Total spoiler alert. One reader, Sophia2017, requested a story where Helga nurses Arnold after he has his appendix taken out. I know some of you readers might have had something like that happen to you! One reader, Gakuto1991, requested Grandpa and others to dress up as zombies to scare Arnold. So this story will fulfill these two requests. The new Jungle Movie comes out on Thanksgiving. Thank you for all your readership and support. Over 2,500 views last month is not bad. It has been a joy and a pleasure to share in the glory of fanfiction with you. ;)
One thing that Helga had longed for, passionately, had been to go to the monster truck rally and see the great big cars with giant wheels crush all the other tiny cars into sheet metal. And so she got her wish on a fine early autumn day. The leaves on the maples outside were crimson. The stadium was packed with cheering and jeering crowds and best of all, the friends in her class were there, too. Everyone was- even the kids she did not like.
Ah, but best of all was Arnold. The boy with spiky blond hair was there with a wild grin on his face as he imagined himself driving a giant purple and blue monster truck through a jungle filled with prehistoric creatures. But then his smile fell and he placed a hand up against his forehead. He turned toward Gerald.
"Gerald, I'm not feeling so good," the boy uttered, attracting Helga's and everyone else's attention. "Do you mind if we go get some air?"
"Sure, man," was Gerald's helpful reply. Instinctively, he held an arm out to steady Arnold as the boy tottered from the stadium seat to the walkway home. Surprisingly, his friends elected to tag along with him.
"Man. You don't look so good," Gerald remarked as they attained the better lighting. "Your cheeks are red! And man, you are burning up!" Gerald lamented as he lay the back of his hand against Arnold's forehead. Helga fretted in the background. But so, too, did Rhonda. She whipped out her cellphone.
"I'd better call a cab!" she said. "So we can get Arnold to a doctor!"
The result of all this was that a few weeks later, instead of being a school being a diligent schoolboy, Arnold was diligent resting in bed at home in his room below the glass roof. The boy with the messy knot of hair looked up through the ceiling to see the blue of the sky, then looked down again as the door to his room cracked open. His Grandpa, Phil, popped in through the open door.
"How's it going, Arnold? Do you need anything? A glass of water perhaps? Perhaps you'd like to borrow a my copy of Hillwood Fly-fishing Magazine? Ooh, it's a good one! I've been reading it myself for hours!" Arnold wrinkled his nose, since he knew exactly where his Grandpa read his magazines. On the toilet.
"No thanks, Grandpa. I've got plenty of comic books to read. But I am getting a little bored. Do you think I can go back to school soon?"
"Not till the day after tomorrow!" Grandpa waggled a finger at him. "Doctor's orders. But not to worry. Your friend Gerald called, and he'll be coming over to see you shortly."
"That's great, Grandpa!" Arnold smiled.
"Erm, ha," the man said without the same enthusiasm as he shut the door behind him. Arnold lay down for a nap in his room. In a short space of time, Gerald came as promised. The tall-haired one pressed the door open to peer inside, locked eyes with Arnold whom lay on the bed with his thumbs linked across the coverlet, smiled, and strode forward with a broad smile.
"Arnold, my man! Man, it's been boring at school without you! I've missed you. I hope you get to come back soon!"
"You visited me yesterday," Arnold observed.
"Yeah, but it's not the same," was Gerald's mild disagreement. "Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up. Stinky, Sid, Eugene, Lorenzo, and Harold were planning on coming over, too! Oh, and here they all are!" Arnold swiveled his head around at the sound of Harold and Sid bickering over the shut doorknob. Then both boys tumbled in.
"Oh, hey Arnold!" Sid said collecting himself to his feet first as he brushed off his black leather jacket. "How've you been? We've all come to visit you!"
"Obviously," Harold complained, as bulky and pudgy as ever.
"Oooh, it's great to see you!" Eugene muttered as he examined the boy tucked into his bed. "Did you get stitches?" Arnold pulled up his shirt to show a scar stitched neatly on his tummy.
