"The Lost Temple of the Green Eyes!" Miles guessed as they all crept closer. Perhaps imprudently, they walked inside, listening carefully for any sign of their foe. What they heard but did not expect was swearing.
"Nothing! Nothing!" an angry voice declared. "All these years. All of this time! All my life! And there is nothing! No treasure! Not even a single ruby!" anger rumbled out from the mountain temple. La Sombra crouched among empty treasure chests in a temple, the wrapped statue by his side forgotten. When he heard the rolling of a pebble stirred by feet, he whipped around with a glare like the fury of a dragon. Then, upon seeing who stared at him in his defeat, the man began to laugh maniacally.
"So, you have come here to mock me, eh?" said the man, thick with accent. His fury found two small boys the perfect target, and La Sombra rushed forward to grasp both boys in a savage headlock. But Arnold and Gerald both nodded, then heaving their muscles, the twelve year old boys tossed La Sombra over their shoulders by ducking down and heaving the weight as it shifted. La Sobra went flying out onto the ground. Moments later, Miles Shortman dropped a blow to La Sombra's head and the pirate went down. Then, stumbling upright again, La Sombra backed away only to find himself tripped by Helga's extended leg.
"Why, you!" La Sombra sputtered out. The man staggered upright and lurched menacingly towards Helga. But then, with a resounding wallop, none other than Arnold Shortman decked La Sombra with a karate punch and knocked him out cold.
"Nobody touches my gal!" Arnold said quoting the singer, Dino Spumoni. He turned to Helga with a smile. "Right, Helga?"
"Yeah!" said Helga said shaking her fist at the unconscious pirate. "My man here kicked your butt!"
"If I've told 'um once, I've told them a million times!" said Gerald fussing with his head. "Don't mess with the hair!" Arnold and Helga smiled. Gerald was angry. But he calmed down a little when Phoebe leaned up on tiptoe and gave his cheek a kiss. Gerald's eyes gave a little pop in surprise, instead.
"Well, I guess that's over," Arnold said, hoping. He moved to grab the statue from the temple floor where La Sombra had left it. But as Arnold grabbed it, the statue seemed mysteriously light. Arnold's eyes grew wide as it dragged him over next to Helga.
"Helga!" Arnold gasped. "Don't touch it!"
But it was too late. Helga had also grasped hold of the mysterious stone on the other side, and like a runaway horse, the statue dragged both Arnold and Helga over the edge of the cliff. They could hear their companions cries as they tumbled from view, but they themselves paused mid-fall. Frozen in the air for a moment, Arnold and Helga gawked at the mysterious green light that held them both airborn along with the statue. Then, the green light fading, they landed gently in a muddy stream cascading down the mountainside. Slick with mud, the slide wove down underground through a generous-sized tunnel. An entire flock of swans flew out of the way, honking, as Arnold and Helga came to the foot of yet another mysterious temple, this one hidden inside the earth itself.
Dripping wet, Arnold stood up. He clasped his hands with Helga's, the statue that had brought them here resting in the shallows behind them. How could they not stare! The temple had dozens of carved stone pillars and wall murals which looked suspiciously like Arnold. Still hand in hand, Arnold and Helga walked forward to get a better look at the lavishly decorated temple.
"Oh how poetic!" said Helga dreamily. "Finally a temple worthy enough to shrine the all-encompassing glory of the most divine of adolescent loves!"
"Helga," said Arnold more practically. "Come here. I think this is where the statue is supposed to go. See?" He pointed.
"Oh, not that statue again!" said Helga, resting her hand on her hip, half-turned and pigtail jaunty. "That thing nearly got us killed!"
"Yeah, but we made a promise to the Green-Eyes," said Arnold thinking of his parents. He reached down into the water to grasp hold of the stone statue. It was heavy again, so being thoughtful for once, Helga reached down and helped Arnold to carry it from the other side further into the temple. They perched it in a likely place and boldly, Arnold whipped off the sheet the statue had been wrapped in. Arnold and Helga both stared at the sparkling statue, captivated by its ghostly green glow.
"Wow," Helga said, blinking.
"Yeah," Arnold agreed with her. The statue looked a lot like him!
"Well, there's only one thing to do. I can't stop staring at the thing," Helga announced loudly. She threw a sheet over the statue! Then she surprised Arnold by posing with swagger. "The real thing looks better in person, anyway."
"Thanks," said Arnold with a manly smile.
"Well, let's look for a way out of here."
