This one's for T.D., who likes running away. It's going to feature kids being kids. And jerks.
Gerald Johanssen was having a serious munchie problem. But not the usual problem one might expect. The boy scratched his head as he examined an empty cereal bowl. Then he pulled out three more cereal bowls and filled all three of them with different kinds of snacks from crinkly, puffy store brand bags. Abandoning all three on the tabletop of his dining room's dinette table, he left to walk into his home's adjacent living room. Rounding the bend, he could see his best friend Arnold, hunkered down on the couch, the television remote clasped between both his hands as he jammed the orange remote buttons with a frown.
"Buttons are stuck," Arnold explained his consternation as he passed the remote over to Gerald.
"Or the batteries are running low," Gerald explained before swapping the unwieldy batteries. "There we go!" With a buzz, the television powered on. He handed the remote control back to Arnold. "You go find us our station! I'll go get us our snacks! Huh?!" Gerald squeaked to a standstill as he entered the kitchen. Arnold whirled his bushy head around.
"What's the matter?" He stood up and joined Gerald at the entrance to the kitchen.
"I could have sworn I had a bowl of Puffs-and-Crunch here. And a bowl of potato chips. AND some pretzel twists." Gerald tipped the bowl his finger so that he might get a better view of its lingering crumbs.
"You're sure you poured the food already?" Arnold checked, ever endeavoring to be rational.
"Uh-huh. Well, whoever it was," Gerald decided at last, "they one-upped Goldilocks! They ate all three bowls. What'll we do now?"
"I dunno. Make a sandwich?" Arnold suggested mildly. He waited patiently as Gerald rummaged through the fridge.
"Here we go!" Gerald declared with a bright grin as he unearthed the bologna. "Bologna and mayo! Lots and lots of mayo! Anything tastes better with mayo! I could eat it by the spoonful!" Arnold made an icky face. He really did not feel the same way.
Arnold and Gerald both departed to the living room with plates full of balogna sandwich in hand. Yet they had forgotten the package of leftover bologna on the tabletop. As slow as a zombie creature rising up from the swamp, an adorable hand lifted up to the table to swipe the remaining bologna slices.
In the living room, Arnold and Gerald settled down to watch their show. Gerald sprawled back so that the hand holding his bologna sandwich hung to the back of the couch. Which was a mistake, for like a shark rising from the frothy sea, Kimberly Johanssen breached up slightly to snatch Gerald's sandwich by her teeth. Gerald flinched at the sudden disappear of his sandwich.
"HUH?!" the tall-haired boy looked around. "Timberly! What did you do with my sandwich?!" He noted his younger sister crawling away on all fours with his bologna sandwich clamped between her jaws.
"Aw, man!" Gerald wailed. Timberly ceased her getaway to bolt down his sandwich in large, sloppy gulps. "If you were hungry you could've just asked, instead of eatin' all mine! Did you eat all my chips, too? Unbelievable!"
"Gerald," Arnold admonished, hoping that Gerald would calm. "We can still watch television without the snacks."
"Ah, yeah, you're right!" Gerald sighed as he slumped on the couch. "But that kinda takes all the fun out of it." He glared fiercely at his unrepentant sister. "You know, I'm kinda glad school is starting up again soon. Break has been TOO long puttin' up with her!"
"Aw, you say that," said Arnold, wearing a small, knowing smile as he relaxed against the couch, "but you'll be complaining soon enough about tests."
"Nah! I'd take ten tests to get away from her!" Gerald complained very loudly as he folded his arms together and scowled.
"Well, cheer up," Arnold offered as consolement. "No tests for the first few weeks, anyway. And Mr. Simmons told me before we began break that we'd be doing something interesting."
"Nah, he says that about EVERYTHING," Gerald waved his hand.
"Well, we'll see," Arnold declared confidently.
The school recess did end soon, and with it came the familiar, almost comforting yet equally exasperating sound of the school class bells. The squeaky, rasping, grating sounds of the metal feet of school desks and chairs as they are scooted sounded out as everyone took their last minute seats. Then all was complete and breathless silence for a few moments.
