Chapter 2

Helga stomped her way home; she wasn't sad or even hurt by what those people did.

She was MAD.

Every person who looked at her funny, Helga wouldn't ask questions-she would just go up to them and sock them in the stomach and then leave without another word.

Helga got home and slammed the door to her new suburban house shut. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. But instead, she stomped her way upstairs and headed for her new bedroom.

"Olga, quit making all that racket!"

"I'm HELGA, Bob!" Helga yelled and slammed the door to her room. Most of her stuff had been unpacked, but there were two things missing from her new room. One was the small pink notebook Helga kept-not her diary, but an address book with all her old friends addresses so she could write. When Helga asked her parents if they'd seen it, Bob had apparently thrown it away because he thought it was trash.

The second thing that wrenched at Helga was the entire box that contained the contents for Helga's 'Arnold' shrine. That, Miriam had thought was junk and threw away as well. The only thing Helga had left was her diary that had only one more blank page.

Helga opened her diary and decided to do one more update.

They think they've seen the last of me? Forget it-tomorrow, they're all going to get their dues. Or my name isn't Helga G. Pataki!

. . .

The second day of school, Helga got there early and poured canola oil on everyone's seat; then she egged the teacher's lounge, and when people started throwing French fries at her, she started a food fight. When she went to the bathroom and saw the girls waiting for Helga, she was prepared-she had a bottle of ketchup and a bottle of mustard and squirted them all with it and ran off before the teacher could catch her. Helga left the school that day feeling like she had won.

But the minute Helga got out of school grounds, she was swarmed. They threw water balloons at her, some filled with rocks in them. Then they started egging her until she felt like a pan of scrambled eggs. Everywhere Helga turned, there was a perfect taunting face throwing a water balloon or an egg. It wasn't long before Helga felt something long and sticky being squirted at her-ketchup and mustard. Finally, someone brought three buckets full of baking powder and dumped it on her.

Don't think Helga didn't try to fight back; she tried to punch every person she could see, but there were over thirty students there-whenever Helga would attack someone, five or six students would push her away. Helga tried to escape, but they circled her. Helga threatened them until her voice was raw, but they only laughed and threw more objects at her. Finally, Helga gave up and let them do what they wanted to her-eventually, the students ran out of ammo, got bored and left. Just as they were leaving, one small girl approached her with a bottle of apple juice.

"You should dress and act prettier," the girl said. "Trust me, the minute you do, they stop,"

"What are you doing, Alyssa?" One of the girls asked.

The girl named Alyssa answered by opening her bottle of apple juice and pouring it on Helga's egg, baking powder, ketchup, and mustard covered head.

"Sorry," Alyssa said. "I had to do that," Alyssa then turned and walked away and the students left.

For a few minutes, Helga sat there-she didn't know how to react. She'd been bullied before, but never this bad. It seemed every kid at her new school was now against her.

But Helga wasn't going down without a fight.

The third day, Helga filled an entire hallways worth of lockers with green jell-o (classic), then dug through more lockers and tore out all the pages of the textbooks she could find. Then, while the lunch lady wasn't looking, Helga spiked the chili for the chili cheese dogs with extra spicy hot sauce. And she ran home without stopping so the students couldn't catch her.

But then, they TP'd Helga's house and wrote 'UGLY' in shaving cream on every window of the house.

The fourth day, Helga poured pink paint in all the hallways.

The kids killed a cat and left it on her front doorstep-what the cat had on its body was too horrible and sick to be written.

After seeing the dead cat, Helga knew things were ugly.

The fifth day, Helga made a dummy of a dead cat and rigged it to fly down on students every time the door would open.

But then, five boys found Helga and beat her up until she vomited from being kicked in the stomach so much.

The fifth day, Helga came home with a black eye and severely bruised legs.

The sixth day, Helga came home with a cut on her upper lip and fire extinguisher residue staining her clothes.

The seventh day was her shirt had been ripped to shreds.

The eighth day her shoes had been ripped off her feet and stolen.

The ninth day she had mud pies with rocks in the middle thrown at her.

Two weeks went by, every day getting worse and worse. Helga wasn't sure how long she was going to take it. Everything Helga would do, the students would retaliate ten times more horribly. But then, the kicker hit and hit hard.

Somehow, the student girls had gotten a hold of the graduating picture of all of her friends from Hillwood and ripped it to shreds.

Helga didn't want to live anymore.

That day Helga came home with a severely hurt wrist from having a boy 'accidentally' drop a box on her hand-she had gone to the nurse who suspected it was sprained and told her to go to the emergency room to have it x-rayed. But when Helga got home and told her mom, her mom just mumbled and continued to watch TV. Helga told her dad, but he just continued exercising and told her 'later'.

Helga was tired; she was tired of being alone and it had only been two weeks. In Hillwood, Helga might have been able to deal with the bullies because her friends were there; but now?

Helga went into the bathroom and locked the door tight-she saw her dads raiser on the bathroom sink and picked it up to inspect it. It was brand new and was only used once. Helga rinsed the raiser on the sink and braced herself for the pain she was going to feel-but she told herself just to do it and get it over with.

But then, Helga noticed her moms straightening iron.

"You should dress and act prettier," the girl said. "Trust me, the minute you do, they stop,"

…would they really stop bullying Helga if she were to dress and act pretty?

Helga knew there was only one way to find out.

