Chapter 7
By the time they reached the old abandoned plot, everyone was already there, everyone Helga remembered. Eugene sat on the bench off to the side, his leg still in a cast and Helga wasn't sure, but she was positive he had a black eye this time. Some things never change!
"Finally, now we can get started!" Gerald said. "Same teams as usual?"
"Sure," Arnold said. "Curly, Herold, Sheena, Stinky, and Brainy on my team,"
"Rhonda, Nadine, Phoebe, Sid and Lila on my team," Gerald said.
"What about Helga?" Phoebe said.
"Helga?" Arnold said, like he had no idea what they were talking about.
"Uh-AHEM!" Helga coughed loudly behind Arnold.
"Oh, right," Arnold said. "We're six each, but if Helga plays, one team'll be short one member,"
"So have Eugene play," Helga said.
"Uh, Helga," Gerald said. "In case you haven't noticed, Eugene's in a cast,"
"Have him be catcher," Helga said. "He won't have to move around that much-it'll be challenging, but if he works hard he can deal with it-we played with him once when he was in a wheelchair with both of his legs broken and his shoulder dislocated, remember?"
Phoebe giggled. "I'd forgotten about that,"
"Yeah," Arnold said. "I'm surprised you remembered that, Helga,"
"Guess I have a better memory that you do, football head," the insult Helga had created for Arnold years ago rolled off her tongue like she had taken a bite out of melted butter. Helga was afraid Arnold would take it the wrong way, but instead, Arnold laughed.
"I think I actually missed you calling me that," Arnold said.
"Uh, yeah," Helga felt herself blush a little, but shook it away quickly. "So, I'll be on Gerald's team, Eugene on Arnold's,"
"Losing team pays for after game ice cream," Gerald said.
"You're on," Arnold said and Helga almost laughed when she saw Gerald and Arnold do that weird handshake they did when they were kids-it was so familiar, Helga wanted to cry. She really was home this time!
Phoebe took out a coin and stepped in between Gerald and Arnold. "Heads or tails?" she asked.
"Tails," Arnold said.
"Heads," Gerald said.
Phoebe flipped the coin and caught it-she flipped the coin over and glanced before saying "Heads-batter up!" Gerald's team was batting first-Helga went to line up with the rest of the team.
"So, how was your walk with Arnold?" Phoebe asked Helga.
"Phoebe, are you seriously trying to set me up?" Helga asked.
"No-oh, why would I do that?" Helga saw Phoebe crack a small smile and Helga rolled her eyes.
"Will you think about this, Phoebs? It's been years since I've seen Arnold-I don't even know how I feel about him or anyone else for that matter,"
"Wait-" Phoebe paused, frowning. "You don't have a boyfriend back in Vermont or something, do you?"
"No!" Helga said. "But…look, I just don't want a relationship right now, okay? I'm still getting settled, I don't need to be set up right now," Helga was partially correct-she was mostly afraid that if Phoebe did set her up with someone, they'd notice that she was a runaway and send her back to Vermont. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to tell anyone, but she'd rather get to know everyone again to make sure they wouldn't rat her out.
"Whatever you say, Helga," Phoebe said, but the look on her face told Helga that Phoebe wasn't going to stop trying to set up Arnold and Helga anytime soon.
"Phoebe?" Helga said, taking her shoulders. "I don't want to date anyone-okay?"
"I get it, Helga," Phoebe said, but Helga knew that Phoebe was still going to try her hardest to get them together-why, Helga wasn't sure. Arnold was a thing of her past-she was obsessed with them when she was in Elementary school, over five years ago. She wasn't sure how she felt about him now, but she was sure she wasn't ready for a relationship.
Phoebe went up to bat and Helga started paying attention to the game-Rhonda had been struck out while Nadine had managed to get to second base.
"You can do it, babe!" Gerald called out. Phoebe giggled and raised the bat, and it made Helga felt happiness for her best friend for finally getting the guy she had a crush on for forever.
Phoebe hit the bat and raced to first base, only to be tagged by Stinky-Stinky threw the ball towards third base, Herold, and Nadine was out-three outs in less than ten minutes. Helga's first baseball game in years was not off to a good start.
The teams switched sides and Helga approached Gerald. "Where do I go?"
"Hmm…how good are your skills?"
"I haven't played in a while," Helga said.
"Really? I would have thought you were in sports all through high school,"
"There weren't any girl sports teams in my high school," which was the truth.
"Seriously? Why not?"
"…it's a long story, so where do I go?"
Gerald looked around for a bit, thinking. "Curly's usually on second base, but he hurt his wrist yesterday, so why don't you go there?"
"Sure thing," Helga said and walked to second base. Phoebe was in the outfield and saw Lila on third base-since when was Lila good enough to be on base and not in the outfield like before-then again, things change a lot, even though everything around here doesn't seemed to have changed at all.
"Batter up!" Gerald called.
Arnold was first to bat-he raised his bat and for a split second-just the tiniest millisecond-Helga found herself thinking how sexy Arnold looked with the bat raised in the air like that. The minute Helga thought that, she quickly pushed the thought out of her mind-she didn't need this, she didn't need to be thinking this! What was she doing?
Helga was so focused on her scrambled thoughts, she didn't see Arnold hit the ball as the ball reached the outfield-she didn't see Arnold take off like the dogs of Hell were nipping at his feet and she didn't see him round first base and head for her. In fact, the next thing Helga knew, she was flipped onto her back and seeing stars.
"Helga! Are you alright? I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"You were going too fast again-I told you to try out for track,"
"I'm alright," Helga managed to open her eyes and blink at the baby blue eyes that stared back at her. Helga gulped and couldn't stop the thought that Arnold was also sexy when he was two feet from her and when sweat beaded his forehead and chin. Where were these thoughts coming from?! Bad Helga, BAD!
"Are you sure?" Arnold said, still staring at her.
"Yeah," For about a minute, Helga and Arnold just stared at each other-and for the first time in years, Helga felt a familiar flutter that she remembered she had felt when she had first met Arnold back in preschool. And then, the memory flashed in her head.
"Hi! Nice bow,"
"Huh?"
"I like your bow because it's pink like your pants," And even though her pants and bow were covered in mud, he was still nice enough to compliment her, which made her heart flutter.
Like it was doing now.
"Uh, Arnold?" Helga said softly.
"Yeah?" He said, his face seemingly closer than before.
"Your elbow's in my rib cage,"
