The Secret
A/N:
Time to get off my lazy butt and get to work, eh? Just because I have finals is no excuse for slacking. (My muse is a slave driver.) Besides, I think you might like this part! BTW, if anybody wants my little spiel on "Odds", just send me an e-mail. My address is on my author's profile! Now for a little review answering…crystalpinklightsaber –
in Yoda voice Patient you must be, young one! Yes. :::grin:::purplepincushion –
Thanks for telling me what a Firestarter is! And, no, Arnold's not a Firestarter. ^^JESS –
Yeah, I don't really like Jason either. And I created the guy!Paradoxal Reality –
Thanks! I try my best to be evil! ^^ And I agree. It's nice to have Arnold a little frustrated with the others once in a while!jc* –
Meanie! P Anyway, like I said in the author's note above, if you're interested in my little theories about people like Arnold, just drop me a line! (Shameless e-mail plug. ^^;;;)Disclaimer:
Hey Arnold! may not be mine, but this story is! Mine! All mine! Nobody else's! goes on rantingChapter 7: "Chores", Family Meetings, and Tapes
Sid awoke the next morning as the sun shone through the skylight in Arnold's room. Harold snored in his own sleeping bag beside the nervous boy while Gerald snoozed on the couch. Stinky was on the floor on the other side of Sid.
Arnold was nowhere to be seen.
The boy with the long nose glanced around, searching for their host. A message on the computer's screensaver caught his attention.
As a scrolling marquee, Arnold had written, "Good morning! Company or not, I still have chores to do. I'll try to save you guys some breakfast, but knowing how my family eats, no promises. – Arnold."
Sid glanced around and noted everyone was still sleeping. He jiggled the mouse, curious to see exactly what was on Arnold's computer that would force him to have a password to start it up.
A message box popped up. "Login?"
Inwardly, the boy groaned. Arnold had a password on his screensaver, too!
Cautiously he typed, "Football Head".
Nothing.
"Footballhead".
Nothing.
"Arnold".
Something happened this time…
…Only it was just like Dennis Nedry's computer from Jurassic Park.
A little animated character that looked like Arnold popped up, waving a finger back and forth. Its voice cheerfully chirped over and over, "Uh uh uh! You didn't say the magic word! Uh uh uh! You didn't say the magic word!"
This
woke everyone up."What the heck's goin' on, Sid?" Stinky asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Gerald looked at the computer screen and groaned before turning to glare at Sid. "You tried three wrong passwords, didn't you?"
"Yeah…"
"Sid, Arnold doesn't like people pokin' into his stuff. Deal with it." He sighed. "We'll have to go find Arnold so he can turn that stupid thing off."
"Where is Arnold, anyway?" Stinky wondered aloud.
"What's for breakfast? I'm hungry!" Harold whined.
"He left a note on the screensaver that said he had chores and he'd try to save us some breakfast," Sid muttered, feeling sheepish.
"So he's downstairs somewhere," Arnold's best friend reasoned. "Let's go get him."
The visiting boys walked down the steps from Arnold's attic room and began to walk down the main stairway before Sid froze, holding up a hand to stop the others behind him.
"What's up with you, Sid?" Gerald demanded.
"Shh!"
Arnold's voice drifted upstairs from the phone below. "I know you wouldn't tell anyone, but somehow someone knows." He paused. "I don't know who exactly, but somebody dropped in uninvited and tried to get me to go with him." Another pause. "I had to scare him off." Another pause but with an exasperated sigh this time. "What else could I do? He was armed. I wasn't."
By now, the four boys on the stairs were growing curious. They crept forward and peeked around the corner.
Arnold was pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, clearly agitated. Whoever was on the other end of the telephone line was obviously not giving him the answers he wanted. His right hand held the phone to his ear while his left hand kept the telephone cord from wrapping around his body as he paced.
"All I'm asking is if there was any point in time when someone could've seen those files." He froze in place suddenly. "When?" He paused, gripping the phone cord tightly. "Why'd you leave them there?" He paused again. "Well, I guess that made sense. Is there any other way of getting into your office?"
