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On a Very Special Arthur	By : 8inchCaliper Category: +1 through F > Arthur Views: 6509 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Arthur, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
part 5

Nigel Ratburn pops two Valium before sinking down into his loveseat. It feels weird, not being at school on a Monday morning, but that’s neither here nor there. He’d needed this time alone, to reflect and to maybe clear his head a bit.

The television is on in the background, a small, old black and white Zenith because the rat rarely watches TV so what’s the point of investing in all the new fangled technology? There’s some fuzzy grainy picture of Jerry Springer guests shouting bleeped swearwords and exposing their pale flabby midwestern midsections as Jerry pretends to be baffled by the absurdity of it all. The rat turns his head away in distaste, disappointed in himself for not simply turning the damned thing off.

In the kitchen, his clock on the wall ticks just a bit too loudly and the birds outside seem to be chirping right next to his ear. He resists the urge to go slam the window shut. It’s ten after ten. He’d be getting ready to teach more long division right about now, enjoying the panicked looks on the faces of those who didn’t study. He’d be issuing out light reprimands to the likes of Binky and Buster and perhaps be surprised at the occasional proficiency of Arthur and Muffy. He’d have an amused smirk on his face at the determination on Francine’s dark features and smile contentedly at the free spirit of Sue Ellen and her understated sweetness or Prunella’s odd mysticism.

The rat hates to admit he adores teaching. Somehow, it seems too cliché, too pathetic. He’s actually sullen without them.

What he’s purposely not thinking about, what he chooses to ignore is the aching thought of Alan Powers grating in his brain. Nigel knows it’s unhealthy, but this is what the vacation is for. He’s hoping the whole issue will somehow blow over, dissipate, become no more. What he doesn’t admit to himself, what he keeps deep down in the vault in his heart is the fact that he likes it. He likes Brain’s attention and he likes feeling wanted and he likes that someone cares about him. Sure its wrong, but love is love, right?

When Nigel goes to the front door, a lanky teen saunters by pushing a lawnmower and chewing a long blade of grass. The boy is shirtless and wears his jeans low on his hips, allowing Nigel to see an inch or so of his flannel boxers. He catches Nigel’s eye before the man has a chance to dash back inside and whistles to him.

“Hey! Sir.”

Ratburn considers pretending not to hear the scratchy adolescent voice, but he peeks his head out and shields his eyes from the sun with his hand.

“Yes?”

“Mow your grass? Ten bucks?”

“Uh…” Nigel takes a gander at his already neatly trimmed lawn, perfectly sculpted just yesterday morning. “…No thanks. I don’t really need it.”

“Then how bout some company? Its hot out here.” The boy grins, and Nigel shuts his eyes, not ready to deal with this.

“I suppose it is hot…for April…”

Without waiting for a reply, the boy pushes the mower onto Nigel’s walk and strolls up to the door, brushing past him inside.

Nigel stands in the threshold watching the boy get comfortable on his couch. He can’t imagine how he should proceed.

“Uh…aren’t you also the paper boy?”

The boy nods. “Uh huh.”

“Why aren’t you at school?”

The boy grins at Nigel and the rat suddenly remembers another encounter similar to this over a year ago. It was this same boy, but it was cold outside, and he’d invited himself in for a hot apple cider. He’d been baffled then too and somehow must’ve pushed it out of his mind…until now.

“Why aren’t you at school?” the boy finally asks.

“Touché,” Ratburn murmurs. “What’s your name?”

“Jake.” The boy has his eyes trained on the older man, and Nigel feels suddenly self-conscious, although he cannot imagine why. “ And you’re Nigel.”

The rat blushes, in spite of himself. “Yes, well, I suppose you would know that…”

“I’ve seen your puppet shows.” The boy says, looking suddenly very young. “When I went to Lakewood. They were cool.”

Ratburn smiles politely. “Oh. Well. Good. I feel like a virtual celebrity.”

The boy smiles a crooked smile and stands up to face the man. “You have any beer?”

Ratburn can’t even remember the last time he had beer in his fridge and he scrunches his eyes at the boy. “Well, even if I did, I most certainly wouldn’t offer it to you, young man.”

The youth rolls his eyes. “How old do you think I am?”

“Not old enough.” Ratburn moves past the boy and into the kitchen. “I have lemonade or tea. And then you should probably leave.”

“I’m twenty-two years old.” Jake says, smirking and perching himself on a stool in the kitchen.

“I highly doubt that.” The rat says pouring lemonade into two glasses. “You’re fifteen - if you’re a day.”

The boy turns up his glass and drinks sloppily, dripping lemonade down his chin and onto his chest. Nigel averts his eyes, determined not to stare. Instead he takes a dainty sip from his own glass before moving to the sink and tidying up nothing in particular.

