All my Hey Arnold stories except for the parody fall into a chronological order. To see where this story falls in my "Hey Arnold: The Fanfic Season", then please read my profile. The weirdness of this story boggles my own mind, but here we go!
Cars were busy roaring down the streets of Hillwood during yet another rushed hour in the city. But the students of the neighborhood hardly paid attention to the traffic nearby, just outside their chain link fence borders. Most of them had been urbanites their whole life, so the constant presence and sound of cars in the background hardly meant much more to them than the chirping of the few city surviving birds.
"Okay, class!" said Mr. Simmons to his class who were lined up in a broad circle in the rear playground of P.S. 118. He clapped his hands together with exuberation. "Now today, I want all of us to do something, really, extra special! As our group project, I'd like for us all to do trust exercises to motivate us and connect each student with their fellow students. Isn't that just great?!" said Mr. Simmons knotting his hands up into fists and biting his bottom lip to keep his grin from turning to an outright whoop of zeal. Eugene threw his hands up in the air like he was riding a roller coaster. Sheena smiled softly. But other students of his class were not so easily convinced. Harold frowned, studying Mr. Simmons with his beady eyes.
"Yeah, right!" said Sid in the vein of sarcasm, his arms folded together. Stinky Peterson blinked, thinking it over slowly.
"Yeah, like Sid said," the tall boy decided finally. "What is it y'all expect us to do? I don't wanna be embarrassed or nothin."
"It's probably gonna be some touchy-feely, mumbo-jumbo!" Harold complained almost on the verge of rage and panic. But Mr. Simmons continued to smile, unfazed.
"Trust exercises are nothing to be ashamed about. But if you really feel that way, Sid, your participation is voluntary, alright? Now, let me explain the first exercise. Everyone, stand next to someone you think you 'trust' and hold hands. Then, on the count of three, everyone in the center lean as far forward as far as is possible. That means you Arnold, Gerald, Eugene, and Sid. Everyone on the ends, try to keep the ones in the center from falling forward. Lean back slightly if you have to."
"Like this?!" said Eugene flopping forward. Gerald and Sid struggled to keep themselves from being yanked off their toes by Eugene's sudden, purposed collapse. Student's hands grabbed out, first Gerald's for Arnold's, then Arnold's for Stinky's and so on, until the chain reached Harold and then keeping Eugene from falling facedown onto the pavement wasn't so difficult.
"Good!" said Mr. Simmons directing. "Now, stand on your tiptoes and lean forward if you can. See if it's possible."
"You have to lean, Sid," said Arnold sagging slightly forward.
"Are you crazy?!" asked Sid.
"Oh wait!" said Mr. Simmons. "I forgot. This exercise is supposed to be done in a room with a mat in case of falls." At hearing this, Harold got a confused look on his face. He let go of Stinky's hand and Arnold, Gerald, Eugene, and Sid all fell over.
"Ow, my nose!" Sid complained rubbing it.
"Well, that inspires confidence, teach," Helga uttered to Phoebe as her best friend silently frowned.
"Sorry, sorry!" said Mr. Simmons. "Don't worry class! The next trust exercise I want for us to do is much safer! I have this parachute here," said Mr. Simmons, "and what I what for you to all do is lift it up above your heads as far as it will go, then bring it down again. Do this for a minute, and then, when I say, 'everybody under the tent', everyone should pull the edge over their heads and sit down on it, okay? It'll be neat!"
"Yeah, right!" grumbled Sid. But even he had to grin as the parachute lifted high above them, then being pulled down, caught air in the middle so that it made a tent. The center of the parachute stayed high for some time before the air they had caught managed to escape and the parachute fell to the floor again. The kids began to bounce around, throwing the sheet high and then trying to drag it low again against the resistance of air.
"Okay! Everybody under the tent!" declared Mr. Simmons. Helga, like the other kids, scooted the red and orange and yellow striped parachute over her head and sat down on one of the stripes. The air was caught on all sides as the students unanimously sat and the tent overhead seemed high and bright with the sunlight coming in through the other side of the thin, semi transparent cloth. Almost mesmerized, Helga watched the roof slowly sag and collapse.
"All right, everybody out!" said Mr. Simmons and everyone stood up, shuffling out of the tent as the fabric fell. Eugene was last to get out and so the parachute collapsed completely on the boy.
