Hey Arnold! Cafeteria Confessions:

AN from DV: Hey, everyone! Told ya that I'd be back... only one thing I need to mention: I changed Arnold and Helga's detention to suspension, because it works better with the story. (and it's more realistic)

Twilight's-Mystery: Lol, you really didn't think I'd be back, huh? Well, to tell you the truth, I wasn't planning on coming back, but I guess that's what an addiction does to do. Speaking of addictions, about HA withdraw...er, well, there actually is such a thing, and I've experienced it (it isn't fun!). If you're curious to learn more, visit - http : (slash,slash) s8(dot) invisionfree(dot) com(slash)Lyrics(Bottomslash)of(Bottomslash)Arnold(Slash)ar(slash)t52(dot)htm . (It's called DV's Ramble if you would rather look it up on Google, sorry I can't just write the link for you; FFN is picky about html links for some reason.)

Thanks to Azure for editing the chapter and JAM for collaboration. (and suggestions)

And here's the next part of Cafeteria Confessions. Have fun! And thanks for all the reviews.

CHAPTER 13: Helga, The Problem Solver Part 2

At the Boarding house...

Meanwhile, as Arnold and Helga were trying to work out their own situation, Arnold's Grandpa continued to throw Kokoshka's stuff out in the front yard at an alarming rate. There was plenty of stuff that was already lying there: Oscar and Susie's couch, their kitchen table, Oscar's clothes...

Mr. Potts laughed as he helped Grandpa along, and threw Oscar's trumpet in the air roughly.

Oscar gasped as he jumped into the air to catch his precious instrument. "No, Grandpa, no! I've had that for years. Please, don't let Ernie get rid of my wonderful trumpet." He still didn't think Grandpa was really throwing him out. He had lived there for so long after all.

Grandpa just paused in his lugging of another bag of Oscar's stuff and rolled his eyes and yelled to him. "You can have your trumpet, you weasel, and take your stupid $40.00 tent with you, too!" Grandpa then reached inside the doorway and threw the tent that Oscar got yesterday outside too.

Susie was on the boarding house steps with her hands over her eyes as she watched everything happening. She was crying softly; she felt so hopeless. She looked up at the old man desperately. "Phil, you can't do this to us. He was trying, honestly he was. You have to give us more notice than thirty days." She didn't know how to break the news to her parents that they were right about Oscar, and she didn't want to leave the only place she'd known as home.

Phil was reaching his breaking point as he stomped over to her. He had always liked Susie but enough was enough. "I warned you to leave this bum, Susie. I warned you to move on with your life and move back in with your parents, but you didn't listen. You knew this was going to happen. It was begging to happen, but you didn't listen!"

Susie was crying hysterically now.

Phil was right, but she just didn't know how to live without Oscar.

At the sight of her like that Grandpa took a deep breath to calm down and continued speaking to them both, now in a much more restrained tone. "You guys are half a year behind in rent and my wife's in the hospital dying. You can't expect me to let you live here for free. And how can you expect me to put up with this behavior?"

Mr. Potts was having fun tossing more stuff outside: papers, canned foods, and even the Kokoshka's television. He turned and replied to grandpa softly as he noticed the stress on his face. "I know how to straighten his act up. Hold on, I'll go get my wrecking ball." He ran around the corner of the boarding house.

Oscar stared after Ernie because of his enthusiasm on the whole matter of kicking him and his wife out of the Boarding House. Suddenly, he became worried as he finally realized this was really happening. "You can't be serious, grandpa? You can't be kicking me out of my home."

Grandpa scowled again, the anger returning to his voice. "Yes I am, and quit calling me grandpa! I'm not your Grandpa and I never have been!"

Susie stood up, brushing some tears from her eyes, and looked to her husband. "I want you, Oscar! I'll never leave you!"

At this point, everyone on the block was watching out their windows at the chaos.

One man across the street yelled. "Shut up, keep it down out there!" He slammed his window.

