Written By Shaun Blankenship

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Well, the dream took place a month and a half ago at Rhonda's Halloween party. Why I'm thinking of October in December, I have no idea. I arrived at the party, except this time I wasn't a witch. This time, I was a fairy. I had on a cheap, glittery pair of wings and a little halo-thing. It wasn't really a halo but something like that. Anyway, I showed up, and everyone said hi to me as soon as I stepped in. It was like I was Miss Popular, woman of the hour or something. Everyone I met was smiling and grinning, extending a hand out saying, "Helga! So glad to see you!" It was plain eerie, but I just passed it off as nothing. I made my way through the crowd, and just like in a movie, at the end was Arnold. Arnold wasn't a vampire this time. This time he looked like Rhet Butler from Gone with the Wind. I hate that movie! HATE IT! Anyway, I met him and he took my hand, and we started dancing. I don't mean Pulp Fiction dancing; I mean Box Step dancing. Waltzing and junk. We danced for hours, almost endlessly. At the end of it all, we were the only people left at the party. Arnold stopped, bent on one knee, and pulled out a ring. The diamond, I kid you not, was the shape of a marble. He asked, "Helga will you marry me?" I hesitated to answer him, but then the lights went out. I was in total darkness for maybe five minutes, looking for Arnold. When the lights came back on, he was gone. I was stranded in what used to be Rhonda's living room, but had morphed into a mansion's ballroom. I wasn't dressed as a fairy anymore. I was in a black dress with a veil over it. I then ran outside to Rhonda's front door, and stopped as soon as I saw a funeral procession traveling down the street. The hearse stopped and two drivers opened the back. They pulled the casket out and opened it to reveal Bob lying inside. One of the drivers threw off her hat to reveal herself to be Miriam. She stomped her foot on the ground and pointed at me, yelling, "You did this! You did this!"

Helga rustled through her closet searching for an empty book to write in. Millions of them stayed on the floor while she had a box filled with ones just like them. When Office Max has a sale, you take advantage of it. The shrines had vanished. She may still have one in the small attic above her room, but she hadn't tended to it in years.

She flipped through the pages of book after book, finding nothing but every page with inked or penciled entries. She finally ran across the one she was looking for. The one that had still about twenty pages left in the back. If she remained as consistent as she was back in the fourth grade, those pages could be filled in twenty minutes. But, luckily for her hand, time was now very short usually.

She patted her hand around her to find the pen she had scribbled in her diary with. A cheap, black ballpoint pen can be the best friend of a hopeless lover. She prepped the pen inside of her hand and began to jot down her every thought.

***

Big Bob Pataki tossed and turned inside of his bed until he awoke himself. At first, he lied there staring at the ceiling trying to bore himself to sleep. Right when it had started to work and he had started to doze off, the sound of papers scattering and books being thrown around snapped him back into reality. What the heck is that? he thought to himself. He threw on a large Cotton Terry robe (Free with the purchase of the Tae Bo gift box) and slipped down stairs to find the source of the noise.

On his way down, he mumbled curses at the awakening din. "Ugh, when I find whatever's making that noise, I'm gonna twist it like a pretzel until it can't move to cause it." He reached Helga's room. Opposed to her elementary days, Helga's door was now much more maturely decorated. Bumper stickers littered the surface of the passageway. Cheap little phrases like 'Earth first - We'll screw up the other planets later'; 'As seen on the Jerry Springer show'; and the everlasting classic: Proud father of your honor roll student. With Helga being a female, the sticker didn't make much sense. For some reason, Helga found humor in it either way.

At first he didn't open the door, but waited for the noise to sound again. It had stopped but Bob was about to burst in ex post facto. He may be rude, but he wasn't that rude. He creaked Helga's door open a notch and saw his daughter scribbling inside a small book. What is she doing at this hour?

Helga began reading her poetry out loud as she scribbled it. "…Forever I am lost in the fluster of the snow / searching for your hand in the night. / Oh, Arnold, my love of so long ago, / I beg that you heed to my plight."

Bob was speechless. How long has THIS been going on?

She continued, "I still search these streets in the cold of December, / calling for you comfort and aid. / If you forget my affections, then please always remember / how I loved but denied what I said."

"Oh, Arnold. Oh, Arnold! Oh…" Helga turned around to see her dad's face peaking out of the crack of her door. "Dad!"

Bob flung the door opened completely. "How long has this been going on?"

Helga slammed her book closed (as if it mattered at this point). "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough." He allowed himself into his daughter's room. "Isn't Arnold that little adoption case from down the block? The one who lives with his crazy grandparents?"

Helga stood up and pointed at her door. "Get out of my room, Bob!"

"So how long has this whole obsession been going on? I see you have a lot of books over there."

Helga reached out and grabbed her father by the neck of his pajamas. "Get… out… of my ROOM!"

"Hey!" Bob shoved his daughter off of him and sent her to the floor. "What do you think you're doing? I was just asking some simple questions…"

"You were just invading my privacy! Get out!"

"Hey, this is my house, so this is my room! I own this place, I pay rent, and you're so close to getting a boot out the door and into the cold, Olga!"

Helga stood back on her feet. "My name is HELGA, DAD! HELGA! NOW GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"

Bob stepped back from his daughter. "You have a week, little missy. You have exactly one week to leave my house. Until that time, you stay out of my way." Bob walked out of her room with his hand on her doorknob. "Good-night, Helga!" He slammed the door, causing a family portrait on the wall across from the door to fall off and shatter the glass. Bob stormed back into his bed, where Miriam was still asleep despite the ruckus.

***

Helga grabbed her books and threw them back in her closet, mumbling, "I hate Bob! I hate BOB!" She jammed in everything, packed in like Spam, inside the closet and slammed the door, cracking the wood along the side. She sprawled herself across her bed and reached for her phone.

***

The boy groggily answered the ringing. "Hello?"

The voice on the other phone wasted no time. "Robert, did I wake you? I need your help. Do you have a spare room in your house?"

"Um… yeah… why?"

"Bob is threatening to kick me out, I need a place to stay."

Robert finally came to the realization of what was going on. "Helga? Do you realize what time it is? Do you need to come here now?"

Robert's mother called from down the hallway. "Rob, what's going on?"

Robert placed a hand over the receiver. "It's nothing, mom. Go back to bed." He took his hand off. "What's going on?"

"Bob's kicking me out in a week. I won't survive that long. I need to leave tomorrow. Do you think you could arrange it? I know this asking a lot from you…"

Robert rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I can arrange it. I'll talk to my mom tomorrow, but I can assure you she'll say yes. I have to get back to bed, Helga. I need to work tomorrow."

"Thank you, Rob! Thank you! Oh, man, you don't know how much this means to me!" She paused. "Hey, when did you get a job?"

"I've had one for a while now."

"Oh. How's life treating you?"

"Rhonda's stalking me."

"Oh, really?"

"You know, I've known she's wanted me for so long. For some reason, I guess she doesn't remember fifth grade when she was playing secret admirer with me. Now, she's all crazy about what happened in fourth grade and how we're meant for each other."

"Well, how do you feel about her?"

"I have a girlfriend."

"Yeah, but how do you feel about her?"

Robert's brow tightened on his eyes. "I have work, Helga. I need to sleep."

"Okay, okay. Hey, call me tomorrow. We don't talk like we used to."

"Well, I would've thought the first person you would have turned to would be Phoebe."

Helga laughed. "I tried setting that up once a while ago. Trust me, never again."

"Okay, Helga, I gotta go."

Helga was still lightly chuckling. "Yeah, okay. See ya, Robert."

"See ya." Robert hung the phone back on the base. "Well, that was unexpected."