"Hey, look, there's an exit!" Arnold cried in the next moment. He had spied a set of enormous stone doors. Arnold and Helga both pushed and pulled at them to no avail. Then Helga rolled her eyes.
"It's sealed from the outside or somethin'. It's not going to open, Arnold!" Helga concluded with unusual patience.
"Well, we'll just have to try to climb up through that hole," said Arnold. He wiped his head, then pointed to a round hole in the rock wall with daylight streaming through it. It was easily big enough for a child to fit through. "For now, let's take a break." Arnold looked down at himself. There were gashes in all his clothes from all their adventuring. So they both sat down on a broad stone bench, dappled in sunlight from the window.
"Rock, eh? Not very comfortable," complained Helga.
"Hm, here, use this as a pillow!" said Arnold picking up a bit of woven mat. He examined it carefully, then cast his eyes around the room. "Hm, there is a lot of stuff lying around for an ancient temple!" he declared with confusion.
It was true. Besides mats, there were pots filled with feathers or canes of wood stacked around corners. A rack of poles was covered with garments of clothing. Arnold jumped down from his perch on the couch and plucked one of the odd capes off the poles. It was a cape dyed a vivid red. It matched the red parrot feathers Arnold had tied into his hair on the day they had attacked La Sombra on his boat. Like fate, as Arnold searched, there was a little cap headdress to go with it with more of the same kind of feathers. On a whim, he perched it on his head between his tufts of hair. Then he tied the cape around his shoulders.
"Oh, wow! Good find, there, Arnoldo!" declared Helga grasping hold of an article of clothing, herself. She had found a cape a shade of violet to match her pink dress. To go with it, Helga snatched up an enormous headdress that covered her head like a crown but made from feather of pink, purple, and black. Arnold and Helga smiled at one another in their strange attire. Then Helga went to admire herself in the water's reflection.
"Hm, not bad."
After this brief breather, the two tried to climb up to the window but it was not working. Arnold sighed deeply.
"Rats. This isn't going to be as easy as I thought. We need a ladder or something."
"Tell me about it," said Helga. She rolled her eyes.
"Well, since we're stuck here for the moment, Helga, let's talk."
"Talk? Talk about what?"
"About this," said Arnold pulling the locket free from the pocket of his blue jeans. "About us! So all this time...the book of poetry, the chalk graffiti, the lost parrot, the mysteriously vanishing locket was all you?" Helga jumped up into air about a foot, but then recovered enough to turn her back on Arnold.
"Pretty much, hair-boy."
"And that time you came through my couch to steal our answering machine tape? Don't forget that happened. What on earth could be so embarassing that you'd have to sneak into my house to do that?"
"Oh, I don't know, Arnoldo," spit Helga. "I guess you've pretty much said it yourself. One time you told me. We were in the park and you were talking about LILA. But you said how much it hurts when someone you really like doesn't like you back. I mean, like-you, like-you. I know how that feels. I don't want you to not like-me, like-me. I don't want to hear you say, I can't be loved. Of course I'm hiding my feelings deep down, because at the end of the day I'm Helga G. Pataki, that frankly annoying girl who likes sports and isn't who isn't smart and pretty and feminine and funny in all the ways the girls you ga-ga over are!"
"Helga, that's just what you-think, I-think about you," said Arnold. "It's not like you've asked me for my opinion."
"Then what do you think about me, Hair-boy?" said Helga. "Never mind. I don't want to know."
"I think you do," said Arnold. "I think you're smart and funny. I like the fact that you're good at sports and pretty much I'm always glad to have you on my team. I haven't seen you dress up much but when you do… you're amazing and everyday you wear this bow ribbon that's just… cute."
"Cute?"
"Cute," repeated Arnold. "It's just that all this romance stuff isn't easy," said Arnold scratching behind his neck nervously. "When you first told me you loved me, I didn't really know what to say. I still don't know how to respond actually. This is kind of a big deal."
"Oh" said Helga. She and Arnold both looked away from one another shiftily. They both blushed an equal crimson. Then, Arnold slowly reached out a hand. He grasped Helga's soft palm in his own and held it, fast.
"But I do know one thing," the boy said as their eyes locked again. "I'd like for us to try. I care about you, Helga. I can't imagine another girl I'd rather be with more."
"Oh!" said Helga with surprise. But her surprise turned to shock as Arnold paused to gaze tenderly into her eyes, searching for the soul there. Then, pulling himself forward and his lips up, Arnold crushed his lips against Helga's in a deep and satisfying, yet uniquely tender kiss. Helga's eyes grew wide with shock before she melted into the kiss.
