Chapter Seven: Reactions and Misconceptions (Part Two)

Helga never stopped running till she got up front stairs leading up to her house and slammed the door behind her. She leaned against the door gasping for air and feeling very sick to her stomach. Her heart was pounding very hard and very fast in her chest. Then she ran upstairs to the bathroom next to her own room and ran over to the sink and began to run some water. Helga then leaned over and took several mouthfuls and began gargling with it and spitting it back out quickly.

She opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out two bottles of mouthwash—one was her dad's and the other her mom's. Helga never even bothered to measure the mouthfuls; she simply took one mouthful of each, gargled with it and spat it out. On the second mouthful, the memory of Gerald's tongue mixing with hers caused her to nearly throw up—and also caused her to swallow the last mouthful of the strong mouthwash. It burned going down and this time Helga did gag. She did manage to make it over to the toilet before she threw up. That burned going back up also, but that was the least of Helga's worries.

After rinsing off her mouth in the sink again and splashing some cold water on her face, she went quickly to her room and closed the door behind her and threw herself on the bed on her stomach. All she wanted to do now was close her eyes and sleep forever, anything to keep away the terrible memories and emotions that were eating away inside her right then. The memory of her grabbing Gerald and pulling him into the closet was still very vivid. She could still remember the feeling she got when her tongue mixed with his . . .

She let out loud squeal and put her hands over her face, tears threatening to appear in her eyes. Nobody who knew Helga G. Pataki would have recognized her if they saw her. She was one of the toughest bullies at P.S. 118 and perhaps one of the meanest kids in the whole forth grade, but right now she was neither tough, nor was she mean. Right now she was in a state of near-hysterical panic.

"T-This can't be happening!" Helga said aloud to herself, her voice nearly squeaking with anxiety. She was sweating all over with perspiration. Her mind was alive with images that built on her emotional turmoil. "Oh what have I done?! I can't believe this is happening to me?!" She lifted her head up and looked at the wall, her mind still locked into replaying over and over the memory that she couldn't seem to shut off, no matter how hard she tried.

"I—I kissed another boy! And not just any boy . . . Gerald Johansson! And not just on the lips, I French kissed Arnold's best friend!" She shifted to lie on her side and both of her hands grabbed hold of both her pigtails and pulling on them, as if trying to rip them out. Tears filled her panicked eyes now. "I kissed another boy . . . OH CRIMINY, I—I CHEATED ON ARNOLD!"

Despite the fact that Arnold and Helga were not technically together, and only recently managed to get on more friendly terms, Helga never once in her life ever considered another boy for her other than her beloved football-head. As such her only daydreams and attentions have always been directed at Arnold, never once forsaking him in her thoughts (except when he annoyed her or made her angry). She never once entertained the idea of loving, or doing anything else with any other boy she'd ever known in all of her wildest, or dizziest fantasies, not matter how far-fetched they turned out to be.

Now things were different. Now Helga had actually kissed another boy on the mouth, and not just that she'd even taken that kiss further than she'd ever gone with Arnold. Now her thoughts were no longer purely just about Arnold and her love for him, now they were filled with thoughts about that one terrible, disgusting kiss . . . one that she kept remembering that she actually liked at first, before realizing that something was wrong.

Helga began to sob and shake badly on her bed, torn apart by the loss of her innocence, her pure thoughts about her beloved Arnold. In many ways she now felt irrationally guilty, as if she had indeed cheated on him somehow.

She looked over at her closet, still crying and she sat up and made herself stop. Helga then wiped her face with her hands and stood up, walking to her closet door. Her hand actually trembled as she turned the doorknob and opened the door walking in. She closed the door behind her and turned on the light inside, then pulled back her clothes and the curtain behind them to reveal her latest Arnold shrine. It was indeed a great work of art, made up of nearly two thousand bottle caps all glued together by colors to the exact shape and size of her beloved Arnold. A row of nearly two hundred white Christmas lights set up behind it gave it an almost heavenly glow.