"Oooh! That's cool!" said Sid. "Maybe it'll leave a scar!"
"Now why 'en the dang heck would he want a scar fer?" asked Stinky Peterson. "Better that it heals up nice and smooth."
"Nah, that way it'll give him a gritty, tough guy look!" Sid said punching the air with his fist. Arnold ignored all of it.
"It's nice of you to visit me," he said tucking himself back into his bed covers as a proper bed patient should.
"Here, Arnold," said Lorenzo reaching into his briefcase. "We brought you a card!" Arnold flipped it open. He was not surprised that two of his friends had signed something rude.
"Um, thanks guys!"
"Yeah. That's pretty much what we came by to say," announced Harold. "So I guess I'll be getting home now. See you at school, next week Arnold!"
"Yeah, get better soon, ya hear!" Sid postured with his knees bent and fingertips thrust out like a hipster.
"Will do," Arnold spoke sublimely. He watched as everyone but Gerald made their way back out the door to his room.
Gerald stayed awhile to talk to his best friend. But after some time, he, too wandered away. A quiet Arnold ate his dinner (served by Grandma) from a tray and went to sleep.
Beep, beep, beep! The next day, Arnold rubbed his eyes and coiled up on his shoulder to slam the alarm button on his alarm clock to "off" and so deaden it's inane ring. But such an action was not to be. Someone's else's hand reached the alarm button first.
"Rise and shine, Arnoldo!" Helga spoke with echoing loudness across Arnold's room. Arnold blinked in the bright morning light and squinted. He looked down at himself once just to make sure he was wearing his pajamas, then up again at Helga.
"Uh, Helga what are you doing? And why are you dressed as Florence Nightingale?" Helga was wearing a starched, white and black outfit with a little white cap.
"And why the heck, not?" was Helga's retort. "She was a woman who said, 'yes I can!' Anyhoo, I'm here to make sure you get better! See! Rice porridge!" Helga said with the manner of promotion while holding up bowl of sloppy white gruel. But her next words were not so encouraging. "Now open up and eat your gruel!" She sat down on a stool next to bed and held up a gloppy spoonful.
"Um, I think I'll pass," Arnold spoke with caution.
"Aw, some girl named Sophia gave this outfit to me on condition. So shut up and eat your porridge!" Helga growled fiercely. Arnold blinked hard, but he opened his mouth wide enough that Helga managed to spoonfeed him three spoonfuls of porridge.
"Helga," Arnold managed to utter out after swallowing the porridge forced on him. "Why aren't you watching Saturday cartoons or something?"
"Are you kidding, Arnoldo?" Helga uttered. "They're all reruns this week. I checked the listing already. Besides, I'd prefer a bit of gratitude for my sterling company."
"Hm," Arnold uttered out, thinking. "Well since you're here, do you wanna watch some movies?" Helga nodded her head up and down with glee.
Soon the two of them were seated downstairs on the living on the green couch with a bowl full of popcorn. Helga might have been happy. But Arnold was watching episode after episode of what, to her, seemed the dopiest of shows imaginable. She muttered to herself as much.
"You wanna watch another one?" Arnold beamed. Helga flinched away from the paper and plastic box.
"Er, no. How about something else?" She rooted through a pile of boxes. "You've got zombie movies?"
"Those are Grandpa's," Arnold explained as Helga examined the stockpile of horror films. "He and Ernie watch them. Why, do want to see one?"
"Not especially. How about this one?" Helga said poking a box out from the base of the stack.
"A nature documentary?" Arnold lifted a brow. "You watch those?"
"All the time!" Helga said with blunt honesty. "Why? Does it bother you?"
"Ah, no I'm just surprised," said Arnold. "Although if I recall the reason I stopped watching it was because… because," Arnold tried to remember. Then a thought popped into his head. "That one was of courtship rituals of… well, never mind what's on it!" Arnold said leaping up onto to the tape as if it was a football. He wrestled it away, much to Helga's surprise.
