Whatever, Nadine.
Disclaimer: Yeah, so, between now and the last time I posted, I miraculously began owning Hey Arnold! NOT.
A/N: I love Helga's fists. Somebody should totally make a cartoon about Helga's fists. Hey, I'd watch!
"Good Morninnnnng!" trilled Olga as Helga walked out of her bedroom, dressed for school. It had been a while since she'd worn her pink pinafore with her little white T-shirt. Fourteen year old Helga was more given to wearing faded washed out looking jeans, and generally a black T-shirt. Olga had been trying to get her to wear a skirt to school for a change, but Helga refused point blank. Her bridesmaid dress at Olga's wedding had been bad enough.
Olga had been married for two years now. Ray, her husband, was a pretty decent guy (which was why Helga had let the marriage take place anyway, she didn't need more morons in her family even if Olga had it coming to her), and the only one who paid any attention to Helga. Unfortunately, they only came to stay at the Pataki's a couple of times a year, for maybe two weeks each time. Helga didn't know whether to be annoyed that Olga was coming along, to be a pain in her butt yet again, or whether to look forward to discussing metaphysical poetry with Ray, who was a professor of literature, and wrote criticisms for intellectual-looking magazines.
"Mornin', Olga," said Helga, half-heartedly. She went into the kitchen to pick up her lunch box. For a change, there was food in it: a fat bologna sandwich. Well, Olga and her compulsive niceness had its uses, Helga supposed. "I'm going to school now, ok?" she said, walking out of the door.
To tell the truth, Helga was still all of a flutter from yesterday's little incident about being locked up in the classroom with the Love of Her Life. Not that she called Arnold that anymore. At twelve, Helga had gotten fed up of the crazy insane obsession she had with the football-headed little freak, and had dismantled all her effigies of him. She'd put her closet shrine out of business, and her locket… well, she'd gotten into a fit of rage at herself, that day, and hurled it under a steamroller that happened to be coming up the street. Gone were the days she'd stand behind garbage cans and confess to the stupid little photo that she loved the owner of the handsome, smiling face that was in it.
Gone was the old Helga, she vowed, and in her place was a big, fat block of denial that she denied was there. Yeah, life was just peachy. As usual.
She wondered how to behave around the object of her misguided affections today. After all, after yesterday's heart to heart – Helga had to have a dry chuckle at that – they were clearly not just classmates anymore. Surely, after that, they were friends.
It wasn't as though Helga didn't have friends. She had mellowed down a good deal since the fourth and fifth grade. Firstly because, after she got braces, fighting with people got a lot harder. All anybody had to do was sock her on the mouth, and she'd be done for the day. Secondly, by the eighth grade, Harold had grown about four inches taller than her, and something like five times bigger. Helga might be violent, but she hadn't lived fourteen years in Big Bob's house without having learnt some serious self-preservation skills.
The result of all this was that by now, Helga was pretty good friends with most of her grade. People enjoyed her sarcasm and her skill at imitating people, and over time they had learnt not to take offence at some of the blunt things she said. Helga, on her part, had stopped calling people names for no reason whatsoever, and everything was working out fine. The only difference between this and the friendship she and Arnold had suddenly struck up yesterday was the fact that she had opened up to him, however little. She had told him that she cared that her family neglected her, and she had admitted that she wanted to be liked for who she really was. There really wasn't any turning back for Helga G. Pataki after an admission like that.
She reached school, got into class, and sat at her desk. Phoebe, in the desk beside her, greeted her in cheery Japanese and offered her a gummy bear.
"Sure, Phoebs," said Helga, smiling and taking the bear.
"Hey Helga," said a pleasant, slightly husky voice.
"Arnold!" said Helga, and then pulled herself together. She wasn't supposed to like him anymore! What gave? She really needed to learn how to control herself around the boy. Old habits die hard, I guess, she said to herself with a sigh, and turned. "Hey, Football Head," she said, half-grinning at him.
"Some evening we had yesterday, huh?"
"Sure, Arnoldo, if you call being bored to death inside a locked classroom 'some evening', then yeah, we did."
