Written By Shaun Blankenship

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"A few more weeks and we're out of this place!"

Gerald slapped his hand on Arnold's back and smiled. The football-headed boy smirked lightly as they both walked down through the city. "That's almost true. We get out next week, but we actually graduate in June."

"Wow, man." Gerald snapped his fingers. "That's just too odd. You nervous?"

"Kind of." Arnold shook his head. "I don't know what I want to do when I go to college. I don't know what I'm going to do after college. With school, we've always had that place to wake up and go every day no matter what. In the real world, when it comes to work and what not, there aren't any suspensions when you mess up. They fire before they think."

Gerald let out a small breath of air. "Don't worry about it, man. You'll end up getting something good."

"What about you?"

"Told you before, college isn't in my future," Gerald said calmly. "I'm fine with that. I know I'm bound to land something sufficient for my living needs."

The blonde-haired boy sighed. "I just feel sorry for Helga."

"Yeah, I heard about that too. She didn't get her community service credit in and she's gonna have to stay another semester. Why feel sorry for her? She had all the time in the world to get that in, and now in May she realizes that she won't be graduating this year. It's her own fault."

"Yeah, but think about it!" Arnold looked at his friend confusedly. "I don't think we'll ever see her again. I don't think she'll even be invited to the reunion for our class."

Gerald placed a hand at the back of his head and began to scratch. "As sad as it is that I may never see Helga Pataki ever again in my life, I really can't feel much sympathy for her. Hey, who are you taking to prom?"

"I think I'm just gonna go stag." Arnold looked off into the clouds; bored with the common city landscape he had grown up with all of his life, he searched for something different it their fluffy shapes. "I don't have anyone to ask. I don't think it'd be hard to find a date, but I'm just sick of all of that. I don't want to bring a date if I don't have to."

"Then why even bother coming?"

"Because that's what you're supposed to do," he said shrugging. "You have to go to your prom. Who knows? Maybe I'll find someone by Saturday. I have a week."

Gerald smiled. "Take Helga."

"Dude, that joke is old already. Besides, you know she hasn't talked to me since March… at all. She wouldn't even take my birthday gift."

"Huh," his friend let out. "Weren't you invited to the party?"

"No, I wasn't."

"That's odd. I was." Gerald finally took his hand away from the back of his head. "I thought you just didn't want to show up."

***

"Don't you have a date?" Helga put her headphones back on and looked back inside of her book. "What about Rhonda?"

Robert threw his hands in the air. "Haven't asked."

She jerked the headphones off of her head as she lay on the bed. "What?"

"I never asked her."

"Well, why don't you? I thought you two were getting along great now?"

"Oh, we are." He clapped his hands together in front of himself. "It's just…"

She snipped the last part of his sentence to make way for her questions. "Aren't you two going out? Isn't that the custom?"

"We are, but…" He trailed off in embarrassment. "We talked it over, and she could go to prom with anybody and still see me afterwards. But you live here too and I'm supposed to be looking out for you. It seemed that…"

"…That you think I couldn't get a date so, out of sympathy, you'd figure I'd want to go to prom with you? No thank you, Mister Roberto." She put the headphones back on her head and gave way to a sarcastic and somewhat evil smile. "I'll be just dandy."

"Helga…"

She grabbed at the ears of the headphones and flung them violently off of her head. "What? What do you want?"

He placed both hands in his pockets and reeled back and forth on the front of his feet. "Look, you're going to this prom. Without me will be fine, but I am going to find someone if you won't go with me."

"What, don't think I can fend for myself?" She raised her hands in the air, waving her fingers around. "It's just a stupid dance. It's probably the biggest school dance of the year. Why should I go? I never attended any of the other ones."

"This isn't some run-of-the-mill thing, it's almost mandatory." As Helga went to put the headphones back on, Robert ran up to the bed and snatched them out of her hands. "Don't do this to yourself. If you wanna find someone, go ahead. Don't turn down my offer if you can't make it by yourself because as long as you live here, you're going to that prom."

She glared bitterly at her landlord. "Okay; let's say, hypothetically, I do go to this prom. What about afterwards? Will it really matter?"

