Written By Shaun Blankenship

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Helga closed her locker to see Arnold's oddly shaped head leaning on the locker next to hers. "What's your problem, Helga?"

Helga scowled. "I don't know what you're talking about." She placed her folders under her arm and started walking to class.

Arnold stepped fast to catch up. "Helga, you know what I'm talking about. Why were you following me?"

"I wasn't following you." As Arnold walked along side of her, she never turned her eyes or head to talk to him face to face. "What'd you do last night? Have a nice time?"

"Helga!" Arnold grabbed Helga by the shoulders and swung her into a locker to make eye contact. "Why do you insist on making my life miserable? Why?"

Helga pushed Arnold off of her as dusted her shoulders off. "I'm not trying to make your life miserable! I'm just…"

Arnold interrupted her sentence. "You know, for someone who seems to 'love' me so much, I'd think you'd have some courtesy or at least respect for my privacy!"

Helga's eyes bulged farther than they had before and quickly narrowed in anger at Arnold. "I have respect for your privacy, Arnold, it's just…" Her eyebrow lifted and her eyes opened more in a sympathetic manner. "You wouldn't understand. At first, I… I didn't want… Arnold… I can't explain it without taking a half-hour and I have to get to class. You do to."

Helga went to walk away but Arnold pushed her to the locker again. "Screw that, this is more important."

"Arnold," Helga said as she wiped his left hand off yet again. "Can I explain this to you second hour? Please?"

The bell rung in the hallway but Arnold kept her to the locker with his right hand. "You're already tardy, you might as well explain."

"Okay!" Helga sighed and scowled at Arnold. "Get your hand off of me and I'll tell you."

Arnold backed off and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry."

Helga once again brushed at her shoulders. "I was going to follow you but I wasn't going to mess up your date with Ruth."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know, Arnold! Sheer curiosity? I did and that's enough! But then my dad showed up and I decided to leave. The movie was completely a coincidence."

Arnold crossed his arms. "So when you saw I was there, you decided to throw popcorn at me to try and ruin my date? Why?"

"That's not how it was! I didn't know it was you! I'm…" Tears started to form at the bottoms of her eyes. "I'm sorry, Arnold!"

"Helga…" Arnold placed his hand at his forehead. "Look, I'm sorry. Don't cry."

Helga crazily leapt at Arnold and threw her arms around him. "Arnold… can I please go to class now?"

A hall monitor had just then turned the corner. "Why aren't you two in class?"

Helga sobbed lightly on Arnold's back as he tried turning towards the lady. "Miss Mallard, she's just… having a personal episode. Family troubles, you understand."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you need to go home, girl?" Miss Mallard walked up and ducked down slightly to try and reach eye level with Helga, had she been looking at the hall monitor. "Do you need to talk to a counselor?"

Helga muffled her voice through Arnold's shirt. "I'm fine. I'm gonna be all right. Just give me a minute."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Helga wasn't about to stop now. Being that close to Arnold was better than any class. "I'll be fine."

Arnold looked at the hall monitor as soon as she had stood up straight again. "I'll just get her to class in a little bit." He carefully pried her off of his back and stood her in front of him. "Are you ready to go to class, now? Can you handle it?"

Helga snorted in a huge amount of snot and nodded yes. "Please help me there. I need you to escort me."

Arnold scowled at Helga but turned and smiled at Miss Mallard. "She'll be fine. I'll just take her to class."

Arnold and Helga started to walk away, Arnold with an arm on Helga's shoulder patting her in a false comfort. Miss Mallard stood in the same spot with her head cocked sideways. "Well, do you two need a late pass? Without it, that tardy's going to be inexcusable."

Arnold turned around and pointed Helga in the same direction. "It'd be so kind of you if you could do that for us."

Helga had now become deeply into the act of being depressed over a family problem and using Arnold as her crutch. "Please do. Arnold should not suffer so due to my horrible life. I am so sorry, Arnold."

Miss Mallard held up a finger. "You two stay right there for a moment. I'll be right back. What are you two's names?"

They both answered: "Arnold." "Helga."

