Meanwhile, Gerald slowly makes his through the dark halls. The school has been cleared when the immediacy for evacuation was announced. So clearly, no one is in the school premises at this point, but the class of Mr. Simmons.
One step at a time, he goes. On every creak on the floor, he goes. And gradually, he gets farther away from the outside lights till it becomes zero visibility.
"Mr. Simmons? Mr. Simmons? Where are you, Mr. Simmons?"
But only the echoes ever respond to him.
Fear is trembling on Gerald's face. Sweat starts to flow as his legs shake in every step.
Suddenly, he hears a splash of water. "Who's there?"
From the sound of it, it could have been a person who got a splash from the weather. But that gets answered when he feels a smooth ebb on his left shoe. As it then proceeds to his right shoe, Gerald dips his hand to the floor that a flood is surging on his way.
"MR. SIMMONS!" But no one answers.
Not seeing where he can go, Gerald rushes out hysterically. His path is non-existent. It is just the floodwater and the gust of wind passing through the halls that can guide him.
But out of his panic, he slips towards a staircase on his right.
A thud, he rolls down. And another, he rolls more. Until he arrives on the downstairs flow to see the photocopier room still with its light open. "Oh, good grief."
Gerald opens the room to finally see his homeroom teacher printing copies.
"Gerald, what are you doing here?" Mr. Simmons asks.
"Finding you!" Gerald replies hysterically, "We need our teacher to dismiss us!"
"Wait, I have told Rhonda that you could be dismissed."
"Since when?!"
"Well…was it Rhonda?" Mr. Simmons then recalls the time a while ago when he is bounded with tons of paper works to finalize his class' grades. With a stack of papers in his hand, he planned to skip homeroom, with the storm thankfully giving advantage. He then remembered mistakenly calling out a random girl, whom he thought was Rhonda (because of her short black hair and red shirt), to dismiss the class if he hasn't arrived by normal class dismissal. "Was it Rhonda? I know it's Rhonda because of her hair…"
Even though he finds his teacher's excuse unreasonable, Gerald insists, "Okay, we can have time for that later. But we have to go!"
Abruptly, the floodwater starts to enter the room.
"Gerald, help me with this!" Mr. Simmons instructs to place the leftover papers to a nearby table. He then pulls the plug from the copier machine and covers the outlet.
"What's that for?" Gerald asks.
"To avoid an electrical shock," he explains. "Remember Gerald: water is a strong conductor of electricity."
After that, Mr. Simmons packs his papers, while Gerald searches on the storage cabinet to retrieve any helpful item: a flashlight.
"Woah, glad this room can be handy with stuff," Gerald remarks.
With the help of a flashlight, the two exit the room as the floodwaters enter the downstairs hall.
"I think if we can avoid the downpour, which would come from the right side, I think we should go left," the teacher suggests.
"Are you sure, sir?" Gerald asks.
"We have to try," Mr. Simmons confirms.
"We have to get back to class. I am sure Arnold and the others are too eager to get out of here."
Speaking of the class, Rhonda helps them get access to the secret student lounge, which was exclusive for privileged students, student council officers, class presidents and school club members. It was previously the music room. But thanks to their success in competitions, and the remains of the place being used for student meetings, the room was converted to a "student-only" lounge, as suggested by Rhonda. Though she decides not to reveal that detail for the moment. "Here we are. Definitely the coziest place in here."
The class is astounded by the luxurious detail of the room, which is equipped with bean bags, bookshelves, coffee tables, gym equipment, board games, student paraphernalia, stuffed toys and their own fridge.
"This is like something out of college," Sid remarks.
"More like a secret café or something," Stinky adds.
"I could get used to this all day," Harold reacts. Just right then, he jumps to a bean bag which causes for the Styrofoam beads to burst out to the kids.
"Harold!" Rhonda coaxes him.
"Sorry…"
Meanwhile, Arnold, still worried about Gerald and Mr. Simmons, wonders about their situation. But seeing it will take time to wait for them, he decides to take matters to his own hands. He checks out the window to see the magnitude of the rainfall, which moderately floods the streets but severely affects the pedestrians.
"Phoebe, check the rainfall here," Arnold probes. "Do you think there's a chance for us to make it out?"
"Well…" But before continuing, Phoebe spots a pedestrian whose umbrella is tattered. "I think it's best if we wait it out soon."
"How long?"
"I don't know. Perhaps like last time, if the school gets submerged in flood, it is best we evacuate to the rooftop." The two then suddenly spot floodwater occupying the lower level of P.S. 118. "Yep. Déjà vu."
Arnold then huddles the gang. "Uhmm guys…"
But the entire class is busy lollygagging around the well-decorated student lounge.
"Excuse me guys!"
Still, they do not respond to his call. It seems that weather-related panic has yet to catch on their heads.
"Well, they could use some convenience for a while," Phoebe says.
Suddenly, Harold hollers to them, "Hey guys! Microwave burritos in the fridge! And look, they even have their own microwave!"
"Harold, don't you take anything from there!" Rhonda coaxes him.
But Helga corners her. "Okay, you might do some explaining as to why your 'lounge' has some resource that cost a million bucks that was hidden away from us!"
"Are you even a member of a club, Helga?" Rhonda retorts.
"I was a member of the Allergy Awareness Group, though I don't know if that is a school club, or just some guys at school who offered me pamphlets," Eugene recalls.
"Oh, who cares? We got food now!" Harold then places the microwave Mexican wraps inside the expensive pantry accessory. But it is not yet operating. "Huh? It's not working!"
"Was the microwave even on? Or plugged?" Helga brings it up.
"No, wait. Yeah it is," Sid confirms, then inserts the plug to a nearby outlet.
But Rhonda pleads, "Wait no!"
Sure enough, the plug short circuits that causes a power surge in the entire room and in one loud spark, leaves it without power.
"Well, that didn't surprise me at all," Helga utters, then places blame on it, "Way to go, big nose!"
"We're out of power!" Harold shrieks that turns everyone to shriek. Now, the weather-related panic has caught on their heads.
"That's just great," Arnold utters in dismay of the course of events.
"We can just wait for them to calm down, then we could discuss the plan," Phoebe contemplates. "I just hope Gerald is fine."
"He will be. He is a bold kid," Arnold assures.
Just at that moment, Arnold unintentionally leans his hand on a box on the table he is sitting on. The box has a label that says "P.S. 118 Facts Untold". Only the suspicion on his eyes could define his expression.
Just for the record, I finished this chapter while finishing Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie. It was fine and all, but it has its problems on plotting and character development. Well, at least it's better than the original movie. And I have fun seeing one of my favorite TV shows get a well-deserved follow-up to solve the cliffhanger episode.