"Miriam!" Helga shouted across the house. Have you seen my shoes?" The young girl's plaintiff was answered by her mother's sitting up. Miriam had been dozing in big Bob's armchair for a change in scenery. She adjusted the glasses that were slightly bent from being worn while asleep all the time so that they fit her face.
"Huh? Oh I'm sure they're around somewhere dear!" The woman said wobbling to her feet. She looked around herself for a moment. But disoriented, the woman slumped back onto the chair in defeat.
"Hm, I don't know honey! Take a few dollars from my wallet and buy yourself a new pair. A woman can never have too many shoes! Oh and maybe you could even splurge for some penny loafers! You know the leather shoes with a real penny in them? They were always your favorite when you were a little girl!"
"Right," Helga muttered with doubt. She'd have to find her shoes on her own. But maybe taking a little extra cash when offered wasn't a bad thing.
Helga wandered into the dining area. She spotted her mother's purse on the table and rummaged through it to get two from a number of twenty dollar bills. She had enough self restraint to leave the rest, tucking them back into the bill fold. Miriam came in the room as she did so. Miriam rubbed her bleary eyes.
"Oh look Helga!" the woman pointed. "Over there behind the potted plant!"
Helga looked. Yes, sticking out of the underside of a small, freestanding cabinet were the tips of her shoes. "Aw isn't that lucky!" her mom purred. "Oh by the way dear. Please water that potted plant. It's always dying," the woman said with a touch of disdain.
"Hm," Helga said. She touched touched the fronds of a palm. "It doesn't look so good. Maybe Arnold would know what's wrong with it. He's good with this sort of thing."
"Good idea!" said her mother. She pulled out a dining room chair to sit on. "Why don't you pay your little friend a visit?" Miriam settled in for a nap. Helga meanwhile picked up the houseplant. Wide-eyed and wondering at the recent turn of things, she jiggled the front door open using one hand and her elbow. She and the houseplant slid through the door.
At the boarding house on Vine Street, Arnold walked down the stairs of his home. He blinked at the sight of Ernie Potts and Mr Hyunh wearing beach towels with turtles on them. "Hey kid!" Ernie said. "The sauna's up and running. It's your turn to go in if you want to. " The man gestured with his thumb behind him.
"Yes! It's your turn! After grandpa!" the other said. Arnold blinked.
"Well I really hadn't planned on it today but I guess I would like a turn," the boy mumbled. He walked through the kitchen, out the back door, then round to the rear of the house. A little stack of towels with turtles on them were there. Arnold selected one of the towels from the stack then knocked on the sauna door.
"Grandpa? " the boy called into the sauna's interior. What he didn't anticipate was his grandma to shoot out of it wearing a bikini and a football helmet with valkyrie wings sporting out either side.
"Dagnabbit how many times do I have to tell you to read signs? This sauna is not coed," Phil grumbled from within the room.
"Aw Phil, you're so shy!" Arnold's grandma grinned. "Besides you know a little thing like that never stopped me."
"Oh, raspberries," Arnold's grandpa cussed.
Arnold's grandma went away. His grandpa Phil then noticed the boy through the door. "Oh, how are you doing, Shortman?" The elderly man asked. "Do you wanna take over here? I'm done, " his grandpa said just before ambling off.
"Sure," Arnold said before his grandpa left. He stood in the backyard in his little blue boxer shorts, admiring the turtles on the towel.
But Helga had arrived at the boarding house. The sight before her had Helga transfixed. The potted palm tree tumbled free of her hands to smash on the ground. She didn't notice the rubble on her feet. In her head there was a screeching like the needle on a vinyl record being ripped suddenly off its player. All she could do was watch in slow motion as her radiant, bright-skinned, emerald-eyed love-god shook out his towel. Helga lowered her eyes to follow the sculpted muscles of his firm chest. A dreamy sigh escaped Helga's lips. Grinning as she closed her eyes, Helga almost fainted backwards. But, no, this time she rocked back on her toes in an instant and gave herself a slap. Then she dodged behind some barrels. Arnold whirled his head around but saw nothing.
"Oh be still, my thrice beating heart!" Helga whispered from behind her barrel (which was filled with painted wood chips and other trash). "What would make my heart becalm is also what would make it race! To thread my fingers in his wispy locks of sunbright hair! Would it liberate me, or ere would I die?!" Helga lay both hands on her chest as if she was having coronary heart failure. Then, she reopened her shut eyes. Helga had realized something. The chance to spy on Arnold would not last long. She recovered enough to peer round the barrel just as Arnold swaggered into the sauna. Crouched on her knees behind the barrel and open jawed, Helga watched the boy go his way.
