This fic is rated PG for mature themes.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Arthur.

This is the first in a series about Arthur and his friends in fifth grade. It follows the events of the Arthur Goes Fourth series. It helps if you've read that series, but it's not essential.

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His shirt and pants ripped to shreds, both lenses of his glasses cracked, his feet bare and bloody, Arthur staggered through the foaming surf toward the tropical shore. He could see nothing but bushes, palms, and coconut trees in every direction. The sun-baked sand burned his soles as he stumbled, exhausted, onto the empty beach.

"Hello!" he cried out, his voice hoarse from thirst. No answer came. "Hello out there!" he called again. Silence, except for the lonely cry of a seagull.

The reflection of the glaring sun off of something white caught his attention. It was a FedEx package, one of many that had undoubtedly washed up from his wrecked plane. This was one box that wouldn't be there overnight.

He walked along the shoreline for what seemed like miles, his feet becoming intolerably sore. "Is anybody there?" he shouted again and again, but heard nothing except for the roar of the ocean.

Then his aardvark ears picked up a faint sound--a little girl's voice.

Turning toward the forest, he spotted a small figure running eagerly through the brush. It wore a crude boarskin robe, its long brown hair was tangled and matted, and its face was quite dirty, but he recognized the person as his younger sister, D.W.

She burst through the palm trees, grinning with elation, and threw her arms around Arthur's waist. "Oh, thank goodness!" she gushed. "I'm rescued!"

"Rescued?" the boy rasped. "You're not rescued. My plane went down."

"Oh," said D.W. with a hint of disappointment. "Well, at least I won't be lonely anymore. Can you give me a piggyback ride? My feet hurt."

"Aaaargh!" shrieked Arthur in horror.

An instant later he was back in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a plate of pancakes and eggs sitting before him. His mother, who was in the act of placing a tuna sandwich, apple slices, and a cupcake in D.W.'s Mary Moo Cow lunchbox, was startled by his sudden outburst.

D.W. eyed her older brother curiously. "I think Arthur just had another fantasy sequence," she remarked to Mrs. Read.

"Uh, that's right," said the embarrassed Arthur. "I was imagining my reaction if I get Mrs. Krantz as a teacher. Alan says she's really, really annoying."

Mrs. Read closed up the lunchbox and handed it to D.W. "There, now, you're all ready for your first day of school." The girl wore a cute red dress and pink buckle shoes, and her wavy hair reached to her shoulders.

D.W. warily scrutinized the plastic box in her hands, which bore images of Mary Moo Cow on one side and Mini Moo on the other. "Are you sure there's no spinach in here?" she asked her mother.

"I'm sure," replied Mrs. Read.

"Has anyone else handled the lunchbox since you packed it?" D.W. inquired.

"No."

D.W. reached into her pocket and drew out a small contraption made of Tinkertoys. "I'd like to perform a routine spinach scan," she said officiously, waving the device back and forth over the lunchbox. "It's not that I don't trust you. I'm just doing my job. Bing...bing...bing...okay, it's clean."

As soon as Arthur had devoured his breakfast, he and D.W. lined up at the front door, clutching their lunchboxes and bracing themselves for the commencement of a new school year.

"Say bye-bye, Kate," Mrs. Read encouraged her youngest daughter, who stood wobbling on her feet. The toddler only stared blankly at her older siblings.

"Bye-bye, Kate," Arthur and D.W. encouraged her, waving.

Mrs. Read scowled slightly at Kate's unresponsiveness. "She wouldn't stop saying it yesterday at church," she commented.

D.W. skipped gleefully most of the way to Lakewood Elementary, while Arthur walked deliberately, musing upon his changed circumstances. He had turned ten over the summer, and his sister would turn six before the year was out. A year after that he would be eleven, and she would be seven. He took comfort in the thought that she would never catch up with him, no matter how long they lived.

"I get to go to Arthur's school, I get to go to Arthur's school..." he heard D.W. chant mockingly.

"Try not to embarrass me, okay, D.W.?" Arthur urged her.

"Okay," his sister answered. After a second's thought she added, "What does embarrass mean?"

"Uh...embarrassed is what you get when something funny happens to you, like your pants falling down, and everybody sees it and laughs at you."

"Okay," said D.W. naively. "I won't laugh at you if your pants fall down."

