This story is rated PG due to frightening situations and a brief scene of
non-graphic nudity.
This is the seventh installment in the seemingly endless Arthur Goes Fourth series, which chronicles the adventures of Arthur and his friends in fourth grade.
Disclaimer: Marc Brown (bleep) owns the (bleep) Arthur characters, capiche?
----
To begin, a summary of the important characters (original and canon) and their situations at the end of AGF VI.
- Popular and comical teacher Bud Wald (a horse man with a goatee) teaches Arthur's fourth-grade class. His students include (the boys) Arthur, Binky, George, Van, and Adil, and (the girls) Francine, Muffy, Fern, Beat, and Mavis.
- Unicorn-obsessed drama coach Ralph Baker (a hippo man) teaches a fifth-grade class whose number includes Prunella, Marina, and Alan (Brain), who advanced to fifth grade by passing an AP test.
- Buster moved away from Elwood City during AGF II after his mother Bitzi married Harry Mills (I wrote that before the "Bitzi's Breakup" episode). Sue Ellen and her parents suddenly moved away during AGF VI under the pretense of an emergency mission to war-torn Karjakistan, although it likely had more to do with the little-known fact that Mr. Armstrong is secretly a CIA spy.
- Nothing much has happened to Arthur, D.W., and their family, other than Adil Faruk, Arthur's Turkish pen pal, staying at their house while he spends time as an exchange student in Mr. Wald's fourth-grade class.
- Jean Stiles, a polar-bear woman who was Arthur's first fourth-grade teacher before she went into rehab for a prescription-drug addiction, has taken over the role of Mary Moo Cow for the new children's show, "New Moo Revue". Fern and Binky have assumed the role of Mini-Moo, with Fern providing the voice and Binky wearing the costume.
- In AGF V&VI, several of the characters experienced the mind-altering effects of billionaire inventor Andrew Putnam's Opticron device, which was intended to reprogram the human brain like a computer. Francine ended up with a copy of Sue Ellen's personality and memories in her head, which boosted her geography grades and caused her to develop romantic feelings towards Arthur. Putnam used his device to transfer his own knowledge and experience into the minds of Beat Simon and Mavis Cutler before he died. The girls eventually reversed the process, however, suffering memory gaps as a result (three weeks for Beat and an entire year for Mavis). It would appear that Putnam is truly dead and gone...unless someone else is still serving as a host for his consciousness...
- Mavis Cutler first appeared in AGF II as Muffy's classmate at Uppity Downs Academy, a private school which she attended until the events of AGF VI. Mavis' prodigious intelligence was partly explained by the merger of her own knowledge and personality with that of Andrew Putnam. It remains to be seen how she will perform academically now that Putnam is gone from her mind, along with her memory of the previous year. Mavis is a hamster girl with curly red hair and glasses. Her father is a bank manager, and her mother is a doctor.
----
Chapter 1
It was a typical, though unseasonably warm, late-February day in Elwood City. Dressed in his green sweater with a prominently displayed nametag, Ed Crosswire casually sipped from a complimentary cup of hot cocoa. There hadn't been much customer demand for the stuff due to the warm weather, so he had decided to help himself to a bit. It was five-thirty, and the auto lot at Fifth and Lopez was scheduled to close at six PM.
His three best salesmen, Peter Romero, James Gorshin, and John Meredith, were busy giving their spiels to interested customers, so Mr. Crosswire figured he would handle the tall, well-dressed man who had seemed to walk onto the lot out of nowhere. The visitor was a tall (well over six feet) rabbit man, with bushy blond hair and an unkempt mustache, who wore a classy brown suit, a gray ascot tie, and brown patent leather shoes. He began to walk along a row of Chryslers and scanned them with a calm, analytical expression, suggesting either great learning, or a desire to appear intelligent in order to discourage the salesmen from taking advantage of him.
"Welcome to Crosswire Motors," Ed Crosswire greeted him, extending a friendly hand. The blond rabbit man turned his clear blue eyes toward the lot owner, with a gaze suggesting that he already knew everything about the man and was impatient with introductions. "My name's Ed Crosswire."
The finely-dressed customer slowly extended a hand. He did not smile as Mr. Crosswire responded with a firm, welcoming shake. "My name is Winslow," he stated articulately but indifferently. "Angus Winslow. I'm interested in purchasing a car." He pronounced "car" as "cah", leading Mr. Crosswire to believe that the man had deep roots in the eastern seaboard.
"I'm pleased to meet you," responded Mr. Crosswire as he released the gentleman's hand. "You don't sound like someone from around here."
"I'm from the Boston area," Angus Winslow replied without hesitation. "Salem, to be precise."
As Mr. Crosswire led the visitor through the car lot, he commented on his Salem experiences. "Salem's a great place to visit," he rambled on. "My wife and my daughter and I go there every year around Halloween. It's crowded, but it's fun."
