DW Did It

(A X/O with the book series/PBS show Arthur)

by Helen W.

Hi! I'm DW Read. The D stands for Dora and the W stands for Winifred.

What my name proves is that my parents are deranged; if you've met my big brother, Arthur, you'd understand that this is a hereditary condition in my family.

Somehow, I've been spared the family curse, but sometimes I fear that the insanity is lurking inside of me, awaiting puberty's hormone rush or something. I'm four-and-a-half, so I think I've got twenty, or maybe a hundred, years before I have to worry about it, though.

Oh yeah, just so that you know, I'm an aardvark.

I'm dictating this story into this tape recorder so that you can understand how my invisible friend Nadine and I managed to pull off our recent trip to London all by ourselves, even though we are, if I must be honest, penniless and illiterate. I've been advised by counsel, though, that we have only avoided doing serious time in Juvenile Detention because we're under seven. Apparently, when you turn seven you suddenly develop higher brain functionality; I say the people who make up theories like that have never met my brother, who's eight and has the brain of a clam. And, besides, I think having gotten a Paddington t-shirt from a guy outside the real, genuine Paddington station with no adult assistance proves my brain works Just Fine. But anyway, I've digressed again. I just wanted to make the point that you shouldn't try to do what we've done unless you're small enough to play in a McDonald's playland.

I decided that I wanted to go to England when I was talking to Arthur's best friend, Buster. Buster is - how should I say this - Buster makes Arthur look like Lenard Davinci, who's some really smart guy. Buster just got back from France, and I wanted to know if he'd seen Madeline in Paris. Buster got that blank look he gets when confronted by a door that doesn't open outward, and didn't say anything, but Arthur said, "DW, Madeline isn't real. She's just in storybooks." As soon as he'd said that, I realized that he was right, and I felt silly. I think it was Mao, or maybe MacVelli, who said that, when you say something stupid, the best thing to do is to keep on talking so that nobody remembers what you said, so that's what I did. (My other favorite Maoism is that you should never pass up an opportunity to go potty. I live by that one. Anyway, back to my story).

I tried quickly to think of someone else that Buster might have met in France. In preschool there's a really blurry poster that only looks good if you are hanging upside-down from the climbing structure and your hair's in your face. My teacher said it was by some French guy named Monet. So, I asked Buster if he'd seen Monet. It was Arthur's turn to look blank but Buster said that he'd seen some pictures that Monet had painted, and that he'd liked them a lot because they were so peaceful. (Maybe you should know that Buster's a rabbit.) I asked if he'd seen Monet himself and Buster said that he'd been dead for a long, long time. That got me really worried. See, I've always wanted to meet Sherlock Holmes, who's this guy in stories that Dad reads to Arthur sometimes. But, if I had to wait until I was a grown up before I could go to 221B Baker Street and show up on his doorstep and dazzle him with my intellect and supplant that idiot Watson, then maybe he'd die first or at least retire or go senile. And then all sorts of felons would never be caught.

My course of action was obvious - I owed it to the world to go to London, England.

But, I don't even get an allowance, even though Arthur did when he was my age, I'm pretty sure. How could I get the money for a plane ticket? I asked Mom for it, but she just laughed. I poked around the sofa in the Tibble twins' house, and all I found was a piece of chocolate and a really pretty rock that had a bug inside of it. The Tibbles' grandma said that it was amber. No coins, and Mrs. Tibbett said that, though she was happy I'd found the bug rock, there was no reward.

So I gave my favorite wolf, Blair, a call. Now, despite what the media has said, Blair and I go way back. He's pretty much my only adult friend who's really an equal. I don't have to simplify things when I talk to him, and that's such a relief. Mama says that Blair is okay but that she would rather me not call him when she's not around, and I am never to follow him home. I think that, if she didn't want me to use the phone, she shouldn't keep it in the kitchen; she should keep it a place it's really hard to break into, like where she keeps the Drano. And, as for following him places - well, most four-year-olds don't get the run of the town like I do. That's something she could control if she really tried, you know?

"Blair," I said, "I have to go to England before Sherlock Holmes gets old. It's an emergency."

"Hmmm," said Blair.

"Can I borrow three thousand dollars?"

"That's a lot of money." Which was obvious.

"Can I can I?"

"I don't have that sort of cash, DW." Pause. "Even Jim probably doesn't have that in his checking account."

"Oh, but he has it in savings, or in mutual funds?"

"I really don't know, DW. With the size of his trust fund, I don't know whether he really bothers saving money."

"Trust fund?"

"Well, I have no idea why I'm telling you this, but Jim is one jaguar who was born with a silver spoon in his jaw. Don't think he's ever gone to his dad for anything, but he told me once that when he turned 40 he became officially loaded."

"How do I get to be born with a silver spoon?"

"Luck of the draw, kiddo."

I knew instantly what I had to do - I had to kidnap Jim and hold him for ransom.

- - - - - -

At first, I was going to dig a hole and try to push Jim into it. But, I only weigh 37 pounds, so I decided that instead I had to do something that played to my strengths - my cuteness and cunning. Blair and Jim live in Cascade, downtown on Prospect Street, which is a long way to go between dance class and dinnertime. So, I snuck out of the house when Mom and Dad thought I was asleep. I hiked down to Main Street then hailed a cab.

"Aren't you a little young?" asked the driver.

"I'm 27," I said. "I'm a midget."

