The sun shone brilliantly on the red bricks of the Sunset Arms boarding house as a blonde haired lanky looking girl scampered up the fire escape ladder. She couldn't help but look a little panicked. It wasn't every day that you lost your personal journal due to your own clumsiness. Silently she cursed herself for being so stupid to not ensure that she had the precious book in her bag before she had gotten up from the tiled high school floor. As she continued to scale the ladder, Helga thought back to just an hour before.

She had been walking along the high school corridor on her way out when she had rounded a corner and smacked right into him. The one guy that she had basically filled thirty-seven volumes of poetry about, or was it thirty-eight now? When they had collided, her tote bag had flown up and its contents had been strewn on the floor mixed in with his various high school supplies. "Ugh," she had groaned as she rubbed her head.

"Oh geez, sorry Helga!" he had said in a kind voice as he offered his hand to help her up. "We've got to stop running into each other like this." A sheepish grin greeted Helga's eyes as she looked up at Arnold. Internally she melted at the sight, but she did not give away her true feelings on her face.

Swatting away his hand, she pushed herself up from the ground and gave him an annoyed sneer. "I don't need your help, Arnoldo. As you can see, I'm perfectly capable of handling myself. You could make the job easier by watching where you're going though!" Arnold simply rolled his eyes and proceeded to pick his school things up from the grounded. He had gotten used to this treatment from her over the last eleven years.

Helga's hardened expression softened as she instantly regretted her reaction for the billionth time. For once she wanted to act nice to him and actually show that she was capable of love and being loved. Quietly exhaling she knelt down and threw her books and papers in to her pink tote bag, all the while avoiding eye contact with him. What she had failed to notice was that in the midst of the chaos on the floor, her small pale pink journal had gotten mixed in with Arnold's books.

Once she got up, she dashed off and out the double doors at the end of the hall without giving Arnold a second look. He remained standing in the middle of the hall, looking on at her quickly disappearing figure as he stuffed the remainder of his things in his messenger bag.

It wasn't until she got home that she realized that the journal was missing. She had let out an ear piercing shriek of dismay and horror at the conclusion and hadn't wasted a moment running to the boarding house in a panic. Which brought her back to her current predicament: how to sneak into Arnold's room and obtain the journal without running into him or anyone else in the boarding house for that matter.

She finally reached the platform beneath his window and quickly flattened herself along the brick wall. Cautiously she leaned her head out and peered in through the window. She quickly recoiled her head back in alarm when she saw Arnold sitting in front of his computer with his back turned. He was surely working on his homework from that day, and knowing him he would probably be there until his grandmother had dinner ready which by her calculations could be another two hours. Reaching into the pocket of her jeans, she pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. Several seconds later she had inputted the number of the one person she knew she could always depend on in a jam, Phoebe.

"Hello?"

"Pheebs! I need you to do something for me!"

"Uh, sure Helga. What is it?"

"Don't ask why, but I need you to go to Arnold's house and keep him distracted for five minutes."

"On it," Phoebe said in a chipper voice before hanging up. A small smile appeared on Helga's face. If it wasn't for her small friend, she didn't know what she would do sometimes.

Ten minutes later, she saw Phoebe's small form appear on the sidewalk running as quickly as she could to the Sunset Arms. She rapidly came to a stop when she made eye contact with Helga and shot her a terse look. Helga gave her a nervous smile in return and shrugged her shoulders guiltily. Shaking her head, Phoebe continued to the front door of the building and rang the doorbell. There was a few moments of silence, then, "Arnold! Get down here! You've got a friend here!" Helga sighed in relief at the sound of Phil's voice echoing throughout the building. She peered through the window again to see that Arnold was getting up from the computer chair and leaving the room.

Once the door had clicked shut behind him, Helga wasted no time in opening the window and climbing through. Cautiously she tread across his room towards the chair he had just vacated where his messenger bag lay on the floor. In a flurry she dumped out the contents and vigorously searched through them for her beloved journal that held her innermost secret. She finally found it underneath his biology textbook and hugged it close to her chest. Quickly she got up from the floor and dashed across his room back to the open window, where she proceeded to maneuver her way back out. However, when she was halfway out she heard the bedroom door squeak open.

"What the…Helga?" Her heart pounded in her chest as she realized that Phoebe had not been able to keep Arnold preoccupied long enough. Summoning her strength, she shoved the rest of herself out the window and proceeded to run to the ladder as her pink ribbon tied pony tail swung behind her. Arnold leapt out the window swiftly, having used it as an exit many times before. "Helga, wait!" he yelled out as she swung herself on to the ladder and began the descent down with the journal held in her right hand. Arnold reached the edge of the ladder and shouted at her again to wait.

Sweat dripped down Helga's face and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. Even if she did manage to escape, she would have to explain herself somehow later on. As she was coming up with viable explanations in her head, she lost her footing about halfway down the ladder. Her sweaty hand slipped off the ladder and she fell backwards, the journal flying up in the air above her. She attempted to reach out for the ladder as she plummeted down, but it was in vain. A high pitched scream that she recognized as Phoebe's reached her ears as Arnold yelled out her name in horror while reaching his hand out in a fruitless attempt to catch her outstretched hands. Before she hit the ground, her blue eyes met his terror-stricken green ones. Then her head smacked against the pavement and everything fell to black.