The Tea Party Caper
May 31, 1986
I guess it was a little too much to expect that we'd be talking about a missing child on every entry of Tiger Tracks. Today, the subject is cookies. Don't worry though... it's juicier than you'd think.
To kick off a week-long arc, Calvin bursts into his home, frantically crying out to Mom that he was attacked by a large dog, who then ran away carrying Hobbes. The next few days focus around Calvin's anxiety over his friend's disappearance. However, the audience is soon shown that Hobbes—having since been abandoned by the dog—is discovered by Susie Derkins, who decides to take in the tiger. The fact that Hobbes is simply laying out in an open field following his release rather than getting up and returning to Calvin should be a pretty solid indicator of his capacity for sentience, but that discussion is outside the scope of this series.
Instead, a more interesting and far less relevant conversation is whether or not Susie recognizes Hobbes in this moment. Susie's introduction to the comic occurs nearly six months prior, where Calvin identifies her as the "new girl in class"—implying she only recently moved in to the neighborhood. Now, time is a funny thing in Calvin & Hobbes; except for a single birthday party (which will become the focal point of a future entry in this series), characters never age. Calvin stays five years old and remains in first grade in perpetuity. However, the strip does reliably follow the changing of the seasons, and any holiday-related activities are observed on the appropriate dates year after year. Given that, I think it's fair to say that Susie would have six months' worth of familiarity with her neighborhood, so you'd think she would have seen Calvin playing with Hobbes at some point.
On the other hand, it's also not entirely out of the question that Hobbes isn't a known entity to Susie. The only time the two characters are present in a strip together is with her introduction, and Susie isn't even depicted. Instead, the strip implies that she is walking by the two of them while Calvin hurls insults in her direction—quite possibly from a distance, as he's yelling. After this, whenever Susie appears, it is either in school or when Calvin is playing alone. It appears as though she does not recognize Hobbes when she finds him in the field, and this might truly be plausible.
This interpretation seems increasingly likely when, while having a tea party with her stuffed animals outside, she overhears Calvin yelling for Hobbes. Instead of saying "Oh, are you looking for Hobbes, because I have him," Susie simply invites Calvin to the tea party, as though unaware of his plight. Hang on, I swear I'm getting around to the actual premise of this essay.
See, Hobbes has been given a seat at this tea party; and although Calvin declines the invitation and begins to walk away, he decides he should at least tell Susie to keep an eye out for the tiger and doubles back, at which point he finally sees Hobbes seated at the tea table. We are shown a single panel of Calvin enthusiastically thanking Susie for finding Hobbes, after which the two presumably depart.
At this point, Susie returns to the tea party to discover that all of the cookies she laid out are completely gone.
As the final panel in that day's strip, this is primarily for humorous intent, but it still presents something of a mystery. Now, I think the implication of this gag is that Hobbes ate the cookies when Susie's back was turned, but I'm admittedly not 100% convinced this is the only possible read. Watterson could just as easily be implying that Calvin managed to swipe the cookies on his way out. There's no definite answer provided to us. Really, given the vagaries surrounding this incident, there's only one thing that we can be absolutely certain of: we've entered full-on whodunnit territory.
So let's look at both of our suspects. We'll keep with the above and say Calvin and Hobbes both had opportunity to take the cookies during this interaction. The means by which each was able to do so are equally plausible, though equally dubious (did Calvin really manage to quickly stuff an entire plate of cookies in his pockets? Can Hobbes really eat food?). Perhaps, then, our biggest evidence could lie with motive.
It's no secret that Calvin is fond of cookies. There are quite a number of strips—largely published during the same era of the comic's run as the one we're currently focusing on—that highlight Calvin's countless machinations to get his hands on cookies during non-dessert hours. Of course, these prior offenses look especially damning for the boy, but we have to do our due diligence here and consider Hobbes as well. The question is worth asking: does the tiger even like cookies?
Calvin & Hobbes never depicts Hobbes eating a cookie or otherwise seeking them out. There are a few occasions where Calvin anticipates gaining some semblance of power wherein he can help himself to all the cookies he wants—accompanied by other childhood fantasies such as staying up late—and while Hobbes shares in Calvin's enthusiasm in these moments, there isn't any indication that the cookies concern him.
However. A single strip, published on September 9, 1990, is enough to implicate him.
In what may be more than mere coincidence, this strip sees Susie invite Calvin and Hobbes over to an outdoor "milk and cookie" party she is having, hosted by her own favored stuffed animal, Mr. Bun. Calvin instantly shoots down the invitation and insults Susie, driving her away. However, as Calvin basks in his victory...
(Unrelated, but I really like this particular strip for how Susie is genuinely interested in playing with Calvin and how excited she is when he eventually shows up. We only ever see the two of them at odds with each other, so even this small hint that they might actually be friends on rare occasions is just so delightful.)
This leads one to an obvious line of thought. Could Hobbes be offering this suggestion because he knows how good Susie's cookies can be? Perhaps because he's sampled them before?
Still, this is conjecture; and even if it does suggest that Hobbes enjoys cookies, it can't definitively prove that either him or Calvin is the culprit. Indeed, both appear to have had more or less equal opportunity and motive to take the cookies. Without any further evidence, how could we possibly convict one and acquit the other?
Especially when you consider that, possibly... just possibly... they were set up.
Consider: Accounting for Calvin's late arrival, were there not four individuals who were present at the initial tea party? Hobbes was not the only stuffed animal Susie had invited. If you'll examine the guest list more closely, you'll see that, also in attendance... was a certain Mr. Bun.
Consider: Wouldn't the most plausible period of time for the cookies to go missing be during Calvin's extended display of gratitude towards Susie, during which everybody but Mr. Bun is visible in frame?
CONSIDER: Who did Susie say was the host of that milk and cookie party in that 1990 strip? And for that matter, who's ever heard of a "milk and cookie party" before? You see where I'm going with this. Is it not possible that Mr. Bun has been pulling the strings this whole time, deviously manipulating those around him to satisfy his ever-demanding sweet tooth?
In fact, at one point in the comic's run, we even witness another character voice suspicions of Mr. Bun. This occurs on October 1, 1987, after Calvin sends Susie away following her suggestion to play house together:
What we all assumed was a clever joke juxtaposing Hobbes's equivocal soul with Mr. Bun's utter lack of sentience was actually the smoking gun we were looking for this whole time! Hobbes never calls out any other toy for its lack of physicality. Something about Mr. Bun's behavior strikes him as unique. Could it be that Mr. Bun's attempts to fake total lifelessness—while a perfectly convincing act to a human observer—don't land for somebody better able to detect the nuance, even if he can't identify exactly what's causing it?
In other words, Mr. Bun has been Toy Story-ing it the entire time, pretending to be a perfectly innocent plaything to Susie—all the while seizing on opportunities to gobble up the copious quantities of cookies baked by Mrs. Derkins, who likely wonders whether or not she should have a talk with her daughter about her over-consumption of baked goodies. But make no mistake: Susie, the five-year-old who's already contemplating her master's degree, is dilligent enough to abide by federal nutrition recommendations. You're telling me she's eating entire plates of cookies at a time? I don't buy it.
Verdict: Mr. Bun is clearly the only possible culprit here, and I'm happy to finally put this nearly 40-year-old mystery to rest and watch the puppetmaster finally get what's coming to him.