Admittedly, this is a bit of a depressive school bullying fic, so if you were looking for laughter and smily faces, best turn back now... Your call, :).

Disclaimer: If I owned Hey Arnold it wouldn't have gone off air, so no I don't own it... Not yet anyways, (cue evil laugh).

Please read and review, there will be at least one more chapter to this...


"Oh my god, look at his hair!", a 14 year old teenaged girl sneered, "Do you think he dyes it?". A same aged teen boy sitting next to her at the same table smirked and laughed, "Of course he does, look at him, the guy wears a skirt, he's a bloody tranny! Ha ha!". Nearly the entire 9th grade classroom began to laugh at this statement, laughing and beginning to make other snide comments about Arnold.

Arnold sat alone at his table, as he had done since 7th grade, he still turned around at that statement though, and annoyedly faced the bully seated behind him, "Would you quit it, it's my shirt, you dumbass!". The male bully (commonly referred to by everyone in the class as Biff) continued to laugh, until his face fell at the end part of the statement, "Who are you calling a dumbass, you fucking faggot?!", Biff roared, suddenly jumping out of his chair and moving in front of Arnold's desk.

He leaned over Arnold's already seated body and glowered, "So what's that? You think you're fucking smarter than me? Huh? HUH?!". Arnold didn't answer, he stared at his desk and kept quiet, knowing that he'd be no use in a fight.

Suddenly the classroom door opened and the maths teacher walked in.

Biff quickly leaned close to Arnold whispering, "I'll get you after class!", sneering, Biff then stood up straight and walked back to his own table (directly behind Arnold's), snickering with his girlfriend while the teacher stood at the front of the class and got out his papers.

As the lesson began, Arnold's eyes flitted around the classroom to various kids from his elementary school, his eyes rested on Lila, Lila and her second musclar boyfriend of the year, she giggled as the beefcake played with her hair.

It had kind of annoyed Arnold how she'd always said no to him because she looking for that 'oh so special someone', and then ended up going out with enough someones for it to no longer be special anymore. Sighing, Arnold looked away, his eyes drifting over to Helga and Brainy, who sat together at the front of the class, they'd been together since 7th grade.

Brainy, as it turned out, was actually a pretty funny guy (albiet a bit shy), and once he'd finally plucked up the courage to talk to Helga, she'd basically fallen head over heels for him, thereafter forgetting everything and anything she'd ever felt for Arnold.

Arnold couldn't exactly say he was jealous at that, more like a bit put out... After all, she had spent years tormenting him, following him around everywhere, drawing pictures and writing love poems about him when she thought he wouldn't notice. The way she'd been going on, he'd been pretty sure they were going to eventually end up together, even if it had meant her getting a sawnoff shotgun and practically frog marching him up the aisle with her, Arnold smiled lightly at this thought, before turning to look at the laughing Jocks at the other end of the classroom, Gerald was one of their number.

If there was one thing that had suprised him most about his new high school, it was how fast he'd lost his best friend to peer presure.

Less than a month into 7th grade at their new high school, Gerald had excelled at P.E and become the new football captain of the 7th grade. Of course, with that new title came privileges, for one thing he had a whole new group of jock friends who backed him up against enemies and cheered him on when he was down, as well as a whole group of cheerleaders who would happily follow him (and any other Jock) around where ever he went.

...There was just one major problem in this, Arnold was not a jock, he wasn't even a great sports player, so when it finally became a choice for Gerald between hanging out with the 'cool' kids and hanging out with Arnold, guess which one Gerald chose?

They'd drifted apart even further after that, Arnold, hurt by his friend's sudden disinterest in him (even after school hours) had spitefully asked Phobe (Gerald's crush), out to the 7th grade prom before Gerald could even work up the courage to do so. Phobe said yes and she and Arnold had spent the entire prom together dancing in the school hall, with a very irritated Gerald constantly looking their way.

After the prom, Arnold had walked her home and given her a kiss before he left her house to walk back home, bad mistake. A few of Gerald's older 10th grade Jock friends had been walking down the same street at the time and had seen Arnold kiss 'Gerald's girl'. They'd stopped walking, waited for him to walk past (hiding behind a dumpster) and then jumped Arnold and beat him up.

When Gerald saw Arnold, bruised and limping into school the next day, he'd just stared at him, too shocked to speak. Gerald knew what had happened last night, the rest of the Jocks had boasted to him. Finally, Gerald had gone over and tried to apologise to Arnold, until Gerald's 'friends' showed up behind him. Gerald gave into peer pressure and told Arnold that if he'd stayed out of Phobe's way this never would have happened and that if Arnold thought about it, he'd realise that it was his own fault for asking Phobe out in the first place. Arnold never said anything back to this remark, he didn't have to, whatever kind of friendship they'd had left had now been broken, and neither one could possibly rectify the situation.

