MDT’s "Hey Arnold!" Fan Fiction
"
Stay Together"
By Shaun Blankenship
CHAPTER 1: Morning
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"Hey, Helga, get out of bed! The bus is here!"
With her eyes more shut than open, Helga sat up frantically in her bed. "The bus is here?"
"Yeah!" Bob Pataki had a semi-concerned look on his face. "And it's leaving right now!"
"How could I have slept through the bus? What happened to my alarm clock?" She looked on the floor. The only remains of her alarm clock left were little black pieces of plastic and the screen the at one point would flash the time in digital brilliance.
"Oh, that thing. Went off about an hour ago and was driving me nuts. Couldn't find the off button."
"You couldn't find the off button so you smashed it into a million pieces? You couldn't have at least woken me up?"
"Hey, relax. There's one in the closet from when Olga lived here. Her's wasn't that noisy!"
Helga was infuriated with the fact that Bob would deliberately break her alarm clock instead of waking her up but at the moment was too tired to even talk to him. Starting a quarrel with Big Bob was the last thing on her docket. "Well, you broke it. Now leave. I need to get dressed."
"Fine, I gotta get to work anyway. I'm gonna be late now because I had to wake you up for the bus."
"No, you're going to be late because you don't know how to work an alarm clock, Dad."
"Hey, back when I was a kid, I didn't have an alarm clock!" Bob steps out of her room and shuts the door behind him.
Helga finally decided to sit up out of bed. "Why does my dad have to be so dumb all of the time! I mean rule of probability would at least make it so he wouldn't screw up at some point of his life!" She walks over to her closet, still in a semi-sleepy state. Opon opening her closet, she takes out one of the many pink dresses that are stored in it.
Helga makes it into the kitchen. Her mother is fast asleep on the counter, which didn't surprise Helga at all. "Hey, mom, did you pack my lunch?"
Miriam lifts her head and starts talking as if she's still asleep. "Oh, yeah, lunch. It's in the... oven..." Her head almost violently slams back down on the counter. She starts to sleep again.
Helga rolls her eyes back and sighs. She opens the oven and finds her lunchbox in delight. "I wonder what she packed me?" She opens it and suddenly gets a disturbed look on her face. "All that's in here is a thermos." She shakes the thermos in her hand. "And it's empty."
Miriam then lifted her head to speak. "What? Oh, yeah..." Once again, she had bit the dust on the kitchen counter.
"Ah, forget it. I'll do it myself." Helga walked over to the refrigerator and packed her own lunch.
Class was already in session when she walked in. Mr. Simmons was in the middle of a lecture.
"Alright, class, now after Napoleon took Louisiana... Oh, hello, Helga. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to mark you tardy."
"Well, I am tardy, aren't I? It's not just me?" Helga gave a sarcastic smile to the teacher and then returned to her usual sulk.
"Helga, you're gonna need a worksheet." Mr. Simmons reached over to his desk and pulled a piece of paper out of a manila folder. "Here you go."
Helga just seemed to not care. "Gee, thank you. How may I ever repay you?"
When recess came around, Helga had explained to everyone why she had been late to school. Wasn't really much to tell though. "...and then Miriam hadn't even packed my lunch! I hate my parents! Sometimes I wished that they had never been married!"
"Helga, don't say that." Arnold, the peacemaker of P.S. 118 had finally come in to play. "I mean, there's something you like about your parents."
"No, there isn't."
"Helga, you're not being fair to them. I mean they have their problems and you do to, but you can't take it all out on them. I mean, they're your parents! Without them, you wouldn't even be here!"
"Wake me when it happens."
Helga then sat down on a bench. Arnold follows with her. "Helga, come on. You don't mean that."
"Arnold, you have no idea what I'm going through right now, alright? This isn't just one thing; both of them can't do anything right! It's a miracle if my dad can even remember my name at times."
"It's better than having none at all. I know how that is." Helga begins to sulk thinking about it. "Be thankful that your parents make an attempt to do things for you sometimes, even if it does come out wrong."
"Yeah, I guess you're right, Arnold." Helga has finally calmed down. It's moments like these that make Helga's love for Arnold even stronger. Helga looked at Arnold and smiled, Arnold smiled back. Their eyes met, they got closer and then...
BRRRRRRRIIIIIIIINNNGGG!!
"Well, that's the bell. See you in class, Helga."
She suddenly sunk back into depression. "Yeah, see ya." Eventually she too would get up and walk back to class. So close but yet so far.
CHAPTER 2: When It All Hits The Fan
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"So are you ready for next week's test, Helga?"
Phoebe and Helga walked down the street on their ways home. "Yeah, yeah, I got it. What are we working on again?"
"The original colonies of America."
"Yeah, I got it. Well, here's your house."
Phoebe walked up the stairs. Halfway up the stairs, she stops and turns at Helga. "Hey, Helga. Cheer up, okay."