"Salem has much more to offer than witch tourism," said Mr. Winslow without changing his tone.
"Yes, of course." Mr. Crosswire struggled to recall even one of Salem's non-witch-related attractions. "There's a Dunkin Donuts that we love to visit. What sort of work do you do in Salem?"
"I'm curator of a witch museum," Winslow answered as he came to a stop alongside Mr. Crosswire in front of a yellow '89 Cutlass. "Tourism has been very good to me."
"And what brings you to Elwood City?" asked Mr. Crosswire curiously.
"I've come to see a local family about the purchase of a historic artifact," the rabbit man replied.
It didn't take long for Ed Crosswire to guess which of the families of his acquaintance might possess souvenirs of the Salem witch-trial era, but he knew he had to attend to business before one of his salesmen butted in. He gestured grandly at the yellow Cutlass, whose paint was somewhat blotched and faded. "I'm running a special on this one. The exterior can use some work, but inside, it's solid as a rock. Its owner was an old lady who only used it for grocery shopping and bingo games. It comes with a five-year warranty on parts and labor..."
Mr. Crosswire stopped suddenly when the serious-looking Winslow raised his right hand, on which he wore a large jade-hued ring, and waved it back and forth several times in front of the car dealer's nose. Uncertain as to the meaning of this action, Crosswire went on. "Did I say 'solid as a rock'? That was an exaggeration. It sorely needs a new transmission, and all the belts are old and frayed. As an honest man, I can't ask for five thousand. I'll give it to you for two thousand. Heck, I'll just give it to you."
"Thank you, but no," said Winslow with a tone of finality. Turning on his brown patent leather heel, he strode away from Mr. Crosswire and the car lot without another word.
Crosswire stroked his chin quizzically. He had just made the most generous offer of his life, devoid of any deceit whatsoever, and he had been turned down. This Angus Winslow was a strange man indeed.
The sun was quickly vanishing behind the hills, and the air was starting to nip at his exposed face. He called to his three salesmen. "Hey, guys. Once you're finished with our guests, you can all go home. It's a beautiful day. Enjoy it before it's over." He worked them too hard anyway, he told himself.
A block away, Angus Winslow paused on the sidewalk next to a hydrant and looked back toward the Crosswire lot. With an air of authority and menace, he muttered to no one in particular, "His time will soon come."
TBC
This is the seventh installment in the seemingly endless Arthur Goes Fourth series, which chronicles the adventures of Arthur and his friends in fourth grade.
Disclaimer: Marc Brown (bleep) owns the (bleep) Arthur characters, capiche?
----
To begin, a summary of the important characters (original and canon) and their situations at the end of AGF VI.
- Popular and comical teacher Bud Wald (a horse man with a goatee) teaches Arthur's fourth-grade class. His students include (the boys) Arthur, Binky, George, Van, and Adil, and (the girls) Francine, Muffy, Fern, Beat, and Mavis.
- Unicorn-obsessed drama coach Ralph Baker (a hippo man) teaches a fifth-grade class whose number includes Prunella, Marina, and Alan (Brain), who advanced to fifth grade by passing an AP test.
- Buster moved away from Elwood City during AGF II after his mother Bitzi married Harry Mills (I wrote that before the "Bitzi's Breakup" episode). Sue Ellen and her parents suddenly moved away during AGF VI under the pretense of an emergency mission to war-torn Karjakistan, although it likely had more to do with the little-known fact that Mr. Armstrong is secretly a CIA spy.
- Nothing much has happened to Arthur, D.W., and their family, other than Adil Faruk, Arthur's Turkish pen pal, staying at their house while he spends time as an exchange student in Mr. Wald's fourth-grade class.
- Jean Stiles, a polar-bear woman who was Arthur's first fourth-grade teacher before she went into rehab for a prescription-drug addiction, has taken over the role of Mary Moo Cow for the new children's show, "New Moo Revue". Fern and Binky have assumed the role of Mini-Moo, with Fern providing the voice and Binky wearing the costume.
- In AGF V&VI, several of the characters experienced the mind-altering effects of billionaire inventor Andrew Putnam's Opticron device, which was intended to reprogram the human brain like a computer. Francine ended up with a copy of Sue Ellen's personality and memories in her head, which boosted her geography grades and caused her to develop romantic feelings towards Arthur. Putnam used his device to transfer his own knowledge and experience into the minds of Beat Simon and Mavis Cutler before he died. The girls eventually reversed the process, however, suffering memory gaps as a result (three weeks for Beat and an entire year for Mavis). It would appear that Putnam is truly dead and gone...unless someone else is still serving as a host for his consciousness...