To top it all off for Arnold, Phoebe hadn't really wanted to be near either him nor Gerald after the incident, saying she couldn't condone violence. She now hung out in a sort of hippie click, and everyone else from his old school were either in different schools or classes to him anyway, so he never really-

BANG!

"Hey, Arnold!", The teacher called, slaming a large book down on top of Arnold's table and making him jump. The entire classroom erupted into laughter and the annoyed teacher continued, "Arnold, you don't come to school to sleep, you come to school learn, now concentrate!", the teacher took the book off the table and went back to his desk at the front to continue to teach.

"Ooooooh! Arnie's in trouble!", Biff taunted from the desk behind, giving Arnold's chair a kick. Others around him began to join in on the laughter, Arnold could feel his cheeks burning bright red in embarassment.

After Class (Lunch time):

Purposefully, being the last one to leave his class, Arnold shouldered his school rucksack and stepped out of the classroom, shoving his maths book into his locker and heading out of the building, planning to leave the school grounds and walk around the city during his lunch break instead (technically he wasn't supposed to leave the school grounds, but he'd done this everyday since mid 7th grade and no one had ever noticed).

Stepping out of the building, he felt a hand grab his shoulder and pull him over to the left, suddenly off balance, Arnold fell to the ground and looked up to see Biff.

"Well it's about time, doofus!", Biff grinned, "I figured you couldn't stay in that classroom forever".

A crowd of Biff's followers laughed and slowly encircled him and Biff, Arnold quickly stood up to escape but realised there was now nowhere left to run. Arnold turned to Biff, "Look, I'm sorry about what I said, but I really don't want to fight you".

Sounds of laughter and mock 'awws' were heard from the intimidating, surrounding crowd, as Biff retorted, "Awww he doesn't want to fight me... Well too late Arnold! You shouldn't of called me a dumbass, for that I'm gonna make you pay!".

Biff shot forward towards Arnold and swung at him with his right fist, Arnold quickly dodged it, and grabbed the said arm, over estimating his own strength as he attempted to hold the arm still while he kicked Biff in the knee. Unaffected, Biff sneered and quickly grabbed the distracted Arnold by the collar with his left hand. Arnold let go of the right arm in half-suprise, half-panic and tried desperately to pull away and claw Biff's left hand, to try and get some distance between them.

Biff meerly laughed at this, slowly raising his left arm and actually managing to lift Arnold off the ground. "Now we'll see who's the real dumbass!", Biff leered. Basically being hung by the neck (or rather shirt collar), Arnold was only able to make a choked noise in reply, as he tried hopelessly to cling on with his hands to Biff's ever rising left hand, to help evilate the pressure of being hung.

The crowd began to laugh even louder, making even more unplesant and snide comments as Arnold began to feel even more light headed. Suddenly, someone from the crowd shouted, "10 o'clock, teacher!".

Glancing around himself, Biff immediately dumped Arnold, letting him fall face first into the mud. The female teacher walked over to the suspicious crowd, asking, "What's going on here?".

Biff looked from the teacher to Arnold and back again, "Oh, I was just... Was just... Helping Arnold up, wasn't I Arnold?". Biff asked, grasping Arnold hard around the shoulders and wrenching him to his feet with more force than necessary.

"Yeah sure", Arnold half muttered, half rasped, adjusting himself and dusting off one of his bruised shoulders. The teacher smiled, "Well that's nice of him" she looked to Arnold, "Say thankyou Arnold".

"Thanks", Arnold muttered staring at his feet. The teacher smiled again, "It's so nice to see you kids getting along!", she walked off. Arnold, finished dusting himself went to do the same, only to have his legs kicked out from under him by Biff.

"Dumbass", Biff snickered as he and his laughing gang walked past the once again fallen Arnold.

Arnold remained on the floor, pretending to be focused on fixing his shoe lace until he heard them finally disappear into the crowd of high schoolers also on break. Sighing, Arnold got back up and walked off to the boys toilets, trying hard not to show his limp as he went.

Standing infront of the mirror, Arnold glanced around himself, making sure he was alone before sighing again and attempting to wash some of the brown mud out of his blonde hair. Incidents like this happened so often now that Arnold was seriously considering dying his hair, so that at least the mud splats wouldn't show up so much. Finally done with his hair, he went into one of the cubicles and changed into a clean version of what he already had on, he'd gotten to the point of keeping a spare in his rucksack, just for moments like this.

Dressed and clean, Arnold stood infront of the mirror again, looking at himself. He looked miserable, he was 5 foot 7 (he hoped this wasn't his final height) and as thin as a rake, his hair was even more jagged than it used to be, and his pale blue hat seemed old and worn out, (he hadn't bothered to buy a new one in years).Everything about him seemed worn out and depressive, but Arnold wasn't as bothered about this as he would have been a year or so ago, after all, today was a Friday, and he had a reason to look forward to Friday. A reason even more so than most kids his age...


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