The Reads start a tour through the White House.
GGuide
On the ground floor is the China Room, which contains a collection of presidential...
RMrs. Read
D.W., don't get left behind!
How exciting; another closed door.
GGuide
Follow me, please.
We could have stayed home and locked each other out of the bathroom. It would have looked just like this.
She crawls under a cordon and walks to a partly open door.
D.W., stop it! You're gonna get us kicked out!
D.W. comes back.
I'm just trying to find the government.
Don't break the rules. I don't want the president mad at us.
The tour continues.
GGuide
During Kennedy's administration, a permanent art collection was assembled for the White House...
I don't like this. It's full of people who make a lot of rules, and everybody's afraid of getting in trouble.
GGuide
In 1948, when Harry Truman was president, the White House was found to be unsafe for occupancy.
D.W. sneaks through an open door and closes it behind her. She sees a wide hallway in front of her. She tries to get back but the door will not open.
Her parents are on the other side of the door.
Where has she gone? D.W.!
Oh no, D.W.’s loose in the White House. We’re doomed.
In his imagination, D.W. sits on the president’s desk.
PPresident
It gives me great pleasure to sign the D.W. Law. It is now illegal not to own a pony.
The journalists and guards are sitting on ponies.
JJournalist
Right on, D.W.!
PPresident
And the national anthem has been changed to "Crazy Bus".
The fantasy ends.
We’ve got to find her before she wrecks the whole country.
[Arthur and D.W. sit at the breakfast table in their pajamas. Mrs. Read makes scrambled eggs on toast.]
RMrs. Read
Planning a party is a lot of work, you know.
How hard can it be? You invite people and they come!
RMrs. Read
Speaking of people, let's keep this small. Just Grandma Thora's closest friends, okay?
That's no fun! Can't we do stuff like rent an elephant or a zebra?
RMrs. Read
No elephants, D.W., just a nice, small, quiet party. Are you listening, Arthur?
[Arthur goes on reading the cereal box without looking]
Yeah, Mom, a nice, small, quiet...
What do you mean you want me to take D.W. to the race?!
RMrs. Read
We'll meet you guys down there. We have to drop Kate off at Grandma Thora's first.
Couldn't you get a babysitter or something? She's just gonna blow her whistle at everyone!
Am not! Not unless I see someone who's not being safe.
You have been getting a little carried away with your whistle, D.W.
But I'm just doing what Officer Safety said to do.
RMrs. Read
He didn't mean for you to be a tattletale, D.W. He just wants you to let people know when someone's doing something dangerous, okay?
Good. Now, tomorrow, Arthur, you will take D.W. to the race. And, D.W., you will not bother Arthur.
I can't see! Move your head!
You're not the boss of me, Mr. Goopy.
D.W., please move your big, large, enormous, gopher-looking head.
[gasps] At least my head doesn't look like a football with glasses!
No, your head looks like a big meatloaf with raisins!
RMrs. Read
We'll be back at 10:30. Here's the phone number. The kids shouldn't need anything.
Mom! Arthur said my head looks like a watermelon except for the bad haircut!
I can handle it. Have a good time!
I have a lot of homework, so why don't you two go play quietly at opposite ends of the house?
I wouldn't want to go to your stupid messy girl-room anyway!
I don't have turtle-breath! Smell!
He called me turtle-breath!
I had to! It's a castle coloring book! There's a lot of bricks!
D.W., give him his crayon. Arthur, go back to the den.
This isn't working because Arthur knows more words than me. Catherine, you're so smart. What's another word for "boring"?
If you wanna know the words that mean the same as other words, you look in a thesaurus.
I did it! I did it! I win! Yahoo! Yay!
Tedious, tedious... hey! Do you know another word for "annoying"?
Does the saurus have a word for someone who eats too much cake?
You kids are really working on your vocabulary! I'm so impressed!
You are distended from eating cake. Plus you are both corpulent and adipose.
If I'm vapid, you're atrocious and heinous. I bet you don't even know what that means. I do.
Well, at least my initials don't stand for "dimwit".
Ha, Tommy Tibble came up with that and he's my age. You lose!
Oh, I know what you are. You wanna know what you really are? You're such a... Dora Winifred!
Dora Winifred! Dora Winifred!
Stop it! Stop it! Make him stop!
Arthur thinks he's so great.
I'm not gonna let him beat me.
RMrs. Read
Toys stay out of the cereal, please.
I'm going to Happy-Crazy-Wow Day with Buster!
RMrs. Read
Arthur, you're not going anywhere until you clean your room!
But I just told Buster and I promised I'd meet him!
RMrs. Read
Then you will have to call him back and tell him you will meet him later. You've put this off long enough now. D.W., as soon as you've finished eating, I want you to work on your room too. It's as messy as your brother's.