"Hahaha, but you're dressed like a little girl," said the driver. I filed this observation for further rumination and gave him the address. In 10 minutes, we were there. And I learned my second lesson from the driver - grownups bleed cash, and if you want people to think you are one you'd better be prepared. He asked for twelve-fifty. I climbed out the window and bolted, glad I hadn't told him what apartment I was heading for.

A big black van was blocking the front door, so I darted around to the back. Did you know that I'm psychic? Somehow, I knew the van was B-A-D bad, even though it had a license plate I liked: DW 4444. A number like that sticks in a kid's mind.

Blair wasn't too pleased to see me - he headed immediately for the phone to call my parents. He plopped down the phone. "Busy!"

"They're probably calling the police now," said Jim. I guessed that Dad was probably web-surfing, but I thought it would be good if they believed Jim.

"Well, I guess you'll have to wait a minute before you call again," I said.

The third man in the apartment was a shiney-dressed goose. "Hi, I'm DW and this is Nadine," I said and he said his name was Rafe. I plopped down on the sofa next to him. "We might as well all watch TV together until the line is free," I said, bouncing on the cushions a few times. "Do we have to watch this silly ball game? Do you have any Disney movies?"

They didn't, but they had "Signs" on DVD and I made them put it on. I love Beau. I think she has revitalized the little-girl-based horror genre. So, pretty soon we were all on the sofa together, me in Blair's lap. Right where I wanted them. I said I had to go pee, and got up. But, instead of heading to the bathroom I slipped up the stairs to where Jim sleeps. I'd just started to gently toss the room when I heard a huge bang from down below. I peeked down and saw about 15 ninjas come cartwheeling into the living room. In a flash, they had Blair, Jim, and Rafe tied up and they were carrying them out of the apartment. A couple stayed behind and started trashing the apartment, making a huge mess. I decided to hide under the covers on Jim's bed. A guy came up the stairs, but I guess he couldn't tell I was there because he went right back down.

So, less than 15 minutes after I'd arrived, someone had stolen my kidnappees before I even had a chance to kidnap them. No fair.

I was really bummed until I noticed that Jim had dropped his wallet.

- - - - - -

We caught a cab home and this time I didn't have to stiff the driver. I snuck back into my bedroom and pulled out my rolling suitcase. Mindful of what the first cab driver had said about me looking like a little girl, I was a little concerned about the pink flowers on it, but I didn't think I could get up to the attic to get a grown-up suitcase without making too much noise. So, my suitcase would have to do. I threw in five pairs of undies, a sweatshirt, two pairs of pants, and two shirts. To disguise my age, I put my Barbie Rapunzel dress-up dress over my clothes, and then I slipped my passport (so glad I convinced mom that I should keep it in my room) and Jim's wallet into my Tigger purse. Nadine said I looked wonderful, and at least 27.

Since I was tugging a suitcase, I couldn't use the window, so I headed down the stairs and out the front door. At the last minute, Nadine reminded me about poor Blair and Jim and all those ninjas, so I got a yellow sticky and wrote 'BLAiR', just like he showed me once, and 'WD 4444' on it. That made Nadine happy. I stuck the note on dad's lava lamp, and then we were off. Back down to Main St., and again I had no problem hailing a cab.

The ride to the airport went fine. Nobody blinked when I bought a round-trip ticket to Heathrow using Jim's credit card either. I was in time for the last overnight flight to JFK, where I transferred to a daytime flight across the Atlantic. Nobody questioned me about my age, so I guess the Barbie Rapunzel dress really worked well. Mostly, I slept on the planes, but the steward on my flight to England let me help him serve drinks in first class and make the 'fasten your seatbelts, the plane is landing' announcement.

I'm a pretty worldly kid, but somehow I didn't know that they use different money in England than where I'm from. So, my first crisis in England was that I couldn't buy a Coke in the airport. Someone pointed me towards currency exchange, though. Good thing, too, because I was running out of cash. I used Jim's Amex card to get a hundred pounds sterling - I love saying that! Pounds sterling. Pounds sterling - and then Nadine and I got on board a bus for downtown London. It was pretty late by the time we got there, but I figured that Sherlock and John could put me up so we got in another cab and asked the driver to take me to 221B Baker Street. We got there pretty quickly, but I had the shock of my life - it's a museum! And it had just closed. It turns out, I was a century too late. Just like with poor Buster and Monet. Life is so unfair. That's when I caught the cab to Paddington Station and got my t-shirt. We hung out a bit in a park watching a guy make balloon aminals, and I got myself a giraffe hat.

But then, we were stuck with no place to go, and I started to feel, well, like I'd been full of magic air for days and that I'd sprung a leak and was deflating. I started to cry and a nice police lady (a Bobby, they're called) came over and without really thinking things through I was telling her about my little sister Katie and how much I missed her, and all about the ninjas and Blair, and Sherlock and Monet together for eternity without me. Things get blurry, but somehow I ended up at the American embassy and in a warm bed. Mom showed up the next morning while I was eating Cheerios and she took me home.

So, now I'm sitting at home talking into this machine. Given how happy Mom was to see me - she was crying and everything - she's being really mean now. She and dad say I'm grounded for life, and Arthur says it will extend into any future lives I might be in for. Even though the license plate number I'd left had allowed the police to track down Blair and his friends.

Life is so hard when you're four-and-a-half.

THE END

All feedback welcome, here or to helenw at murphnet dot org.