Helga contemplated her disorderly locker while her mind wandered.
She knew it wasn't a good idea. She should have just walked away. For some reason, her conscience had to keep doing numbers on her. Why the hell did SHE, Helga G. Pataki, the loner and most unacknowledged person in the entire high school, have to go and say yes to Elli.
Elli, who was a scrawny, greasy-haired geek that had the worst allergies Helga had ever witnessed. Well, almost the worst. Elli was said to walk around the school leaving a paper trail of used tissues, handy in case her huge glasses would fall off and she get lost.
Not that Helga was Prom Queen material either. She still wore her pink bow. Okay, so it wasn't as big and bulky, and now actually tied her hair into a single pony-tail. Still, it hardly mattered. Helga was anything but glamorous. She was quiet, wore plain clothes, and didn't bother with any make-up of the sort. A qualified loner if there ever was one.
So when Elli asked her if they could be friends, Helga had bit down the snide remark she was surprised at finding on the tip of her tongue, and said okay. She figured people like them should stick together. Not to mention she was desperately lonely. Helga decided that it was high time she give someone a chance.
"Umm, Helga?" Turning from the locker that had been opened and untouched for over five minutes, she found Elli looking up at her, strands of uncombed auburn hair hanging in front of her face.
"What?" Helga answered warily. She really wished Elli would wash her hair more often. The grease practically gleamed in the artificial fluorescent lights of the school.
"Are you ready to, uh, go now? We were going to the park today, right?" Elli asked, affecting a nasal tone to her questions. 'She can't help it,' Helga thought, 'so I'm not going to dwell on it.' However, it was somewhat hard to ignore Elli's unflattering qualities.
In another time and place, she would have loved to beat this puny little girl up for bugging her. But times change. Helga simply nodded with a slight grin, slinging on her backpack and swinging the locker shut for an answer.
***
Arnold stared at the scene with half-lidded eyes, trying to make some sense out of it. His Grandma was crazy. How could she have thought it was a good idea to make a fort out of a giant mound of Jello TODAY? She even got most of the borders working on it.
When he was a kid, Grandma's eccentricity was amusing. Now he found himself being simply tolerant of it. Most days, like THAT day, it just got in the way. When Arnold had come back from over 6 hours of tedious school work, he was greeted with the sight of green goo splattered over the kitchen walls, and people bustling about all around the boarding house. Now he was watching from a good distance as Grandma & Co. tried to make substantial walls out of bright slimy green Jello.
Arnold needed a break.
He went to his room, and tried to busy himself with homework. It was useless. His mind kept wandering. Could he call Gerald? Maybe Gerald had better ideas about spending the day.
No, Arnold wouldn't call. He had already talked to Gerald this week when they met in the hall after lunch break on Tuesday. They had shortly discussed the merits of summer vacation, which seemed long coming, but was only about a month away. Gerald talked of his family's plans to go to 'Casa Paradiso' or some sort of resort.
Arnold had no plans, just like the years before. He was surprised Gerald hadn't brought up his girlfriend, which was what he usually talked about. Phoebe really was the right person for Gerald. In Arnold's opinion, she had become haughty, egotistical, and distant. 'A perfect match,' he'd sometimes think.
When Gerald wasn't going on about Phoebe, his second favorite subject was football. Arnold had neither a girlfriend, nor a particular affection for football, or any sports for that matter. Not even baseball, which had been a favorite as a kid. Arnold disliked the raw competitiveness that high school sports brought about.
As for the girlfriend, Arnold tried it once, and gave up on the whole idea altogether. A year earlier, he had gone out with Lila. They had maintained a semblance of closeness throughout junior high, and were still somewhat friends when they reached high school. However, the dating thing never really fell through.
His crush on Lila in the years before had probably blinded him to the fact that none of the people he used to know were the same anymore, not even Lila. She was dull, fake, and maintained a sort of artificial sweetness about her that made Arnold sick. It turned out that they weren't good at anything except being distant friends, and now they weren't even THAT anymore.
After that experience, he opened his eyes. He found that he wasn't truly interested in any of the girls at his high school. Arnold supposed he'd give dating another shot eventually, but didn't usually dwell on it.
He had been sitting on his bedroom floor for about half an hour, lost in thought. Arnold rose and regarded the papers strewn about the carpet with distaste. The homework could wait. After all, it was a Friday.
He smoothed out his shirt absently and grabbed a book from the shelf alongside his bed. Arnold left his room, slamming the door behind him and running down the two flights of stairs, straight out of the boarding house.