Prunella Deegan

Prunella Deegan is a 4th grader who lives in Elwood City. She is an avid reader and, like her sister Rubella, is interested in the supernatural.

Prunella made her first appearance in the book Arthur's Teacher Trouble in 1986 and has appeared in subsequent titles and later into the cartoon series.

Physical appearance
Prunella is a tall, slender anthropomorphic poodle with curly auburn hair and black dot eyes. In almost all of her appearances she is shown wearing a short turquoise dress. She occasionally has whites for eyes when she expresses surprise about things happening (although in the books, she was sometimes illustrated with visible whites around her eyes as well as the other characters, who were randomly drawn to have white or black eyes). During formal occasions, she wears a light blue dress with white strings that she ties together.

Personality
Prunella is fairly smart, superstitious, a little bit selfish, and at times can be a bit of a snob. She often thinks that she is better than everybody at everything just because she is one year older than the third graders.

Prunella likes to tell the 3rd graders stories of when she was in Mr. Ratburn's class, though she tends to exaggerate. For example, in Arthur and the Real Mr. Ratburn, she tells the kids going into Mr. Ratburn's class that Mr. Ratburn eats nails for breakfast. She has also told kids other stories that they believe, but later they figure out that what she tells them is far from their actual experience of 3rd grade.

Prunella can be influenced by Muffy, even though they do not hang out with each other very often. For example, she hates kickball because she doesn't want to get her shoes dirty and she desires the finest clothes. She even acts like Muffy, like when she wanted new, hip pants called "Flash Pants".

She is also known to have a compulsive hoarding disorder as seen in the episode "Prunella the Packrat", where she tries to save items she believes are important to her when she is told to clean out her closet.

Interests
Prunella is a major Henry Skreever fan along with her best friend Marina. They both have all of the books, loads of Henry Skreever merchandise, and even have Henry Skreever themed slumber parties.

Along with Henry Skreever she enjoys fortune-telling (such as gazing at the crystal ball and playing cootie catcher), yoga, and paranormal phenomena. However, her predictions are usually not accurate. Instead, she incorporates the prediction with an object in the room she is in.

At school, Prunella takes shop class, plays trombone in the school band, and competes on the Lakewood Elementary baseball team. She served on the decorating committee of the Earth Day Fair and paints sets for plays at school. All in all, she is very active in school activities.

Family
Prunella lives in Elwood City with her mother and older teenage sister Rubella. Prunella has a father who lives with her, but it is assumed that he works a lot because he is never home. He appeared momentarily in the episode "The Chips Are Down" at Rubella and Binky's ballet recital. She is nicknamed "Pruney" by her mother.

Friends
Although Prunella is in fourth grade, she is usually friends with the third graders, but had a few fourth grade friends at her parties in Misfortune Teller and Prunella Gets it Twice.
 * Marina Dattilo: Prunella's best friend. They both like Henry Skreever and they play games related to it at each other's houses. Marina is a blind rabbit.
 * Muffy: Prunella's second best friend. Even if they don't hang out much Prunella acts a lot like Muffy sometimes, such as shopping (usually for new clothes). Prunella was once jealous when she didn't get to buy flash pants that Muffy bought and enjoyed.
 * Francine: They don't hang out much and they don't share a lot in common, even though they are friends. Francine once bought her a second Polly Locket for her 10th birthday in Prunella Gets it Twice, and she also cheated Francine into thinking Arthur was in love with her in Arthur and the Square Dance.
 * Brain: Prunella and Brain are both smart but they rarely hang out with each other. However, Prunella did manage to keep Brain's secret of being held back in kindergarten in Brain's Shocking Secret. In The Blizzard, it could be implied that their mothers are friends, because Brain just happens to be at Prunella's house during most of the episode.
 * Jenna: In Arthur Goes Crosswire, she is seen with Jenna throughout the episode.

Trivia

 * It is revealed in Arthur's Spelling Trubble that Prunella is a great speller, but soon lost the crown to Arthur.
 * Her surname Deegan was taken from one of the writer's last names, Jacqui Deegan.
 * In errors, they state that she is 8.
 * She has been seen erroneously in Nigel Ratburn's class several times.
 * She sometimes is erroneously referred to as a rat, despite the shape of her ears and lack of whiskers.