This story takes place three weeks after Chapter 13 of "Touch and Go", so no, this isn't quite a sequel. Keep that in mind as you read. I only own Milo, by the way. Everyone else belongs to Craig Bartlett and Nickelodeon.
"Let us not love with words or tongue but with action and truth."—1 John 3:18
'Almost done...almost there...just one more detail for the hair and—'
"Eugene, oh, that's wonderful!"
The abruptness of a familiarly peppy (and unnecessarily loud) voice disrupted this train of thought. A pencil slipped out of the hand of its owner as a result and left an unsavorily long mark across the drawing.
Teeth gritted at the slip-up, careful enough not to show too much of themselves.
Yes, Milo Mahana was considerably ticked right now.
'That Sheena better have a really good reason for her overdone excitement because it just wasted me valuable time and effort.'
When he tore his stare away from his drawing and angrily looked across the playground from the bench he was sitting on, he noticed the tall flower-girl and Eugene holding hands, the former gazing down at him with pure elation.
Milo's eyebrows couldn't help raising themselves at the sight.
Were those guys going out now?
"I'm gonna marry Eugene!"
The sketchbook fell out of Milo's hands immediately afterwards. He barely noticed, too stunned by Sheena's words, mouth agape and eyes the size of dinner plates.
Whoa! Marry? What? Was that girl serious?
Eugene, Milo quickly noticed, grinned as well, but the younger boy could tell even from a mile away that the expression was forced, his reason most likely to avoid Sheena ending up heartbroken...or homicidally enraged.
Poor guy...
"Oh...well, gosh, I'm sure we'll be very happy, heh..." the school jinx halfheartedly replied, sighing forlornly to himself with a resigned frown the second Sheena diverted her attention to...
Milo shook his head with an annoyed grimace and a twitch of one of his eyelids.
His eyes weren't deceiving him.
Sure enough, there was Rhonda Wellington Lloyd, a haughty smirk on her face as always, lounging out on a table as if she were the queen of the school (which wasn't too far from the truth, in Milo's opinion), Phoebe and Nadine seated beside her.
Upon closer inspection, Milo noticed that she held something in her left hand, twirling the object around in her fingers every few seconds.
Just what in the world was that girl up to now?
"Well, of course you will! The origami marriage predictor is never wrong. According to my own scientifically accurate method—"
'Scientifically accurate...? Lord, give me strength.'
No wonder Sheena mentioned marriage. Did Rhonda honestly believe that a folded-up piece of paper had the uncanny ability to predict people's future love-lives?
"Rhonda Lloyd, with all due respect, I say you have officially lost it," Milo uttered under his breath with a sigh and a shake of his head. Despite the tolerance he'd been developing towards the heiress ever since being inducted into Mr. Simmons' class, he couldn't help but sometimes ponder about what went through that woman's head.
Blocking out the rest of that crazy dame's s explanation to the best of his ability, Milo bent down to retrieve his sketchbook and pencil.
Now how to remove that pesky mark with just minimal damage?
"Hey, Sparky, how's tricks?"
The familiarly snarky voice made the boy look up; a relieved grin stretched across his face at the sight of P.S. 118's pigtailed hell-girl.
"Oh hey, Helga, I'm just doing the usual sketching." His face twisted into a slight smirk. "Say, have you checked out what's going on over there?"
Milo pointed a finger at Rhonda, Helga following with her eyes and instantly scoffing and rolling her blue eyes upon realization.
"Tch, don't remind me. Rhondaloid's been goin' on about that lame marriage-predictor of hers all day long."
"She honestly thinks it'll accurately decide who each of us will marry when we're older."
Helga had to shake her head. "Criminy, how screwball can ya get...or desperate for that matter? Who says any of us will even want to marry when we're older?"
With a firm nod, Milo turned his gaze skywards.
"Don't forget that her method is pretty unfair in hindsight. From what I've overheard Rhonda say, that predictor only has the names of everyone in the class, yours and mine included." He crossed his arms over his chest, his mouth set in a discomforted and subtly sad frown. "For all we know, some of us might marry someone who isn't from this school...or this planet for that matter."