"Help!" said the boy trying to get out in the wrong direction. Sheena had to fish the poor boy out.
"Okay class," said Mr. Simmons slightly tense that not everything was working out as smoothly as planned. "For our last trust exercise I'd like for us to do a classic! The 'trust fall'!"
"Whazzit, whoozit?" asked Helga. "That seems a contradiction in terms."
"Oh, it isn't Helga!" said Mr. Simmons. "You'll see!" He led them to a really tall wooden crate with a ladder opened at its side. "Now what I need everyone to do is to stand right there in front of this crate as tightly as you can! Then hold your arms out in front of you like this!" Mr. Simmons demonstrated by sticking both arms out in front of him, palms up. "You are going to catch one of you fellow students as they fall from this crate!"
"Gawsh! You mean way up there?!" said Stinky examining the tall crate.
"You have nothing to worry about Stinky!" their teacher declared with his most soothing of voices. "Everyone in the class will work together and catch their fellow classmate. I have no doubt that if you 'trust' your fellow students," said Mr. Simmons making quotation symbols with his hands again, "then your peers will catch you as you fall and prove that if you all work together, astonishing things will happen! Now, who wants to go first? Phoebe, how about you? You're lightest! You would make a good start."
"Me?!" Phoebe sputtered, her hands splayed out against the front of her chest as she gaped.
"Yes, Phoebe," Mr. Simmons reiterated. "Now climb up that ladder to start! When you reach the top, turn around so that you are facing away from your fellow classmates."
"Okay," said Phoebe moving as slowly as possible first toward the ladder and then up it. She turned and paused at the top of the large crate just as instructed.
"Now Phoebe, back up so that your heels are just at the edge of the crate. Fold your arms over your chest like this, tuck your chin against your chest, and count to three. On the count of 'three', lean back as far as you can go and fall. Your classmates will catch you, I promise." Phoebe gulped.
"Well, here goes," said Phoebe. She did just as Mr Simmons said, scooting to the platform's edge and fearfully, she dropped off it into a sea of arms and hands. A rather startled Phoebe found herself laying down rather comfily until some of the hands holding her upright lowered her feet and she could reorient herself to the ground again.
"That was so cool!" said Rhonda, looking alert and keen. "It was like- when the singer of a rock concert throws himself off the stage into the audience or something!"
"Rhonda?" asked Mr. Simmons picking up on her interest. "Do you want to try next?"
"Sure," the girl said with a shrug. Jogging over to the ladder, Rhonda scrambled up it , then threw herself joyfully into the waiting hands of her classmates.
"Me next!" said Gerald.
"No, me!" complained Sid. Before too long, all of the school children of Mr. Simmons class had gone except for Harold and Helga.
"Oh! Me next!" said Harold. All the students flinched, then ran away to the other side of the playground.
"Actually, how about Helga goes next?" said Mr. Simmons said with a weak grin. "Helga?"
"Um, I'm really not interested in your little 'trust exercises'!" Helga sniffed, turning her back on the crowd."
"Oh come on, Helga!" Rhonda announced dismissively flicking her red-painted nails downwards as she jaunted her hip. "You don't have to be scared. We'll catch you!"
"You're scared?!" Harold questioned, then laughed. "Ah, Helga's chicken!" The round boy clutched his stomach and laughed a few times more before Helga shoved her flat palm against Harold's shirt front, knocking some of the wind out of him so that his laughs were interrupted.
"I'm not chicken!" Helga sneered. "Just watch!" And with that, she marched her little white shoes all the way up the ladder. But as she stood on the edge of the crate looking down at the hands poised to catch her, she realized something. She was scared. Terrified actually.
"Fall, fall, fall!" her classmates chanted.
"Come on, Helga, we'll catch you! We promise!" Gerald spoke for his fellow classmates. Helga turned around and folded her arms, willing herself to try. But she couldn't. Fear paralyzed her and with a sudden snap, she whirled back around.
"No, no, no!" Helga shouted, her fists knotted at either side. "I'm not gonna do it! It's stupid!"
"Come on, Helga!" Sheena mumbled quietly. "We all did it! You can too!"
