Becoming Olga

Summary: Life is a precarious wheel. Where one person ends, another begins. For Rebecca, her end is just the beginning of Olga's life.

AN: The universe and characters of Hey Arnold belong to the wonderful and talented Craig Bartlett. I do not own them. All I own is this story premise and the changes that I make within my story.

The J.A.M. a.k.a. Numbuh I: I have fixed that hiccup in the last chapter. Thanks for pointing that out.

Chapter Three

We took a cab home and one of the nice nurses had given me a bunch of stuff for baby Helga. She kept shooting dirty looks at Miriam, but she was too zonked out to really notice. With Helga strapped onto my chest and a backpack full of baby stuff on my back I helped Miriam up the steps into our house. She ambled up the stairs and quietly made her way to the kitchen. Before I could ask if she needed any help, I heard glasses clink, and a blender whir.

I shook my head and gently closed the door behind me. Helga sneezed and let out a sigh. She blinked at me from her position on her chest and I cooed at her. I gave her an Eskimo kiss as I walked up the stairs to my room.

I placed the backpack full of baby things onto the ground beside my bed. I'd have to go to school soon and I didn't know if I could trust Miriam or Bob to really take care of Helga. I frowned as I looked around my room for some sort of answer. There was a fat piggy bank on top of the dresser. I bit my lip. Maybe I had enough for a babysitter? At least until I could graduate as soon as I could, in any case.

Little Helga whimpered, and I paused on my way to the piggy bank. I swayed and swayed for a while, and brought out another bottle for her to feast on. She greedily drank it down as I sighed. I was hoping that she wouldn't be too fussy of a baby. So much for that.

I inched my way to the piggy bank and pulled it down off of the dresser. I sat down onto the ground with Helga still strapped onto my chest. She was happily chugging down the formula while I started emptying out the ceramic pig with one hand.

Once I emptied out all the bills and coins, I counted it all. I raised my brow and let out a little whistle. I counted everything again to make sure I wasn't miscounting. The total in the fat ceramic pic equated to $250. I don't know how in the world Olga got that much money, maybe contests, but I wasn't going to waste it. That much now was worth almost $900 back in 2016 when you compared the prices of things here. At least that's what I calculated in my head.

Helga crossed her eyes as she stared at me. I giggled and gently ran a finger along her soft skull. She let out a little sigh and snuggled against me. I pulled all the money back into the piggy bank and stuffed it into the baby backpack that nurse gave me. I looked up at the clock. It was already two pm and my stomach gurgled. I hurried down the stairs and when I went into the kitchen I found that Miriam was passed out on the kitchen table with a vodka spiked smoothie in her hand. I grimaced.

When I went to the fridge I rummaged around and found some ground beef, potatoes, and stale looking veggies. In half an hour I finished up making a meal for myself and Miriam, whenever she decided to wake up. Helga cried now and again, but Miriam slept like the dead. I managed to quiet down Helga by burping and changing her. It was good that I had plenty of experience taking care of my little siblings. Otherwise, I would probably be way in over my head.

I gobbled down my dinner and made my way to the attic. I pulled down the crib and the rest of my baby stuff back into my room with Helga strapped onto my back. It was kind of heavy, but I was apparently a pretty strong 10 year old. She slept through the entire process of me assembling her crib and putting away all my old baby clothes, toys, and gear. They all smelt like baby powder and it all seemed pretty clean. I would have to figure out how to get Helga different clothes. Everything was far too pink in my opinion. I clipped on a little pink bow onto her head and cooed at her sleeping face when I deposited her into her crib. I strapped on the old school looking baby monitor on the edge of her crib and kept the other baby monitor on my person.

I let out a deep sigh when I manged to make it back to my room. I slumped onto my bed and stared at my bumpy ceiling. I heard Helga hiccup in her room and I sighed. I ambled into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water with a bit of sugar. I passed by a still zonked Miriam. She had Irish coffee in her hand this time. I guessed that she got up at some point since her plate of food was gone. The kitchen seemed to be tided up and I rubbed her back lightly when I passed by her again.

When I entered into Helga's room again she was still hiccuping and seemed to be on the cusp of crying. I maneuvered the nipple into her mouth, and got her to suckle on it while I bounced and swayed. I looked at the nearby clock and found that it was already almost eight pm. Bob was going to be home soon. If I wanted to stay out of his way and be invisible, I'd best fall asleep. I glanced down at Helga. She would have to get to sleep too. I glanced at the bundle in my arms and noted that she was drifting off to sleep. I gently placed her back into her crib and backed out of her room as quietly as I could.

I hurried off into my room and buried myself under my covers. I willed myself to sleep and soon darkness invaded my vision. The clock in my room ticked away as I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up to Bob and Miriam yelling as Helga wailed balefully in the background. Did they not hear her? I shook my sleep addled head and squinted at my window. It looked like it was already morning. I checked my clock and found that it was already six in the morning. I hurried over to Helga and picked her up. She whimpered and sniffled, but stopped her wails when I embraced her. Bob and Miriam continued to yell obscenities at each other. I think he was upset at how much she was drinking and she was angry at him for never being at home.