Helga let out a long sigh of depression. "It's not fair, Phoebe." She sits on the end of the stoop and Phoebe soon joins her. "You know, Phoebe? You ever just think to yourself 'Why me? Why does all this stuff always happen to me?' I have lousy parents that can't even put in enough effort to remember my existence, pure talent that will never go anywhere, and the only love in my life will never be able to return the same feelings as me! I mean, you have it so easy. Look at you. Your parents support everything you do; mine just wish I could live up to the greatness of Olga." She kicks a rock on the sidewalk from the stoop across the street. "You're so smart and pleasant, you know? I'm just... Helga."
Phoebe puts an arm around Helga's shoulder. "It's gonna be alright, Helga. Things will eventually work out."
"But when, Phoebe? When?" Helga looks at her watch. "I need to go home, I'm 'expected'. Have a great weekend, Phoebe."
"You too, Helga." Phoebe walks inside the door of her building. Helga gives a look back but turns forward and keeps walking.
"And you can take this with you!"
Helga hears a familiar voice yelling from up her street. "Hmm, sounds like someone's getting into a fight!" She quickly runs up the street. Bob is standing outside of her house in a pile of clothes.
"Aw, Miriam, come on!"
Miriam comes to the doorway in her usual sleepy attitude. "No, Bob! No! I will not stand here and listen to your lies!"
Helga looks up at Bob. "What's going on?"
Miriam disappears at the door but comes back and throws a blue work shirt out. "And you can take THIS with you!" Bob grabs the shirt and spans it out. A red lipstick mark is on the collar.
"Miriam, you have to believe me! This is all a misunderstanding!" Before he finished his words, the door had slammed on him. Helga looked up at her father, scared at what his answer would be to her question. "Dad, what going on?"
Bob looked at his daughter with a face that if a single muscle were moved; a flood of tears would pour out. He turned away from her, picked up his thrown belongings, and just started walking away from the house he had called home for so long. Helga stared at Bob as he walked away, and as he seemed to disappear, she could hear him lightly weeping.
"Dad... don't go..." She reached out as if she could some how pull him back, but knew it was impossible. She went inside of her home.
Miriam was in the reclining chair usually occupied by Bob watching TV. Helga slowly slipped through the doorway. A commercial for Casa Paradiso had just ended and was followed immediately by a commercial for Big Bob's Beepers. Miriam quietly cringed in her chair. Bob pranced around in his royal cape with his diamond-encrusted belt while women dressed in lavishly sequined outfits danced around him. After he was done saying how much someone could save with Big Bob's Beepers, he was followed with all the women gathering around him and one of them was hugging Bob. Bob looked at her and winked. Miriam finally couldn't take it anymore. She reached for anything she could find that was closed by and jammed it in the TV screen with a terrifying shatter and bang.
"Mom..."
Miriam didn't even turn towards Helga. She sulked forward towards the TV and just answered her as if she was sick. "Helga... I'm so sorry you had to see all of this. I am SO sorry..."
"Dad's not coming back, is he?"
Miriam turned towards Helga finally and ran towards her crying. She wrapped her hands around Helga and sobbed on her shoulder. "Helga... oh, Helga... I'm so sorry! It's... it's..." She's so choked up she can't even speak.
Helga put her hand on Miriam's back and patted her to comfort. "It's alright, mom. It's alright." Helga started crying with her.
"So what happened?"
Miriam hit liquefy on the blender and made her self a smoothie. She poured her self a cup and drank whatever was in the blender's pitcher. She then proceeded to drink the cup. "It's not just one incident, it's a series of things.
"Bob has been coming home late everyday for about two weeks now. Being an important businessman, it seems reason able for him to show up a little late. But then he started to ignore me. Every night he wouldn't even wake me up and tell me to go to bed when I was on the couch. He wouldn't say anything to me when I left, but I thought that maybe he just had some things on his mind. Then I found his shirt in the laundry with lipstick on it. I know it sounds really cheesy for that to have happen, but then after he left for work, I called the beeper store. He wasn't even working today!" She starts crying and sobbing. Helga hands her a tissue and she blows her nose. She starts telling her story again as she jams more fruit into the blender.
"What hurts me the most is when I called his cell phone and he... he LIED to me. He told me he was at work, so I told him to stay there and not to come home. That I know." She pours her self a smoothie after blending and actually drinks the glass this time. "Then when I asked him to explain how I was wrong as soon as he got here, and he said that he's been hit on all week by one of the extras from one of his beeper commercials but 'nothing happened between them' and now she's all over him. Like I'm going to believe THAT." She puts her head down on the counter.
Helga looked at the sad sight of her mother. "Mom, what happens now?"
Miriam lifts her head up. "I'm divorcing him, Helga. That's all I can do." She pours some more smoothie into her glass. "Helga, this is going to be a very tough time for both of us and I need you as much as you need me. Please, don't think I'm doing this to hurt you."
Helga looks down at the floor and reaches for her mom's hand. She looks up, holds her mom's hand and places her empty hand on top of her mom's. "It will be alright, mom. We'll get through this."
If only Helga could also believe what she was saying to her mother.
CHAPTER 3: Another Story
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"Well, divorce is always such a hefty issue, Missus Pataki, but can make you a LOT of money. Your soon-to-be ex owns a beeper store?"
Miriam sat uncomfortably in her lawyer's guest chair. Helga sat on the chair across from her. "Yes, that's right."