"Yes, it will." He placed both of his hands at the side of the bed. "Everybody goes to their prom, and the one who don't end up miserable with everything in their life. You already have enough to cry about, you don't need more."

Helga let out a small chuckle. "I don't think I've ever heard you like this before."

Robert blinked, knowing she had just missed his entire discussion. "I'm sure you have. Please, try and take this seriously. You have to understand that I wouldn't pester you if I didn't care."

"Well, can't I just go by myself?" Helga grabs her bookmark off of the nightstand, realizing she'll never find out what's going to happen to Travelin' Jack in the Territories today. "I don't have to have a date."

"Yeah, but what kind of loser goes alone?"

***

They finally reached the boarding house. Arnold opened the door and stood back as a slew of animals rushed out like they always had. He turned to Gerald. "Also, if I go alone, I won't have to worry about a limousine. I don't care how I get there."

Gerald pushed half of his smile up towards the eye. "You don't have to worry about that. Phoebe and me are renting one and we've already agreed to take Harold and Patty with us. You could hitch a ride in the Limo-o'-Love."

"That would be good." Arnold nodded his head in thought. "You want me to chip in on the cost?"

"A twenty or something would be appreciated. We really did get a discount though thanks to Phoebe's parents." Gerald started to stare for no reason at the bottom of the stoop away from Arnold. "I think she could be the one."

"Are you sure about that?" Arnold stepped inside of the boarding house and motioned Gerald to follow.

He started to step up the concrete path. "I don't want anybody else, man. I'm tired of it. I just want that one that I can sit down and spend hours with yet never be bored. I think I've found that in Phoebe."

"Gerald," Arnold started as his friend made it through the doorway. "Don't make a decision unless you are absolutely sure. If it's just you being lazy and not wanting to find anybody else, you two shouldn't be together. If it's strictly about her, then you can't let her go."

"Yeah, I know." Gerald shut the door behind himself. "I'm not sure what to do, man. When it comes to that stuff, I'm kind of shallow."

"Just keep going with her." Arnold glowed a warm smile to ensure his friend to trust him. "When the time comes to make it official, you'll know. Is she going to college?"

"Yeah, she is!" Gerald's eyes almost fell out of his skull. "Her parents would kill her if she didn't."

Arnold had started to walk up the stairs to the hallway but stopped quickly. He turned his head slightly to eye Gerald. "Well, what about your parents?"

"Huh?"

Arnold turned back down the stairs. "You're parents are both educated people and possibly more stern than Phoebe's parents. Do they know about your college decisions?"

"My mom wishes like pain that she could send me, where as my dad says maybe me not going will wise me up to the real world." Gerald crossed his arms. "Never did understand my father. I guess he's just a cheapskate."

"I really wish you had better, Gerald."

***

"Well, why should I waste my evening dancing with some guy I've never seen before in my life just to say I had a date to prom? If I'm going to be there, it'll be on my own terms."

"Well, that's what me and Rhonda we're thinking about." Robert had finally taken a seat next to Helga on the bed. "See, if you're with me, it's not like being with a complete stranger. You've known me for how long?"

"Longer than I can remember," let out Helga, "but you don't want to be there with me." She was now being very calm and easy. "I'll go to the prom, but I'll go by myself. You have a good time with Rhonda. I'll be okay. Besides, it's only Sunday. I have a week to change my mind."

Robert smiled. "I don't want you staying here alone on prom night."

"And I appreciate your concern. Case closed. Can I get back to my book now?"

"Yeah, you do that." Robert made his way off the bed and out to the door. "Dinner'll be at seven."

Helga picked up her book from beside her. "Why so early?"

***

"Any word back from the colleges though, buddy?"

Arnold collapsed on his bed as Gerald sat across the room on the couch. "Yeah. Baker College: it's almost as bad as community."

"At least it's something." Gerald lay down on the couch as Arnold had on the bed. "You can put it on a résumé."

"Gerald, what do you want to be when you grow up?" Arnold stared through the window on his roof. "It's a cheesy question, but honestly?"

"What do I want to be?" Gerald looked over to the bed. "Occupied. I don't want to be stuck with a job that does nothing. I need something to fill my time with. Occupied and rich."

