PLEASE NOTE: All future Arthur stories will take place before this one, unless indicated otherwise.

The entirety of Mr. Ratburn's class let out a long moan in unison. Most of them had been surprised to find themselves enjoying the past couple of weeks of learning about energy in school. Now old-man-Ratburn had to bring an immediate end to that by announcing a project they would have to do on it.

"I'd be a bit more quiet, class." the teacher cautioned. "I have a cane underneath my desk, and right now I don't love my job enough to worry about bringing it out of retirement." He laughed as he said the words, but the students had to wonder if he was joking or not. "Now, in pairs you will all need to design and build a model energy producer. Solar, wind, kinetic—the kind of energy is up to you, but it has to work on a small scale."

"What about nuclear?" Buster Baxter asked, jumping out of his seat excitedly.

Ratburn shook his head. "I think that one might be a bit dangerous."

"Oh you've got that right. Last night, I was watching this movie, where they had this nuclear power plant in a small town, but it malfunctioned and killed a whole lot of people!"

There was a sudden silence across the room. "Buster," Ratburn began quietly. "That wasn't a movie. That was the news report on the disaster that's currently occurring in Plyworth Falls."

Buster chuckled. "I thought the acting was pretty good."

Ratburn walked over to his table and leaned down to make eye-contact. "A lot of innocent people died in that explosion, Baxter." he hissed. "You could at least honor their memory by knowing whether it was real or not." Mr. Ratburn glared at him for a long time, his fingers almost breaking the side of the table, before he returned to his cheery tone and held up a piece of paper. "Now, I've assigned you all random partners."

"Boy, this bites." Buster whispered as he leaned across to his good friend Arthur. "Ratburn always gives the hardest projects!"

"You don't know," whispered Arthur in reply. "It all depends on who we get as partners."

"Arthur Read, you will be working with Binky Barnes."

"Goddammit!" Arthur exclaimed, slamming his fist hard on the table surface. "Why did I have to get saddled with him?"

"Hey!" said Binky from right beside him, sounding hurt.

"It's all random, Mr. Read." Ratburn shrugged.

"I'll work with Arthur." George suggested timidly from the other side of the room, smiling warmly at him.

"Oh, I bet you'd love that, pretty boy." Ratburn laughed. "But I've got you paired with Miss Muffy Crosswire."

Both Muffy and George looked unhappy at that partnership.

Ratburn continued down the list until it seemed everybody had been given their team. Everyone except Buster. He looked around. Who else didn't have a partner?

"And finally, Buster Baxter, you will be paired with the Brain."

He could hardly believe his ears. It was like a dream come true! "Yes!" he declared, throwing both hands in the air and jumping out of his seat. "Yes, yes, yes! In your face, Read, I got the Brain!"

"I'm happy I got you too, Buster." the Brain said. But he couldn't have been as happy as Buster was. It was no secret that Alan Powers was the smartest kid in class. Everyone knew as soon as you were working with him on a project, you were right on Easy Street. Buster leaned back in his chair and put his legs on the table, his hands resting behind his head. "Better luck next time, chumps!"

"You may discuss your project with your partners until the end of the day. I will be sitting at my desk reading my book of rowdy limericks."

The class dissolved into noise once more—once Ratburn was reading his limericks, there was little that could disturb him. The Brain went over to his new partner.

"Hey Brain!" Buster smiled widely, his legs still on the desk. "Pretty cool about this project, huh?"

"Hello Buster. Listen, I look forward to working with you on this, but I want to make something very clear; we're going to be doing this project together—as a team."

Buster sat up straight. "Well sure, I mean, yeah, no problem, Brain..."

"I don't want you to think you won't have to do anything just because you're working with me—it's going to be a team effort."

The bunny nodded. "Yeah...no problem..."

"Good." the Brain smiled. "Now, do you have any ideas as to what type of energy we should do?"

"Well, I said nuclear, but..."

"Coz I was thinking maybe wind power. Like we get some tanks of compressed air to make a windmill turn or something..."

Buster didn't reply. He was too distracted by some words he noticed carved into the side of the desk. "Hey Brain, check this out."

The Brain looked over and narrowed his eyes. "What does that say?"

"Ratburn...must...die..." Buster read.

"Wow..." The Brain said, taken aback. "Who do you think wrote it?"

"Well, this is Arthur's spot, but I think we both know he doesn't have the balls for it."

The Brain nodded. "That's for sure. Should we tell Mr. Ratburn?"

Buster waved the suggestion away. "He'd probably think we did it. Besides, it's not like he's in any danger. It was probably some kid who failed a test and took it out on the table."

"You're probably right." the Brain agreed. "Now, compressed air tanks..."