Lindsay Guilliera, attorney at law, spun around her swivel chair. "Well, then, I think you have quite a settlement. You say he cheated on you for several weeks?"
Miriam moved around trying to find some way to be comfortable in the seat. "Yeah, he did."
"That's even better. You're looking at some big figures, missy. Of course sixty-seven percent will go to my fees."
"I don't care. I just need out of this marriage."
"Well, it's as good as done!" She leans over and extends her hand in partnership. "You've got yourself a case!"
"I don't want a case, I don't want a settlement; I just want out. So what you need to do." Miriam storms out of the office. Helga follows her as she takes the elevator down to the ground level and back to the car.
"So when you two separate, where will I go?"
Miriam drove the car down the road towards their home. "Helga, I honestly don't know. Where do you want to go?"
Helga stayed quiet. They approached their home and parked in front. "Mom, I'm gonna be outside for a while. I need some time to think to myself."
"I understand, Helga. I have some stuff to pack of Bob's. Dinner will be at seven."
"Okay, mom." Helga walked down the street. Towards the beeper store.
Bob wasn't even inside of the store. He sat on a bench outside of it sulking in misery. Helga approached him and Bob looked up. "Oh, hi, Helga." He puts his face inside of his hands.
"Dad," Helga started. "Why'd you do it?"
Bob looked at Helga teary-eyed. "You don't understand, Helga! I didn't do anything! My story sounds very unbelievable but I swear it's true!"
Helga looked at her father confused. "Then what is the truth."
Bob took a deep breath. "Recently, I've been working a lot of overtime, regardless of what your mom thinks. I know by now she's probably told you a lot of what she pieced together. We shot a commercial for the store, and throughout the whole shoot one dancer kept flirting with me! It doesn't seem very plausible, but I swear nothing would stop this girl! At the end of the shoot before the camera stopped, it was very apparent in the commercial that she was flirting with me, so I figured since we were taping that I'd make it seem like I was flirting back to add more to the commercial. I wanted it to look like everything was planned. But after that she wouldn't leave me alone! She came by the store; she harassed me while I was working. One night she followed me home and I had to explain to her that I have a wife and children. But she tried to kiss me. I ducked my head and her lips hit right where my neck and shoulder meet and got lipstick on my collar. I swear I didn't cheat on your mother!"
"Dad, that all sounds..."
"LISTEN! That's the truth! It doesn't sound like it could really happen, but Helga, I'm not lying!"
"Mom's getting a divorce."
Bob lays silent for a while. He looks at Helga. "Helga, I love your mother. I know I don't show it much to you or her." He stops for a minute to compose him self. "I'll do anything to get her back, Helga. I honestly mean this when I say it. I love both of you, and I want... I want you to tell her."
Helga looks at her father. "I can't be in the middle of this, dad!"
Bob stares back at her. "You're still cross at me, aren't you. Well, you know what, have fun living alone with your mom. Maybe you can take time out for her." Bob gets up from the bench and towards the beeper store. He stops right before he enters. "I never meant to hurt you or your mother - ever! Not now, not ever. I tried my best, but maybe I don't know how to be a husband. Or more importantly, how to become a good father. So maybe you two are better off without me." He walks inside.
Helga just stairs at the bench where her dad had been sitting. She sat down and started talking to herself. "Well, here we are, my life is ruined. I'm caught between my mom and dad and I don't know what to do. I need someone who can give me advice, someone who's always helping people. Someone like..."
CHAPTER 4: Desperate Measures
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"Phoebe!"
Helga pounded on Phoebe's front door as if trying to knock it down. "Phoebe, come on!"
Phoebe's father answered the door very disgruntled. "What do you WANT?"
"Hi, is Phoebe here? I need to talk to her."
Her dad let out a giant sigh. "Yeah, she's here. Phoebe! Your friend's here."
Phoebe came to the doorway. "What's going on, Helga?"
"Phoebe my parents are divorcing and I'm stuck in the middle. I need some advice!"
"Are you sure you cam to the right person, Helga? I mean, why couldn't you have talked to your therapist or Arn..."
"Listen! I need YOUR help! What should I do? I mean, what'll happen if they divorce? What will happen to me? Where will I live?"
Phoebe thought for a minute. "Which parent would you rather live with?"
"Neither! Ever since they separated, they're both miserable. My dad's depressed, my mom's psychotic..."
"Well, then you might have to live with a relative like a grandmother or something."
"All of my relatives live in like Florida or Colorado."
"Well, then you'll probably have to move, Helga!"
"Move!" Helga was wide-eyed and shocked. "I can't move! All of my friends are here! Arnold's here, you're here, that store that sells the bags of cherry gummi bears that I love so much is here..."
"Then you need to devise a plan to get your parents reconciled and back together."
"Yeah, right! I'll need a miracle to do that! Or at least worldwide recorded surveillance since five weeks ago in a 1984-esque fashion, but both are impossible! What am I supposed to do to get them back together?"
"I don't think I'm the person to answer that."
Helga is now very sarcastic. "Well then, Phoebe. WHO am I supposed to ask?"
"You're parents are divorcing?"
Helga paced in Arnold's room as he sat on his couch. "That's what I said, football-head! They're divorcing and I'll probably have to end up living with my relatives in another state!"
