Author Disclaimer: This story is solely based on the very first episode of the original Magic School Bus series when Ms. Frizzle's class first went into outer space. It is also being told by Arnold, now in his thirties, as he reflects on his experiences through these particular events from Ms. Frizzle's third-grade class, and his mixed relationship with his cousin Janet. But of course, I will be putting my own spin on things. All of my stories up to this point, whether they be completed or not, have been told in third-person format, and I decided to try something different for a change with a completely different set of characters that I've grown up with and cherished.

I do not own The Magic School Bus. All copyrights and trademarks belong to Scholastic, Inc., as well as any other respective owners I might have forgotten to mention. Let me know what you think! Enjoy!

First Impressions

There were a hundred reasons why I wanted to stay home from school today. For a start, it was Monday. With the sun was shining as brightly as it was as it rose above the horizon, the thought of being in a school building (or any building for that matter) for most of the day just did not suit my mood. I just wanted to be outside and enjoy the spring weather with my friends, just like every other eight-year-old kid growing up in the mid-90s without the distraction of mobile phones to get them through their day (sorry, Generation Z). I trudged along, flicking a loose curl in my red hair as a slight breeze blew into my face at the sight of Walkerville Elementary, the place where I first met my then current, enthusiastic, yet wildly eccentric, teacher. Truth be told, I have since convinced myself that she might have been a Time Lord from Dr. Who because, to this day, I still have no idea how Miss Valerie Frizzle, the teacher I have since come to cherish after all of these years, had been able to take me and the rest of my third-grade class to some of the most exotic, if dangerous, places on the planet in what looked and, most of the time, operated like an ordinary school bus.

From being inside of a rotten log, to diving to the deepest depths of the ocean, and even being turned into a rain drop (don't ask), every field trip I had been on seemed more impossible than the last. Just the thought of going on another crazy trip on the so-called "Magic School Bus" was enough to make it the second reason I did not want to go to school that day. With that said, however, it was not the main reason for my unreasonably pessimistic attitude that day. That reason was just a few feet ahead of me walking along the sidewalk.

"Come on, Arnold!" my almost-twin cousin Janet yelled rudely from ahead of me. "We're going to be late, you slow-poke!"

"Relax, Janet!" I yelled back. "School doesn't start for another half hour! Besides, we may not even go on a field trip today."

"You know what they say, Arnold…Only time will tell…"

"But you know what they also say?" I retorted. "Slow and steady wins the race."

Janet just simply scowled and continued walking in front of me at a brisk pace. Her short curly red-orange hair and white-and-yellow striped T-shirt design, except for a big "J" on the front and her short sleeves, had all matched mine that day. The only things that could tell us apart were the thick-framed, oval-shaped pink glasses she wore, contrasting greatly with my perfectly round, wireframe glasses, and her blue skirt versus my blue jeans. If I was only able to describe Janet with three words that day, they would be as follows: abrasive, stubborn, and arrogant. She was the posterchild of the know-it-all stereotype, going so far as to brag about how she could be better at anything, no matter who was in the room. While her and I both went to the same public institution, she was typically situated in another classroom with a different teacher, much to my relief at the time.

Today, however, was an entirely different matter.

She had requested my aunt and uncle to spend the day with me in Miss Frizzle's class, just so she could see for herself how unusual "The Friz" really was. Had I not opened my big fat mouth about our field trips, Janet probably would not have bothered going through all the trouble to pester my aunt and uncle to join me. I was immediately regretting it. Thankfully, I have since grown numb to Janet's constant barrage of know-it-all dialogue, only to say something witty back to her that she could not deny being true. Truth be told, I quite liked giving Janet a taste of her own medicine. But what would my classmates think of her? The thought was enough to send shivers down my spine, but it would not be long before I would find out.

If there was one thing I have learned from being in Ms. Frizzle's classroom, it's to never judge a book by its cover. Her classroom was not the largest by any means. At first glance, one might think that they were just any other classroom at Walkerville Elementary: the cubbyhole desks, the educational content hanging on every wall (the current science topic being the Solar System), and the large teacher's desk in the corner, everything on the surface all looked very ordinary. I followed Janet inside and saw that my classmates were already inside. Looking over towards the window, I caught sight of Ralphie on a step stool reaching up to a large display, our classroom project, to hang a small blue sphere representing the Earth from string next to a large yellow disk representing the Sun. Phoebe was standing behind him, presumably passing the other planets up to him as everyone finished their part of the project.