Miss Mallard walked off into the main office. As soon as she was out of the picture, Arnold took his arm off of Helga. "What was all that for?"

"Ah, quit whining like you didn't like it." Helga flattened out her shirt with her hands. "It doesn't matter anyway, we're getting to class with an excused tardy. I told you what you wanted to know, now leave me alone."

"Why can't you just leave me alone, Helga? Why do you always have to be right behind me?"

"Because!" Helga grabbed at her hair and gritted her teeth. She really had nothing new to expose, but it's hard to think of an explanation why she had been there. "Because I'm crazy about you, and I'm… shall we say, addicted to you."

"Addicted?"

Helga then became very serious. "I really don't want nor expect you to understand, but I'm trying to stay away."

"Helga, if you want to be my friend, be my friend." Arnold placed a hand back on her shoulder but was now standing in front of her instead of to the side. "If you want to do something, we'll do something but when I want to have a personal date with someone else, leave me alone!"

Miss Mallard came back from the office with two small slips of paper. She handed one to each of them. "Alright, just give this to your teachers when you get there."

Arnold placed the slip of paper in his pocket and nodded. "Yeah, thanks Miss Mallard. "Come on, Helga."

He held his hand out and Helga gripped it. In her other hand, she held on to the pass. "Thank you so much, Miss Mallard."

"Don't mention it." The hall monitor walked away from them but was later heard yelling, "Hey, you with the glasses! Put that down!"

Arnold let go of Helga's hand. "Don't spy on me anymore."

"Fine." Helga turned and started walking to class. "You weren't walking me in the right direction anyway."

***

Helga sat next to Robert in the back row of the classroom. "Hey, Robbie-Bob. What's shakin'?"

Robert pointed over to Rhonda who sat in the front row three rows to the right of him. "Watch."

Helga looked over at Rhonda but then briefly scanned the room. "Um, what am I supposed to look at. Also, where's Misses Keeling?"

Robert held up a hand to separate him from Helga. "Quiet! She went out to her car to get her lesson plan. Watch Rhonda right…" A digital beeping sound rung in the air. "Now."

Rhonda looked at her watch and hit a button on it. She then pulled out from her folder a large photo of Robert and hugged it. When she was done, she placed it on the desk and gently touched Robert's hair. She then slid the photo back in the folder.

Robert turned to Helga. "This happens everyday at exactly seven forty-three. Everyday she does this." He snapped his fingers and took Helga's concentration off of Rhonda. "Leave Arnold alone. From the victim's point of view, this stuff just gets creepy."

"That girl has lost her mind." Helga squinted over at Rhonda. "What kind of watch is that?"

"I don't know." Robert looked over at Rhonda also. "Somehow she found a gold-banded dial watch with a digital alarm. It's boggling." He turned to Helga again, but this time she immediately turned her head towards him too. "Yet for some reason I want one now."

"Even I'm not that obsessed." Helga stuck her nose up.

"Yeah, right. Where were you last night?"

Helga glared down at Robert. "Man, who told you about that?"

"Ha!" Robert pointed at Helga in an almost accusative manner. "I knew Arnold had a date last night but I was only guessing that you followed him. Helga, you have to stop doing that."

"What do you care anyway?" Helga looked away from Robert. "You don't know what it's like."

"Sure, Helga." Robert moved his hands about as he spoke to her. "When you cross the line of obsessed friend to obsessed stalker, it stinks being on the receiving end. You're probably scaring the poor guy to death."

"Rob, I just took a lot of this guff out in the hall from Arnold himself. I really don't need a second helping."

Misses Keeling, her French teacher, had then arrived in the class. "Bonjour, class."

The entire congregation spoke simultaneously, "Bonjour Madame Keeling."

Helga sighed. "I hate this class so much."

Robert turned to her. "Yeah, but when Arnold takes you on your honeymoon to Paris, how are you going to know what anybody's saying to you?"

Helga thought and nodded. "Good point."

Misses Keeling looked out into the sea of students. "Helga, quelle heure est-il?"

Helga shrugged. "Um… Je ne sais pas?"

The teacher pointed at the clock. "Helga, quelle heure est-il?"

