This story is rated PG for violence.
Disclaimer: I don't own Arthur, nor can I come up with any more witty disclaimers. Maybe I should retire.
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Chapter 1
"I'm very disappointed in you, Alan," said Mrs. Powers, her arms folded, her scowl stern. "I understand that Tegan pressured you into doing it, but that doesn't make it right. It was a very serious responsibility, and you failed. You'll have to be punished."
Overcome by shame, Alan could only bow his head and stare at his shoes.
"But it's a good thing you told the truth," said his mother, her frown turning into a slight smile. "Now the police have a new lead to follow. I'll call them right away."
While she hurried to the phone, Alan gritted his teeth and hoped with all his might that the Elwood City police force would find some magical way to save him from the trouble he was in.
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For those of you who haven't read the Arthur Goes Fourth series or the first two Arthur Goes Fifth installments, here's a recap of the events leading up to this point. (Everyone else can skip this part.)
In Fifth I, Molly's father, a reformed thief, was paroled from prison. He rejected an offer from his one-time partner and mentor, Raymond Mansch, to execute another jewel heist. Later, Binky and Molly found a stolen diamond necklace in a secret compartment in Molly's house. Thinking her father had returned to crime, Molly hurried to the police station with Binky, encountering Mansch along the way. Molly became convinced that Mansch had planted the necklace in order to frame her father. Unsure of how to thwart Mansch's plot, Molly claimed to have stolen the necklace herself, and Binky claimed to have helped her. Sentenced to juvenile detention, they kept the real story a secret in order to protect Molly's father. Later, Fern was kidnapped, and evidence pointed to the notion that Mansch was holding her hostage to force Binky and Molly to admit the truth.
In Fifth II, Alan (The Brain) was re-introduced to his 14-year-old sister Tegan, who had been confined to a special school/laboratory for half of her life due to her unusual mental powers. Tegan involuntarily mind-merged with anyone who came within ten feet of her, unless she wore a special electronic barette that blocked her brain waves. She was permitted to spend a few days at Alan's house, and a security system was installed to ensure she didn't leave. Alan was under strict orders that Tegan should not be allowed to mind-merge with any strangers. Tegan had her own ideas, however, and she called Mansch and invited him to visit. Alan answered the door when the man arrived, and quickly realized what Tegan was trying to accomplish. Disobeying his parents' orders, he stood aside and allowed Tegan to mind-merge with Mansch. Once Mansch had left, Tegan revealed to Alan what she had learned—Mansch had stolen three diamond necklaces and planted one in Molly's house, and intended to release Fern once Binky and Molly confessed. Confident of saving Fern and exposing Mansch, Alan convinced Binky and Molly to tell the whole story, which they did. And then, late that night, Tegan vanished. The next day Fern was recovered safely, and Molly's father was arrested. Alan suspected that Mansch was responsible for Tegan's disappearance, and feared that Tegan might have gone willingly, since her mind-merge powers had on previous occasions caused her to change her personality.
Also in Fifth II, Beat Simon was once again possessed by the mental influence of the late inventor Andrew Putnam, who had copied his mind into her body at the end of Fourth IV. Armed with Putnam's body-switching device, she offered to help Dudley Green, formerly Dudley Proctor, formerly Dolly Proctor, the 17th-century girl who had been magically transformed into a boy at the end of Fourth VII. She attempted a temporary body switch between herself and Dudley, but for some reason Putnam's memories became inaccessible to her after the process was completed. No longer knowing how to operate the device, she was trapped in Dudley's body, while Dudley rejoiced at being a girl again. The next day Rubella hypnotized Dudley (Beat in Dudley's body) and found that Putnam was lingering in his subconscious. Putnam offered instructions to reverse the switch, on the condition that Alan tell him everything about Tegan's mind powers (it turned out that Putnam had invented the electronic barette, or neuro-blocker). Alan insisted that Tegan had no powers, so Beat and Dudley remained switched.
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The next day was Thursday, the middle of the fourth week of the school year. Beat Simon, who had suddenly gone from a rabbit-aardvark girl to a rat boy with a broken nose, was forced to attend Dudley's school in another part of Elwood City. It was her, or rather his, second day in Mr. Wallace's fifth-grade class at Albertson Elementary.
"The sixth planet from the sun is called Saturn," related the teacher, a donkey man with a pock-marked face. "There are five rings around Saturn."
Dudley/Beat had taken a desk at the front of the classroom, as Beat had always done. Raising his hand, he corrected the teacher. "Actually, there are thousands of rings. They're just clumped together so they look like five rings."
All the other kids gazed in awe at the rat boy, whom they had never seen exhibit such intelligence before.
"Very good, Dudley," said Mr. Wallace proudly. "What else can you tell me about the rings of Saturn?"
"They were discovered by Galileo in 1610," Dudley answered. "They're composed mainly of ice crystals."
"1610," the teacher mused. "That was what, fifty years before you were born?"
