"All right class! Settle down, settle down! I have a very special announcement to make." Mr. Simmons grinned at the sea of fifth grade faces that begrudgingly turned towards him. One pudgy looking boy let out a load groan whilst a girl in pig tails and a pink dress simply rolled her eyes and mumbled an insult about the boy. Their teacher kept his cool as he continued to smile at them and wait patiently for them to finish shifting around in their seats. "Since it's the start of a fantastic new school year and I have been blessed with being your teacher again, I thought it'd be fun to start off the year with a special project!"
The class erupted into a fit of groans and a few heads slamming against desks. This was definitely not the way that they wanted to start their year off. "Now come on class! Let's get into the spirit of school! I promise you it's a fun project!"
"Aw come off it, Simmons! A project? Criminy, we just got back from summer break!" Helga leaned back into her chair with her arms folded across her as some of her classmates murmured in agreement.
"I know that summer ended and you're not all as excited as I am to get back into the wonderful realm of learning, but wait until you hear about the project! I promise you it's not as terrible as you think it will be!"
"What's the project?" shouted Harold impatiently.
"Thank you for asking, Harold! For your project, you will be researching your family histories and coming up with a presentation that you will do in front of the class so that we may all get to know you and your special families better. We're calling it a genealogy project and the whole thing will culminate with a family night at the end of the month! Isn't that exciting?" Mr. Simmons beamed as the students nodded their heads. "You will be working in partners, and as a special treat, I'm going to let you pick who you work with! So I'll ask you for your partners in about ten minutes! Have at it!" The class erupted into a flurry of frenzied action as the students frantically found their partners.
"Okay Pheebs, meet at my house right after school today and we'll bang this ridiculous project out." Helga said nonchalantly. Silently, the petite Asian girl shook her head and mumbled something inaudible. "Come on, Pheebs. Spit it out. I haven't got all day!" said Helga impatiently.
"Well, I was actually going to work with Gerald this time. I figured that this would be a great project for us so we can learn about each other's histories and get to know each other more," squeaked Phoebe as she averted her eyes from Helga's.
Helga raised her eyebrow in surprise, then glared at her best friend's betrayal. They had always worked together when the opportunity had presented itself. Now she was ditching her for that tall hair boy! "FINE!" yelled Helga as she threw her arms up. "Go work with Geraldo! See if I care." Leaning back into her seat, she crossed her arms and threw her feet up on her desk with a disgusted frown.
"Sorry," Phoebe meekly said before carefully scooting away in search of Gerald. She found him standing with Arnold in the back corner of the classroom with his arm on his best friend's shoulder.
"Do you think I should ask him?" Arnold inquired of Gerald.
"Ask what?" Phoebe piped up as the two boys quickly looked up at her. Gerald gave Phoebe a look that told her that he would update her later on the situation.
"Look, do what you need to do. I don't think he's going to let you out of this project though, even with your past. I'm going to work with Phoebe if that's all right with you?" Arnold looked over at Gerald and couldn't help but smirk as he noticed the faint tint of red on his cheeks. He nodded and Gerald scampered over to Phoebe, who beamed up at him brightly.
The football headed boy fell back into the wall as he strongly wished for the ability to melt into the room and never have to deal with this project. It was only when the ten minutes were up that he realized that he still didn't have a partner for the project. Sighing, he returned to his desk next to Gerald's and rested his head atop it as Gerald and Phoebe chatted about their respective families.
"Okay class! I'm going to go down the rows and I want you to each tell me who your partner is. Rhonda?"
"Nadine, but of course!" Rhonda snarkily announced with a roll of her eyes. Mr. Simmons nodded before motioning over to Curly.
"Harold!" yelled Curly in an almost crazy voice. Mr. Simmons continued to note down the partners of each student and was beside himself as he thought that he might not run into any difficulty this time around. That was until he got to the girl in the pink bow.
"Helga? Your partner?" Mr. Simmons inquired with a mildly nervous smile.
Helga quirked her eyebrow before replying, "Nobody." A few gasps echoed throughout the classroom and Phoebe shrunk a little in her seat out of guilt.
"Oh, well, oh dear. This is a bit of a conundrum. Um, was anyone else in the class unable to find a partner?" His eyes darted about the room frantically hoping that someone, anyone would raise their hand.
Cringing at the realization that he was the only other one in the class with no partner, Arnold half raised his hand and silently hoped that Mr. Simmons wouldn't see. If there was anyone he didn't want to know about his past and his familial roots, it was Helga Pataki, the most complicated, frustrating girl he knew. Unfortunately, Mr. Simmons immediately saw Arnold's hand go up and beamed with gratitude in the boy's direction.
"Arnold! No partner? I guess you'll be working with Helga then! Is that all right?" Begrudgingly, Arnold nodded before slumping in his chair in defeat. He didn't notice that Helga had nearly fallen out of her seat from shock.
The rest of the class passed by in a blur and it wasn't until the bell rung signaling lunch period that Arnold was brought out of his numb stupor. He leapt up out of his seat and headed to the door, but turned as he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Look, Arnoldo. I don't want to work you anymore than you want to work with me. So let's just get this project done as soon as we can so we can end this with as little frustration as possible and get on with our lives." Helga scowled at him as she finished her sentence.
"I never said that I didn't want to work with you, but sure I have no problem getting this project done quickly. Meet at my home this afternoon after school? Or we could just walk there together," he suggested. This caught Helga off guard a bit, but she quickly regained her composure enough to stiffly nod before stomping off out of the classroom. Arnold let out an exasperated sigh before trudging out of the classroom himself. The year definitely couldn't get off to a worse start than it was already.
A/N: Hello all and welcome to the start of a brand new fic! Hope you enjoy this first chapter! This fan fic is based off a deviation from BrokenRose entitled "Something Real", who I would like to thank for giving me permission to write this fic based off her work! THANK YOU AGAIN!