"But I thought you didn't know that part for sure."
"Look, how sure I am doesn't matter, it could happen! With that as a possibility, it's reason enough to get them back together! If I move I'll never see Phoebe or the cherry flavored gummi bears..."
"Helga!" Arnold raises his hand towards her and she stops talking. "Listen, I'll help you get them back together but I can't promise anything. I want you to remember that. You also have to do everything I tell you no matter how pointless it sounds."
"What do you mean 'anything'?"
"I need you to have absolute trust in me. If you can't trust me, this will never work. Do you trust me?"
Helga stands in one spot and thinks for a while scratching her chin. "Yeah, I guess I can trust you. But you have to help me!"
"I'll try. We first have to analyze the situation."
"What do you mean?"
"We have to watch your dad constantly and see if he's telling the truth. If he has been seeing the girl from the commercial, he's still seeing her. That's pretty obvious..."
"Why is that obvious?"
"Let me finish, Helga. If we see him still with her, then he did cheat on your mom and it may be a little harder than I expect it to be. If he isn't with the other lady, then we have to find some kind of way to prove that he never was with her."
"Nice plan, but how exactly are we going to do this?"
"This is so incredibly stupid."
Arnold quieted Helga as they hid in a giant bush on the sidewalk across the street from Big Bob's Beepers. "Hey, I said trust me." He pulled out a pair of binoculars and watched Big Bob as he stood at the counter of the beeper shop leaning in a daze.
"This is like something out of the Little Rascals or something! Can't we put a camera inside the shop or something or plant a bug so we can hear what he's saying?"
"I don't have any of that stuff." He puts the binoculars down. "And Bridget's out of town."
"Well, I am not staying all day in this bush with you!"
"Hey, what was our agreement. You have to do everything I say. No questions asked."
"But I didn't expect this! I mean this is just... hokey! Cheesy! Even childish!"
Arnold sighed and picked up the binoculars again. "Hey, someone just walked in the shop!"
"Yeah, who is it?"
Arnold focuses on the binoculars. "I can't see her face, but it's a lady."
"Well, great! For all we know, that could be dad's little secret but we don't know because we can't see her face or hear what they're talking about!"
"Oh, we can hear what they're talking about and see them."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"When did you put a camera in there? How come you didn't tell me?"
Arnold hooked his camera up to his computer. "I put it in when you hid in the bushes and waited as I used the bathroom. I didn't tell you so it didn't seem like sitting in the bushes was pointless."
"Then why did we sit in the bushes?"
"I only had one hour of tape left. I had to use when it was only necessary. When we were in the bush, I had the camera at a position near the front display window. Nobody noticed it because I put a cardboard advertisement around it. I set it to record with a remote while we sat in the bushes when I saw the lady walk in. Let's look at it." Arnold presses play on the video camera. Bob is on the computer monitor talking to the mystery lady but her face is not facing the camera.
"Well, there she is! Too bad we can't see her face to recognize her."
"Hey, quiet!"
The dialogue on the video tape starts. Bob yells at the lady, "Quit coming around here! Stop bothering me!"
The mysterious lady starts complaining, "I thought we had something, Bob! Are you just going to not talk to me from now on?"
Helga stared at the video oddly. "Hmm, her voice sounds really familiar."
The video keeps going. Bob is infuriated; "I've lost everything because of you! Why do you keep coming here everyday? There was never anything between us!"
"But, Bob, what about after the commercial we shot? I thought we had something..."
"I told you yesterday! Nothing happened on that set! I told you the day before also! Get out of here! Get out! You ruined my life, you..."
A crash is heard in the background and Bob walks to the side of the screen where he can't be seen. He comes back; "Look, I have a crisis on my hands and YOU are just making it worse! Get out of here before I have a Personal Protection Order set against you!"
"Well, you just do that. But I liked to see who's going to help you in getting it."
"Just get out of here!" The mysterious lady leaves the shop. As soon as she leaves, Bob buries his face in his arms on the counter and starts to sob. The tape stops.
Helga stares at the computer screen for a moment. "Maybe he was telling the truth..."
Arnold unhooks the camera. "Yeah, all we need now is some proof."
"Proof? Proof! This tape is proof!"
"This tape is nothing. She doesn't confess anything. This tape just makes it look like Bob's even deeper in denial. We need something coming from HER. Once we have that, we'll have all we need."
"Arnold, what if we're doing this for no reason? What if after we find out my dad didn't cheat, my mom still won't take him back?"
"Then we at least tried. We didn't just sit here and watch it all happen in front of us and let it go by peacefully. We tried to stop it."
Helga starts crying. "What if they divorce and I get sent to my relatives?"
Arnold looks at her blankly. "Where are you getting this 'send to your relatives' stuff? They'd probably only do that if your mom and dad were unfit. To stop you from moving, they'd probably put you on adoption unless your relatives came to get you."
"But that could happen! It's not about whether it will or not, it could! And if it does, I'll never see you again!" Helga quickly puts her hands over her mouth.
Arnold stares at her confused. "What did you say?"
"Uh-uh-nothing! Nothing! I-"
"You just said you'll never see me again."