They soon caught up with Muffy and Alan, who were strolling casually and conversing. "Hi, guys," Arthur greeted them.

"Hi, Arthur," Alan and Muffy replied.

"Hi, D.W.," said Muffy with a friendly smile. "Your dress clashes with your hair, but I'll let it slide since this is your first day of elementary school."

"I'm sure glad you can join us in fifth grade," Arthur said to Muffy as the four children meandered along the street.

"So am I," Muffy responded. "This school year should go much more smoothly than the last one. Now that we're poor, there's no chance of my parents sending me back to private school."

As they passed by Mrs. McGrady's house, Arthur noticed something intriguing. "That fence post used to be taller than me," he remarked to the others. Alan and Muffy nodded, reflecting on how much they had grown during the summer alone.

"I saw Dudley yesterday," Alan related. "He's Dudley Green now. The adoption's complete. He gets along fine with his new parents. But he still misses being a girl."

Muffy grinned with satisfaction. "Attaboy, Dudley," she muttered. "They've got your body, but they won't get your soul."

They found numerous children milling about in front of the school entrance when they arrived. Van Cooper and his younger brother Dallin had just been dropped off by Mrs. Cooper and Odette, who were driving away in their old Buick (Quinn had recently left for Harvard). Arthur and D.W. joined the two duck boys as Van rolled up the access ramp in his motorized wheelchair.

"Hey, Van, how're you feeling?" Arthur asked his friend.

"I'm still a little tired," Van replied, "but I'm getting by." The week in July when a sudden liver failure had nearly claimed his life had become a distant, dizzy blur to him.

"Which class are you in?" Dallin asked D.W.

"I dunno," the girl answered.

"She's in room 18," said Arthur. "I don't know who her teacher is. It's someone new."

"Dallin's in the same room," noted Van as Arthur held open the door for him and the two first-graders to go through.

"Together again," said Dallin happily.

"Yeah, isn't it great?" D.W. enthused. "By the way, don't laugh at Arthur if his pants fall down."

Arthur was still blushing when he led D.W. and Dallin into room 18. To her delight, D.W. saw several of her kindergarten-mates--the Tibble twins, Emily, and Nadine Harris, the real little girl who looked like her one-time imaginary friend. James McDonald, the rabbit boy who had kissed her in pre-school, was also seated at a desk.

Francine was there as well, standing at the front of the classroom--as if to cheer on her mother, who was writing her name, Linda Frensky, on the blackboard.

Arthur couldn't believe what his eyes were telling him.

"Hi, Arthur." Francine's greeting was cold and unsmiling.

"Uh, hi," Arthur replied with uncertainty. "Your mom...is...a teacher?"

"Yeah, it's her first day," said the monkey girl.

It was a pleasant sort of shock. Arthur had never imagined Mrs. Frensky doing anything other than hanging around her apartment, making life comfortable for her two daughters. And she could be extremely protective of them, as he had learned upon receiving a severe scolding at her hand. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Arthur Read," she had berated him. "You two-timed my daughter. Do you know what it means to two-time somebody?" He had received a similar lecture from his own mother, and even Beat's mother, all because he had committed a childish error involving a girl's heart. He would never lose the memory of himself and Beat kissing in the shadows of the art room, and Francine discovering them and fleeing the room in tears. He had seen very little of Francine during the summer, and not much more of Beat, as his mother had punished him by imposing a ban on girlfriends.

"I checked the roster," Francine told him, interrupting his reverie. "We've both got Mrs. Krantz."

Arthur's worst fears had been fulfilled. "Aaaargh!" he screamed. All the first-graders gaped at him, including Vicita, who had just walked in.

The corners of Francine's mouth raised a bit, as she felt a small surge of satisfaction at making Arthur suffer for the heartbreak he had put her through.

They exchanged not a single word as they made the "death march" to room 27. Darlene Krantz, the tall, blond moose woman who had replaced Mr. Baker as teacher of Alan and Prunella's class earlier, was sitting at her desk, poring over a lesson plan. She didn't look up as the remaining kids filed in and took their seats. Muffy, Binky, George, Fern, Beat, and Van were present, as well as Buster, whose parents had moved back to Elwood from Chicago. Adil had returned to his native Turkey, while Mavis had been transferred to a different school which her parents felt was better than Lakewood.

