This story is rated PG for violence and mature themes.
Disclaimer: After all this time and all the stories I've written, I still don't own Arthur.
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Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar...
- William Wordsworth
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The alarm clock blared in the darkness, but most of the ringing took place in Prunella's head. She recalled climbing into bed the previous night, but had no memory of becoming drowsy or falling asleep--as if the whole night had passed in one heartbeat. It surprised her that the headache hadn't kept her awake all night--the troublesome headache that had afflicted her ever since she had been knocked over by a city bus and suffered a contusion.
To be more accurate, the headache had only troubled her since she had reversed her body switch with The Brain. It was Alan who had carelessly run into the street while inhabiting her frame, and now she was stuck with the resulting head injury. She had little to complain about--it was to be preferred over remaining in Alan's body until her own was fully healed. In spite of the pain, she had assisted in the defeat of Dark Augusta, who had descended from the sky to add Earth to her list of vanquished worlds. If she had tolerated the discomfort well enough to help save the universe, school and homework shouldn't be much of a challenge.
She sat up, yawned, stretched, and straightened out the front of her pale gown. Only twenty-four hours ago she had wondered if she would live to see another day, and now it was here. There was no need to worry.
She brushed her teeth, took a shower, and changed into her school dress. Her mother hadn't shown up to fix her hair as was the custom, but she thought little of this. Down the stairway she walked, expecting the scent of breakfast to waft in her direction, but smelling nothing. The lights were turned off in the living room and kitchen. Perhaps her mother was sick--but that wouldn't explain why there was no sight or sound of Rubella, who typically rose for school fifteen minutes earlier.
"Hello?" she called out, slightly perturbed. "Mom?"
No answer came. A second later her ears picked up a slight creaking from the general area of her parents' bedroom. The door slowly opened, and Mrs. Prufrock, her hair bound up in a net, poked out her groggy head. "Prunie? What are you doing up so early?"
"I have to get ready for school," replied Prunella, as if pointing out the obvious.
"It's Saturday," said her mother.
"No, it's Friday," the rat girl disagreed. It had to be a joke or game of some sort. The cataclysmic events of the previous day were still fresh in her mind. How could she possibly forget them? She had no recollection of an intervening day.
"Are you feeling all right?" asked Mrs. Prufrock with concern.
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Prunella's eyelids fluttered open. Weak rays of sunlight were already slipping through the blinds, indicating that the alarm clock had failed to wake her. On one hand she was glad to observe that the sun was still shining, as it had temporarily exploded the previous day. On the other hand she was worried about being late for school. Why hadn't her parents, or Rubella, awakened her?
She yawned and stretched--and had the unmistakable impression that not only had her voice changed slightly, but her arms were much longer than before. She felt silk against her skin, as opposed to her normal velvet pajamas.
She sat up, and her legs reached all the way to the floor. Her body felt inexplicably different all over, inside and out. Astonished and curious, she lifted her hands to her chest, and gasped when they ran up against some things a girl her age wasn't supposed to have.
I must be dreaming, she thought. This can't be me.
Stricken with anxiety, she jumped to her feet and bounded across the room to switch on the light. Her longer legs enabled her to make the trip in much less time, so that she had to take care to avoid colliding with the wall.
As the bedroom became illuminated, she realized that her environs had changed as well. Some of the furniture had been moved, some replaced, and some eliminated together, including the full-length mirror. Her Polly Locket dolls, which she expected to see standing on the dresser, were nowhere visible. The thin carpeting on the floor had been replaced with a shag rug.
Something very strange had happened--but strange things had been happening all week. She had switched bodies with a boy, been run over by a bus, and helped to prevent Dark Augusta from destroying the universe. This latest development surely had a explanation, and the only difficulty was finding someone who could explain it.
She hesitantly opened the door and stepped into the hallway. It was the house she knew, as the stairway leading to the lower floor attested. Her body sent weird signals to her brain as she shuffled down the stairs. Peering over the banister, she saw a rather familiar-looking young rat woman seated on the couch, which had been moved against another wall. The young woman had curly red hair, and wore a floral bandanna, a striped blouse, and a mini-skirt. She was watching a news broadcast on a large-screen TV, another item she hadn't seen in the house before.
It was unquestionably Rubella, though several years older. What especially surprised Prunella was that a small rat boy was seated on the couch next to her, playing with an action figure. The boy appeared to be roughly kindergarten age, and bore no recognizable features or family resemblance.
The older Rubella glanced up at her and smiled sweetly. "Prunie, you're awake. How are you feeling?"
Prunella only gaped--she had many questions, but the words wouldn't come.
"Have a seat," said Rubella, patting the couch cushion next to her. "I'll explain everything."
Still overwhelmed by the drastic changes in her house and body, Prunella staggered toward the couch with a zombie-like gait. Her older sister fixed a welcoming grin on her.
Once she had seated herself, the little boy clambered playfully over Rubella's lap and into hers. "Good morning, Prunie," he gushed, as if he had known her forever.
"This is Graham," Rubella informed her. "He's your little brother. We adopted him."
Prunella stared at the news crawl on the screen. The events it described were nothing like those of the previous day, and included no mention of the imminent presidential election. Finally a theory began to form in her mind.
"Am I...in the future?" she asked weakly. Her voice had changed, but speaking with another person's voice wasn't a new experience.
"No," was Rubella's response.
"But I'm older," Prunella pointed out. "You're older."
"What's the last thing you remember?" Rubella uttered the question glibly, as if she had rehearsed it a thousand times.
"Yesterday was Thursday," Prunella answered with a hint of uncertainty. "Dark Augusta landed on Earth. I tried to stop her by opening the Spiritus Mundi portal..."
"All of that happened more than five years ago," said Rubella gently.
Prunella's first impulse was to ask why she had no memory of the passing of five years, but she held her peace, supposing an explanation was on its way.
"You suffered a brain injury when that bus hit you. The part of your brain that stores short-term memories was damaged. Every morning when you wake up, you forget what happened the day before."
The description sounded simple enough, but Prunella didn't fully grasp it, or the impact it would have on her life. Only two things were clear--that she had become an 11-year-old girl in a teenage body, and that it would get worse.
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to be continued