"Hey! Easy there!" was Helga's mild rebuff. "You'll rip your stitches, tiger! How about you read something instead? I'll go get your comic books or something. Just prop your feet up and stay put, 'kay?" Arnold blinked three times and tipped his head sideways in astonishment as Helga fluffed a pillow three times and nudged it under his ankles so that he might lay, cross-armed and deeply sunk in the couch. Arnold wore a look of surprise again when his Grandma Gertie also entered the room wearing another, antiquated nurse's outfit, this one white with a matching, triangular hat. "Oh no," Arnold palm-slapped his forehead. Now there were two crazy cosplayers looking after him.
"Time for your medicine, Arnold!" Gertie said nudging a tray with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin near the boy. "And Eleanor's brought you a sandwich, the sweet dear."
Silent and more subdued than earlier, Helga managed one of her saucy grins as she held up a tray with a peanut butter sandwich and a tall glass of grape juice.
"Only the finest peanut butter!" she said exultingly of the sandwich. "Oh! And I've got to go get your comic books!"
"Uh, never mind those, Helga," spoke up Arnold. He waved a hand in the direction of the bookshelf in the living room. "One of those will do." So Helga selected a green book from the bookshelf and handed it to Arnold. The grandfather clock chimed and Helga checked her watch.
"Lunchtime huh?" she said quietly to herself. "I guess it's time for me to go."
"You don't have to," Arnold pled. "You can have a peanut butter sandwich, too."
"No, Arnold," Helga said. "I think it's better if I stop in at home, you know, to let Olga and Miriam know I haven't dropped off the map. But I think you'll be fine, unless one of the zombieopolypse movies on that shelf comes true." Helga winked, then feeling heavy-hearted but determined, strode to the door. She opened it, then slammed the door behind her only to hear the sound of "ack!" from behind her. Somehow, slamming the door with great force had not only caused things to sway, it had jarred Arnold's nerves so much that he had tipped his wrist to a slant. Which was disastrous since he had been holding the food tray in one hand and reaching for the grape juice with the other. The glass of frothy, inky grape juice spun around in a circle on its bottom glass rim, then tipped over and dripped across the tray and into Arnold's lap. Helga poked her head back through the door at the sound of Arnold's yell.
"Oh my gosh, Arnold!" she yelped and nearly chewed on her fingernails. "Here, let me get you a towel or something." Arnold and the living room were stained with grape juice in a wide area of purple-dyed disaster. But as Arnold frowned down at his wickedly stained shirt with dismay and tried to mop the grape juice from off his neck with a towel, other people were drawing near to Arnold to visit him. One such person was Sid, who walked along the sidewalk outside the boarding house with no complex ambitions in mind other than to say hello. But the second person to be thinking about Arnold was someone with mischief in mind and this time, that person was not Helga. It was his Grandpa, Phil.
"Heehee!" Grandpa chuckled as he listened through the door. "Arnold's still busy with his little friend," Grandpa informed Ernie Potts and Mr. Huynh. Mr. Kokoshka hovered in the background of the group of men. "So let's all go on and try these costumes I bought! Arnold and Gerald might have got the better of us once, but this Halloween, we're gonna scare the pants off them good!"
"Aw, isn't that mean, Grandpa?" Mr. Kokoshka fumbled as he whimpered. "Why would you want to do a thing like that?"
"Oh, it's not MEAN," Grandpa Phil emphasized. "It's just good, not-so-fair fun! After all, those boys are askin' for it after the prank they pulled on us at Halloween! As far as I see, it that's a declaration of war and we'll show 'em that no one can prank the master! 'Sides, messin' with Arnold keeps my twilight years interesting."
So Phil, Ernie Potts, Mr. Huynh, and Mr. Kokoshka all donned zombie costumes. On the balance, they looked a bit more goofy than authentic. But the costumes were enough to be terrifying for a kid named Sid who spotted them through the window.
