Disclaimer: The Magic School Bus is the property of Scholastic, as well as author Joanna Cole and artist Bruce Degen. The character Mina Ral and his family are my MSB fan-made characters. Mrs. Terese is Phoebe's implied mother yet to be revealed in the series. The names Phoenix and Daisy are the fan-made given names that I'm referring to Phoebe's parents as.
It was a warm winter day in January in the city of Walkerville. Most of the snow had melted and the roads were clear. It was teacher workday at Walkerville Elementary School, so all the kids had the day off until tomorrow.
Meanwhile, at Phoebe's house, Phoebe was in the kitchen baking homemade gluten-free chocolate-chip cookies. She had just finished one batch and was getting ready to do another. Her parents were in the rumpus room: her mother was playing on the russet-colored spinet piano while her blind father was singing along.
Right away, before Phoebe was able to put the next batch of cookies into the oven, she became startled by a sound coming from outside. It was so loud that she was curious what it could be outside. So, she turned off the oven, put on her coat and boots and walked out the front door. Much to her surprise, there was a new family moving in next door to her house. She saw a red and white conversion van (a 1986 Chevrolet Chevy Van G20 Gladiator) pulling in and behind it was a big moving van (a 1988 Chevrolet Chevy Van 30 cutaway) loaded with furniture and other things.
"Wow, someone's moving in?" Phoebe said to herself watching the scene.
Phoebe's house and the house next door to hers were both very alike. They were mansard-roofed homes where the entire second floor took place inside the roof, and the roofs had shake shingles. The house next door had light blue siding in a horizontal pattern while Phoebe's had light red brick siding. The windows around the first floor on both homes were decked with faux shutters. Comparing the size of the houses: the house next door was about three-tenths larger and had three garage doors that were tall enough that a full-size van could fit inside, while Phoebe's relatively small house had only one garage door that only had space for one car and no car taller than a minivan could fit in there.
Phoebe then sat on the front porch so the new neighbors wouldn't accuse her of spying. However, there was a wooden fence dividing her house and the one next door that the new family was moving into. The van that belonged to the family moving in to the house next door then slowly backed into the driveway of their new house. The moving van had just parked across the street next to a curb between two houses. There were two cars mounted on the trailer pulled by the moving van: a maroon 1986 Chevrolet Celebrity sedan and a light blue 1980 Chevrolet C/K 2-door pickup.
"I suppose they have a teenage driver," Phoebe guessed.
Just then, the family next door exited the conversion van and headed to the moving van to start unloading furniture and other things.
In the next ten minutes, when most of the moving van was unloaded, Phoebe got bored and decided to go take a walk. By mistake, she turned left on the sidewalk while walking from her house and it seemed like she was butting in. Phoebe then tripped and fell right in the grass.
"Whoa!" said Phoebe.
"Are you all right?" said a boy who was roughly around her age.
"I'm fine," said Phoebe.
"Care to help you up?" he continued.
"That's all right," Phoebe replied.
So Phoebe got up with all her strength.
"Anyway," said the boy. "What's your name?"
"My name is Phoebe," said Phoebe. "P-H-O-E-B-E. Phoebe Marie Terese. What's yours?"
"Mina," said the boy. "Mina Foxi Ral. My first and last names sound like mineral, my middle name is spelled with an I in place of the Y."
And so they shook hands together.
"It's so nice to meet you, Mineral…I mean Mina Ral," said Phoebe.
"Same to you, Phoebe," said Mina.
Mina was about the same height as Phoebe. He had long blonde hair with bangs across his forehead. His favorite attire included an orange baseball cap with a fox's ears and a fox's face on it, an orange T-shirt with a fox's head, blue shorts, and red and white sneakers with white socks. At this moment, he had on blue jeans, orange boots, an orange winter jacket, black mittens that matched a fox's paws, and an orange winter hat with a fox on it.
"And by the way, do you go to school?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Phoebe. "Walkerville Elementary. And you?"