The other students laughed. Beat, inside Dudley's head, pondered glumly on the teasing the boy must have received for insisting he had been born in the 17th century.
It was clear Dudley had few friends, as only one or two classmates spoke to him as they filed out of the classroom. He had little desire to become acquainted with the strange children, as his fondest hope was to somehow regain his own body, and no longer be referred to by masculine pronouns. "Now I know how he must have felt...always wishing he could go back to being a girl."
When Beat felt like sulking, she did so by burying her aardvark nose in a history book, where she always found stories of people who were worse off. Dudley was in such a state, gazing sadly at the pages of a book on the Armenian genocide, when four kids came up to his bench. They were about his size, and wore ragged jeans, untidy shirts, and backwards-pointing caps. He had seen them before in passing, but from the smirks on their faces, he divined that they knew Dudley well.
"Yo, Dudley," said one of them, a dog boy with a scar on his left cheek. "When does the cast come off your nose?"
"In two more weeks," the rat boy replied disinterestedly.
"Where's the guy who broke it?" asked a bear youth who appeared to be a boy, but whose voice sounded like a girl's. "Is he still in juvie?"
"As soon as he gets out," added a rabbit boy who seemed to have actual stubble on his face, "we're gonna pay him a social call."
"Yeah," said the fourth, a hamster boy who was missing his right front tooth. "And then we're gonna beat him up."
"Do what you want," said Dudley flatly. "I'll have no part of it."
He lowered his broken rat nose into the history book again, but the dog boy grabbed the book and yanked it downward. "What do you mean?" he demanded. "Don't you want to get back at him?"
"I'm not the Dudley you remember," was the boy's impatient reply. "Juvenile detention has changed me."
"It changed the way you talk," the bear girl observed.
"It's like My Fair Lady," said the rabbit boy. "And you're Eliza Doolittle."
"Who's that?" inquired the hamster boy while his companions laughed.
"I'm a good girl, I am!" the bear girl joked.
Annoyed, Dudley closed his book and hopped down from the bench. "Where're you goin', man?" the dog boy called after him. "We ain't done with you."
Dudley whirled and glared at him. "I'm no longer a member of your gang," he snapped. "Now stay the bloody hell away from me."
Stunned into silence, the four youths watched the rat boy march away.
Then the bear girl scowled. "Nobody talks to us that way," she said with an air of menace. "Not even Dudley."
"We'll have to teach him a lesson," said the rabbit boy.
"Yeah," added the hamster boy. "And then we'll beat him up."
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Meanwhile, Beat (Dudley in Beat's body) was as happy as Dudley (a.k.a. Beat) was miserable. She pranced gaily about the soccer field, the ball flying past her time and time again. Eventually her teammates became exasperated with her nonchalance, and stopped kicking to her altogether. Francine led the opposing team to a resounding victory, 4-0.
"We were all counting on you," George chided the vacuously smiling girl. "You didn't even try to intercept the ball. What's the matter?"
"I'm sorry," said Beat, hardly turning her face to look at the moose boy. "I'm no good at this game."
George cast a bewildered look at Francine, who was carrying the soccer ball away from the field. "Maybe you should wear a nametag so we can all know who's in your body," the girl suggested to Beat.
Arthur was equally perplexed by the British girl's odd behavior. "Our team science project is due tomorrow," he reminded Beat upon finding her in the lunch room. "I really need your help with it."
"Science project?" said Beat ignorantly between bites of macaroni and cheese.
"Yeah," Arthur responded. "You wanted to do it on why nothing sticks to Teflon, remember?"
Beat gave him a cross-eyed stare. "What's Teflon?"
Arthur sighed bitterly, picked up a fork, and started to play with his salad.
"I'd forgotten how good food tasted when I was a girl," Beat remarked as she stuffed her mouth with macaroni noodles.
In another corner of the cafeteria, Alan was idly nibbling on a canned peach when the two people he least wanted to see—Binky and Molly—took seats on either side of him. This is it, he thought nervously. They're going to kill me right here in the lunch room.
To his surprise, Molly's exposed hazel eyes reflected not anger, but curiosity. "Mansch just bailed out my dad," she told Alan. "Is that part of your plan?"
The bear boy froze, confused by Molly's announcement. Such an action didn't seem characteristic of the man who had kidnapped Fern. He couldn't make sense of it.
"You okay?" Binky asked him.
Stupefied, Alan could only look back and forth between the two larger kids who flanked him.
"He says he doesn't believe my dad stole the diamonds, and he wants to prove his innocence," Molly continued. "I think he's up to something."
"Unless it's part of your plan," Binky added.
Alan knew he had to speak, or risk appearing clueless in front of the acerbic rabbit girl who had entrusted him with her father's good name. "Er, yes," he blurted out. "It's all part of my brilliant plan."