"Y-Yeah, so?"
"I've always been under the impression that you don't like me, at least not enough to miss me."
"I won't miss you, football-head!"
"Then how come the first thing that you said you'd miss was me?"
"Because... because... Arnold... I... I..."
CHAPTER 5: Revelation
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"You what?"
"I... I..."
Grandpa at that moment busted into Arnold's room. "Hey there, short man, how's the sleuthin'?"
Arnold diverted his attention away from Helga. "It's going alright but we still don't have anything."
"Oh, well, that's too bad. Hey, Pookie's making her famous peanut butter and salmon suprise!" Thunder booms outside and lightening and rain begin to be seen out of Arnold's skylight. "Ooh, sounds like a bad storm out there. Hey, what's with the girl, she stayin' over tonight or something?"
Arnold looks at Grandpa. "I don't know. Hey, Helga, do you wanna spend the night or stay for dinner?"
Helga gets a sudden look of shock. Thoughts rush trough her head. 'I'm at Arnold's house and he's... inviting me to stay!' She falls over and faints with a deafening thud on Arnold's floor.
Grandpa looks at Helga as she lies passed out. "Hmm, wonder what got into her. Prop her head up with something, Arnold, I'll go get the smelling salts."
Helga opened her eyes slowly and rubbed them over and over. "Oh, I had the weirdest dream. I dreamt that my parents divorced and I was at Arnold's house and..." She looks around. Arnold is sitting next to her and Grandpa is standing by Arnold's bedroom door. Helga lets out a sigh and falls back down on Arnold's bedroom floor.
"Helga!" Arnold shakes her to wake her up. "Helga, come on."
Helga regains her consciousness. "Uh! What happened?"
"You passed out. Twice." Arnold places a bag of ice on Helga's head.
"Oh, thank you. I needed that." Helga finally gets up and holds the bag herself to her head. "It must've been because of being up here in the attic. High altitudes make me light-headed. So what were we talking about before I blacked out?"
Grandpa moves closer towards Helga. "It's storming pretty bad out there. Do you wanna stay for dinner? Peanut butter and salmon suprise! Eh? Eh?!"
"Yecch!" Helga makes a disgusted look on her face. She then turns towards Arnold and sees him looking at her. Then she thinks about what Miriam could've possibly made for dinner. "I mean yeah, sure. I'll stay. I'll need to call home though."
Arnold stands up from where he was sitting. "Alright. The phone's downstairs by the kitchen."
"Yeah, I know." Helga walks downstairs while Grandpa and Arnold look at each other.
"Hey, how does she know where the phone is, I thought she's never been here?"
Arnold looks down the stairs. "I don't know." They both go down the stairs of Arnold's room and pushed them back in the ceiling once they reached the bottom.
"Well, good-night, Helga."
Arnold lay on his bed in pajamas and Helga lay on Arnold's couch in her clothes with a blanket. "Good-night, Arnold." Arnold switches the light off. Helga asks nervously, "Hey, Arnold?"
Arnold switches the light back on. "Yeah, Helga?"
"I just wanted to say... you know... thank you for helping me with all this. I know it's all just a waste of time and all but... you're really the only person helping me right now and I'd like to thank you for it. You don't have to go through all this trouble for me... but you did."
Arnold looks back at Helga. "Hey, it alright."
"No, it's not alright. I'm always so mean to you and so foul and so cruel... but you helped me anyway. You're always helping me and you don't get anything in return." Helga remains quiet for a while. "Hey, why DO you keep helping me?"
"I don't know. I just figure it's the right thing to do. I mean, even if I don't get anything in return, I still know that deep inside you appreciate it."
Helga lets out a sigh. "Well, thank you for everything, Arnold."
"Your welcome, Helga." Arnold clicks the light off.
Helga pulls the blanket over her eyes and sighs lovingly. "Oh, Arnold..."
"Did you say something?"
"No! I didn't say anything! Leave me alone, football-head!"
Arnold just shrugs. "Okay then."
The next day, Arnold and Helga went out to prove Bob's innocence. "The first thing we have to do is find out the name of the lady. What do we know about her?"
"Well, she was in his beeper commercial. I don't know her name though."
"Then maybe we can get a picture of her from the commercial."
"Nah, I already thought about that. Her face is kind of covered up by this writing that flashes on the screen. It's really hard to see her face."
"Well, we could ask your dad. I imagine he would know."
"At let him know we're trying to help him? Trust me, my dad likes to keep to himself. He likes doing things himself when he wants it done right."
"It would still be the easiest way... we could use a fake name. Disguise our voice on the phone!"
"What are we going to do? 'Uh, yeah, Bob? I need the name of a girl in one of your beeper commercials? Reason? Oh, I really don't have one, I just need her name.' I don't think that'll work, Arnoldo!"
"Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay, thank you!" Arnold hangs up the payphone. "Well, her name is Lynn. She's shooting a Yahoo Soda commercial today at the arts festival."
"Hey, there's a festival in town?"
"Apparently. It just seems these things pop up at the most convenient times. It's just all to easy..."
"I can't believe that worked! Well, all we need to do now is hoof it down there."
"Come on, let's go."