Helga raised half her monobrow and shot Milo an incredulous stare, holding out a hand to gesture him to stop right there.
"Whoa, hang on a minute, Sparky. Are you serious?"
Her little brother merely shrugged as he switched his gaze back to her. "Well, yeah, I am. The future can be so unpredictable and there's so little we know about the worlds beyond our—"
His explanation was cut off by his big sister waving out her palm at him. "I meant what you said about your name being on Princess's lame marriage predictor."
One could practically hear Milo's eyes rolling in their sockets.
"Oh yeah, that. Honestly, I have no idea. I'm not even old enough to consider having a relationship, let alone who I want to marry. In fact, I don't think that's something any of us should be considering before high school...or at least the sixth grade."
To hear that sort of opinion didn't surprise Helga. Milo had always been mature for his age, seeing and noticing what most other kids and even some adults either overlooked or glossed over.
On the other hand, maturity does not always equate experience.
Just look at Arnold and how much his disastrous outgoings in romance revealed his sense of experience with women, for example.
Hillwood's resident blonde dynamo tilted her head and smirked in faint amusement at Milo's conviction, "Uh hello, has a certain pipsqueak who hasn't had a girl look his way yet forgotten who he's talking to?"
"Has a certain hopeless romantic forgotten who she's talking to?" the younger child retorted in a mild tone, raising an eyebrow at her, "Helga, there's a difference between fantasizing about the person you love and taking that actual love to the next level."
If this had been anyone else, Helga would have surely tossed them behind the dumpsters and threatened to staple their mouth shut if they so much as let even a little peep out about her secret love for the old Football Head.
In fact, she probably would've done that to Milo, too, three weeks ago (to be more precise) if the little guy had done the same thing.
Not anymore, though, not after the significant bond the two kids had formed after their signing into the Sunny Smiles Siblings program...and especially not after that fateful Saturday night when they banded together to prevent Rhonda from eternally soiling Helga's reputation.
'I'll give ya props for the solid comeback, Sparky,' Helga mused pensively. She had to admit, her "little brother" made a valid point.
Dreams and fantasies could go far, after all, but only so far.
Out of the corner of her eyes, Helga noticed that this time Rhonda seemed to be having a conversation with Lila, the redhead beauty seated on a nearby wall-bench. The scene made the Pataki girl bristle a little for some reason.
This shift in her demeanor did not escape Milo's notice, and neither did the conversation going on across from the pair. Milo knew better than to call Helga out on any of her feelings regarding Lila, so he wisely sought to change the subject.
"Hmph, I wonder what Lila's result would be?"
Helga smirked at him, her brief defensiveness gone. She already knew what Milo's angle was in asking that question, but she understood and was sort of touched that he meant to divert her anger. Sometimes Sparky was just as sweet as Arnoldo.
"Gee, what happened to all that talk about how that predictor unfairly charts out our future?"
Milo jovially scoffed at the quip. "I meant it's a poor form of prediction, Helga. I never said it couldn't have its entertaining moments."
A curious look crossed the blonde's eyes, obvious even through the usual sarcasm.
"So since when do you consider Little Miss Perfect, of all people, entertaining?"
Oh that's right, Milo realized. Helga still had a beef with Lila due to Arnold's continued crush on her. The country girl was a topic the two outcasts, along with Phoebe, preferred to avoid as much as possible due to their difference of opinions regarding her.
Unlike Helga, Milo didn't mind Lila; he even liked her sometimes. Not enough to consider her a good or close friend, no—overexposure to her mannerisms and over-politeness grated his nerves—but at least enough to tolerate her presence to the point that they could peaceably coexist in school.
Milo shrugged his shoulders as he and Helga watched Lila respond to Rhonda's apparent offer to try out the marriage predictor next. The girl in green was pointing at the clock that hung over the door to indicate that not much time remained for recess.
"Her naiveté is..."—Milo squinted his eyes as his brain sought an appropriate adjective"—''refreshing."
Refreshing, huh?
Helga didn't appear convinced by his answer but she decided against pushing the matter further since Milo was still greatly prone to retreating or clamming up if pushed too far, even with his new sibling relationship with her taken into account.
