D.W.'s Imaginary Friend

Summary
D.W. has a new imaginary friend named Nadine who goes with her everywhere. When Arthur and Buster find out about a new amusement ride, they don't want D.W. to come along and embarrass them because she would bring Nadine along, too.

Plot
Arthur and his family are having spaghetti with cauliflower. Mom and Dad get things prepared, including burning rolls. D.W. shares her cauliflower with her imaginary friend, Nadine.

Dad comes in with a stack of trays until D.W. sees him standing on Nadine's tail. Her dad begins shaking about and, in reaction, D.W. stands up but begins to lose balance. Dad grabs her foot to help and D.W. accidentally throws her bowl of spaghetti high into the air.

It begins to land on Arthur but it stops in midair before it hits. At this moment, Arthur explains to the viewers that if they don't have a younger sibling, it would probably be nice.

Arthur explains how D.W. sometimes gives tours of his room to her friends and talks about his stuffed bear, Stanley, and his secret box. Arthur claims that now she has an invisible friend, it's much worse. Just then, the bowl of spaghetti lands on his head. D.W. scolds Nadine for what she did to him.

---D.W.'S IMAGINARY FRIEND---

After the mess is cleaned, D.W. tells her dad that Nadine apologizes for what happened. Her dad forgets about it and has her finish dinner. After he leaves, Nadine appears and thinks she shouldn't come anymore, for she thinks Arthur hates her.

D.W. denies this and tells her friend that Arthur likes her and that he hung a picture of her on his wall. This turns out to be wrong, for Arthur tears up the picture of Nadine and cleans the spaghetti of his head.

But before he finishes, the telephone rings and Arthur frantically dashes down the stairs and answers it. It's Buster who tells him to quickly go to channel 4 on the TV.

He does so and sees a commercial about a new Wonder World ride called the Hurl-a-Whirl with motion sickness bags provided. Arthur is excited and begs his dad if they could go to the opening. At first, Dad isn't sure about it, but he is determined and D.W. wants to go too.

Eventually, Dad agrees. D.W. asks if Nadine can come too. He agrees to that also which shocks Arthur. At the cafeteria the next day, Buster claims that it's bad enough that D.W. is going, but with Nadine it will be much more terrible.

Arthur imagines him and D.W. going on a horror ride. D.W. says that Nadine is frightened and screams to have the ride stop. The ride does stop and the top of the chair she was sitting in flies off, and bumps into the decorations of the ride which causes a chain reaction.

D.W. scolds Nadine of what happened. Francine and Muffy, who are behind them, see that D.W. has an imaginary friend and call Arthur a baby. Back at the cafeteria, Buster offers his library card to Prunella for half of her piece of cake, he then shares his chocolate swirls with Arthur. This gives Buster an idea.

After school, they train D.W. on the school merry-go-round by spinning it around as fast as the boys can. This doesn't seem to affect D.W., but it affects Buster. D.W. then tries to go down the slide a hundred times and even tries to do some headfirst, while Arthur tries to recover Buster from his dizziness.

They train D.W. more by having her hang upside down on the jungle gym. D.W. notices it's getting late and reminds Buster that he has to go home. Walking home, D.W. thanks Arthur for training him and that she's ready for the new ride, which she mispronounces as 'Twirly Whirl'.

Arthur asks how she could ride on something if she can't even say it correctly, yet she is tough and tells her brother that she is trained enough. Arthur admits that she can come. D.W. claims that Nadine will be so scared that they will stop the ride for her, which worries Arthur.

On Saturday morning, Buster calls Arthur and thinks D.W. might forget about it. Arthur sees that this is false, for he sees D.W. outside on a chair, waiting to go to Wonder World. Buster then tells him that he can do left is to pretend to be sick, yet the other kids might think that he's scared, but Arthur has a different idea.

While waiting to go, D.W. has Nadine spin around and around for practice. Arthur comes up, but D.W. warns him not to do any ideas, for she will go no matter what.

Arthur starts his plan and tells D.W. that Nadine has spots all over her face and claims that it's the chicken pox. D.W. worries and takes Nadine inside. Arthur says he won't mind if D.W. wants to stay home with her friend, but she denies this.

Arthur's family is finally at Wonder World, but at the parking lot, D.W. begins to worry about Nadine, yet Arthur rebukes this and says that he lied about that he could see Nadine. D.W. realizes that Nadine is not sick and demands that they go home to get her.

Arthur disagrees and thinks that only babies have imaginary friends. D.W. complains to Dad about what he said, and Arthur complains to him that they shouldn't go back. Just then, their dad gets an idea and pretends he hears something from the back of their car.

He opens and says that it's Nadine. This brightens D.W.'s day, but slightly disappoints Arthur. Their mom arrives and gives Arthur tickets for the Hurl-a-Whirl, yet she warns him to use them carefully.

After meeting up with Buster, the boys go and enter the Hurl-a-Whirl. Before the ride starts, they are handed a pair of barf bags, which they seem to adore. The ride begins and they pick the maximum speed known as liquify.

The ride begins to whirl, twist, spin, and turn in a crazy formation, having the boys screaming. After the ride's over, they throw their filled bags into the trash can. They decide to go on it again and end up with the same results.

Just then Francine arrives and asks if Arthur wants to go on the Hurl-a-Whirl with her. But Arthur is disappointed for they ran out of orange tickets for the ride and only have green tickets left for rides such as the merry-go-round.

D.W., Mom, and Dad arrive and Buster runs away. D.W. says that Nadine has something for Arthur, but Arthur tries to avoid embarrassment by wanting to go on the merry-go-round. But Francine asks who Nadine is, yet Arthur still tries to have Francine and himself leave.

Francine wonders what's wrong with Arthur. D.W. shows Arthur orange tickets that they found on the ground and she says that Nadine wanted to give them to Arthur, for she wants to be his friend.

Arthur is touched by this and invites D.W. to ride the Hurl-a-Whirl with them. D.W. already knows she's ready, but admits that Nadine will probably get scared. She also says that they might find tickets for the merry-go-round, for she saw that he wanted to go on it.

Before leaving, he tells her sister that when he gets back, he'll go on any ride with her as she wants. The ride she chose turns out to be the bumper cars and Arthur ends up getting bumped all around.

D.W. is proud of Nadine for being so good and promises her a tour of Arthur's room when they get home. She and Buster both ram Arthur's car simultaneously, which annoys Arthur.

Major characters

 * D.W.
 * Nadine (debut)
 * Arthur
 * Buster
 * David Read
 * Francine

Minor characters

 * Jane Read
 * Muffy
 * Prunella

Background characters

 * Fern
 * Brain
 * George
 * Binky
 * Jenna
 * 3rd Grade Male Dog (Number 2)
 * Helen
 * Nancy

Trivia

 * The friends that D.W. gives a tour to are in Arthur's school. The two girls (Helen and Nancy) are 4th Graders while the boy (3rd Grade Male Dog) wearing the red cap is a 3rd Grader.
 * This is the first time Stanley's name is mentioned and the first appearance of Wonder World and Nadine.
 * Arthur will get chicken pox himself in "Arthur's Chicken Pox."

Errors

 * David's catering van is blue, but in all later episodes it is yellow.
 * The cap D.W. wears at Wonder World is blue, but when she says they might find more green tickets, it turns green.
 * It is briefly shown when Arthur and Buster are upside down on the Hurl-a-Whirl, Buster's ears stick outside of the glass.

Storyline analysis

 * In Baby Steps, Nadine tells D.W.: "How should I know what you were like as a baby? You didn't invent me until you were three!", but in this episode, D.W. about 4.

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