The banner read, 'First Annual City Wide Art Show'. Arnold and Helga went to help booth. Arnold approached the man at the booth but stopped for a minute. "Hey, you work at that party store on Cheffington me and Gerald applied to!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about! I'm Dante, I'm running the booth, what do you need help with?"
"We heard a Yahoo Soda commercial's being shot here today."
"Yeah, there also having the Yahoo challenge. Seeing if anyone will try another brand of soda over Yahoo. Why do you ask?"
"We need to talk with someone down on the set. How do we get there?"
Dante lets out a huge breath of air and hands Arnold a map. "They're right by the impressionist booth and across the way from the music stage. The White Stripes'll be performing in about a half hour."
"Okay, thanks." Arnold and Helga both walk away from the booth.
Dante sits in the folding chair that sat behind the counter of the booth and sighed. "I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
"Excuse me, do you knew where we can find Lynn? We're her sister's children, we need to ask her some questions."
The female security guard looked down at Helga. "You don't look anything like her. You're not lying, are you?"
"No," replied Helga. "I take after my father."
Arnold added to it, "And I take after my grandpa."
The security guard gave in. "Alright, go in the tent. They're getting their make-up on and what not for the big dance sequence. You've got five minutes."
Helga hugged the waist of the guard. "Oh, thank you! Our aunt will be so happy to see us! You don't know how important this is!" They walk on in. "You know, Arnold. This was easier than I thought. Either that or these people are freakin' stupid!"
"Hey, be nice." They walk down an isle of women in a portable tent. Cheap plastic mirrors align the sides with paper nametags over the mirrors that label the women at the chair like a gas station pump. They finally come across the last mirror in the row. The piece of paper on the mirror said 'Lynn'. But the chair was empty.
"Ah!" Helga kicked the chair. "Right when it seems like we have it made!"
A voice is heard behind them. "Who are you two?!"
They both spin around quickly. Helga's jaw drops. "Oh my gosh, it's you!"
CHAPTER 6: Dirty Ground
________________________________________
"Lynn! Lindsay Guilliera! You’re my mom's lawyer!"
"Oh, you, what do you want?"
Helga pointed at her in anger. "You're the reason why my dad's been kicked out of my home."
Lindsay rolled her eyes back in her head. "Little girl, listen. It's just business."
"Why did you do this? How could you be this evil? And why are you doing soda commercials?"
"Look! I do these dancing gigs in commercials on the side for some extra money. Being a lawyer pays great when you're actually doing something, so I do a lot of commercials."
"But why are you doing this to Bob! I know my dad wouldn't have cheated on Miriam."
"When I met Big Bob, he explained his whole business to me, how much money was in it. So I did whatever I could to make it look like he had an affair to anyone else. Your mom already knew me, I helped her with a suit against some faulty car repair."
"I don't remember that! When did that happen?"
"Oh, a couple years before you were probably born! That's not important! Since I had earned her trust before, she still trusted me to take this case. So when it's all said and done and she divorces Bob, she's bound to get a big settlement, alimony, and child support. And I will be recouping a nice little lawyer fee. You wanna do something about it?"
"Yeah!" Arnold raises her fist towards Lindsay but Arnold grabs it in the air.
"Helga! Calm down! Look, Lynn. You won't get away with this!"
Lindsay looked at the two of them. "You know, I really don't know how you got away with this! Security!"
Two guards escorted Helga and Arnold out of the tent and threw them on the ground. Helga got up and spit some dirt out of her mouth. "Oh, I'm gonna..."
"HELGA!" Arnold gripped Helga by the shoulders. "Look! Don't make this worse than it already is. We need to expose her."
"But we can't do that, Arnold! Like she's gonna walk right up to my mom and tell her the truth! How are we going to 'expose' her?"
"I have a way. I..." Arnold's voice is suddenly drowned out by a screaming crowd. They both turn around and a mass of people have congregated around the stage. A man steps out on stage followed by another man and a woman. The one man picks up a guitar and the lady sits behind a drum set. The first man steps to a microphone in the center of the stage.
"Ladies and Gentlemen! I am proud to present The White Stripes!" The crowd gets loud and the band breaks into song:
'Dead leaves and the dirty ground
when I know you're not around.
Shiny tops and soda pops
when I hear your lips make a sound.
When I hear your lips make a sound!'
Arnold turns to Helga. "Come on, we gotta go."
He grabs Helga's arm and tries to pull her away. She quickly pulls back. "Hey, hold on, I'm listening to this!"
'Thirty notes in the mailbox
will tell you that I'm coming home...'
"Helga come on!"
Helga finally breaks down to Arnold. "Fine, we'll leave..."
They walk away from the carnival exit and back on to the sidewalk of the main street. "Alright, Arnold, what's so important that you had to pull me away? We're screwed, you know. We have no way of proving that my dad didn't cheat, and my parents are going to divorce. I'm gonna be sent away because none of them are near decent parents unless they are working together. I'm gonna have to move, Arnold! Unless you have something to stop all of this!"
Arnold pulls out a microcassette tape recorder out of his pocket. "I have it all on tape."
