Chapter Three

Oh, will we find out why Helga is so defensive about her body? What other secrets is our little pink bowed maiden hiding?

Oh I don't own a majority of the characters in the story, so don't sue me.

Helga growled to herself in the back of her English class. 'Not Arnold too!' she thought to herself, ' He can't be like the rest of the guys can he?'

Phoebe entered the room and made her way back to Helga's desk and took the seat beside her. She just heard Helga punched Arnold, a bit extreme even for Helga.

"Helga, what has gotten into you?" Phoebe said and put her hand on Helga's shoulder. Helga sighed. "I heard you punched Arnold, that doesn't seem like something you would do to him."

"He was being a jerk like the rest of them, he was no better then any of them." Helga said in a muffled voice as she put her face into her arms. Phoebe gave a puzzled look.

"What do you mean them?" Phoebe said in a concerned voice. Helga sat up.

"The kids in California. You know while I was there I didn't make one good friend?" Helga said twirling her braid end on the tip of her finger to distract herself from having to make eye contact.

"Why Not? What does this have to do with Arnold. I heard he was actually complementing you on how nice you have become." Phoebe said. Helga sighed.

"Because every guy in California was only interested in one thing about me, my body. And I hated that, I felt like I was nothing more the Olga's body with my brain inside. So when guys started trying to take advantage of me, I started Kung Fu to literally beat them off. Well I guess it just turned into a habit after a while that any time a guy made a remark about my body, I got violent. Girls over there weren't much better, they all thought I got plastic surgery done and I was selfish for not telling them my doctor. Bunch of flakes out there on the west coast, everything is about how you look." Helga said sorrowfully and laid her head back in her arms. Phoebe never assumed Helga was having a bad time over in California from her letters and her present appearance.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner? All your letters said you were having a great time and you found all these new friends." Phoebe said. Helga let out a mocking laugh.

"You think I am going to write home that I am a loser and have no friends? Yeah right, if I sent that news back to New York, Mr. Simmons would hunt me down and try to make me reveal the 'special' me." Helga said. Phoebe sighed.

"You should have told me anyway. If I known it was that bad I would have visited." Phoebe said. Helga smiled.

"Sorry Phoebe, you know I am not good at admitting my feelings." Helga said. Phoebe let out a little laugh.

"Yeah, like with Arnold at PS 118." Phoebe said and continued to laugh, thinking it was a just a joke. Helga's eyes bugged out.

"You knew?" Helga gulped. Then she quickly regained her composure and laughed half heartedly  "I mean of course you knew. Yeah so I like-liked him and thought he was cute, so what?

"Like-Liked? Helga please, you were crazy about him!" Phoebe said, " I am surprised you didn't run back here on foot from California to see him."

"Yeah well that is over, plus you said he was dating country bumpkin Lila in the last letter you sent." Helga said. She always kept a space in her heart for Arnold, but gave up on chasing after him. Phoebe smiled.

"Oh then I guess you haven't heard! Arnold had to dump her after catching her with another guy. She had to transfer schools to keep away from Rhonda, since it was Rhonda's boyfriend she was caught with." Phoebe said. Helga's heart started to beat harder, she didn't know why. Just the thought that Arnold was now free of Lila's spell, she felt lifted on a cloud. She tried to hide this and changed the subject.

"So where is Rhonda, fashion queen." Helga said and looked around the room. Rhonda was suppose to have this class according to the roll the teacher took.

"Oh, she is being fashionably late as always, she'll show up around second period." Phoebe said. She had been hanging out with Rhonda when she wasn't with Gerald. Helga noticed Phoebe was looking at a picture of her and Gerald that was on her binder. Helga smiled, Phoebe got tall hair boy after all those years of gazing.

The bell rang and they hurried down the hall to US History. Helga walked in and saw an overly happy woman smiling at her. She seemed like she was in her mid thirties and was slightly plump.

"Hello there, my name is Ms. El Torra. And what's your name?" the teacher said with the biggest smile Helga had ever seen.

'Good God, it's Mr. Simmons mutated into a woman!' Helga thought to herself and then uneasily smiled back. "Helga Pataki."

"Okay then Helga, if you look on the board you'll see a seating chart and you'll go to that table to meet your new table mate! That'll be your seat all semester, so no complaining!" the teacher flashed that smile again and Helga rolled her eyes and walked over to the board. She looked around the room to see it was set up with small tables with two chairs at each table. Apparently this method was going to be used to build friendships between random people. The teacher was as big as an idiot as Mr.Simmons was Helga thought. She glanced up at the board and found her name. Thank gawd! She was in the back of the room! She look to the name beside her. Oh geez, it just had to be him didn't it she thought to herself. She should have seen it coming with the way the past had been. Arnold.

"Shit!" she muttered to herself. She sighed and slumped over to her table and sat down and covered her face. How was she going to face Arnold after punching him in the face? 'Brilliant Helga, here was your one chance to bond with Arnold and now he is going to come in here pissed at you!' Helga scolded herself. She banged her head on the table.

"Hey, if you keep doing that, you'll end up looking like me." Helga heard a voice from in front of her. She slowly lifted her head up to see Arnold standing there with a smile on his face. Also on his face was a huge black mark under his left eye. Helga grimaced and looked down at the floor.

"Sorry about that, I never meant to hurt you." Helga said in a timid voice. This hit Arnold off guard, he had been ready to defend himself against such things like "Hey looks like I improved your face football head!" or " If ya don't shut up, I'll give you a matching set!" , but to hear Helga admit she was wrong, well one thing he wasn't prepared for.

"What did you say? Did you say you were sorry?" Arnold said stuttering. Helga laughed a little, he was cute with his jaw hanging open like that.

