I've officially decided that this story will have 14 chapters in all, epilogue included.
There are a few stories I feel I've left idle for too long and/or may not be able to focus on without finishing this one first.
Plus, there are some leftover dialogues and situations in "Touch and Go" that I've decided to fit into the follow-downs and follow-ups for this story, including "Follow Me Home" and "Hello Milo."
I apologize in advance to all of the people who took the time to read, review, follow, and favorite this story that the end will be coming in so quickly. You folks freaking rock in my book! J
Milo and all other characters and elements non-canon to Hey Arnold belong to me. Any characters and elements canon to Hey Arnold belong to Craig Bartlett and Nickelodeon.
"Not one of my best ideas..."
There might have been some truth to Milo's statement... because right now he and Helga were walking down a street leading to El Patio for a reason other than the time.
Bob probably needed some alone time after that brief confrontation with Milo.
Helga shook her head, both glad and relieved that she managed to get the kid out of there before Bob got a chance to really lay into the insults.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Hey, he was asking for it..."
To her surprise, Milo looked down instead of smug...ashamed even. "Sorry...," he mumbled.
Helga gave him an assuring smirk, patting his back. She figured he meant showing the Beeper King who was boss.
"Like I said, he had it coming. Besides, you really laid it into him. Guess being around the ol' Football Head did ya wonders, after all."
Milo shook his head. "No, I mean...sorry if I gave you a bit of a hard time at first. I know we didn't start off on the best foot...and, well...," he finally looked up at her, his eyes twinkling, "I'm sorry about that, Helga."
Those words caught Helga off-guard. To say she felt touched by the boy's admittance would have been an understatement.
Helga had long accustomed herself to people saying things such as "Why can't you be more like so-and-so" or "She deserves it for being the way she is."
Up until now, the only people who'd ever given her real, sincere apologies were Arnold and sometimes Phoebe. Then again, that was probably because they were two of the very few people she ever bothered to listen to. She merely assumed everyone else never gave a rat's patootie about her feelings.
How wrong she was.
The pigtailed blonde, now frowning, took her turn to look abashed.
"Yeah well, I guess I oughta apologize myself," she admitted as she rubbed her neck. "I was giving a hard time to somebody who didn't have to be stuck with me in the first place. Yet instead, you braved the Pataki House of Horror and Mortification just so you could give the girl devoted to tormenting Arnold the benefit of a doubt."
Her little brother blushed at these words; he hadn't expected her to compliment him...at least not this way.
It touched him.
"Thanks, Sparky."
At these words of gratitude, Milo's gaze on Helga brightened, a hopeful glint gleaming in his emerald eyes. "So we're cool then...?"
"Eh, what the heck," Helga admitted, shrugging her shoulders again, "this talk's got me feeling a little generous so I guess I can let ya off the hook."
Milo chuckled at her, knowing she would've gone easy on him, all the same. "Good, then I won't feel bad about beating you in a race then."
Helga's eyes widened at him in surprise.
The smirk on the artist's face told her everything. "Hey, we're burning enough daylight as it is; might as well get a kick out of it."
'Oh, not on your life, kid,' Helga mused in amusement as she returned the smirk back. Milo had been getting bolder around her ever since the two of them joined up. It was a nice change, in Helga's opinion.
"Hey, whatever floats your boat, Sparky. Just don't go crying when I'm the one in the winner's circle."
More than happy to answer her challenge, Milo began dashing off, already leaving the blonde in the dust—though not for long. "Then get the anchor out of your pants slowpoke!"
Up until he spoke those words, Helga had just started running, eager to show him who was boss.
Up until he spoke those words...
She nearly tripped. Her face went blank. Her body went stark still.
Those words brought back something she'd long forgotten.
Something important...
"Please, I wanna stay with you a little longer! Please?"
"Ay, mis Dios...Okay, c'mon. We're burning daylight...Helga?"
"Then get the anchor out of your pants, slowpoke!"
"Hey, wait up!"
A slurred...something leaked into the girl's ears.