"Ack!" Sid yammered to himself from the yard. "Zombies? Did I really just see that?! Calm down, Sid! I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. Other than Arnold and his family have all turned into zombies!" Sid yelped as he pressed his palms together in a crouching expression of fear.
"Sid," Gerald announced abruptly from behind the crouching boy. "What are you doing?" Gerald had snuck up behind Sid, but the boy was elated to have company. He clutched Gerald's shoulders and pointed to the window of the house.
"Gerald, did you see that?!" Sid quaked. "Zombies! In the house! Ooh, Arnold must be a goner!"
"Um-hum," Gerald said, unimpressed between his hooded eyes. "Have you been watching too much thriller-t.v. again? I told you to knock that off!" Gerald asked before striding up to Arnold's front door and its tall stoop. "I'm sure everyone's fine! Let's go see!"
Gerald rung the doorbell. Then, when nobody answered, he took the liberty of opening the front door and walking in. He passed by a door early in the hallway of the house. The door cracked open and Grandpa Phil appeared suddenly, holding a paper bag as large as a suitcase in one hand.
"OOOH!" Grandpa Phil flustered. "Nothing to see here, boy! Not hiding anything at all, nope! You go on now! Go and say hello to Arnold!" Grandpa Phil chuckled a low, cunning chuckle as Gerald walked slowly down the hall with Sid straggling behind him.
"See, Sid?" Gerald grinned. "I told you everything was fine!" But Gerald and Sid both stopped at a halt as Ernie and Mr. Huynh both snuck through the kitchen still wearing their costumes.
"What was that?!" Sid panicked.
"I'm sure it was nothing," Gerald said with as much certainty as he could manage. But then he and Gerald entered the living room to find Arnold still lying on the couch, splattered with grape juice and no Helga in sight.
"Ack!" Sid clutched his head. "The zombies have already gotten Arnold!"
"Ribbit!" Sydney the frog agreed from beneath his cap. Arnold looked down at his shirt.
"I don't know what you're going on about, Sid," said the boy. "But it's only grape juice. I'd better change my clothes." Arnold pulled at the collar of his shirt to get the wet material away from his neck. Helga appeared at the door holding a stack of cleaning materials.
"Helga?" Gerald eyed the girl with suspicion. "What are you doing here?"
"Um, causing trouble for the dork, here!" she snapped, unwilling or unable to lower the volume of her fragile pride under his scrutiny. But there was a change of heart mid-sentence, for she continued, "but it's not like I did it on purpose." With a silent frown, she knelt on the carpet and began to scrub it with the towel to mop up the puddle of juice.
"I'm sure Grandma will be able to clean it, somehow!" Arnold consoled her after a long moment of inventive thinking. "Don't worry about it."
"Yeah?" Helga looked up. That was Arnold for you.
Arnold busied himself with changing his shirt. Grandma Gertie worked on despoiling the carpet and Helga let herself out the front door and walked slowly down Arnold's stoop to head for other places, her house perhaps. Then Arnold sat around in his room playing cards with his friends. Days passed. The fall foliage of the street trees grew more brilliant and jacko'lanterns began to be seen everywhere. With a broad smile, Arnold carved one such pumpkin for himself at the kitchen table. He held it up for Gerald to see, but it was even less wide than his face. Gerald's pumpkin was skinny and tall like his hairdo, but much thinner and more pointy. They waited while Grandpa set small, white beeswax candles in each jack o'lantern and lit them so that each boy might get a glimpse of candle light emanating from the jaws of their creations.
"Ooo!" was Arnold and Gerald' collective approval. They used their friendship thumb shake to celebrate.
"They'll look really nice when it gets dark!" Arnold approved, holding tight to his jack o'lantern after the candle had been snuffed.
"Yeah! And Halloween's only a few days off!" said Gerald. "Can we come to your party this year?" Gerald asked of Grandpa.
"Oh, I'm counting on it!" Phil said with glee. He was still planning on scaring the two boys with his costumes. But Arnold and Gerald did not suspect. To be continued.