"I do call it 'some evening'," said Arnold, grinning in the annoying way people have when they know something other people don't. Arnold now found it a million times easier to tell when Helga was kidding, and he knew this was one of those times. He also knew that if he ever let people know that he somewhat got her now, she would re-introduce him to his old friends, Betsy and the Five Avengers, regardless of the fact that he was an inch and a half taller that she was. He decided to keep it at annoying-grin level.
"That's nice. Don't you have something to do, Geek Bait?" said Helga, still smirking. "Somewhere to go be positive or something?"
"Or I could go sit at my desk and leave you alone, huh?" Arnold offered, half laughing.
"Cool. I'll see you around, Football Head," Helga raised a palm, which Arnold slapped in a comradely manner before he went to sit down at his desk. Neither of them noticed the curious looks they were getting from the rest of the class for their strangely friendly behaviour.
By lunch, their behaviour got even more inexplicable by the standards of the rest of the grade. Arnold plonked his meal tray down at Helga's table, and Gerald, who had been nursing a soft spot for Phoebe for a while now, was only to happy to accompany him. Helga, much to everybody's intense astonishment, did not punch, throttle, kick or disfigure Arnold in any way. In fact, besides saying "what're YOU doing here, stink-wad" in an almost affectionate way, she did nothing! Except for make room for their trays!
Fifteen minutes into lunch, Rhonda could take it no more.
"Nadine. Sheena. Girls' room, now."
The three of them snuck off to discuss this new development, recognizing its potential as seriously juicy gossip.
"What is up with Helga Geraldine Pataki, you guys?" she burst out, the instant they made it into the girls' room.
"I know!" agreed Sheena. "She's being so nice to Arnold! I thought those two were sworn enemies!"
"Well, maybe that's going a bit too far," said Nadine, leaning back on the sink, her midriff-baring tank top showing off a flat stomach and enviable hip bones. "I think Helga got over her world-hating thing by last year. But still. Arnold. That girl has NEVER been even civil to Arnold since, like, elementary school. And now they're eating lunch together, acting like they're old friends!"
"I guess it's got something to do with how they went to get that letter back yesterday," Rhonda said contemplatively. Y'know, the one we wrote to Curly anonymously, to try and make him see what a loser he is, so he would get off my back already?"
"Oh, damn, did they get it?" said Nadine unsympathetically. "I spent like hours trying to find the best offensive words."
"I totally saw this coming," said Rhonda, ignoring Nadine. "Didn't I tell you guys?" she demanded.
"Tell us what?" said Sheena, looking confused.
"You know, tell you that I think Helga's carried a torch for Arnold for a while now."
"I really don't think you did, Rhonda," said Nadine, who had come out from beneath Rhonda's shadow the last year, when she grew a pair of extremely perky B-cups and a butt to match. Rhonda, still pretty darn skinny, scowled at her.
"Of course I did. I thought they kissed for WAY too long that time she performed in Romeo and Juliet."
"Yeah, you did think that," conceded Nadine. "But everybody thought that. They kissed for like six minutes straight!"
"Oh, whatever, Nadine," said Rhonda impatiently. "The point is there's something up with those two, and I wanna know what it is. You guys up for some espionage?"
"Oooh, exciting," squeaked Sheena happily. Rhonda rolled her eyes at Nadine and they walked out of the bathroom.
Lila unlocked the stall she'd been in and poked her head out. Well well. Arnold and Helga eating lunch together, now that was a development.
Helga walked into the bathroom, humming under her breath. She went over to the mirror to make sure her eyeliner hadn't smudged.
"Hey, Lila," she said, glancing at the readhead, who was arranging her hair.
"Hey, Helga. Oh, hey, Rhonda and her bitches were in here a few minutes ago," said Lila, fluffing up her hair at the front. "They were talking about you,"
"Oh, I'll bet. What did they say? No, lemme guess, 'oh my God, Arnold and Helga are talking to each other! I don't remember the last time they even looked at each other without the burning embers of hatred in their eyes! Oh, what a huge development! This is going to affect the whole school, and the whole world and the environment! This is the answer to global warming, poverty and racism!' Yeah, that's Rhonda."
