Written By Shaun Blankenship

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"Ruth?"

Arnold nodded to Gerald as he sat next to him on the bus. "Ruth McDougal was at my restaurant last night."

"Why are you calling it 'your' restaurant? You don't own it."

Arnold narrowed his eyes. "That's not important. I call it mine because I work there. Anyway, she was there with her family. I had to wait on her."

"Well, so what? Did you talk to her?"

Arnold looked at his shoes. "Well, here's the whole story."

***

Sid came up to me and told me that I had another customer. He would've told me had he known it was Ruth, but he hadn't recognized her without her braces. I can't blame him. The funny thing about it was that for a moment, I couldn't remember her and I had just seen her last year at Rhonda's Halloween party.

Anyways, I go up to her and ask if she's ready to order. She looked at me and it was then I recognized her. She even remembered my name! She said, "Hey, you're that Arnold kid from Rhonda's Halloween party."

***

"And what'd you say to her?"

"I said, 'Yeah, I am.' That's not important, there's more to the story.'"

***

Anyway, she told me, "I'm not ready to order, my parents aren't here yet. We're celebrating that I've been accept to a new college."

It turns out that after high school, she started going to some ratty, small college somewhere out in Utah and was now being transferred somewhere closer to home. I sat down with her and we just kept talking, Gerald. I've never sat down with someone and talked to them like this… except for maybe Helga, but that was different. She asked me, "Why haven't you ever talked to me before? I always knew you were staring at me back in fourth grade."

This blew my mind. I had no idea she had any type of clue that I liked her in anyway. I, of course, played it cool and admitted to liking her but was now over it. She then said, "Well, that's too bad. You are kind of cute."

***

Gerald glared in disbelief. "Okay; now I know you're lying."

Arnold shook his head. "I swear, this is the truth! If not, let me get struck by lightening."

"You're honestly not making this up?"

"Not a word."

"Well, that can't be the whole story, can it?"

"Not by a long shot."

***

To this, I played the humble, modest type of guy. I was like, "Aw, you're just saying that." She was persistent with this. I mean, she wasn't giving me the key to her room or anything, but she kept on with the "no, you're really cute" routine. We then started talking about me. She asked how I've been, how school is for me. I've never had anyone care enough to ask me this type of stuff… except for Helga, but that's a different story.

We sat there for a half-hour just shooting the breeze. It was then that I asked her if she wanted to go see a movie or something on Wednesday. She said sure and that I can pick her up at her house. She wrote down the address on the back of one of her parents' business cards when they arrived.

***

"So you're going out with Ruth?"

Arnold remained silent but just nodded his head with a smile.

"Aw, yeah, man!" He lifted his hand up with the palm down. "Come on, now!"

Arnold slapped his hand. "I've waited a long time for this, Gerald. There's no way I'm gonna…"

"Stop right there!" Gerald slapped a hand across Arnold's mouth. "Don't even start with these confidence speeches and all that 'nothing can go wrong' crap. As soon as you say it, something happens. Unless you want Ruth showing up horribly disfigured with a walker and a hunchback, I'd advise you shut up."

"Sorry."

"Don't say sorry, man. Ain't nothing to be sorry about."

***

Helga rummaged through her adopted dresser at Robert's house in her clothing. "It has to be in here somewhere, I made sure I stole it before I left!" She flung shirts around the room and tossed many other articles around with them. "Where is it? Ah, here it is!"

She pulled a long, pink dress with a stripe at the bottom, just like the ones she used to wear all throughout elementary school. When she had become Johnny Stitches' "It Girl" so many years ago, Miriam had bought a dress just like the one Helga used to wear. Before she left, Helga made sure to snatch it since Miriam wouldn't be wearing it anymore. They were almost the same size. The dress may be a little big, but it always kind of was.

She slipped it on over a white, short-sleeved shirt. She was the spitting image of her younger days, almost like Phoebe was now. She hadn't ever been happier than she was at this moment.

***

"Uh-oh, Arnold. Here comes trouble."

