Chapter 2
After the longest hour of her life, the bell rang for class to end, but if only it was that easy to get away from Arnold, because of course they had nearly every class together, except one. Helga shot out of her seat, as soon as the bell rang, and raced out of the classroom, heading to the next one, not wanting a similar situation to occur. As she raced down the hall, students, of every age, got out of her way, noticing she was on a shorter fuse than normal.
Finally, she reached the door to her next class, she quickly turned the knob, ran inside, and took a seat next to the windows, in the very back of the room. She could dawdle on her thoughts, write down whatever thoughts she had, and remain unnoticed by her other classmates and the teacher. She didn't need to pay attention in this class anyway, it was Math, and she was getting A's on everything, Helga had found out not that long ago that she was pretty much a math wizard. The memory then stung at her heart, she wished she could forget the memory, because now it seemed like a lie.
"Woah! How did you even get that Helga? Are you a Math genius?" Arnold asked in utter admiration for Helga's math skills.
They had met at the library, in the beginning of the summer, as Helga was doing her Math homework due for the next school year. With Phoebe being in London with her family for the summer Helga had nothing better to do than work on Summer assignments. Arnold had seen her, and came over to see her, when he noticed her knack for Math.
Helga blushed a little and gave a little smile, "I don't know, it isn't that hard, just read the text and you should get it too Football Head!"
"No way! I have been reading this chapter for weeks now and still don't get it!" Arnold then got a huge smile on his face, and Helga knew what he was thinking before he even asked. "Will you tutor me, please, please, PLEASE Helga!" Arnold gave her a pleading smile.
Helga couldn't help but laugh a little, "Haha, sure Football Head!"
"Awesome! Can you meet here every day around 11 am?" Arnold asked. Helga nodded, her heart now so excited! She could see Arnold every day, spend quality time with him, get to know him better, and maybe they would get really close. Helga stopped herself there, she was not getting her hopes up, she wanted to take it slow, not get her hopes up, she knew better.
"Helga…is this seat taken?"
This voice snapped her back from her memory, and she shot her eyes up, seeing Arnold standing in front of her with an awkward smile on his face.
"Can I?" he asked again.
Helga furrowed her eyebrows, and then she leaned back in her chair, and with a smartass tone replied, "Do whatever you want Football Head! It's a free country." Arnold took his seat with a little hesitation, noticing the slight hostility in her voice, but she had spoken to him, and that was a start. Testing his luck Arnold turned around, and asked "So, how are you?"
Helga shot him a dirty look, leaned forward on her desk, "Do you actually care?" Arnold was shocked at her response, and he then turned quietly back to the front of the classroom. "Thought so." he heard Helga whisper under her breathe.
Just then Mr. Longhorn came stumbling into the classroom, the usual mess of papers crammed into his lanky arms. His glasses tilted on his face, he placed his papers over his chaotic mess of a desk. As he straightened his glasses and faced the class, he smiled. "Good morning students! Today we are going to learn more Quadratic Equations!" The whole class groaned, except Helga, who had learned that over the summer, anxious to learn all she could to impress the idiot sitting in front of her. As the class went on Helga felt herself drift off into memory land, the place that both made her smile and also broke her down.