Whoever was on the other end of the phone line paused before answering, as if thinking over the question before giving an answer. Arnold waited as patiently as he could.
"Fire escape would be my best guess on way of entry," Arnold told whoever was on the other end. "You can get in and out of any place on a fire escape if you have enough practice." He paused. "It's all right, but right now I'm a little – "
The person on the other end interrupted him with a suggestion.
"I don't think I can go to the cops about that guy. If they don't think I'm on drugs, they'll think I'm pulling a prank of some kind. I think we're on our own here." Arnold paused yet again. "Yeah, I'll keep you updated. Goodbye."
Click.
Ernie walked over next to the boy. "Well…?"
"I'm going to have to run a few errands as soon as the guys leave. I'm fairly sure someone saw the files instead of somebody blabbing, but I just want to make sure." Arnold looked forlornly at the telephone. "My worst nightmare's coming true."
"Don't worry. It'll work out. Anything I can do?"
"Yeah. Family meeting at seven. Can you spread it to the others?"
"Sure can. You try to have fun with your friends."
"I hate to say it, but fun's over, Ernie."
"Yeah, I know. I know."
As Ernie walked away, the other boys walked up behind Arnold. So lost in his thoughts the odd-headed boy was that he didn't hear them approach and leaped about a foot in the air with a surprised, almost inhuman, shriek when he turned around. The sound of his wordless cry jerked the other boarders and his grandparents out of whatever they were doing along with scaring the local pigeons.
"Don't ever sneak up on me again!" Arnold snapped angrily, one hand over his wildly beating heart.
"Sorry, Arnold," the country boy answered. "Didn't know you were so cotton pickin' jumpy."
"It's okay. I'm sorry for snapping. I guess I'm a little on edge after last night."
It was a half-truth. He was edgy after last night's run in with that man who had tried to kidnap him. Still, it wasn't the whole truth. He was partially worried about what his friends had heard.
"What's for breakfast?" Harold asked, his hunger making him forget the phone conversation completely.
"Grandma's cooking omelets."
"Hold on a minute. Your grandma's cookin'?" the one Helga called "Tall Hair Boy" demanded.
"Yeah…"
"Are you sure that's safe?"
The blonde boy put his hands on his hips, half-closing one eye in a farce raised eyebrow. "Gerald, I eat her food ever day. I haven't died yet. I doubt you will either."
"Your grandma's the one that made those stuffed bell peppers for that eatin' contest, isn't she?" Stinky cautiously asked.
"I don't know why you passed out, Stinky. They're perfectly fine."
"Your grandpa said that they were made of socks!" Sid protested.
"Grandpa was kidding. Yeesh! If you guys are that against eating Grandma's food, why don't you guys just go home?"
Clearly, Arnold was not in the mood for an argument. Yesterday had made him uneasy in more than one sense. Knowing that he had only a few hours to run errands he wanted to do made him even more edgy.
Meekly, his friends looked at the floor.
Arnold sighed. "I'm really sorry, you guys…"
Stinky looked at his shorter friend and smiled. "If you were insulting my pa, I wouldn't be very happy either, Arnold. I'd probably be yellin' worse than you!"
The blonde boy smiled for the first time that morning. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"C'mon! Let's get those omelets! I'm really hungry!" Harold yelled.
~@~
When Arnold walked into the "family room" at exactly seven o'clock that evening, everyone living in the Sunset Arms boardinghouse stopped chattering with each other. Family meeting time. It was time to get down to business.
"We have a problem," Arnold said, deciding to cut right to the chase. "Somebody knows."
The boarders and Arnold's grandparents looked even more serious. Nobody said a word. It was one of those rare times when total seriousness and silence ruled the boardinghouse.
"Last night, an unknown man came onto our roof, intending to take me somewhere. He was armed with this knife."
Arnold placed the knife he had confiscated from his would-be kidnapper on the coffee table. Phil picked it up, studied it for a moment, then put it back down.