But that'll take forever! I'll miss Happy-Crazy-Wow Day!
I have an idea! When I was little and my brother and I had chores to do, we had a saying, many hands make light work.
RMrs. Read
Honey, I'm not...
Hear me out on this. In other words, the more hands you had, the easier the work became.
It does sound kind of cool.
That's the spirit! It'll go more than twice as fast. Trust me. So why don't you start on Arthur's room first? Whoa, whoa, whoa, time out! Do me a favor and just try it. I think you'll be surprised at how well it works.
Let's do this quick. I'm going to be late.
The important thing is to really try to work together. It's the only way this will work!
How can we work together when she won't let me put things away?!
RMrs. Read
Arthur, D.W. helped you clean your room, so now it's up to you to return the favor.
But I'm missing Happy-Crazy-Whatever-It-Is Day!
That's not D.W.'s fault! If you'd cleaned your room when you were supposed to, Arthur, you wouldn't have this problem!
Outside the house, the sky has become gray
[looks up at the open window, gasps, then down at his plane on the ground, and picks up the fuselage, when some of it got accidentally loose, and looks shocked, and trembled]
In his imagination, he flies the plane, but it suddenly falls to pieces. He hovers in midair for one second, then he falls, followed by his helmet and, finally, his glasses.
The fantasy ends
If it could broke the sound barrier, falling out of the window shouldn't be able to shatter like this.
[getting annoyed, wasted, and stern, losing his mind, cringes, and rebukes D.W.] I told you not to touch it!
You've built it all wrong! Don't you ever read the directions?! [Having enough of D.W., Arthur grinds his teeth, and firmly makes a fist] It didn't fly for a second! It wasn't my fault when you've made the plane that couldn't fly!
[getting infuriated, and furious, and yells to D.W.] I'M TELLING YOU... NOT TO TOUCH IT! [elevated his fist, and punches D.W.] [off-screen]
[falls to the ground, and looks a little blank for a minute, then gets up, and instantly runs off, when going back inside the house, crying]
Arthur bends to pick up the plane when he hears his mom
RMrs. Read
[sternly calling to Arthur to come inside the house] [off-screen] Arthur Read, come in here!
[getting a little screwed, tense, and apprehensive] Uh-oh! Middle name. [gets up]
In the kitchen, D.W. sits beside the kitchen sink
[quietly whimpers on the kitchen counter]
Her dad gets an ice pack from the refrigerator
[whimpers] Weren't they gonna have to amputake my arm?
No, hon. It's amputate, but not amputake.
[surprisingly shouts] They are gonna amputate?!
Nope. I am in charge, and I'm putting ice on it.
[loudly roaring, shrieking, and crying in pain]
[restlessly crying in pain] That's cold!
Arthur and his mother stand in the hallway
RMrs. Read
[disappointedly telling Arthur to apologize to D.W. for being hostile] Apologize to your sister.
[withholding to apologize to D.W.] No! She could've apologize to me! I've been working all week on this! I tell her a million times not to touch it!
Mr. Read carries D.W. while passing them
[bitterly dispirited] You're bad!
A while later, Arthur sits on a chair in the living room facing his parents
[gently scolds Arthur for mistreating D.W., and his deeds] Arthur, this means no TV for a week.
[dismayed] What?! But that was so unfair! [turns away] You didn't even care about what she did to me!
RMrs. Read
[confusingly telling Arthur that she, and Mr. Read will deal with what D.W. did] We will deal with what she did. But what you did was wrong too.
[misunderstood when overreacted by being harsh to D.W., and gets irritated, and huffs] Humph.
RMrs. Read
Dora Winifred Read, what did you just say to me?!
Uh... Can I have a soda? Tibbles!
RMrs. Read
What are you doing?!
RMrs. Read
Well, D.W., you're off the hook this time, because you didn't know what you were saying. But I hope you know now that swear words are not appropriate, especially for 5-year-old children.
RMrs. Read
Because most people are offended by them. It's as simple as that.
But why? What do they mean?
RMrs. Read
I guess you could say they mean "I want to hurt your feelings". Good night, D.W.
Why didn't somebody tell me that in the first place?
Wait! You didn't want them to go on vacation and now you're sad they can't?
Yeah. Didn't you see Mom's face? I thought she was going to cry. (A thought bubble with Mrs. Read appears.)
RMrs. Read (in bubble)
(cries)
(The bubble disappears. A swarm of birds flies past the window.)
[off-screen] DW, that's not nice to Jane is sad!
I guess parents really do need a break sometimes - especially from you.
I wonder if there's some way we could fix this?
Arthur · 265 quotes