On any other day, Helga would have basked in the sight of the monument to her football-headed love god, imagining that the two green bottle caps that she used for his eyes were Arnold's own green eyes looking down at her warmly and—dare she thought it at the time—with love. Now though, Helga's imagination was wild and she imagined those green caps glaring right through her, as if he could now see the dreadful act that was even now replaying in her thoughts, though she tried to push it away and bury it.

Helga dropped down on her knees before the shrine, lowering her head too ashamed to look at her image of Arnold, sick to her now empty stomach and very afraid that somehow the loving image of Arnold she thought of him as would condemn her through the bottle cap idol.

"Oh Arnold, my beloved," Helga said in a still teary-sounding voice. "What have I done? I have committed the ultimate transgression against you! Somehow I—I kissed another boy that wasn't you . . . but I didn't know it wasn't you! I was supposed to be you, but it wasn't. It was your best friend Gerald that I kissed instead of you, my angel of love."

Now Helga looked up at the bottle cap statue and so wild was her imagination that she did think the image of Arnold gave her a reproachful look in response. "Oh forgive me, my Arnold! It's you that I love, you and no other."

She closed her eyes again trying hard to focus on her warm daydreams about Arnold and her own memories of kissing him those other times before.

Unfortunately her own sweet daydreams and memories of previous kisses were overshadowed by the memory of her first French kiss that day. The memory of Gerald's tongue missing with her own, and the way she initiated the whole thing was alive in her mind in all its glorious detail. Helga opened her eyes and shook again, this time not even daring to look up at her image of Arnold as she backed out of the closet and closed the door.

"This is a total nightmare," Helga said aloud to herself in a nearly teary voice. "No matter how hard I try I can't even get that stupid thought out of my head!" She went back to her bed and lay on her back looking up at the ceiling. "Criminy what the heck happened earlier? I mean first I get into a fight with Gerald-o in the cafeteria and he throws green gelatin on me—okay maybe I started it, then I shoot a paperclip at him and then the jerk throws a paper ball with an eraser in it at me, then I get a note from Arnold to meet him in the closet and when I go there I end up kissing Gerald?! I mean, what in the-"

Helga stopped in mid-sentence as something else came to her. It was a memory of her conversation with Arnold in the hallways after they'd run into one another before and she asked him what he was doing out of class: "Oh I came to return Gerald's science book to his locker for him."

Now Helga's eyes widened as that new fact seemed to bring everything else into focus. "It was Gerald's book that had the note! We got them and our papers mixed up and Arnold must have put it in my book by mistake! So that means that . . . that it wasn't Arnold who wrote me that note!"

Her mind quickly remembered all the extra attention Gerald had been giving her that day, retaliating against her own actions . . . or was it more than that? Helga blinked and the idea that now came to her was ridiculous, but made the most sense to her since. It was an idea so horrible she had to speak it aloud to deal with it.

"Gerald wrote that note! He and I have been fighting all day since lunch and he must have . . . Oh criminy! What if by doing those things back to Gerald made him develop some weirdo crush on me?!"

The more she thought about the idea, the more sense it made and the more dread filled her every being. Helga stood up and began to pace in front of her dresser. "Oh this is just perfect! I spend six years trying to tell Arnold I loved him, throwing spitwads at him, calling him names and showering him with attention—even if it was negative mostly—and in just two hours Gerald is the one who falls in love with me?! He even sends me an anonymous note and asks me to meet him in the make-out closet at school!"

She paused for a moment to look at her slightly red face with her now puffy red and blue eyes and blinked. "I mean, granted he does have good taste in girls—but still it's not him that I love, but now he's writing me notes and crushing on me! And worst of all it's not even just some other boy, its Arnold best friend!" She leaned on her arms against her dresser cursing the hand that fate decided to deal out to her. "Oh what a disaster!"

To Be Continued . . . .

Sorry it took longer to update than I wanted. Next chapter, Arnold and Phoebe call their best friends and more misunderstandings are coming their way. Stay Tuned! –D.R.