Its sound stretched out like putty until Helga wondered if whatever she was hearing was one huge word.
It was one word.
One that kept repeating over and over.
"Helga...Helga! Are you okay?"
Helga, finally back in the present, shook her head and looked down, only to discover Milo looking up at her with a gaze of concern.
'Geez, did I really just zone out? Criminy, what was that about, anyway?'
She'd just had a flashback. She could deduce that based on the fact that she'd seen a younger version of herself—the one from preschool, as a matter of fact.
But to whom did the disembodied voice belong to? It sounded so familiar.
No, that didn't matter.
Whatever that flashback was about, it held no significance, especially if Helga couldn't recognize the person who'd been with her in it.
She sighed in begrudging resignation, although she couldn't help also girlishly sighing inside.
'Oh my love, it would seem your penchant for daydream has left its mark on me.'
Fortunately, Helga, thanks to years of practice, managed to pull a convincing face that suggested nothing to worry about.
She only hoped Milo, for once, wouldn't be sharp enough to see through her ruse.
'Wishful thinking...'
And why the heck were they still standing around, by the way?
"Uh, yeah, yeah, just, uh, had a moment there... Well, what are we waiting for—an engraved invitation? C'mon!"
El Patio lay far from being the definition of "stylish."
The beige color of its walls, faded from both time and weather, didn't add much to the appearance. Spots of mismatched, dark-brown bricks didn't do it any favors either. The only noteworthy feature was the gothic style handrail that led to the entrance.
Its interior wasn't much better. Its walls decked out in a faded brown color, the blue-tiled floor the kids were walking across had tables lined out in an orderly fashion—one of the few semblances of order in this worn-out eatery.
'Woo boy, the things Rhondaloid could have said about this place...'
Helga could not have been more right. Even she would admit this place needed a couple of good scrubs—and maybe a few pounds of disinfectant.
To Milo, on the other hand, this place could have been the Garden of Eden or Nirvana. His excitement at being here was that palpable.
Together they approached the counter where a familiar, older face worked away behind it, making sure to ready the leftover food for today's last few customers.
Mr. Hyunh grinned once he looked up and recognized the children. He pointed to Helga.
"Oh hello, you are Milo's new sister, yes?" Helga nodded, making a point to appear smug at this point. "Arnold has talked about you very, very much!"
"Oh yeah," the smirking, pigtailed girl responded with a playful roll of her eyes, "With all the spitballs, the name-calling, and the occasional tripping him over in the hallways, I'm surprised Football Head hasn't filed a lawsuit yet."
Either used to sarcasm or oblivious to Helga's, Mr. Hyunh continued smiling as he leaned his arms over the metal-rimmed, glass pane separating the counter from the food.
"Did two of you come to order?"
With the money Helga retrieved from her secret stash in the closet back home, she and Milo ordered two cheese tacos and two medium-sized Styrofoam cups of iced orange juice.
They still had some time to spare before the place closed—Mr. Hyunh agreed to walk them home anyway—so they decided to make some small talk while they ate.
"So what's the deal with that handshake of yours?"
"What handshake?"
"The one with the funky trumpet charades," Helga thumbed back to Mr. Hyunh, who was currently talking with a fellow employee near the vending machine behind the counter's right side, "I saw you two do it from across the street the day before we got stuck with each other. What's up with that?"
Milo shrugged his shoulders, choosing to answer before chomping down on his taco. He never liked talking with his mouth full.
"Eh, it's just something the two us picked up from watching the jazz concerts every Saturday."
"You guys go to jazz concerts?" Helga couldn't help feeling curious. She wasn't much of a fan of that genre of music, mind you; she was only doing her best to be an attentive listener.
"Well, most of the time," Milo answered after swallowing a solid portion his food and wiping his mouth with a napkin from a dispenser on the table. "We just watch and listen to the concerts at home...although Mr. Hyunh only listens for my sake. I pretty much do the same for him every Sunday when we watch the musicians playing at Grand Old Opry."
"Huh, really...? And what exactly does he listen to from these stooges at this "Opry" thing?"