I changed Helga's diaper and changed her clothes. I don't know how I would handle all of this when Monday rolled in, but I guess I would just have to trust Miriam. I strapped her onto my chest and made my way down to the kitchen. I made a large plate of toast, scrambled eggs and bacon before I made Helga a bottle of baby formula.

Bob and Miriam paused in their yelling match. I sat at the kitchen table eating my breakfast and feeding Helga while I listened for any oncoming footsteps. Bob stomped into the kitchen, and spotted where I was sitting with Helga. His face softened when he noticed that there was food on the kitchen table. Miriam stumbled in after he sat down and helped himself to some food.

Miriam glanced at me and shot me a small smile. I nodded and pulled on a half hearted grin. Bob gobbled down his plate of food and sighed happily before he addressed Miriam, "See. This is what is supposed to happen in the morning. Breakfast, not your drinking, woman. You're lucky we have such a perfect little girl. I'll see the three of you later. I'm working till eight pm again."

He ruffled my hair and shot Miriam a dry look before leaving through the front door. Miriam silently finished her meal and proceeded to make herself another Irish coffee.

I frowned and burped Helga. I walked over to her and tugged at her purple dress. She glanced down at me and smiled woodenly, "Yes, sweetheart?"

I bit my lip, "Do you want to hold Helga, mommy?" I wanted to really clean this place before I took a bath in that disgusting bathroom.

Miriam frowned and looked like she was going to decline for a moment. A sad look flashed onto her face when she slowly nodded, "Of course, darling."

It took several hours for me to clean everything in that bathroom. The only real upside to cleaning that filthy place was that I was able to finally have a shower, and I also found the washer and dryer under the mountain of clothes in the bathroom. Helga was a needy sort of baby. She cried, whined, and whimpered whenever I left her with Miriam. I didn't quite understand, but Miriam took it like a trooper. She refused to breast feed Helga, but was quite happy to feed her formula. I think it was probably because there'd be alcohol in her system. I couldn't really Google that here though. Did this world even have any internet yet? I'd have to investigate that later.

I found that Miriam could be trusted to care for Helga while I went to school, if this little test run meant anything. I made some lunch for the two of us and Miriam proceeded to fall into a drunken sleep after she had seen that I no longer needed her to watch Helga. I sighed and went through the baby book that the hospital had supplied. I made a face. Helga was supposed to get vaccinated in a month. Was I supposed to do that? Could a child bring in a baby for that? I doubt that Bob would want to be bothered, and I didn't know if Miriam would be sober enough to do so.

In any case...I would find a way as to how. I couldn't just let my baby sister not get vaccinated. I'd rather not deal with the measles and the chicken pox in the future, thank you very much.

I made a little nest for Helga on my bed with all of my pillows, and pulled out one of my few picture books. I cleared my throat and started reading her the story of the ugly duckling. I shook a rattle at her now and again between reading, and Helga only responded by blinking at me. I smiled and rubbed her little nose with the pad of my forefinger. She'd have to smile at me eventually.

opopopopopopopo

A month quickly passed by and I had managed to convince both Bob and Miriam to let me skip two grades. The school counselor agreed when I had passed their equivalency tests. I just had to convince them to let me take all the other tests, and do whatever projects to completely test out of school. I didn't know how long that would take though.

Helga was growing up quickly and I had managed to find an old school camera in the attic to capture it all. I managed to take a picture of her first smile, I assumed it was a smile, and she was easier to deal with in comparison to when she was a newborn. She slept through the night and was usually easy to handle, as long as I was there.

Whenever I handed her to Miriam, she turned into a fussy needy baby. At least that was what my 'mother' complained about whenever I got home from school. Bob left me alone for the most part since I started doing all the chores. I didn't really know if he knew who did the chores, but it didn't matter much to me as long as he left us relatively alone. He totally ignored Helga, but I figured that was better than him hurting her. I couldn't save Miriam from any verbal lashing though.

During the month that I was here, I noticed that Bob actually left Miriam money taped onto the fridge everyday after he left. I followed her once and found that she was stuffing it all into one of the kitchen drawers. I think it was supposed to be for groceries or something, but I had never seen her do the grocery shopping. I had been doing it with what little money I had. I had already spent $40 for the groceries for the entire month. The prices back in the 80's were really cheap in comparison to the prices back in 2016.

When I had found out that she was just using it to buy the bare basics and oodles of alcohol, I decided to 'volunteer' to do the groceries. I idly wondered if she knew that I was doing the grocery shopping. It didn't matter, I guess.

School, the seventh grade in particular, was pretty boring and it didn't seem like Olga had any friends from before I had 'taken' her place. She did have people who called her a goody two shoes and a teacher's pet though. The only bright spot that I had here was Helga, and I didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.

Every night now and again, I hoped that I would wake up from this place and be back home. Every night that hope grew dimmer and dimmer.