Written By Shaun Blankenship

________

________

Arnold picked the hat up off the ground. Not returning it would result with a small fine that he didn't feel like paying and an earful from the rest of the students. Hey, Arnold! Aren’t you going to pick up your cap? He walked it over to where two adult staff members (They must've been janitors because he had never seen them before in his life) where they took it away. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a five-dollar bill, and they took off the attached tassel for him to keep.

Arnold stepped away from the rest of the students after hugging each one of them with the usual comments. Good luck, Arnold. Never change, man. I still have your copy of Yo Dino Raps and you're never getting it back! MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA! It was the generic barrage of comments you hear in the High School movies, but don't ever think happens in real life. Maybe life is more like the movies; maybe all the cheesy surprises and run-out gags happen everyday around us, but we pass it off as nothing but nonsense and gibberish. Maybe all that nonsense is important. Every minute of life should be analyzed as to what effect it will hold for the future, and no second of time should ever be wasted idly.

Past the crowd of seniors and faces he'll only recall twenty years down the road stood Helga, waiting for him in the same old pink dress he had loved from grade school. Well, in a literal sense it wasn't the same, but who cares? He instantly wrapped his arms around her, diploma in hand. "Thanks for coming."

She smiled in his arms, squinting from the sunshine. "You know I wouldn't miss this. You'll be around for mine, won't you?"

He disbanded the grip and tugged at his graduation gown. "Here's what I figure I'll do: I'll attend the Hillwood Community College for a year, and then maybe see if I can arrange it for me to get into a better college than all I've been offered. By then, you'll be out of High School and can come with me."

She blinked at him, confused at what her response should be. "You'd do that just to stay here?"

"Do you want me to go?"

"I don't know, do you want to go?"

"I don't know, do you want me to go?"

***

Curly ran up behind Gloria and put a hand on her shoulder. "So, now that you have that loser Mike out of the picture, I was wondering-"

"What do you mean 'out of the picture'?" She flung his hand off of the shoulder and turned around. "What, you think because you embarrass me and my date for the evening by beating him up that I'll just run to your arms?"

Curly stood, twiddling his thumbs. "Well… yes… that's the way it usually goes."

"Get away from me!" She threw the hat at people collecting them, and angrily walked away. "I hope I never see you again!"

Park walked over to Curly, who was frozen staring at her leaving, and rested an elbow on his shoulder. "Thad, it's better this way. You win some, you lose some."

He shook a finger as if trying to make a point and turned to the kid on his shoulder. "One day, she will be mine. Oh, yes, my skeptical friend; she will be mine!"

He quickly snapped Curly in the back of his head. "Stop."

Curly bit at his bottom lip and finally threw his hands up in surrender. "Fine! I'll forget about her! Geez!"

***

Rhonda and Robert walked away with their arms around each other. He looked into her eyes, but turned away sheepishly. "Is this the end of us?"

She looked down at her diploma and back to the man on her shoulder. "I don't know. How will we keep in touch?"

"I could come by every weekend or something," he suggested. "It'd be painful driving down there, I mean a day a trip or so. How far apart will our colleges be?"

"I don't know." The confusion between the two caused them to let go of each other. "We could call… or write… maybe you can enroll at a college near me."

"That'd probably work for a while, but afterwards I'd like something better." Robert picked up his shoe and found he had stepped in dog crap. He rolled his eyes and continued walking, scraping his feet in the grass as he did it. "The only place that will take me on such a short notice would be a community college with cruddy courses. I've already been accepted in Pittsburgh. Where's Harvard?"

She tilted her head to the sky. "I don't know… well, you know, I could probably have my parents fly me out to you every weekend."

"After a while, I think it would lessen their bank account." He checked the other shoe and found that it too had been smeared in feces. Does it ever end? The foot started to drag with him on the grass while the other walked steady. "Now this is really upsetting me."

"Let's straighten it out tomorrow." Rhonda waved at various people she passed by, flashing the little 'Oh-I-don't-like-you-but-I'll-pretend-I-do-while-I'm-waving' smile to every one of them. "Tomorrow we can plot it all."

"I don't think I can do that." He stomped his foot in a final attempt to knock the crap off of his shoe. "Now, I have this stuck in my head and I can't get it ou…"

She silenced his mouth by swinging around and kissing him. When she was done, she pulled away and started walking again. "Let's talk about it tomorrow."

He quickly caught up with her. "Tomorrow is very good for me."

She sniffed around and turned to Robert. "What's that smell?"

***

"So Patty!" Harold shouted. He never really noticed it but 9 out of ten times when he was talking, he was shouting. "Are you going to Rhonda's graduation party?"

"Harold," she droned out, "why are you asking me like I wouldn't be going with you?"

"'Cause I wasn't going." He turned to the comfort of his shoelaces, the good old pals who had never judged him since preschool. "I wanted to know if you were still going to go without me."

"Harold, you know I wouldn't do that." She wrapped an arm around his waist, squeezing him closer. "Who's my Hair-Bear? Come on, who's my Hair-Bear?"

He shrugged and moaned out, "I am."

"I wouldn't leave you alone. You know that."

***

"Phoebe," Gerald started while walking through the football field - Why is it that graduations are always on the foot ball field? "I've been thinking… since school's over and after summer, we're bound to split our separate ways, I figured maybe I could tag along with you and… stick around while you go to college."

"Gerald, I'm going to England."

"And I love English muffins!" Gerald winked and pointed at some of the people he passed. "Come on! We can get an apartment together, have some tea and scones, and drive on the wrong side of the road! It'll be a dream come true!"

Gerald raised her eyebrows up towards each other. "You mean you actually want to follow me to England?"