"Well, something along the lines of that," Lila giggled uncontrollably. Helga was probably one of her favourite people alive, and the person who'd taught her to be mean. It wasn't as if Lila couldn't stand up for herself and her ideas, but she hated being such a pushover sometimes. After Helga had given up her greatest secret to Lila so that she could get the role as Juliet opposite Arnold's Romeo, they had become friends on a different sort of level, in that Helga didn't really see any point hiding things from her. Eventually, they became pretty good friends. At the beginning of their high school freshman year, Lila had found herself included in the "popular" clique with a bunch of sophomore girls. Eventually, however, she realized that they only used her to fetch and carry, and she wanted to leave their little gang. They threatened to ruin her high school social life forever if she dared to do anything of the sort, but with Helga's help, she got past the problem. This incident cemented their friendship, and Lila determined to help Helga in gaining the affections of a certain football headed blond kid to show her gratitude towards her for her help.
"So, well, you ate lunch with Arnold?"
"Yeah, well, kinda did."
"How come? What happened? I mean, till, like yesterday you were hardly even friends! I mean, out of everyone in the grade, you two were the most distant with each other!"
It was perfectly true. In her final and to-be-successful-at-all-costs attempt to finally get over Arnold, Helga had hardly paid any attention to him whatsoever over the past couple of years. No spitballs, no random shoving, no pointing and mocking… and her task was made all the easier by the fact that Arnold didn't even notice. Helga was practically IGNORING him, and Arnold, to all purposes, didn't seem to give a crap. When she realized this, Helga finally confessed to herself that getting over him would probably be the best course of action. He didn't care a whit about her, and never would.
"Well, we kinda got stuck in the classroom for about three hours yesterday," she told Lila now. "Ended up talking… you know. Nothing big. We made friends, I guess."
"But that's ever so great, Helga!" said Lila enthusiastically. She still hadn't gotten over her country habit of saying 'ever so' all the time. It really made Helga want to punch her, sometimes.
"Eh. He's not that fun to be around or anything," lied Helga blandly. "Keeps asking a bunch of stupid questions that nobody in their right minds would want to sit around and answer,"
"Come on, Helga; don't tell me you aren't totally excited that you were stuck with Arnold in a classroom for three hours!"
"What? Why would I be excited, Lila, for God's sake!"
Having washed her hands a little excessively thoroughly, Helga nodded at Lila and walked out of the bathroom.
The last thing she needed was that little nitwit trying to set her up with Football Head. She was totally OVER Football Head. Her days of sleepwalking all over to Football Head's house in the dead of the night were GONE. As were the little models of Football Head that she made with any medium she found lying around, be it chewing gum from Football Head's own mouth, or be it matchsticks and celery leaves. Her insane, obsessive, everlasting, frustrating crush on that stupid Football Head was OVER. Why the HELL was she still tingling from yesterday's classroom conversation?
Helga stomped over to her table and sat down.
"Hey, what happened in there?" Gerald asked her through a bite of peanut butter and jelly sandwich. "You look pissed off!"
"Stuff a sock in it, tall hair boy, or I will!" said Helga rudely, and, grabbing her sling bag, she got up and left. Arnold and Gerald looked at each other. Then they looked at Phoebe.
"Hormones?" said Phoebe timidly, and Arnold and Gerald laughed.
Helga made her way to her locker, still seething. She felt a little sorry about yelling at Gerald, but she was so mad. What made her madder was that she was mad at herself in the first place, and the she had to go and offend a nice guy like Gerald who only wanted to know what was wrong! And that made her madder with herself.
"Oh, crimeny, I'm a complete basketcase!" said Helga to herself. She made her decision silently. It was time for another appointment with Dr. Bliss.
A/N: If you review, the Gods of reviewing shall be pleased. Blessings shall be heaped upon you in plenty.
Oh, right, I did have a couple of other things to say. Firstly, if Nadine seems OOC, I made her that way. I figured they couldn't all be the exact same after five years, right? And I wanted somebody to be drastically different, so I picked her. Don't ask me why.
Secondly, no, Lila is not going to show her 'true colors' anytime in the future and claim Arnold as her birthright and property. For a change, I want to keep her nice. AND, kind of a wuss.
Also, thanks to Hellerick Ferlibay for making me see the error of my ways in robbing Betsy and the Five Avengers of their souls.