- Mavis Cutler first appeared in AGF II as Muffy's classmate at Uppity Downs Academy, a private school which she attended until the events of AGF VI. Mavis' prodigious intelligence was partly explained by the merger of her own knowledge and personality with that of Andrew Putnam. It remains to be seen how she will perform academically now that Putnam is gone from her mind, along with her memory of the previous year. Mavis is a hamster girl with curly red hair and glasses. Her father is a bank manager, and her mother is a doctor.
----
Chapter 1
It was a typical, though unseasonably warm, late-February day in Elwood City. Dressed in his green sweater with a prominently displayed nametag, Ed Crosswire casually sipped from a complimentary cup of hot cocoa. There hadn't been much customer demand for the stuff due to the warm weather, so he had decided to help himself to a bit. It was five-thirty, and the auto lot at Fifth and Lopez was scheduled to close at six PM.
His three best salesmen, Peter Romero, James Gorshin, and John Meredith, were busy giving their spiels to interested customers, so Mr. Crosswire figured he would handle the tall, well-dressed man who had seemed to walk onto the lot out of nowhere. The visitor was a tall (well over six feet) rabbit man, with bushy blond hair and an unkempt mustache, who wore a classy brown suit, a gray ascot tie, and brown patent leather shoes. He began to walk along a row of Chryslers and scanned them with a calm, analytical expression, suggesting either great learning, or a desire to appear intelligent in order to discourage the salesmen from taking advantage of him.
"Welcome to Crosswire Motors," Ed Crosswire greeted him, extending a friendly hand. The blond rabbit man turned his clear blue eyes toward the lot owner, with a gaze suggesting that he already knew everything about the man and was impatient with introductions. "My name's Ed Crosswire."
The finely-dressed customer slowly extended a hand. He did not smile as Mr. Crosswire responded with a firm, welcoming shake. "My name is Winslow," he stated articulately but indifferently. "Angus Winslow. I'm interested in purchasing a car." He pronounced "car" as "cah", leading Mr. Crosswire to believe that the man had deep roots in the eastern seaboard.
"I'm pleased to meet you," responded Mr. Crosswire as he released the gentleman's hand. "You don't sound like someone from around here."
"I'm from the Boston area," Angus Winslow replied without hesitation. "Salem, to be precise."
As Mr. Crosswire led the visitor through the car lot, he commented on his Salem experiences. "Salem's a great place to visit," he rambled on. "My wife and my daughter and I go there every year around Halloween. It's crowded, but it's fun."
"Salem has much more to offer than witch tourism," said Mr. Winslow without changing his tone.
"Yes, of course." Mr. Crosswire struggled to recall even one of Salem's non-witch-related attractions. "There's a Dunkin Donuts that we love to visit. What sort of work do you do in Salem?"
"I'm curator of a witch museum," Winslow answered as he came to a stop alongside Mr. Crosswire in front of a yellow '89 Cutlass. "Tourism has been very good to me."
"And what brings you to Elwood City?" asked Mr. Crosswire curiously.
"I've come to see a local family about the purchase of a historic artifact," the rabbit man replied.
It didn't take long for Ed Crosswire to guess which of the families of his acquaintance might possess souvenirs of the Salem witch-trial era, but he knew he had to attend to business before one of his salesmen butted in. He gestured grandly at the yellow Cutlass, whose paint was somewhat blotched and faded. "I'm running a special on this one. The exterior can use some work, but inside, it's solid as a rock. Its owner was an old lady who only used it for grocery shopping and bingo games. It comes with a five-year warranty on parts and labor..."
Mr. Crosswire stopped suddenly when the serious-looking Winslow raised his right hand, on which he wore a large jade-hued ring, and waved it back and forth several times in front of the car dealer's nose. Uncertain as to the meaning of this action, Crosswire went on. "Did I say 'solid as a rock'? That was an exaggeration. It sorely needs a new transmission, and all the belts are old and frayed. As an honest man, I can't ask for five thousand. I'll give it to you for two thousand. Heck, I'll just give it to you."
"Thank you, but no," said Winslow with a tone of finality. Turning on his brown patent leather heel, he strode away from Mr. Crosswire and the car lot without another word.
Crosswire stroked his chin quizzically. He had just made the most generous offer of his life, devoid of any deceit whatsoever, and he had been turned down. This Angus Winslow was a strange man indeed.
The sun was quickly vanishing behind the hills, and the air was starting to nip at his exposed face. He called to his three salesmen. "Hey, guys. Once you're finished with our guests, you can all go home. It's a beautiful day. Enjoy it before it's over." He worked them too hard anyway, he told himself.
A block away, Angus Winslow paused on the sidewalk next to a hydrant and looked back toward the Crosswire lot. With an air of authority and menace, he muttered to no one in particular, "His time will soon come."
TBC