2. Dream Interlude (The Accident)

""Do you really think there is only one perfect mate? Well, then, how can you be
certain to find them? If you do find them are they really the one for you or
do you think they are? And what happens if the person you're supposed to be
with never appears, or she does, but you're too distracted to notice?...Then
let's say God puts two people on earth and they're lucky enough to find one
another but one of them gets hit by lightning. Then what? Is that it?  Or
perchance you meet someone new and get married all over again, is that the
lady you're supposed to be with? Or was it the first? And if so, if the two
of them were standing side by side, were they both the one for you and you
just happened to see the first one first—or is the second one supposed to be
the first, or—" –Ever After

            "Watch it, Football Head!" snapped Helga G. Pataki, shoving the small boy with the strangely-shaped head aside as she stormed down the aisle of the bus.  He could have fired back an insult, maybe something to do with the fuzzy black caterpillar above her eyes.  He could have shoved her, as many nine-year-old boys would be quick to do, if the fear of cooties didn't scare him off.  He was a black belt—it would have been simple for him to have retaliated, or at least defended himself from the shove without going sprawling across the aisle in the least dignified manner possible.

            But he refrained, as always, from any sort of comment that might result in hurt feelings.  He didn't shove her back, though he was far too enlightened, at the tender age of nine, to believe in such things as cooties.  And he didn't even have to remind himself that his martial arts skills were not to be used against classmates, especially female ones.  He didn't need a reason to do nothing but stand, brush himself off, and say "Sorry, Helga."

            That was just Arnold.

            Ignoring him, Helga pushed past him and locked herself in the tiny metal cubicle that was the bus bathroom.  Shrugging, Arnold walked back to his seat next to his best friend Gerald and sat down.

            "Man, you let Helga walk all over you, don't you?" Gerald said, shaking his head.  "Why don't you ever stand up to her?"

            Arnold sighed.  "I don't know, Gerald.  What would be the point?  She'd never change.  She's always been stubborn…always…"

            "Always?" Gerald interrupted, looking askance at Arnold's faraway look.  "You've only known each other six years.  In the cosmic scheme of things, that's not exactly forever."

            "I guess it just feels like forever.  Six years is a lot of time when you're nine, and we've all known each other for most of our sentient lives," Arnold agreed.

            "Sentient?  Man, you read too much!" Gerald complained.

            "Look!  A cow!" Harold yelled out, pointing at a dark shape on the other side of the grubby window.

            "Harold, that's a station wagon," Rhonda replied, her voice dripping with contempt.

            "Cow!"

            "Station wagon!"

            As the class became embroiled in the debate, peering at the shadowy figure through the gathering darkness, Arnold stared straight ahead of him, lost in his thoughts.  He didn't like lying to Gerald, but there were some things his best friend couldn't understand…things Arnold himself didn't really understand.  Like how he felt like he had known Helga for more than six years…more than nine, even.  Like how he woke up sometimes and knew he had had an intense dream, but couldn't remember what it was about…except that Helga was in it.  Only she wasn't Helga, she was someone else.  And he was someone else too…

            He couldn't explain why he had these weird dreams about Helga G. Pataki of all people.  It wasn't like she occupied his thoughts that much in his waking hours.  Well, not too much, anyway.  Sure, he was concerned about her a lot of the time, and he was always trying to figure her out, but he didn't think about her as much as he thought about…well, Lila, for example.

He glanced back at the steel door to the bathroom, as the cow vs. station wagon debacle raged overhead.  Helga was a mystery, all right.  She always seemed like she was jealously guarding some kind of secret…but what it was, he'd probably never even come close to guessing.

Inside the bathroom, the girl in question was gazing lovingly at another Arnold, albeit a two-dimensional one.

"Oh, Arnold," Helga sighed, as the violins began to play.  "Again Fate, that fickle weaver of webs, spins our worlds into a violent collision.  And again, I brush you aside, callously berating you and hiding from you my deepest and most innermost secret.  Oh, Arnold, my darling, if only I had the courage to speak of my love for you!  Your stalwart manner.  Your impeccable honesty.  Your yummy green eyes, calling to me like verdant forest pools, singing the song of the rapture of the deep!  Oh, to drown myself in your eyes, to—"

Helga paused, listening.  At first she thought she had imagined the sound, but there it was again—a sound like heavy, asthmatic breathing.  She rolled her eyes and scowled.  Unlocking the door, she swung it outwards sharply, without warning, waiting for the satisfying thud and snap of glasses breaking.

