently they didn’t hate me anymore.

Susie makes me do my homework every night and it turns out that if you do that, school isn’t as horrible. Susie says get used to it because I’ll be going to university for a long time so I can become a neuroscientist. Once I complained about not knowing birds, and she said let me introduce you to the joys of reading and bought me a book on birds. If I ever don’t want to do my homework, she starts taking off her shoes and socks so I can see where her baby toes aren’t there anymore and I tell her, stop I’ll do whatever you want.

*   *   *

Well, Bill.

That’s the story.

I’m okay now, even though my brain will be burping up Lake Erie for a long time. I know you didn’t create me. You can’t make me better and you don’t control my destiny. I control me, and I can ask bigger questions than my brain can answer. It’s scary to think about that, but it’s also part of the adventure. I like to think of you out there doing new and amazing things with your brain.

And this is the second reason I’m writing you this letter: to say thanks. I never found out who told the emergency services to come for us. Apparently 911 callers do not have to give any personal information. Susie and I decided it could have been the cabdriver, or Orvil Watts, or the guy in the doorless truck who was looking for Fred, or Noah.

But why would any of those guys not want to identify themselves?

It must have been you, Bill.

You said yourself the world is a magical place.

Yours truly,

Calvin