Gerald wiped at his forehead and grabbed Phoebe's hand. They both stopped in the middle of the field. "Phoebe…" He reached into a cut in the gown to his pants pockets and pulled out a ring box. "This isn't what you think. It's a commitment ring; saying that maybe some day I might get serious and engage you."

He didn't even have to open the box to show her; Phoebe immediately took it and jumped onto his body, legs wrapped around his back. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…"

"Phoebe," he uttered, "can I go with you or not because you are really doing damage to my spine right now."

***

Eugene held Sheena by the hand as they walked along the field. "Wow, I can't believe high school's over. What are you doing tomorrow night?"

Sheena took a deep breath and grabbed Eugene by the shoulders, stopping him in his tracks. "Eugene, this isn't going to work?"

"What?"

"Look," she tried looking away while she explained so she wouldn't see his face, "I feel like I need more time to just be by myself and maybe do a little bit of… experimenting…"

Eugene cocked his head sideways. "Huh?"

"I need to go off and live in the woods or something. I need to get back to the basics and be my own woman." As she rambled on, Eugene just gazed stupidly unaware of the message of anything she was saying. "I think we need to break up."

Eugene finally caught the message. "Oh. I understand."

"Great! Bye!" She let go of him and quickly ran off the field. Her parents sat in the parking lot with a large, rusty Volkswagen van in the parking lot. She slid the back door open and hopped in, which was quickly followed by the van peeling out of the parking lot.

Eugene watched the van take off, scratching his head. "Experimenting?"

***

Sid and Stinky each handed their caps in and walked off the field to where their families waited. Sid tugged annoyingly at the gown, scratching and itching himself in the process. "Argh! I hate this thing! I can't wait to go home and take it off!"

"Well, why don't you just take it off right now?" Stinky, to show his meaning, took his off to reveal the clothes he was wearing underneath. "Just carry it until you get to the car."

Sid immediately stopped scratching and dropped his arms to his side. "Um, there's one problem with that."

"What's that, Sid?"

"I didn't know we were supposed to wear clothes under these things."

***

Brainy and Nadine passed by several of the people they had been aquatinted with for all of their lives that they wouldn't see again until a class reunion. Nadine turned to her heavily panting boyfriend and cheered, "Wow, school's over! Aren't you excited?"

"Uh… yeah."

"Okay, seriously, Brainy." She stopped and slapped her hand on top of her face. "I know you can talk without all the 'um' and pausing and I know you know this. Can you just answer this? We're finally out of school! We no longer have to sit here and learn anything! We're adults!"

Brainy pounded at his chest and cleared his throat. "Well, just because we're done with school doesn't mean we're actually adults. Author Isaac Asimov once said that the problem with youth today is they believe that once required amount of school is done for, we find anything to do with learning or being creative as childish and done for. Simply because we're out of school does not mean we should stop learning. What do you think?"

Nadine parted herself from the boy. "Um… I think I hear my mom calling me…"

Brainy slumped his head down and shrugged. "Okay, then…" He moped his way across the field as he watched Nadine rush to her parents. He may have appeared slow at some times, but he could see what was going on. There was a reason he never said much.

***

Helga's parents had driven her to Arnold's ceremony, but never left the car. Miriam was really aggravated by the whole situation, but she had fallen asleep anyway so it didn't matter. While Helga was gone, she actually started waking up more and being more active. Now that she was back, it seemed like everything was slowly twisting down and turning back to normal. Her snoring had also grown louder since Helga left, so Bob was even starting to be annoyed.

Before sending her off to her parents, Helga had followed Arnold as he hugged his grandparents who Ernie and Oskar had helped get out of the house. They stood by the Packard, waiting for Arnold to say whatever he needed so they could leave.

Arnold first hugged his grandmother. "Thanks for showing up today."

"Well, you know we wouldn't stay around that old boarding house." She patted him on the back and let go. "Besides, I think are house is being surveillanced by the Gestapo."

He nodded and went on to his grandfather. Same ol' Grandma. "Thanks, too, Grandpa."

"Oh, don't mention it, short man." He too patted him on the back before releasing him. "Besides, there wasn't anything good on the television."

"Grandpa."

"Hah-heh, I'm just yankin' ya." He pulled at his suspenders and laughed quietly. "So, when are you gonna come home?"

"Well, there's a party at Rhonda's I was thinking of attending. I'm gonna be home really late tonight."

"Okay, but you be careful." He shook Arnold's hand, but melodramatically pulled his head away. "No! I promised myself I wasn't going to cry!"

"Grandpa…"

He smiled and turned back. "Man, I just can't hide anything from you. I thought that maybe you were expecting that or something. You know I won't be able to call you short man anymore, right?"

"You can if you want."

"No, no; it's not gonna seem right. I need a new nickname. Um… how about young man?" Phil raised his finger in the air as if to yell Eureka! "No, no, that won't work. How about not-so-short man?"

"Bye, grandpa."

"Bye to you too, Arnold!" He waved as the two walked away. "Pookie, he's all grown up now. He's too old to control anymore. Who's gonna rake the yard now?"

Gertrude put an arm around his shoulder. "You know… we could always make Oskar do it for money off of his rent."

Phil stretched his arms out and scratched his side. "Just fifteen seconds ago, the senility in me made me forget why I married you. I think I just remembered it."

***

"So, are you riding with me or your parents?"

Helga had just reached the trunk of the Pataki family car. "Parents. I'll get a ride home from you though. See you at the party, Arnold."

"See ya, Helga." He watched as she climbed in the car and slammed the door, waking up her mother from her deep slumber. He walked back over to his Christmas present car and jumped into the driver's side. In less than ten seconds, he was on the street.

Just another school year over and done.