A Midsummer Night's Dream

By Arnoldnhelga4eva

Disclaimer: Okay, okay, so I didn't technically write the original version of A Midsummer Night's Dream…Shakespeare did…or was it Shakespeare…with all the controversy going on, it could have been as many as ten men who go by the pseudonym Shakespeare…but I do know all the HA characters belong to the talented Craig Bartlett.

Let the show begin!

Just for the record, I am a Shakespeare and Woolf FANATIC!

"Pheebs, that's the worst idea I've heard in ages." Helga slapped another flyer on the wall. "I mean, it's bad enough that I'm helping you put up these flyers for this…what is it…A Midsummer Night's Dream…right, Shakespeare. There wasn't even a Shakespeare."

"That's a myth, and you know that, Helga." Phoebe straightened her glasses. "And besides, as Stage Manager, I need to recruit people to work on the play, and I think it would do you some good to get your mind off Arno---I mean…Ice Cream."

"Oh would you cut it out with the stupid nick name? He all ready knows anyway, remember? Somehow the whole freaking school found out."

"Well we also know that the only reason you're the manager for the football team is because Arnold is first string quarterback."

"Yeah, so what's your point?"

"My point is, Helga, do this instead; help me stage manage. Tell the coach that you need to focus your studies to the arts."

"Are you kidding me? Wittenberg would never go for that shit."

"Just try it, Helga." Phoebe sighed and pulled Helga into an empty classroom. "It's been almost ten years…and we're going off to college next year. Take this year to fall out of love with him."

Helga sighed. "It's not that easy Pheebs."

"I know it isn't, but it won't make it any easier to pine over him all year and then go off to college."

Helga sighed.

"Besides, it's good to hear Shakespeare. His words are good for the soul."

"I prefer Woolf."

"She killed herself you know."

"Yeah, but she told it as it was, and didn't create fairies and magic and all that crap. I feel like I can trust her."

"She walked into a river."

"So what if she's crazy?" Helga turned on her heels and looked her best friend square in the eye.

"Fine, but if I don't like it after a week, I'm quitting."

"Deal." They shook on it.

"Come on you pansies! Hut to it! I wouldn't call that a damn throw football head! What the hell are you doing?" Arnold panted as he fell toward the cool earth. He wanted to sink into it and never return. "Get your ass up right now boy!"

"Fine," he said with a grunt and pulled himself from the soft ground.

"Let's run that play one more time boys and then maybe I'll let you get some stinkin' water." He blew the whistle as the players began charging at each other. Coach Wittenberg turned to the boy next to him.

"Who the hell are you?"

"My name's Eugene, sir."

"Well where in God's name is Pataki, boy!"

"Uhhhh, she said she was doing set for the fall play, something about the artistical value. But she…uh…she quit…sir…"

"What?"

As the coach began screaming at Eugene for Helga's absence, Arnold wound up, ready to throw the ball as number 32 tackled him, pinning him flat to the ground.

"Whoa…time out you girls. Get the hell off my quarterback!" Wittenberg pushed the players out of the way before he came to Arnold who laid spread eagle on his stomach.

"Call an ambulance!" Wittenber yelled but Arnold shot up off the ground.

"No, really, I'm okay coach. Don't call an ambulance."

"Don't call an ambulance!" Coach Wittenberg yelled to Eugene whose slight deafness prevented him from hearing the last words. He was running in circles, trying not to panic when he jumped in the golf cart, accidentally putting it in reverse.

"You okay there, man?" Gerald took his helmet off and knelt next to Arnold.

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Okay, walk it off boy."

"Look out!" Eugene yelled, but Arnold wasn't fast enough to move out of the way. Instead, he saw Eugene roll by on the golf cart, as his left arm was successfully smashed beneath the wheel.

"Don't worry! Help is on its way because Eugene is here to save the day!" he yelled as the little car sped toward the school.

"Oh shit!" Wittenberg yelled as Arnold painfully clutched his limp arm. "Damn that boy! Someone go fire him!"

"We can't do that coach, he's volunteering."

"Well…go tell him not to come back!"

"No," Arnold said gritting through his teeth. "It's not his fault. I just need some water or something." Things were starting to blend together. The green grass with the pale sky, the worried murmurs over the sirens of the ambulance. It was all he could remember as it swirled together before turning black.