"No, I can't! I won't!" Helga muttered, shaking her head in wild eyed fear. Down on the ground, Arnold blinked up at Helga as he saw something he had seen from time to time- her panicked, frenzied self. Like the time they had gotten stuck in the subway, her strong edifice had crumbled revealing only terror. But while Helga had not been watching carefully, Harold had snuck up behind and with a wicked grin, he shoved Helga off the crate into the waiting crowd.
"Eeek! Awk! Elp!" Helga complained waving her arms around. She had been caught by her classmates after all but not as planned. "Let me down, you clods!" she hissed. Arnold, Sid, Gerald, Stinky, Rhonda, and Sheena set her down on the ground. Eugene gave Helga a thumbs up but Helga only fluffed the hair the that come loose back out of her face as she seethed.
"Humph!" she said before posturing angrily, slumped forward.
"Class, class!" said Mr. Simmons trying to call the rowdy group in order. "That's enough! Now I think we should all return to the classroom and write one paragraph about what we have learned. Go on now!" said Mr. Simmons pointing in the direction of the classroom.
"A whole paragraph," Harold muttered grumpily since he hated almost all schoolwork.
"Helga," Mr. Simmons spoke up before all the class could leave. "I'd like for you to stay here with me for a few minutes. There's something I'd like to discuss." Wide-eyed, Helga waited for Mr. Simmons to explain himself. When the rear door to P.S. 118 swung shut behind the last of the other students, he did.
"Helga," began Mr. Simmons. "It doesn't affect your grade or anything, but today you failed to participate in the trust exercises. Harold shouldn't have shoved you like that, yes, but I'm concerned Helga. There's a general trend I'm concerned by- your lack of trust in other people. To be frank, the reason why I wanted to hold trust exercises this morning is because of you. I wanted you to have the chance to open a little. You know, Helga, in every group project we've done this year you've got a D for your participation. Sometimes you refuse to work with another partner at all and complete a project by yourself. If it's with Phoebe, you let her do all the work for you. Now why is that, Helga?"
"Um, Phoebe's so much smarter than me?" Helga mumbled. "I figured she'd be better at it anyway?"
"That makes sense with Phoebe," said Mr. Simmons. "But when I partnered you with Rhonda, the two of you turned in two separate projects instead of the one I had asked for. Now why is that?"
"Um, I'm not a people person?" asked Helga.
"Exactly!" said Mr. Simmons. "And that is what, as your teacher I hope to change! I hope you will learn new skills to be better able to cooperate with others. At the very least, I hope you will feel comfortable enough to be more open. For the entire time you've been my student, Helga, you've written beautiful poetry for English class. But every time you turn it in, you sign your poems as 'anonymous'. I'd like for you to, just once, feel brave enough and proud enough of yourself to turn in just one poem with your real name on it for the class to read."
"I can't do that Mr. Simmons!" Helga protested, the words blurting out of her. "I don't want anybody to know! My poems are secret."
"Well, Helga," said Mr. Simmons looking down at his student patiently. "I'd like to know in your own words why. Why can't you write a poem for others to read?"
"Because my poems are stupid," said Helga awkwardly. "People might laugh at me."
"Helga, no one is going to laugh at you!" Mr. Simmons disagreed with his usual happy-go-lucky enthusiasm. "Even if they did, your poems would still be beautiful and creative expressions of you! And I think that's very special."
"I don't want anyone else to read my poems," Helga ground out stubbornly.
"Well, if that's how you really feel, I hope that at least you'll consider letting at least one other person read your poetry. Maybe you could work up your courage and confidence by sharing your poems with say, your best friend Phoebe! She could use a mentor in poetry."
"Maybe," Helga said dismally.
"Well, that's all I had to say to you, Helga. You've got a lot to think about. I hope that someday we'll find a way to make you feel more at home in the classroom."
"Whatever," Helga groused before shuffling back inside, her face burning slightly for having been particularly singled out as the most unfriendly, most uncooperative member of their class. But there was little she could do about it. She was already in a constant fight between her nature and the social demands of modern society. As Helga stomped back into the classroom, some of her nerve returning to her face along with her color, Arnold looked up from his desk. He watched Helga take her customary place in the desk directly behind him. Then Arnold leaned back, one arm propped against the rear of his chair to get a good look at her.
"Are you alright?" asked Arnold kindly. "What were you and Mr. Simmons talking about?"