Helga looked up to the clock. "Oh, the time. Uh… Il est… huit heures moins… le quart?"

The teacher nodded. "Oui! Il est du soir ou du matin?"

"Um… du matin?" She cringed waiting to be declared wrong.

"Uh-huh, oui! Parfait!" She walked to the other side of the class and started asking random questions in French.

Helga turned to Robert. "Did she just say something about ice cream? I could've sworn she said something about a parfait."

***

"Arnold, how's life treatin' ya so far?"

He slumped down in the seat next to Gerald in Chemistry. "Terrible. Just miserable."

"Yeah, I saw you weren't on the bus today." Gerald scratched the back of his head. "Where were ya, man?"

"I drove. Plus, I missed it. Woke up too late. Alarm clock was broken. I arrived at school on time though."

Gerald reflected on Arnold's statement, "Don't you have twenty million of those clocks? Why is that?"

"It's a long story." The teacher in the front of the class droned on and on of nothing Arnold understood. Somehow, though, he was able to take notes through the babbling and talk to Gerald at the same time. "You won't believe what happened last night with Ruth."

"I can't tell where you're going with this, buddy." Gerald lifted an eyebrow in question. "Was it an extremely good night or an extremely terrible night?"

"Gerald, it was both."

***

You see; dinner lasted for a while but there was nothing really important about it. It was just at this small Coney Island downtown. While we're there, we noticed that Helga is following us, and she was sitting at a table a few seats behind Ruth. She left so it wasn't that big of a problem, but that wasn't the end of it.

We went to the theatre and saw this movie, The Adventures of Goat Boy or something. Ever seen it? It's a terrible, terrible movie. Anyway, during the beginning of the movie, she keeps yelling at Ruth and me and throws a whole bag of popcorn at my head. After that, Ruth went up to buy some drinks. I offered but she insisted. She didn't want me getting up although I had already stood up to go. She said I was already paying for the whole evening and that it was time she chipped in a little. I still paid for all of it.

Apparently, while she went up to buy some stuff, her and Helga met up at the concession stand. Her and Ruth had some words, and Helga ended up punching Ruth in the stomach.

***

"What?" Gerald backed off in disbelief. "You're joking, right?"

"I kid you not, man. She must've wailed on Ruth pretty hard."

Gerald nodded. "Well, continue."

***

Anyway, the punch in the stomach becomes a brawl. They're both fighting and scrapping and causing a scene. Pretty soon, the manager kicks them out, giving Helga a one-year ban. She can't step foot in that theatre for an entire year. They now keep a picture by the register to tell.

Anyway, I sat in that theatre for a half-hour before I became suspicious. Time flies when you're watching a movie. I looked throughout the lobby and she wasn't there. Thinking that she had left me at the theatre alone, I went back and finished the movie.

During the last few minutes of the movie, an usher came up to me and explained the whole situation… lightly. The movie had just finished anyway, and I left to go meet her. Since it was so cold out, they let her wait for the movie to get out inside in a private room. Helga had already left in her car, and for some reason they didn't bother telling me when it happened. She left during the beginning of the movie and waited in a small room for an hour and a half.

Oddly enough, she's holding no grudge against me, but utter hatred against Helga. We left and I took her down to Slausen's to make up for all of it. When I finally took her home at ten-thirty, she asked if we could try it all again some other night next week. She wants me to call her next Friday. She has some college stuff she has to take care of at the moment.

***

"Arnold, getting' in with the older women. My man."

"So it was a terrible date but it had a fair ending." Arnold tapped his fingers on the desk. "Things happen sometimes that just make you say… 'Hey, cool.' This was one of them."

Miss Riley was facing towards Arnold from the other side of the room. "Well, as deep and meaningful as that wisdom is, I'm gonna have to ask you to either stay quiet and pay attention or leave my class."

Arnold shot straight in his desk and locked his hands together in front of him. "Yes, Miss Riley."

The entire class let out a mild wave of laughter. When it was over, Miss Riley turned back to the board. "Anyway, covalent bonding…"

Gerald patted his friend on the back. "Arnold, you're a bold kid."