Just then, the bell rang and everyone on the playground either got off the equipment or gathered their stuff together before heading inside for the rest of today's classes.
Helga followed suit with Milo in two until she noticed Arnold and Lila talking and smiling near the doorway. She stopped in her tracks with a teeth-gritted growl and severely tightened fists.
For his big sister's sake of privacy, Milo pretended to look the other way as he followed his classmates into the building.
'Someone definitely needs some time alone for now. Besides, she's not the only one with an unconfirmed relationship to worry about.'
Fortunately, the rest of the day went by without incident.
Before long, P.S. 118's front doors flew open as its students poured out like doves finally released from centuries-long confinement.
Among them were Arnold, Gerald, and Milo, the boys heading to the Boarding House to get a head-start on their homework so they'd have as much time as possible to goof off.
The trio hardly noticed Rhonda and Peapod Kid's finishing up a conversation about Nadine, and Milo hardly paid attention (a rarity for him) when the rich girl singled out Arnold and insisted he take her test next.
'Arnold's gonna give a perfectly reasonable answer and we'll be free to go.' Easy as pie...in fact, Milo even had a mental countdown for Arnold's answer, which would come in three, two...
"I'll just wait and see."
Yep, just as Milo figured...except Rhonda had an ace up her sleeve...
"It could be Lila."
And there it was.
Despite Rhonda's well-played move, Milo still winced at the statement, hoping a certain someone didn't leap out of a nearby trash-can to commit potential murder.
'Helga, if you heard that, I seriously hope you're keeping your wits about yourself right now.'
Speaking of wit, Milo noticed out of the corner of his eye how Gerald was playfully ribbing Arnold about taking the test...and playing out how his own best friend would end up with a woman he'd "pledge his life to and cherish, honor, and obey 'til death will they part."
It was an oddly impressive play-out, to Milo's surprise. 'I'll give Gerald this. He may be a dork when it comes to dating, but he sure knows how to lay on the romance.'
All the same, there was no sense in waiting to hear Arnold's result, let alone getting excited over it, so Milo figured he'd sit down and catch up on his sketching. He only hoped Rhonda would make her nonsense quick and relatively painless.
"What about you, Milo?"
Oh no, she wouldn't dare.
"Don't tell me you're just as scared of the truth...are you?"
She'd dare.
Milo had to resist the strong urge to bang his head against the brick walls of the school. Damn it, now there was no way of backing out of this matrimonial Russian roulette.
'Ugh, where's a disappearing spell when you need one?'
Standing up with a grimace, Milo automatically sent a warning glare to both Arnold and Gerald, assuring the former that he didn't need rescuing and the latter that any jokes on his part would indubitably result in a severely shortened lifespan.
He shot a glance over his shoulder back to Rhonda, remembering his own words from earlier. He meant what he said to Helga about his scrutiny over that predictor. Unfortunately, if he walked away now, Rhonda and Gerald would never let him hear the end of it.
No way out—his only option was to play along so that this stupid game would end as soon as possible. Milo turned to Rhonda with a grimace.
"Alright, let's get it over with."
"Alright, Milo," Rhonda replied with gusto, "Pick your favorite number."
"Six."
1-2-3-4-5-6
"Now pick your favorite color."
"Green..."
G-R-E-E-N
"And now, Milo, the final question: what day of the month were you born?"
Final question...? Oh thank God...
"The third..."
1-2-3
"And now the results..."
Tapping a finger against his side in impatience, Milo took a deep breath and prepared to walk away the instant Rhonda flipped the flap and gave him the outcome.
The heiress only met half of the artist's expectations.
Her eyes grew wide the moment they read the name and her smirk vanished instantly, actions that did not go unnoticed by the three boys in front of her.
Arnold tilted his head in worry. Was Rhonda okay? Who could his little brother have ended up with to send her into such shock?
"Is something wrong, Rhonda?"
"Um," Rhonda looked up and shot an unsure, almost untrusting, glance at her classmate, "Arnold, could I...have a word with Milo for a second?"
The boys all shared a look of confusion before Milo nodded and followed Rhonda to the back of the school.