"Yeah, I mean, you didn't deserve that! I should aimed for a place nor so hard, you thick skull hurt my hand." Helga said mockingly. Arnold laughed at this, it was good to hear Helga say something like that and not mean it for once.

"I am glad I got you as a partner." Arnold said sitting down next to Helga. Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest and she was breathless.

"Really Arnold?" Helga said in a low voice and got a little blushed. Arnold took no notice.

"Yeah, I remember you have clear handwriting, so copying notes would be easier then if I sat with Sid. " Arnold said.  He turned to Helga to see her glaring at him and her eye slightly twitching. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, football head, not at all!" Helga said in her normal irritated tone. 'One shining moment of hope and then he becomes as dense as he was in 4th grade. ' Helga thought to herself.

"So where are you living now?" Arnold asked, knowing her parents had sold the old house in the divorce. He knew Helga was most likely living with her mom, since her mom took half of everything. A few months after the divorce, the beeper business collapsed and Helga's dad remarried some lady who lived in the trailer park on the outskirts of town, or so he heard from Phoebe.

"Well, the last two days I been here I haven't seen my mom much. She is living with her boyfriend and his kids now, they are younger then me and all boys, so there is no room for me there. She says she found a place for me to live, but till everything is worked out I am staying at a hotel." Helga said, she was kind of glad she didn't have to live with either of her parents, considering they both were mentally insane and called her 'Olga' even more now since she look like her.

"That's too bad, not being able to live with your family." Arnold said, Helga laughed.

"Believe me, with a family like them, this is a blessing!" Helga said.

So the rest of the class went on with the teacher trying to remind everyone that they were special and that she is not only their history teacher, she is their friend.

Arnold was unable to take his eyes off of Helga and kept the conversation going through the rest of the period and on into Brunch. She was so interesting now that she opened up, but yet she hadn't lost her spark and was still old Helga. He watched her all day as people like Rhonda dropped their jaws when they saw how she turned out. Rhonda in fact was quite worried that she would lose her male followers to Helga. But then saw Helga was still the same old feisty person she always had been and knew she would scare the boys off.

Arnold sighed sadly when he found out that History was the only class they had together. He spent the rest of the day thinking of how back in the day, Gerald would have slapped him for thinking Helga was cute. But now all the guys agreed on it, so Arnold didn't have to worry if he was caught starring at her. His day moved along with sadness and hope. He was still heart broken over Lila, but someone just as good, maybe even better, arrived today. When the final bell rang he rushed out to the parking lot hoping to catch Helga, but her bike was gone. A frown spread across his face.

"My my Arnold, aren't we looking a little down hearted." Rhonda said stepping up beside him. She was followed by Nadine. They both were dressed to impress. Wearing similar outfits, thin strapped tanks tops in red and ice blue, and tight white pants, with sandal platforms. Nadine had become Rhonda's fashion clone a few years ago when she grew out of the nature phase. Rhonda had grew her hair out but kept it pulled back tight, while Nadine wore her hair in many little braids. Rhonda for some reason or another had started to pick on Arnold in high school. Maybe because he was Gerald's best friend, a position Rhonda wanted to boost her popularity with the jocks.

"Oh Hi Rhonda. Nadine." Arnold said and tried to smile. Knowing in a few minutes Rhonda would mock his outfit, hair, and his new black eye. She could be shallow sometimes.

"If I didn't know better I would say you were making puppy eyes at Helga all day. You seem to have a thing for her. Are you pouting now because you missed her? Well you wouldn't have had a chance, her mom came and got her, they found the poor thing an apartment somewhere, most likely doesn't have a view of anything but a brick wall." Rhonda said. Nadine sighed, Rhonda's ego trips were worse since she got rejected for Lila.

"Well that's good I guess." Arnold said, but remembered the first thing she said. "But I don't know what you mean by me liking Helga."

"Oh come off of it Arnold. You haven't gone all goofy like this since Lila wore her first tank top and finally showed some skin. Personally I think you should go for it, dating a babe Helga would knock up your social status." Rhonda said. Arnold rolled his eyes and turned to walk away.

"Thanks for the advice Rhonda." Arnold said sarcastically and walked off to Gerald's car to get a lift home. Rhonda growled.

"The nerve of him!" Rhonda said in an angry tone.

"Rhonda, since when have you been interested in Arnold getting a girlfriend?" Nadine asked. Rhonda flipped her hair and laughed.

"Well if you must know, if football head takes up Helga as hiss girlfriend, he'll be killing two birds with one stone for me. One, less time spent with Gerald, more time for me to buddy up and get some of his popularity. And two, it makes sure Helga doesn't get asked out by any of my future boyfriends."

Nadine sighed and walked off with Rhonda to the car waiting to pick them up, if Rhonda hadn't taken such fine care of her, she would have stop being her friend a long time ago. But everyone had their good points, just hard finding them in the young Ms. Lloyd.

Arnold waved to Phoebe and Gerald as his car sped off down the block. He smiled at the boarding house. It still hadn't calmed down even though most of it's tenets were getting older now. Grandma was still crazy as ever and Grandpa still didn't make sense half the time. It was a nice change from the school where everyone was so up tight. He walked through the door. Grandpa was on the hall phone.

"Yes, yes, she is settled in her nicely. She is up stairs setting up her room. " Grandpa said to the person on the other end. Arnold shrugged and assumed a new tenet had moved in. He walked up the stairs to see one of the empty room's door as open a jar. He decided to make his introductions since he became the handyman of the house since Grandpa got too old to fix most things. He got a bigger allowance for taking care of all the stuff. He knocked on the door and it slowly opened. Arnold gasped.

"What are you looking at football head?" Helga said as she stood on her bed putting up a poster. Helga was the new tenet!!!!!!

Okay done for now, review! Next chapter soon!