"Oh, granola boy just wanted to ask me to get along with all the kiddies better," Helga announced with biting sarcasm and slumping low in her chair, her feet slid low on the carpet floor as she tapped her thumb with the tip of a pencil at the staccato of Morse code. "He asked me to 'consider' sharing my poems with others."
"Your poetry?" said Arnold slightly flustered, for at this point he knew all of Helga's poems were about him. "Well, I wouldn't mind it if you shared a few poems with me! You know, since I returned the pink book and everything."
"Shh!" said Helga so anxious that she placed her palm against Arnold's face to shush him before she realized her mistake. Both kids blushed. She pulled her hand away again.
"Just don't mention that kind of thing in public, okay?!" Helga pleaded, her panic calming. "Besides, you wouldn't like my poems anyway. They're stupid."
"No they're not!" disagreed Arnold. But it was like arguing like a brick wall. One who knew she was behaving badly but couldn't bring herself to behave any better.
"Yes they are! You'd laugh!"
"I won't laugh. I promise!" debated Arnold. But Helga only narrowed her eyes at Arnold.
"Maybe someday. But only when my poems are BETTER," said Helga although she knew the poems currently shared in her class were downright horrible. Hers could not be faulted much in comparison. The two kids might have argued further, but Mr. Simmons had returned to his podium. Class began again.
"Alright class! Turn your textbooks to page 34!" Mr. Simmons instructed.
There something tranquil in returning to the usual, mind-numbing grind of schoolwork. It meant Helga had less to think about, less to feel- that is until the end of the day when she stood on the front steps of P.S.118 at a loss, her books held off to one side as she simply stared absent-mindedly into the distance. So dazed with thought was she, that Helga took one rather wobbly step down the staircase to move with the crowd and found her hand being guided from someone within it. Helga followed the hand's guidance down the flight of steps to its bottom before she came to fully from her daydream, identifying the hand's familiar owner.
"Are you alright?" asked Arnold. "You're acting kind of weird."
"Just tired, I guess. It's been a long day."
"Oh," said Arnold. "In that case, maybe you shouldn't play at Gerald's field with us today. Maybe you should just sit down and watch."
"I'm fine, Arnoldo!" Helga disagreed soundly. "Maybe I'll stop somewhere for a Yahoo first."
"Well, alright," said Arnold, his face full of the tender concern that marked him as so different from his hardened, often compassionless, city-dwelling brethren. "But it's alright for you to take a break if you have to!"
Helga had planned to go to Gerald's field for the afternoon, so she skipped the bus to meet up with their informal, ever changing team. Today, it was Lila, Stinky, Sheena, Sid, Rhonda, Brainy, Harold, Gerald, Arnold. Together, they all strolled down the city block taking up as much space as a car on the sidewalk, their wandering feet flattening the grass that people tried to grow in vain beside the sidewalk. As they passed by a grocer's Helga spoke up.
"Wait up a moment!" she demanded before stepping inside the comfortably air-conditioned store. Her eyes lingered on the bottles in the drink cooler, past all of the grownup drinks until she found the sodas, waters, sugared teas, and juices. She opened the fridge door and yanked a Yahoo out, then snatched a handful of candy bars from the rack. Rapidly browsing, Helga threw the candy, a package of gum, and a stick of beef jerky onto the countertop to go with her soda. A minute later, Helga walked out of the shop carrying a little paper shopping bag.
"Oh! Is that for us?" asked Sid pointing. Helga sneered.
"No, that's my snack," said Helga. "Get your own stuff!" Rummaging through her bag, she yanked out one candy bar and fumbled to peel the wrapper open without dropping the rest of her groceries before biting into the chocolate bar with a vengeance. In five swift bites, the candy bar was devoured and she began unwrapping another one.
"Aw I'm so hungry!" Harold complained clutching his stomach before jogging into the store himself. Soon, everyone else strolled into the shop, including Arnold and Gerald chatting about best friend stuff. Helga was still eating one of her candy bars when Arnold came outside to join her, without Gerald. Helga smacked her sticky lips before throwing a stick of gum into her mouth to chew the rest of the candy off her teeth. She held her unopened soda with one hand, then crumpled up her empty paper bag in the other. Helga chucked it successfully into a trashcan a few feet down the street in a skillful, one-hand shot.