"Pass me that one next, Phoebe." I heard Ralphie say, after which I heard Phoebe say "Okay, Ralphie." as she handed him the light-yellow sphere representing Venus.

Despite his heavy-set figure, Ralphie Tennelli was the class athlete, as well as the class daydreamer as I do recall. He played a lot of sports, so much in fact that he would daydream about playing them when not playing them. While he was outgoing, kind, imaginative, and fun loving, he was also, on rare occasions, cowardly, usually in the face of danger. He had dark brown hair that fell across his forehead and a red baseball cap that he wore backwards on his head. He also sported a lime-green T-shirt with a big, red letter R on the front, as well as dark green pants and a pair of red and white sneakers.

As the newest member of our class, it came as no surprise that Phoebe Terese was the shyest out of all of us. She was also the sweetest and most kind-hearted girl in our class, a genuine caring soul. I sort of got the impression that she had a slight crush on me, especially after the time she helped me chase down a dinosaur that stole a fossilized egg that I had borrowed. She had shoulder-length, auburn hair in reverse flip that was usually kept parted behind a yellow headband and two parted bangs, and she usually wore a yellow-long-sleeved collared blouse, red shortalls, yellow knee-high socks and brown loafers. Truth be told, as timid as I was at the time, I thought she was sort of pretty.

Carlos and Dorothy Ann were in the back corner adding finishing touches to Saturn, while Keesha and Tim were working on Uranus and Neptune. Liz, Ms. Frizzle's pet lizard, simply watched us kids in fascination. Ms. Frizzle, however, was not yet in the classroom, probably taking care of important teacher business before the start of class. In the center of the classroom, I saw Wanda. Her and I oversaw the making of Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System. We had since built and painted the planet and were currently working on painting its four large moons. I walked over to her, leaving Janet to converse with the others. There was no need for me to introduce her to everyone since she was already introducing herself. Wanda looked up at me and smiled.

"Hey, Arnold! What took you so long?" she asked, setting down the paintbrush that was in her hand.

Wanda Li was the most boisterous and toughest tomboy of the class if my memory serves me. She came from an Asian-American family, with her mother being a very talented science writer. Despite being tough and aggressive at times, she usually showed a soft and caring personality. And even though she was the shortest kid in Ms. Frizzle's class, she had shown to have athletic prowess after proving herself to be the highest jumper in the class in our class jumping contest. In physical looks, Wanda had short black hair and usually sported a pink shirt, maroon vest, maroon trousers, white socks and black Mary Jane shoes. Today was no exception.

"I'm sorry, Wanda." I said. "I didn't realize everyone would be here so early. I had to go meet with my cousin before coming here."

"It's alright, Arnold." Wanda said. "Is that your cousin over there?"

She pointed over to Janet, who was introducing herself to Carlos and Dorothy Ann.

"Yep, that's her…" I replied. Wanda must have noticed the way I felt through the tone of my response and looked at me with a concerned expression.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah. I'm still a little tired, that's all."

I did not want to express my utter annoyance towards Janet, and for good reason. It all boiled down to first impressions, and I was not going to allow my feelings to stain my classmates' opinions of Janet. It was up to them to figure it out for themselves.

"Did you get the chance to finish up the moons of Jupiter?" Wanda asked me.

"I did." I replied, pulling out a small plastic bag from my backpack containing four small painted spheres. "I tried to get as close to the pictures as I could."

"They look great, Arnold!" Wanda replied. "I just finished some final touches on Jupiter, what do you think?"

"I couldn't have done any better." I said. "Great job, Wanda."

"Thanks! I think we're ready to take these over to the model."

