Disclaimer: Hey, Arnold! belongs to Craig Bartlett. All characters and settings are fictional and belong to their rightful creator.

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Football Head,

So, there's this one moment early in the morning where everything's just... right, you know? The day hasn't quite begun, but already in motion... everything's pristine and fresh. You lay back on your pillow, eyes still bleary and heavy from sleep and your mind goes at about fifteen revolutions per second.

'What will I do today? Who will I run into? I wonder if Miriam will even notice I'm gone?'

You know?

It happened to me today. This morning, arms and limbs stretched out at my sides, too tired to move from bed. I heard the blaring and honking of the overpass, the yelps and barks of the strays probably chasing after the mailman (or Harold - the kid usually keeps dry meat his pockets for days.) And I thought about what I would do that day and guessed I'd somehow end up playing baseball at Gerald Field, because we're seventeen but we P.S. 118 kids still feud over sports like the Mets feud with the Yankees. I thought about who I would run into, and of course my first guess was Phoebe, but of course, Phoebe is just an extension of my body.

You were the second person that came to my mind. And for once in I don't know how many years, the thought startled me.

For just how long have I depended on you to be present in my everyday life? Like a by passer; someone that watches from the sidelines. But, then again, I can't really say your role has been exclusive to just playing spectator. Because, let's face it: you've been so much more than that.

I still remember the first selfless gesture I ever made, and not surprisingly, it was made for you. Remember that Christmas at the boarding house, racking out for clues on Christmas' Eve in search of Mr. Hyuun's daughter? I remember what I asked for that year: one pair of Nancy Spumoni snow boots.

I cried that night, watching your face across the room from a fogged, glassy window. I cried because for once, I didn't feel like Helga G. Pataki, that unibrowed, mean, bossy girl who talked with her fists and argued with her loud mouth. For once, I felt like someone much more approachable, much more malleable, and much more human. Better. And I laughed out so loud, by myself, as I was walking back to my house in just socks, because I'd run over to hand my boots to that grumpy, old man that searched for that girl and I'd been sick for weeks after.

Because I'm used to losing focus of things whenever you take me, unwillingly, on a new adventure. A new opportunity to realize, to overcome myself. And I have received many presents over the years - clothes, books, souvenirs, knick knacks and the like - but the best present I have received, and will ever receive was the self-acceptance you unwillingly brought onto me.

I loved you for that tiny umbrella on our first day of pre-school. I loved you for the cookie you shared whenever I forgot my lunch; double-fudge chocolate chips, because your grandma always made the best cookies, for the brush off my dress when I fell that once off the monkey bars and you pulled me up and dusted off all that sand. I loved you for that smiling macaroni face you gave me in second grade and I threw into the trash but pulled out and saved when you weren't looking. I loved you for the ice cream truck we nearly pushed over that one hot summer, for all of the snowballs and all of the weeds we pulled out to play at Gerald Field.

I loved you for all of the sonnets, the Arnoldo's, the poems, the Old Betsies, the spitballs, and the gumball shrines and half-eaten sandwiches (although, that's a story for another time - maybe when you come back to Hillwood and I can sneak into your room at night from those creaky, old emergency stairs.)

But, most of all, I love you because you're the odd man out, just like I'm the odd girl out, and two odds (in this case) do make a right. You and me. Rightfully wrong.

Odds and evens, Arnoldo.
Yours,
Helga G. Pataki