Helga and Robert boarded the parked bus. Robert took a seat near the front of the bus and Helga took a seat in the very back behind Gerald and Arnold. She placed her backpack beside her and pulled a CD player out of it and sunk down in her seat. Gerald turned to Arnold. "Hey, she's back. Maybe she has a poem about her absence!" Gerald started to laugh. "Oh, fairest Arnold, there is not one day / that I wish we weren't so far away…"

Helga glared up at the top of the seat in front of her. No, I can't hear you at all.

Arnold put his hand on the base of Gerald's left shoulder and neck and pulled him close. He spoke to where Helga could not hear, "What are you doing?"

"Hey, I'm just playing around."

"Gerald, that's so mean what you're doing to her right now!" He let go of Gerald. "You're acting like Sid and Stinky."

"Hey, what's wrong with you?" Gerald pushed away a little. "I didn't mean it to be mean, I was just playing around. You should know that."

"But it was still mean." Arnold sighed. "Imagine if it was you in her position."

"I didn't mean anything by it!" Helga had now poked her head above the seat, startled by their conversation. "I'm sorry!"

Arnold had finally started to talk at an average volume. "Well, I'm not the one you should be apologizing to." Helga snuck back down in her seat quickly. "You know she heard you."

Gerald turned over to see Helga crouching down in her seat. "I'm sorry, Helga, for any offensive comments I may have made about you." He offered a hand out. "Friends?"

The blonde-haired girl scowled and crossed her arms. "No."

"Buddies?"

"No."

"Acquaintances?"

Helga shoved her hand out and shook Gerald's vigorously. "Deal, now leave me alone."

Gerald sighed. "Fine." He retrieved his hand and placed it back at his side. He slowly turned back to Arnold. "I did the best I could."

"Well, thanks for apologizing." Arnold stood on his knees and turned around to the seat behind him and the girl occupying it. "Helga…"

She cut his sentence in half and left it dead on the floor. "I don't want to talk to you, Arnold. At all."

The bus stopped and the doors opened again, this time for students to vacate. Arnold stepped off of the bus before Helga and stood at the doors to follow her. "So, what, we're not friends anymore?"

"Something like that." She grasped her books tightly against her chest as she walked in the school.

"Come on, you're not being fair!" Helga opened the front door of the school and tried her best to slam the door on Arnold's face. No attempt worked. "Just because we don't like-like each other doesn't mean we can't be friends."

"To you, it doesn't mean we can't be friends. To me, it does. Two different definitions, keep up with the program." Helga walked inside of the cafeteria with Arnold hot on her trail. "Why do you want to talk to me anyway?"

"Because I know you don't hate me."

Helga sat down. "What would give you that sort of idea?"

Arnold sat across from her at the round table. "If you hated me so much, you wouldn't be so upset over all of this. Also, you wouldn't have confined yourself to your room for a week." Arnold cringed back at the sound of his own words.

"What, do you think you know everything about me?" Helga slammed her hands on the table's surface. "What are you, some sort of analyst?"

"Helga, calm down." Arnold raised his hands as if being mugged or pleading innocent. "I'm just trying to talk to you, I don't want to start a fight. I want to be friends again. Please, Helga."

Helga stood up. "I'm going to go get my breakfast now. If you're still here by the time I come back, I'm going to deflate that football-shaped head of yours with no anesthetic. As you should know, I'm usually one to keep my word." Helga walked away and into the, what was now the "breakfast", line. It was the same place they'd line up for lunch but with self-service.

Arnold stared at the table's shiny top. "I am so screwed."

***

Miss Apollyon walked up and down the rows of her classroom, which now were in straight lines and rearranged seating. "Children! As you know, this is Creative Writing class, and so you shall have to creatively write." While walking by Peapod Kid's desk, she quickly snatched a Yahoo bottle he had by his feet. "I know this may be a shock to all of you kids who have been sleeping through this class for the last semester, but now I'm counting all of your papers as test grades!"