"Hello class!" Mr. Simmons burst into the room right on schedule with a cheerful wave. "A very special welcome back to school from break! I hope all of you had an enjoyable and uniquely special vacation! Now! Getting right to work, I've brought special props for this week's science projects! All of you gather round because I have something to show you!"
Mr. Simmons placed a large pick of soft rock slate on a school desk. All of the children clustered around it as he used a tiny chisel and hammer to gently tap the outer edge. "Tap, tap, tap!" the sound of the tools went against the stone. And just like that, the rock broke into two slate pieces.
"OOOHH!" all the kids said. Helga picked up one of the slate halves and poked at the stone.
"There's a fish here!" she observed while holding a stone.
"Actually, it's a fish fossil, Helga! But you are correct in that it is a fish! Or was a fish anyway," the teacher flustered. "Now digging for fossils is something that some scientists do. But others investigate ruins of human settlements for artifacts! Isn't that exciting, class? And while I don't have any true, authentic artifacts today, to replicate, we will be digging up artifacts in a grid pattern from sand!" He pointed to a box in the corner he had made just for today.
"A sandbox?" Harold wondered. "Aw, I played sandbox a long time ago when I was kid! I found a whole three marbles, once!"
"I figure I found a plastic cowboy figurine, once!" Stinky stated proudly.
"That was mine," Phoebe acknowledged.
"Now, now, kids!" Mr. Simmons waved at them, trying to regain interest in the lesson. "We will be doing this all very scientifically! With string to mark each portion into sections! Then you get to map your finds on this chart! And… stop drawing tic-tac-toe on that Harold!"
"Oh. Sorry, Mr. Simmons!" the boy apologized before they could all get on with the lesson plan.
For once, Helga was silent. She took up a spoon and hunkered down by the box, shifting sand aside. "I found a piece of rubbish! And a seashell," she said to Phoebe. A practiced assistant, Phoebe doodled on the sheet of paper that she had placed against a clipboard.
"One bit of rubbish and a seashell, check!" Phoebe snag out in good spirits. Arnold poked his nose near to the indoor sandbox festooned with string.
"You seem to like this," he observed mildly. Helga rolled her eyes at him.
"As if it's any of YOUR business," she snapped. "But if you'd like to take a turn, go ahead!" She bowed a mocking bow and scooted away. Arnold and Gerald moved forward to take a turn scooping in the sandbox.
"Now, if everyone is done digging, please pass in the maps you've drawn! And then I'll pass around these boxes of cool and exciting things to look at.
"Ooooh!" everyone fussed as Mr. Simmons handed out a dozen weird objects to touch and feel. Harold held up a rock with a frown.
"This looks like a dumb 'ol rock to me!" he spat.
"Yes, but what kind of rock is it Harold? In order to learn that, we're going to do a few lessons in geology." Harold set the rock down on the surface of the desk with a frown.
The class session continued. Helga scribbled dutifully on her school paper with her colored pencils. Then after school, Helga surprised Arnold by walking out of the classroom with an armful of books.
"Oh," Arnold pouted mildly. "Carrying some books for Phoebe?"
"No, nimrod," Helga snapped with traditionally ill temper. "They're mine! I can read, too yoa know!"
"What are you reading about?" Arnold asked. Helga shoved a single book in Arnold's direction.
"Fossil hunting! Phoebe helped find them for me! I'm going to go fossil digging. I'm gonna find and name the best and biggest dinosaur skeleton anyone in Hillwood ever saw! And I'll name it a Helgaosaurus."
"Well, maybe we can name one after me, too."
"Ha! Like what? An Arnoldodon?"
"Well, yeah. That name sounds good."
"Ha!" Helga chortled. "As if! I'M to be the one to discover a new kind of fossil first and I'M going to name it after myself."
"Well, good luck," Arnold said, unsuspecting that a fight was about to erupt between the two kids. To be continued.