Francine grabbed a desk at the near end of the room, while Arthur made his way to the far end, passing Beat Simon along the way. "Hello, Arthur," said the half-rabbit, half-aardvark girl in her refined British accent, but the boy only grunted in response.

He scarcely had time to sit when Mrs. Krantz stood and called the class to order. "Let's get started, okaaaay?" she said in a grating, affected voice. Her slight scowl suggested that she was no happier to be there than her students were.

As she was picking up a slab of chalk, the classroom door opened again, and two people entered. One was Carla Fuente, the Costa Rican beauty who had recently wedded Nigel Ratburn. All the kids gasped in unbelieving surprise at the sight of the sad-looking, orange-haired cat girl who accompanied her.

"Omigosh, it's Sue Ellen!" exclaimed Muffy. "She's back from Karjakistan!"

"But she never..." Fern started to say, but stopped herself.

The air buzzed with murmurs and questions. "When did you get back?" "Did you have a good time?" "Are your parents here too?" Sue Ellen only stood and gazed morosely at her old companions.

"Quiet, please," called the teacher. "As you can see, we have a last-minute addition to our class."

Francine stood silently and motionlessly, her mouth hanging open. She vividly recalled the day when she had despaired of ever seeing Sue Ellen again, as the return of the Armstrongs to Elwood City could prove extremely dangerous. But there she was, undisguised, immediately recognizable. What could it mean?

Seized by terror, she leaped to her feet. "Where are your parents?" she demanded. Sue Ellen didn't answer, but her eyes were becoming misty.

Francine loved the Armstrongs as much as her own parents, as the result of a scientific experiment that had blended Sue Ellen's personality with her own. If something had happened to them, she had to know...

"Please be seated," said Mrs. Krantz, waving a stick of chalk authoritatively, while Carla backed out of the room and let the door swing freely.

Her expression one of grim determination, Francine lunged forward, grabbed Sue Ellen by the arm, and dragged her through the door before it could fully close. Unmindful of the few straggling kids in the hallway, she pushed the cat girl against a row of lockers and once again barked, "Where are you parents?"

Sue Ellen's mouth had opened a bit, but her eyes were still glum and soulless.

"They're gone," she said in a quiet, weak voice. "Disappeared."

Francine's throat collapsed. "Disappeared?" she choked out. "When? How?"

Sue Ellen said nothing. Her eyes widened a little, as if she was reliving something unpleasant.

"Tell me!" shouted Francine, fighting back tears. "Tell me what happened!"

"Not here," replied Sue Ellen, her voice quivering.

In her consternation, Francine barely noticed two tall shadows creeping over her. They belonged to Carla and Principal Haney.

"You're making too much noise," Mr. Haney chided the girls. "And you're late for class."

"We'll go outside," Francine urged Sue Ellen, paying no heed to the principal's criticism. "Then you can tell me everything."

Seizing Sue Ellen by the arm, Francine hastily led her toward the west exit of the school building. Mr. Haney tried to follow, but Carla restrained him with a hand on his shoulder.

By the time the two girls had found a vacant exterior corner, Francine could no longer contain her emotions, and tears were flowing freely down her face. It surprised her that Sue Ellen wasn't following suit; indeed, the cat girl seemed almost like a rag doll, drained of will and feeling.

She spoke softly and timidly. "It was April who led them to us. They started spying on her as soon as she showed up in Elwood City. They guessed she was a relative because she looked so much like me."

"She was you from the future," said Francine, wiping away tears with the back of her hand.

"I know," Sue Ellen went on. "Just after she came to stay with us, we were all asleep, and I heard the window break, and the room was full of some kind of gas. I think it was sleeping gas. When I woke up, I was tied to a chair and blindfolded. A man was there--I think it was a man--he used a device to change his voice. He said he was going to kill Mom, and Dad, and April, but he would let me live if Dad told me the truth."

"What truth?" asked Francine, her voice rising in pitch.

Sue Ellen began to speak with difficulty. "The truth...about what he really did...for the CIA."

"What did he do?"

"It's horrible." Pain filled Sue Ellen's voice. "It's the reason why he had so many enemies. He wanted to keep it from me. He never even told April. He faked her death in the future so she wouldn't find out. He was ashamed of it, but he thought he had to do it for his country."

"What did he do?" Francine repeated insistently.

Trembling, Sue Ellen spoke in the quietest tone she could manage.

"He was...an assassin..."

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to be continued