"Here, I'll take that." I said, as Wanda handed me the giant planet. It was so large, that if Carlos' and Dorothy Ann's Saturn model were not there to serve as a counterweight, our Jupiter model would have ripped the entire display from the ceiling. Looking back over to Dorothy Ann and Carlos, I saw that they were still putting some final touches on their model, so I decided to wait until they were finished to actually hang Jupiter onto the model.

Dorothy Ann Rourke, or "D.A." for short, was the undisputed class bookworm. As far as I can remember, she always had some sort of book were her at all times, whether it was related to our current science topic, a work of fiction, or even a cookbook. It was no wonder she later graduated from medical school with high honors. She had a very keen interest in astronomy and physics and was just downright brilliant in both subjects. Her blonde hair was usually tied up in pigtails by two red rubber hair bands, and she usually sported a violet turtleneck sweater, a turquoise pleated skirt, purple ankle-length socks, and maroon and white sneakers. Despite her high intelligence, Dorothy Ann also had an argumentative personality and even clashed with the others from time to time, including myself. Most of the clashing, however, usually occurred between her and Wanda. With Janet around, however, I somehow got the impression that her usual argumentative sessions, if they came about, would be placed on the backburner that day.

And then there was Carlos Ramon, the unquestioned class clown. I remember him always coming up with puns or jokes about whatever situation our class was in during our field trips, even if most of them were mediocre at best. His jokes, dry as they may have been, always provided some comedic relief in the face of danger in my opinion, even if the rest of the class groaned in annoyance. Unlike Dorothy Ann, who learned through reading books, Carlos was more of a hands-on learner, making him something of a foil to the blonde-haired bookworm. In physical looks, he had short black hair and would usually wear a yellow T-shirt, a blue hooded sweater, red trousers, and black and dark blue converse sneakers.

As I went over to where Ralphie and Phoebe stood, both D.A. and Carlos looked over to me as I carried the giant model.

"Are you guys already finished?" Dorothy Ann called out to me.

"Yeah." I replied. "We were going to wait for you guys to finish to hang ours up. It's a little heavy and we need a counter weight."

"We're just finishing ours up, Arnold." Carlos said. "It won't be long."

Just then, my cousin approached me.

"What are you doing?" she asked in her usual trademark voice.

"I was just about to take this over there." I said, pointing over to where Ralphie and Phoebe stood and talked to one another.

"It's going to be a model of the Solar System. Neat, huh Janet?"

"Uh…" Janet began with a chuckle, her tone suggesting lack of amusement and that another bragging session was about to ensue.

Oh boy…

"I hate to tell you, cousin Arnold, but when my class built one, the Sun was so huge we had to hang it from the flag pole…"

I had no idea Keesha was standing behind me.

"And you had all nine planets?" she asked, her voice almost made me drop the model Jupiter onto the ground from the sudden surprise. She must have been listening to me and Janet talk for entire twenty seconds we were standing there. Tim was standing beside her, carrying their model of Neptune in his right hand.

Being the most level-headed and realistic student in Ms. Frizzle's class, Keesha Franklin was also the most sarcastic. Because of her skepticism, she usually argued with Ralphie, who, as I mentioned earlier, tended to live in his imagination. She was also very ambitious but would stop her pursuit when she was either wrong or putting others in danger during a class field trip. In appearance, she had brown skin and curly dark brown hair that was tied into a high bun held by a fuchsia hair tie. She often wore a matching fuchsia sweater with a light blue stripe around it, a fuchsia skirt, cobalt blue tights, and fuchsia ballet flats. Her favorite color was, you guessed it, fuchsia.

On the other hand, Tim was the most observant and artistic student in the class. He, like Keesha, had dark skin, but was usually seen wearing a blue Henley shirt with a green neckline, navy trousers and black and mauve sneakers. Although he was not necessarily the quietest student in our class, he was still very seldom talkative, much like Phoebe, and was usually found drawing something in his sketchbook. But that's not to say Tim was antisocial. In fact, he would occasionally tell jokes, sometimes in conjunction with Carlos, or even express them in his artwork. One of my favorite instances of this was his Ralphie-inspired comic book The Adventures of Weatherman (which I still have a copy of, by the way), something he drew up when our class was learning about weather. From what I recall, his grandfather used to own a bee farm outside of Walkerville, but that's all I can remember.