Then, Mr. Potts appeared around the corner. He was sitting in his wrecking ball machine as he operated it, and went straight toward Oscar. He was laughing hysterically. "Ah-ha-ha, now let's see how this new baby works!"

Oscar's wide eyes were locked on Ernie's wrecking ball in absolute terror. "No, Ernie please; don't crush my trumpet!" He grabbed his trumpet from the ground and a few of his clothes and took off running down the street, screaming.

Susie watched as Ernie followed him, laughing. She ran after them. "Oscar, come back!"

After Susie, Oscar, and Ernie were gone, Grandpa stomped up the steps and slammed the door. He wasn't letting any of them back in.

In the Cafeteria...

Helga narrowed her eyes at Arnold. "Why did I agree to sit with you again?"

He narrowed his eyes just as strongly back at her. "Because we need to talk about this whole problem solving thing. I'm sick of being stuck in the middle with nothing to do."

Suddenly, Lila walked over shyly with her hands behind her back. "Excuse me."

They both blinked together and looked over at the oddest person to be joining them at their table.

Lila sat down on the chair between them.

Helga silently growled. What? Does she think she owns this table or something?

Lila spoke to them, smiling politely. "I don't mean to be getting into the middle of an important conversation, but I have a serious problem, and I hear that you're very good at solving them."

Arnold sighed at what his old crush said to Helga. Here we go again. Ms. Problem solver gets all the attention and the credit for solving everyone's problem. "Well, go ahead then, ask her."

Lila blinked, looking confused, mostly because her request obviously (at least in her opinion) had been directed to Arnold, not Helga. "Um..."

Helga spoke up, buisnesslike, and pulled out a small notepad from her shirt pocket. "What's the problem, Ms. Perfect?"

Lila turned to Helga now and thought about telling her what was going on. She didn't see anything wrong with getting advice from Helga, after all. On top of which it had to do with her sister. "Olga has been distant lately. She has no ambition to do anything," Lila simply stated, her face taking on the perfect look of concern.

Arnold blinked and turned to Helga, looking at her curiously. "Helga, is she talking about your older sister?" Though it doesn't sound like her sister… After all, according to Helga, Olga possessed ambition in spades. That was part of why she annoyed Helga so much—she was always 'one-upping' her, as Helga liked to put it.

Helga just rolled her eyes at his obliviousness. "Wow, how long did it take for you to figure that one out, rocket scientist?" she asked dryly.

Arnold sighed and rolled his eyes at her comment. He turned away and put his hands on his chin in a depressed manner.

Helga turned back to Lila and replied sweetly, "Well, that would make perfect sense little Ms. Sunshine. I talked with Olga last night and told her along with my family how I felt about her acting so perfect, when she really wasn't."

Lila blinked at this information. "Is that what happened when you ran out of your room yesterday? Do you mean to tell me that you upset her by denying her the only hope she has in her whole life?"

Helga blinked and then almost cringed a little. Putting it that way made it sound like she had done something horrible instead of just having told the truth. "Well…when you say it like that it sounds like I did the worst thing ever."

Lila wasn't usually blunt, but she decided to be now because Olga was her best friend. "What you did was horrible, Helga; you destroyed all of her hope."

Helga sighed as she explained. "I didn't destroy her hope; I gave her a life to live. She thinks that she constantly needs to be perfect for our parents in order to be loved." She put her arm on Lila's shoulders comfortingly. "I gave her a dose of reality, bucko. Everyone needs it once in a while or else they'll never change."

Lila was silent at her words, and so was Arnold.

Helga continued. "Big Bob is upset because this family isn't going the way it should. Actually he's right; it isn't. Before I told Olga how I felt, she was making charts on how to make our family perfect. It's a total lie. Nobody's perfect, and I don't expect them to be, or Olga, or you guys."