"He likes to listen to the country singers...He's a total nut for that kind of music."
A Vietnamese immigrant who works at a Mexican-style restaurant and listens to country music: who would've expected that?
Curiosity piqued more than before, Helga leaned forward on her elbows, which were now on the table. "Are you serious?"
"Yep, he even has his own guitar to practice and play songs that he makes up himself!"
"Wow, I am impressed! Ya ever heard him play?"
At this point, even a full-blown moron could see the excitement in Milo's eyes and smile. Heck, Helga couldn't help feeling a little eager herself. This kid's mood was contagious!
"Lots of times—he even plays songs he's written about life at the boardinghouse!"
As Milo continued chowing down on his food, Helga, who started taking meditative bites of her own meal, took in the new information about Mr. Hyunh.
'Huh, well, I'll say this for you, Sparky. You and Arnoldo sure know how to pick 'em. Criminy, and I thought the people I call family were full of surprises.'
Indeed, now that Helga thought about her folks more, the more she realized the hidden or maximized potential in each of them.
Her mother, Miriam, for instance, as Helga had learned during a certain road trip, had once been a woman who could've made the Lone Ranger look like a sissy—especially with the way she handled that mechanical bull at the roadside diner. And that didn't even include how successful Miriam proved herself to be as a temporary manager of Big Bob's Beepers.
Olga, of course, went without saying. Her accomplishments, as much as Helga would've liked to retch and gut herself at hearing them, much more at admitting them, were almost countless. Ranging from academic to philanthropic, her skills, if they were in a list, would take a year to read off all the way through.
Big Bob, for all his temper and overbearing personality, knew how to run a business with an iron fist. As a businessman, he also knew how to take an opportunity whenever it popped up, especially when it could possibly make or break his business.
And then there was Helga.
'The underappreciated and unneeded black sheep girl with no real accomplishments or talents my parents would bother batting an eye at,' Helga thought in irritation, her mood dampening at the reminder of her family situation. She fought hard to keep her face from scowling, but habits were a pain in this case.
Shaking her head to banish the thought, Helga tried to concentrate on eating, as well as something else.
'I would've gone bonkers ages ago if it weren't for Arnold...or Phoebe,' the blonde suddenly felt her face relax a degree at the thought of not only her beloved but her best friend as well. Yeah, she really owed those two for sticking by and believing in her, even when she was at her worst and even though one of them had no clue about her true feelings.
'Or Milo,' Helga went stone-still at this last tidbit, the last piece of her taco still in her hands and dangling halfway to her mouth. The subject of her thought never noticed, still focused on his own taco and content on eating it, but his big sister closed her gaping mouth, lowered her food, and smiled at him in a genuine manner.
'Geez, I can't believe it. The little guy really is growing on me!' Would wonders never cease?
Speaking of wonders...Milo, after swallowing his last piece of taco, dabbed his mouth again with another napkin, crumbled the paper into a ball, and basketball-shot it into a far-off trash bin without fail. He looked up to Helga so suddenly and so sharply, the blonde nearly jumped out of her seat, his gaze jolting her out of her reverie.
His simple smile disarmed her even more.
"Say Helga? My mom told me about this diner just outside of Hillwood. Mr. Hyunh usually spends Saturday nights there to play some songs. This weekend's gonna be the first time he takes me and Mom with him," he placed his arms on the table, "Course, he never said we were the only ones who could join in on the fun."
Arcing half of her monobrow at him, Helga hummed in suspicion before tossing her last bit of taco into her mouth and swallowing it whole. She took her, up until now, unattended, orange juice and poised the straw inserted into it so she could drink it more easily.
"Alright, Sparky, what's your angle?"
"Angle...?" Milo scratched the side of his side then took a sip of his own drink while he thought for a moment. Once he finished sipping, he took a few seconds to answer.
"Huh...I guess my angle is..."
Ladies and gents, get ready for serious fun up ahead! These chapters weren't exactly action-packed, I understand, but know this: there will be conflict very soon.