“Where’s your wife?” The boy asks offhandedly.

Ratburn sighs. “Surprise, surprise. I’m not married.”

Jake grins. “Well, what about your girlfriend?”

“You should be leaving, Jake. I have a lot of work to do.”

The boy looks momentarily crestfallen. “I had cider with you last Halloween. Do you remember? You were passing out mini Butterfingers to the trick-or-treaters. I was cold. I’d been raking leaves all day.”

“Yes, I remember.” Nigel says looking squarely at the boy.

Jake nods slowly. “Well, I thought maybe… if you were up for it…we could…maybe hang out sometime.”

“I’m sorry, Jake. That’s just not possible.” Nigel feels himself getting slightly dizzy and a little hot under the collar. How does he keep getting in these situations? What is he, a boy magnet?

The boy nods, slowly. “Okay. Well. Thanks for the drink.”

In a split second, Nigel has an image of himself giving in. He imagine his hands restraining small wrists above thin arms as he devours a mouth soft with peach fuzz and runs a hand down a chest too narrow to belong to a man but too big to be a mere boy. The thought makes him shudder and instantly leads to thoughts of Brain, the boy who loves him, the boy who he adores.

“Good day to you.” The rat murmurs distractedly, ushering the boy out the door.

He turns on the walkway to look up into Ratburn’s eyes. “My name is Jake. Maybe you’ll remember next time.” He pauses. “If you ever need anything – anything at all, I live four houses down. White Victorian.”

“Okay. Thanks. Goodbye.” The rat says briskly, closing the door.

He moves to his tiny study where it’s cluttered and filled with overstacked bookshelves and marionette heads and limbs and papers and an old computer he barely even knows how to turn on. The shelves block the windows and the desk chair has a stack of unfinished manuscripts on them. The rat places the stack onto the desk and seats himself there, pondering. Will it ever go away? Does this make him a bad person? No, of course not! He hasn’t done anything wrong. Since when did it become a crime to entertain a fantasy? And it didn’t even start out that way. It was Brain’s fantasy. Brain started this! Ratburn rests his head on a stack of old Reader’s Digests and wearily shuts his eyes.

He vaguely recalls the conversation he’d had with Principal Haney the day he’d asked for an emergency leave of absence.

“But, Nigel, this is all so sudden. Has something happened or…”

“I’m sorry, Herbert,” Ratburn had sighed, shrugging. “but the matter is rather…um…personal in nature, and I cannot really explain it without compromising myself.”

“Well, how long do you plan to be gone? This isn’t like you at all…”

“I know. I was thinking a few weeks – since I have so much vacation time saved up. After that, I’ll keep you abreast of my plans. I just…well…something came up and I need to attend to it.”

“Is your family well?” The principal had adjusted his half-moon specs and looked concerned over the top of them at his favorite instructor, Mr. Ratburn.

Ratburn had nodded. “Yes, they’re quite well, indeed, sir. My sister is actually in Bermuda right now with her fiancé. I don’t really have anyone else. Thank you for your concern, though…”

The principal had stared at Nigel a long time after that until finally he’d shrugged. “Fine. Well, I’ll grant you your few weeks – and whatever it is that’s troubling you, I hope the matter gets resolved. I should tell you, I really hate not having you on hand here. You’re a very popular instructor here – with the faculty and student body alike.”

“Thank you, sir. I greatly appreciate that.” The rat had felt relieved to be given the time off. He really hadn’t wanted to resort to plan ‘B’ which would’ve involved faking an injury and getting his insurance agency involved. All that would have meant a paper trail, and walking on crutches and unanswered questions, etc…

Now as he sits at his desk, he considers Brain. If there were no laws against it, if he didn’t constantly worry about not being so upstanding and right, what kind of damage could he do? What kind of harm could he inflict? Would he even be capable, if Alan were here with him now, ready and willing, unbeknownst to anyone? Would he let himself give in to the pleasure of soft vulnerable flesh, yielding and warm? The rat laughs nervously to himself. Right. Like that would ever happen…

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Across town at the Elwood City Elementary school, Mr. Haney wears a baffled expression as he sits across from a haggard looking Alan Powers with a red face and dirty hair. He wears a bruise around his left eye and his shirt is tattered and torn.

Next to him, looking somehow sour and surprised at the same time is Binky Barnes, a known bully but a decent kid nonetheless. He occasionally looks over at Alan and scrunches his eyebrows in disbelief. His nose is covered in drying blood.

“Well, one of you explain to me what happened, please.” The principal almost thinks this entire scenario is a prank because it can’t be what it looks like, one of the most docile creatures in the school involved in a lunchroom fight. No, this must be a joke.