Arnold turned toward her slowly as he took in her words, and then he looked down, as if he were afraid to show his face to them. "I'll…I'll be right back. I just remembered something I need to do."

Lila nodded at Arnold and turned to Helga with a nervous look on her face. "Um...I probably should get going, too."

Helga stared from Arnold to Lila, more than shocked at the way they were both acting now. "Hold the phone here. Do you guys really try and be perfect?" Deep down, she knew people couldn't possibly be that good. Lila especially…but Arnold too?

Wait, besides some minor crazy stuff he'd done that week, wasn't he flawless.

When he laid his head down in his hands and sighed, it was enough proof to her that he wasn't.

Lila traced the table with her finger absentmindedly and spoke softly to her. "I'm afraid something's going to happen if I don't always appear as if I'm in control of my life. I told you about this yesterday when we were talking in your room."

Helga pointed at Arnold. "And what's your deal?"

Arnold replied softly as well. His face was slowly heating up. "This is embarrassing. If I tell you something about myself, do you guys promise to keep it a secret?"

Lila nodded with a polite smile. "Of course, Arnold. I would never tell anybody your secrets."

Helga had to smirk. "You know you're really tempting fate here, hair-boy. I mean, what's really gonna stop me from blabbing your secret to the whole school after what you did."

Arnold ignored her little 'threat' and looked down at the table and whispered so that only they could hear him. "I already told you how I felt about not solving problems, Helga. You know this is difficult for me. I feel like everyone's already stopped coming to me for advice. I don't feel bad because of who you are anymore, but because of the way I am. Since I'm really this horrible, imperfect person, I know that once everyone learns that I can't handle my own problems, they won't trust me to help them in theirs." He sighed deeply. "That's my worst fear, and I guess that's why I'm having so much trouble...getting used to this, you being the voice of reason, that is."

Lila was surprised, but she still smiled at Arnold's honest confession.

Helga just leaned toward him and whispered. "I tried to tell you this yesterday, didn't I? That the reason you're solving problems is to mask your imperfections. Do you see it now, huh?"

He was silent a moment before he spoke. "...I never realized how deeply I was caught up into helping out other people, and how truthful you were to me last night. It's kind of funny the way things work out. You see...for so many years I thought you were wearing a mask behind your bullyism only to realize that I'm the one who's wearing a mask."

Lila was curious now as she looked at Arnold. "What do you mean?"

He glanced away from the two girls a moment. "I've been trying to fix everyone's life for years, but it never occurred to me to try to solve my own. I've been trying to be perfect all this time. I guess somehow I hoped that by solving everyone's mishaps and imperfections, they'd fail to see my own." he hung his head, regretfully.

Helga finally understood why he was having so much hesitation with giving up problem solving. He was afraid to show people that he wasn't perfect. It was almost as if he was giving his life for her, and she wasn't too sure she liked the idea of it anymore. "Arnold...maybe we shouldn't switch-"

"—Helga." He looked into Helga's eyes so intensely that he felt like he could see her soul. He grabbed her hand that was on the table and whispered to her. "Look, I don't want you to back out of switching roles just because of what I told you. I'm doing this because I really care about you, and I want you to be able to be yourself, too. I would do anything for you, even if it meant I had to give up solving problems. I'll get used to it; don't worry. It's just going to take some time."

Helga didn't know what to think about what he said…except that it was so selfish of her to do this just so he would fall in love with her...

But would he truly fall in love with her, if all she had been doing up till now was causing nothing but chaos in his life...?

There was a moment of quiet between them, and then Lila, starting to feel a little awkward, cleared her throat nervously before speaking to them. "You know, maybe you two should take some time together to think through all of your plans. I'm ever so sure that you'll end up...closer if you do."

Helga's eyes widened as she remembered that she was being watched, and she pulled her hand away from Arnold's. She didn't notice Arnold's disappointed look as she turned to Lila, crossed her arms, and changed the subject along with her tone of voice. "Hey! What makes this any of your business?" Crimany, can't I have a decent conversation with Arnold without having an audience?