Helga's eyes closed. As Arnold and Helga embraced, butterflies rose up into the air around them. A warm wind spun around them. It cast the clothes they wore into a flutter but Arnold did not lessen his embrace. He deepened the kiss as the dropped ribbon from Helga's hair and her broken locket went spinning up over heads with the wind, then out the window of the temple.
Above the temple, in the jungle beyond, the warm wind that surrounded Arnold and Helga continued to spiral. Birds and butterflies filled it like rain, spiraling out across the jungle in all directions. A bird flew off with Helga's locket, the picture within clasped within its grasp. From outside, the gust could even be heard, like a whirr. Far way in the distance, one of the Green-Eyes pointed and smiled at the bright blue, butterfly-filled sky. But inside the temple, Helga was still enjoying her kiss.
"Wow!" said Helga as Arnold released her from his kiss.
"Yeah," Arnold agreed with satisfaction, still holding Helga's hand gently.
"You! I!" Helga muttered anxiously. She twitched and almost pulled free of Arnold's grasp on reflex. But the boy wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead instead.
"Shhh!" he said resting his arms around Helga until her tense muscles grew soft and she relaxed into his hold, a giddy smile on her face.
Meanwhile, Arnold's parents and friends did not know that Arnold and Helga were alright. Better than alright, actually! They gasped at the top of the cliff as Arnold and Helga fell from sight into a leafy gorge. Phoebe and Stella began to weep. Then, hurrying back down the mountain path, Miles slashed a path through the dense jungle underbrush to get to the place where Arnold and Helga fell. As they worked so hard to find Arnold and Helga, or at least their fate, a magic wind lifted birds and butterflies without measure to fill the jungle with them. Overhead, ribbons of living things seemed to stream from one place! These swirled out from the temple where Arnold and Helga now kissed. A couple of minutes after the stream of birds and butterflies had abated, Miles Shortman succeeded in clearing a pathway to reveal broad steps and the exterior to a stone temple. Miles read the engravings.
"Look, the text is intact. The missing words from the text are here! A sacrifice of love will restore health, and the jungle queen will recline with her king to guide and guard all of nature's creation. Hm," said Miles scratching under his explorer's hat. Stella pressed anxiously at his back as they continued to look for their missing son. Their ears perked when they heard laughter and the sound of voices echoing from within the temple. Then, together, Miles and Stella forced open the temple doors. They and Gerald and Phoebe walked inside the lavishly-Arnold temple to see sunlight streaming onto Arnold and Helga seated on the couch, still dressed up in the capes and headdresses they had found.
"A ghost!" squeaked Gerald.
"Relax, Gerald. It's only me," Arnold said calmly. Gerald gaped at the headdress. Then his gaze shifted and he gaped at the way Arnold and Helga tenderly held hands.
"I don't believe it!" the boy muttered. Gerald rubbed his eyes. Giggling at Gerald's expense, Helga turned toward Arnold with a broad and beautiful smile. Just then, Helga's friend Phoebe rushed up to clasp Helga's other hand.
"Oh, wow, Helga! What a costume!" spouted Phoebe. "These clothes are exact replications of the jungle queen's, as detailed by these exotic, fantastic ruins!"
"Jungle Queen?" said Arnold with an eyebrow lifted. "Sounds about right. Helga would kill me if I ever married someone else."
"That's right, Football-Head!" Helga declared. She tugged Arnold closer with his shirt front for a quick but sweet kiss on the cheek. His parents were watching after all.
"Arnold. You gotta be kidding me. You and Helga Pataki?"
"Come on, Gerald," said Arnold with manly swagger for one so young. "You know it's not the first time we've kissed."
"Damn right, Football-Head," said Helga with a sly smile.
"Ah, well, Casanova," Gerald sighed in defeat. "It's just as well that you settle down from your wild and willful bachelorhood, anyway."
"Thanks, Gerald," said Arnold, irritated by his friend's remarks. Helga's eyebrows folded angrily.
It was time they left the the temple. Still holding Helga's hand in his own, Arnold walked between his parents and friends towards civilization. They left the temple for the bright sunlight of the jungle. Meanwhile, behind them, a dozen of the Green-Eyed people snuck by carrying an enormous statue of Helga into the temple. But no one in Arnold's group noticed the oddity. Instead, they made their way back to river. Stella pointed and as they followed the river down its course, a helicopter flew overhead. Excited, Stella and Miles followed it to a clearing. It was finally Edwardo here to give them a ride. Arnold's parents addressed their old friend.
