Calvin by Martine Leavitt Page A

going to take us a whole day, knowing you’d be there, Bill, waiting, wondering, worrying, with that comic strip.
    Susie: Good morning, Calvin.
    Hobbes: Good morning, Calvin.
    Me: Morning.
    Susie:
    Me: Don’t bother rolling up your sleeping bag. We’re leaving the stuff behind.
    She was staring at me funny.
    Me: What? I know it cost money, but maybe we can come back for it with a snowmobile later. The sled is slowing us down, and we’ve got to get a serious move on. We’re leaving it.
    Susie: Is that all?
    Me: Should there be something else?
    Susie: Yes.
    Me: What?
    Susie: Well, we kissed, you know.
    Me: I haven’t forgotten.
    Susie: You can’t kiss me and act like everything is the same.
    Me: I’m not acting.
    Hobbes: Here we go.
    Susie: You have to wake up in the morning and treat me like somebody who has exchanged saliva with you for the first time.
    Me: Susie, let me explain: We have to go .
    Susie: Argh. Never mind.
    She sat up and started lacing her boots.
    Susie: We kissed.
    Why was I so scared to tell her that at the age of seventeen I had just had the happiest event of my life, and it was all downhill from here because Susie McLean had kissed me like she meant it? And how I was scared that it might not be real, or it might not ever happen again because life wasn’t meant to be that lucky?
    But the expression on her face was the same as she’d had in first grade when I’d called her gross and booger brain. It was the same face I’d thrown snowballs at, and I knew I had to tell her.
    Me: Okay, let me explain something to you.
    I put my hand on hers so she would stop lacing her boots.
    Me: See, Sooz, your brain stem takes care of your biological functions: your heart beating and your lungs breathing. That’s the part of your brain that wires you up to mature and produce hormones and so on. Okay, mine did a good job on the hormones, at least. And then there’s the R-complex or your reptile brain, and that one is responsible for basic survival. It’s aggressive and territorial and drives you to have sex. That part of my brain also works well, to my huge relief. And then there’s the limbic system, and that’s over your emotions and moods. That’s the one that makes you fall in love. That one took care of business when I was in first grade.
    Susie (smiling soft):
    Me: And then there’s the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is the brain that is intuitive and analytical and creative and spiritual. The cerebral cortex is the brain that is responsible for art and science and all the things that make us human. That’s the brain that makes you get married in a church and makes you stay in the relationship for sixty years and makes you write poetry to your wife when she’s seventy years old. And that, Sooz, is the part of my brain that may be sick but is firing on all cylinders over you right now.
    Susie: Your cerebral cortex?
    Me: Yup.
    Susie: That’s the most romantic thing … I mean, ditto.
    Me: Ditto? I make this whole long speech and you say ditto?
    Susie: Okay, let me put it this way: your cerebral cortex is firing up my R-complex.
    Me: That sounds interesting.
    Susie: Oh, it is, it is.
    She stood up.
    Susie: But we have to go.
    We quickly ate our peanut butter tubes and our raisins, and I kept glancing at her and she kept being there. When we were done she dug in the duffel bag for the compass and pulled something out with a whoop.
    Susie: Cookies!
    Me: Cookies?
    Susie: Thank you, Orvil Watts!
    We grinned at each other. Susie checked the compass and we got walking.
    It wasn’t a white sun, it was orange as tiger fur. The lake ice was rough now, slabs like tumbled blocks, and swells of shattered ice. Soon I was sick of hearing my own breath pumping in my ears.
    We were still sore and blistery from the day before, and it just got worse. We put one foot in front of the other until I forgot why I was doing this and where I was