Lila didn't want to intrude on their lives, so she got back to the subject at hand. "I'm sorry, Helga, it's just...I really admire your bravery in life and in solving problems. And you're amazing at helping out others, actually; both of you are."

Helga rolled her eyes. She couldn't take a compliment. "Yeah, whatever. Just tell Olga she has potential, and that she doesn't need to live off other people's opinions about her, and don't tell her I told you so. Now move along, and for the record, this conversation of ours and the conversation between me and the Football Head? It never happened."

Lila nodded as she stood up. "Okay. Thank you ever so much for all of your advice." And with that she walked away.

In Olga's Room:

Lila walked over to Olga's nightstand and turned off the radio that had sad music playing on it, and sat on Olga's bed.

Olga was lying still with all the covers around her tightly. She was sobbing lightly, similar to the way she had when Helga had changed one of the grades on her report card a year ago.

Lila took a deep breath to sum up her courage, and then she spoke as sternly as she knew how. "Olga, Big Sis, I need to talk to you. Right now."

At those words and their tone Olga lifted up the covers and looked at her friend. It wasn't every day that Lila spoke assertively to somebody, so she felt forced to listen. "What is it?" she sniffled out.

Lila looked at her with a very serious expression. "You can't be lying here, wasting your life when you have so much of a life to live."

Olga sat up all the way on her bed. She rubbed her tear and mascara stricken eyes. "Have you been talking to Helga again?"

"I," she couldn't lie, "I would be lying to you to say that I haven't been, but she's right. I don't expect you to be perfect. You know I'm far from it and I wouldn't expect anybody to do something that I'm not capable of doing. Gosh, you're such a wonderful person, Olga, and you have such potential. You shouldn't worry about what others think of you. You need to live your life and enjoy it. Don't let what you can't do hold you back." She smiled now, her eyes searching for a resurgence of a spark of hope in her 'big sis.'

Olga paused at her words but then blinked a few times and sat up more, wiping tears that were forming in her eyes. "But—But I'm so used to listening to my parents, Lil Sis. I value their opinions on what I do so much. All of those awards of mine. All of those trophies. I can't just give all of them up."

Lila put an arm around her, comfortingly. "I'm not asking for you to give them all up, Big Sis. I just don't want you to feel like you have to earn them."

There was a moment of quiet between the two girls.

And then suddenly Olga lunged forward and held Lila in a tight hug as she cried on her shoulders.

Lila sighed in relief, knowing that she was finally getting through. She patted Olga on the back lightly. "There, there. It's going to be alright now…"

Arnold-Walking to the Boarding House...

Arnold had just gotten off the bus from the worst day ever.

Firstly, it seemed like Helga was solving problems better than him, and it worried him because he knew pretty soon he would be nobody.

Secondly, people kept staring at them, especially after they had been called to the office. He felt like a criminal, stuck in a cell and sentenced to death row.

Thirdly, he was suspended, and he had to tell his Grandpa about his suspension when his grandma was deathly ill.

And there was nothing he could do about any of these problems...

It was the worst day he could imagine and as he rounded the corner, he saw that it had just gotten one hundred times worse than it was...

All of the Kokoshkas' stuff was lying out on the sidewalk, including the tent Oscar had gotten yesterday...

Arnold ran into the house and stopped dead in his track when he saw his Grandpa, crying at the kitchen table.

He snuck up and poked his head around the side of the kitchen doorway to listen in, without being seen.

His Grandpa was holding up a picture of his wife. "Oh, how am I going to be able to live without you, Gertie? You are everything in my life, and you're being taken away from me. Oh, it could be any day now the doctor says. How am I going to tell Arnold what's going on?"

But he didn't have to wait too long to get that answer.

Arnold came running in. He was almost as emotionally torn apart as his Grandpa.

"Grand-Grandma's dying, isn't she, Grandpa? Answer me!"

