Arthur & Friends and Continuing Adventures

#4 - Before the First (or another) day started

  One morning Arthur's dog Pal greets him a good morning with dog kisses covering his face.

Arthur wake up laughing and tells Pal to stop as he grabs a hold of him and sits up in his bed.

D.W. opens his door to tell him the good news, "School is here again, Arthur. Today's the day where we get to learn again. And the best thing of all is that I'm going to kindergarten this year. It's the second best thing besides ice cream. And speaking of ice cream, I'm going to have some to celebrate this once in a lifetime event." She leaves without closing the door going back to her room to get dressed.

"I guess this is it Pal. Another grade, another school year. It just feels like yesterday all my friends and I were heading to third grade and worried about getting Mr. Ratburn. It also feels like years and years ago. I wonder what this year will be like?"

D.W. comes back all dressed and brushing her teeth in the middle of Arthur's doorway. She says something, but Arthur couldn't really hear her very well.

"Huh, what?"

D.W. rushes back to the bathroom to spit the foamy toothpaste in the sink.

"That was weird," he says to Pal.

She comes back but still holding her toothbrush. "I said, hurry up or we're going to be late. Unless you're scared going to the fourth grade."

"I am not," Arthur defends himself, and quickly gets out of bed to prove her wrong.

"Then prove it," D.W. wasn't convinced yet. "If you're not scared, why aren't you excited as me?"

"Why should I? It's just another school year."

"It is not. It's way more important than that. It's going to be the best year any child would ever hope for. And you Arthur Read, are wasting your time not caring something this important as school. You're such a worm." And she marches away down the hall a few paces.

"What does that suppose to mean?"

"You get the idea."

Arthur looks towards Pal, still sitting on top of his bed. "Should I be excited?" He asks him.

Pal pants and wags his tail.

"But it's school, why should I be excited."

His dog tilts his head to the side very cutely.

"But it is the first day, so I should be somehow excited."

Arthur picks him up.

"Or maybe D.W. is right, and I am scared to go back. But what does she know, she doesn't know what real school is like...yet. And besides this year might be...good. Right?"

Pal barks joyfully, and wags his tail and smiles greatly.

Afterwards D.W. and Arthur have their Dad's famous whoopie waffles drenched in melting ice cream.

Arthur's mom put the daily news paper on the table still rolled up, and sat down to eat. Arthur asked Mom to pass the news paper. He wanted to occupy his time other than thinking about how this school year would go.

He browsed a few pages in, only looking at the boring black and white pictures. Suddenly, he came across something familiar, and something he forgot all about.

"Hey, it's that sand castle we built. I forgot all about it," Arthur said forgetting about going to school.

D.W. took it from Arthur without asking. "They got it all wrong," she said. "The picture is suppose to be in color. Not black and white and gray. We live in the 21st century you know."