Disclaimer: Arthur is copyright to Marc Brown

Arthur still couldn't believe it. He had thought that life with Ratburn ended years ago when he finished third grade. He was wrong.

"I can't believe he's back," Buster said at the lockers. Lockers were assigned according to homeroom location, and at Central, the kids got to pick their own. There was no alphabetical order, so Buster and Arthur could have lockers next to each other.

"Yeah, I thought I'd never see him again."

"Hey, at least we don't have to have him all day. I just hope that he doesn't make us write 500 paged essays."

Francine wasn't too happy about Ratburn reappearing.

"I didn't even know that he could teach high school."

"Perhaps he upgraded. My Aunt Cynthia taught third grade for a very long time and then decided that she wanted to teach high school. All she had to do was take a few courses at night." Leave it to The Brain. He always seems to know facts like that.

The gang then went their separate ways as they had different classes. The school was running on a special schedule today. The students will be meeting every single teacher, who'll be handing out textbooks and giving their students their course outlines, indicating what was expected of them in terms of assignments and how much each assignment was worth. The gang will not see Mr. Ratburn until the end of the day. What a way to end it!

Arthur walked to his math class. He looked around and didn't see anyone he recognized, except for the new girl, Anne from Edmonton. He quickly took a seat near her.

"Hi, I'm Arthur. You must be Anne from Edmonton."

"Yep. Nice to meet you, Arthur."

"So what brings you to Elwood City?"

"My dad was transferred here. He's in the telephone business."

"My dad's in catering. So, do you know anyone here besides Buster?"

"Not really. I was talking to a few girls earlier today. Fern and Susan, I think."

"You mean Sue Ellen."

"Yeah. Sue Ellen. So what's with that Mr. Ratburn teacher, anyway? Everyone says he's mean. He seemed nice in homeroom."

Before Arthur could answer, Mr. Smith, a chubby looking aardvark man walked in.

"Tell you later," Arthur whispered

"Good morning class. I am Mr. Smith. I will be teaching this section of Algebra I. I will let you know right now that I am not the easiest teacher in this school. I have been teaching for nearly twenty years and I know every single trick in the book. There will be a quiz every other class and a test every month…."

Uh-oh. Another hard teacher! A QUIZ EVERY OTHER CLASS?? How can that be? Only Mr. Ratburn can be the meanest teacher alive. Could Mr. Smith be harder? This year is going to be harder than Arthur thought, for him, anyway. Maybe his friends have it easier.

Soon, it was lunch time. Central High School had two lunch periods. Lunch I was for ninth and tenth graders while Lunch II was for eleventh and twelfth. The entire school had both periods off, once which is supposed to be used for an optional study hall. The gang carried their trays of food and sat at a table in the back of the cafeteria. Anne was quickly introduced to the kids and they all sat down to eat.

"I have Smith for math. Who do you have, Buster?"

"I have Mrs. Campbell. I just had math before lunch." Buster was munching on a slice of pizza. Even now, he still loved to eat. After all, he is still a growing boy.

"Mrs. Campbell isn't all that bad." Amanda said. "Elizabeth had her last year. You're probably going to have three tests this year. You'll also have three take-home assignments. I feel sorry for you, Arthur. You have to handle Smith AND Ratburn!"

"What's the issue with Mr. Ratburn?" wanted to know

"Mr. Ratburn," said Francine, who had just sat down, "is the meanest teacher in Elwood City. A bunch of us had him in elementary school and he gave us lots of homework."

"Yeah, tons and tons of homework!" Buster exclaimed in between bites of what was now his third slice of pizza.

Arthur knew that Buster was worried, even though he didn't really sound like it. Buster didn't exactly have the best time with Mr. Ratburn back in third grade. In fact, he almost had to repeat a year. He managed to pass, but barely. It just was that Buster didn't pay too much attention to things he wasn't all that interested in. Experts think that he might have ADD or perhaps a mild form of Asperger's Syndrome. After all, he is often preoccupied with certain topics, such as aliens and food. However, he doesn't really show problems interacting with others, which people with Asperger's often have.