Helga stares at him. "ARNOLD!" She runs to him, holds him in her arms and kisses him romantically on the mouth. There they are, locked in the moment... until Helga realized what she was doing and stopped. She backed away from him. "Um, I can explain that..."
"Oh, I know. You like me."
"Well, I..." Helga stops. "What did you say?"
"I've known you've liked me for a while. It's not really hard to tell. I mean, you don't think anyone can hear you when you're confessing to your self in class? When you sit there just writing poems out loud? And you think I can't see it? That maybe when you're behind a Dumpster, I'm not standing around the corner of it watching for the right moment to talk to you? Of course I've known!"
Helga is on the verge of hitting Arnold but at the same time ready to repeat what had happened before he explained his situation. "Arnold, why... why didn't you TELL me?"
"Why didn't YOU tell ME? Who's in the wrong here, Helga?"
"Still! I mean aren't you always trying to what's right? Where were you on this one?!"
"I was waiting for you to come clean. I was... I was kind of scared of it too. I didn't want to say I knew because you seemed so happy with your secret. And if I were to say I knew, you'd probably think that I..." Helga started to tear at the eyes. "Helga, I just like you. Nothing more. Next to Gerald, I'd like to think of you as one of my best friends. But that's all we are Helga, friends. I'm sorry."
Helga looks up at Arnold and starts crying. "I'm sorry, Arnold! I should've been so much nicer to you!"
Helga goes over to her and puts his hand on her back and pats rhytmatically. "Helga, I still want to be your friend. I know that you're a good person inside and that's what I like about you. That's you, and that's who you'll always be! I may not LIKE you like you, but I do like your company. I still want to help you."
Helga looked at him and stopped crying. She took the microcassette from his recorder and started to walk away. "You've helped me, Arnold. But I can't be your friend." She turns forward and keeps talking. "I like you too much to be your friend."
Arnold yells, "Helga! Come back!" Helga doesn't even seem to listen to Arnold. He starts walking home his self. "It can't end like this! I just can't!" He turns towards Helga and runs to her. "Helga, wait!"
CHAPTER 7: Final Judgements
________________________________________
"Wait up!"
Helga turned around. "What do you want, Helga?"
Arnold stopped to focus. "Please, let's just stick it out to the end of this. Now I need to know how all this ends. I can't just let you go back without my help."
"I don't need your help, Arnold! I have all I need on this tape."
"Please, Helga! I still desperately want to be your friend and maybe at the end of it all..."
"Why would you want to be my friend? I'm not popular or anything, I don't have anything valuable. I mean..." She stops and thinks about it.
"Helga, I've been lying to you to. I love you. It's that..." Arnold's mouth is suddenly silenced by Helga's. She wraps her arms around him and then takes a step back when it's over. Arnold finishes his sentence. "It's that we should take it slow right now. More important things are at stake. We need to get your parents back together."
Helga looks down at the ground and then at Arnold. "You're not just saying this to make me feel better, are you? You know, humor me?"
"Of course not." Arnold grabs her and kisses her. "Come on, let's go!" Arnold runs in a fury down the street. He stops and turns back to where he had stood. Helga was still standing there as if in shock. "Helga? HELGA! COME ON!"
"MIRIAM!"
Helga screamed her mother's name throughout her empty household. "Where are you, Miriam?"
Arnold is following close behind her when he noticed something. "Hey, there's a note on the fridge." Arnold grabs it.
Helga turns around trying to get a glimpse of the letter. "What's it say? What's it say?"
"'Helga, Went to court, divorcement suit, will be back at seven, will bring home chicken. Mom.'"
"Well, great! Where's the courthouse?"
"Really, Murray, can't you go any faster? I thought we got you over this whole 'twenty-five miles an hour' thing."
Murray shifted gears on the bus. "Please do not talk to the driver when the bus is in motion. And please step behind the yellow line."
Helga sits back down in her seat. Arnold tries to calm her down. "Don't worry, we're almost there."
The bus stopped in front of the courthouse and Arnold and Helga were not hesitant to get off of it. They rushed through the front doors of the courthouse. A guard from the side then yelled, "HALT!"
Arnold tried his best and reasoning. "Look, we need to find where her parents are to stop them from divorcing."
"I don't care if you were a fireman rushing to put out the whole building. You need to step through the metal detector."
Arnold and Helga walked through. Arnold cleared, but when Helga went through the machine beeped manically. She then took out her locket, put it in the dish on the side of the metal detector and passed through again without a problem. "Okay, you're clear to go." Helga grabbed her locket and rushed down the hall. "Hey, HEY! Stop running!"
Helga and Arnold run up and down level through level of the courthouse. Helga finally speaks up. "How are we supposed to find them? We have no idea where they could be!"
As soon as Helga said that, the door that they had just ran past vibrated with the screaming of Bob Pataki. "CRIMENY, YOU JUST WANT EVERYTHING, DON'T YOU?!"
Helga and Arnold bust into the room where Helga's parents were working out the divorce and walked over to Miriam. "Wait, Mom! Dad didn't cheat on you!"
"Helga, this is not one of those times where you..."
"Your lawyer is setting all of this up. She made it look like Bob cheated because she knew you would come to her first!"