"OH!" Helga declared with a touch of way too much drama. Still kneeling, she shifted her weight onto one knee to curl one of her hands into an anguished fist. "Oh! If only I could but kiss that uniform oblong perfection which is your brow and match it to my own unworthy one, I would hold you for a while, yea hour's time until the tenderness of my love would seep like the sauna heat to surround you in its embracing temperature's radiance. Heh, my beloved! My divine and true! How I admire you in your ravishing entirety!" Still hidden behind the barrel, Helga pulled her locket from her shirt front to snuggle it with her nose. But then she tucked it away again to observe the door to the sauna.
A towel over his shoulder, Arnold emerged from the sauna at last. He blinked. If he wasn't imagining things, then the barrel in his yard quavered side to side. When it jiggled again Arnold picked up the tiniest of pebbles and threw it at the barrel. The pebble bounced off the rim and out of view.
"Yow!" Helga exclaimed. Rubbing her head, she stood.
"Oh," Arnold uttered calmly. "It's you."
"Yeah it's me," Helga groused. She rubbed the top of her head. Then she let her hands fall free to her sides. "What's shaking, dazzling? "
"Helga. What are you doing here? " Arnold asked plainly. Helga twitched her brows then pointed at her now near demolished houseplant.
"I came here in need of a little bit of your gardening advice, Arnoldo. Do you have any tricks to fix this? Or at least some glue?" Arnold stooped over the battered plant.
"Well, if you really want my advice, Helga, I think we should at least start with a new pot. Come this way, I have some spare containers in my greenhouse." But Helga hadn't been listening properly. Arnold glanced down at his bare chest.
"Oh yeah, " said Arnold. He had noticed that Helga was practically drooling on herself over his chest. "I'd better put on a shirt." Flashing her a smile, Arnold found himself a shirt from the clothes drying line. He tugged it over his head so that his torso disappeared from its tantalizing display. With a small smirk of masculine pride, Arnold opened his greenhouse door and held it open like a professional doorman. "After you!" The boy gestured with courtesy. Her face a study of shifting emotions- now meekness and tenderness- Helga slipped inside the greenhouse. She craned her head around.
"Wow, a lot of old memories in here," the girl said. "Remember that time I spent the night over here for your geeky biodome project?" Arnold rubbed his temple at the afflicting memory.
"Yeah, I really don't care to dwell on that experience. No offense Helga but when you're trapped someplace. .. well you get a little tense. Like really, really tense. That day was not the best experience of my life. "
"Yeah? Well at least you got some sleep that night, paste for brains! Oh, sorry. Old habits die hard. Didn't mean to snap," Helga amended. Then, creeping forward she touched the back of the boy's hand with two fingers. "I'm sorry, Arnold! Really I am!" A good deal of time had passed. She and Arnold were no longer foes or acquaintances. They were friends who felt the temptation to be romantic from time to time. It was an instinct they both still resisted out of pride although there was a kind of tenderness between them which Arnold had also seen during the gruesome disaster of biosphere. When the greenhouse had flooded, Helga had injured her arm in a bid to protect him from the flood waters by pulling him up onto their impromptu raft. When the waters had receded into the grass her smile toward Arnold had been tender for a moment. It was one good memory in amid a mess of really bad ones.
"Well, we rebuilt the greenhouse! See!" said Arnold. He gestured to the glass all around them. Joy and sorrow flickered across his face. But then Arnold recalled the houseplant plant Helga had dragged here. Arnold set the palm down on his potting bench. He scrutinized the exposed roots.
"Hm," Arnold mused over it. "Please hand me that pot on the bottom shelf, Helga. Now that bag of dirt by your foot! Now I add a little water," said the boy using a little, old-fashioned metal watering can for a moment. "There! I think that should help. I'll just trim a few of the dead leaves off." He picked up pair of scissors for a few short snips.
"It lives!" Helga declared as if she and Arnold were in a Frankenstein movie. "Thanks, Arnoldo. It doesn't look too shabby. "
"Where do you keep this plant Helga? " Arnold asked. He kept up his examination of its leaves.
"In the dining room," was Helga's answer.
"Well, if it's really dark where this plant is kept, it might be better for you to keep another plant. This one needs a lot of sun. Here, I have some others I could trade you that might work better for you."
"As in not die? That's nice of you and all but I'd better ask about that. The plant is Miriam's. If I trade, she might flip out. On other hand, she might not even notice. It's hard to guess."
