The bell rang and school ended for the day. Fourteen – year – old blonde boy went to his locker to grab the books he needed. He took off his blue hat to straighten it out a bit. He bent down to tie his shoes before he unlocked his locker. His best friend, with tall black hair came up to the blonde boy with his hat.
The blonde, whose name was Arnold, used the code of his locker, which as six, eighteen, and thirty-two. Both Arnold and his best friend, Gerald Johansen noticed how big of a mess Arnold's locker was.
"Why is your locker such a mess?" Gerald asked.
Both friends did know it wasn't like Arnold to leave his locker messy. Arnold had always been a neat person, organized and smart.
"We'll work on figuring who messed up my locker later," Arnold told Gerald.
Gerald understood what Arnold had said.
"I'm going to be late for work if we don't hurry up," Arnold replied.
"Do you want to meet at the bakery after you get off? Harold should be going home by then," Gerald responded.
"Sure," Arnold said.
The two best friends walked out of school. It was a walking distance for Arnold to get to his job every weekday after school. Gerald walked with Arnold to his job.
"See you later, man," Gerald said as Arnold walked into the hat store he worked.
"All right, Gerald. Later," Arnold said and watched his best friend leave.
The hat store had several hats of all shapes and sizes and colors. Arnold liked the blue hats best since it was his favorite color. Arnold recently bought a new blue hat that matched his old one. His old hat had worn out after all the years he had worn it. He had bought the new hat with a paycheck from his weekly payday on Thursday.
Arnold sold many hats that day. After he checked out and meet Gerald at his parents' bakery. He didn't notice a classmate was nearby. She stopped to tie her pink shoes. She had a pink dress and big pink bow that matched her shoes. She followed Arnold from the hat store to Gerald's bakery without noticing she was there all along.
She recently started a poetry-writing club. She loved writing poetry about Arnold ever since she learned how to write. Yes, she was the best poetry writer in her group. She never bothered sharing all the poems she'd been writing to share those with anyone, not even Arnold.
After quietly following Gerald and Arnold, she made it to her house. Her mother, Miriam Pataki, had been dead for about three years now. Miriam was suffering from health issues. It was now she and her father, Big Bob. Her mother and father rarely pay attention that she was around. Big Bob always called her by her bigger sister's name, which was Olga.
Helga wasn't that close to Olga and couldn't stand her. Helga was in the fourth grade while Olga was in college. Olga had never followed Big Bob's footsteps to be a businesswoman but instead she decided to be a teacher. Big Bob wasn't like Miriam, his wife to have health issues as she did. It would happen one day.
Helga now came back to her house where she had lived in since she was born. It was quiet when she opened the front door. When she did walk in, the house was black. No sign of her father, Big Bob Pataki. She sighed. It was just her and Bob left in the house. Big Bob had retired from the beeper store and was now a sheriff in Hillwood's sheriff department.
Since nobody was home, Helga decided to make herself a turkey sandwich. Big Bob was hardly at home to eat dinner with her, so she saw no reason to make a whole meal for both. While finishing the first half of the turkey sandwich, a plan popped into her head.
"That's what I'll do," she said to the empty house.
She pulled out a locket with a picture of Arnold.
"My dear beloved Arnold, you don't know this yet, but I will come to a point to really tell you how I feel about you. I'm going to rob your hat store to tell you my feelings," she said as she put the locket back where she'd kept it.