"No, I mean what profession would you like to go into?"

"Anything that'll hire me and pay enough to pay the bills, with just enough to buy groceries and the occasional extra somethin'-somethin'."

Arnold shrugged. "That's one way of looking at it."

"What do you want to do?"

"Oh, I don't know, I was looking for ideas."

***

Eugene was standing in front of Sheena's door with a bouquet of roses. With a quick turn away from her smiling face, he pressed play on a small boom box next to his feet. An orchestral tune started to play through the speakers. Eugene bent himself down onto one knee. "Go with me to the prom, please Sheena!"

She gripped her hands together directly under her chin. "I will, Eugene." With that, she rushed the bouquet out of Eugene's hands. His body went leaning back a few inches, and soon he was flailing his arms in an attempt to try and maintain balance. With a small moan, his body went flying backwards off the top of the stoop, flipping on the stairs, and landing him face down on the sidewalk.

He lifted a scraped and bruised finger and muttered. "I'm okay…"

Sheena dropped the roses and rushed to the bottom of the stairs. "Are you okay, Eugene?"

"Yeah, I said I'm okay." He started to push himself off of the pavement. Then, with a teeth-gritting crunch, he grasped his back and fell onto the pavement again. "On second thought, you may want to call a doctor. Preferably a chiropractor."

***

Harold slammed the money on the table. "There it is! All of it! Do you want to go pay the bill?"

Patty had stopped sipping her milkshake to glare up at her boyfriend. "Why would I pay the bill?"

"Well, I don't know," uttered the fat Jewish boy. "Maybe you wanted to. My mom always gives me the option of whether or not I want to go pay the bill."

"Harold, how old are you?"

He scratched at his head, and then took off the bandanna that had replaced his hat to scratch his bald skull even more thoroughly. "Um… I turn twenty or something soon."

"How did that happen?"

"Well," he began, "I was held back for a few years… way early. The teachers all said I was too dumb to go onto the next class."

"And what grade was this?" she pounded out in her droning voice.

"Preschool." Harold nodded as he thought. "So since then, I've followed this graduating class. My parents say the stress of rejection has caused me to lose my hair, and for some reason it won't grow back. I'm not sure." He picked up a fry off of his plate and waved it around as he spoke. "You see, I don't think me being all ticked about being held back would've cause my hair to never grow back. I think it might be some kind of gland disorder."

Patty moved away from her shake. "Wow, that's pretty observant. How can someone fail you in Preschool?"

"I don't know," he answered. "I can't remember. The only class I can remember is my last year with all of you guys. You, Arnold, that kid with the zits, the girl with the brown hair and the really weird nose. You know who I'm talkin' about?"

"Uh…" Patty spaced out over a cheesy James Dean picture on the wall. "No, I don't think I do."

"Don't worry, it's not you, but this chick was uglier than Predator." Harold ate the fry he had been waving around. "Ironically, she had a unibrow too. She also had this weird hair. It was somewhat like Nadine's; she also had this odd name you don't hear often… like Marrakech or something. Something Russian-sounding."

"Well, are we going to leave?" She slurped the last bit of her shake down through the small white straw. "I mean, what else is there to do?"

"We will, just wait." Harold scooped up the last five fries off of the plate and crammed them into his cheeks. With a mouth full of oil-fried potato, he continued to talk; "Maybe her name was Natasha, like that cartoon with the stupid moose."

"Harold, have you bought a suit for prom yet?"

He sat, blinking at the change of subject, and swallowed his mouth full of potato. "About that, I haven't exactly gone out and rented a tuxedo. Matter of fact…" He tapped his fingers nervously on the tabletop while biting his lower lip. "…I was wondering if it was okay for me to not wear a tux."

"Prom is a very formal occasion, Harold." She pushed the cup to the side of her so she had room to place her hands. "Everybody shows up neatly dressed, usually in a tuxedo. If not a tux, you better find a nice looking suit in your dad's closet or something."

"No," blasted Harold like a foghorn. He toned himself down for the rest of his sentence. "If you want me in a tux, I'll show up in a tux."