"So, Arnoldo, where's Tall-Hair Boy?" Helga inquired, feeling smug and passive with so much delicious food in her and her favorite boy near by. The start of her day had been crummy, but now she had an afternoon of baseball to look forward to so she was fine.
"Oh, he's inside looking at magazines still," Arnold mumbled.
"That's odd," said Helga. "Usually you two are two peas in a pod. Are you having a fight or something lately? You've been hanging around me a lot."
"No," said Arnold rolling his eyes a little miserably. "It's not like that. He's been hanging around with Phoebe a lot, you know. A lot! So I guess that leaves me on my own sometimes. He's still my best friend and all, he just hasn't had as much time for me lately. When we do hang out, Gerald's always talking about his dates. It's kind of awkward."
"Uh-huh," said Helga rubbing her chin. "Well, you're welcome to hang with me, Football-Head!" said Helga. She twisted off the cap from her Yahoo soda and held it high. "Cheers!"
"Um, cheers?" Arnold questioned clinking the side of his Yahoo soda against hers in a reciprocal gesture that seemed a little out of place. But the two guzzled down their Yahoo sodas anyway. Arnold wiped his lips with the back of his hand, giving Helga something to admire. A dreamy smile touched Helga's face.
"On to Gerald's field!" said Helga pumping a fist into the air as Gerald and the rest of the slowpokes made their way out of the store. The group moved on to where they needed to be.
Arnold tried hard not to think too much on what he had seen today when he arrived home at the boarding house that afternoon, his baseball bat carried over his shoulder. Abner and the other animals scooted out the door as he came in as usual, and Susie was on the phone at the lowest point in the hall. Arnold past by Ernie and Grandpa sitting in the living room. Mr. Kakashka was raiding the fridge and Arnold narrowed his eyes at the nervously laughing man before heading straight upstairs to his bedroom and stuffing his baseball bat into one of the storage cupboards of his room. Then Arnold flopped on his bed for a spell. He turned on his radio, twisted the volume up louder, then with looked up at the poofy sky through his skylight. Arnold was still listening to the local radio jazz station, MJazz, which had also branched off into a country music station, when the dinner bell rang. He sat up in bed and slowly made his way off his bed and out of his room.
Perhaps Helga was not the only quiet one, for Arnold pulled out a chair and sat down at the dinner table without his usual greetings or smiles. He spooned into his mashed potatoes instead, swallowing the warm hot goodness of starch and butter before propping his spoon up and glancing down the long table toward his grandparents.
"Grandma. Grandpa," Arnold said acknowledging everyone around him at last.
"Hey there, Shortman," said Grandpa Phil, a basket of dinner rolls in his hand. "How's the school year going?"
"Long," said Arnold. "We have tests at the end of the month. Either it's my imagination, or they're giving us a lot more homework this year."
"That's nothin'!" said Ernie waving a spoon around so that it splatted potatoes. "You think you've got a lot of homework now, just wait until high school. Then you'll really be in for it!"
"Thanks Mr. Potts," said Arnold with polite sarcasm. "Well, I think tomorrow is going to be better. We have a guest speaker in the auditorium. Then the day after that, it's career day again."
"Oh, pooh," said Mr. Kakashka, "you did that last year!"
"They do it every year," explained Arnold. "I just hope I don't get stuck with the Jolly Olly man again."
"Yeah, well I still think you should go into demolition!" said Ernie buttering a roll then swinging it like it as a wrecking ball into the mashed potatoes on his plate. "Boom! Slam! Just like that and the whole thing comes down!"
"Don't you… listen to Ernie!" said Mr. Hyunh with a slight pause in his speech as he fumbled past his foreign accent. "You go to high school, get married, maybe go to college! Get yourself a good job! Or come work in a restaurant. I can show you how to make a good taco!"
"You'd make a good salesman," Susie reasoned, hunched over her coffee mug, both arms on the table. "You're patient and a good listener. I think you could learn."
"Well, I don't know exactly what I want to do when I grow up," said Arnold, slightly pressured. "But I do have a list of ideas of things I might do. I turned it in at Mr. Simmon's class."
"A deep-sea diver!" declared Grandpa Phil out of the blue. "That's what I wanna be when I grow up! Except what'll I do about all the sharks?" Phil scratched his chin. "Oh wait a minute! I just remembered something!" said the man slapping the side of his head. "I'm retired! All I've got to do is keep up the boarding house! You'll help me with that, won't you Arnold?'