Instead, the door met no resistance, and she overbalanced and stumbled out into the aisle.  Regaining her posture quickly, making sure nobody saw her almost fall—no one did; they were too caught up in some stupid conversation about a cow—she made her way back down the aisle.

Her best friend Phoebe was engrossed in a massive book when Helga plunked down next to her.  "Hello, Helga.  Was your sojourn to the lavatory enjoyable?" Phoebe inquired politely.

Helga smiled faintly.  "Yeah, Pheebs.  It was a barrel of laughs."  She glanced around the bus.  "Where's Brainy, d'you know?"

Phoebe looked grave.  "Oh, yes, I believe he's home with the chicken pox.  I do hope that he was quarantined before it spread to the rest of our class…some members of our community sometimes overreact to certain diseases named after animals."

Helga flushed.  "Let's forget about that, okay, Phoebe?"

"Forgetting," Phoebe sang.  "Incidentally, you don't turn into a chicken and 'expire' during the chicken pox, in case you were nervous."

"Pheebs!"

"Sorry, couldn't resist."  Phoebe drifted back over to their previous topic of conversation.  "It's a shame that Brainy couldn't join us on our trip to the ski lodge.  It promises to be a memorable expedition, don't you agree?"

Helga shrugged.  "Dunno.  All I know is, I'm staying by the fire and drinking hot cocoa the entire time.  No winter sports for me.  I'm already freezing as it is."  Indeed, she was bundled up in a winter coat, a hunting cap, and a holey cashmere scarf that had been knitted as a Christmas present for her by her big sister Olga—which was perhaps why the scarf had been so badly mistreated.  "It better not get any colder than this," she growled, shifting deeper into her coat.

"I don't think it will," Phoebe chirped.  "We're almost there, Mr. Simmons says, and night has fallen, so the temperature should not drop more than ten degrees at the most during our entire stay."

"Good to know.  It's plenty cold already," Helga complained, glaring at the drifts of pure white snow over the fields and the patches of ice in the road, patches that Joe, the burly bus driver, had been swerving to avoid for the past couple of hours—which was why she had crashed into Arnold, or at least the excuse for it.

Tonight was a night made for cuddling, she decided.  Crystal clear and ice cold, perfect to gaze at through a window, huddled by the fire with someone you adored.  Instinctively, her hand brushed her dress, at the spot where she always kept her locket.

It wasn't there.  Her locket was missing.  Helga's blood ran cold as she remembered what she'd had to endure the last time she'd lost the locket.  Where could she have left it?  She'd last looked at it in the bathroom.  Maybe she had dropped it.

"'Scuse me, Pheebs," she muttered quickly, getting up and making a beeline for the bathroom.  She ran in and closed the door behind her, her eyes scanning the floor until she saw a glint of gold.

"A ha!" she exclaimed, bending down to retrieve the prized possession.  She gazed lovingly at Arnold's likeness before slipping the locket back into her dress pocket.

Joe, the bus driver, didn't see the black ice on the road until it was too late.  Suddenly, he felt his front, then back wheels spinning out of control.  He turned the wheel frantically, forgetting to go in the direction of the spin and instead fighting it, as the argument from the students changed to a chorus of screams.

The bus fishtailed across the thankfully empty mountain road, coming precariously close to the steep brink before skidding back across.  In the back, where, the sliding was the worst, Helga was thrown to her knees, her head cracking painfully against the toilet.  She put a hand to her head, bringing it away bloody.  Alarmed, she tried to get to the door, but another swing knocked her backwards.

A sporty red sedan speeding down the road out of nowhere was unable to avoid the wildly flailing bus.  The driver tried frantically to avoid the bus, but struck the back wheels.

It was the final nail in the coffin.  The bus tipped over on its side.  The children screamed again as gravity was suddenly seemingly tilted.  Their seatbelts were barely a restraint, as most of the kids were too skinny or had fastened the belts too loosely, and all tumbled into a painful pile at the bottom of the bus.