"Same here," he said. "We've just moved in from our old home in Montreal. I'm starting tomorrow. In Ms. Frizzle's class."
"Wow," said Phoebe. "That's my teacher, too. And the bus driver. We go on field trips about once a week but sometimes when it's an emergency."
"Yeah," said Mina. "I'm a transfer student now, and so are my siblings, except for the littlest one who just had his third birthday back in November. We moved here because my dad just landed a job in a geology museum, and my mom just applied to go work in a jewelry shop."
"That's great," said Phoebe. "And I see you guys have three cars."
"Yep," said Mina. "I have an older brother whom I usually carpool with to school and back, and my older sister and my other younger brother ride along too. That sedan is my big brother's car. The pickup is my dad's, and that comfy van is my mom's but also the family car when we go on vacation or go out as a family."
"Awesome," said Phoebe. "Too bad I'm an only child. My house is rather small, and we only have one car and just my mom is the driver because my dad is blind and always has to be the passenger, but thankfully my dad is great at hearing and singing."
"That's all right," said Mina. "An only child is always worth a lot of friends."
"For sure," said Phoebe. "Glad I have friends to spend time with since I started going to Walkerville on my first day here in third grade. But I do miss my old friends from my old school."
"Me too," said Mina. "I really miss my old Canadian friends and we had no choice but to move because of my dad's job. And my siblings miss their old friends too. And we even had to get our semester exams done in advance before moving."
"Yeah," said Phoebe. "I can't wait for the final results in my semester exam from yesterday. I hope I get a B- or better."
"Well said," said Mina. "Care to help us out with the moving stuff?"
"Sure," said Phoebe. "One good family can always lend a helping hand."
So Phoebe joined along with Mina's family to help out with a bunch of moving supplies.
"And who's here to help?" said Mina's mother, Mrs. Ral who had just walked out of the front door of their new home while in the middle of loading their belongings into the house. Her hair was naturally blonde, but it was dyed auburn like Phoebe's.
"Oh, that's my new friend, Phoebe," said Mina.
"Well, congratulations on making your first new friend here in America," said Mrs. Ral. "Let's keep moving, we're only halfway done."
So, Phoebe and Mina started working together. Since most of the heavy furniture were taken out of the moving van and loaded into the house, Mina and Phoebe went to the conversion van to get out some lightweight packages of items. They both took out a box that was labeled "Mina's Stuffed Animals" and went into the house.
"Wow, you sure love stuffed animals, don't you?" said Phoebe.
"Yes," said Mina. "No one is ever too old for stuffed animals. Not even my older brother Sparky or older sister Sapphire. They're never too old either and they still love them."
"Same here," said Phoebe. "Stuffed animals have always been my life for as much as I adore animals."
Phoebe and Mina slowly walked up the stairs and then went into one of the bedrooms. There were boxes that have yet to be unpacked and two beds that had yet to be assembled. There was another boy in the room who looked to be about twice Mina's age and taller. His hair was blonde and identical to his younger brother's, except it looked thicker and more styled like how hair metal musicians in the 1980s styled their hairs. He usually wore wild clothes of a typical teenager.
"This is my room and my brother Sparky's," said Mina. "And that's my brother Sparky right there."
"Yo!" said Sparky. "Looks like we have a guest helping my awesome bro."
"Yes," replied Phoebe. "My name's Phoebe by the way."
"Cool," said Sparky. "Sparky's my name."
"Nice to meet you too," said Phoebe.
Then they walked out of the bedroom and then saw a girl with long blonde hair that had bangs across her forehead and had blue streaks in most of her hair and looked like she was starting to become a teenager. She came from another bedroom.
"Wait a minute," said the girl intervening. "Who's here?"
"I'm Phoebe Terese," said the auburn-haired girl.
"Nice to meet you, Phoebe," said the girl. "I'm Sapphire, the only girl in my family besides my mom."
