Rhonda's Revenge

Chapter 3

A/N I'm just going to say this ahead of time. I loved writing this chapter. I don't know why but Rhonda was a favorite of mine when watching the show. Third on the list, behind Helga and Phoebe, (Arnold placed fourth; Too much of a goody two-shoes). I think it all came out quite nicely.

Disclaimer – Yeah, somewhere between here and yesterday, I mysteriously acquired rights to the show. . ARE YOU AS DENSE AS ARNOLD.

"MIRIAM!" Helga stared down to a sleeping Miriam. She was running late for school, again, looking for her lunchbox, which had been conveniently misplaced by Miriam when she was 'packing her lunch'. Olga had gone out with 'daddy' so she was alone with Miriam, which wouldn't be a problem ordinarily, but she had got it in her head to 'make her daughter her lunch' so Helga now had no idea where her lunchbox was. Miriam, wake up already, tell me where my stupid lunchbox is so I can go to school. Then you can sleep the day away."

"Unh, oh, hi sweaty," Miriam was as lackluster as ever, when she woke up. Helga had gotten used to it at this point. "Do you need something?"

"Just my lunchbox, I need it to go to school, you know the place I go for a 'quality education' and keep out of you and Bob's hair. All I need is my lunchbox, so I need you to you to tell me where you put it. It's not in the cupboard, on the table, or in the refrigerator."

"Uh, right, hold on." She walked over to the stove and pulled the lunchbox out of the oven. Here you go sweetie." Still lackluster in speaking, she went back to the table and laid her head back down on the counter. 'What makes this worse is how perky she was when Olga's in the room.' Her signature scowl came to her face before she even left the door.

"Oh! Hello, Helga." Rhonda had gone out of her way to make sure that she was at Helga's bus stop. Thanks to Miriam actually waking up, she had gotten there a little earlier than usual. The bus was set to come in about ten minutes. Helga raised an eyebrow with the appearance of the gossip queen of PS 118.

"What's up princess, I figured you wouldn't have shown up today as much as you were complaining about your hair." Helga's face started to change from her signature scowl to her evil grin. She laughed to herself a bit. She turned away from Rhonda and stood close to ledge that led into traffic.

'Oh we'll see who's laughing soon.' She had to fight the urge to push the one responsible for her wearing a wig we're her beautiful once stood into the street. "I'm so happy to see you. I wanted to have a short chat with you before we start school. It involves Arnold…"

Helga started to tense up a little bit. "Football Head?" she turned around to face Rhonda with eyes wide for a split second. "What about him. You think I'm being too ruthless or something. Get in line you're not the first one to comment on my 'anti-social behavior'"

'Wow, that's an understatement.' "Actually it has more to do with something else. You see I was walking home the other day, and I happen to stumble upon a very interesting site." Helga was quiet and expressionless now, listening to every word the gossip queen said. She cleared her throat before she continued.

"Oh, Arnold, you honestly think I'm not that bad, maybe you do see through this cold bully exterior of mine to see the goodness buried beneath. Oh my angel, why can't actually show this side to you and be nice for once, openly nice as opposed to your day to day torment. Oh, my darling angel, I know that you deserve someone so much better than me but I can't seem to bring myself to give up, every time I try, I feel more empty inside then I could ever hope to bare, if I truly loved you, I wouldn't be so cruel to you, I always feel so ashamed that I seem to cling to the secret of my love for you more than actually showing you the love and adoration someone like you deserves." Rhonda was actually a little shocked she remembered the monologue word for word. One thing was for sure though; she was nowhere near as shocked as Helga was. She no longer had any color left in her face, the mouth that was once closed hung just a few inches above the ground, the eyes that were once expressionless were wide and held pupils as tiny as the ends of needles, and the face as a whole said one thing; horror.

"Ho… who tol… I mean when wer…" No part of Helga's mind seemed to be working at the moment. She tried to think of a way to talk her way out of this but to no avail. She thought she was experiencing the worst nightmare she had ever had, but reality slapped her in the face with a wakeup call when pinching herself didn't work.

"You know you shouldn't have your mouth open like that unless you're helping Nadine get back the bugs she's lost thanks to you." Rhonda continued to smile at what a defeated Helga. Out of options she resorted to what she knew best, intimidation.

"Look, princess, if you even so much as tell another living soul about this, I will make sure the next place you wake up is a pine box buried under Principal Wartz's garden." She mustered up the meanest most terrifying look possible, only to see Rhonda un-phased.

"Oh, I think you're going to want to listen to what I have to say. I would never dream of telling another person about this." Helga began to sigh, but was cutoff. "After all, gossip like this comes but once in a life time; and I couldn't dream of plastering this in the school newspaper… right away." Rhonda had that superior attitude running into overdrive, to the point that you could hear the condescending tone in her voice. "Gossip like this, considering how much I hate who the gossip is from, should be used in the oldest form of enjoyment, blackmail." Helga proceeded to snap she grabbed Rhonda by the shirt and thrust her up against the bus-stop sign.

"Oh, come off it Rhonda, it'd take five minutes of damage control to debunk this 'hot piece of gossip' after all these years, people are thoroughly conveinced that I hate first thing those chuckle-heads are going to do is call you as crazy as your stalker and the only thing that'd come of it would be your new living quarters, and I don't think you'd like hospital beds."

Rhonda just continued to grin. "Oh I thought you'd do something like this, so I just had to take out a little insurance policy. You wouldn't believe what I was able to get my hands on. Though I must say, your handwriting is very distinguishable; I'm actually shocked Arnold didn't realize who actually wrote those lines of poetry in that Pink Book of yours, I mean your signature in the yearbook is a dead ringer for the poetry in that book." Helga was starting to look a little desperate. 'How did she…?' Reasserting her look, she continued to stare Rhonda down.

"You're still forgetting one key-thing here princess. There won't be a mouth to spew this gossip in a few seconds. Then I'll just take my book back and that'll be one less thing to worry about Arnold figuring out." Helga's fist clenched as she pulled back getting ready to make contact, but was stopped by Rhonda's last few words, words that had drained any and all hope from Helga's eyes…

"You don't actually think I was dumb enough to bring the book with me do you? The book's in a safe place." Rhonda actually looked a little offended. "Somewhere you won't get to, I even told somebody to go to that hiding place and use all of the juicy gossip held within its contents if anything were to happen to me." Rhonda actually looked a little offended. With that, Helga fist fell limp to the ground. She just stood there with the expression of defeat she had before. She returned Rhonda to the ground she held her above before she gave in. Her heart seemed to sink lower than it had before.

"So… blackmail huh? What exactly does that entail?" Helga's voice was uneasy as she spoke these words; any and all 'Pataki pride' had gone out the window.

"It's the standard blackmail that we nine year olds come up with; you have to be my slave, simple right. In and out of school, you take orders from me, no ifs, ands, or buts. I'm the boss now, and whatever I say goes." Helga shivered a bit, remembering the words she said during pre-school. She nodded slowly, still bearing a colorless face. Right at that time the bus showed up housing the many kids of PS 118. The doors opened and Rhonda went in first. Helga stood still for a few seconds before getting on. She passed Arnold along the way as Rhonda patted the seat next to her with a victorious grin on her face.

A/N like I said; fun to watch, Oh and be sure to remind your friends and family of the three Bs, blackmail, bribery and brutality. Remember those and they'll be a cackling antagonist in no time. (Mu-ha-ha) Next chapter will be up tomorrow. (Unless I get some of my work back from my new Beta, then it'll be my crossover that get's updated. Zelda's on hiatus until writers block for that story is gone.)