That night, Helga didn't sleep-she used whatever makeup she could find. She remembered seeing Olga doing her hair and makeup- Helga tried to mimic her so she would look just like Olga. She straightened her two stick up pig tails until they were perfectly straight down-then she used the iron to curl her hair and make it wavy looking-then she took her pink bow, unraveled the ribbon and tied it as a headband. Then, Helga started makeup-she applied her mother's foundation, blush and a little mascara. Finally, Helga took care of her unibrow-Helga remembered how she had done this same thing once for Rhonda's party when she was nine. But Rhonda explained to her that it didn't really make Helga look pretty, it just made her look like she was trying too hard. So, Helga didn't apply eye shadow or lipstick-she just used plain mascara and wore lip gloss.

By the time Helga was done with her self-made makeover, it was already dawn-Helga didn't dare lie down to sleep for fear of messing up her hair that took her hours to do. Helga looked at herself in the mirror and didn't see Helga-she saw a complete stranger.

"I liked the old Helga better-at least she was honest!" Phoebe's voice rang inside Helga's head. But then Helga moved her wrist and winced at the pain she felt.

There was being honest, and then there was lying on the ground beaten to a pulp. This may be Helga's chance-Helga didn't care about fitting in; she didn't want to fit in with these horrible perfect people. What she did want was to be able to come home without worrying about her safety. Helga felt like she had to do this or she may wind up in the hospital.

Or even the morgue.

Helga remembered how Miriam had given her a bunch of Olga's clothes that Helga stuffed in the back of her closet-Helga dug out the box and found a skin tight black shirt with the words 'CUTIE' written in pink sparkles and a bright pink skirt that reached her mid-thighs. Helga dug out an old pair of flats with silver sparkles that belonged to Olga as well and put them on.

Helga was ready for her so called 'debut'.

Helga went downstairs and saw her mom passed out on the couch-probably more of her 'smoothies'. Helga's dad was still asleep, so Helga made her own lunch-she wanted it to be 'cool' but not like she was trying too hard. She finally made her a cucumber sandwich (even though Helga hated cucumbers) and cut the sandwich diagonally so it would look nice. After digging around, Helga found a small bottle of orange juice and to complete Helga's lunch, she added a granola bar. It was the first time Helga had a lunch that actually looked complete.

And then, Helga made her way to school.

. . .

Helga hesitantly entered the halls of her new school-at first, she thought there would be kids wanting to attack her.

Not one kid even looked at her.

Helga went to her locker, grabbed what she needed and went to class, the whole time, looking over her shoulder.

Not one kid even gave her the time of day.

Well, it was a start.

Helga entered the classroom-for a split second, the classroom went quiet, but then the students went back to just talking. Helga hesitantly sat down.

"Hey there," the girl who had poured apple juice on Helga was back.

"Hi," Helga said.

"I'm Alyssa," she said. "I know it's hard, but trust me-these kids are relentless-they wouldn't stop unless you did what they want,"

"Which is act and look pretty," Helga said.

"Yeah," she said. "Most of these kids are from Manhattan and their parents are rich- doctors and fashion designers and such,"

"Huh," Helga said.

"They single out anyone who doesn't meet their expectations-but the minute you reach it, they stop. It's a miracle,"

"They're really that shallow?" Helga asked.

"Unfortunately, yes…just think of it like this-just seven more years until you're free from this and you can act however you want,"

…SEVEN YEARS?

. . .

The rest of the year went by without a single problem-now that Helga wasn't 'ugly' anymore; the students stopped being mean to her. They didn't completely accept her, but at least they weren't dumping buckets of water on her anymore.

Helga's only real friend was Alyssa-when she went over to Alyssa's one time, she discovered that Alyssa was actually a lot like Helga-she would burp and just act like it was normal and said she had named her fists as well-Mr. Fingers and The Justice Knuckle League. Alyssa showed Helga a few of her pictures from her old school that showed that Alyssa was actually a tough girl like Helga-she would always wear a hat backwards and would have her dark brown hair completely frizzy.

"What made you change?" Helga asked.

Alyssa pulled her pants leg up to show her the scar that went up her leg. "They pushed me off a one-story scaffolding. I landed on a plank and the wood broke my leg-the scar was from where they had to operate…my parents tried to sue the school, but this school isn't like other public schools. It's powerful-they have everyone on their side,"

The rest of the school year went by and summer came-the girl who had dumped water on Helga-Amber-actually invited Helga to her beach house for the summer. When they arrived, Helga was unpacking her stuff when Amber found Helga's gold locket of Arnold.

"Who's that?"

"Huh? Oh, that's not mine…must be my mom's. I think he's my cousin," the lie flew out of Helga's mouth before she knew what she was doing.

"Just throw it away then-there's a dumpster outside," Amber told her.

"Kay," Helga said and went outside. But instead of heading to the dumpster, she walked to the beach and stood there, looking at her locket.

Before, Arnold or maybe even Phoebe would have saved her-but Arnold wasn't here and Helga wasn't going to be saved this time. Phoebe, Arnold, Gerald, Sid, Rhonda-none of them were here. And because Helga's dad threw away that address book, she had no way of getting in contact.

"Who was he really?" Alyssa, who had also come to Amber's beach house, was behind Helga.

"A guy I had a crush on in elementary school," Helga said.

"Why is his head shaped like a football?"

Helga laughed. "Beats me-his grandpa didn't have a foot-ball shaped head-I think he got it from his dad,"

"He lived with his grandparents?"

"His parents went missing when he was little…"

"Oh…are you going to keep the locket?"

Helga shook her head. "No point," with that, Helga reached her arm back and threw the locket far into the ocean.

"I guess some things are better left dead," Helga said.