Soon, it was time for the freshmen and sophomores to leave the cafeteria to make room for the juniors and seniors. Since the kids didn't really have any assignments, they decided to go hang out and talk in what is now known as the "old library" before they had to face afternoon classes. Central High recently opened their new library, better known as the Media Center. The Media Center included the library, which has one of the largest collections in the county, as well as two state-of-the-art computer labs, the new yearbook and newspaper offices (the old ones are now classrooms), a dark room (so they don't have to send their photos out for development) and an editing room for the media arts classes to edit their film shorts (so they don't have to use a converted storage room anymore). A part of the old library was now used as a lounge for the kids to hang out in during lunch and free periods and the other part was filled with carrels for students to study. The kids decided to go to the lounge to talk.

"Hey, do you want to see pictures of my summer vacation?" asked Buster. He didn't go too far this year, only to parts of Canada and the United States. The pictures that he was going to show the gang was from August, taken after his laptop died. Luckily, Buster saved everything up and had backup information for his new computer, which he got just last week.

"This was taken at the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Ontario, the capital city of Canada."

"Hey, who's that girl?" Brain wanted to know. The photo showed a red-headed cat girl, about seventeen, wearing a tank top and capri pants.

"That's Jessie. She's a singer who performs at a café nearby. I got to hear her. She's good. In the winter, she also sells beaver tails."

"Beaver tails?" Arthur wanted to know, hoping that it wasn't going to be gross.

"They're not REAL beaver tails. They're really pastries with sugar on top. They're very tastey."

"That's right," said Brain, "they sell them at the Rideau Canal in the winter months. The Rideau Canal is the longest skating rink in the world and you will see people skating to work and school in the winter."

"Yeah. And here's a picture of my stepmother and my dad in Santa Monica." Yes, that's right. Buster now has a stepmom. Two years ago, Buster's dad married Cheryl, a fox woman from New York.

"Cool!" everyone said

"I also got to spend some time with Cheryl's family in New York. Here's me and Martha, my step-grandmother, having tea at the Plaza and here's me and my stepbrother chilling in the Hamptons."

"Hey, isn't that the new mp3 player that Peach Computers makes?" asked Fern, pointing to the little green machine the fox boy was holding.

"Yeah, Brandon got a micro j-box for his birthday. He already has like 500 songs in it!"

For the remaining of the second half of lunch, Buster showed more pictures, including his trip to Vancouver, British Columbia.

"Here's me in Richmond, with Karen" he said, pointing to a panda girl with red highlights in her long black hair. "Karen Tsai's family is from Hong Kong, but she was born in Canada. She took me to dim sum at a restaurant there and then we had bubble tea. I've only had bubble tea twice before. We then went to a karaoke place."

"Hey, how come you have so many pictures with girls?" Arthur wanted to know

"Well….ummmm……I don't know!"

"Hey, Buster, don't you have another picture to show us?" Anne asked.

"Ummm, no…"

"Yes you do!"

"No I don't!"

"Yes you do…..you know, that one!"

"Ooooooo, BUSTER!!" teased Francine

"It's not like that, Francine!"

"Awww, c'mon! Show us that picture!"

"No!"

"Why not, Buster?" Anne wanted to know "It's not like it's bad or anything!"

"Yes it is!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

Anne managed to grab the stack of pictures out of Buster's hands and went through them to find THAT PICTURE.

"Ah-ha! Here it is!" It was a picture of Buster, looking kind of green, as he walked off the roller coaster.

Francine laughed when she saw it. "You look kind of green. What happened?"

"I don't know, I got sick!"

"Yeah, Buster ate a huge lunch before going on! Silly boy!" giggled Anne

"I didn't know that it was going to go that fast!"

Soon, it was time to start the afternoon, the second half of the first day of high school. Could the kids face Ratburn again at the end of the day? Stay tuned.