"I had to scare him so he'd freeze up and I could disarm him. I also did a little bit of questioning." He looked at each member of his extended family in turn. "He wouldn't tell me who sent him or why, but I think that it's fairly obvious."
There. That was done. They now where all up to date.
The blonde boy looked at each of the adults, a glimmer of fear in the back of those green eyes. "Now what do we do about it?"
"We can't go to the police," Suzie stated right off the bat. "If they don't already think everyone in this house is nuts, they will if we had to tell them the whole story."
"We'll have to set that alarm Mr. Smith left us," Phil reasoned, putting a hand to his chin. "Anybody who wants to go in and out at night is gonna have to just stay inside."
Arnold winced. There went one freedom he enjoyed in the boardinghouse: the freedom to come and go as he pleased.
"It's gonna have to be done, Short Man."
"I know."
"I think that if any of us needs your services, we'll just have to deal with it instead," Ernie suggested. "I mean, nobody can see anything, but it's still a risk."
"But not tonight," Oskar added. "I have been having trouble sleeping and I – "
"Don't even finish that, Oskar! It's too risky!" Suzie ordered her husband.
"Any other ideas?" Arnold asked.
Mr. Hyunh thought for a moment. "We could keep our eyes open. Make sure that nobody suspicious is hanging around the boardinghouse."
"We could set up our own watch!" Gertie shouted, standing up. "We'll barricade the doors! We'll hold stake-outs on suspicious characters!"
"Easy, Pookie…" Phil said, standing up and pushing his wife back down into her seat. "We appreciate the enthusiasm, but I don't think we need to go that far!"
"Oh."
The blonde smiled at his family, feeling a little better. Then he frowned again. "We also have another problem: Sid."
~@~
The moment Sid heard his name, he froze. He was hiding underneath one of the windows of the boardinghouse, tape recorder in hand to catch every word. If this meeting gave him the proof he had to convince the others that Arnold was up to something, he wanted to have hard evidence that nobody could deny.
"Sid's getting too suspicious. He's been trying to poke his nose into my things, including my computer. I think he knows something's going on," Arnold told his bizarre family from somewhere in the main room of the Sunset Arms.
Silence.
"Like what?" a slightly gravelly voice asked.
"I don't know. That's what I'm worried about." He sighed. "Sid once convinced the other kids I had stolen money after driving me crazy with all his suspicions. If he finds out that I can – "
Then Arnold said the one phrase that sealed his fate. Sid almost dropped the tape recorder in shock.
~@~
Arnold jerked visibly, someone's sudden shock and surprise alerting him to an unknown visitor. "He's here!"
The inhabitants of the boardinghouse immediately rose from their seats while the youngest inhabitant of the boardinghouse raced to the window. He saw Sid running as fast as he could down the street.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no…"
The boy with the football-shaped head ran to the front door, opened and closed it so fast that he almost caught himself in it, and raced up the street after his friend.
'Stupid! Even with all your caution, you couldn't prevent this! And it's all your fault, stupid boy!'
he berated himself.He turned a corner sharply, easily making the same maneuver that had almost caused Sid to slip. He followed Sid stride for stride, turn for turn, hoping, praying that he could head him off.
Up ahead, the others had congregated on Gerald's stoop. They seemed to be waiting for something.
'Here it comes, stupid boy: Your worst nightmare comes true. Now what're you going to do?'
Sid skidded to a stop, almost slamming into the side of the stoop.
"Okay, Sid. What's this all about?" Gerald demanded.
Sid panted and held out the tape recorder. "Arnold's – pant, pant – not what he seems. Pant, pant. And this – pant, pant – is proof."
Helga exchanged glances with Phoebe. What was this all about?
Arnold ran up to the group and stared in shock as Gerald took the tape player, hit the rewind button for a second, then reached for the play button.
'It's all over, stupid boy. Kiss your old life "goodbye". And it's all your fault.'
Gerald's thumb pressed down the play button.