Lindsay stood up from beside Miriam. "That is preposterous! I assure you, I..."
Arnold turned to Helga. "The tape!"
Helga hands Arnold the tape and he quickly puts it in his recorder, rewinds a little and hits play. "Since I had earned her trust before, she still trusted me to take this case. So when it's all said and done and she divorces Bob, she's bound to get a big settlement, alimony, and child support. And I will be recouping a nice little lawyer fee." He rewinds it a little bit further and plays. "...He explained his whole business to me, how much money was in it. So I did whatever I could to make it look like he had an affair to anyone else."
Miriam looked at her lawyer and then back at Helga. She then turned to Bob. "Bob?"
"I've been trying to tell you the whole time, Miriam, I love you! I would never cheat on you!"
"Oh, Bob." They then got out of their chairs and hugged each other. "Oh, I am just so sorry. The divorce is off. Let's get re-married!"
Bob just cried on his wife's shoulder. "Yeah, that'd be great..."
Lindsay stomped her foot on the ground and looked at Miriam. "Hey! I've been helping you with this whole divorce and I demand that I get paid!"
Bob looks at her. "You know, I'm not staying quiet for this anymore. I'll find us a new lawyer, I'm sure there are criminal charges we can bring against you. Maybe fraud or conspiracy or somethin'. Until then, shove off!"
Lindsay took her briefcase and stormed out of the courtroom. Helga hugged her parents. "Promise me you'll never do this to me again."
Bob patted Helga on the shoulder. "It won't, Helga. I'll make sure of that." All of them, united again, start crying simultaneously. Arnold just stood off to side watching, proud in what he helped accomplish.
CHAPTER 8: Conclusion
________________________________________
"Thanks, Arnold, for all you did back there."
Helga and Arnold walked back home. Miriam and Bob had offered to drive them but they refused. They had some things they needed to work out. "It was my pleasure." They kept walking. "I have a proposition, Helga. Let's forget about what's happened today."
"What do you mean?"
"Let's forget about what's happened in the past view two days and try to start over."
"Do you mean... back to the way we were? You want us to be enemies again?"
"Not enemies, but not a couple. Do you really want everyone at school to find out you like me? I thought that was what you always feared. You know, why you never told me to my face that you like me."
Helga thought for a minute. "So... you really don't love me, do you. You lied."
"I do love you, Helga. But I don't think you're proud of the fact that you love me, and I think that I'd like to stay out of the way of any harassing for the moment. Let's just keep this a secret between us, but we'll just pretend to everyone else that it never happened!"
Helga looked at Arnold, crossed. "You jerk. You never cared about me, you're ashamed of me; you know what? We don't even have to 'pretend' because now I hate you! How can you act in front of anyone that you have no feelings for me? I hate you!"
"Helga, let me explain! I don't think you understand!"
"Oh, I understand! Let's just pretend that I still don't feel anything for you and you still don't feel anything for me and we're back to the way we were before all of this divorce stuff. I can't do that, Arnold. I've done that for too long!"
A bus starts coming up the road. Helga sticks out her hand to get it's attention. The bus pulls over and the door opens. Before Helga steps in, she looks back at Arnold. "Don't ever talk to me again, Arnold! As far as I'm concerned we're not friends, and we're not pretending anything! I'm going home now. Don't follow me." She gets on the bus and sits in the very back row as the only person on the bus.
As she's driven away on the bus, Arnold is left alone. Standing alone on the sidewalk, he watches Helga's bus drive away until it disappears over the side of a hill. He lost the first girlfriend in his young life due to his stupid pride. And it hurt.
Helga sat in the back of the bus frowning. She made a quick look around and sunk lower in the seat. She pulled out her locket and spoke to it as if Arnold was there with her. "Oh, Arnold! I might have come across harsh back there, but it was for your own good! Now I can keep my secret again! I know after a while you'll forgive me, but only when the time is right. I shouldn't confess yet! If he thinks that I really do hate him now, then the thought of me being madly in love with him should never even cross his mind! Someday, Arnold, we'll be together. Free of prejudice, free of persecution, and free of boundaries. Oh, Arnold! Oh, Arnold, my love!"
The bus drives away. It will later drop Helga off at her home where she will go in her closet, write another poem, and sleep dreaming about the love of her life. Helga has just fallen asleep.
Arnold eventually makes it home. He goes in his room and takes off the blue sweater on top of his plaid shirt. He sits at his computer and pulls a drawer open. He empties the drawer onto the top of the computer and pulls out a false bottom. Under the false bottom is an upside down frame. He flips the frame over to reveal a picture of Helga. HE looks at the picture and smiles, puts the bottom and all the items back into the drawer and gets dressed in his pajamas. He turns the light off and falls asleep, dreaming about the love of his life. Helga G. Pataki.
The sun has completely set now. The city is pitch black. Tomorrow would be a new day, but looking at the agenda for it, it doesn't really seem like a new day. Just the same old rerun repeating itself over and over until the end of time. Eventually Helga will completely confess to Arnold, and Arnold will completely confess to Helga. No lies to cover it up, no exceptions.
But not today.
Not anytime soon.
THE END
All rights reserved. ©Shaun Blankenship. Used with permission.
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