Still holding hands, Arnold and Helga climbed into the helicopter, along with Phoebe and Gerald. With a noisy whirr, their helicopter flew off. Meanwhile, in the jungle below, Helga's tangled, pink hair-ribbon and her broken locket lay on the ground, seemingly forgotten. But no, a hand reached down. A member of the Green-Eye Tribe held the two objects up in reverence.
Edwardo took Arnold and his friends back to civilization, then back to the hotel where Arnold's class was staying. The restaurant had been largely vacated by all but the school kids, where Principal Wartz counted and recounted the class. Mr. Simmons stood about with an unhappy frown on his face. But then he looked up in shock and joy as his four missing students waved to him across the room
"Mr. Simmons!" called Gerald. Arnold was still too busy holding Helga's hand to talk much. The two continued to smile like honeymooners.
"Oh my gosh!" gushed Mr. Simmons. "Gerald! Arnold! Helga! Phoebe! I'm so glad you're back kids!" Mr. Simmons shook Gerald's hand, impressed by their cleverness in making it back from the jungle. Then the school teacher looked up at Stella and Miles.
"And who is this?" said their school teacher, puzzled. Arnold drew himself up proudly.
"My parents!" he declared just as Grandpa Phil and Grandma Pookie hobbled across the room.
"I'm astonished at you, Arnold!" Grandpa scolded. "Lying about where you were and why you were going! Pookie and I had already been prepared for the worst kind of news! Ya could have been killed, boy! I'm so glad you're back!" Phil leaned down and gave Arnold a hug. Then he looked up. Wordless, he studied Miles standing before him. He scratched his chin.
"Now, either you're a ghost or I'm dreaming or…" said Phil leaving off his words. Miles Shortman answered them.
"I'm your son!" Miles finished in the gap. Phil beamed.
"Ah, come here, boy!" Phil said hugging Miles tight. He slapped Miles on the back a few times then let go to have a good look at him.
"Your wife, too! Holy, Moley boy what happened to you! You felt like dumping your son on me or something?"
"We'll tell you all about it, Dad," Miles promised. Meanwhile the other school kids had caught sight of Arnold and Helga.
"Arnold! Helga! I just don't believe it! Look, you guys!" said Rhonda waving across the room.
"Hey, it's Helga and Arnold!" Harold shouted, too, as he ran nearer. Soon, they were surrounded by their fellow classmates.
"Oh my gosh!" gushed Rhonda. "We were so worried!" She looked down at Arnold and Helga's hands and grinned.
"Oooo!" said Rhonda, beaming. "So I guess you two have decided to make it official then?" Arnold smiled at Helga.
"Something like that," he answered. Helga stood beside Arnold as Rhonda and Gerald whispered, then rushed away on some errand.
"I guess La Sombra was wrong," said Arnold. "There wasn't any treasure in the temple." But Helga gave Arnold a wink.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that!" she said pulling a gold necklace from her dress front. She flashed it discretely before tucking it back inside. On the necklace was an enormous gemstone! "We might want to go back there someday!" Arnold was so surprised he bounced on his toes. Meanwhile, Grandpa Phil continued to speak with Miles and Stella. Miles looked across the room.
"Look at him!" lamented Miles. "So grown-up! I wish I could have been there for him." Phil put a hand on Mile's shoulder.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about Arnold!" said Phil. "There's more man in that kid, than boy! I'm not worried about the son I've been raising for the past twelve years. I'm worried about the one I haven't seen for eleven... long…. years!" Phil clasped Mile's hand in a shake.
Just then, music began to play inside the broad open space of the restaurant. Arnold swiveled his head to see Brainy on the D.J., Gerald snapping his fingers alongside.
"Brainy?" said Helga squinting her eyes. "How did he? I thought he was…. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter." She shrugged.
"Come on! Dance!" said Rhonda. Both she and Phoebe pushed Helga out onto the dance floor. Arnold and Gerald joined them. Soon, all of the P.S. 118 kids were dancing, too! Pressed in together against the crowd, Arnold and Helga found each other again. Arnold took her hand with a kiss.
"Dance with me?" Arnold asked.
"Of course! Boyfriend!" said Helga fluttering her eyes before smacking a sweet kiss on his cheek. Arnold grinned. Then they danced the day away. Years later, Arnold and Helga got married in Hillwood. The sound of "Hey Arnold!" still echoed across the neighborhood, spoken by a dozen voices. But to Arnold, none was so sweet as that of Helga's call. The end.