Onwards to Adventure

All David wants for his birthday is a day off school, a trusty sidekick, and the girl of his dreams. What he gets is a hospitalized seven-year-old, a restraining order, and a starring spot on national television. Happy birthday, David.

Onwards to Adventure
Chapter	33 of 127 (list of chapters)
Published	February 23, 2007 (2007-02-23)
Page count	7
Major characters	David, Justin
Minor characters	Lucy, David's mom, Paulo, Mike, Flower Girl
Locations	David's house, Neighborhood sidewalks and streets
Collected in	Volume One, Omnibus 1
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Synopsis

The chapter opens on February 22nd with a rooster crowing David awake, and he remembers it's his birthday. He gets as far as frying up a celebratory breakfast before his mom dashes any hope of a day off, promising a big dinner tonight and shooing him off to school.

Outside school, Lucy tells him to stop being such a baby and skip already, and David eagerly invites her along: "C'mon, be a hooker with me!! It'll be so exciting!!" A crowd of scandalized onlookers gathers, so Lucy sweetly corrects him ("hookey"), then threatens to knee him in the crotch if he isn't gone in five seconds. David wisely takes off running. Paulo strolls up to ask what her rate is, and gets kicked into the horizon for his trouble.

A proper birthday adventure needs a sidekick, and David finds his in a passing seven-year-old. The kid knows better than to talk to strangers. He's no match, though, for a yarn about a secret agent in need of a "secret sidekick", and he signs on. David hauls him away so fast that his camera's strap snaps, leaving it behind on the grass. "We all gotta make sacrifices, kid." From there David introduces himself as Sergeant Rainpop, and correctly guesses from the goggles that the boy's name is Justin. Their mission, he explains, is to rescue a goddess he saw in a vision. When Justin's patience runs out, David drags them both into a bush and engages stealth mode.

The goddess is Flower Girl, whom the pair spy on from the bushes as she waters a garden. Both boys are awestruck, right up until David barks at his sidekick not to look at his woman. When she wanders out of sight, David concludes that kidnappers got to her, and throttles the boy he now calls Justin "Spirit Stone" Johnson over it. His new plan is to climb a building and survey the area. Justin refuses point-blank, then realizes he doesn't know his way home and hurries after David anyway.

Who needs stairs when you know where the panel borders are?

Getting to the roof turns out to be the easy part. On the way, the pair pass an electronics store where every TV is airing a bulletin about a mass kidnapping ("And by mass, we mean one kid") whose victim has brown eyes and blue goggles. Justin works out pretty quickly that the victim is him. David, for his part, only hears a description of his darling. Reaching the roof takes a single fourth-wall-breaking "SUPERRR PANELLL TELEPORT!!", after which David cheerfully greets the newspaper stand, the camera crew, and the police squadron pointing its guns up at him. His smile drops a moment later.

David's mom brings him home in disgrace. He tearfully insists he never meant to kidnap that boy, and she gently reminds him that he'll have to apologize when they visit Justin in the hospital, once the restraining order expires.

Lucy, Paulo and Mike drop by, and find David mourning his true love, taken from him forever. Lucy pieces together that he means the flower girl and reveals she merely transferred to the private school up the road, so he's welcome to keep stalking her. David and Paulo celebrate the school uniform implications, to Mike and Lucy's disgust. Mike mentions that Daisy and Abbey haven't been around much lately, which David chalks up to the scheming of "Final Fantasy Cat". Lucy tries reminding him that he nearly went to jail today, but David only takes it as proof of how important his birthday is. She surrenders with a resigned ".. Yes, David. Happy birthday.", and dinner arrives: a platter of hot dogs, one with a lit sparkler stuck in it.

Character dynamics

• David and Justin: Total strangers before this chapter, which is also Justin's series debut. One secret-agent yarn later, the seven-year-old is David's "secret sidekick" on a birthday adventure. By dinnertime, Justin is in the hospital, David is under a restraining order, and an apology is owed once it expires.
• David and Flower Girl: The obsession isn't new. Lucy calls her "that flower girl you've obsessed with", and the crush goes back to the middle-school prom in Farewell, Middle School. This chapter promotes her to "goddess" and builds a whole rescue mission around her, all without her ever noticing she has an audience. By the end David believes her lost forever, at least until Lucy mentions the transfer.

Trivia & observations

• The opening caption establishes David's birthday as February 22nd. Per Veronica's commentary, birthday comics are normally just one page, which makes David's full-length chapter quite the privilege when Lucy's birthday "only got a measly three pages".
• The rooster crows "Ki kiri kiriiiiiiii~!", the Spanish onomatopoeia for a rooster's crow. Veronica explains she always thought the Spanish version beat "cockle-doodle-doo".
• Per Oliver's commentary, page 1 was the sample page he and Veronica used to test their production methods for remaking the early chapters: "You walked so the Omnibus could run."
• David's spy patter is wall-to-wall video game references. Blinx the Time Cat, Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth, and Grandia II's Melfice all get name-dropped, his "Hold it!" is delivered in Phoenix Wright fashion, and Justin "Spirit Stone" Johnson nods to Grandia.
• Veronica admits she can't remember whether Justin's camera got dropped because she didn't want to keep drawing it or because it could give away his identity, "which will be useful for the future!"
• The kidnapping bulletin interrupts a program called "Football Scene Placeholders Caught On Tape".

Related chapters

• Follow Me: The chapter right before this one. David's spy rambling about a "super scary punk" his team recently encountered is aimed at Augustus, who had only just started hanging around the group. In fact, Follow Me ends with him drawing Daisy away from her friends.
• Bonding: The next chapter. Mike's remark that he hasn't seen much of Daisy and Abbey lately points straight at the ongoing Augustus arc, which Bonding picks back up.
• Farewell, Middle School: Where David's Flower Girl fixation began. He first noticed her at the middle-school prom, with his head submerged in a punch bowl.
• Pep Rally: Flower Girl actually debuted way back here, when Mike accidentally lifted her dress.
• Love My Way: Justin's next appearance. He turns up at the prom clutching a camera again, and after his day with David, he decides against offering to take anyone's picture.
• Witch Hunt: "Final Fantasy Cat" sticks as David's permanent name for Augustus, and this chapter holds the nickname's biggest payoff, complete with a revival of the "Melfice" comparison.