"Yes, Grandpa," said Arnold rolling his eyes at his Grandpa's jokes.
The next day, the guy from "the stay in school, an education is a terrible thing to waste" commercials they played in movie theatres lectured them from the school stage about going to all the way to high school. Harold and Stinky watched from the front row, transfixed. Arnold listened to lecture, but he was bored since he had no inclination to drop out of school in the first place. Nadine and Rhonda passed notes to each other behind him in the auditorium, and Helga chewed half a pack of bubblegum through the whole thing.
But the next day dawned bright and beautiful and full of the promise to be an interesting day. Arnold and Gerald strutted into their school, chatting happily. Sid, Rhonda, Nadine, and Stinky walked by together like a swimming school of fish. Eugene jogged into school, tripping and splatting over his untied shoelace three times in a row before he made it to the door. Lagging behind everyone else, Harold Berman approached the rear doors of P.S. 118 with a toothy smile and one book under his arm. But then, his eyes shifted towards the parking strips for faculty and visitors. These were already mostly filled with visitors for their career day. As Harold watched, a tiny orange and red car whirled up to park in a space right beside Harold. In one of the more bizarre moments in P.S. 118's history, two mean-looking midget clowns stepped out the vehicle and glared toward the elementary school.
"Mommy!" said Harold whirling around and running for his life. It just so happened he recognized those clowns. He had stolen their bike once and been chased for it. The midget clowns were too busy looking up at the school to recognize Harold as he ran away to save his hide. But Helga was not so fortunate. She stared wide-eyed and horrified as the clowns who had once tried to chase her and Harold down for stealing their clown bike strolled right into her classroom amid the other professionals presenting on career day.
"Eei-yah!" Helga managed to stutter out at last with a horrified expression on her face. Gulping down her fright, Helga tried to sink down to hide behind her school desk. But it was too late. The two midget clowns were pointing a finger towards her across the classroom and whispering to each other behind their hands.
"Helga? What's wrong?" Arnold's gentle voice rumbled. But Helga kept hiding under her desk.
"Shh! Football-Head, don't give me away!" Arnold stared at Helga's newest eccentric behavior.
"Now class," said Simmons bringing attention to himself. "I know that last year's career day was a tremendous success and I'd like to repeat all that, but this year it has been decided for administrative reasons to keep things simpler. Yes, yes, don't be sad!" Mr. Simmons reasoning with the moaning students. "We won't be going off the property but you will be assigned a one-on-one mentor. He or she will then help you set up a quote, unquote shop for our first ever business expo! Isn't that exciting?!"
"What's a dang business expo?" asked Stinky blinking.
"Well, usually Stinky," said Mr. Simmons resting one hand on his desk to support his weight as he leaned back on it slightly. "A business expo is place where businesses try to connect with prospective customers, employees, or even try to sell or distribute samples of their product. But for us it means that all of you will be proprietors for a day of your very own business and you can sell or give away things you have made at your booth. Your mentor will help you develop a two sentence business plan and give you mentoring on how to make one product for your booth. For example, Rhonda, Sally from Sally's Chocolates will be instructing you in how to make chocolate to sell."
"That's incredible!" exclaimed Rhonda with an enthused smile. "But hang on a minute. What happened to drawing lots from a hat? You know, to determine our mentor for career day?"
"Oh, well, I'm doing things differently for just this one year. I've already assigned pairs between mentors and students. Helga," said Mr. Simmons giving the pink-dress-wearing girl a wink. "I've got a special mentor for you. Instead of just being paired with one mentor, you and one other student and their mentor will work together in a cooperative project. If you pull this off, Helga, I will promise you a B for classroom participation for this year," said Mr. Simmons winking again. "You and Arnold will be working together with two clowns from McGrunty's Circus to put on a juggling act."
"Are you crazy?!" yelped Helga. "Do you want me to die?!"
"Now, now, Helga," said Mr. Simmons. "Be reasonable. Learning to juggle isn't the worst thing that could happen to you and your friend Arnold will be there to help you along."
"I can't believe you set me up like this," Helga glowered. Here she was, stuck between two homicidal-looking midget clowns with a grudge against her. "Today is just gonna be great," Helga lied intentionally. Her career day had just gone bad, bad, bad!