"So nice to meet you, Sapphire," said Phoebe. "That name reminds me of one of those minerals we collected on my class's field trips."
Sapphire, the only girl in the family always liked to wear blue, and always liked just about anything blue, especially cosmetics.
"My room would look more complete if we were to just paint the walls blue," said Sapphire. "White walls are just plain and look like they have room for just any color let alone a theme, but it would be cheaper if we just painted them blue. The only that's apparently blue in new room is just that glaucous carpeting."
"Sure," said her brother Mina. "My room and Sparky's need a paint job, too. We want our walls a nice reddish-orange color."
"Will you guys quit monkeying around and keep getting stuff in the house?" a man's voice from downstairs called.
"We're on it, Dad," Mina called in return.
So the four of them walked downstairs and went back to the family's van to get some more stuff.
As they came downstairs, they encountered a figure of a grown man with shaggy blond hair. It was the same person who ordered them to keep moving. The manly figure was the father, Mr. Ral himself.
"And who's this?" said Mr. Ral, noticing the redheaded girl with his three older kids.
"Her name's Phoebe," said Mina. "She agreed to help out with us."
"Good to meet you, Phoebe," said Mr. Ral. "I'm their father, Copper."
"So nice to meet you, Mr. Ral," said Phoebe.
Outside, there were two boys playing together: one looked to be around a kindergartner's age and another was a small toddler. Mina and his two older siblings and Phoebe walked out the front door.
"Are those your two little brothers?" Phoebe asked Mina, pointing to the younger ones.
"Yep, that's them," said Mina. "The bigger one is Chalky, he's six and in the first grade. The other one is Rocky. He just had his third birthday a few months ago."
Chalky had blond hair at almost the same lengths as his older brother Mina. Rocky's hair was near shoulder-length and shorter than the rest of the family's hairs.
While the two younger brothers kept playing, Mina and his older brother and sister and neighbor Phoebe continued working together to load things into the house.
As soon as they were done, Phoebe decided to introduce her parents to the new neighbors. So she went back to her house to find her parents who were still in the rumpus room doing their musical routine.
"Mom, Dad," Phoebe interrupted. "We have some new neighbors I would like to introduce you to."
"Really?" said Mrs. Terese. "That's nice. We'd like to meet them."
So Phoebe led her parents outside their house and to the Ral family's house next door.
"Mr. and Mrs. Ral," said Phoebe, "I'd like to introduce you to my mom and dad."
"Hi, my name is Daisy Terese," said Mrs. Terese.
"And I'm her husband Phoenix," said Mr. Terese.
"So, nice to meet you," said Mrs. Ral. "I'm Ruby Ral."
"And I'm her husband Copper," said Mr. Ral.
Both of the parents from both families then shook each others' hands.
"And these are my five kids," said Mrs. Ral, pointing them out to the Terese parents. "This is Sparky, he's 16. And Sapphire, she's 12 and our only daughter. And Mina, he's 9. And Chalky, he's 6. And our little one, that's Rocky."
After the encounter, the Ral family then gave the Tereses a tour of their new home, but they were half done and had a lot of unpacking to do. The master bedroom had wallpaper full of flowers and lavender carpeting. The upstairs area was mostly bedrooms. The ground floor had a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. The basement had a laundry room, a utility room, and a rumpus room. There were four total bathrooms: one on the ground floor, two upstairs including a master bathroom, and one more in the basement via the rumpus room and adjacent to the laundry room. All of the household appliances except for the water heater were from the 1970s and came with the house. No matter the age, the house looked to be in great shape.
After the tour, Phoebe and her parents then helped the Rals get finished unpacking. But the kids' bedrooms were an exception since the walls needed a paint job. But they didn't want to do the job alone or have to hire a painting service to get it all done. Then the Tereses invited the Rals to their house and Phoebe who had just made a batch of cookies then offered them to the new family as a treat for moving in.