“He started it!” Binky yells, pointing at Brain. “I was just standing there and he…he came up and shoved me! Right into Arthur! He made me drop my lunch!”

Brain doesn’t dispute this. Instead, he simply looks down at his sneakers, an indifferent expression on his face.

“Is this true, Alan?”

Alan shrugs. “Most of it. I didn’t make him drop his lunch, though. He dropped it because his hands were too big and clumsy to hold onto it.”

“What did you say?” Binky stands up, balling his fists at Brain. “Say it in my face, you…you…”

Mr. Haney quickly steps between the two boys. “Alright, alright. Enough of this. Alan, what’s gotten into you? I’ve never seen you like this.”

“He teased me.” Brain responds in a quiet voice. “He teased me and I retaliated.”

“It sounds as though you lashed out.”

“I’m the one with the black eye!” He yells suddenly.

“You made me drop my lunch!” Binky sounds more offended by that than by anything. “What could I do but defend myself – and the honor of my chili dog!”

Exasperated, Mr. Haney turns to the Bulldog. “Binky, I’ll deal with you later. For now, you can return to class. I must speak to Mr. Powers alone.”

“Fine.” Binky pouts, giving Brain the death glare on his way out.

When the door is shut, Mr. Haney seats himself across from Alan. The boy wears an angry scowl, as he glares into space and the principal doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Well, obviously something’s going on to make you act this way. It’s just not like you.”

“I haven’t been myself lately.” Brain mumbles, not meeting the man’s eyes.

“Well, we can certainly deal with that. You can speak to the counselor – or you can talk to me, if you like. We can even arrange a meeting with your parents, if something’s going on at…”

“No!” Alan looks at the man for the first time. “No, please don’t call my parents. I’ll…I’ll do anything.”

The principal looks conflicted. “Well, I’m sorry Alan, but school policy dictates that they be notified in case of a physical altercation. Whatever’s going on with you is another matter altogether. That you physically assaulted Binky Barnes…well…that must be dealt with.”

Brain nods, resigned. “Fine. Call them.”

“They’re already on the way, son.”

Hours later, Brain lies back across his bed in his dark bedroom with the curtains drawn. In the silence, he can vaguely hear his parents downstairs discussing him in hushed tones and trying to figure out what action to take. Brain knows it will involve counseling – or maybe even shock treatment. It shouldn’t have gotten this far, but Binky made a nasty comment about him at lunch and that had been the final straw. He’d felt the primal urge to attack – and it had felt nice to hit him. It had felt good, knuckles on bone, crushing. He’d felt pleasure seeing the sting of tears in the big bulldog’s eyes.

Alan had rode home with his parents, on his way to serving his first day of his three-day suspension. The car ride had been silent, as his parents had sat staring forward, dumbfounded.

They might be pissed, Brain had surmised, but at least this time at home would give him solitude to think of Nigel. He hadn’t been able to concentrate much at school, too lost in his anxiety and fear. The other children in his class seem to be fading into the woodwork, becoming like wooden statuettes, going about their simple lives as though through water. Brain is moving so much faster than that, so far ahead of them, at the speed of light. He feels as though he is changing, becoming someone else altogether. He wonders, with a sudden jolt of inspiration, if this is what Einstein felt.

Drifting off into a fantasy, Brain’s head is filled with a passing dark cloud. Why has Ratburn taken time off? Is it because of him? Duh. Of course it is! But what does this mean? Does Ratburn not want to see him again? Or has he somehow gotten him into trouble? Maybe someone saw them that day in the car…maybe Nigel has gotten sacked!

Brain sits bolt upright in his bed, staring into the dark with panicked eyes. Oh God. What has he done? The man of his dreams hates him now. Maybe if he goes to him, talks to him, he can set everything right again. – but Maybe Ratburn won’t see him, won’t deal with him. Maybe he’s still angry about last time. Maybe he will hit him again.

Oddly, the thought both frightens and titillates the boy. The thought of physical contact makes him quiver with excitement – even violent contact. Brain makes up his mind.

Quietly, he gets off the bed and slips his sneakers onto his feet. He pulls on a light jacket and calls down to his parents that he’s going to bed now. They cease their whispered conversation long enough to call goodnight up to him, and then Brain waits to hear the sound of them prattling round downstairs before he proceeds with his plan.

Stuffing pillows and his own ceramic bust underneath the sheet, he draws up the blankets to look as though he’s sleeping. Then, he ties his rope ladder onto the flower box outside his window and climbs down. Hitting the damp grass, he crouches low so as not to be seen before dashing off into the dark of night.

Tbc…
- 4
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- 6
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On a Very Special Arthur