"Okay, "Arnold replied. Perhaps he wondered slightly why Helga had come all the way with her mother's plant since Helga was angry with her mother most of the time. But he kept silent.
Helga and Arnold walked to the greenhouse door. The two expected to get out. But when Arnold pulled at the door it refused to open. "Uh oh," said Arnold.
"Whaddaya mean uh oh? " Helga gulped.
"Um, when Grandpa and Ernie rebuilt the greenhouse they build it the same as last time. With the lock on the other side of the door. Don't ask me why they do these things because I don't know. Maybe it makes sense to them."
"Why, because they think the plants are gonna run away? Sheesh! " Helga huffed. She pressed her nose to the glass.
"I don't know! " said a dismayed Arnold. "But it happened to me once before. All we gotta do is wait. Someone will come along and find us."
"Right, Arnold. Like we'll be lucky enough for that to happen." But Helga's eyes bulged. Mr. Kokoschka was making his way across the yard straight for them. Helga and Arnold both waved their arms and shouted.
"Let us out, let us out!" They cried. The man stopped right beside the greenhouse.
"Mr. Kokoschka, we really need you to open the greenhouse door for us. It locked behind us," Arnold said trying to be calm. But it was a little tough for Mr. Kokoschka to hear them through the glass. Maybe he was a little deaf. Maybe he wasn't paying attention. But for whatever reason, the man didn't notice their distress.
"Oh hi, silly kids!" He grinned. "Grandpa sent me out here to check on you in case you went all pruny in the sauna. Well, it's turned off now! You and your friend have fun!"
"Mr. Kokoschka let us out!" Arnold cried. He pounded the glass with his fist.
"Help! Hey, help!" Helga wailed.
"Eh, what's the matter kids?" The man asked. "Do you want to hear a joke? Okay but just one! What did the ghost chicken say after crossing the road? Why are you eating my sandwich? Eh, pretty funny, eh! Well see ya later!" With that their potential rescuer was gone.
"Drat, drat, double-darn it drat!" Helga scowled though the glass as Mr. Kokoschka vanished from sight. "What do we do now, football-head?"
"Ugh. This is not good, " Arnold complained, in distress himself. He too, pressed his nose to the glass. "We may be in here for hours! And this time I don't have any food. Um, I know you get kind of grumpy when you get tired and hungry, Helga. Please try to go easy on me okay?" But Helga didn't answer. She was too busy examining Arnold's books piled on the table.
"Hey what were you reading, Arnoldo? " Helga said thumbing through a page. "Looks like spiders."
"Yeah," said Arnold. He picked up one of the books to point out a page. "See? The black widow's really scary. In addition to being venomous the female will overpower the smaller male to eat him if she's really hungry." Looking down at the book then Helga, Arnold shirked. He prepared himself to run... just in case. But before the boy could bolt Helga caught the boy by the scruff of his collar.
"Oh come on!" Helga griped before loosening her grip on Arnold's collar. "Get real! Do you really think I'd eat you? "
"The thought never crossed my mind," Arnold lied with a pearly smile.
"Sheesh, " Helga huffed. "Why would I eat you? Although I'm getting a little hungry. It's too bad we don't have some of those pizzas like your family was annoyingly gorging themselves on last time. Right in front of me! Wait!" said Helga. She grasped Arnold again in the impulse of a moment. "That might be the answer! Pizza!" She whipped out her cellphone.
"Why didn't you have that last time?" Arnold pondered.
"Because I didn't want my parents bugging me, okay?" Helga lashed back. She stuck the phone up to her face. "Hello? I'd like to order five pizzas! Helga Pataki! The only catch is ya gotta deliver it to the greenhouse in the back of the house at 28 Vine Street. Ya got that?! In the greenhouse!" Helga listened then hung up the phone.
"Why don't you call your parents? Or one the boarders?" Arnold asked. Helga shrugged. Then she dialed the phone number to Arnold's house. It rang and rang for a long time. Everyone inside was watching a baseball game. "Hello? Arnold's Grandpa?" she asked. But she had gotten Mr. Hyunh on the phone. "Hi, I'm calling because…" Helga began to say. But the Vietnamese man cut her off.
"Oh! I know you! You are calling from the telephone school? Yes, our telephone is working. Goodbye!" He hung up.
"Um, you try Arnold!" Helga said. She handed the phone to Arnold. But Mr. Hyunh had gone back to watching the game.
"Dang," Helga said glumly. "Sorry! I guess we'll wait for the pizza!" TO BE CONTINUED