The whole class' jaws dropped. Gerald spoke out against her tyranny, "Miss A! That's not fair! A test grade is…"

The teacher stomped her foot down. "Stop the talking! This isn't open for discussion! This is a wake up call for all of you slackers and procrastinators. To make this even more of an awakening, I'm going to make your next assignment as a partner project. If one of you doesn't do your part, you both fail!"

Arnold rolled his eyes back. I know right where this is going. I'm probably going to be partnered with Hel…

"Arnold, you're paired up with Helga."

He slammed his head to his desk with a deafening thud. "Perfect."

"Do you have a problem with your partner?"

Arnold lifted his head up and sarcastically smiled. "No, it just seemed a little predictable. I'm not upset at all."

"There's that wit showing through again." Miss Apollyon walked passed him and on to the next student. "Keep it up and you'll find yourself suspended for three days. Your grade is on thin ice, young man."

Arnold placed his head back on the tabletop. "Got ya, Miss A."

"We don't use 'got'. You say 'I understand, Miss A.'" She looked around her classroom. "Where is Helga any way?"

***

Helga sat on the floor outside of the doorway to her classroom. "Why does it always have to be Arnold? What did I do to disserve such bad luck?"

Helga's hands, which had been clenched in front of her, were now placed at her sides as she spotted Curly walking down the hall. The wide-eyed boy waved at her and smiled with all he could. "Oh, you don't have to stop your endless chants about Arnold just because of me."

"I swear, I'm going to kill you one of these days."

"Not if I beat you there!" He continued walking down the hall with a chipper step.

Helga blinked in confusion and looked back at her hands. The door to the classroom opened to reveal the raccoon-eyed teacher behind it. "What are you doing out in the hall?"

"I started to fear a little woozy like I had to throw up. I thought sitting in your class and waiting for permission would just cause an accident."

"So sneaking out in the hall to puke is okay?"

Helga smiled. "It's better than on your carpeted floor, isn't it?"

The teacher pointed her thumb towards the inside of the room. "Get back into class, Helga."

"Right away, Miss A."

***

"I have some rules and regulations to this assignment, football-head, and I'm going to lay them flat on the table right now." Helga took the seat next to Arnold and placed her stack of folders and notebooks beside him. "First of all…"

"Helga, if we're working together, shut up."

Helga raised her finger as if ready to speak, but silenced herself. She then decided to talk, "Arnold, I'm trying to reach a negotiation here and you're just blocking my chances."

Arnold's jaw dropped as he turned to her. "I'm stopping you from what? Excuse me?"

"It's like this, football. If we're working on this, we can't be all mad at each other."

Arnold held his hands out with his palms to the ceiling. "I'm not mad at you!"

"No need to shout now." Helga calmly pulled a notebook out and opened it with the cover to the back in her hand. "Even though we have to work together, I can't have you causing problems."

Arnold placed a hand on her notebook and slammed it down to the table. "Are you going to stop acting like this, or are we going to zip past this with you acting like this. You aren't running this project, it's a group effort." He pointed at himself with his thumb. "I'm as in charge as you are and we're both getting graded for the paper together. We have to coincide."

Helga lifted half of her eyebrow in question to Arnold's proposition. "You don't have a problem about all the stuff I've done in the past? You don't have a problem knowing what you do now?"

"No!" Arnold backed away from Helga a little bit. "Apparently you do."

She crossed her arms and gritted her teeth. "So it's okay?"

"Helga, are we friends or what?"

She looked up and uncrossed her arms. "Yeah. We're friends. Just ignore me if I start acting weird or anything like that."

Arnold nodded in agreement. "I understand. What's the subject of the assignment we have to do?"

Helga squinted to read the board. "Um… we have to 'write a story consisting of fourteen-hundred words that…' I don't know. Shouldn't we have a worksheet for this?"

Arnold looked on the desk. "Oh, I'm so stupid. Yeah. We must write a story from the viewpoint of an inanimate object. This is so pointless."

"Tell me about it."

Arnold tapped his pencil on the desk. "Any ideas?"

She put her left elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm. "I have a few."