Mr. Simmons seemed very near panic, so Arnold, as usual, took the lead.  He extricated himself from the pile of crying, petrified fourth-graders and climbed up on one of the seats to reach the emergency exit on the other side of the bus.  Pushing as hard as he could, he opened it.  Freezing cold air whipped in as the door slid out of the way.

"Come on, Mr. Simmons," he urged his teacher.  "We have to get the other kids out."

Mr. Simmons seemed to come back to himself.  "Of course.  Thank you, Arnold," he said.  The rest of the class was just now attempting to stand up, and they were quickly organized in a procession out of the bus.  Rhonda, the first one out, gave her cell phone to the more level-headed Phoebe, who called 911.

The last of the kids were just making their way out when Rhonda stuck her head back into the bus.  "Um…Mr. Simmons?  Is the engine supposed to be smoking like that?" she asked.

Mr. Simmons glanced out the front window to see the view ahead obscured by a cloud of thick gray smoke.  "Oh dear lord," he said, alarmed.  "The engine is on fire.  It's combustible!  We've got to get out of here!"  Suddenly he noticed Joe, slumped over the wheel, unconscious.  He walked over and started to tug at Joe's comatose body, pulling him towards the exit.  Arnold ran to help him as Curly, the last of the students, disappeared through the emergency exit.

"No, Arnold.  You go outside and stand safely away with the others," Mr. Simmons commanded.

"You need help," was Arnold's only reply.  He reached out and unbuckled Joe's seatbelt, helping to drag the large man as best as a nine-year-old can, while his classmates watched anxiously from across the road, gathered there by the driver of the sedan, a middle-aged woman.

Between the two of them, Mr. Simmons and Arnold somehow managed to heave Joe's body through the emergency exit and down across the road.  The woman administered to him while Mr. Simmons did an emergency role call.

"Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen…fifteen?  Only fifteen?  We're missing somebody!"

"Helga!" Phoebe cried suddenly.  "Where's Helga?  She was in the bathroom…"  They all stared at the bus as Phoebe lunged toward it, anxious to help her friend.  Gerald grabbed her arm.

"It's too dangerous!" he told her, pulling her back.

"She's my best friend!" she replied, still straining against him.  There was no need, though, for someone was already heading towards the bus.

Arnold.

Heedless of the danger, not even really knowing why he was so determined to get Helga out, Arnold raced back towards the smoking bus.  The smoke had spread, and as he climbed in through the emergency exit, he plunged into a thick blanket of smoke.  He could barely see, and he had to filter the air through his scarf to get any kind of oxygen at all.  Even then, he was coughing by the time he got to the bathroom, his eyes watering.

"Helga?" he called through the bathroom door, which was now above his head.

"Arnold!" she cried, and he had never been more relieved to hear any person's voice in his life, let alone Helga's.

"There's been an accident.  The bus is on fire.  We've got to get out."

"Gee, you think, Sherlock?" Helga replied, but there was no bite to it.  "The door's stuck."

Arnold reached up and tried it himself.  "Is it locked?" he asked.

"No, it's just stuck," she replied, sounding panicky.  "Is the bus going to explode?"

"Hold on," he said, unwilling to answer that question.  It probably was, though…Looking towards the engine, he could see flames here and there.  "You push, and I'll pull, on the count of three.  Maybe that'll jimmy the door open."

"Okay," she said anxiously.

"Okay, get ready.  One…two…three!"  Arnold tugged with all his might, as he heard Helga slam her weight against the door.  It jerked open suddenly, sending Helga tumbling into Arnold's arms.

Arnold was thrown onto his back, Helga on top of him, one of her soft golden ponytails in his face.  He had never noticed before how nice her hair smelled, and it struck him that that was an odd thought to be having at the moment.

"Come on!" Helga said, jumping up and grabbing his hand.  She ran towards the front of the bus, pausing in a brief moment of indecision as she realized she didn't know where to go.

"This way!" Arnold said, pulling her towards the emergency exit.  A thunderously loud boom made him look towards the front of the bus.

Everything slowed down.  Arnold could very clearly see the orange-and-black, car-sized ball of fire rushing down the aisle towards him and Helga.  There seemed to be an overwhelming silence hanging everywhere, quiet enough that he could hear Helga's breathing.  She was whispering something, something he couldn't quite make out.

I love you?

Arnold's fingers tightened around Helga's.

The bus exploded.