A/N: My first fanfic! Please read and review!
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Chapter 1

"Arthur! Your friends are waiting! Hurry up!" hollered Jane Read as she waited impatiently at the front door downstairs.

"Just a minute, Mom. I have to get my books!" Arthur yells back as he slips his history book into his backpack. With Pal, his dog, yapping at his heels, Arthur dashes over to his bookshelf to grab the latest issue of Dark Bunny he had borrowed from Buster, and returns to his backpack. Shoving the comic in with the history book.

Zipping up the backpack, he rushes out of his room and down the stairs. Only to remember half-way down that he forgot his duffle bag at the foot of the bed.

"Oh wait, I forgot my duffle bag!" He moans as he races back up, hearing the irritated groans of Buster, Francine, and Brain waiting outside. Arthur zooms down the hall, spotting the bag by his bed. Zipping the bag close, He yanks it over his shoulder and returns back down the stairs.

"Sorry, guys." He mutters as he joins the group.

"Have a good day, sweetie" His mother says as she kisses her son on the forehead.

"Aw Mom, not in front of my friends!" He rubs his head clean of the sloppy wet smooch he had just received.

Arthur's friends giggled lightly to themselves as they proceeded to walk down the sidewalk.

As they leisurely stroll towards school. Arthur keeps readjusting his duffle bag. Grunting that his mom probably packed an extra shirt or two than usual into his bag. He hoisted it again.

Arthur takes off the duffle bag and, intending to massage his aching shoulder, and drops the heavy bag to the ground. Right when the bag landed onto the cement, a loud yelp was heard. Arthur jumps and backs away from his bag, not knowing exactly where the noise came from.

"What was that?!" he wonders out loud.

His friends, who were a few steps ahead of him, stop in their tracks. Just now noticing their Arthur's absence from the group, they simultaneously look behind them at the bewildered aardvark

"What was what?" repeats Francine.

"M-My bag. No. Something made a-ah- a barking noise just now," Arthur stutters. Looking around the area, he tried to pinpoint the source. But to no avail

"It sounded like a dog or something"

His friends aided him in the search, twisting their heads this way and that and found no answer either.

"You're just hearing things, it was probably a stray running around" Francine shrugs. "Now come on or we'll be late!"

"OK, but I swear I heard something close..." Arthur's words were lost as a blaring horn shrieks past them. It was Muffy in her black limousine. She pompously waves to them from the rear window.

"Why, that no good little-" Buster grumbles to himself.

"Oh no," exclaims the Brain. "She's going to beat us to school again."

The other kids hurry to catch up with Muffy, leaving Arthur struggling to keep up.

"Hey, wait a minute. Hold on!" Arthur yells for them. But his words fall on deaf ear as Buster, Francine and Brain hurriedly chase after the car.

Arthur quickly forgets about the odd noise and rushes off to catch his friends.

A/N: Thanks for reading. I'll be posting the next chapter soon.

Edited: 2/28/2013