His grandpa dried his tears quickly. He didn't want his Grandson to worry. He stood up from the table and tried to look confident. "Now, I didn't say that, Shortman. You must be hearing things." He tried to be lighthearted but it miserably failed under the weight of the reality.

Arnold could barely breathe. He felt like a four hundred pound truck was running over him, repeatedly. Memories of times he'd spent with his Grandma came rushing back at him. "We can't live without her! Who's going to cheer us up when we're down? Who's going to cook us breakfast in the mornings? Who's gonna come in my room and give me a hug when I have a bad dream? I can't—I can't go on with another parent in my life gone!"

Grandpa started crying again. He decided to tell his Grandson the truth. "Arnold, she…she suffered a coma this morning. They can't tell us why. The doctor said she needs a heart transplant to go on living her life, but he said it's unlikely her body will receive the transplant even with the medicine they're giving her. She…probably won't make it through the night." Face pale, jaw trembling, all attempts at a smile gone, he looked to his grandson.

Arnold blinked. What could he say? There was nothing left to say… He was desperate for some control in this situation, desperate to solve this unsolvable problem, but there was no control.

There was no way to solve this unsolvable problem...

Arnold merely choked out a reply. "Is—Is she still at Hillwood Hospital?"

"She's there for right now…" his grandpa said back as he sat back down at the table and put his face in his hands again.

As quickly as he came, Arnold ran out the door and to the hospital.

"Shortman, come back!" Phil yelled, reaching out in the direction he had gone. He didn't want another person in his life to abandon him...

Arnold-At the Hospital...

Arnold watched his grandma breathing heavily. The only thing that was keeping her alive was the life supporter.

Tears were threatening to come down his face. He couldn't take much more of this. What would he do without his Grandma? First, his parents left him for San Lorenzo, and now this? Nobody cared about him and his pain. Did it really matter that he existed. He was beginning to wonder if life was worth living. After his grandma's departure, he knew it wouldn't be.

He blinked obsessively as the tears started rolling down his face. His mind was spinning, with more crazy ideas coming to him. Crazy ways to take away his emotional pain. Stuff that he never even dreamed about doing began to cross his mind. He was wondering if this was what it felt like to have a nervous breakdown.

Was this how Helga felt on a daily basis...?

He choked back tears as he spoke. "G—Grandma, you can't leave me! Not like this. Not with so many problems going on in my life." He took her hand softly and held it. He put his head in her arm and began to sob, softly at first, then his crying grew louder. It actually hurt him to cry; he couldn't remember the last time he cried.

He sunk to the ground near her bedside, completely drained of energy.

He felt so hopeless that he didn't hear the footsteps behind him.

Helga walked over, kneeled beside him, and put her arm over his shoulders.

Arnold didn't even flinch or jump at his sudden companion, too caught up in his torment for that. He looked over at her, tears still running down his face. He couldn't make out who it was through his tears, but he was too upset to care about his reputation anymore.

Helga spoke to him softly. "I know everywhere you are and everything you do. Of course I knew you were in pain. I stopped over your house a few minutes ago. Your Grandpa told me what happened. I—I'm sorry, Arnold..."

Arnold recognized her voice. He hugged Helga immediately and buried his face into her pink dress. He spoke through sobs. "I—I'm gonna have to take care of Grandpa now—Who...Who's gonna take care of me?"

Helga held him more tightly against her and ran her hands through his blond hair. "I will. I'll take care of you. I won't let go of you, ever."

AN: I think you're all gonna love the next chapter: it has Arnold's Confession in it...but in order for me to post Arnold's love confession, well...

I think you know what you need to do, lol. So review, please! Thank you! (I'm horrible, I know.)

And JAM and Azure...about Arnold's confession to Helga?...SHHHH!

I'm Everywhere and I'm nowhere, but mostly I'm everywhere.

-Deep Voice - 4/21/12