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He wasn't sure how much longer he could deceive Molly. Throughout the rest of the school day he imagined picking up a newspaper and reading the headline, BENMcDONALD CONVICTED OF DIAMOND THEFT, and next to it the subline, 10-YEAR-OLD BOY FOUND WEDGIED TO DEATH. Whatever happened next, he prayed it would be a good thing.
"Hi, Mom," he greeted his mother as he returned from school. "Any news about Tegan?"
"No," Mrs. Powers answered from the laundry room. "The police questioned Mr. Mansch. He admitted that he came here, but said he doesn't know where Tegan is."
A twinge of disappointment struck Alan's heart. After dropping his book bag onto his desk, he wandered into the study and sat down in front of the computer.
"Welcome," said the pleasant female voice. "You have mail."
Two messages rested in the inbox—one from Muffy, the other from someone named Laura. The email from Muffy showed a picture she had taken with her digital camera of her father splitting his pants while looking under the hood of a car at his lot. The message from "Laura" bore the subject heading, "Offer of employment". He was certain this was a spam email, but he clicked on it anyway.
To his shock, it proved to be a message from Tegan.
He rushed breathlessly through the words. "Dear Alan: I am sending you this message to let you know that I'm all right. I wish I could see you and Mom and Dad again, but I know you would only put me back in the school. Raymond Mansch is the most fascinating person I've ever met. When I looked into his mind, all I could see was freedom. He was like an eagle. He could go where he wanted and do what he wanted, and he answered to nobody. He realized right away what I was capable of. He offered to take me away and give me freedom. I told him I would join him, but only if he let Fern go. He said he would, and I knew he wasn't lying, because I was in his mind. I got him to bail out Mr.McDonald and stop trying to frame him. If you ask him where I am, he won't tell you. I'm in a place where you won't find me. I have a new life now. I can do whatever I want with my gift. I don't have to be a freak anymore. Love, Tegan."
By the time he finished, he was too astounded to think clearly. Was the message genuine? If so, then he had to consider the terrible possibility that he had pushed his sister into a life of crime...
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That same afternoon, Arthur hurried to the condo where Buster lived with his mother and stepfather, lured by the promise of a big surprise. The rabbit family was firmly planted on the couch, watching a TV newscast, when he arrived.
"Hey, Arthur," said Buster cheerily. Jumping to his feet, he skipped over to a corner of the living room where a large cardboard box had been laid near the closet.
"I can't stay long," said Arthur. "I have to finish my science project tonight, and Beat's no help at all. What's the surprise?"
A huge grin on his face, Buster waved his hand at the box. As Arthur stepped closer to it, he could make out a faint whining sound. He soon found, to his delight, that the whining came from a small yellow puppy, who gazed up at him with pleading eyes from the floor of the box. Next to the puppy sat bowls of water and dog food.
"How cute!" Arthur gushed. Yet something seemed familiar about this dog...
"Perky had puppies again," Buster explained. "I got to bring one home. I guess you could say she's Pal's sister. She hasn't triggered my asthma, so it looks like I can keep her."
"What's her name?" asked Arthur as the little dog yipped at him.
"I haven't decided yet," was Buster's answer.
Arthur reached into the box and started to fondle the puppy's chin. "How about Bionic Puppy?" he suggested. "That's what I almost called Pal."
"She's a girl," Buster pointed out. "I could call her Amazon Puppy." Lowering his arms into the box, he cradled the dog in his hands and lifted her out. "Here we go, Amazon Puppy," he said in a sugary tone. "It's time to join the Puppy League."
When he had rested the puppy on the carpet, she immediately scampered to the closet door and started to bark into the mirror. Her reflection barked in reply.
"Pal never barked at himself in the mirror," reflected the amused Arthur.
"I guess she's not as smart as Pal," said Buster thoughtfully.
"Shh!" came the order from Bitzi, and he quickly scooped up Amazon Puppy and replaced her in the box, where she fell silent.
"I guess she'll learn when she gets older," remarked Arthur, who suddenly noticed that his rabbit friend was staring at the TV screen in wide-eyed disbelief.
Soon everyone in the room was entranced by the image—a head covered with scaly green skin, featuring a tentacle-like nose and beady red eyes. Underneath the creature's bizarre visage appeared the words, VISITOR FROM SPACE?
At first, Arthur figured the news channel was showing footage of a UFO convention. Then he attuned his ears to the newscaster's report: "...but blood and DNA tests have proven that the being is, indeed, not human."
"I don't believe it," said Buster in a hushed tone. "It's Portinari. He's on TV."
Portinari? As Arthur recalled, the name belonged to a psychiatrist whom Buster, George, and others had declared to be a space alien in human guise. He knew very little about the man, except that he was romantically involved with Augusta Winslow, or had been. How could the weird-looking thing on the screen be him?
Amazon Puppy's whining and scratching faded into the background as all present listened breathlessly to the words that emerged from the creature's lipless mouth.
"My name is Grobblitz. I am the last survivor of the planet Kron. I have come with an urgent warning. You must evacuate Earth immediately."
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to be continued