Janet was quick to answer Keesha's inquiry.

"That's right, Keesha. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto…Every single planet was on our model."

And there went Janet, showing off how smart she was once again. If only I could have corrected her about Pluto. But to be fair, the thought of demoting Pluto to a dwarf planet status was still a decade away. We did not even know that its status as a planet was going to be questioned, even with the very recent discovery of what would later be called the Kuiper Belt. In those days, if a body was round and orbited the Sun, it was called a planet. It was not until the discovery of other bodies like Pluto, such as Eris, Makemake, Haumea, and Sedna that scientists panicked and revised their ideas of what a planet should be to keep the number planets in the Solar System down to a reasonable amount. Despite this, Pluto is still considered a planet in my book. After all, that was how I learned it, and I learned it from none other than Ms. Frizzle. Hell, I was even assigned to write a report on that distant world. I would imagine if she were still teaching today, she would be teaching her students about the eight planets and the numerous dwarf planets of our Solar System. I suspected Ms. Frizzle would probably have been against the idea of Pluto's demotion in 2006, but more on that later.

"My class already studied the Solar System…" Janet went on. Ralphie turned around at the top of the ladder, now interested in the conversation that was taking place.

"I bet your class didn't learn about the aliens that live on the planets."

I had to resist the urge to laugh. It was no surprise, at least to me, that Ms. Frizzle later assigned Ralphie to write a report on Mars, probably to somehow cure his then-sudden obsession with aliens.

"Well, for your information, Ralphie, Earth is the only planet that can support life as far as we know." Janet replied in a somewhat collegiate, academic tone, as if to imitate a distinguished astrobiologist.

"And how far do you know?" He asked jokingly, catching everyone else in the room off guard. Laughter ensued shortly thereafter, but Janet was surprisingly unfazed by Ralphie's remark and instead shot back.

"Very far, actually. In fact, I have straight A's on all my tests, and this proves it…"

And Janet proudly pulled out her report card for everyone to see.

Dear god… If that was not a sign of self-induced self-esteem issues, nothing was. It wasn't like she had to present her case in front of a grand jury. Maybe in her mind she did. I didn't know then, and I still don't know now. In any case, Janet was already showing her true colors as the drama continued to unfold before my eyes.

"If you already know so much, Janet, why did you come to visit our class?" D.A. asked.

"Because Arnold told me all about your field trips, Dorothy Ann."

This was not the first time Janet threw me under the bus (no pun intended, of course). Typically, I would have just dismissed her dialogue and treat it as if it were no more important than my rock collection. But for her to publicly call me out in front of my classmates was just wrong, at least in my mind. I had no idea what to say as everyone looked over in my direction with faint disapproval. I could feel my cheeks and body warm up out of embarrassment and humility.

"What did he say?"

"He said that they were, and I quote, 'highly unusual'. But you know what I said?"

D.A. and Carlos simply shook their heads out of confusion.

"No, what?" Carlos asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"Prove it!"

Great… Now the class knew the whole truth. Janet was here because of me. They knew how much of a smart-Alek she was and how she would stop at nothing to make herself look better than everyone else. My so-called 'reputation' was already crumbling.

"She's…really nice…Once you get to know her…" I stuttered, trying to keep my neutral expression. My reassuring words did not seem to change the idea in everyone's mind that Janet was a complete and utter nuisance. With the Jupiter model still in my hands, I sighed, slipping robotically into one of the nearby chairs just as the classroom door suddenly opened. I turned around, already knowing who it was. The Friz had finally arrived.

And that was the first chapter! Let me know what you think! Constructive criticism is also very much appreciated! Another thing I want to note here: I do plan on adding some elements from the PC game The Magic School Bus Explores The Solar System later on the story as well when the time comes. This means the possibility of some additional exploration of the Solar System, but I can't say too much at the moment because I'd hate to reveal everything at once. In the next chapter, Arnold will explore more of Ms. Frizzle's character and detail his struggle to prove to Janet once-and-for-all that the Friz and their field trips are "highly unusual". Hope to see you then!

saturn95