Note: Thanks for all the encouragement. And trust me I'm not an author to write and run. This fic WILL be completed by Wednesday at the latest.
Pheobe's a stupid brainiac
Pheobe's a stupid brainiac
Pheobe's a stupid brainiac
These were the words Helga heard as she and Brainy appeared in the playground of P.S. 118. A phrase repeated over and over with the sole purpose of causing pain to one young girl. And it wasn't only one voice that repeated the words in a sing-song tune. It was several.
Helga looked toward the direction of the taunting. Over in the corner she saw her best friend, Pheobe Hyerdahl, crouching as four or five laughing children circled around her. Just by looking at Pheobe's face Helga realized that this wasn't the first time. Well, Helga thought, it'll be the last if I have anything to say about it!
"You can't do anything about it Helga. You don't exist. For such a smart girl you take awhile to catch on." Brainy said looking at her knowingly. "And don't ask how I knew what you were thinking. I'm working for the big Upstairs remember?"
"But I can't let them torture her! She's my best friend. I need to protect her!" Helga cried in deep distress over not being able to help her friend.
"You're right. She DID need you to protect her. That is, when you existed. But as we've gone over several times, Helga, in this world you were never born. You never met Pheobe and she's never had anyone to protect her. This is the Pheobe that stands alone without so much as a friendly word to help get her through each miserable day."
"But why doesn't she do something? Why doesn't she stand up for herself? Didn't her father teach her some Japanese self-defense tactics?"
"She doesn't know how to stand up for herself Helga. Without you around she never learned how. And as for her father's self-defense moves...well she never had any desire to learn. Even when you existed she was always eager to please you, always eager to let you have your way. Somehow that eagerness has led her into believing that she deserves what she's getting. In this Helgaless world she takes suffering as a fact she eventually learned to accept."
"Hey everyone the stupid brainiac is going to say something!" Helga turned her attention towards the chief tormenter and silently thanked God that Pheobe would finally say something in her defense.
"Well, um.." started Pheobe. She searched for the next words. She was suddenly given the urge to fight back but supressed it. This was her life and she had to accept it without fighting back. "I was just going to point out that the term 'stupid brainiac' is in fact a contridiction. To be grammatically correct you may want to-". She was cut off by the first shove.
Helga couldn't stand to watch and did the unthinkable by turning her back on her friend in her time of need. Pheobe. She couldn't watch the closest person to her get hurt. The one person who came closest to understanding her life. Her family. The one person understood her love for-
"Arnold." Helga said at loud. She turned to Brainy and gave him a hard look. "What about Arnold Brainy? Pheobe wasn't his best friend but he would NEVER let something like this happen to any kid. Where is Arnold and why hasn't he stopped this?"
For the first time Brainy hung his head low. He couldn't look into Helga's eyes. He had been on earth all those years, he had heard with his own ears how much Helga loved Arnold. He knew what would eventually have be told. As rude, and uncompassionate as he was he knew what this would do to her.
Helga began to grow frightened as she saw Brainy's reaction. She didn't like the way he was avoiding her eyes. In a low voice voice that even she did not recognize she said "Where....is......he?"
"Helga," Brainy began his voice dripping with remorse. "I'm truely sorry to inform you of this but...Arnold's dead Helga. He's dead."
She didn't scream, she didn't cry, she didn't even gasp. She simply fell into a pool of swirling darkness.
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Please don't hurt me! I hated having to write that last part but I will tell you that this story WILL have a happy ending. This is where the angst part of my story comes in. So right now I'm suggesting that if you can't handle it don't continue.
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