Students walked aimlessly into the classroom, trying to think of excuses to get out of class. English was the subject, a language they were entirely familiar with, yet a subject that bored them with its nonsense. Not a soul, not a single human cared to read books or write stories when they could be out shopping or doing calculus. No one, except Phoebe, of course.

And Helga Pataki.

It was known widely that Helga was well versed. Her tongue was sharper than a whip and her dry humor winning an insufferable race with Arizona.

The bell rang as Arnold ran into the room, finding his seat quickly before Mr. Broddenham decided to lecture the class the whole hour about promptness.

"Hey Arnold, I heard about your arm."

"Yeah, sorry man. And we thought we'd win this year too." The remarks have been coming all day. While he felt guilty about letting the school down, he couldn't help but feel relieved. Now he had time to figure out what the hell Mr. Broddenham was talking about with this book.

"To The Lighthouse," the teacher droned, making a dramatic appearance at the doorway. "Virginia Woolf's finest novel. Tell me, class, what did you make of the book now that we've finished?"

Only one person raised their hand. It was a person non one expected to answer a teacher, no matter how well versed she may have been.

"I disagree with your previous statement." Everyone gasped.

"Quiet down class." The murmuring stopped. Their teacher took a deep breath and looked toward Helga with a labored smile. "Okay, and how do you believe you support that answer?"

"While many critics find her work to be confusing, there is no other book more confusing, yet entirely truthful than Orlando."

"Miss Pataki, Orlando is not…"

"A novel, I know. Supposedly it's a biography. Right, so Orlando was born in the Elizabethan era and somehow died in the early 1920's? There's no way. We all know it's a big joke between her and Vita."

"Whose Vita?" This came from the back of the room.

"Her sideline lover." People gasped. "Mrs. Woolf wrote the novel describing events that happened in Vita's life, which is why it is a biography, yet she pokes fun at the people she detests in a manner that few understand."

"Yes, it is irony, but in…"

"Yeah, yeah, in the other book there is lots of meaning and a strange love formed and blah blah blah. If you want to talk about meaning I'd make the class read Mrs. Dalloway. THAT is the most critically acclaimed book by Virginia Woolf."

"Yet you continue to disagree with the experts, Miss Pataki?"

"Yes."

"The people who have Ph.Ds?"

"Yes."

"Well then, anyone else?" Helga sat back triumphantly in her seat as the rest of the class tried to hold their jaws to their mouths. A cricket played his violin in the corner of the classroom. Arnold smiled secretly to know that someone had finally beaten their arrogant know-it-all teacher. "Okay. With that said, onto other order. We will be holding try-outs for the fall play A Midsummer Night's Dream in the auditorium after school. Anyone who has experience and even those who don't are welcome to audition. Seeing as we have no program to build from after trying to direct for ten years, I am happy to announce that we will be having a professional director fly in from New York to take this school under his wings. Anyone with the ability to speak will be considered for parts."

An hour passed in which the rest of the class was successful in doing absolutely nothing while Helga had written four poems by the time the bell rang. Arnold got up gingerly from his seat and made his way over to her.

"Still writing poetry?" Helga jumped and almost dropped the papers that had long profession of love for a certain flaxen-haired boy written in scrawl.

"Stop doing that football head! Crimeny." She continued to stuff books and papers into her back pack.

"Sorry, but I was just going to ask you if you were trying out for the play?" Helga looked at him for a second before she burst out laughing. "What?"

She pounded her fist on the table as another wave of laughter overcame her. "You actually thought I'd be involved in Shakespeare? The lord of love?" She laughed again as Arnold stared at her crossly.

"Well, for someone who writes so much love poetry herself and who starred in Romeo and Juliet when we were younger, I thought it would be fitting." He stomped away from her and she sighed.

"Why do I do this to myself?"

As Arnold ran through the hall, bumping into a few strangers and ignoring anyone who called him, he finally came to the audition list and wrote his name down in a sloppy scrawl…after all, Eugene had broken his throwing hand and he had officially been retired by Coach Wittenberg. What could a little Shakespeare hurt? He'd show her.

But what did he want to show her? Why?

He wasn't quite sure, but this feeling was so intense and felt so right as he walked on toward his next class, thinking about the audition that would take place in shy of a few hours.

Well, that's not my best work, but I find it pretty witty. I haven't written H/A in soooooo long! This feels so good to write! Stupid AP classes…

Hope you enjoyed,

And stay tuned as the plot thickens!

C ya l8ter!

Arnoldnhelga4eva